The Demon King Always Wants to Surrender.
Chapter 5
“Going in.”
“Will it hurt?”
“I’ll try not to hurt you.”
“Then go ahead.”
“Show some respect to His Majesty!”
Raven could no longer endure it.
“Sacred power flows through my blood.”
Noah said matter-of-factly,
“It’s unavoidable that the demon race will feel stinging pain.”
Anomis lifted up his fallen hair strands, revealing his pale neck that rarely saw sunlight due to years indoors. Noah dipped his finger in the still-wet blood on his chest and drew a circle of runes on Anomis’s neck.
When the last symbol was completed, the runes suddenly emitted a faint golden glow, like a substantial collar. Correspondingly, similar golden markings appeared on Noah’s wrist.
Looking at those ghostly scribbled characters, Anomis remembered something quite magical: although most countries in this world had different languages and scripts, it was said that there were spirits in the air that governed language, automatically translating all conversations. But for written text, there was no such effect.
“Still feels somewhat insufficient.”
Noah pondered,
“You look too clean, not like someone who got beaten up.”
Anomis immediately retreated two steps in alarm.
But the binding runes had already taken effect. Noah raised his hand, the runes flickered, easily stopping Anomis’s retreating steps. He bent down, carefully examining this face that had never experienced hardship, and finally, gently smeared blood on it.
Brilliant red eyes, a blood-stained face.
Noah sighed softly:
“You really do suit blood well.”
Anomis: “…Is this part of some play?”
This was their plan.
On the Imperial Army’s side, rumors of “the Hero being killed by the Demon King” had surely already spread. The blame would naturally be pinned on the Demon King’s head. If the Grand Prince had also been killed, they might pin an extra bucket of blame on him. When the time came, under the banner of seeking revenge against the Demon King, they could both cover their tracks and boost morale.
Even if Noah returned alive, it was hard to say whether Archbishop Adrian had prepared some backup plan.
But what if Noah returned with the Demon King, announcing he had captured the Demon King alive?
Victory makes people blind, and control of the army would very likely fall into the hands of the hero Noah.
This plan met with Seleinu’s opposition,
“Who can guarantee this guy will honor the contract and release you afterward? If you’re taken away by him—”
Anomis perked up: “ there’s such a good thing?”
“As the Demon King, you should be cautious. You should listen to my advice, take advantage of this guy being half-dead and finish him off directly. Against the remaining Imperial Army, we also have the strength to fight…”
“Hey.”
Noah rolled his eyes.
Anomis actually had many reasons to convince Seleinu. For instance, the demon dukes all coveted the Demon King’s position, and if Seleinu expended his strength in this battle, he would be powerless against attacks from other dukes. For Seleinu, wait-and-see was actually the best choice.
But somehow, just this once, Anomis spoke his true feelings.
“War is always the worst choice.”
And obviously, neither side could possibly listen to such words.
Noah clapped his hands to regain attention,
“Alright, if we keep dawdling, the Grand Prince will really die. His death doesn’t matter, but I haven’t received this month’s salary yet.”
He turned to Raven,
“Do you know where I put my key?”
Why would he ask Seleinu? Anomis was puzzled.
After a long silence, Raven said: “The key is on your body”
Suddenly, the air seemed to expand and contract once, invisible ripples spreading out in waves until they dissipated. Even without fully understanding so-called magic, Anomis still realized that something had happened.
Noah pulled out a key embedded with rubies from his torn pocket. Seeing the Demon King’s puzzled look, he smiled:
“Your doggy didn’t even tell you this? His authority is ‘Lies’. That is to say, lies spoken by him can briefly become reality.”
Must not let them discover he didn’t understand. Anomis silently noted the word “Authority,” planning to learn more when he had the chance later.
“Wait. He can make lies become reality?”
Anomis’s pupils shook with shock. Could it be that his becoming the Demon King was because…?
Noah delivered another timely blow:
“Of course, during battle I used ‘Restraint’ to prohibit ‘Lies’, so I was really shocked when I learned you were the Demon King. If I didn’t know he couldn’t lie, I would have simply suspected you were human.”
“…”
Please do suspect it some more!!!
Noah inserted the key into a crevice in the rock. Countless bright spell characters spread along the rock wall, weaving into a towering gate. The key turned with a CLICK, the gate slowly opened, and Noah walked in first, leaving Anomis no choice but to follow.
Tyr quietly asked Raven:
“Should we follow them?”
“You come back to the Demon King’s territory with me.”
“What about my mother…?”
No answer. Neither affirmative nor negative. Remembering what His Majesty the Demon King had said, Tyr decided to hold his mother’s hand and never let go no matter what happened.
Raven quietly watched the two human figures disappear beyond the gate, his heterochromatic eyes unblinking.
***
Seleinu looked down at the airship from his high vantage point.
Without the Hero’s restraint, with his abilities he could easily break through the Empire’s defenses and infiltrate this close to their heartland. At this point, the matter of having Anomis impersonate the Demon King could come to an end.
If they failed and both Noah and Anomis were killed, the worst case scenario would merely be the continuation of war. Having lost the Hero as vanguard and the Grand Prince as commander, the situation was already much better for Seleinu than before.
If they succeeded…
He wasn’t quite sure what choice Anomis would make. Would he choose to return as the Demon King, or choose to leave as a human? Of course, he might also be killed by Noah who broke his promise.
In any case, there would be an answer soon.
And when that time came, once Anomis showed any sign of fleeing… Seleinu’s eyes were ice-cold, like an iron sword gleaming under moonlight. To protect the Demon King’s territory, he would spare nothing.
The airship seemed to be getting noisy.
***
As soon as he walked out of the teleportation gate, Anomis immediately spotted that shiny bald head.
The bald head belonged to Cardinal Archbishop Adrian. At this moment, his face had gone pale from Noah’s “resurrection from the dead.” Good heavens, what kind of monster could survive in such desperate circumstances? When he clearly saw the captive Noah had brought, he nearly fainted from shock. Could this be, could this be…?
Noah stepped forward first, making several gestures over his chest,
“I praise my Lord’s name. He is the guardian of order, courtesy, and purity, and also the embodiment of wisdom, war, and victory. Under the blessing of Goddess Vesta, I present the Demon King to the Empire.”
Anomis thought to himself, this Hero… really knows how to put on an act! You didn’t talk like this in front of me!
Is this what they call business hours?
“Where is His Highness?”
Noah quickly cut to the main topic.
Adrian seemed to regain some composure, asking back with forced courage:
“Noah, what’s going on here?”
“I defeated the Demon King.”
Noah answered simply. If this weren’t such a formal occasion, Anomis suspected what he really wanted to say was: Are you blind? If you don’t need your eyes, you can donate them to others.
“You suddenly disappeared and suddenly appeared. How do we know this isn’t a conspiracy?”
Adrian immediately steered toward conspiracy theories, absolutely not allowing those uninformed soldiers on the airship to defect,
“What if you’re being controlled by the Demon King? Or for all we know, maybe you’ve joined the Demon King?”
Someone immediately followed his lead:
“The Demon King is still standing! If he’s a prisoner of war, why not make him kneel!”
Noah narrowed his eyes.
Anomis looked at Noah.
He was completely indifferent about it. If kneeling once could make these people turn around and go home, avoiding unnecessary war, he could even throw in a few kowtows as a bonus.
But Noah shook his head. Self-proof was the most foolish thing. Having dealt with nobles for several years, he knew that if he made the Demon King kneel now, they would immediately insist:
“The Demon King actually knelt down! To go so far as to act, and you still say this isn’t a conspiracy!”
No matter what he said would be wrong, so Noah instead smiled and asked:
“How about this then, I’ll remove the seal on the Demon King right now. That way we’ll know if it’s a conspiracy or not.”
Several guards standing nearby instinctively stepped back a few paces.
“Figure it out yourself in a moment.”
Noah suddenly lowered his voice.
Before Anomis could react, he shouted loudly:
“The Demon King has confessed to me that he planted spies on the airship, intending to harm His Highness. Adrian, do you plead guilty?”
No way… he’s still pinning blame on the Demon King at this moment!
“For His Highness, capture this traitor!”
Noah roared and lunged at Adrian first.
The airship immediately erupted into chaos. The Royal Guards belonging to the Grand Prince, the Church Guards following the Cardinal Archbishop, and officers of simple military rank… all fought in a melee, making it impossible to tell who was fighting whom. Perhaps afraid to gauge the Demon King’s current strength, no one dared approach Anomis. People came and went, but around him appeared a vacuum zone like Moses parting the sea.
Anomis stood there bewildered: Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?
Due to being at high altitude, everyone showed restraint in their fighting and didn’t use large-scale magic. But even so, the Imperial Army displayed abundant martial virtue. A long halberd flew past Anomis’s head, half of it embedding into the airship’s thin wall. If the gas chamber weren’t on this level, it probably would have leaked and crashed.
Anomis silently moved against the wall, his hand inadvertently touching a door handle. He turned to look, maybe he should go in and hide for a bit…
Inside the door was a simple yet luxurious room. The floor was covered with expensive handmade carpets, famous oil paintings hung on the walls, and two decorative rapiers crossed under the picture frame as guards.
A middle-aged noble male sat there on a velvet sofa. His dark curly hair was tied with a ribbon, lead-gray eyes buried in shadows, and deep nasolabial folds made him look somewhat weary.
…At a glance, clearly an office worker with many worries.
Anomis noticed that the man’s necktie was fastened with a jeweled clasp bearing a ginkgo emblem.
This was probably the Grand Prince. That made sense—if the old Emperor was in his sixties, having a Grand Prince over forty would be logical.
The two Church Guards watching over the Grand Prince, one left and one right, drew their swords and stepped forward. But when they saw clearly that the intruder was the Demon King, they hesitated. They weren’t here to protect the Grand Prince after all, so why should they oppose the Demon King? If the Demon King killed the Grand Prince here, wouldn’t that be perfect?
Anomis wanted to retreat, but there was a great battle raging outside…
Just in that moment of mutual hesitation, the Grand Prince raised his head, a sharp gleam flashing in his eyes—
He suddenly kicked over the left guard, drew one of the rapiers from the wall with his backhand, and with a SWOOSH cut the right guard’s throat. The left guard tried to get up, but was pinned down by a boot crushing his sword hand, the rapier slowly piercing through from the back of his neck to the floor.
The guards’ throats bubbled with blood, dying silently.
The Grand Prince wiped the rapier clean on the corpses, walked toward Anomis with the iron-blooded aura forged on battlefields. But when he saw the curse markings on Anomis’s neck, he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, his expression seeming to say: This generation’s Demon King is actually a wet-behind-the-ears brat?
He strode past Anomis, heading straight for the noisy battlefield.
This was Augustus, the Grand Prince of the Sacred Empire. Augustus-Julius-Caster. Julius was his father’s name, Caster was his family name. Anyone who saw Augustus would involuntarily be overwhelmed by that cold, sharp, confident aura.
However, at this moment, watching that tall and resolute back, Anomis’s mind was filled with: All princes must have relations with female sheep when they come of age.
…A furry fetishist?
For the Empire, “purity” is a very important concept. Specifically, it means ensuring the purity of human bloodlines.
The royal family name, Caster (castus), is Latin for “pure.” Their family emblem, the ginkgo, is also a plant that is absolutely pure in terms of bloodline. The goddess Vesta worshipped by the Empire is the guardian of purity.
