Chapter 216: The Walking Catastrophe
"The Demon King... why does she have such a terrifying dark power? And why... does it feel so familiar?"
Had her power come from fusing with the divine miasma of the Godfall Land? The thought, once formed, grew more and more likely. And if that were the case, then the threat she now posed... it was of an unprecedented and terrifying magnitude.
"Granny," he said, his voice now a low and gentle sound, "these stones... do you have any more?"
"Not many," she said, her own eyes now bright with a new interest. "Just this one box. Got them from a group of young adventurers, the reckless kind. They're always out in the west. Said the black mist in the Godfall Land had thinned a bit, and these things were just... scattered all over the ground. Along with the bones of a few strange-looking monsters. They brought some back, and someone paid a high price for the bones. But these... no one wanted them."
"Are they still in the city?" he asked.
"Probably. They usually stay at the inn for a while," she said, and then added, "But I wouldn't go asking, young man. That place... it was the site of the final battle between the god-slayer and the goddess. A forbidden land. Those adventurers... they were just lucky. To even get close... it is enough to drive a man mad."
"Thank you," he said with a smile, and placed a gem on the stall, more than enough to cover the cost of the flowers and the small box of black stones. "We'll take them all."
As they walked away, the mood between them had grown heavy.
"What are you thinking?" she asked, her own voice now a low and quiet sound.
"Do you remember what I told you?" he said. "That I had felt a familiar aura from her? And that her own body was filled with a powerful, corrupting magic?"
She nodded. "And that was why you didn't kill her."
"I suspect," he said, "that the source of that corruption is the same as the power of the Godfall Land, the last remnant of the Goddess of Procreation."
"..."
She was stunned. She had felt that power herself, a power so great that even the barrier of Athos had not been able to withstand it. How could anyone possibly contain such a thing within themselves? "How is that possible?" she said, her own voice now a whisper. "How could she have done it?"
"I don't know."
"Could it have been Shurahat's method? The one he used to allow a mortal body to bear the power of faith?"
"No. It's different," he said. "The power of faith is a passive thing. As long as you don't try to absorb it into yourself, it's not that dangerous. Otherwise, I would have never used the 'Light of Ersten' as a vessel." The sword was now back in their hut. He had not returned it, to keep it from the clutches of the Demon King. And he knew, that if he were to ever have to kill her, he would need all three holy swords to seal the divine corruption within her. He had even been thinking of seeking out the legendary Hero's Sword. The Demon King was now a threat to the very existence of the world. Surely, the sword would now answer the call.
But that was a matter for another time.
"The corrupting power of a god... it is an active and destructive thing. It will corrode and destroy anything it touches, even a holy sword."
"Then how did she do it?"
"...unless," he said, his own mind now a maelstrom of a new and terrifying thought, "...she, herself, is that power. No, never mind."
The elven miss just pouted. She hated it when he did that.
"If she has really done it, then she has likely already absorbed all the power of the Godfall Land."
"Yes," he said, not looking up. "And that means... she is now, in the truest sense of the word, a walking catastrophe." He held the small wooden box in his hand, and he could feel the faint, yet undeniable, aura of the corruption within it. "These fragments... they are the ashes of a divine corruption, a byproduct of the god's own power corrupting the very land."
"And what do you think she will do next?" a sharp and deadly glint was now in her own eyes. "Will she come for us?"
"I don't know," he said, and looked to the west, to the Godfall Land.
"Then we—"
"We wait," he said, and his gaze now fell on a small inn in the distance, the very one the old woman had mentioned. "First... we find those adventurers. And we find out what they saw."
In the far north, in a place far from the bustling cities of men, in a quiet and peaceful forest, an elven village, a village that had stood for a thousand years, was now under attack. A torrent of demonic fire was raining down from the sky, and the treehouses of the elves were now engulfed in a sea of flames.
The defensive barriers of the elves were a flickering and fragile thing, on the verge of collapse.
A short distance away, a tall figure stood, watching his own forces lay waste to the village. Bazalt, the most bloodthirsty of all the Demon King's generals, a being clad in a black and terrible armor, a being from whom a sickening stench of a blood and death radiated.
A cruel smile was on his face. With every spell he cast, another of the elves' barriers would shatter, and another of their people would be sent flying through the air, their fate unknown. "Weak! So weak!" his voice was a contemptuous roar. "And they call themselves the masters of magic!? Pathetic!"
He looked over at a white-haired elf who was now slumped against a tree. "You were strong," he said with a sneer. "Strong enough to make me use the blessing of the Demon King himself. But it is over now. Now you will watch as I burn your precious village to the ground."
He opened his mouth, and a dark purple energy began to gather, a sphere of a pure and unadulterated destruction, his own, innate magic.
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