Chapter 917 - Demons?

POV Talon

Of course I recognize Guildmaster Gwyn. Even with the mask on, there isn't any other human who bears himself as he does.

Accompanied by who I guess to be Tess Hansen, he makes his way down the stairs, approaching a group of five demons. I was one of the people ordered to gather information on them, so I can guess what is about to happen, and it won't be nice.

His steps begin to sound louder, overwhelming every other sound from the gathered groups. Each step on these stairs bounces off the walls and echoes in the hallway, quickly causing all chatter to stop as the attention of everyone present is drawn toward him and the woman behind him.

Guildmaster Gwyn takes off his mask, as does Tess Hansen, and the effect of the array stops affecting them. It reveals his calm expression, but his eyes are colder than I have ever seen before.

Even without using his skills, and without him saying anything, everyone present freezes. People know how quick he is at activating his skills, it matters very little that they aren't activated now.

“Jaxen, Caelum, Brennan, Zevra, Elowen.” He names every demon he was searching for. “Take down your masks.”

Without hesitation, he makes his way down, stopping just in front of these demons, who stand there frozen in fear. They listen, taking off their masks and clearly revealing their faces. Three men and two women, pure demons, standing so hesitant in front of this human. Meanwhile, Tess Hansen passes by, stopping near the entrance.

“They killed Nox and Rexis,” one of the men says. The muscular demon, taller than the guildmaster, takes a step forward, towering over him.

“That is what I have heard,” Nathaniel agrees. “But it was you guys who picked the fight, correct?”

“Yes. Nox noticed that woman using primordial energy. She was just a human, so he got annoyed at her. He never liked seeing any race other than demons with his Primordial lightning,” the muscular demon says.

“If we knew they were from your group, we would have held ourselves back,” one of the demon women steps forward and adds.

Other demons begin to agree with her and speak some excuses of their own. Even I can recognise that none of them is too honest about them.

“But I saw the record,” Nathaniel says, after letting them speak for a while, and all of the demons fall silent.

From his tone, it becomes obvious where this is inevitably heading. Each of the five prepares to fight, while Nathaniel doesn't even bother and continues to speak almost softly.

“You picked a fight with them, two of you died, Noelle died, and just before killing Derick, one of you recognized him and left him barely alive. Maybe it was in hopes that I would see it as mercy from you, and forgive you, or maybe you hoped a monster would finish him.”

“So what? We are demons!" he shouts proudly. "You might be powerful, but you will never understand that!” The tall, muscular demon takes a step closer, almost bumping into Nathaniel. “You think we are your toys, human? You think you will ever bear a connection to Primordial energies as powerful as we can? You think I fear death!?”

At that moment, as if a droplet of water fell off a table, I bet everyone could hear it. Three dozen people around the room watch with intense curiosity.

Yet Nathaniel stands there, seemingly defenseless, looking down at the floor.

“Demons? You?” he asks so quietly in comparison to the demon’s voice. “I have met many demons and half-demons, but they would rather challenge a Ruler than do what you did. And you are proud of that? You think of it as a fight?”

He looks up and snickers. “Demons.”

The entire mansion shakes, and the lights and arrays flicker on and off. Even the specks of dust stop moving, and the air turns completely still.

His voice remains calm as he looks toward the group of demons, “I have one more question. Tell me, have you sensed that tiny, weak, second heartbeat Noelle carried inside herself? You had to, right?”

A high pitch fills the air, and I can't even identify where it is coming from. Once again, the mansion shakes, but this time much more violently, and the lights flicker, staying dark for a moment. They hide his face in dark shadow, from within which only two golden circles shine coldly.

Then the light comes back on, and Nathaniel touches the demon. “Here, a little bit of my kinetic energy that I adapted to your wavelength. Show me how superior you are and handle it.”

That touch is almost gentle, but in the next second, the demon explodes. There isn't a single piece of him bigger than a droplet as what used to be that tall, muscular man sprays the floor, the wall, and the group of demons frozen nearby.

Nathaniel’s front gets splashed by that blood, but he doesn't even seem to mind as his eyes remain unblinking.

He then lets go of his hold, and the remaining four demons explode into movement.

Two of them charge Nathaniel, one getting covered by golden flames and the second one pulling a sword off his back that gets coated in void.

The other two try to run away. One woman is especially fast, her edges turning to a green and blue blur as she reaches one of the windows. But someone else is faster. Tess Hansen reaches her with lightning flickering across her skin, and holding a lightning spear, she stabs through the back of the demon woman and lifts her into the air effortlessly.

The demon screams, watching the lightning spear piercing through and coming out from the front of her chest. She tries to activate skills to fight back, but the lightning continues to strike her, stopping her from activating her skill. The burns from it sizzle her skin, spreading further and even slowing her regeneration.

The second demon trying to escape stops as Tess swings her arm and the entire side of the mansion slides down, burying the exit. The demon doesn't hesitate for longer than a split second, and all the metal around him begins to move, shooting and snapping on his body, melting and recreating into an armor that gets covered in glowing symbols. Lightning covers his entire arms, and he charges Tess, who lifts her arm towards him, and I see a ring on her finger shine. A projectile shoots out of it, too fast for me to track and too fast for me to believe it's possible to avoid it.

The demon attacking her takes a few more steps, sways, and then falls to the ground.

Nathaniel, meanwhile, takes a step that seems like he is teleporting, as he entirely ignores the demon with golden flames and, bypassing her, reaches the man with a greatsword covered in void. He just lifts his forearm, blocking the sword that uselessly slams against his arm and stops there entirely.

When kinetic energy explodes in a wild burst from the demon, it disappears the next moment, and the mana he tries to use flickers and dies off. In a swift, confusing movement, Nathaniel avoids the burst of golden flames from the demon woman behind him. He spins around the sword of the demon man, and with a slash of his hand, he cuts off the hand holding that sword.

While the demon man pulls back, Nathaniel grabs the sword from the air, and his own mana coats its surface instead of the void, just as he moves again, reappearing behind the demon woman with golden flames.

Flames explode into a sphere around her, melting into the mansion and the floor, and her shield meets the sword.

That sword cuts through it easily, and it severs her arm, but Nathaniel doesn't even finish her. He teleports again, deflecting the attack from the demon man, disrupting his mana and kinetic energy in their entirety, and grabs the back of his neck before slamming him into the wall nearby.

Before anyone else can react, a crushing presence floods the room, turning the air heavy.

“What is happening here?” The voice reverberates with absolute authority as a sickening emerald light bleeds into the space. All the wood creaks, be it the furniture, the railing, or the doors, and roots begin to grow from it.

That presence is unmistakable. Having met a few Champions already, I know the terrifying weight of one. This is the first time I feel a presence press me down this heavily, and it isn't even fully unleashed or directly aimed at me.

“Leave.” Only one voice breaks through that air-choking silence, Nathaniel’s.

The green colors surrounding us blink, and all of the colors are then drained from the area as everything turns black and white. Then, the place from where the Champion’s voice was coming from explodes in entirety, taking with it most of the mansion’s upper floors and the roof.

Nathaniel then moves like a blur, tears off the head of the demon he holds with his mere hand, and, swinging the sword, he cuts apart the demon woman, while Tess kills the one she stabbed through.

That Handler returns, and the presence spreads through the mansion again, with the emerald green light fighting to mix into the black and white, but this time the pressure is even heavier.

That’s when I decide it might be smarter to leave.

POV Nathaniel

Of course I know that killing these demons won't change much other than bringing some closure to Derick. It won't bring Noelle or the baby she carried back either.

I still remember meeting the two of them not that long ago and seeing their happiness at the unexpected new member of their family. I know my mother and father were in a similar situation when they got Victoria, and maybe that's why it hit close.

Things like this happen, I know, and it's not something I would usually lose sleep over, as cruel as it might sound. But I knew Noelle, and I vividly remember her joking she might name the baby Nathania if it was a girl or Victor if it was a boy.

And hearing someone from my guild had done it... Demons that I consider cute sometimes due to how they throw themselves into fights. But this? These guys were no demons.

Nyssa, Weslin, Morwag, Vega, none of them would ever attack someone weaker with the intention to kill for no reason.

This trash was no demons.

Kinetic energy turns into a high pitch again as I erase any proof these five ever existed. Their bodies, blood from the floor, parts of the mostly evacuated mansion.

There is a Champion speaking to me, someone who might be the owner of this mansion, and I can feel his domain trying to take over mine. Even as I look up and focus on him, his words only turn to a hum in the back of my mind.

He is weak.

I let more of my mana flood out and support my domain so it pushes over his, and [Eclipse] begins to spread over Megacity. The roots pierce the ground, reaching toward me, but they halt mid-movement, only feeding me kinetic energy that I turn into more mana to strengthen my domain further.

There are no signatures around anymore, and I don't like his tone at all, so I just gather more mana and swing my hand down, flattening the entire mansion to the ground like it was hit by a giant hammer.

And then again, compressing the soil and materials deep into the ground.

I glance toward Tess, relying on her being more reasonable now as I don't trust myself, but what I find is her coldly smiling face. Her crown made of lightning spins over her head, and the sky over the city fills with dark clouds through which her primordial lightning keeps coming down, slamming against what remains of the mansion and the roots halted all over.

We made sure the entire city knew we were hunting them, yet some people still traded with them or helped them stay hidden.

Finally, I also pierce through multiple fields, skills, and passives the Champion is using to hide. My eyes activate fully as I follow the link, teleport through, and defend against all the traps.

When I appear in front of him, the human widens his eyes, surprised. I notice that he wears a beautiful white robe.

Dozens of mana attacks, some of which I cannot even track, shoot and crash against me. Some of them hammer and temper the defensive layer I keep on myself. The others carve holes into it and pierce through to slam against my skin, only to turn to liquid mana that splashes around in these pseudo weightless droplets that float there.

I disrupt his teleport, let his hand coated in green mana stab into my shoulder, burn the wooden roots trying to spread from it through my body, and then put my hand on his and "take".

His mana floods into me, and I channel it, redirecting it and aiding it until it is caught by my Mana Cycling, becoming part of that flood of mana that constantly rushes through my body.

He staggers back in horror as I let go of him, the hole in my shoulder sizzling as it heals in a blink. To burn the roots, I had to spike my body temperature, and now, the excess heat vents from the exhaust nodes on my back like a cloud of pressured steam.

A new attack slams straight against my face with all the mana he regenerated, or pulled from the air, but the moment it touches me, it turns into more of that liquid through [Jüdrajil] and sprays behind me.

I stare him down until he stops attacking and turns to run, relying purely on his physical stats and whatever tiny bits of mana he can regenerate to hasten his escape.

[Eclipse] blinks and disappears when I gather all mana from the area into my body and put the manasol into the vial that I got used to carrying.

Then I join Tess, and we leave.