Master always told me that every single one of their attacks was a killing blow. Humans would never be a match for demons. We just weren’t built the same. They could crush boulders with their bare hands, and their bodies were as tough as tree trunks. You couldn’t beat them with half-assed attacks, and you couldn’t face them with half-assed resolve—you’d just be asking to get yourself killed. There was no escaping the truth: We were humans, and they were monsters. If you wanted to overcome that gap, you needed the precision to dodge and parry all their attacks and hit them right in the vitals.
Never go in from the front. Get into their blind spots and keep ’em pissed off.
All those lessons were drilled deep into me. No matter how lightheaded or distracted I got, my body reacted on its own and moved the way I needed it to. I didn’t need the strength to crush boulders. I just needed one hit. One guaranteed killing blow...
I twisted around to dodge Raven’s claws as they came at my neck. I tried to counter with a slash of my sword, but I sensed danger right away and went rolling across the ground.
This devil was powerful. The white warwolf had just been strong, and he’d been too much to handle in his own way. But this guy knew how to mess with me. He did it with his pacing, his movements, and his words.
“How unseemly. Is this how a Hero fights?”
“Do you change how you fight when you get a new title?”
“I would at least uphold the proper decorum of my station.”
“Damn, really? Guess I’d better go all out, then!”
I dodged another swipe of his claws and stabbed right back with my sword.
There was no point having a conversation with him. If I lost my focus for even a second, I’d be done for. But I still needed to keep slinging words to distract him any way I could.
“You’re getting desperate. Is that girl truly so precious to you?”
“That’s none of your damn business!”
“That is why I say that you are a fool.”
“Wha—?!”
His arm did a weird loop around me, and my body went flying. As I landed cleanly on the temple wall, I realized he’d used the speed of my own charge to throw me.
“We have a duty to honor those whose lives have been lost,” he whispered right in my ear.
My body reacted faster than my mind. I slashed out to the side, and before I even sensed he’d dodged me, I jumped away from the wall.
“You have taken the lives of others for the sake of your orphanage, for the sake of money—for the sake of your own survival. Am I wrong?”
I let out a hiss as his fist swung past me. It crashed through the temple wall, sending cracks in every direction.
“Every sacrifice exists for the sake of the future,” he said.
I threw a knife to hold him back as he tried to come after me.
“You’re saying this massacre is for the future?!” I gritted out desperately.
I’d been hoping for just a moment to catch my breath. But for some reason, my words stopped Raven in his tracks. The devil stared straight back at me with a cold, dead face like a frozen mask.
“Indeed. This is a sacrifice for the sake of the world.”
There wasn’t any trace of humanity left in those eyes. But his words still had emotion in there somewhere. They felt like a cry of grief.
“What’re you talking about?”
“It matters not whether you understand. You shall die here.”
The devil closed in on me. His attacks kept getting faster. My arms and legs were going numb—my body was close to its limit.
I looked for Alicia, but...
“Still...” —healing that leonin.
Even if this fight was too tough for me on my own, if I fought together with Alicia, we might be able to take Raven down. I just needed to keep buying time. If Alicia could get the leonin to come around, that’d mean the end of the war. So—
“If...” I grunted through the pain. “If you hate me for killing the Demon Lord, then just say so!”
“Do not equate me with you lowly creatures!”
“Wha—?!”
I hadn’t expected him to get that mad. The devil caught the blade of my sword straight on with his beast paw, and he glared at me with fire in his eyes.
“I do not take the lives of others for hatred, for vengeance, for base self-interest!” His paw was sliced open, blood dripping down, but his grip on my sword only got stronger. “A filthy murderer is all you are—all you’ve ever been.”
I felt a warning jolt through my spine, and I let go of my sword and leaped back from him. An instant later, something smashed into the spot where I’d just been standing.
“You must die here and now. I must put an end to you...”
He crushed my sword. The blade shattered to pieces and fell away. His long, thin tail swayed around, and he floated in the air on a huge pair of wings. He looked like a devil straight out of the bible.
“You do not even know your own sins, let alone acknowledge them. You lose yourself in dreams as you set the world athwart. But I am not utterly devoid of sympathy. In light of your misfortune, I shall reveal the truth to you.” The devil’s eyes slid over to Alicia. “That girl you seek to protect bears the lineage of our origin, the blood of the First.”
“What’s that supposed to mean...?”
I didn’t understand what he was saying. But I could definitely feel something nasty echoing in his voice.
“That defective product is our Lord’s orphaned child.”
The moment I heard those words, my thoughts stopped in their tracks. The scenery around me faded away, replaced with my memories of the Demon Lord’s castle when I’d snuck in a year ago...
“You wish to fight for her, yet you took her father’s head.”
A chill ran down my spine.
“Can you still say that she cares for you? Can you still say that you will protect her?”
I looked behind me. Alicia was standing there frozen. Her face was filled with sick shock...