One of the Six Dark Peers, this slim man was an immortal dark elf vampire who had overcome the sunlight and his instinct to suck blood—the Duke of the Bloody Arts, Marcus. “Long time no see…Marcus.” Veltol instinctively smiled once he saw Marcus sitting on his chair. It had seemed entirely likely that the director was a different person with the same name as the duke. More than anything, Veltol was simply happy to finally meet his confidant again. Veltol hadn’t lost everything just yet. He couldn’t take back what he had lost, but he still had hope. “It’s truly been a long time, my king. I knew you would stop by ever since I sensed the mana waves from your Ell Stunna a while ago,” Marcus replied in his shrill voice, still sitting calm and collected on his chair. Right behind him was the IHMI logo blown up and printed across the wall. “…” Veltol felt a little confused, and angered, by Marcus’s attitude. Veltol was the king; Marcus was his vassal. At least from Veltol’s point of view, that hadn’t changed after five hundred years. And needless to say, it was disrespectful for a vassal to remain seated when receiving their king. First of all, Marcus—not his secretary—should have welcomed Veltol. Furthermore, he should’ve been present at Veltol’s revival along with Machina. “Marcus, it’s rude to remain seated before your king.” Veltol glared at him. That was enough to make the surrounding aether waver and the reinforced glass vibrate. And yet, Marcus didn’t move an inch—a faint smile was still on his face. “…Fine, I’ll allow it for the time being,” Veltol added. This was Marcus’s personal castle, built after surviving five hundred tumultuous years. Veltol respected that and didn’t reprimand him any further. “So, my king, what have you come all the way here for?” Marcus asked while looking away and leaning back in his chair. Now there was no speck of reverence left in his behavior. On the contrary, it felt as though he was provoking Veltol. Veltol would’ve immediately chopped Marcus’s head off had this happened five hundred years earlier, but now, he was feeling more confused than anything. As far as he remembered, Marcus was a loyal vassal. He never would have imagined him acting this way. “I’ll get to that. But first, you should be celebrating my revival, Marcus.” “Yes…I suppose you’re right.” “…Very well. Marcus, I command you as the Immortal King: Help me rebuild the Immortal Kingdom and take over the world.” The first thing Marcus did after hearing that was… “Ha!” …laugh. “Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” He covered his face and arched his back as his cackling echoed throughout the room. “Marcus…” Then, his cackling came to a sudden stop. “I refuse.” He looked straight at the Demon Lord with his blood-colored eyes when declining. “What did you just—?” “I said I refuse, my king. No…” His intentions were clear from his gaze. “…Veltol.” He was looking down on him. His eyes were as if he looked at someone of lower birth—the same glance many immortals directed to mortals. “You dare address me in such manner, you vulgar—?” Veltol was now fully set on killing him, when… “Dragon Blade: Chidori.” …Kinohara, standing right behind him, activated her mana and dictated a maginom. She was clearly hostile. Veltol turned around to find her holding a katana sheathed in a black scabbard. “—?!” He dodged to the side, right up to the window, as soon as he saw it. A flash of light and a gust of wind, followed by the graceful sound of the katana being sheathed again. “…A clean unsheathe?” Clean unsheathing was the name of an old sword technique. Veltol was astonished by Kinohara’s unsheathing and sheathing speed. Even in his weakened state, he barely caught sight of her blade. And speed wasn’t the only astounding thing about her technique. The instantaneous flash of light he saw and the nature of the mana he perceived tipped him off: Her strike had been imbued with mana-infused electricity. He was only able to evade the attack thanks to his many close brushes with death. Had he faltered for one mere instant, he would have been decapitated. And still, the blade had scraped his cheek—she had made the Demon Lord shed blood. My reflexes must have dulled considerably for me to have been unable to completely dodge it. That blade of hers… I don’t think she summoned it. It’s too realistic… Perhaps she used magic to forge it instead of cast it? In any case… Besides the lightning-quick swordsmanship, Veltol felt something was off about Kinohara’s movements. Despite her using armament-forging magic, he didn’t hear an incantation. Moreover, she appeared to have skipped two other magical processes: construction and expansion. That was supposed to be impossible. But Veltol had no time to be thinking about that. Kinohara was already crouched low, ready to unleash a second attack at any moment. “That’s enough, Kinohara.” She relaxed her posture at Marcus’s command. Veltol wiped the blood from his cheek, and the wound started closing bit by bit. The recovery didn’t come from magic—it was his own immortal regenerative ability. “You’ve grown weak… But I assume you must know that better than anyone,” Marcus told him with a pitiful gaze. “Years ago, a wound like that would’ve healed before you spilled even a drop of blood.” He was correct. Veltol’s decreased faith had sapped not only his mana but his regenerative abilities, too. “Why, Marcus…?” he asked. “Why? Do I really have to spell it out for you?” Marcus shot him the most scornful look. “Take over the world? Rebuild the Immortal Kingdom? Please, enough drivel. Such times are long gone, Veltol. The world has ended, the Immortal Kingdom has fallen—and now look at yourself.” “…” “The faith you used as a crutch and the fear you represented is now lost to oblivion. All those legends and myths about you are among the annals of history—simple entertainment, mere factoids. I have no reason to kneel to you. Now begone from my sight.” He paused. “Unless…you do the kneeling. Grovel before me and I might consider lending you a hand.” He smirked, then licked his lips. His eyes glimmered with delight. “……” Veltol took a step forward, convinced there was nothing else to say. He wasn’t about to overlook such impertinence. No matter how loyal Marcus had been in the past, Veltol’s duty as a king was to punish any insolent underlings. “Kinohara, stay out of this,” Marcus warned. “Understood.” He got up from his chair. “Marcus…,” Veltol began. Veltol initialized a spell. That first step, like the subtle movements a dragon made before breathing fire, was enough to make the surrounding aether, air, and even the glass tremble. “Duke of the Bloody Arts, you must understand that not even you can defeat me.” “Shall we put that to the test?” Marcus taunted. Veltol and Marcus each extended their right hands and spread their fingers. In order to activate magic, one needed to go through initialization, construction, expansion, incantation, and the proclamation. Not even the Demon Lord was exempt from these rules, even though he had factitiously achieved chantless magic. The abbreviation of this single step out of the five was enough to give him a great advantage in magical warfare. Veltol had fought many a formidable opponent throughout his thousands of years of living, but he had never lost in a battle of magic. All kinds of warriors, heroes, and great sorcerers yearned for his strength and challenged him to battle, and every single one of them was defeated. Not even Marcus, the most apt in magical warfare out of the Six Dark Peers, could live up to the mystic technique only the Demon Lord was capable of. Defeat was impossible so long as Veltol had that advantage. He loudly dictated the maginom: “Vel—” But Marcus… “You’re two steps behind me, Veltol.” …merely scoffed. “Spell Breaker!” Marcus was quicker to activate his magic. The magic circle in the palm of his hand expanded. “Wha—?!” Veltol’s eyes widened in astonishment. This wasn’t a spell for shooting fire or light. It was much more subtle—one could barely tell he’d cast anything. And it was of the highest level in magical warfare. Marcus looked as if he’d done nothing, as did Veltol. Rather, he couldn’t do anything. He managed to articulate what had just occurred: “You…canceled my magic…?!” There were two main methods of dealing with magic: The first was through resistance, a type of passive defense magic that provided a simple yet effective way to protect oneself directly through mana. The second method was to cancel, as Marcus had done. Canceling involved interfering with one of the five steps of magic, thus nullifying it. Canceling was different from resisting in that it was an active form of defense by counterattacking. One had to have full understanding of the technic the opponent was trying to activate and stop it before all magical processes were complete. This wasn’t impossible, in theory, but in practice, only Veltol was able to consistently achieve it, thanks to his chantless magic. Canceling was already a herculean task, but to activate it faster than Veltol’s chantless magic was impossible…or at least, it should have been impossible. Veltol couldn’t believe it, but it was useless denying what had just happened. “This can’t be… How?” He once again asked for an explanation. “How, you ask? Ha! Ha-ha-ha…” Marcus laughed darkly. The dominance he felt over his opponent, whom he had feared and served before, gave him a rush. He felt like a conqueror, finally standing atop the previously undefeated champion. Sadistic pleasure coursed throughout his body. He was, in fact, erect. “You wish to know why someone like you, capable of chantless magic, could have your magic canceled by me and my inferior mastery of the craft? Is that what’s going through your mind right now?! Oh, how could this happen to the Demon Lord Veltol?! Why?! It can’t be!” Veltol was confused at the sudden explosion of emotions. As far as he remembered, Marcus was slightly neurotic but nonetheless a level-headed and courteous man. He was the brains behind the Six Dark Peers, and as such, Veltol greatly valued and trusted him. To see him change so much over the course of five hundred years had Veltol more baffled than angry, and most of all—saddened. How had Marcus ended up like this? Or had he been this way from the very beginning? The Demon Lord had no answer. There was no trace of the noble darkling once known as Marcus. A contemptuous sneer reminiscent of a lesser demon arose on his face as he turned around. “It’s thanks to this.” He pointed at his nape. Embedded there was a small piece of black metal flickering with a green light. Veltol sensed a small amount of mana coming from it. He had already seen this same device before on all the people walking the streets. “What is that?” he asked. He guessed it was something meant to aid magic activation, like the wands used by apprentice mages—some sort of magi-gadget. “This is the Familia, the fruits of human intelligence and cutting-edge magineering.” The Familia was a type of magi-gadget born from the union of sorcery and engineering—magineering. By connecting it to one’s spinal cord and brain, it could expand the latter’s capacity, essentially functioning as a second brain. It was a digital assistant that took no physical space. By connecting their brains to the Familia, people could improve their affinity with airborne aether and connect through it to other Familias or computers, surpassing the internet of old to create a new communications technology: the aethernet. That was Marcus’s explanation. “To summarize,” he continued, “it’s like connecting a computer to your body. Although I doubt your feeble intellect is enough to comprehend as much.” Marcus wasn’t wrong—Veltol didn’t understand most of those words. “The true value of the Familia, however, lies in magical warfare,” Marcus stated proudly. “The original plan came about near the end of City War I, when resources and personnel were scarce. The idea was to get children and those with no magitech training to enlist as quickly and efficiently as possible. And the inventor of this technology is none other than me.” He was overwhelming Veltol with information, with zero intention of having him actually understand any of it. He simply wanted to boast about his accomplishments—he was itching to brag. “Technological innovation has kept on advancing, and now, the Familia’s quantum processing device takes care of the initialization, construction, and even expansion processes. One simply selects the desired magic and issues the proclamation to activate it. This development is the main purpose of the Familia; the construction of the aether network and the development of aether communications are mere by-products,” he went on. “Let me phrase this so that even someone as thickheaded as you can understand: All intelligent beings in the modern world regardless of age can not only use chantless magic but constructless and expansionless, too.” “This is outrageous…” Veltol realized what was off about Kinohara’s movements just now. She had activated magic by omitting steps through the Familia. This technique Veltol had spent such a long time developing thanks to his outstanding talent had been outdone in a mere five hundred—nay, eighty years. “Furthermore, the Familia is incompatible with undying flesh—beings whose souls have reached godlike heights. That means that you, Veltol. Of course, I designed the basic technic that way from the very beginning.” “What…?” “I wouldn’t be in such a lofty position if you could use a Familia yourself once you revived, would I? I couldn’t allow that to happen.” That meant Marcus had been prepared to oppose Veltol since long ago—that he was ready to become his enemy. “—!” Veltol once again framed and expanded the same magic, this time even more quickly than before. But no matter how fast he was, he was still two whole steps behind Marcus. “Spell Breaker!” His magic was canceled before he could dictate it. “Ugh…!” “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Your magical processing speed is impressive—nowhere near a Familia’s, but well above human limitations. I would expect no less from the Demon Lord himself. I’m only able to cancel it since I know your technic’s composition…but in any case, the Familia is a necessary product for everyday life in the current world. And being unable to use one, you’re quite behind the times…” Marcus looked at him with pity, like a teacher staring at a poorly performing student. “Such a shame… The Demon Lord who once spread fear throughout the whole world is no different than a drunken lowlife wasting away in a filthy alley… You’re beneath kobold dung, no better than the stain left behind by a creeping slime… Your decline is truly, deeply pitiful.” Marcus was quick to insult his former king. “In fact, let me make myself perfectly clear: You are worth less than troll shit.” Marcus had always had a deep understanding of magitech, so Veltol recognized how proud he was of his contributions to modern technological development. But he couldn’t understand why Marcus held such intense hatred for him. “Why, Marcus?! Why would you do all this—?!” “Why?” Marcus pushed up his glasses. “You keep asking the same question over and over again. It’s pathetic how you can be so dense. Ignorance is a sin, Veltol.” “…!” “Did you seriously think my loyalty to you was sincere?” “What…?” “I couldn’t stand you from the very beginning.” “…” “You’re tyrannical, you’re vain, you’re better than me in every possible way—I’ve always hated you from the bottom of my heart! Oh, how many times I’ve fantasized about destroying you! Yet you’ve managed to overcome destruction, too! I can’t stand the sight of you! Can you even understand how I felt, having to work under such a dreadful man for so long?! Huh?! Can you?!” Marcus screamed, his eyes bloodshot with delirium. “…Excuse me, I lost my temper.” “Was I…misguided this entire time?” Veltol clenched his teeth so hard they nearly cracked. He always knew Marcus had ambition, and he thought well of the fact. He could’ve easily seen this coming. And yet, Marcus was still one of his vassals, who lived and fought by his side for such a long time. Veltol found himself in a vastly different world, betrayed by a close confidant—the psychological damage was huge. “Indeed, you were,” Marcus declared, bluntly and mercilessly. “But that no longer matters. I don’t have the time to keep on clinging to a piece of garbage.” Veltol concluded there was no point in trying to reach a mutual understanding. In which case, fighting was the only option. He had to draw the line, as king. “Marcuuusss!” Veltol raised his arms and initialized his magic. “Looks like you still don’t get it. Bloodsword!” However, Marcus activated his own even faster than Veltol’s chantless technique.
Chapter 4
15 min read