The first thing Allen sensed was astonishment. Then, almost instantly, it turned into hatred.
Even so, his opponent didn’t act right away. Instead, the figure glared at him as though trying to kill him with sheer looks alone.
Allen met its gaze calmly.
“You again, meddling in our affairs! No! What are you doing? God, fate... They shouldn’t be able to interfere with us here and now!” the demon cried, panicked.
“Who knows? I didn’t save her for any reason like that. She’s my friend... No, maybe just an acquaintance,” Allen stammered.
“Why am I getting downgraded to a mere acquaintance?” Noel asked. She had seemed almost drained of the will to live moments before but had regained a flicker of spirit at Allen’s words. She gave him a look of exasperation, but he merely shrugged.
“If I went around declaring we were friends when it’s one-sided, that’d be awkward, right? ‘Acquaintance’ feels safer,” he said awkwardly.
“Honestly...you should be worrying about more pressing matters,” Noel cautioned him.
“Hmm?” At her words, Allen looked around. His eyes passed from Vanessa, who had landed far away after being blasted back, to the familiar demon standing nearby. He tilted his head. “I don’t see anything worth worrying about.”
“You!”
He hadn’t meant to provoke, but the demon reacted as though he had. The truth was simple: Nothing there posed a threat to Allen. There was no need for concern.
“I see...so you’re confident in your strength.” The demon sneered. “And it’s true, your ability is remarkable. But there are things in this world beyond the reach of mere strength. Things I—”
Allen felt the demon trying something. From Noel’s faint reaction, he guessed it was aimed at the sword in her hands.
Sword of Cataclysm: Beast Cleaver.
Allen’s sword swung down, severing the faint trace of power the demon had extended. The demon’s eyes widened in shock.
“Impossible! What did you do?!”
“What? You saw it yourself.”
It had been nothing more than cutting away a whisper of power Allen hadn’t even noticed when he’d held the weapon earlier. The demon’s panic made it clear he’d guessed right. It had probably intended to use Noel as a hostage. To think Allen would allow that so easily...how insulting. Allen sighed, and the demon glared daggers at him.
“Why? Why would you use such power to protect them? You are no puppet of the gods. Then why?”
“Why? You don’t need a reason to save someone.” Allen wasn’t condemning it for being a demon. If it hurt no one, that was fine. But the moment it attacked, the moment it tried to harm someone—even if it hadn’t been Noel—Allen would stop it. That was all there was to it.
“Fool! You don’t understand! You don’t know how much folly the gods commit in this world, how their puppets serve as the vanguard of that folly, how much they aid it without even realizing!”
“Maybe. I don’t fully understand. But trying to kill her over it...that’s the real folly, isn’t it?”
Even if the demon’s story were true, the guilty party would be the gods. If Noel and the others acted without knowing, then punishing them was senseless.
“Honestly, it just looks like you’re taking your frustrations out on a convenient target,” said Allen.
“You dare! You spout such nonsense only because you don’t know how worthless gods and fate truly are!” the demon spat.
“Gods and fate, huh?”
Allen knew them well. He knew gods weren’t beings to blindly praise. He knew fate wasn’t always benevolent and was sometimes cruel. He knew all of that. But that didn’t mean they deserved blanket denial. It didn’t mean you could blame them for everything.
In his previous life, some might have said Allen’s path had followed fate. He had been guided, aided, granted a power outside all reason. Even so, he had never thought of it as fate. He had never blamed the gods. That ending had been his own. His mistakes, his choices, had led him there. To put everything down to fate or the gods was to say that he had no will of his own. That his choices and his feelings had never existed.
Once, he had been called a hero. He had died wretchedly. But because he had been called a hero, he could never accept such weak excuses.
“Sure, sometimes life throws you something senseless. And sure, you want to blame someone for it. But hurting others and calling that a reason...that’s where you’re wrong.”
“What could you possibly know?!” the demon yelled.
“You’re right. I probably don’t know anything.”
Allen wouldn’t pretend to understand. That would only be arrogance. He knew demons weren’t born from nothing. They came from hatred and grief so deep that it twisted them beyond humanity. He couldn’t imagine what that weight felt like. He only knew it had to be unimaginable.
But that didn’t make it right to hurt others. That only made it sad. Which was why he had to stop them. He raised his sword and brought it down, cutting through both the swelling power and its source.
Sword of Cataclysm: Sundering Slice.
The energy burst apart. The demon was split cleanly down the middle, its eyes wide with disbelief. Allen watched as emotions flickered and died within them. He wondered if there had been another way but thought not, which was why he burned the image into his mind until the end—his choice, his decision, without regret.
The body fell, crumbled to ash, and was scattered on the wind as though it had never existed. Allen let out a breath. He felt eyes on him and raised his own.
Over there...
High above, far away, he glimpsed a figure and frowned. If it wasn’t his imagination, it was someone he knew.
“Sophie?”
She vanished an instant later, whether or not she had heard him. She had done nothing, only watched. Observing? Studying? He couldn’t say.
The reason didn’t matter now. There were other things to do. As if to affirm that thought, Vanessa’s body collapsed to the ground in the distance.