Chapter 213 — 용아병단(龍牙兵團)
Chapter 213
Dragonfang Legion
For demons and Demon Kings, a seal is their very foundation.
As a human soul dwells in the heart, a seal is the lair where a demon’s soul resides.
And if that is destroyed, it means only one thing.
“Ghk!”
Reda hacked out a ragged breath.
As if a cord had cinched tight around his throat.
His face blanched; he clawed at his neck and thrashed.
“N-no…!”
Belot realized too late and flung a hand toward where Hyul’s thought lurked, but—
Kakakaka.
How sweet. How very sweet!
Hyul’s thought had already melted into the shadows and vanished. Even the voice was receding.
“Re…da… stay… with me…!”
Belot grabbed Reda in a panic. Stuffing magi into him, he spurred himself harder toward the main camp.
A mistake.
He should have watched the perimeter…
On any other day he might have sensed Hyul’s thought lying in ambush.
But the sense of being hunted, the compulsion to hurry back to the main camp, or perhaps the brutal wounds had scrambled his senses.
Still, convinced the priest could somehow fix it, he didn’t stop moving.
What Reda had lost was the Seal of Nether. Azazel’s Seal of Berserk remained; maybe that would keep his life tethered, somehow.
“Damn it, damn it….”
But that only barely held together a life that was already tearing apart; it did nothing to turn death aside. Reda muttered the same words over and over, like a parrot.
Fwaa—
His fingertips began to crumble. As the body’s bindings loosened, his presence thinned away.
All the while he broke apart into magi—
Reda kept murmuring, eyes unfocused.
“Damn…”
That—
was the last thing Reda left behind.
Fwaaa…!
* * *
Fwaaaa!
As the magi that made up Reda scattered—
the ownerless magi swarmed, seeking a new master.
Through the ragged collar, along Elric’s right back, over the shoulder blade, the Seal of Nether etched itself.
It was the fourth seal, after Original Sin, Winter System, and Baleful Star.
Reda was strong. Especially at handling magi—far beyond any demon I’d met. This one will be a huge help now that my mana’s spiked.
If Yuda’s Seal of Consumption specialized in freely altering the nature of magi,
the Seal of Nether focused on handling it with exquisite precision.
In fact, fighting Reda he’d been shoved back again and again by overwhelming storms of magi.
[You called it a vessel. Hah! So they were trying to craft a seal that could smoothly accept Azazel’s magi?]
Mephisto snorted, apparently thinking the same as Elric as he eyed the Seal of Nether.
The Demon Kings of Grigori all bear two seals.
One is Berserk, inherited from Azazel.
The other is the one they originally possessed.
[The Seal of Berserk can’t be easy to rein in. The magi is savage and rough. Looks like they were trying to find a way to bind it firm.]
[But what you’ve seen so far…]
[All failures.]
The Seal of Consumption couldn’t “digest” Berserk entirely; it spun out alone and collapsed.
The Seal of Nether handled Berserk more finely, but still failed to wring it out to its final limit.
If they’d truly drawn out the power inside Berserk, they’d have boasted a far greater strength.
[Half-baked, the lot of them.]
Reda had mocked Yuda as a stupid failure, but when you got down to it, he wasn’t much different.
At any rate—
the seal gained by felling Reda helped Elric just as he’d hoped.
The Dragonblood that kept writhing with excess strength even after the bodily transformation was rapidly cooling.
Mana spilled from the Seal of Nether, branching out like twigs to link with the Dragonblood, and slowly came under Elric’s control.
Still, I reeled that in… what a waste.
Hyul’s thought clicked its tongue at the sight.
He’d tailed it and seized it himself, only to hand it over wholesale to Elric—tribute that wasn’t tribute.
All the worse because it was a flavor he’d never once tasted.
But he didn’t dwell on it.
The seal might have gone to Elric, but the magi that trailed along were all his.
Plenty to eat here besides.
And this was a battlefield.
Magi shed by dead Grigori demons clotted everywhere.
Laced as they were with grudges and rancor, they were delicacies to him.
Bon appétit!
Click—
Click—
Shadows spread fast along the ground. Jagged, gear-like teeth chewed through demon corpses.
Like a shark breaking the surface to snatch prey in one gulp.
* * *
“Where… is this?”
Elric lifted his head and swept his surroundings.
A blank, blinding-white world.
Why was he here?
He’d been absorbing the Seal of Nether, reigning in the Dragonblood…
He must have focused too hard; when he came to, he’d somehow ended up in this strange place.
Just then—
Fwaa!
The white world split left and right, revealing a space like a royal hall.
Paintings and statues lined the walls; a luxurious carpet ran underfoot.
Elric spun on instinct.
Where the carpet ended,
at the hall’s heart, six thrones stood in a row.
Five were veiled in deep shadow, so he couldn’t tell if anyone sat there.
But his gut knew who owned those six thrones.
The Winter Six Standards!
The six retainers who stood at Otto Han’s side in life and opened Mervinger’s golden age.
From the rightmost throne, someone rose.
The only one not shrouded in shadow.
“To think you’d bring down a Demon King already. Even with Dragonblood, not bad.”
He was massive, with wild hair and eyes that burned like a beast’s.
But what drew Elric’s eye was the enormous banner in his right hand.
Five meters?
No, closer to six?
At the tip of a pole that looked absurdly long and heavy fluttered a banner bearing Mervinger’s crest.
Nahatram, the standard-bearer who always took the van in war to announce Mervinger’s descent, looked at Elric with warm eyes.
“Not bad, he says.”
“I couldn’t have done anything without your help.”
“No. If we’re being honest, the ones outside did the heavy lifting. Blue Lion? Ash Lion? Whatever they were called—without them you wouldn’t have bagged a Demon King. That Blue Lion, was it? He didn’t seem far off from us.”
“No. We’re still above. We can’t be outdone by a junior centuries behind us.”
“Listen to you. Petty, the both of you. The descendant pulls this off and you can’t even offer praise? Tsk.”
“What’d you say?”
“I didn’t say a thing.”
“What a feat.”
The thrones were lively with noise.
Like a market square, their chatter carried easy camaraderie.
Something shifted and writhed within the shadows.
Elric’s eyes flashed.
I can hear their voices.
That was a long stride forward.
Before, when he’d met—no, merely sensed—them, nothing like this had been possible.
They hadn’t spared him any attention.
Only Nahatram had answered his earnest plea and lent him strength.
Now he could see at least their shapes—and hear their voices.
It meant, at minimum, he’d earned their interest.
Or the right to stand before them.
Whatever the reason,
Elric had drawn a little closer to the North Wind.
“Quiet, all of you. What are you doing, embarrassing yourselves in front of a descendant?”
Nahatram barked toward the still-rowdy thrones.
Trying, somehow, to preserve his dignity.
“What’s he yammering about?”
“What’s he saying? He wants to strike a pose before the younger kid, and since he can’t, he’s telling us to shut it.”
“Telling me not to just makes me want to more.”
“Right?”
“How do we keep him from posturing? Climb on the chair and shake my ass?”
At the disorderly quips, Nahatram’s expression crumpled like paper.
Elric couldn’t help a wry smile.
When they first manifested, they’d crushed him with awe.
Now, none of that was to be found.
No. Maybe this is the natural look.
He recalled a fact he should never forget.
They, too, were Mervinger.
If these were the ones who built the system that spread Mervinger’s infamy—infamy-not-infamy—into the world… they’d be worse, not better.
With that, the scene felt perfectly natural.
“What am I supposed to talk about with you rowdy brats.”
Nahatram kneaded his temple with a forefinger like he had a migraine.
Sensing it would never end unless he stepped in, Elric cut in.
“May I ask why you’ve called me?”
Nahatram nodded, put his serious face back on, and cleared his throat.
“Ahem! I called you because now you seem ready to speak with us. To go beyond—”
“Oh, he’s posing again.”
“Wee c’n noow haaave a con-ver-saa-tion with hiiiim, so we caaalled hiiiim. How’s that? Nailed it?”
Bubble, bubble.
Nahatram broke off mid-sentence and clenched a fist at the heckling. His face flushed crimson with fury.
…Should I duck?
Elric thought about easing back out of splash range, but the jeering from behind went on, oblivious to Nahatram’s state.
“Nailed your ass. When you do it, it just sounds silly.”
“And when Naha does it?”
“Naha’s just greasy. Hup!”
“Shut it, you bastards! Let me talk! Let me!”
At last Nahatram blew his top.
“Le’ me ta’k. Le’ me! How’s that—closer?”
“Graaah!”
Nahatram hefted his banner and launched himself at the thrones.
Crash, bang!
Watching the commotion, Elric thought:
So that’s where the family style started. I’m not so bad, all things considered.
A thought that would have made Mephisto spit-take, he entertained without a blink.
The Talent-Devouring Mage