The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 423: Stranger Things

Chapter 423: Stranger Things

The world slowed to a crawl.

Amarena had grown better at pushing her senses to match her speed, and those senses told her that behind the orb’s unnerving perfection were shadowed structures in the heart of its darkness.

She couldn’t see them with her eyes but she could sense them, for they carried the same magical weight as the true soulstones that Kir had taken possession of after the battle with Kainur. Some of those had been given back to keep the demons of his dukedom healthy, but he’d still held onto the vast majority, and now it felt like all of them had been embodied into this impossible sphere.

What horrible thing have you set upon us, Kiryu?

Amarena took one experimental swing at the orb with Patience, but withdrew her blade the moment she saw the edge being eaten away. The sound of her "Tsk" drew out in the stretched moment. She hadn’t thought to expect anything different compared to the arrows, but at least she hadn’t overcommitted and lost more than a tiny bit of edge.

She saw a bright red light start to emit from the center of the orb and flitted away towards the mid-deck. It took her a few moments to realize the orb was slowly chasing her as it flew between Encke and Char, who wisely seemed to be holding their spells.

In her accelerated thoughts, Amarena pondered why the orb hadn’t tried to damage the ship, instead hovering about a measure off the ground as it flew inexorably forward. She’d just realized it might not be a weapon after all when she looked up and noticed a demon with his fists together, ready to smash his hands into the thing in what had to be both a brave and foolish gesture.

With a sigh, Amarena flickered her position next to him and pushed him out of the way before flickering back to the deck. Being unable to change the rate of her fall, the act was mana intensive, but she’d been practicing after taking Kir’s lessons about position, velocity, and acceleration to heart.

After all, if she did need to stop Kiryu, being able to teleport was probably the only way she could catch him, but her ability still only worked within her line of sight unless she had an extremely clear mental image of her surroundings. Even then the mana she used went up exponentially with distance, up to her limit of about a hundred measures, which was a huge improvement but not much.

Seeing the orb slightly rise to intercept her before slowly arcing down to its hover height confirmed her suspicion that it was after her.

Sorry everyone... she thought, before briefly letting go of her accelerated state to shout "I’ll lead it away!" Then, turning, she accelerated again to dash across the lake, making for the southern shore.

The group of ships had largely stuck close to the shallows, so the journey still kept her within sight of the masts as she decelerated. Spell light flashed for a few moments longer before petering out as the orb crossed the water, quickly appearing over the horizon.

She waited, wondering vaguely if her life was about to become a perpetual race, trying to stay ahead of an unstoppable object as it slowly stalked her. As the orb closed, she accelerated one last time.

The moment the red light appeared again, she saw that it seemed to generate from the entire orb at once as opposed to a single point. She was prepared to dodge, but felt nothing as the light swept up and down her form.

A high-pitched tone began, and Amarena dropped her acceleration in time to hear a little affirming chirp from the orb. A moment later, something cage-like and filled with light dropped from below it, and orb made no further movement.

Feeling foolish for having assumed - along with everyone else - that the unknown thing was hostile, Amarena tentatively approached before crouching and sweeping the thing closer to herself with her tail.

The orb remained still as she did, but the moment she had the artifact in her hands, it jumped up and started spinning.

An image resolved. Kir, but not Kir, standing amidst what looked to be the camp so recently vacated by his dukedom. It occurred to Amarena that the way Kiryu stood with Kir’s body made him seem so different. Slouching, with one hand coming up to his kiseru as he backed away, muttering something about "settings on a goddamn lightbulb."

After a long exhale full of smoke, he spoke.

"Yo, Cavewoman. Don’t bother talking, this is just a message so listen up. I don’t have a lot of time so I’ll make this real quick. Yes, it’s me Kiryu, and no, I’m not in on whatever the fuck is going on. The only message Aelaes left me when she plopped this shit on Kir’s head was to save the world and not try to find her. No big instructions or anything."

He took a long pull on the pipe. "So yeah, I just spent the last few days making some helpful shit before another ’old friend’ decided to pop into my life. I’ll leave the details for Kir to tell you, but long story short, I’m going to need you to pick up where I can’t and take this little fucker to Hell for me. Don’t worry, it’s safe to touch, though I wouldn’t try to destroy it if I were you. Past a certain threshold, anything that isn’t alive just gets absorbed. So it’s great for exfoliating."

Amarena scowled. Was this Kiryu’s version of "real quick"?

"Anyway," Kiryu continued, "You get Orby to Hell and she’ll start producing beacons. Doesn’t much matter where the beacons go as long as it’s not in lava and you space them apart by about four kilometers - Or, uh, ’great measures’. The beacons will attract almost all of the shards of that battlestation you called a moon, but I’m not going to lie, a lot of Ayther’s surface still going to get fucked."

He sighed and scowled for a moment before spitting off to the side. "Look... I have no idea if any of this is still part of whatever Kir’s mom is planning. But if you can’t just blip your way to Hell, then I suspect almost as soon after you get this message, some sort of opportunity will arise.

Whether it’s part of ’the plan’ or not, you’re the only one with the ability to do this fast enough to make a difference. When you’re done, wait in Norneau or something... I’m sure by then Kir will be back to his broody self. Not sure how much of me will be in that, but take this as my final farewell."

With a cocky, two-fingered salute, the message ended and the light inside the little lamp winked out. It fell to the ground, its mana spent. The whole message took less than two minutes.

Less than two minutes and Amarena had been saddled with a responsibility she’d never thought she’d have.

She started pacing, and the orb started following her. Deciding to take a risk, she reached up and touched it, feeling a slight tingle along the edges of her hands as it absorbed her dead skin but left her living cells intact.

"Fuck me," she sighed, taking the orb under one arm before she sped back to the ships.

The moment she alighted in front of Char, having taken a leap to clear the railing, the demoness rounded on her.

"What the Heaven happened?"

"The one possessing Kir sent this. He says I need to get it to Hell in order to stop the fragments," Amarena started to explain, only to wind up interrupted by a loud, gasping squeal.

"Ohmygods! What is that? Can I see it? Can I touch it?!" Moshui was on the deck, and she didn’t wait for Amarena’s say-so to start poking at the orb with a gloved hand. "Fascinating... it ate my glove but not my finger."

"It doesn’t eat living things. At least that was what I was told," Amarena scowled and put a hand under the orb to lift it out of Moshui’s reach.

As the diminutive human tried to jump in order to reach it, Char cleared her throat and asked, "What do you think he wants? Could it be a trick?"

"I don’t see what choice I have, because I’ve got no ideas for what any of us can do other than try to find somewhere safe." Amarena kept her eyes on Char as she shoved Moshui out of the way and grabbed her tunic before lowering the orb and releasing it. It hovered silently and out of reach of the tattoo artist-turned-artificer.

"Wow this hurts my eyes in manasight," Moshui exclaimed. "What’s it called?"

"Kiryu called it Orby."

Orby chirped once, eliciting surprise from Char and Encke, who had gently descended to watch.

"Does it make bread? No offense to you demons but a human girl has to eat," Moshui’s stomach rumbled. In their haste to leave, the ships were not well provisioned. But since most of the people on them were demons, physical food was less of an issue than draining the local area of mana.

Before Rena could say anything, a small loaf of bread started to slide into existence along the equator of the featureless orb before dropping onto the deck as Orby chirped twice.

"Ohmygodsitmakesbread!" Moshui slipped Rena’s grip and picked up the loaf, her eyes tearing up as she inhaled the hand-sized bun.

"Make bread," Encke tried to command the orb.

The orb did not respond.

Amarena thought for a moment before she realized ’Orby’ had responded to its name.

"Orby-" the orb chirped "-make a big loaf of bread."

A loaf the size of two heads put together formed, and Encke reached under it to catch it as it dropped.

"That’s supposed to be impossible," Moshui said, her eyes glowing with manasight. "You can’t make food out of mana... but I suppose it does eat matter and mana... But where does it all go? There has to be a dimensional storage, but there are no runes. Maybe they’re on the inside?"

As Moshui began a string of self-answered questions, Amarena shrugged and tried asking Orby to make a portal to Hell.

The orb did not respond, and after ten seconds it beeped twice.

"Guess he couldn’t just make it easy," Amarena sighed

Three hours later, during which it was proven Orby could make a lot of basic tools and food without any noticeable dip in its mana, as they sailed past an island in the middle of the lake, a massive surge of mana sent a pillar of light skyward, pointing at Ayther’s sole remaining moon.

"That felt like an opening perdition, but... stranger," Char said. "I guess what he said about an opportunity is true."

"Yeah," Amarena agreed, resigning herself to fate as she put an arm around Orby. "Fuck."