"You are still alive, Gwyndoline." Even as his chest was beginning to decay, he spoke calmly as he looked up at her.
"My grandmother passed away a millennia ago, peacefully at an old age. I am… Guinevere."
"Oho? You are her granddaughter? Such a striking resemblance." He started getting up. Guinevere backed away while still standing on her sword.
"Your grandmother was such a frightening yet gentle woman. Cruel too. On each of our bouts, she would make it seem as if I was going to win but then she crushed me every time."
"So the stories are true—You posed as one of the demigods because you wanted to woo her and make her have your child."
A child between a demigod and demon is not only humiliating, it's a curse that will haunt the demigod's family line forever. No longer will divinity bless the family. No longer will they be allowed to become Valkyries.
"Indeed. I wanted to be the first to plant that curse on the line of gods but someone else beat me to it. Anyway, she was the only woman I could never quite charm. She preferred that Gederick fellow instead. Oh, I burned with jealousy but I could not show it on the surface."
"Why do you demons play pretend as a means to deceive humans? Do you find it amusing?"
"I would be telling an untruth if I were to deny that. But the curse would not have just been a stain on your family. Even gods aren't ready for what it brings."
What he just said confirms that one of the gods cursed their lineage by tainting their bloodline. But who? Suluvuk will probably not say anything. He probably doesn't know, though. It's been thousands of years since he fought Zephyros and lost, after all.
As such, it would be best to end this quickly. Yormilia might be able to give Guinevere an answer because such a curse cannot be swept under the rug. It might be a prophecy that never happened and its consequences can't be verified but… Guinevere would rather make sure it isn't a threat.
Will she be able to see the consequences before it rains down upon the divine realm?
"?" Guinevere was about to use a high-level skill to end Suluvuk but she noticed that the decay in his chest vanished.
The demon spread his arms and smirked up at her. She backed away to see it all unfold before her very eyes. Though there were no signs of a powerup—meaning he is still as weak as before so she could handle him—the mystery behind what she was witnessing was enough to have her on guard.
"Oh? Did I forget to mention it? You will never be able to kill me, little Gwyndoline, not as long as that portal remains open. I am here to stay, to rule over this world as the new Demon King."
Guinevere glanced at the red portal behind her. Her eyes remained fixed on the ominous runic formations around that portal, acting as a sort of gateway.
Her eyes widened slightly when she identified the spell through its runic letters.
"You are a Valkyrie so you must have been taught the runic language from top to bottom. So, you know what you are looking at."
"…"
…Indeed, she knew what kind of portal that was. It wasn't a simple demon portal. It was a gateway to another dimension. A dimension humanity had never documented, few have entered, yet none had return.
Only All-Father Zephyros saw what lay beyond that portal back when He sealed all the outer gods to an eternity of isolation from time and space. As the Dragon God wasn't here to slay them all, only he could stop the demon gods from throwing the realms into disarray.
Just because Guinevere knew what kind of portal it was doesn't mean she could destroy it. That said, if she doesn't find a way soon, more beings similar to Suluvuk will step out of that portal.
…And yes, all of them will be unkillable as they bear the [Curse of Dante], once meant to punish them by keeping them alive for all eternity and no matter how much damage they sustain or how much pain they feel, they will never die.
That curse is now being exploited to keep Suluvuk alive.
However, if the portal can be broken, the curse vanishes.
But Guinevere didn't care for this.
"My intention stays the same—" she grabbed her sword and pointed it at him, "I will not let you see the world beyond this town's walls. Even if it means I have to fight you and whatever comes through there for a hundred years."
"Hahahaha!" wings spouted from Suluvuk's back, "A mere Valkyrie thinks she can bring down a God!?"
…
"Uhm, Head Priest, he didn't even thank us…"
"Or give us our promised reward…"
--
The moment Suluvuk's giant fist and Guinevere's small fist connected, the town shook under the impact. Windows shattered for blocks, roofs caved in, and cracks spread like spiderwebs across the cobbled streets. The force flung debris skyward, a storm of stone and dust.
Guinevere slid back, her bare feet carving trenches into the ground, while Suluvuk simply flexed his clawed hand, grinning as the wounds on his body sealed over with writhing black flesh.
"Haaah… so fragile," he laughed, spreading his scaled wings wide. "Strike me as many times as you want, Valkyrie. I am beyond death."
Guinevere lunged forward, her blade flashing like a streak of sunlight through smoke. She slashed across his abdomen, divine essence trailing behind her sword like a comet's tail. The cut went deep, splitting him open from hip to rib—yet before she could follow up, the black curse seared across the wound, knitting his flesh together until only faint scars remained.
Ten thousand strikes in 10 seconds healed in an instant.
A slight frown appeared on her face.
Without pause, Suluvuk stomped the earth, sending shockwaves rippling down the street. Entire houses collapsed in his wake. Guinevere leapt high above the quakes, wings of pure light sprouting from her back, and she swung the wings down in a cross-cutting arc. A radiant shockwave tore through the street, vaporizing everything in its path until it reached the devil.
Suluvuk screamed, his body engulfed by the holy blaze—then burst out laughing as the burns melted away, healed instantly by the curse. He spread his claws wide and charged through the inferno, his momentum throwing Guinevere across the rubble.
She landed, rolling hard, her sword skidding beside her. Her chest heaved, but she pushed herself up at once.
While she boldly said he would never see beyond these walls, the portal made this fight difficult. All that would result is fruitless destruction—destruction the common people will have to pay for. She would never be able to fight to her fullest if that meant destroying everything around her for no reason.
It would be best if they took this fight outside the city walls. She prayed in her heart for Mother Nature to forgive her for choosing the empty land over this.
"You fight like All-Father's pet should," Suluvuk mocked, flexing his regenerating body. "But every drop of divine light you waste only makes your despair shine brighter."
Guinevere didn't answer. She rushed him again, her blade igniting with runes that scorched the air itself. She invoked a level 30 skill called [Solar Divide], cleaving him from shoulder to hip with a strike that split the street for half a kilometer. For a heartbeat, his body was in pieces—limbs falling apart, black blood spraying across the corpses of cultists that had gathered.
Guinevere made a golden light surround all those chunks of meat then she flung them into the air. Then she flew up and created a torrent of divine power that sent his remains crashing into the grass field outside the city.
One would think that was enough to kill any living thing.
But then… the curse pulsed. Black veins spread across the torn halves of his body, dragging the limbs back together in a grotesque stitchwork. With a sickening crack, Suluvuk stood whole again.
She exhaled deeply then landed near him.
"Why do you persist, Guinevere?" he sneered, towering over her, his red eyes glowing like twin suns of hatred. "Strike me again! Watch your holy light mean nothing. Now if you had Bifrost or Giant magic then you might have a chance but you Valkyries are only capable of divine spells, no? That means our fight is fruitless, hahaha! Surrender and become my woman instead. Fill the space your grandmother—"
She blitzed toward him and was about to land a hit on his face but he caught her hand mid-swing. Harrumphing, he placed his other hand on her upper arm and attempted to break her whole arm.
"Gnnnn!"
He was strong but… Guinevere had an incredibly tough body as well.
Her hair began to move like flames in a firepit as her body burned with divine power. The dragonsteel-like skin hardened even more.
"Ack!" Suluvuk's two hands burned right off and fell on the ground, "You Valkyries are truly deserving of the greatest warriors of the divine realm! Such power!"
Needless to say, that was useless yet again.
Guinevere may need to rethink her strategy.
She sent a mental command to her angels. They sent an affirmative and came over with incredible speed.
"Oh? Calling for reinforcements, I see. Valkyries have truly fallen—what warrior race calls for backup?" the angels landed separately, forming a square around Suluvuk.
"You have died by my hands twice already, you do not get to insult me or my people."
Then again, he was probably not trying hard enough to survive since he knows he will just be revived. And after thousands of years, the concept of pain and death becomes meaningless to those afflicted with the "Curse of Dante".
"I have taken you all from Valhalla to request your aid to save these people." Guinevere spoke to the angels. "I am deeply sorry for not giving you the one request you had when you accepted my calling."
That calling being to die in battle once again so that they may leave Valhalla and go to the afterlife. What she is asking of them contradicts that.
The angels didn't say anything—they couldn't but Guinevere could tell that they accepted her apology and will obey.
Einherjar.
They were once Valkyries who probably fought alongside Guinevere's family and probably even by her side. Now they are souls that are unable to go to the River of Cocytus where all souls must go as they devoted their lives to serving as warriors—both in life and death.
Many generations ago, when the world was not divided and magic beasts roamed the sea and lands, Valkyries came down from the divine realm to live amongst humans. They didn't send their warriors down here to just protect the humans.
They wanted the Valkyries to integrate into human society and breed more girls who will later go on to become Valkyries in the divine realm. Numbers were lost for a time but they multiplied by thousands in the end.
It's a give or take. But this only lasted a few hundred years before they received an order from the All-Father to sacrifice themselves for a certain cause—
"!" as if Suluvuk figured it out as well, his eyes widened and his nonchalance vanished.
"If I can't defeat you, I will seal you using the lifeforce of Valhalla itself—the fuel keeping the Intermid Border alive." Runes of unknown origin to either divine or arcane magic, appeared on the ground, swallowing this entire valley in a golden glow, "[Million Year Barrier]."
A purple barrier erupted from the ground, manifesting a cubic dome that had no exits but upon closer inspection, the grass inside the barrier was still flowing with the wind. That said, just because wind can go through the barrier—
Suluvuk punched with all his strength, making a rumble so powerful that it echoed throughout the valley and mountains, and shaking the ground under Guinevere's feet.
--that doesn't mean just anything can escape.
"Divine souls are those belonging to a race of demigods or gods, of which Valkyries fit into the former." Guinevere walked up to the barrier, "A Valkyrie's soul contains her lifeforce itself, harboring the essence of divine power itself. This is used to fuel the first spell godkind have ever used." she placed her hand on the barrier.
"Tch, I should have seen this coming. Humph, but this barrier won't hold for long as you did not use the souls that are constantly dying in Valhalla to fuel the barrier."
Indeed, this is just temporary. But Guinevere isn't a magician so she can't open the "Gates to Valhalla" like Zephyros can. Each time they are opened, new divine energy burst out, of the dying souls of the trillions of demigods and mortals who have died in war. Even if she could, maintaining that level of power would be incredibly difficult and would require a great sacrifice—freedom.
Zephyros used to use the souls of those in Valhalla for endless wars, forcing them to reincarnate after every death on the battlefield, but now that there is peace in the nine realms, he had to find another use for the souls of the Einherjar. Both were against the wishes of the souls fighting in Valhalla.
But that is a sacrifice that had to be made to support the living.
Guinevere believes both are cruel but only one is necessary to protect the living. This might be the one thing she would side with the All-Father for.
Suluvuk collapsed on the ground and sighed, "Dammit, here I was about to use all the new powers I learned in the Land of Limbo. The taste of freedom was short-lived. I had forgotten what sheep and cow tastes like. Ohhh, and the insides of a human woman. I've killed all my human slaves because they are so brittle in bed but the intercourse itself was like hell itself."
"…I have heard tales about you…" Guinevere sat down in front of him, "That is why I doubt your goal is as one dimensional as simply becoming the Demon King."
"Oh, you are interested despite telling me chit-chat isn't allowed?" though he didn't have the face of a human, amusement was written all over his face.
"…"
"Ah, I see. Gouging for information. You are under the assumption I have an evil plan in its pre-production stage." The demon folded his arms, "There is another demon in this world who wants to take the title from me… and kill Arsnoria, the daughter of the King of Hell."
"The two of you know of each other but are fighting over the throne?"
He nodded.
"Is it Oriel?"
"Nay, Oriel and I had a mutual understanding to not fight each other. I was set to rule the three mortal realms as the Demon King of the human realms and he shall rule the other six realms."
"That includes the divine realm. You were willing to give up a lot of territory just to uphold that deal? Was he that much of a threat?"
She knows that Oriel was known to be stronger than the Demon King and her lords put together.
Suluvuk harrumphed, "Your teasing befits you not, granddaughter of Gwyndoline. Just like it does not suit her."
"…Who is this other demon you speak of?"
"Another Greater Demon like Oriel but this one is a bit different as he is not as powerful as Oriel was. In fact, for his race, he would be considered average in combat power. No, he is blessed with great knowledge and intellect that far exceeds even the Monarch Watcher's."
"Does this demon still walk these lands?"
"I have been imprisoned for thousands of years so I do not know." He gave her a "shouldn't that be obvious?" look.
'A Greater Demon is in this world but for a thousand years, he did nothing to the people, no establishing his own rule while there are no competitors?'
"Do you know this demon's motives and would it change as time passes on?"
"He is the stubborn type to cling to one plan. My assumption is that he is eliminating competitors but as I said before, he is a weakling so his combat power does not get him far. He may be serving under a master he plans to kill because he is paranoid that master will interfere. As the human sayings go—even a grateful slave would kill their master."
He's not an immediate threat then.
"His intellect—how far does it go?"
"…Hmm…" Suluvuk thought about it for a moment, "He spoke of the Nine Realms as if they were etched into his very soul. He could unravel the sigils of ancient gods with but a glance. He walked into relic tombs whose keys had been lost for eons, and yet claimed he knew their locks before ever seeing them. He mapped civilizations the dust of time had swallowed, and recited their rituals as if he had once performed them himself. He has foresight like no other. Where others see an obstacle, he sees the pattern behind it—the lever to turn, the weakness to strike. At times it seemed he was not discovering knowledge but recalling it. As though he had… lived the world once already. That is true for every world he journeyed to."
Suluvuk looked at Guinevere's expression, probably to see her reaction to hearing this. Even her expression cracked at hearing such a strange individual exists.
"Could he be… one of the highborn?"
"I am unable to say." Suluvuk shrugged.
"…Then… Could this demon be the one that swallowed the Fate Goddess' soul?"
"The what now?" Suluvuk frowned at hearing that, "The Goddess who can see into the future was bested by someone!? Gahahahaha! Serves the haughty bitch right!"
Wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, and still chuckling, "Even those who can manipulate souls—called Soul Benders—aren't able to tap into the foundations of other beings or use their powers as if it was their own. Simply impossible."
"Hmm, you are quite right. Only the Dragon God could in theory do this."
"Tch, I forgot about that troublesome ocular mutation of that bitch's descendants. But even if any of them succeeds in using a soul of another, they go blind for the rest of their lives, no magic or eye transplant will fix that. Even ignoring this, you assume a demon could be born in the family of dragonkin? Gahahaha!"
"…Yes, I am quite the fool for even considering it. However, there may be ways for even non-dragonkin to use the Halo."
Suluvuk stopped laughing, "Having that eye means having the power of the Dragon God by your side. No demon could be that lucky with our negative karma. No, I believe your theory of that acquaintance of mine being a highborn to be more likely."
Highborn—the mysterious powerful individuals who came into the realms anytime they wanted and leave as if they were from another dimension or alternate reality.
Guinevere never met any of them but it's said they are reincarnators who experienced "Ragnarok" but were able to escape to this reality using their advanced magic and machinery. Legends also say that during their short time in the nine realms, they were able to predict disasters before they even happened.
This acquaintance of Suluvuk might be one of these individuals.
"Even if he is," Suluvuk spoke up, "Is it not odd how he is the only one desiring total control over the realms? Where are the others? Perhaps he killed them but if they are rumored to be as strong as prime Zephyros, that battle would've destroyed a realm or two."
"Do you have a name at le—"
A pillar of light caught Guinevere's attention, interrupting their conversation. The remaining Einherjar must've brought all the demons together in one place to exorcise them all.
This is a good sign. Many lives were saved.
"It seems my questioning will have to wait." She levitated but just before she could leave, Suluvuk made a remark.
"Your grandmother was the most powerful Valkyrie to ever be born, besting all the Gods in combat during their spars. I had the honor of sparring with her as well. Since you have her genes, you must be the current strongest."
"What is your point, Suluvuk?"
"What lies in the "Nine Layers of Hell" is more than you could possibly handle despite being the most powerful demigod walking the nine realms. Zephyros is considerably weaker in his old age, the Dragon God is dead, the World Tree is dying, the Royal Demon Blood is going to invade this world in the future unless the 'Gates to Valhalla' are permanently open—something no one besides that old bastard can handle keeping open, and finally Ragnarok approaches—what's to come will be bigger than you alone can handle."
"I am aware of what is to come and what we do not have. Now tell me the point of wasting your breath."
"Your family line's obsession with eradicating evil is naïve. Evil will always be bigger than you. There is something stronger than you and I out there. Something only prime All-Father or the Dragon God would be able to defeat. So, my point is… give up your foolish goal that will never bear fruit. That is my advice to the one who bested me in combat."
The two maintained eye contact. Her red eyes stared into his burning pupils that looked like the pit of hell itself. There was no contempt in his eyes nor his words.
It was a warning from one's enemy who left his outcome up to fate.
"Then let evil grow as vast as the skies themselves. So long as I draw breath, I will cut it down—piece by piece, life by life." She looked away from him and stared up at the pillar of light that reached the mesosphere. "The Einharjar fought to their end not with the assumption that they will emerge victorious, but that even if they lose, they will have died fighting for a purpose."
She sheathed her sword, "My purpose is fighting and dying for the wellbeing of others. If I die at the hands of a great evil, I will not regret my life choices or, as you said, my naivety."
She didn't stay to hear his answer. But as she flew towards the town, she heard his thunderous laughter while screaming what a fool she is.
While they had recognized each other's strength, there was one truth that could never change—
A demon will never understand the purpose of a Valkyrie's resolve.