Chapter 13: In the Abyss, the Sword Wields the Person Part 1

Released:

Originally, conflicts between the spawns of the Abyss were rare, even when they served different devils. This was largely due to the sheer size of the pie called the material world. It was so vast that no matter how much they divided it, it would never be enough.

Of course, this alone wasn’t enough to prevent clashes between Abyss creatures. While one reason was that there was plenty of prey to avoid unnecessary fighting, the other lay in the catastrophic consequences of conflict.

One of the few forces capable of banishing the Abyss entirely from the Material Plane was the Abyss itself. Attacking another spawn of the Abyss risked the aggressor’s own disappearance from the Material Plane.

And yet, Kriel was the exception to all of this.

He served no devil and had no interest in corrupting the Material Plane, but he was deeply invested in hunting down Abyss creatures.

Even when Satranak invoked the name of the devil he served, Kriel showed no reaction. Even offering him all the seeds of corruption he had amassed over time proved equally futile.

Where in the world did such a monster come from?!

Kriel seemed entirely immune to the desires inherent to any Abyss being.

The knight’s unyielding silence as he approached was oppressive, and Satranak desperately sought a way to turn the tide.

Illusion magic won’t work. More direct offensive magic? But he had already slashed apart a fireball cast without incantation with just a single swing of his sword!

Proper incantation was necessary for powerful magic, but invoking one would almost certainly leave him vulnerable to the knight’s attack before completion. Yet, to buy even a moment of time, he had to keep attacking.

Satranak’s eyes swept the depths of the Abyss in haste. He spotted a blade gradually taking its full form.

If magic won’t work!

Once again, Satranak unleashed several offensive spells. They weren’t meant to wound but to blind and confuse, if only briefly.

Behind the blinding flashes of red lightning and the thunderous cacophony of scattering ash, Satranak dashed forward.

With the supernatural senses granted to him as a demon, he could detect Kriel’s movements. The knight seemed unaware of his true intentions and was mechanically destroying the spells just as before.

Finally, Satranak gripped the hilt of the blade. The weapon that had once resembled a thin and fragile skeletal spine had now fully regained its form.

The blade slid noiselessly out from within the corpse’s heart. The body that was already a mummified husk crumbled into a heap of ashes as the sword was withdrawn.

Satranak felt an overwhelming surge of power flooding his body. With this meticulously charged demonic weapon, he could produce hundreds of seeds of corruption.

He never wanted to expend such boundless potential on a single fight, but—

Whoom!

The knight swung his greatsword. The illusions and afterimages vanished in an instant, leaving only the knight and Satranak. The keen tip of the greatsword once again pointed directly at him.

If he tried to conserve his power here, his head would surely bid farewell to his body.

Satranak muttered bitterly as if spitting out his frustration.

“This is such a waste.”

The knight didn’t stop.

“Because of a lunatic like you, the grand plan of the Archdevil has been distorted. I will feed your flesh to this sword and temper it in your blood!”

A piercingly blue light flickered from the sword Satranak raised high. Like the snowy plains of the north, or perhaps even fiercer.

But then that frigid light descended upon Satranak’s body.

***

“Uh.”

I couldn’t help but be taken aback. I got a rough idea after that initial charge.

That demon was a type specialized more in schemes than in actual combat. If he fought me head-on, ninety-nine out of a hundred times he would die, and in the remaining one time, he’d barely manage to run away.

That’s why I chose to minimize my movements and hold back on using my Bloodlust. The more fiercely and actively I moved, the more my Bloodlust consumption would skyrocket, and naturally, both the intensity and duration of the side effects would also increase.

Besides, there was nowhere to run in the depths of the Abyss anyway, so I planned to wait until he used up all his dark magic and then slowly take his head.

But suddenly, he ran off to some corner, drew a sword, and got engulfed in an ominous light…

And then he just died.

“What on earth….”

It was such a ridiculous sight that I couldn’t describe it any other way. As soon as that same blue light enveloped the demon’s body, he started exclaiming things like, “Oh… Ooh…” and attempted to attack.

In the end, he couldn’t.

Because his entire body began to freeze from the hand gripping the sword onward. He tried to use magic somehow to stop the ice from spreading and eventually went so far as to set himself on fire.

Maybe thanks to that desperate effort, the ice’s growth stopped, but that didn’t mean his ordeal was over. I could see his arms gradually withering beneath the transparent ice that covered both hands.

“No, this can’t be happening!”

While shouting that cliché line, the demon ended up turning into a shriveled mummy. Even its trembling, convulsing body twitched a few more times before going still.

It was so unbelievable that I even waited a while, thinking maybe he was faking his death for a surprise attack.

But the demon never rose again.

[What the hell is that? Some kind of moron?]

Orishin also made a remark. Even that horse head ghost found such a death to be ridiculous.

[That guy’s been using the Seven Demon Weapons by breaking them one after another, right? Yet he still expected them to acknowledge him as their master. As if he could’ve fought well without ever properly wielding a sword.]

“How sarcastic.”

[I’ve never had any fondness for the Abyss. Thanks to the Abyss, I’ve ended up spiritually decapitated, so now I hate it even more!]

Orishin poured out his rage against the Abyss. The Abyss never did this world any good, so it deserves whatever scorn it gets.

“But still. How am I supposed to move that….”

The demon grabbed it wrong and basically died on the spot. Since I also belong to the same Abyss, there’s no guarantee that if I pick it up, I won’t end up rolling around on the ground, screaming, “Argh! Save me, Morgina!”

[If you want to be safe, why not wait for that violent saintess? After all, it’s something from the Abyss, so if we drench it in a bucket of holy power, it won’t be able to move, right?]

“I guess that’s the only way. In that case, I’ll head down the other path and help destroy the core.”

The moment I turned my back, I heard the soft swish of cloth sliding across the floor.

I immediately looked back.

The demon was rising to his feet.

[That’s not the demon, is it?]

The vitality drained from his entire body, leaving his skin compressed to the limit and clinging tightly to his bones. Every slight movement he made was accompanied by an unpleasant creaking sound.

The most clear difference from the previous demon was his eyes. A cold, blue radiance identical to the chilling light emitted by the sword now shone from the demon’s gaze.

[Damn it. Did the sword devour the demon?]

The right hand gripping the sword continued to creak ominously. From his fingertips to his shoulder, his joints seemed to pulse rhythmically, like waves.

It was a strange sight, but to me, it evoked the image of a musical instrument being tuned before a performance.

When I saw that grotesque scene, I…

—Immediately charged toward the demon.

I was always the type to skip the dramatic entrance cutscenes and land one more hit on the boss instead!

The demon’s creaking and tuning-like adjustments had not yet stopped. I raised the greatsword above my head.

***

The Dark Knight lunged forward, leaving a crimson trail behind. Even Orishin who was now in spirit form, momentarily lost sight of Kriel due to the sudden burst of acceleration.

The crimson streak created by Kriel somehow shifted above his head. The blade, now drenched in vibrant bloodlust, was lifted to the ceiling before descending once more toward the demon.

At the moment of the strike, the bloodlust concentrated on the blade left a clear, red afterimage resembling a crimson pillar as it swiftly plunged downward.

The surging greatsword wasn’t satisfied with a mere decapitation; it seemed ready to split the demon’s entire body in one decisive swing.

Clang!

But the greatsword never made contact with the demon’s flesh. The demon—or more precisely, the corpse’s right hand—moved and swung the sword to intercept the attack.

Kriel marveled at the speed of that movement. It wasn’t just that his attack had been blocked; it was something far beyond ordinary defense.

Kriel’s attack descended from above in a vertical strike. Typically, countering such an attack meant applying horizontal force to twist the trajectory.

But Kriel was confident that no ordinary strength could deflect his sword, and even if the trajectory was altered, he could easily adapt and respond.

However, the corpse demon’s response was different.

It stepped back and shifted its stance. At that moment, Kriel prepared to close the distance and continue his attack. But the corpse demon moved first.

Its right hand swung upward toward the sky, mirroring Kriel’s vertical slash. The key difference was that while Kriel’s target was the opponent’s body, the corpse demon aimed for his weapon.

The descending slash of the greatsword collided with the corpse demon’s strike. The combined force of Kriel’s immense strength and the corpse demon’s eerie power drove the greatsword into the floor of the Abyss, shattering it and embedding the blade deeply.

Immediately, the demon’s left hand moved. It formed a gesture commonly used in dark magic. The ground of the Abyss recoiled, clamping down on Kriel’s greatsword as though attempting to devour it.

It’s going to be tough to pull it out right now.

This wasn’t the first time Kriel found himself unable to wield the greatsword effectively. It had been the same when fighting that horse head ghost before.

[Ah, damn it. Couldn’t you handle it a little more gently?]

Kriel drew the dagger.

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