It was over, the battle was won. I collapsed where I stood, panting heavily and looking at what was left of the sealing that was hit by my last attack. I had neither the energy to talk, nor the strength to stand, my body ached all over, hands - numb. The last attack - the very concentration of all of my power and mana into a single strike, split the very room into two, but left me utterly spent.
"Cough, cough… Ugh… You did well, swordsman…" The demon's voice rang in my ears. I panicked, not knowing what to do. I had nothing left to fight with, if the demon lived, I would die.
I lifted my head and opened my eyes, the demon was lying in a pool of his own blood split from shoulder to the hips into two. It seemed that he wasn't able to fight either. I sighed in relief.
"You know… I had so much fun fighting you, swordman, cough, cough… That this fight is probably the pinnacle of my life. Now I can die content." Vulcan said, his breathing labored and uneven. "As a thank you for this gift - for this fight, I'll give you a bit of advice… Turn back now…"
"What… What do you mean?" I weakly asked. "After all I've been through, after all we've been through, you want me to turn back?!"
"You are still young, swordsman, still full of potential for growth, do not throw it all away now…"
"Are you saying that I might lose to the demon king?"
"I am saying that you will lose to the demon king." Vulcan emphasized the word 'will'.
"Compared to you, just how strong are demon kings?"
"Hah… Compared to me… Cough… Compared to me… A normal demon king is like a child. Hell, I used to spar with the previous ones for fun and would win most matches."
"Then, why?"
"Why am I telling you to turn back?" The demon smiled. "That's because the current demon king is a monstrous being in whose presence even I tremble…" He coughed again. "We demons tend to sense the strength of other living beings instinctively and that thing that took the throne… I felt like it could end me with merely a thought…" Vulcan gave a labored laugh while I sat there absorbing his words and listening to his ever-weakening breathing.
Finally I asked the question that has been on my mind for the whole fight. "Why didn't you kill a single one of us? You could have done so easily, so why?"
"Why? Because in spite of living for fighting, I have never taken a life." The demon answered. "In my eyes, fighting isn't about winning or losing, nor is it about killing, revenge or any other meaningless thing. I fight for two reasons only - personal growth and pleasure."
"In my mind, there is no greater joy than fighting a worthy opponent with all your might and ultimately taking the win. But if you kill him in the process, cough, cough… If you kill your opponent in the process, you will never be able to fight him again, you will never be able to learn from him again."
"If you fight and kill someone that is weaker than you, you take away that person's potential for growth and take away your own opportunity to fight him when he is at his best - 5, 10, or even 20 years later."
"That is the reason why I never took the throne, even though I was qualified for it. In order to become the demon king, the previous demon king must be killed and I would never destroy one of my precious training partners…"
"Now you know why I told you to turn back. You have so much potential for growth, don't waste it fighting someone… Something that can not be defeated…" Vulcan's breathing slowed and finally stopped. After regaining some of my strength, I slowly crawled towards him to check if he was really dead and saw that he died with a smile on his face.
A telepathic message popped into my brain. "Arthur, what happened there? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Exhausted, but still alive. As for the others…" I stopped and looked around with great difficulty. "They seem fine, but they won't be fighting any time soon."
"What about the general?" The telepathic message read.
"Dead."
"Good, now hurry up, chop off that demon's head and present it to the demon army, I won't be able to hold on for much longer."
"Roger." I had almost forgotten the reason for fighting Vulcan in the first place. I groaned and stood up, limped my way towards my sword and picked it up. Then, I began my long and arduous journey back to the demon general's corpse and, after approaching it, I raised up my sword.
The sword felt as heavy as a mountain in my hands, but I couldn't let it down, I couldn't swing it down on Vulcan's exposed neck, for some reason, I hesitated. It took me a moment or two to collect my thoughts and feelings, maybe Vulcan's warrior mentality had rubbed off on me, maybe I just felt bad about desecrating a corpse, but I knew that I had to do it. I knew that, the more I hesitated the less of a chance of victory we had, so I swung the sword.
The sword whooshed while cutting the air, but, at the moment of contact, it broke in two. An adamantium blade, forged by a master dwarven craftsman and hailed as one of the treasures of the Chelian kingdom, bestowed onto me by the king himself, broke in two.
I looked at the half-blade in my hands - chipped beyond belief, I looked at the other half now lying on the floor - chipped beyond belief - then sighed. "What do I do now?"
My strength - depleted, my blade - broken, my allies - down, time - running out, I had no other choice, but to drag the half-split corpse of a once great general through the ground towards the balcony.
This eight foot tall, muscle-bound, behemoth of a demon, even split in half, still weighed at least 200 pounds and the trip to the balcony exhausted the very last sliver of strength that I had left.
Finally, after reaching my destination, I propped him up, inhaled as much as I could and shouted for all to hear. "Vulcan Asura is dead!!!" Then my vision went dark and I passed out.
_________________________________________________________________________
I awoke in a massive bed. My body was still sore and aching, my head was about to split open.
"You're finally awake…" A calm melodic voice graced my ears.
"For… For how long was I out, Lina?" I asked, turning my head towards the girl sitting beside the bed.
"Three days and nights."
"I see… How are the others?"
"Most got off with light injuries, they are completely healed by now, but your special unit wasn't so lucky - most were heavily injured, some had broken bones and damaged internal organs, your condition was the worst out of anyone."
"..."
"We are ready to move out whenever you're all healed up, I've been casting healing spells on you whenever I had the chance, so get better and lead us through one last push towards home." Lina said.
"...It won't be that easy… Maybe…" I hesitated. "Maybe we should turn back…"
"We can't!" Lina stood up in protest. "After all that we've been through in this accursed world, you want to turn back now? In that case, what have we been training for? What have we been fighting for? What about our families, that we will never see again, what about those that fell in…"
"It's not that simple." I interrupted her. "Our last opponent - the demon general Vulcan Asura - was an opponent that was far out of our league…"
"Yes, but you've already defeated him, so…"
"Barely…" I interrupted again. "I put my life on the line, spent all the mana that I had, exhausted my strength to the limit and I barely defeated him." I emphasized the word barely. "The funny thing is that he wasn't even trying to kill any one of us, if he wanted to, we'd all be dead. He was an opponent on par with the previous demon kings and we won only because he was holding back."
"But you've already defeated him and, if he's at the level of a demon king, defeating the real thing shouldn't be impossible, should it?" Lina asked.
"You know that one of the inherent horo's skills is 'Eyes that see the truth', right?"
"Yes, it allows you to discern the truth from the lies, what about it?"
"And you know that I find this skill unethical, therefore I usually keep it deactivated?"
"What's your point?"
"My point is that this skill activated for some reason the moment I depleted all of my mana and I heard the last words and warning that Vulcan left for us all about the current demon king - 'Turn back now…' He said. 'You have so much potential for growth, don't waste it fighting someone… Something that can not be defeated…'"
"Vulcan mentioned how he - one of the strongest, if not the strongest demon currently alive - felt while in the presence of the current demon king…" I continued. "Vulcan felt that the current demon king could end him with merely a thought."
"I want to go home, I really do, but the lives of all of you - the ones that follow me are more important to me than returning home." I lowered my eyes. "Maybe, we should just…"
"Train." This time I was the one getting interrupted. "We will take a few weeks to train in this castle, we have experienced what it's like fighting someone that is far stronger than us, now we have the chance to analyze our strengths and weaknesses, to create new techniques, learn new skills and grow even stronger." Lina grabbed me by the chin and moved my head so that our eyes would meet. "We will move forward and we will get back home, the demon king be damned."
"Yeah…" I said after thinking for a while. "You're right, if we learn from our mistakes, if we stay together and fight as one, just how strong could this demon king really be?"
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