The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 450: The Emperor

Chapter 450: The Emperor

A day after beheading his minders, Rain, Myrti, and Sahaja were finally rested enough to explore the room above the stairwell. Sahaja had spent most of her time catastrophizing, while Myrti near-silently resumed her training.

Rain ignored their discomfort, thoroughly looting their dead handlers before tossing their bodies into the preceding room, where something dark was forming over the corpse of the chimera they’d killed.

He’d forgotten to take out its heartstone, and he wasn’t going to risk it now. So while Myrti trained and Sahaja rocked back and forth holding her knees, Rain started to ferry the worthwhile treasures upstairs for sorting, leaving behind mostly copper coins and mundane equipment.

While he was sorting, he heard a clang from below as further items were deposited, but investigating proved nothing useful. That time, when he looked up, he saw something strange around the dark hole in the world as dungeon denizens stalked toward it. The first to touch it was a giant, corrupted raven like the one he and Myrti defeated earlier.

The moment the ravenoid poked its beak into the darkness, it was sucked in with a cry, but rather than scare off the others, the creatures leaped into the void one by one, and each time the shadow in the world flexed and bulged until at last a new chimera sprang forth, along with a wall of force that blocked the treasure room off from the monster.

It was fortunate the wall of force came to be, as Rain was so mortified by witnessing the birth of the monster, he didn’t quite register when the beast saw him until it was pecking and clawing at the barrier.

After observing it for a time and learning the barrier was quite impenetrable even to a chimera at full strength, Rain collected a few silver coins he’d missed and returned to the top of the stairs.

He’d already given two of the three new dimensional bags to his companions, and he decided to store the enchanted swords and knives in his. Additionally, he kept a pair of bracers and boots.

The former seemed designed around using mana to produce grappling wires, which would come in handy for tripping things so he could help Myrti practice finishing opponents. The latter were made of monster hide and had a simple self-repairing function while also being able to automatically size themselves to his feet, though the leather grew a bit thinner as a result.

Janice’s whips he gave to Myrti, and the rest he left for Sahaja to choose from, which meant her storage bag wound up containing far more valuables than his and Myrti’s.

He didn’t care though, and perhaps the value of the goods would help her keep her mouth shut when it came time to return to the city. Her only weapon thus far, a mace, she replaced with a glaive and shield, able to wield both thanks to having four arms.

He was in the middle of dividing the coins into three even piles when he heard the chain of Myrti’s kusarigama clatter to the ground, followed by her body collapsing.

"Myrti!" he shouted, running up to the girl.

"Mr. R-Rain... I don’t feel so good..."

"What’s happening?" Sahaja asked in a worried tone as she came upon them. She pushed Rain aside, holding the back of her hand to Myrti’s forehead. "She’s burning up, even for a demon."

Rain watched as Sahaja quickly checked Myrti’s body, before coming upon a wound at the nape of Myrti’s neck that had been hidden by her hair.

"It looks poisoned. Myrti, did you get hurt by the monster?" Sahaja asked, receiving a nod.

Rain felt angry. "Why didn’t you tell us?" he demanded.

"It didn’t seem so bad... I couldn’t feel it much..." her voice grew small. "I didn’t want to make you angrier..."

Rain thought his heart had turned to stone, but Myrti’s words still hurt him. His own apprentice was scared of him... and he knew she had every right to be. Despite her sour attitude, Janice had taken up some of Myrti’s education, and Lucifer told her fantastic tales and sang to keep her entertained.

And Rain had murdered them in cold blood. Right in front of her. He knew as an empath, she’d felt every single one of the deaths he’d inflicted upon the angelic Embassy in Beastport. And she must have felt Janice and Lucifer’s deaths as well as Rain’s anger. His apathy towards Sahaja’s suffering.

It’s not fair... he thought. No... it’s not, but this is what I need to be. If I can’t be strong enough to escape Maledict, then what good am I? Some part of him had delusionally hoped Maledict would send him on his way to Kir, but Maledict was not one to discard a useful tool. I need to be harder than this. I can’t let mere words hurt me.

So why did he feel so guilty?

"I can’t treat this. I don’t know the venom well enough. And if she’s collapsing now it must have worked its way throughout her system..." Sahaja despaired as she pulled out every potion, salve, and poultice Rain had allowed her to take.

Some were labeled, and some were not.

Sahaja hurriedly pushed the healing potions into one pile. They would close the wound but not do anything about the venom.

The guilt gnawed at Rainier. If he hadn’t murdered Lucifer and Janice, Myrti might have trusted him enough to come forward. His act had caused her to distance herself, both physically and emotionally.

"I just... wanted to be strong like you..." Myrti cried as Sahaja looked at potion after potion, even opening unlabeled bottles to sniff the contents.

"Stamina... Sleep potion... Oil?... No, no, NO!" Sahaja cast the last bottle at the nearest archway, only for it to bounce off a barrier and shatter. "I can’t... it’s too late..." she started to cry.

Resolving himself, Rain reached down and scooped up Myrti.

"What are you doing?!" Sahaja screamed.

"There might be something upstairs that can help us," Rain said.

"Maybe if we go back, there might be an antivenom in the corpse of the-"

"The monster’s corpse is gone. The dungeon... reformed it."

"You bastard! This is your fault!" Sahaja shrieked.

Rain turned away from her and said "I know," before walking the short distance to the stairwell and ascending it.

His head touched the perpetual night sky first, and it felt like wading into a pool of water that strangely gave him no sensation of temperature. As if the void itself was viscous in this place.

He saw the same the same night sky reflected all about as he finished his climb, stepping out onto a night sky that solidified beneath his feet. And when he turned, he saw a woman, sitting on a throne. Her red hair framing a face that looked half demonic and half angelic, a single horn rising over her left temple, and six wings - three angelic with a radiant crimson sheen, and three demonic, like black and red dragon wings.

"Hello, Rainier Eros," the woman greeted him.

Rain swallowed heavily. "This girl is sick. Poisoned by-"

"By my chimera, yes."

"Your chimera?!" Rainier felt his rage rise. "If you don’t heal her right now-"

"It is already done," the woman said, waving her hand in a small circle. "Even I would not hold a child’s life as a bargaining chip... I am to be the cause of many children’s deaths already."

Rain looked down at Myrti, watching the darkened veins recede as her wound closed. Her breathing steadied, and he felt her tail moving more vigorously against his ribs.

"You’re the one who changed the dungeons," Rain said as he lifted his head. "Why?"

"To save some fraction of civilization. To isolate them, so that I may consolidate my rule." Her eyes, purple like amethysts, glowed brighter as she held his gaze. "Your role is almost finished. I have an offer to make you, one that I know you’ll accept."

"The only thing I want is to be free of Maledict. To go home and be with the ones I love. If you truly mean what you say, then you know what I want."

"I can offer you freedom. I’ve had practice breaking Oath magic. I can even do the same for the healer you brought with you, in a way that makes Maledict assume you are dead. Agree, and you will receive your reward in advance of your mission."

"And in exchange?"

"In exchange, you will kill my brother. The one you know as-"

"Vinam Victoriam," Rain interrupted. "You’re Aelias... Kir’s mother."

"I am the mother to one thing. The death of Heaven, Hell, and Ayther. Though Heaven will never be restored, you, Kir, and Kordia will be the core of the new worlds to come... after I am gone. If even my son comes before me in defiance of the future I have crafted, then I will not hold back."

Rainier tensed. Manasight told him the woman had so much mana, she was practically a walking dungeon room. Killing her might be impossible for him alone...

"Set aside your bloodlust, inheritor of Helios. As to how I know, I have foreseen it. Though others have unexpectedly affected the future I have created, the necessary details remain fixed."

Rain lay Myrti down, realizing she was asleep.

"Show me," he said. "Show me how the future can be changed."

The woman smiled. With a wave of her hand, from the darkness ascended a black-marble table. In miniature, Rain beheld a woman- no, a demoness, running across a blasted landscape that could only be Hell, dropping something tiny behind her.

"This is Amarena, Daughter of the Wrath Leviathan. One of Kir and Kordia’s paramours. In my plan, this should have been Kir. But another oracle has pressed a finger to the scales, and so it is a demon, and not my son, who right now works to limit the destruction to come."

Rain watched the demoness as she flitted from place to place, covering what must have been several great measures with every sprint.

If this is true...

Rain looked up.

"I accept your offer. How do you want me to kill your brother?"