Chapter 364: A Battle Repeated
Korra’s mouth dropped open at the revelation, her eyes stretching wider than I’d ever seen them before. "N-ninth level?" she stuttered, taking a long moment to find her voice. "You can do that? Summon something like that, I mean?"
Before I could respond, she shook her head. "No, that doesn’t matter right now. I believe you. But why not have it crush those armies like it wanted? If it really is ninth level, something like that should be no problem, right?"
I opened my mouth to answer, but closed it again, unsure of what I was feeling, much less how to explain it.
If I allowed the spirit to massacre either army, it would undoubtedly use eighth or even ninth-level abilities. It had already leveled almost a tenth of the city in its initial rampage, and that was without using any meaningful spell or ability. Tens of thousands of innocents had been crushed in their homes or frozen by its aura. I was already struggling with what I had done while lost in my anguish, and the thought of butchering the entire city for such petty revenge made me sick.
But it was the question of the demon army that truly had me conflicted. I’d killed thousands of demons before, and planned on slaughtering many more, but I couldn’t bring myself to order their destruction. My cheeks colored slightly as I thought of the tall, dark-eyed demonkin at their head. He was my enemy, and had actively fought against me before, and yet...I couldn’t stand the thought of him dying. The thought left me feeling lost and confused. He was an apostle, the leader of the demons. Why didn’t I want to kill him here, when I had the chance?
But I could still see his warm, kind eyes, and the friendly manner he showed me. In Brithlite, in the Ice Gate, and my visions, I felt a sort of kinship with him, the same I felt with Selena, or even Tana.
I groaned and rubbed my horn, attempting to push the dark-eyed demonkin from my mind. Korra raised an eyebrow, but before she could ask my thoughts on slaughtering the armies again, an aged man broke out of a cluster of soldiers and strode toward us.
I glanced at him, at first grateful for the distraction, then overjoyed as I saw his face.
"Bethiv!" I cried, my eyes lighting up.