Chapter 225 — 깃발을 들다
Chapter 225
Raise the Banner
“Merbinger…! You, at least…! I’ll tear you apart with my own hands…!”
The High Priest glared at Elric, face twisted with malice.
“From the way you’re mouthing off, you’re still in one piece, huh.”
Elric smiled coldly and raised another ice spear.
“Good. Let’s see how stout-hearted our Apostle of Azazel is—and how long you can last.”
* * *
The High Priest had to die and come back over and over.
Each time, Elric swung his spear again as if he never tired.
“Wow. Still alive after that.”
Snik—
“Wow. Your head pops back on again?”
Boom!
“Judging by that face, you do feel pain. Nothing special when you resurrect?”
Boom-boom!
“There’s got to be a mechanism to this kind of resurrection. It’s not like your fuel is infinite, yet you keep getting back up.”
Crackle—
“This is getting old. Mister Apostle. How about we stop now, yeah?”
Every time Elric’s taunting jabbed into his ears, the High Priest had to swallow his fury.
Why! Whyyyy!
Not that he just stood there and took it.
He couldn’t measure up to a Demon King, but he was still a highborn demon who’d lived a long, long time.
His sigils were top tier, and he handled demonic mana with deftness.
But none of it worked on Elric.
He showered curses—scoured clean in the air before they touched him. He hurled every sort of physical spell—and at a single “Disperse,” they simply vanished.
The True Word?!
He’d never imagined a human would manifest a tier of magic beyond Word Magic—the True Word—so the shock hit the High Priest even harder.
Power impossible without awakening a dragon’s might…! Why Merbinger? Hadn’t Merbinger lost his draconic factor ages ago?
This entire hierarchy of language-arts, culminating in True Words, was never permitted to mortals.
It belonged only to humans who had attained the “enlightenment” to tamper directly with the laws of the world, or to certain races.
And Elric was using it?
Which meant he’d received dragonblood and awakened the draconic factor.
He’d heard Elric had seized the last remaining Dragon’s Nest the Grigori were after, but he hadn’t imagined he’d gone as far as awakening it.
In a way, it should have been obvious—especially since he recognized the spell that shattered the stronghold.
“The Three of the Thunder Wall… the True Word… You… you…!”
He’d had a hunch since then.
A truth he refused to accept.
Perhaps.
That truth would return as a nightmare trial for demonkind dreaming of a comeback.
“You’ve inherited the progress of ■■…!”
■■.
A calamity the demons never wanted to remember again.
Merbinger’s roots—the thing that had shackled demonkind for over a thousand years—lay there!
“Figured it out now? Took you long enough.”
Elric answered the High Priest’s horror with ease and drove another ice spear into the spot between his brows.
At this point, the High Priest felt like going mad.
Azazel!
Merbinger’s progenitor had opened his eyes again.
Of all times, in the very era when the Grigori were finally moving again after a millennium.
The High Priest refused to call it “coincidence.”
Azazel…! Why do you not answer me!
So he pleaded, searching for Azazel.
Surely the one he served would know something.
But.
There was no answer.
Azazel!
Azazel wasn’t one to show himself often, but if he begged earnestly enough, a divination would come now and then.
Yet for months Azazel had been silent, and he remained silent now.
As if content to let an Apostle die.
If only Descent.
If only he could invoke a Descent, a mere Merbinger would be nothing….
“Why won’t you answer my prayer…!”
Crackle, boom—
The High Priest’s body froze solid in ice, then exploded—shattered into dozens of pieces—then reformed on the spot.
Resurrection didn’t spare him death’s pain. It layered over itself, wearing down his mind at terrifying speed.
Only his iron faith in Azazel kept him from breaking.
“Wow. Filthy hard to kill. How am I supposed to dispose of you?”
Elric scratched the back of his head, looking vexed.
At first he’d kept at it out of sheer stubbornness—let’s see who wins—but watching the guy amoeba his way back each time was laughable.
He even considered freezing him solid and leaving him.
『Just going to keep him entombed in ice forever? Will that hold? One slip and the ice breaks, he pops back to life.』
[Then what do we do?]
『Use a sealing art.』
[And how exactly?]
『How would this king know?』
[Damn it.]
He only knew the theory of sealing arts—what most called sealing magic—vaguely, and had no grasp of its application.
In the end.
He wasted a good while, unable to choose.
Herman and Saylor, watching from the side, wore tired expressions.
They’d already finished mopping up the demons.
[Sweeping’s done.]
[Well done.]
Herman suddenly used the whisper spell Elric had taught him to report.
The enemies were gone—why the whisper spell? Elric wondered, then answered in kind, figuring there had to be a reason.
[Since this was pretty much their main body, I guess, not a single one surrendered—they all fought to the end.]
[Most of their strength had already gone off to the continent, so this place was basically an empty house.]
[And while sweeping the area, we found several “pens” that look like theirs.]
[…Pens?]
Elric knew at once that was why he’d used the whisper spell.
Something was there.
Herman’s voice had gone very cold—anger cold.
[They were… breeding humans.]
“You sick bastard!”
Kra-koom!
Flames sparked in Elric’s eyes and the High Priest’s skull smashed again.
Tsss—
Reformed, the High Priest forced one corner of his mouth up.
“Heh, heh-heh… You’ve finally… found it… have you…!”
He laughed, low and gloomy.
Even this way of getting under Elric’s skin delighted him.
Which only stoked a thousand fires inside Elric.
He’d seen something like this on the road to the Black Tundra.
The plague that swept the slash-and-burn villages—
—turned out to be a curse from totems the Grigori had set up for human sacrifice.
But the main body had taken it further—kidnapping humans in bulk, breeding them to harvest the power they needed.
Humanity’s negative sentiments were prime nourishment for demonkind.
Elric realized venting his rage would only amuse the High Priest, so he took a deep breath and spoke to Herman separately.
[Sweep the surroundings top to bottom. If you must, interrogate the prisoners we took at Acran Fortress—torture them if you have to. The Red Lion Army probably… had dealings with these bastards.]
[The Wynz Marcher Count I know isn’t that sort of man… but just in case, I’ll look into it.]
[Yes. I’m counting on you.]
Herman and Saylor moved out with their troops.
『I remember now, this one.』
[What?]
『Who he is.』
Elric’s gaze snapped to Mephisto.
Mephisto’s eyes sank deep.
『Back when this king ruled as the continent’s dread….』
[Spare me the preamble.]
『…There was a page who stuck to Azazel’s side. He attended his every move. He was just a brat back then. To think he lasted this long. Was he waiting for Azazel’s return?』
Elric’s face went slack with disbelief.
A creature that had lived over a thousand years.
The sheer doggedness of it made him reel.
『If he’s lived that long, his raw strength may be lacking, but his sigil-work and demonic mana will be superb. Killing him won’t be simple.』
[So do we just leave him like this? Or lock him in ice and bury him in Interresia forever?]
『That would work, but letting the demonic mana of an Apostle go to waste is a loss of resources.』
[But we don’t have a way.]
『Which is why—about that sealing art I mentioned.』
[Why bring that up now?]
『Ask the witch.』
Elric paused, then caught on.
One of the Winter Six: the archmage Ice Blossom, Mia.
『This king doesn’t care for her, but in terms of arcane knowledge, no one of that age surpassed her.』
[Mm.]
Elric wondered whether to ask the still-stiff-necked Mia.
「I think it’s fine.」
Nahatram?
Nahatram’s voice echoed in his head.
Still possessing him, he must have been listening all along.
「I know what you’re worried about. You think the old vassals are still putting on airs with you. They have pride as ancestors—beneath it, that’s not their heart. I hope you understand that.」
Unlike when he faced enemies, Nahatram’s voice was calm and warm.
「They accepted you long ago. Mia especially.」
[…All right.]
With Nahatram stepping in this far, digging his heels in would only slight him.
As the big-hearted head of House Merbinger (or so he told himself), Elric decided to overlook his old retainers’ rudeness—for now.
A moment later Nahatram’s soul slipped from Elric’s body, and another descended.
「Need a sealing art?」
Mia didn’t posture. Having watched through Nahatram, she went straight to the point.
‘Yes. I want him locked away somewhere.’
「And you’ll swallow him afterward?」
‘If possible.’
「You found Interresia, right? There’s a palm-sized diamond there.」
Elric, following her directions, poured mana into his magus ring, opened a subspace gate, and took out a palm-sized white gem.
It gleamed spotless, like a clump of packed snow.
「Diamond is the stone of ‘Winter.’ Think of stuffing the thing into it and cast. The configuration is….」
Murmuring through the method she taught him, Elric gripped the diamond in his right hand and laid his left on the High Priest’s head.
The man was trussed up tight by the Chains of Ruthlessness—he couldn’t move a finger. Easy.
“S-Seriously…?”
Realizing what Elric meant to do, the High Priest thrashed.
Clank, clank—
Each time the chains binding him clashed loudly.
“Even Oto Hahn’s sealing art…? N-no! I can’t die like—!”
He shouted—
“【Be Contained】.”
—but Elric was already unfolding the sealing art Mia had taught him.
A technique devised to subdue high demons who couldn’t be easily exorcised.
“N-nooooo!”
The High Priest screamed, but his limbs were already breaking down into mana and being drawn into the diamond.
Resistance was useless.
“Azazel… why do you not answer my call…!”
That was the last testament the most faithful servant of Azazel—the oldest Apostle, who had lived over a thousand years—left in this world.
Whirr-whirr-whirr!
Fwaaa—
When the sealing finished, the snow-white diamond turned black as obsidian.
It glittered pitch-black, like a piece of the pre-dawn sky.
Proof of how potent the demonic nature he held had been.
『Now, quickly!』
Mephisto cried out, eyes alight with joy.
Elric nodded and, without delay, tossed the sealed gem into his mouth.
All demonic mana related to Azazel was to be surrendered to him—that was the pact.
It was a shame, but he had no intention of breaking it.
Slurp—
The hard gem melted like spring snow, wetting his mouth.
Thump!
Thump!
His heart pounded hard.
『At last…!』
Mephisto bathed in ecstasy at the purity of the demonic mana—unlike anything Elric had given him before.
Right then.
「So that’s… how it works.」
Another voice rang in Elric’s head. One he knew well.
Azazel.
The Talent-Devouring Mage