Dragon of Endless Evil

Seeing his silhouette straighten fully, Lady Drigan recognized him at once.

"Second imperial prince?"

Daemon did not know him particularly well. During all these years, he had led a carefree life, he had perhaps crossed him at a gala evening, back when he was still heir of the Sword clan. But one thing was clear: ’He is considered weak and despised by his own family. I should make sure he gets out of here before his death is blamed on the Sword Clan.’

"Your Majesty, here is dangerous... It would be better—"

"OMG!!! but who is this gentle lady? As graceful as she is, as a prince I am rarely dazzled in such a way..."

"WTF!?"

Siegfried made an awkward bow and approached Victoria, who remained as disconcerted as everyone else facing this change.

"Uh... I am honored, Your Majesty, but the moment is poorly chosen."

Conrad leapt without warning. Daemon raised his right arm, the one bandaged up to the wrist, and blocked the blow just in time. The pain climbed from the bone up to the shoulder.

"Some help wouldn’t be refused!" moaned Daemon, legs bent under the impact.

Siegfried turned toward Conrad, his face losing all trace of lightness.

"I hadn’t come for this, but it seems I should get my hands dirty." He took a guard stance.

< Contemplation of the Sea >

Victoria slid across the ground, appearing directly in front of Conrad. Her palm traced a series of close waves that deflected Conrad’s claws one after another, each contact producing a snap.

< Undulation! >

Daemon executed an acrobatic flip over a block of rubble and landed beside Siegfried.

"I do not wish to lack respect, prince... The strength of this thing is monstrous. I am afraid you are in danger if you stay here."

Siegfried executed a test slash in the void to test the range of his blade. It was tinted a deep violet and the pommel ended in a golden dragon head, mouth open along the guard.

"I am weak, but my First Sense allows me to see the weak points..." His eyes released a brief glow, one golden, the other blue. "And my master’s sword Gram is extremely sharp."

Daemon nodded. "I will try to hold him. I hope the prince can cut through his thick skin."

Victoria continued to deflect the blows one by one. Her breath grew shorter with each exchange, her gestures losing fluidity as the fatigue accumulated in her arms.

Daemon and Siegfried launched at the same instant, one silver, the other golden in the light filtering from the Catacombs, each approaching from a different flank of Conrad.

Daemon struck first, a horizontal blow aiming at the ribs. Conrad pivoted and intercepted it with a reverse of claws that nearly tore the katana from his hands, then followed without losing rhythm with a straight to the face, forcing Daemon to tip his head back. He felt the displacement of air from the claws against his cheek.

< First Sense of Slayer: Predator Vision! >

Siegfried’s pupils became chaotic for an instant, his mismatched eyes scanning Conrad’s body, reading every muscle fiber.

"There!" he shouted.

Daemon dove, feinting a blow toward the torso to draw Conrad’s guard downward, then pivoted and chained three close attacks. Each was blocked or deflected just in time by Conrad’s forearms, the skin resisting without tearing.

"Slay!"

The sword Gram spun in Siegfried’s hand, projecting several volutes of silver chi that wrapped around the blade before striking Conrad at the level of the tendons.

"Shitty shit! It’s not deep enough."

Conrad growled and retaliated with a sweeping kick that felled Daemon’s legs. He rolled on the ground, barely avoiding a second blow aimed at his skull, and straightened with a push on his hands, katana already raised to parry the next attack.

Siegfried dodged with small side steps, a pivot of the torso, a minimal tilt that let each claw pass a few centimeters from his skin. But his own blows lacked force, cutting the surface without ever slicing deep.

"Even three of you, you cannot defeat me... Hahaha, Lord Vamp’s gift is impressive!"

Conrad chained a series of wide strikes, disordered but devastating, each capable of exploding the stone if it hit a wall instead of an opponent. Victoria intercepted one of them destined for Siegfried’s back, her palm trembling under the impact.

"Watch out, he’s changing rhythm!" she shouted, her voice strained by exhaustion.

Daemon charged again, seeking to occupy Conrad while Siegfried repositioned for a new opening. He chained a low blow aiming at the knees, then rose at once toward the torso, a feint that should have forced Conrad to reveal a flaw in his guard.

Conrad did not take the bait. Instead of parrying, he spat a discharge of blackish chi at point-blank range, directly toward Siegfried who had just approached to deliver the finishing blow.

"What?"

Daemon saw the trajectory just before it touched its target. He did not think. He pushed Siegfried aside with all his weight and took the attack full force.

The impact lifted him from the ground and sent him crashing into a pile of rubble several meters away, dust and stones rising around him.

"DAEMON!!!" screamed Victoria.

Siegfried, still unbalanced by the push, took advantage of the instant when Conrad remained turned toward the place where Daemon had disappeared to launch a slash. Gram sank into the thick muscle of Conrad’s neck, stopping against something harder than steel.

"Shitty shit! Be careful!" shouted Siegfried, as much to himself as to Victoria.

She did not have time to retreat. Conrad turned in a roar and delivered a violent kick toward Victoria’s torso.

< Contemplation of the Sea >

She spun on herself at the last instant, her body following the trajectory of the blow rather than opposing it, and touched the blade of Gram with the tip of her index finger at the precise moment it passed within her reach.

< Undulation! >

The wave of chi crossed the blade. Siegfried felt the impulse climb up to his guard, pivoted Gram with a movement and violently drove the sword through Conrad’s throat, the tip emerging from the other side in a jet of blackish blood.

Conrad’s eyes rolled back.

At the same moment, Daemon leapt out of the rubble. His colossal chi surged so brutally that Kristian, hundreds of meters away in another gallery of the Catacombs, felt the air compress around him, strong enough to make him turn his head toward the source.

"Envying me when I had a shitty childhood? Yours may have been worse.."

"But you do nothing to become free. On the contrary, you complain about others and just look for new masters, whether it’s your father, Markus, or even that guy, Vamp. You just like being the good dog that wags its tail."

Conrad roared, the blade of Gram still planted in his throat that Siegfried tried to withdraw.

But Daemon was already in front of him. The colossal chi gathered in his right hand, instantly burning the bandages that crumbled into black ashes, revealing the skin constellated with dark scales and the sharp claws underneath.

"I have never blamed others for my failures! You’re just the fuckin’ loser!!"

< Steel Breath! >

His hand plunged directly into Conrad’s ribcage. The ribs yielded with a dry crack, the flesh tearing around Daemon’s wrist. He closed his fingers and pulled backward, ripping out the heart that still beat weakly between his claws.

"Kuh!!!"

Conrad spat a spray of blood onto Daemon’s face.

The two men looked each other in the eyes. On the edge of death, a glimmer of lucidity briefly crossed Conrad’s entirely black gaze.

"Fuck... I’m going to die *Cough*like a piece of shit...*Cough*The world is made this way... Better never to be born..."

Then he collapsed to the ground, inert.