Against the Demon Lord 2

The darkness dispersed. And when it did, the only thing that was left was Alan's unmoving body.

"Alan!" Luciella screamed in terror as she ran towards Alan.

Unlike her, I couldn't do anything but stare in shock.

Despite the barrier of darkness that surrounded them before, I heard everything that the Demon Lord said to Alan. I heard about the identity of the Demon Lord, the truth about the demonkind, and most importantly, I heard about Alan's weakness. And after hearing that, only a single emotion occupied my mind.

It was self-hatred.

My whole life I hated those who stood by the sidelines. I hated that people used their helplessness as an excuse to run away. I hated that they felt no shame about leaving everything to the hero candidates just because they were different.

I thought that I had found my answer. I accepted the future that Alan gave me and decided to believe that this world could change for the better. And in order to do my part, I decided I would help Alan save the world.

I lacked the resolve to save the world myself, but I could help someone else do it.

What a load of horseshit.

Just who did I think Alan was? I respected him from the bottom of my heart. I didn't think he was perfect or anything of the sort, but his determination was so fiery, so inspiring that I ended up  following him blindly. It wasn't his fault; I could never blame him for inspiring me. But how could I forget such a stupid and simple thing?

Alan Welker was only a human.

He was nothing but a twenty-year-old boy who had once lost everything to the demons. He was traumatized, he was flawed, he was sometimes oblivious to certain things.

And he also had something he wanted to cling to.

Just like I was clinging to the future he showed me, he also took that future from someone else. And that was fine. Taking inspiration, following hope that was passed onto you, finding strength in others—all of that was fine. No, I would be the first one to say that all of that was great. Now, two and a half years into this journey, I could confidently say that.

But clinging to something out of weakness—believing in the infallibility of a young man like him—that wasn't fine. The reason I didn't notice his flaws was very simple. It was the same reason why Alan never noticed the nature of demons.

Because it was inconvenient to us.

I didn't have the resolve to save the world. I didn't have the resolve to defeat the Demon Lord. And because of that, I wanted to keep believing that Alan's determination was this beautiful flawless thing. Because the moment I noticed it, would be the moment I could no longer rely on him for everything.

No matter how much I said I could believe in this world getting better, deep inside, I was afraid. I was scared that if I died, then my death would be worthless. That it would change nothing in this world. Just like how it was in the past.

I wanted to live. I wanted to touch that future that Alan showed me with my own hands. I would likely not get to see it to its completion, but if I could even grasp the faintest of its outlines, it would be enough for me. That's what I felt.

And that weakness of mine killed Alan.

Elias, Luciella, Reyes, and finally, Alan. All of them and many others helped me find hope. They helped me regain my purpose when I was at my worst. And yet, I let two of them die to my weakness.

But no more. I would not let my friends die because of me. If it meant saving them all, I was determined to give my life away. And that's why I prayed.

Please, give it back to me. Now, I'm ready to accept its weight.

A pillar of light rose.

I was surrounded by light. It was a familiar feeling. But it had been so long that I forgot what it felt like. And then, I called to the power I had once lost. The power that once defined my whole existence.

"The Cloak of Storms!"

In every corner of the throne room, the winds swirled. They all traveled and coalesced as they rushed towards the same destination—towards me. Once they reached me, they gathered around me as I was their King.

The Demon Lord's face twisted in surprise and delight.

"And here I thought your turn would never come, Zephyrus Meyer! Are you the next Hero who will challenge me?"

His theatrical words grated on my nerves. I was in no mood to entertain his nonsense.

"I will not challenge you—I will slay you. Your reign of terror has gone on for too long."

"Slay me?" The Demon Lord asked with a smile. "After everything you've heard, are you still willing to strike me down?"

"Yes," I answered confidently. "None of that changes what I need to do. War has gone on for twelve long years. Many people have given away their lives. I will not let their sacrifices be in vain."

And then, I disappeared from his sight. Shock colored his face as he looked around the throne room. I appeared behind him and slashed at him with my sword. Just barely, the Demon Lord blocked my strike in time.

"Amazing! So that is the once strongest bearer of her Blessing in this era! But are you sure, you're not rusty after three years?"

"Shut up!" I shouted and disappeared from his sight once more.

He was right that I hadn't used the Blessing in three long years. This entire time, I have been adjusting to fighting without it. A sudden shift back to it was definitely throwing me off. But I was still confident I was stronger than back then.

Time and time again I disappeared from his sight. My Blessing didn't allow me to teleport or anything of the sort. I was simply that quick. The winds carried me from one destination to another with swiftness that the Demon Lord couldn't keep up with.

Blow after blow, strike after strike landed on the Demon Lord's body. My Blessing didn't just allow me to move quickly; the winds reinforced my attacks and protected me from every strike. Comparatively speaking, this Blessing wasn't the most powerful when it came to offense and defense. However, its power still exceeded anything I could muster without it. And so, as each of my strikes landed, the Demon Lord's armor chirped and broke, and at times, the Demon Lord bled.

With every passing second, the Demon Lord suffered more and more wounds. In places where his armor was thick, I was unable to break through, but everywhere else, my blade pierced his flesh.

Realizing that he was at a disadvantage, the Demon Lord spread his hands wide open and dark energy began swirling around him. Then, that energy surrounded him, preventing me from getting close.

"Dark Swarm!"

The Demon Lord chanted and dark mana began swirling above his head. That mana slowly began taking shape. It turned into massive purple spheres. Dozens upon dozens of them manifested and then the Demon Lord commanded them.

"Release!"

In that moment, the spheres of darkness flew in every direction. They spread around the room and then began flying towards me. All of them were homing spells that were able to track down the target's life force and use it as an anchor.

"Shit!" I cursed and flew as fast as I could.

I was quick. My speed greatly exceeded that of the spheres. But despite that, getting away from the was proving to be difficult. Not only were they locked onto me, they were also so great in number that they simply left me no space to maneuver.

Just before I was about to collide with one of them, I called to my winds. A powerful hurricane crashed into the orbs around me, dispersing them away. Then, it traveled towards the Demon Lord and clashed with the barrier around him. The hurricane and the barrier cancelled each other our and disappeared.

Finally, the battlefield was clear from the Demon Lord's spells.

"Hmph. At long last you stopped pretending that you're some sort of powerful close-combat fighter. Frankly, I was hoping you would die before using your spells."

"Ha! How savage!" the Demon Lord sneered. "You fight like that even after learning the truth... You don't seem to be especially shook... Isn't it heartless of you to crush the hopes of demonkind?"

I furrowed my brows. His words were, as always, unpleasant .

"I had a feeling that was the case all along..." I said as I trailed off. It was more accurate to say that I had known for a while. With the memories I had, not knowing was much more ridiculous. But no matter what the truth was that didn't change what I had to do.

"Listen," I continued, "I could call myself righteous for trying to stop this war and then put a label of evil on you for murdering millions upon millions—but that wouldn't change anything. At the end of the day, regardless of right or wrong, I only know one simple fact: there's a beautiful future that I want to put my hopes towards, and I don't think your goals are aligned with it."

The Demon Lord laughed again.

"Why would you think so? If the current systems would crash and burn, then it would be easier to rebuild this world with the beautiful vision of yours. Don't you think so?"

"As if. You destroy the systems, destroy the society and then flip the order of power on its head... And then what? The world celebrates?"

This world was twisted. Therefore, it needed to be rebuilt anew. That was the main idea that cultists followed. But the irony was that this idea was twisted in and of itself.

"People will build intricate systems, struggle to the best of their efforts, and then reach a beautiful, prosperous world... But what will you do once people grow complacent, the beautiful system gets twisted and abused for the benefit of those in power, and then the slowly but surely the world descends into a twisted hell? What will you do once the world becomes broken again? Tell me! What will you—no, the better question is: what have you done to this world?"

What lay after destruction was a new beginning. But was it truly new? Was it truly new if that destruction happened time and time again?"

"Tell me, Demon Lord. How many times have you destroyed this world?"

For a while, the Demon Lord remained quiet. Then, he began clapping. A wide smile covered his face as he offered me words of praise.

"Well done... Truly, a magnificent deduction! No matter the outcome, I will remember you as one of the few who understood the truth, Hero Candidate #756!"

Seven hundred and fifty six. That was the number of hero candidates who have existed in this world. Or rather, you had to add about a couple dozen to that number, since I was one of the first hero candidates of this era.

The Demon Lord continued.

"But sorry to disappoint you, I'm not as ancient as you think I am. My struggle has only continued for a measly three thousand years—even less than that. Ever since that girl and I couldn't see eye to eye, we've continued this little dance. In all that time, I've been successful only five times."

I had no idea what half of what he was saying meant. But I did understood one thing. Over the past three thousand years, the world had undergone destruction five times. And that meant the world had already completed multiple cycles.

In other words, his future and mine were completely misaligned.

"You say that you bring change to this world, but in my eyes—it's the opposite. The world continues down the same cycle of pain and rebirth again and again. Then it prospers for some time, until inevitable plunging down towards the same mistakes. Rinse and repeat. I will not call you or your ways evil. I know that this is simply how the world works. But I think it is about time humanity tried to move away from that."

I pointed my sword at the Demon Lord. It was about time to bring this fight to its conclusion.

The Demon Lord didn't reply. Maybe he didn't feel the need to speak any further. Instead, he began casting an incantation.

"Dark Swarm!"

Once again, the dance of dark spheres had begun. This time, he didn't waste his energy on defense. It was as if he was saying: kill me if you can do it before I kill you.

I dashed forward. Countless spheres of darkness occupied my vision. Their number even exceeded the previous time. As I weaved between them, I continued slashing at the Demon Lord. 

Dodge. Slash. Dodge. Stab. Dodge. Dodge. Cut. Rinse and repeat.

I continued my assault, but the Demon Lord refused to cast defensive spells. On top of the dark swarm he continued to use offensive magic in order to pin me down.

"Black Burst!"

Blasts of darkness cut off my path.

"Cage of Darkness!"

A magical cage restrained my movement.

"Thorns of Pain!"

Black ivies grew from the ground chasing me while leaving a trail of traps and pain.

I dodged and weaved. Struck and smashed. All of Demon Lord's spells failed to find their mark. Finally, I was ready. I was prepared to bring this fight to a close. And so, I dodged an approaching sphere by a hair's breath as I rushed towards the Demon Lord.

"Detonate!"

But as I flew by, the sphere exploded. I wasn't seriously harmed because of the winds' protection, but the force of the explosion changed my trajectory and sent me headfirst into the ground.

"Black Swarm!"

The moment I landed, the ground turned dark, and my feet became stuck. It was a magical swamp. Its dark waters sucked me in, and I found myself unable to fly away. With enough time, I could destroy this swamp with my winds, but the Demon Lord wasn't going to give me that time.

"Curse of Death!"

He unleashed his most powerful curse on me. It was the same spell that he hit Alan with. A dense mass of darkness approached me, and the swamp bellow me confined my movements, making it impossible to run away.

As the spell approached, my winds fought back against it desperately. The darkness stopped if only for a fraction of a second. Watching the winds clash against the curse, I already knew what the outcome was.

In the end, my winds weren't enough. Frankly, I knew that from the beginning. If only I had been able to practice them the past three years, the outcome might have been different, but sadly, that wasn't the case. Even my equipment wasn't optimized to be used with the Blessing. In addition to that, my party was already defeated, and I only retrieved my Blessing after spending a lot of energy prior.

That was why, I needed a different answer. Something that could overcome the difference in strength and surpass the odds. Thankfully, I had just the right thing for that.

I dropped my sword. In its stead, I took several metallic pieces in my hands. They were none other than the fragments of the Golden Sword. All of them were already used up so their glow wasn't nearly as powerful as before. Still, even without energy, they shined with enough brightness to illuminate the darkness.

Those fragments weren't worth much. No matter how sturdy and legendary they were, they were nothing but broken pieces of a sword. Nothing more. Nothing less. That's how it would be for most people. But for me, it was slightly different.

For you see, I had a secret.

I first realized it at the beginning of the third year of Royal Academy. My mind contained memories that weren't supposed to be there. In those memories, many years of strife and hardship revealed themselves to me.

And those memories broke me. I lost my Blessing, and with it, I lost my worth and purpose. It was only a year after that, that I finally managed to start moving forward again. And over two years after that, I was finally able to accept those memories.

No matter how great a life you live, we were all just a part of this never changing world. You could do everything in your powers. You could even save the world itself, but even that was only a part of this world's cycle. Regardless of what you do, the most you could accomplish if shift it a few generations or so. That's what I believed after seeing those memories.

But now, I had hope. Hope that all of our efforts don't just disappear into nothingness.

And so, I will swing my blade again.

The golden fragments shone with a brilliant radiance.