Tales of Death´s Daughter

“We can do this.” With Lucy holding the last two remaining demon generals at bay and the archer being occupied by our army, there was nothing in our way anymore.

“We have to do this. Let’s go.” Schwarz said and directly dashed out of the door while keeping tap of any arrow flying towards us.

“Straight ahead towards the castle!” Ellie shouted out and ran after Schwarz.

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Gregory said, still following after the others readily. Sighing a little because of our horrendous teamwork that didn’t improve at all, I ran out as well and followed in their footsteps.

Thankfully, Lucy’s claim seemed to come true as nobody attacked us, neither the archer nor the two other demon generals. Even though Luna’s plan wasn’t viable in the end because of that surprise attack, it still kind of came true. Every one of us had their own tasks from defending the walls to attacking the fortress. And we had the crucial role. If we failed, everyone would die.

And that’s not something I was keen on seeing. As such, we ascended the final stairs to the castle’s keep heavy hearted and in silence, always wary about any surprise attack.

Then, I used a search spell and found a single life source in the whole building. It was quite tedious to get there, especially because I didn’t want to waste any mana, but we still reached the place that gave us an ominous feeling after what felt like an eternity.

The black doors opened itself, giving us free entry in what looked like a throne room with a bone throne in the middle of it. And on it, there sat a two horned figure, looking down upon us with red eyes.

He was tall, really tall and was honestly way more imposing than any demon I had seen before.

“You finally made your way into my castle. Congratulations.” He said way more elegantly than I assumed him to be.

“This is the day you will pay for your actions!” Gregory shouted out heroically.

“My actions? Oh my dear, if we do talk about justice and stuff, how about we start with you so called heroes? A power hungry prince, a commoner attempting rape, and a cat girl abusing the weakness of her lover to creep into his heart. Really, well done. But I can see why Lucy allowed you all entry. Gregory couldn’t even rebel even if he wanted, Ellie only cares about Louis and then we have a boy who cannot stop loving her. And to round it all up, we have someone incapable of hurting any intelligent being. You are useful tools, nothing more, nothing less.” He explained but I could accept any of this. Lucy and I were friends. We didn’t use us.

“Shut up! That’s not true.” Ellie said surprisingly convinced, even though she was the first to be doubtful of Lucy, excluding Gregory who couldn’t stand her.

“Is it not? Then tell me, if she represents the gods, why is she a vampire? A despicable creature only caring about bloodshed and their weird fantasies of a family?” That … I couldn’t answer right away. But I was sure that Lucy wasn’t like this. She was kind. Took care of everyone, including the weakest in society.

“What are you talking about?” I thus asked angrily.

“Ahh … Let me phrase it differently. Are you sure the gods are nice like they claim to be?” The demon king asked and this time, I was exactly sure what to answer.

“Irminsul resurrected me.” I stated and frowned a little as he didn’t seem to be that impressed.

“And she let your parents die … and you died as well without her helping you, isn’t that right? But saving you from pain isn’t what she wants … her desire was to make you feel indebted to her.” He explained with a crooked smile on his face. But even though his story made sense from the viewpoint of an evildoer, I still couldn’t accept it. Irminsul had her powers drastically reduced on this planet. She simply didn’t have the capability to help before my death.

“That’s not true.” I stated firmly.

“And you, Ellie? What about the god of infinity? He didn’t even teach you how you can use your gift for anything! And Schwarz? Did your god teach you anything except how to be a father? They did nothing.” The demon lord shouted out.

“They gave us this new life.” Ellie said right away and started circling around the demon lord to attack him together with Schwarz.

“Oh really? They gave it to us? It’s a curse! This planet is a fucking zoo! They created this whole world for us and they are laughing at every step we take. Some of them thrive of our misfortune, some love to see us in pain while others are interested in the sociological aspect. But we are still their lab rats.” What he said didn’t make any sense at all. Why would the gods do such a thing? They were all mighty, so why should they plan something this silly?

“They wouldn’t do that!” I stated once more.

“Why not? Imagine living for an unimaginable amount of time. Isn’t it boring at some point? You have done everything they wanted, did everything you possibly could and enjoyed every pleasure of life already. So why not throw a few souls into broken world ruled by despots and see what happens? Then slap a few mechanics onto it which some of the younger gods have fun with an you’ll have a family friendly freak show for every god there is!” The demon king said and threw his arms into the air. But even if we were done kind of weird entertainment show for gods, that didn’t mean we could do everything. The others were still humans … and he trampled on their lives.

“So what? Even if that is true, it doesn’t justify any action you took!” He had murdered. He was responsible for my families death. And he threatened the rest of the world.

“It does. Because it will put an end to it. Not every god is complicit in this experiment. Some do not like it and would like to stop it from the inside. And I will invite one of them onto this world to set right what’s wrong!” He shouted out angrily.

“Do you have any proof of this? Anything?” Ellie asked, already behind him at this point.

“I don’t. But others have it. Search for the apostle of truth and she will give you all the proof you need.” The demon king explained calmly.

“Liar. You just want to save your skin!” Schwarz shouted out.

“On the contrary. I am here to make you an offer. Come. Join me and we will get rid of the gods together.” What? That again? Why should we take on that offer if he declined already?

“You cannot get rid of the gods. It’s impossible. The gods are everywhere. The god of air is in the breath we take, the god of water in the bath we take … and getting rid of them means getting rid of air and water itself.” I explained, slightly frowning as he had such a massive misconception of the gods.

“… they are manipulating you. That’s what they want you to believe. It was that saint who told you that, isn’t it? She is working with them. She wants us to fight each other! She was calling for this crusade, she was pushing you to get to me. Because the gods want to see conflict in between us. They don’t want the saint to do anything. They just need her to stroke the fire.” He hissed out angrily, still in disbelief that we weren’t buying his story at all.

“She would never do that!” I said in defence of Lucy. She was trying to help, not to control us.

“Even though she actually did that? She basically controls the whole world already. She is the queen, the head of faith and she controls the strongest warriors on this planet. She gave all of you the opportunity to come here by raising an army of undead trampling through my lands. And I am going to take that all away from her.” The demon king shouted out and hammered the throne with his fist. Part of it broke off right away and he stood up to glare at the three of us.

“I will not allow you to hurt her.” Schwarz said loudly and very clearly.

“Gregory, I’m not attempting to topple the Worcester kingdom. If I wanted, I could have done that years ago. No, I want to banish all the gods and reduce their influence to a minimum. And if you join me, I can grant your wishes. Lucy, you and Louis could have a nice cottage together, Schwarz can spend all his time he wants with an imprisoned Lucy, Sofie you can shorten the violence we are in by giving up on fighting and Gregory, I will make you king.” He proposed and extended his hand towards the three of us, completely disregarding Ellie behind him.

“That’s nothing anyone of us could accept.” I said, even though Schwarz and Gregory seemed strangely tempted. But Schwarz quickly shook his head and got back to his senses, but Gregory certainly didn’t do so.

“King …” He muttered quietly.

“And you could marry your beloved sister without any recuperations.” The demon king proposed which made the three of us look at him rather weirdly.

“I …” He muttered, extending his hand to the demon king as well.

“Gregory?” I asked rather concerned. If he wanted to get close to the demon without being suspicious, that was definitely the way to go, but I seriously doubted that.

“What if he says the truth?” Gregory asked, still looking at that hand tempted.

“Don’t let greed blind you!” I shouted out as he stepped closer to the demon king.

“But … I don’t want to be the the gods plaything? And Lucy was suspicious the whole time!” He said slowly, still drawn towards that hand like a child to candy.

“You are just making excuses now.” Ellie said angrily, ready to strike at the demon king and Gregory if needed.

“Maybe I am …” Gregory admitted and made one final step to the tall demon king. “But maybe he is speaking the truth. And I belief we need to do what’s best for us. And in this case it’s to be crowned king for me … but without any outsiders help. Explosion.” For a split second, I noticed the demon kings face contorting into anger before it vanished in flames. We had the luxury of being defended by one of Ellie’s invisible barriers, but he certainly didn’t have that. I heard his screams, barely overshadowed by the shattering glasses to our right as Gregory’s spell blasted everything away for several seconds. My barrier cracked a little, but luckily held out the force of the spell.

And then, as the smoke of the explosion lifted slowly and the heat vanished slowly, we were met with an impossibility. The demon king stood there, grabbing Gregory’s army and flinging him away into a wall.

“I have expected more from you.” He growled and turned around as a spear was approaching him quickly. He caught it in front of his chest, and locked it into place without any issue. “I know how you fight. You have no chance against me.”

But Schwarz didn’t believe in second in that. He ran towards the demon king and brandished his sword downwards, allowing him to use much of his strength. And yet, the demon king didn’t seem to be that impressed. He held up his hand and conjured a black barrier without even chanting. The sword crashed into the barrier and broke through it immediately. The look on his face turned from one of superiority to one of confusion and finally into that of pain as the blade cut through his hand and part of his lower arm.

Before Schwarz could strike once more though, the demon king evaded to the side and let go of Ellie’s short spear.

Quickly, I ran over towards Gregory and healed him right away, even though I still wasn’t entirely sure about his allegiance.

“Are you alright?” I still asked concerned.

“Yeah … Lightning Bolt!” He said and hit the demon king right on his back. And yet, he didn’t seem that bothered by it, even though the attack certainly left a mark on his hairy skin after melting his black amour away.

But the demon king was hardly able to do anything against Gregory’s attack as he was fully focused on defending against Schwarz who he apparently severely underestimated.

But then, the demon king apparently had a better idea as he avoided Schwarz’s and Ellie’s attacks, only to dash towards one of the window and jump out of it, leaving us behind stupefied.

“After him! We cannot allow him to get to the wall or Lucy!” Ellie shouted and directly rushed back towards the door, with us hit on her heels. In record time, we reached the first floor again, only to be met with a rather surprising armed force.

Humans.

“What in the world … why are you here?” Ellie asked but sadly got no answer as they attacked us right away. Schwarz didn’t seem to care much about their race as he was already swinging his sword at one of them, but I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him backwards as quickly as I could.

“Back upstairs!” Ellie said and we turned around, ran back into the throne room and locked the doors.

“How do we get down?” Ellie asked, completely ignoring the issue of the humans fighting against us for the time being. But she was right with that as they weren’t our objective.

“Wind magic! Miss Dove does it all the time so we should be able to do so as well.” I explained in a hurry. The demon king was still visible in the moonlight, apparently waiting for us for some stupid reason.

“Should? Can you do it or not?” Ellie asked concerned and looked down. We were on the fourth floor … jumping down without any protection would be hard.

“There is only one way to find out.” I said and gulped loudly. Then, I climbed onto the windowsill alongside the others and closed my eyes. “Wind.” I muttered and jumped down right away. We were certainly slowed down by the wind blasting upwards, but it was still far too little.

“Barrier.” Luckily Ellie was rather quick witted and created a thin barrier beneath us which directly broke through, but slowed down our fall enough to be manageable. As I increased the intensity of the wind, her barriers got weaker and weaker until she didn’t need them anymore. Like a feather, our feet touched the ground in front of the keep and we directly ran towards the open gate following the demon king closely.

“I will show you the truth right now. I will reveal the ugly side of the saint to the world for everyone to see.” He shouted towards us and landed on top of an old watch tower. Immediately, Schwarz kicked the door open and rushed inside while we naturally followed suit. And this time, the demon lord waited on top of the tower for us, but didn’t seem to be interested in fighting us.

“Die!” Schwarz growled, but the demon king merely avoided his attack and laughed a little. His gaze was fixated on the gate of the city, and even though it was far away, I had no doubt he saw what was happening. A smile crept on his face and he laughed loudly.

“Teleport.” Schwarz wanted to attack him once more, Ellie was also attempting to stab him before his magic activated and even Gregory fired another lightning bolt at the demon king. They all missed.

The demon king fled the scene, mere seconds before my heart clenched and memories of my last death resurfaced. It was so painful that my limbs felt completely numb and powerless. It was far worse than the experience I had made with this magic in the past, far worse than what should be possible.

A bubble of pitch black darkness spread out from the top of the gate in a split second, pushing everything in its wake away, grinding stones to dust and killing the demons that made their way on top of the partly collapsed wall.

It was as if the end of the world had started. That bubble grew and grew in size and let absolutely no light through. It expanded for a whole kilometre before it finally stopped and stayed in place, giving off this heart clenching feeling of dying to everyone.

“What is that?” Schwarz pressed out underneath his breath, barely able to stand by using his sword as a crutch.

“I … don’t know. We have to go there.” Ellie said and I couldn’t agree more. All of our friends might have been there. Luna, Lucy, Miss Dove, the Constable … everyone.

Gritting my teeth, I stood up slowly and walked towards the stairwell in the tower. The others fared far worse than me for whatever reason, but my healing magic seemingly helped them somewhat. Thus, we made our way towards the dome protected by a shining green light by using one of the two main streets. As soon as we spotted the light of a few torches, we approached them more hesitatingly, the humans in the keep fresh on our mind.

But luckily, they weren’t our enemies. I remembered a few of their faces right away but the most striking one was definitely the bulky adventurer, standing tall while everyone around her gripped their hearts.

“What …” I asked, standing beside Miss Dove and extended my hands towards the dome.

“You might not want to touch that. It’s rotating faster than you can imagine.” He said, picked up a nearby rock and placed it at the dome. It pulverised right in front of my eyes and as he pulled it back, he showed me the completely flat side of the rock.

“What is that? And don’t lie to us.” Ellie demanded, clearly shaken by this magic that shouldn’t be possible. No one could conjure such a devastating thing and keep it for a prolonged period of time. Nobody.

“That … it was there all of a sudden and pushed us away.” He admitted slowly and gripped his chin. “We have no time for that. Sofie, how many can you teleport back to the border in a single day?”

“Twenty … why are you asking?” And why did he try to change topic that quickly? Ellie was already fuming with anger, but he didn’t  didn’t seem to mind at all. If anything, he was panicking which was understandable given the current situation.

“Start with the adventurers right away.” He said a bit exhausted and sat down on the ground slowly.

“But that would take weeks to finish.” I said right away.

“We are only forty six left …” He admitted and looked down to the ground saddened.

There was only one question on everyone’s mind. What … happened there?