The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 453: Death

Chapter 453: Death

Kiryu panted. His hold on Kir’s mana had slipped at an inopportune moment, only to stabilize shortly before he heard Kir talking in his mind.

His opponent, a ferret-like creature made of living magma, lay shattered by the ice Kiryu had commanded, stripping it of heat with as much distance as he could maintain from the pyroclastic steam that his choice of technique generated.

"What the hell is that?!" Kir exclaimed as a feeling of being watched settled over Kiryu.

"I dunno. Lava monster I guess? Looked kinda like a ferret. So let’s just call it a fire ferret." Kiryu stepped up to the rubble and tilted his head, melting the ice and extracting a black and red gemstone, before tossing the mana crystal into Kir’s storage.

"Is this what you’ve been doing with my body? Going on some grand adventure?" the Kid whined.

"I’ve been trying to save the world, like your mom told me to when this thing crawled on your forehead. Then Luda got a message to me with a trio of misfits. One of them knows Rainier by the way. Dark little angel, that one. Also, there was a catkin twink who really wanted to follow me into this hellhole and a demon who said she knows you. Four arms, grey skin, pink hair. Ring any bells?"

"No," the Kid replied. "Where the hell are you?"

"In the Duat. There was a whole city on the first level."

"Full of people who wanted to kill me?"

"Nah. Everyone there was frozen. And not in ice. Frozen in time. There could have been maybe a couple million souls in that state, given how many I saw. Everyone was also frozen on the second level with all the farms."

Kiryu listened to the Kid’s exclamations as he remembered the sense of inconceivable knowledge it must have taken to selectively halt time. He’d checked for stores of food and drink, only to find everything covered in dust and rotting, except for the strongest of liquors whose bottles just looked aged.

He elected to leave quickly, not wanting to be around in case a time surge or anomaly or whatever it was came back.

The odd thing about every floor was that they all seemed to tilt upward towards a massive tower of steel, which rose into the sky like a shining lance, its edges carved with circuit-like formations and a wall at its base.

"What are you wearing?" Kir asked.

"Think of it as a programmable combat suit. Did you see a black ball thing around?"

"Yeah. In your bedroom."

"That should have been in the living room."

"Well, your mindscape has definitely seen better days."

"Might be because I’m dying, Kir."

The Kid was silent for a bit, and Kiryu could feel the sudden sorrow radiating through Kir’s anger. "Why? How?"

"From what I’m guessing... your body’s being purged by the evolution you were supposed to get from the fulcrum. And I can feel things just sort of... unraveling for me. Mentally. That was all I was, I guess. I can feel that if I don’t make it to Luda soon, there won’t be anything of me left worth giving a damn about."

"Then why are you wasting time fighting?"

"Even I need to rest. This place feels like it’s taking more mana out of me the deeper I go. What did you do, by the way? Before you popped up, it felt like I lost control."

"I had to unfreeze my mana well before I could get to your side. It’s seriously a mess here."

"I didn’t know what was going on with you. Sorry if I couldn’t figure out how to show up. It’s been chaos out here, and the worst part is I think I know what your mother’s plan is."

"You met her? Or did she tell you when we got split?"

"Luda mentioned ’bell jars.’ It’s something from before this universe came into being. Something only Luda, Aiko, and I would know about."

"Don’t leave me in suspense, old man."

"If you get to call me ’Old Man’, then I get to call you Kid."

"Just get to the point."

"Alright, unclench your cunt. You know how I’ve talked about the corpos taking over Earth? Bell jars were how they did it."

"I’m going to need more of an explanation, Kiryu."

Kiryu rolled his eyes.

"After everything got ruined, the rich fucks with their little enclaves split what was left between themselves. ’Bell jars’ we called them, domed cities where people paid for everything. Air, food, water. Everyone held captive by their needs, pumped full of drugs and a helping of propaganda every hour. The people at the top called it their utopia."

"Two hundred fifty cities left out of what was once a habitable planet. And when the dust cleared, all of it was owned by just a handful of elites who conquered their regions one city at a time. One collapsing bell jar at a time once things got dire and the space started running out. Three billion people crammed into favelas." Kiryu shook with anger as he revealed this part of his life’s story.

"By that point, I was out of the Tokyo dome and up in space while Luda was fighting for some semblance of sanity. Aiko and I were the spies, and Luda was the soldier. Until they died and the bastards used what they could salvage from their corpse as leverage against me. And a means to watch and predict my every move, which is how I think they knew how to get to me. Something about that predictive capacity must have stuck."

Kir kept his mouth shut. Then, after a long pause, he spoke again. "How long do you think you have?"

"Dunno. My suit charges on external mana first, so I’m able to conserve your stuff. I feel like I’ve been sweating out gravy since about a day after I got shoved into the pilot seat, and I’m staring into a nearly empty barrel. "

"I remember learning the Duat has ten layers and a hundred floors. Which one are you on?"

"I’ve mostly been flying over them, so... maybe forty? I should be rested and my suit should be recharged soon."

"Have you tried using my wings?"

"I prefer to fly my way. The more I exert your mana, the faster I seem to be fading. Found that out after fighting Heaven’s little flesh prisoner." Kiryu tried sending his other half a mental image.

"That is horrifying."

"You didn’t have to fight it. Sorry about the broken ribs. They are my number one reason for needing rest at the moment."

"Broken what?!" the Kid shouts rhetorically. "You’re going to tell me everything that’s happened since I got locked in here."

"Alright alright. It’s not like I’m doing anything else right now."

Kiryu proceeded to filter images to Kir while summarizing his encounters. The Kid was clearly annoyed by the creation of the Sigil Core, until Kiryu explained "Look, you need something basic that can be easily passed on if you’re going to push things forward with programmable magic." Kiryu paused for breath.

"Stackless Viper is nice and all, but think about it, you made a versatile tool with little to no common contextual basis. The Sigil Core can be shared with enough mana and programming the replicator function. And it’s simple enough even a monkey can pound away at the first set and get through with enough to work with. It’s also safe because it doesn’t use the Common alphabet. So no one can accidentally inscribe a spell if they’re, say, using a magic pen or ink. Do you even remember how many fires Mosh started?"

Kiryu practically felt Kir’s mental flinch. He chuckled to himself as they moved on, answering questions as best he could when it came to his encounters with the hapless trio, his encounters with Amarena and Cassiel, and the raid on Araqlun.

At the end of the last, Kiryu felt Kir was being awfully quiet about the potentially infinite generative source of mana in his dimensional storage.

"It’s basically a true soulstone," Kir said when prompted on his silence. "Someone’s soul went into it."

Kiryu left it at that. He had more important things to worry about.

By that point, Kiryu felt refreshed enough that the pain in his ribs was demanding his attention. Should have paid attention to Aiko’s biology lessons... he thought regretfully. He knew the basics from secondary school biology, but that was it.

Kiryu stood and checked his power levels. The suit was charged, but the sensor was warning him he was critically low. Hovering into the air, Kiryu readied himself for one last sprint.

He flew over forest and mountain biomes. Over a shallow lake and a forest of crystalline trees, shattering the crystal-covered monster birds that came after him, and even a straight line of trees, with sound-producing magic. The next area was a blasted plain, withered and brown with craters all over the place.

The air was so dry, he coughed frequently, spitting up not blood but a densely purple coagulation of blood and mana.

Well, fuck me sideways and in a hurry...

Kiryu didn’t know if he would make it to the end like this, but the moment he crossed the final barrier before the tower, he saw something completely different from what he was expecting.

Instead of a wall of metal, there was a flat plane, broken through with rivers of mana that flowed upward into the metal tower. Drones flew here and there, assessing and repairing portions of the metallic floor, and they scanned him as he flew past them.

"Looks like we’re finally here," Kir said.

"Yeah. Here’s hoping here isn’t the end." Kiryu replied. "I don’t mind dying. God knows I deserve it as the bare minimum, but I’ll admit, I like you, Kir."

"Considering you thought we were the same person when we met, isn’t that a bit narcissistic?"

"Touche," Kiryu chuckled as he pulled his pipe from Kir’s storage and started to smoke it.

He circled around the tower, until he found an open door waiting for them. And waiting for them was a liokin man with middle-aged features, glasses, and a noticeable slouch that favored his right leg. In his hand he held a cane, with features that suggested it was more than equal parts a deadly magical weapon. His clothing consisted of a loose white shirt and black vest, with matching pants. What Kiryu considered clothing from centuries before the final end of Earth.

"You must be the metatron I was told to expect," the stranger greeted them. "My name is Lawre. Come with me, Luda and Aiko wish to speak with you." The liokin didn’t wait for a response before turning, using his cane to assist himself as he limped into the hall.

With nothing else to go by, Kiryu landed and jogged up next to the relatively young liokin.

"I’m Kiryu. The metatron you’re looking for is-"

"Kir, yes, I know. My in-law mentioned that bit of... conflict, between the last prophet and their intentions."

"By the ’last prophet’ you mean Kir’s mother, Aelias?"

"Indeed," the liokin chuckled.

"And what exactly do our hosts want us for? Did they tell you that?"

Lawre paused, his eyes contemplating Kir and Kiryu from above his glasses.

"I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to tell you. I am not long for this world, and for the prophet to assume the power she has sworn to take up, you, Luda, Aiko, and myself must depart this world."

"And who exactly are you?" Kiryu asked. "Who’s this inlaw you spoke of?"

"I’m just... an unexpected variable. Aiko, the final Aiko, is my wife. Luda has been my parent since long before we met... subjectively at least. To my companion, Ferrovia, It’s been barely over a month. But as to what awaits us... I suppose you’ve already experienced it, no?"

Kiryu paused for a step at hearing Aiko had... remarried? Married?

There was only one experience that came to Kiryu’s mind. A single word dropped from his lips.

"Death."