The Wordless Mage
Chapter 40: The Cost of Control

Chapter 40: The Cost of Control

The demon brushed its shoulders, turning to the individuals locked with fear behind it.

"Well, then, who shall be the first to partake in the massacre." Black seeped from its mouth, aether flaring once more to exemplify its unbridled malice.

Shlink!

Blood sprayed through the air, its metal scent garnering the demon’s attention.

It was Corien’s leg, severed from the tendons in his knee. He’d held Excalibur in his hand, swiftly disconnecting the flame-covered appendage without so much as a single second of doubt.

"Seriously?" The demon turned to ask him, watching as the leg thumped onto the floor and sizzled away even faster than before from the dissipation of its protective layer of aether.

Corien grit, urging a spell within his grimoire to accumulate a blotch of dark purple that shot from his missing limb, slowly morphing to take shape as a functional replacement.

He hadn’t responded, looking down and curling his toes as if the aether were his own. A fine replacement, he felt, smiling at his handiwork.

"Seriously, how stupid can you be, cutting away your leg like that," the deep voice questioned once more, stepping closer to approach the half-kneeled Corien.

Although Corien didn’t show it, his mind couldn’t quite settle down from the severe aches throbbing from his knee joint, vesting to burn away all rationale.

Understanding the given circumstances, he supplied aether to his brain, a desperate attempt to supplement his mind enough to focus on the threat ahead.

"Better that than my life, no?" He asked the thing, standing up on his legs--each flesh and aether respectively.

"Had you simply allowed for the girl’s death, you never would’ve subjected yourself to such a loss. It’s idiotic, really, and a useless gesture at that."

Although the only words coming from its mouth were insults, Corien’s chest didn’t rise with indignation nor did his face burrow with anger--no, he felt gratitude, one that even he didn’t understand.

"I suppose that, looking at the heroes, I could see that they are the future. If I were to let them die, it would be my greatest failure. Lady Liora here has performed a great feat despite having only resided within this world for three days, and that isn’t to bring up the mounting potential the three others possess."

The demon shuddered at the bright smile that creeped the corners of Corien’s lips, its face twisting into an exactly opposing force of hatred, although this hadn’t made Corien any less sentimental.

"Foolish and naive, especially unbecoming of one as esteemed as you." Its fingers crawled across the blank grimoire engulfed in black, its pages not flipping but, instead, being engraved upon with new runic arcana. "And, undeniably, a fault made not by yourself but those around you."

Corien’s eyebrow raised, having a general inkling for what the thing meant but still unsure.

"I can see it. Your grimoire’s pages almost ripping from itself, vying free of your control." The engravings on the book stopped, marking two pages full of runes. "You’ve been holding back, but not of your volition or conceited desire to underestimate me. You wish to save the boy in this body, don’t you?"

Corien didn’t respond--didn’t even acknowledge its words, looking between the demon and the surrounding heroes.

They’d still been frozen, black aether hanging over them as if to choke them free of their own will.

It was certainly the handiwork of the demon and whatever force had plagued its aether, but either way, Corien understood that if he didn’t rid everybody of the threat in front of them, that they would’ve been sitting ducks to the thing’s attacks.

"Corien, don’t worry about us, just do whatever you can to defeat the demon-possessed Rowan!" Kaia yelled, locking her eyes on the back of the demon as if to sense the growing agitation in its limbs.

The others quickly followed suit, all trying their hardest to swivel their necks to the demon, their movements erratic and strained as if someone were trying to pull a rope attached to their shoulders to keep them in place.

"It’s too late, I’ve already assimilated my own arcana into this empty grimoire!" The demon yelled, raising its arms with their grimoire just ahead of them.

Spikes of black shot out from the point between its hands, all jutting to meet someone within the vicinity.

Black crisped the sky, flaring like the crackles of a flame crisping firewood. Beyond this, though, was the eerie sensation of prickling picking at his skin, enticing his limbs to act of their own will.

Corien had made no attempt to dodge the black shroom, interested in its function. There was no subtlety in its effects, a surging black rune poking out from his chest to eat away at the light.

"Interesting," he said, watching as it impeded upon small channels within his body and shot its energy up to his brain, "to control the body?"

The demon’s cackle was burgeoning, its imprint on the soul enough to make one suffer cardiac arrest from fear alone.

The others in the vicinity were convulsing wildly, their limbs fighting against their own control. The demon’s fingers ran like a puppeteer, each of their movements only following a twitch in the tip of its finger.

"Wh-what’s happening?"

"Hey, I can’t move my body!"

"Let go of me..."

Their cries continued one by one, feeding into the demon’s entertainment even more than before.

"Trifling, to have not avoided my attack," it yelled, raising its arms up even further than before, "and even more to not act in protection of the others."

Corien felt his own hand begin to clutch his blade, withdrawing it from its sheath and pulling toward his neck.

"I could slit your throat, gut you, or do a combination of the two. Your choice!" The demon joked, letting go of the involuntary movements of the others for a moment to focus on just Corien.

"Corien..." Viral muttered, his eyes strained while trying to resist the demon’s grip.

A ripple of golden light cracked through the sky--not heat, but divinity. Then came the voice: "What are you doing, Sir Corien..."

The voice cut through the atmosphere to abolish most of the despair that everyone’d shared.

It was the pope, holding his staff up with a golden hue releasing from its tip.

Corien turned down to the rune once more, sending his own surge of aether to combat its flow.

Instantly, the black engraving burst from his skin and sizzled out into the air like a balloon, the aether falling down to the ground like loose snakes.

"What?" The demon gasped, stepping back from the loss of control for Corien’s limbs.

"Holy Pope, please, I beg that you exclude yourself from the situation. Not if you wish for a hero to die."

Corien bowed, tipping his blade down to accentuate his subservience.

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