CHAPTER 47: TWO FACES OF THE BLACK DEMON

The snow had stopped falling. The wind had ceased. As if the whole world were holding its breath.

I walked at the front, my two abyssium swords crossed on my back. My black uniform—the one I had worn during the first war—clung to me like a second skin, gleaming under the wan daylight. The abyssium cast crimson reflections, as if the very matter burned with an inner fire.

Behind me, two silhouettes.

Kaelira, a sublime demoness, armored up to her thighs, her long black hair streaming in the blizzard, gripped her massive sword, also forged in abyssium. Her yellow eyes shone with a predatory gleam.

Sae, my first wife, my Queen, advanced with a quieter grace. Her black armor emphasized her hips and revealed glimpses of her pale thighs. She held a sacred lance reforged in abyssium, her slender fingers caressing its shaft the way one caresses a lover.

Before us, the army.

Four thousand demons packed tight, compact ranks, shields raised, pikes leveled. And at the center, their leader: the Saint’s uncle, draped in white furs, his helm adorned with golden horns. He snickered upon seeing us approach. Three black silhouettes advancing against a sea of steel.

— Three fools... he growled, amused. Three fools who will die believing themselves gods.

I stopped. My eyes swept over my two women, and my voice cracked like a sentence:

— I’ve leveled well. You too have received the same boost as my army. With the bond that unites us, you already surpass my own limits. With Nyss and Liora, you are no doubt the strongest on this battlefield. So... show me. Show me what you are capable of.

Kaelira laughed, a hoarse laugh that made the snow tremble beneath her steps. She sprang forward in a bound, sword already drawn.

— I’ll show you that I’m worth more than all the others combined, Sora! I’ll become your favorite by deeds and blood!

Then she charged. Her silhouette blurred in the wind, and already her blows were raining down on the first enemy rank, shattering shields and bones in a shower of sparks.

Sae, meanwhile, stayed at my side. She laid her gentle hand against my cheek, and her silver eyes pierced me with a tenderness that belonged only to her.

— Be careful, Sora... she murmured.

Her face was no longer that of a fighter, but of a woman in love. Her lips trembled with a word she did not dare speak, and yet I read it in her eyes.

— I’ll be there to guard your back.

I placed my hand over hers, pressing it to my cheek. My breath spilled into the cold.

— You too, be careful... You are the person dearest to me here.

Her cheeks flushed. She turned her gaze away, lips parted, and her heart beat so hard I could almost hear it through her armor.

— V-very well... let’s go, she said at last, her voice broken with emotion.

She turned her face, took up her lance again, and with a hoarse cry that had nothing tender left in it, she charged in turn, joining Kaelira in the melee.

I remained alone, a second more, my breath mingling with the storm. Then I drew my two blades and followed them.

Kaelira was the first to pierce the line. Her silhouette leapt like a black flame, her abyssium sword tracing a brutal arc. The first shield she struck split cleanly, two pieces bursting into the red snow. The man behind barely had time to scream: his chest opened in two, cleaved with a single backhand, his guts spilling onto his neighbors. She burst out laughing, her hips swaying like a whore in a trance, her breasts swelling with each blow, already covered in blood and hot splashes.

At her side, Sae advanced more slowly, but every step was deadly. The abyssium lance spun in her slender hands like a monstrous needle. A pikeman tried to strike her: his point glanced off her armor and shattered cleanly, bursting like glass against the black plate. The shock left the man vulnerable for a fraction of a second. Sae drove her lance under his chin, the iron emerging through his nape in a geyser of blood. She withdrew the weapon with a fluid motion, her white hair sticking to cheeks stained red. Her gaze, however, remained gentle, almost loving, as if each kill were a whispered prayer for me.

And I... I was nothing but a hurricane. My two abyssium blades cut everything.

Shields, swords, flesh, skulls: nothing resisted. I struck left, right, driving my boots into snow swollen with viscera. An axe crashed against my shoulder—it twisted like a twig, the steel shattering into splinters. I answered with a sharp blow: my blade entered through the man’s armpit and came out his belly, severing the spine. His body collapsed like a rag doll.

Panic seized the enemy ranks. Some hurled spells in haste, prayers spat into the storm. But abyssium drank magic. Flames ricocheted off our armor, deflected as by black mirrors, exploding in their own lines. Cries rose, confused, burned silhouettes buzzing in the snow.

Kaelira, still ahead, was disemboweling a rider still on his mount. She wrenched her sword from the man’s chest, then severed the horse’s head with a single stroke, letting the bloody mass collapse into the legs of its companions. She panted, her body streaming, her yellow eyes gleaming with carnivorous madness.

— More! More! she screamed, spattered with fresh blood.

Sae, meanwhile, stayed close to me. Her blows were clean, precise, surgical. Each enemy who approached died in an almost tender silence: a pierced throat, a pierced heart, a shattered skull. Between two strikes she set a hand on my back, as if to assure me she was there, my shadow, my queen.

I advanced through this red flood without slowing. Each gesture was a promise of death. My two blades whistled through the air, tracing red arcs, chunks of flesh falling around me like snow. I felt their bodies split, their cries break, and my boots sank into a sludge of blood, shit, and shattered brains.

Around us, the army of four thousand men was nothing more than a howling mass, a herd trapped in its own blood. Every attempt at resistance smashed against the abyssium, every hope broke beneath our weapons.

Three against thousands. And yet they were the ones dying like cattle.

Time blurred.

I no longer knew whether a minute or an hour had passed. All around me, Kaelira was still laughing, disemboweling riders while howling like a she-wolf in heat. Sae, quieter, pierced throat after throat with priestess-like precision. Their silhouettes danced in snow and fire, covered in blood, but nothing stopped them.

And I... I was no longer with them. I had pushed too far ahead. I had plunged alone, carried off by my own storm.

At first, I had counted. Each fallen enemy, each blade shattered against my armor, each cry smothered beneath my boot. But very soon, numbers ceased to make sense. The rhythm of my blows had become too rapid, too instinctive.

I killed.

Again.

Again.

Each face became the same. Each scream merged with the previous one. It didn’t matter whether they raised a weapon, begged, prayed: I split them in two, opened them from sternum to pubis, decapitated them with a backhand, impaled them until I felt their bodies convulse around my blades.

A man, pleading eyes raised, tried to lift his shield. My sword went through it, severing arm and torso in the same movement. His blood splashed my face. I barely blinked.

Another hurled a fireball. It exploded on my armor, deflected by abyssium, burning his own companions behind him. I walked through the flames without slowing, my hair blackened by soot, and drove my two blades into his mouth. His skull burst like an overripe watermelon.

I laughed.

Yes... I laughed.

A dry, inhuman laugh that vibrated in my chest like an echo of the void.

I felt my muscles scream, my temples throb, but I did not stop. The more I killed, the more I wanted. Each body that fell at my feet gave me hunger for another, and another still. I waded through the red sludge, my boots sucked down by the mixture of blood, shit, and brains.

— More... I breathed between my teeth.

A soldier tried to flee. I grabbed him by the hair and, with a sharp motion, tore out his throat with my crossed blades. Another fell to his knees, imploring. I crushed his skull beneath my heel, the wet crack resonating along my spine like a caress.

I no longer knew how many.

A hundred? Two hundred? Three hundred?

I was no longer a man. I was a machine of death. A black demon lost in the ecstasy of slaughter.

Every fiber of my body vibrated, every nerve screamed at me to continue. And I continued. I brought my blades down again and again, until I felt my forearms seize up, my fingers clench around the hilts. But I refused to let go.

I could no longer let go.

The entire world was nothing but a bloodbath, and I... I swam in it like a mad god.

A hand settled on my shoulder.

I turned by instinct, my blades already raised to cut.

But I halted my stroke at once.

Sae.

Her silver eyes were fixed on me, wide, gleaming with worry. Her face, reddened by the cold and stained with the blood of her victims, had nothing left of a warrior’s. It was that of a woman who feared for the man she loved.

— That’s enough, Sora... she murmured. You can stop now.

Her voice vibrated with a softness that even war could not corrupt. Her hand, slender but firm, slid from my shoulder to my cheek. Her blood-smeared glove caressed my skin, and that simple touch split the veil of rage that was blinding me.

— If you continue, she whispered, you won’t come back. I see you changing. Each victory, each gain in power... each massacre. You’re becoming insatiable. Not a leader, not a man... a demon. And I refuse to lose you because of that.

Her brow furrowed, her lips trembled. She wanted to protect me from the enemy, but above all from myself. I understood that she was standing there, between my madness and my humanity.

A broken laugh escaped me, dry, almost painful.

I lowered my head and whispered:

— ...Thank you, Sae.

I sheathed my blades for a moment. She nodded softly, following close as I resumed my march, her presence like a protective shadow. My heart, though covered in blood, beat harder at the feel of her hand leaving my cheek.

Before us, the army parted. A colossus advanced. White armor, cloak soiled with snow and blood, and in his hand a blade from another age, shining, alive. I recognized it at once: a legendary sword, capable of cleaving even abyssium.

He planted his boots in the snow and his voice thundered:

— Veyra. Garlan Veyra, General of the Holy Domain...

The Saint’s uncle.

His aura weighed like a mountain. I clenched my teeth, ready to draw, but a silhouette leapt at my side.

Kaelira.

Her chest still slick with blood, her yellow eyes burning like mad suns. Her abyssium sword quivered with hatred. She set her hand against my chest and breathed:

— This man is mine. I want this duel, Sora. Let me prove my worth... not with words, but with his corpse.

I fixed my gaze on her.

In her eyes there was neither doubt nor play. Only thirst for blood and that mad desire to please me.

I stepped back.

— Then take him. But make it to the death.

She smiled, predatory, and stepped toward the colossus. The General raised his sword, Kaelira tightened her grip on hers.

Two predators. Two beasts ready to devour one another.

The snow fell in silence. Their gazes locked. And the world held its breath.