Chapter 226 : Kai's Growth (4)
The Ogre Chieftain hefted his club, his glare a physical weight.
“Come, human. Your turn.”
“Fine.”
There was no point in drawing this out. A glance across the snowy field confirmed it: the battle between the ogres and the Imperial forces had already begun. To win this war, I had to end this chieftain, here and now.
<Divine Beast Invocation>
A colossal dragon of pure Aura materialized before me. It roared, its form shimmering with a holy, opalescent light—a hue it had never possessed before.
“So the rumors were true,” the Ogre Chieftain grunted, his eyes flicking between me and the ethereal beast. “You really are a Saint.”
He had a point. The dragon was bathed in a brilliant, sacred light.
“A regrettable development,” I admitted.
“The Goddess must be weeping.”
“You know of the Goddess?” I asked, surprised.
“The ogres believe in the Goddess as well,” he answered, his voice a low rumble. “We are her children. That is who we are.”
I pressed him. “Then why did you turn your back on her? You serve the Duke. Your body is saturated with demonic energy.”
“Hmph.” He snorted, a plume of hot air misting in the cold. “You rulers would never understand. You have no concept of what it takes for the lesser races to survive.”
His eyes burned with a mixture of fury and indignation.
“Do you know how many of my kin die every day? Dozens. Hundreds. For being weak. For having hearts that your kind grinds into powders for virility. It’s always humans! We are hunted like beasts, treated like monsters, and for what?”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
CRAAAASH!
He roared his anguish and charged. His club crashed against my bow with a deafening boom.
Crack… splinter…!
I felt the wood of my bow give way, but the chieftain didn’t even register his small victory. His face was contorted in pain.
“Is our skin so monstrous? Is our intelligence so offensive? Or is it simply the natural order for the weak to be crushed under the heel of the strong?”
His cry echoed across the battlefield, lost in the din of combat. The soldiers were too busy fighting to listen. The ogres were too busy dying.
And I… I said nothing. His history was not my concern.
“Your people’s cruelty drove my tribe to the brink of extinction!” he bellowed. “Our men were slaughtered for their hearts. Our women were sold as playthings! What great sin did we commit to deserve this? Tell me!”
He got no answer.
“Then the Duke came to us. He promised us a new world… a world where the weak would no longer be prey. He swore that we would never again be scorned for being non-human!”
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
With every word, he swung his club, his screams fueling the relentless assault.
“So I made a vow! I swore my life to his cause! To protect him and see his will done! If I must become Demonkin to save my people, then it is a price I will gladly pay!”
<Aspect of War: Marionette>
Countless crimson threads descended from the air, latching onto ogres and Imperial soldiers alike, freezing them in place.
“Wh-what is this?”
“Chieftain…!”
He ignored their cries, channeling more power from the red jewel embedded in his chest.
“Kill him!” the chieftain commanded his new puppets. “Kill the Saint of the Goddess of Beginnings! Slay the enemy of the Duke, and our liberation will be at hand!”
“Graaaaaaaah!”
Soldiers I had been fighting alongside suddenly turned on me, their swords and spears wreathed in a sinister red Aura.
What a mess.
I evaded their frenzied attacks, assessing the situation.
I could incinerate the threads with my Halo and Mindscape, but that felt like a waste. This was a battle of attrition, and I had only one decisive blow left in me.
I couldn’t afford to use it on crowd control, not when I could handle them myself.
<Battle King First Form: Dragonbreaker>
I moved through them, the combat arts Enoxia had taught me flowing with brutal efficiency. As I subdued soldier after soldier, a smirk twisted the Ogre Chieftain’s lips.
“You… Where did you learn that technique?”
“What?” Had the demonic energy finally rotted his brain? “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“Heh… Is that so? Then I suppose there’s no reason to tell you what happened to the old hag who used it last.”
“…What?”
His words stopped me cold. In that single moment of hesitation, an ogre warrior closed the distance and slammed his club into my head.
Thwack!
Drip.
“Hngh…!”
Warm blood trickled down my temple. The ogre grinned, and I returned it with a glare before driving my fist into his face.
<Battle King Second Form: Soul Smite>
Splat!
His head exploded in a shower of red. Without a second glance, I fixed my eyes back on the chieftain.
“What did you mean by that?”
Enoxia Brahms. The Battle Fiend. Had something happened to her?
We weren’t master and student. We had no deep bond. A few days of sparring and Martel’s lessons were the extent of our relationship. It was a fleeting connection compared to the others I’d made.
And yet… a cold dread churned in my gut.
“Did the Duke do something to her?” I demanded.
“Less the Duke, more the Demonkin,” he said, his tone dripping with mockery. “We tried to recruit her, you see. A shame she refused.”
“Get to the point.”
“The master of that technique of yours… she unleashed her Mindscape. It was quite the spectacle. A true cataclysm. We were lucky to escape with our lives.”
“…”
Enoxia had used her Mindscape.
It wasn’t forbidden merely for its power. Once unleashed, it consumed everything in its path… including the user. The Empire had forbidden its use for that very reason, and she had agreed.
For her to break that vow, with civilians still in Diva…
It could only mean one thing.
“…Martel,” I said, my voice dangerously low. “What did you do to Martel?”
“Ah, you’re quick. Let’s just say he’s a… guest of honor. Helping us secure a bright future for all ogres. Of course, we’ll be certain to repay him for years of humiliation.”
“…I see.”
<Halo>
A ring of pure light spun into existence above my head.
I had to get to Enoxia. If no one stopped her, she would burn the world down to its foundations.
But first.
Creeak.
I drew my battered bow, aiming its splintered form at the Ogre Chieftain. At his tribe. At everything he fought for.
“Time is short,” I said. “Let’s end this.”
“Heheheh… Finally ready to fight for real?”
<Demonbane Shot: Rend>
<Aspect of War: Marionette>
Two powers, holy and demonic, manifested at once. They rushed toward each other and collided in the heart of the battlefield.
A flash of blinding light devoured the world, followed by a shockwave that tore the very earth apart.
* * *
Far to the south, the Demonkin army marched toward the frozen North.
“Are we there yet?”
“W-well, my lord, that is—!”
“Too slow.”
Pop.
The Demon Prince made a gun gesture with his fingers. The head of the Demonkin aide who had been answering him vanished in a spray of gore.
The others didn’t flinch. As if accustomed to it, some of them immediately began cleaning up the remains.
Swish. Swish.
As they swept, the Demon Prince pointed a lazy finger toward a distant mountain range. “Oh? It seems we’re almost there after all.”
The sight of the snow-covered peaks brought a flicker of relief to the faces of his retainers.
“I-it appears we have arrived in the North, my lord.”
“Is that so?” A slow, predatory grin spread across the Demon Prince’s face as he slid open the carriage window. “Mmm… I can already smell it. The demonic energy.”
He savored the scent wafting from his homeland, the place of his birth and his imprisonment. The land where he had suffered endless humiliation at the hands of mortals.
It was a place of love and of hate. And now, it held a human fascinating enough to capture his attention.
The situation was perfect.
“I wonder if he’d be willing to become one of us?” he mused.
“…I have a feeling he would not, my lord.”
“Oh? What a shame.”
“That human’s moniker, my lord… is Holy Archer.”
“A holy archer, now? How curious. I was told he wasn’t from the Holy Kingdom.”
“…It is also said,” the attendant added, his voice barely a whisper, “that he is the son sent by the Goddess of Beginnings.”
The Goddess of Beginnings.
The Demon Prince’s eyes curved like a drawn bow.
“Ah,” he breathed, his expression dangerously playful.
The Demonkin who saw it swallowed hard. They knew that look. It was the smile he wore right before something terrible happened.
And just as they feared, he began to chuckle.
“In that case… if I were to corrupt her precious son… imagine the look on the Whore of Beginnings’ face.” He laughed, a low, sinister sound that promised an age of suffering. “Oh, I cannot wait. I do hope I get to meet him very soon.”
A rapturous smile graced his lips as he lost himself in the thought of breaking the Goddess’s heart.