Chapter 209 — 언령(言靈) 혹은 언령(言令)

Chapter 209

Word-Spirit (言靈) or Word-Command (言令)

"Irritating."

Leda watched the hulking Demon King who'd begun clashing with the Azure Lion and the Ash Lion, a look of clear distaste on his face.

Demon King Belot.

Like Yuda, Lapis, and Lazuli, he was a bishop forged as a vessel for Azazel's descent.

But just as Yuda was classified as a failure, so was Belot.

For a simple reason.

He was too strong.

His mana was so excessive he could barely control it; body and mind fell out of sync again and again.

Because of that, compared to other bishops, Belot had become sluggish—both in thought and in action.

He lacked the intellect to ingest the "vast information" that was Azazel.

Even so, his loyalty to the organization was unquestionable.

It was enough for him to serve as a bishop, so he was often sent out.

But Leda hated traveling with Belot.

With something that slow and lumbering, there were a dozen things you had to babysit.

So even when he had no choice but to head out with the oaf, he would often just abandon him and leave first.

He'd tell him the destination and leave it at "catch up if you can."

By the time Belot arrived, Leda would already have finished the job.

And the dim Belot, never realizing Leda was making fun of him, would simply be happy to hear the mission was complete and trudge back to base.

Same now.

Once they had pinned down the exact location of the nest and Leda told him to bring the heart, he left Belot and moved.

Hunting a dragon on its last legs—how hard could that be?

No, more than that, he'd only ever heard tell of them; dragons were said to be extinct in this age. The desire to face one alone burned brighter.

But apparently he'd wasted too much time "playing" with the dragon.

Belot had turned up and was making a racket.

"Dragon... hunt... too slow... I'll... do it instead...."

Each word Belot forced out sent miasma streaming like vapor from his mouth and nose. That was how much of it he housed.

In raw magical reserves alone, he probably had two or three times as much as Leda.

Belot wasn't called a "monster" among the bishops for nothing.

Hermann and Sailor must have felt that pressure too; they reined in and clenched their weapons tight.

"Hands off. That one's mine!"

Leda scowled as he looked down at Belot below.

Fangs bared between his lips.

A promise that any funny business would be punished.

A killing intent that said he would show no mercy even to an ally.

"Then... you should've... finished it... faster."

Belot, however, paid him no mind and moved.

KRA-KOOM!

Belot hunched his body as much as his bulk allowed. Even curled in, he was far larger than any normal man, like a low hill that had shrunk a size.

Then, the instant he kicked off the ground hard and built momentum, the picture changed.

Like a shell fired from a cannon, that enormous mass hurtled toward the nest.

Slow thought did not mean truly stupid.

If anything, it made his judgment exact.

If the body is too heavy to move, then just sling it and let it fly.

Shreeee—

Belot’s charge across the earth carried the crushing pressure of an entire hillside on the move.

Anything ahead looked likely to be smashed without a trace.

"Old man, I'll take this side."

Hermann stepped in without waiting for Sailor's reply.

Fwish—

Hermann in blue armor appeared in Belot's path as if he'd teleported.

Chaaang!

A sword condensed with vivid blue aura crashed into Belot.

KRA-KOOM!

Rumble! Rrrrrrumble—

The shockwave was so tremendous a wild wall of dust shot up from their point of impact.

Broken squalls of miasma and shards of aura scattered in all directions.

"You... who...!"

"Who else? The lion who's going to tear out your throat today."

"Move... Move, or... die...!"

Whoosh!

Belot reached out toward him, as if to brush away a mayfly clouding his sight. Before him, Hermann looked tiny.

Monstrous strength.

The broad sigil carved across his chest glimmered dully. On his back, the sigil marking him a bishop shone; the two different emblems resonated across his body.

"This won't be easy."

Hermann clicked his tongue lightly at the sight.

First Batu of the Borfur tribe, and now a Demon King.

He couldn't fathom why so many ridiculous monsters were suddenly pouring out all at once.

Yet for all his words, his eyes blazed.

It was the keen joy of meeting a new worthy foe.

Rumble, rumble, rrrrrumble!

KWA-KWA-KWA—

The Azure Lion and the Demon King.

A titanic duel you’d never see anywhere else raged fiercely.

"Pardon the intrusion."

Sailor also hurled himself toward where Leda was.

With gray-lit hair streaming long behind him, the old general moved in a way that made a mockery of his years.

Leda had to tear his gaze from Belot to meet him.

An Ash Lion was not someone to take lightly.

He started to wheel a blade-storm packed with miasma toward him—

Don't you dare touch what's mine!

All of a sudden, Hyul's thought-form bellowed and charged Leda, as if he would not let anyone steal his prey.

KWA-KWANG!

KRA-KOOM—

Suddenly forced to handle both at once, Leda had to split his blade-storm in two.

"You pests, to the end...!"

Barely warding off both strikes, Leda scowled hard.

He'd come for a pleasant hunt and ended up being hunted; this was infuriating, to say the least.

His face, fully contorted, swelled taut, as if the veins would burst at any moment.

Rage gnawed at his reason. He felt he wouldn't cool down until he tore apart everything in front of him.

Then a thought crossed his mind.

Wait.

A chill crawled up his spine.

Where did Mervinger go?

With that bizarre shadow-beast, the two lions, and even Belot all tangled up with him, he'd been busy, sure—

But the head of House Mervinger, the one most likely to go wild in a moment like this, was nowhere to be seen.

Buried alive in that collapsed cave?

No, impossible.

He wasn't someone who would die to something so paltry, and with that shadow-beast still rampaging, he was clearly alive.

Then where was he, and what was he doing?

The dragon!

Only then did Leda think that far and try to turn that way. He couldn't.

Rrrrrrr—

I'm hungry.

I need to be full. I need something tasty.

Hyul's thought-form lunged at him without rest.

To Hyul's thought-form, Leda was just a warlord-class demon—big, but laughably weak by comparison.

The problem was, no matter how he knocked it away, it just kept coming; he couldn't spare a glance elsewhere.

It never seemed to tire.

Even if its limbs were hacked off, they re-formed as shadow in an instant; even when half its head was smashed, it didn't show pain—if anything, it grinned.

As if it couldn't be happier!

As if it would eat him no matter what!

So whenever Leda tried to gather miasma to shred Hyul's thought-form apart, Sailor's javelins snuck in, slyly picking at blind spots.

"Tch. Can't be helped. Thought I might show off a bit in front of the kids for once, but I guess I'll just have to get my joints loose like this."

Sailor grumbled, annoyed that the thought-form left him no opening, but his mouth wore a broad, delighted grin.

No wonder—he didn't have to go wild; all he had to do was match Hyul's tempo like this, and it wasn't all that hard.

In fact, the sheer fun of cornering a Demon King like this made him giddy.

The aura packed into his thrown javelins was formidable; Leda couldn't simply ignore them.

Botch a block, and his body would be smashed to bits.

It told you exactly whose blood the first unifier of the mountain folk, Batu, came from.

In the end—

Before Hyul's main assault and Sailor's covering fire—

What am I supposed to do...!

Leda felt sick from the stalemate, unable to go this way or that.

And the worse it got, the more his impatience swelled.

No. I can't let this go on.

Leda finally changed his mind mid-fight.

Shoving back the thought-form that came at him again, he threw both wings wide and climbed higher into the air.

Then he loaded his voice with power and roared:

"All demon forces, sack the nest! Bring the dragon's heart to me, by any means!"

"By... command...!"

"By... command...!"

"By... command...!"

To demons, rank and station were inescapable fetters—shackles on the soul.

All the more so in a unified structure like the Grigori, Azazel's demon army.

An order from a Demon King became the paramount imperative.

Those demons who'd hung back, fearing they'd be crushed between two Demon Kings, started moving as one for that very reason.

Bodies stiff as dry firewood, they sprinted toward the collapsed cave. Their eyes had no focus.

"Don't let anyone near that place!"

At Isabel's urgent shout, the Star's Retinue massed to block them, with the Azure Lion and Ash Lion forces helping at their flank.

Hayes himself leapt into the demons and swung his sledgehammer in a blur.

To stop even one more.

But with the demons heedless of their lives and focused solely on the fallen nest, they were short of hands to stop them all.

"Damn...!"

When Hayes spotted the demons he'd missed and snapped his head that way, several had already reached the collapsed cave.

Driven by a single intent to find the dragon's corpse, they scraped and heaved at the wreckage.

Some even shoved their heads into gaps—a reckless act courting death.

Then demons with wind sigils hastily raised gales and swept the debris clean.

Beneath it—

Elric and the dragon's corpse came into view, wrapped under ninefold barriers.

* * *

At that moment—

Elric looked up.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Demons were rushing the barrier, stomping and clawing at it. Some poured magic into it, but it didn't so much as quiver.

Elric wasn't looking at them.

Beyond them.

He saw Leda still dueling Hyul's thought-form.

He didn't miss how Leda's eyes—so relaxed until now—were quivering violently.

Leda had realized what Elric was about to do.

"What a shame. You finally had it bagged, and now it's about to be snatched from right under your nose?"

"N-no...!"

"Why not?"

One corner of Elric's mouth twisted.

"It is."

Elric tore free the dragon's heart—the Dragon Heart—gripped in his hand.

As if to taunt Leda.

The Mage Who Devoured Talent