Chapter 227 — 아자젤
Chapter 227
Azazel
“Running into you in a place like this. What a filthy mood.”
Mephisto still had his arms crossed, eyes glittering with menace.
And his voice was no longer a telepathic murmur in Elric’s head, but spoken aloud.
“Utterly.”
His posture wasn’t all that different from usual.
Mephisto’s trademark was standing off to the side, arms folded, looking sour every time Elric did anything.
Yet now, though the gesture was the same—
He was pouring out a force that crushed the world on all sides, beyond all thought of resistance.
The world… was trembling.
Rrrrumble—
Krrrk!
As if it might collapse at any moment.
And—
Elric could see another phantasm, stationed behind Mephisto’s back.
A wolf with a goat’s horns, its head brushing the edge of the sky, its body spanning the earth, smothering the world.
In that instant, Elric understood.
That must be the true form of the archdemon called “Mephistopheles.”
It was a sight only possible here in the Mindscape, where, unlike the real world, all restraints fell away.
And needless to say—
Azazel’s aura was no less overwhelming.
If Mephisto was a wolf, Azazel was a raven.
A raven with jet-black wings spread wide and high, its red eyes gleaming with malice.
After the briefest standoff between wolf and raven—
Whoosh!
Both archdemons vanished from where they stood.
BOOOOOM!
And met in the middle.
Mephisto was reaching out with a hand, and Azazel was shaping demonic mana into a blade and swinging.
Rrrrrr, rrrr—
Kwakakakak!
Even that simple clash hurled aftershocks in all directions, gouging the land at random and tearing down the mountainsides.
What a ridiculous mana wave…!
Watching from the ground, Elric’s eyes could only widen.
People like to call archmages and sages “those who cleave the sky and split the earth.”
In truth, almost none could do that—save beings you’d call gods.
Yet the two archdemons really were cleaving the sky and splitting the earth.
Every broad sweep crumbled sheer canyon walls; every stomp made mountain ridges rear up to block incoming spells.
They ripped space to rain down firestorms—scenes that could only be called natural disasters.
All Elric could do was struggle to keep his own body intact.
Just how big is the gap…!
He felt his confidence tremble.
He’d used the Winter Sigils, gained dragonblood, and was being recognized one by one by the Winter Six.
He’d even managed to take down the demon king called Leda, and pride in his own strength had been swelling.
But watching the two archdemons hurl a world-upending collision at each other, that pride shrank back inside him.
On the other hand, Otto Han—who had seized the initiative against archdemons like these—was now even harder to fathom…!
How am I supposed to attack? There isn’t a single opening.
Elric knew exactly who he needed to help here.
So he kept waiting for any chance to catch Azazel off-guard.
But it was nowhere near as easy as it sounded.
Even with his mind’s eye open and his predatory sense spread wide, Azazel’s movements were far beyond anything he could “read.”
Strike carelessly and he might put Mephisto at a disadvantage.
Even if he did find a gap, in this hurricane of mana he was barely managing to protect himself.
We can’t let this drag on.
He didn’t know the exact time difference between the Mindscape and the real world.
But one thing was certain: he absolutely could not leave their fight unchecked for long.
Even with dragonblood shoring him up, his body could break down in the meantime.
What am I supposed to do…!
As Elric fretted—
Rrrrrrumble—
Fsh-sh-sh!
“…Hup!”
He saw shards of demonic mana, flung his way by the latest clash between the two archdemons, and hastily drew up his mana.
He grabbed an ice spear, ready to bat them aside, but it didn’t look easy.
They were too fast to dodge.
If I can just get the “Beak”…!
He poured all his will into the spear tip to flick the shards away.
But even with his mind’s eye, he couldn’t see the grain to strike.
Perfect and flawless.
Shards with no weaknesses, in and of themselves.
So he grit his teeth, ready to just slam into them head-on—
“Hoo… Would you look at that. No sense at all. Just like Otto Han.”
A deep, familiar voice came from behind him.
Elric turned—and jolted.
A burly man a head taller than him was suddenly there, shielding him from the shards.
“Nahatram?”
“How exactly were you planning to block that?”
Nahatram tossed off the line and thrust his hand forward.
A long pole, about three meters, sprouted in his grip.
Tzzzz—
From its tip, a blue aura steamed up like a mirage, then spread wide, snapping hard in the wind.
It looked like a gigantic banner.
On the face of the banner gleamed the old Merwinger crest, now familiar to Elric.
Flap-flap-flap!
It even sounded like a real flag whipping in a gale.
Nahatram shook the banner hard and met the shards of demonic mana.
He didn’t try to ping them off like Elric; he shifted the staff to wrap the shards as if in cloth, then flicked them away.
The shards did no harm to Nahatram or Elric, and pounded the distant ground instead.
BOOOOOM!
A rough blast and a pillar of sand shot high.
Shshshsh—
Frrrrrap!
And Nahatram kept batting aside the shower of shards in the same way.
Meanwhile, Mia opened space beside Elric and stepped through.
“For now. Let’s go somewhere else.”
She held out a hand.
Take it.
Elric nodded and took it, and the world around him wavered.
Flash!
They reappeared far, far from the two archdemons.
So far it felt like the edge of the Mindscape.
The problem was that even at this distance, Mephisto and Azazel’s pressure still reached them.
His skin still prickled.
“Crazy, isn’t it?”
Mia said, watching Elric, who couldn’t tear his eyes away.
Just like the last time they met—
She showed no emotion, like a doll.
Even her voice was blunt.
Like ice chips might fall from it.
“You people… lived in a place like this?”
Mia calmly shook her head.
“No.”
“Then…?”
“They—and Otto Han—are the weird ones. We were normal.”
“…”
“Oh, you’re weird too. What’s so great about them that you keep staring? I don’t get it.”
Elric couldn’t help a wry smile.
Somehow, he did get it.
Then he dipped his head to her.
“Ah, more than that—thank you.”
“For what?”
When she looked blank, Elric tilted his head this time.
“For saving me.”
Mia’s expressionless face shifted in an odd way.
“I thought you’d be angry with me.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because this happened thanks to the sealing ritual I taught you.”
“Ah.”
He started to ask what she meant, then caught on and shook his head.
“I was the one who asked for help, and all you did was help. If you pick it apart, it’s my negligence. Even with the apostles dying off, I should have suspected Azazel wasn’t intervening… Whether it was complacency or arrogance, the mistake was mine.”
For a moment, a different light flickered in Mia’s eyes, but Elric didn’t see it.
“Not a mistake.”
“Hm…?”
“I told you. It’s Azazel who’s off. You were cautious. Even if you’d stopped him this time, this would’ve happened sooner or later.”
There was something strangely gentle in how Mia eased his self-reproach.
He’d treated her rather coldly before, yet she didn’t seem to have taken it to heart.
He’d heard the nickname “Icebloom” and made her out to be forbidding.
Maybe she was just bad at showing emotion—maybe she was warm inside.
“Is there any magic to get us out of here?”
Mia shook her head.
“No. Only expulsion.”
“…Those two?”
Elric pointed, still disbelieving, at the archdemons colliding in fury.
Mia followed his finger, glanced over, and nodded matter-of-factly.
“Mm. Those two.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Does it look like a joke?”
“…”
Drive out something that absurd—right now?
His mind went blank for a heartbeat.
A tiny, slivered smile slipped from Mia’s lips.
“Expulsion doesn’t mean ‘beat the archdemon to a pulp.’ It means exactly what it says—force them far away from here.”
“Then…?”
“Hard as it is, if you can reclaim this Mindscape—now that it’s been put through Demonic Domainization—and make it yours again, you can drive them out. I’ll help you do that.”
The Demon Domain is the territory of demons and demon kings. In other words, Elric’s Mindscape, overrun by demonic mana, had been seized by the two archdemons. She meant for him to take it back.
“The incantation will take a long time… Is that even possible?”
To retake a demonized domain, it had to be purified as well.
Knowing how long that takes, Elric couldn’t help worrying.
Azazel might try to pull something in the meantime.
Even now, Mephisto had him pinned, but the bastard had been eyeing Elric’s position all along.
“Don’t worry. We can’t beat him, but at the very least, we can hold him back.”
We…?
As Elric snapped his head up at that—
“An impudent descendant really knows how to make trouble.”
“Right. Thinking of how arrogant you were last time, I’m not exactly eager to help.”
Two grumbling voices.
Two figures appeared out of nowhere and took their places to his left and right.
Much smaller than Nahatram—about Elric’s size—but the pressure rolling off them was far sharper and more oppressive, giving them an almost demonic cast.
The Winter Six.
Making their entrance: new faces—the Blood Lord, Tepes, and the Iron Warlord, Damir.
The Mage Who Devoured Talent