Chapter 188: Rhodes's Plan
His maniacal laughter echoed through the empty chamber. He lay on the floor, black blood pouring from his wounds, a twisted, triumphant smile on his face. The holy sword had been teleported away, into the hands of Lord Shurahat. The core of their plan had been achieved. This... this would surely earn him a place in the annals of demon history.
"The Demon King will reign supreme! Hahaha—" His laughter was cut short by a violent cough, and a torrent of blood and viscera erupted from his mouth. A strengthened light arrow from Serie, and the loss of an arm... his life was now rapidly fading.
Serie stared at the spot where the rift had been, now just a shimmering ripple in the air. The holy sword had been taken, right before her eyes. To have allowed them to take it so easily... it was a disgrace.
And the one responsible... he was still lying there, laughing.
Her killing intent locked on to him. She raised her hand, and a new light began to gather at her fingertips. She would wipe him, and his filthy soul, from the face of the earth.
"Wait, Serie," he said.
She paused and turned to him, a question in her eyes. She had warned him, but he had done nothing, had just let them take the sword. She didn't understand.
He met her gaze, his own expression still calm, and looked down at the demon on the floor, and then back at the spot where the sword had been. "Why?" she asked. "You could have stopped them before the rift closed. You could have saved the 'Light of Ersten'."
Flamme was also stunned. It had all happened so fast. The corruption of the sword, the demon's attack on her teacher, and then his own, swift and deadly, counterattack, and then the crystal, the explosion, the teleportation... it had all happened in a matter of seconds, so fast she hadn't even had time to cast a single spell. She had thought that her other teacher had just been too slow to stop it. But now... it seemed he had had another plan all along.
Even the demon on the floor was now looking at him with a mixture of confusion and a dawning horror.
He didn't answer her right away. He just slowly raised his hand, and in his palm, a single, faint thread of a golden light appeared and began to spin. "You see, my connection to the 'Light of Ersten' is not yet broken." It was his first holy sword. He had been there when it had been forged, and when it had been reforged. And the spell that allowed it to store faith... it had been his own design. He was a part of it.
Her own eyes narrowed. She could feel it, the faint resonance between him and the sword. It was weak, but it was there. So the sword, though it had been corrupted and had been taken, it was still connected to him. "So what?" her own doubts had not been dispelled, but had grown even stronger. "It has been corrupted, and it has been taken by the demons. Can you stop them from using its power, from all the way over here?"
If they had just taken it, she would not have been so worried. A stronger demon, a more chaotic world... it might have even been a little interesting. But only if that power was still under their control. The power of faith... as one of the few who had stood with him against the goddess, she knew just how terrifying it was. With the gods now gone, it was the most powerful force in the world. And now... the demons had it.
"Look at him!" she said, and pointed to the demon on the floor. "He was able to repel my attack with just a fraction of its power. And if Shurahat, or this so-called 'new Demon King', were to get his hands on all of it... the consequences would be unimaginable." Her words were a heavy weight in the air, and even the demon, on the floor, a look of triumph now in his eyes, seemed to agree.
"Relax, Serie," he said, his voice a soothing, calming sound, like stroking a fluffy, angry kitten. "That was just a small sliver of its power, a mere drop in the ocean."
"But with that power, he became stronger."
"I thought you would have enjoyed that," he said, a knowing look in his eye.
"That's different," she shook her head. "A chaos I can control, and a chaos that I cannot... they are two different things."
"Is that so? Well, don't worry," he said. "Have you forgotten? When I first imbued the sword with its magic, a thousand years ago... I added a few... restrictions."
The look of triumph on the demon's face was now replaced by a look of a dawning horror, and even Flamme was now looking at him with a new curiosity.
"Restrictions..."
Her anger was now tempered by a long-forgotten memory. She remembered now. When he had been creating the 'false Divine Strike', he had told her that he was adding a restriction to it, so that it could only be used against demons, and only in a war to save the world. And the 'Light of Ersten' had been imbued with not only the spell to store faith, but also the runes of that very spell, so that it could be used, in a time of a great crisis, to turn the tide of a battle. "But what if the demons can break your seal?"
"Oh, they can," he said, and she frowned. But his next words made her relax a little. "But it will take a long, long time. A few hundred years, at least." His own creation... it was not so easily broken. The magic in the grimoire Norne had written, that had been 'open-source', so to speak. But this... this had been heavily encrypted. Unless you had a talent for creation yourself... it would take decades just to understand the magical formula.
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