The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 99: Speed Run, Real Time Attack - Run 1

Chapter 99: Speed Run, Real Time Attack - Run 1

A sudden movement made Kir turn, just in time for his spinal ridge to knock away a short-sword that had been headed for his heart.

The assailant was dressed in matte brown leather and grey cloth, with a grey mask that hid the bottom half of their face. They fell to the ground with a thud as Kir took a defensive stance. Then their friends appeared.

A large beastfolk man, goat-like in appearance but with wide horns starting at his brow ridge in addition to the ones on his forehead. Like protective mutton chops. He had a two-meter-long greatsword with what looked like an entire mace for a handle.

A dark-green orcish woman, broad-shouldered and wielding a long bow held her arrow ready from dozens of meters away. Her hair was straw-blonde and her face had a look of complete focus. Only the fact the beastfolk man had stepped in her way kept her from shooting.

Goat, Grey, and Archer - Kir identified and sorted them in his head for convenience.

From Kir’s left, the grey-clad assailant flipped onto their feet, a lithe figure of indeterminate species. They drew a second short sword, eyeing the one they’d let go of when it failed to impale Kir. Their black-painted eyes narrowed with annoyance. "It’s a pugilist," they said, an oddly pleasant lilt to their voice.

"Wrathian then," the goat-man’s voice boomed low. "Bones can’t break steel."

Wrathian?

"Wait, stop!" Kir tried to say as the greatsword was swung heavily at him. Even if he was comfortable in his warform, he was a much bigger target. And now that he saw some regular-sized people, he knew he was larger than Maledict had been when his mothers had fought him.

An arrow plinked off his horn an instant later, and Kir turned as quickly as he could, drawing Kangetsu from his shoulder storage as he dodged, using the blade to knock away the much thicker greatsword.

Kangetsu left a deep score in the metal that made the goat man snarl aggressively when he saw it. "You’ll regret that, demon."

"I’m not here to fight anyone," Kir said quickly, adjusting his one-handed grip on Kangetsu’s hilt.

Kir dodged and blocked as the sword came at him again. He heard Grey land behind him before he swung his tail defensively, only to feel a sharp pain that made him leap away. He landed a couple of meters off to the side, spotting blood from his tail on the leaf-covered ground as the attacker hopped next to the goat man and retrieved his other sword.

"It bleeds," Grey reported quietly.

"Great! Now stop getting in my way!" Archer shouted. How good were her ears?

"Keep him busy!" Goat said as he readied himself for another attack, placing one hand on the metal of his greatsword as sparks began to flow along it in plasma-like waves. A maven, Kir realized as he sensed the surging flow of the man’s mana, similar in many ways to what he’d felt when he fought Halie.

Grey, now with both swords, approached Kir from the front, dancing fast with integrated feints and strikes that made them hard to predict as Kir focused everything into defending, flowing his mana for speed now that he recognized the fight was escalating fast.

A set of three arrows in rapid succession managed to find Kir in soft places along his chest, but with his defenses up and his body highly charged with mana, they were little more than pinpricks of pain to his hide. He just had to hope the archer didn’t hit him somewhere truly soft. Like an eye.

After a staccato of strikes, however, Grey was forced to retreat as one of their blades fell in two pieces, both of their weapons now covered in notches where Kangetsu’s edge had chipped them away.

"Sword’s magic," they reported. "Better than mine." They sheathed the remains of both blades at the same time and drew a set of circle-etched throwing knives. Throwing one at Kir, and even though he was fast enough to block, the instant it hit Kangetsu, it exploded like a grenade, dozens of shards slashing across him.

The remaining three knives followed, and only one missed as Kir blocked and dodged. He was careful to keep his eyes shielded as much as possible, but that meant dozens of shards wound up lodged in his forearms.

A flash of light before him announced that Goat was now ready to strike, and Kir had a bare moment to raise Kangetsu as the greatsword, now arcing with confined energy, descended toward his forehead.

Kir stepped inward. Kangetsu had sharpness and toughness, but the steel greatsword had mass and magic... If he wanted to be sure to survive, he needed to be ready for pain.

He channeled magic into Kangetsu’s circle. Pain flashed white in Kir’s eyes.

Frost met lightning, strength met strength. For a moment, the greatsword and nagamaki seemed frozen edge to edge.

Kir ground his teeth against the pain of his seals, keeping the emission of his mana to the barest minimum. Even halved compared to when he’d awoken to them, they hurt like an absolute-

"BASTARD!" the goat man roared as Kangetsu lodged in his greatsword all the way to the core.

Kir pushed harder and twisted, using the pain between sharp breaths until at last the mass of steel broke into two pieces, the shard in Goat’s hand carving a gash down his chest as the greater part of the blade bounced off his horns and fell to the ground.

With a single step forward as Goat’s eyes widened, Kir placed Kangetsu at the back of his neck, panting hard as he pressed the still-sharp edge along the man’s fur. "Enough!" Kir shouted, "I’ve done nothing to you!"

"You’re a demon, that’s enough," Goat snarled, trying to shift his grip to use the mace end of his sword-

"Drop it," Kir snarled back, digging the sword deeper to make him stop, hearing as it began to shear through the goatkin’s mane.

"Stand down Caroon!" A voice from above called out.

Kir looked up to see a human man, dressed in a gambeson over his normal clothes. The rings on his fingers and the tattoos visible on his arms spoke to a large amount of enchantments, which meant that he had enough mana to sustain many magic circles. That, and the fact that he was floating, meant he had to be the party’s mage.

As Caroon grunted and snarled, forcing himself drop his broken weapon, the human descended slowly, landing just as the orcish woman closed, her bow exchanged for a sword and dagger.

The look on the human’s face was somewhere between curious and cocky.

"When we found a tempered familiar in the dungeon, and a demon at that, I was wondering what sort of hell-bound soul managed to sneak past us into the dungeon... But a full demon? A Wrathian? And one that doesn’t seem to want a fight? Now that is unexpected... And intriguing."

"Where is Stella?" Kir asked.

"Your familiar I assume? She’s safe at the exit with one of mine. I had to use a spirit cage to confine her, but it was empty anyway," the man said. "Oddly slim pickings, for a new dungeon. You wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would you?"

"New dungeon?" Kir asked, confused. "We aren’t under Norneau?"

"Norneau?" The man let out a short laugh. "Don’t play games with me, demon. You may have my man, but I have your servant too. And unlike you, my team is uninjured, and I’m a mage."

Kir wished he didn’t have to deal with his seals if only to disabuse the man of that final assertion. "Give me Stella and we’ll be on our way," Kir said. "No need to fight, as I’ve been trying to say."

"Your sword on Caroon’s neck says otherwise," the mage said glibly.

"You care about your man, I care about my partner. Can we just lay our cards on the table and call this one a draw?"

"A draw..." the human man rolled his tongue in his cheek, casting his gaze about. "I enchanted that sword myself," he gestured at the greatsword’s shards. "All the weapons my team uses, in fact... And now most of their blades are destroyed and the nearest town is two weeks away, while I’ve got little to trade. One might say compensation would be needed to render this situation a ’draw’."

Kir resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but couldn’t quite stop his nose from twitching at the annoyance of being all but asked for a bribe to stop fighting. Reaching with his free hand, he extracted one of the precious metal slags from the bottom of the dungeon and tossed it at the man’s feet. "Should be plenty of value in that, once you melt it down and sort the metals," Kir said.

The man picked it up and turned it over, eying the bits that were obviously gold or rusted orichalc. "I’d have to pay a smith to do that proper," the man said. "Without knowing how much it’s worth, I’m almost tempted to say dying might be the most profitable thing you could do for me. But at least thanks to you I know there’s gold down there."

"Ledot you son of a bitch, quit fucking around and-" Caroon started to say before he was interrupted by Kir tossing out his remaining slag.

"If you want money, that’s all I found at the bottommost floor, twenty or so floors down. There’s at least a pound of material, enough for a bar or two. Now give me Stella," Kir demanded.

The human looked at him sideways, the sparkle of greed glinting in a way that made Kir want so badly to pull his skull from his spine.

"No," Ledot said. "Not until you drop that pretty sword and everything else you’ve got stored in all those magic circles. Then you’re going to tell me how a demon like you managed to survive this far into a dungeon... I’m sure there are plenty of buyers who would kill to know they can contract your kind to do this sort of dirty work. If it’s enough to compensate me for wasting my time, then I’ll consider letting you and your little pet go."

He was talking like he’d already won. "She’s not a pet-"

"And I am not a patient man. So start showing me the goods or I’ll show you what my team is like when they fight without getting to care about their lives." As soon as he was done speaking, he raised an arm and flowed mana into it. Four identical circles appeared, lighting up red, and Kir saw a small glow rise from the back of Caroon’s neck.

Compulsion circles. Kir had learned about them studying what slavery was like in Ayther. Touching one while giving a command could force a person to perform that command to the very limits of their understanding, while under constant pain, even if it killed them. Nervous looks rose into the eyes of the three who had fought Kir.

Ledot was a slaver, and his "team" were all thralls; magically bound.

"You have five sec-"

"Dick!" Suddenly from out of nowhere, Cheshire landed on Ledot, screaming at Kir. "Dick! Sk’rkraaa! Dick-dick!"

Ledot tried to pull Cheshire off of him but the raptor was escaping. Leaving a set of cuts behind on the man’s forehead.

"I’ll have that fucking thing for lunch!" Ledot shouted, a wand appearing from the air as he pointed it toward Kir.

"Wait stop!" Kir said, adjusting his position and stepping back.

"Dick! Fucking! Fucking! Dick!" Cheshire called as she tried to scramble into Kir’s hair.

A moment later the sound of an explosion ripped its way across the forest. It came from the direction of the downward portal.

"Something’s coming," Grey said. "Fast."

Everyone turned.

As if on cue, the sounds of snapping trees grew close.

As did a roiling stench of rot and decay.

Like a corpse that had left its tomb, pink with new flesh, yellow with bones, and red with blood...

"GROTESQUE!" Caroon shouted as a new fight began.

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