NOVEL NEXT Ch. 4
Chapter 4
“....”
Henrik stared at Velperia in silence.
Before the regression, when the fully-awakened Velperia had risen, simply standing in her presence had been impossible. Dozens of knight orders, mages, clergy-and countless Hunters had died to bring her down.
Now he faced her alone.
The grotesque head opened its mouth.
“Human? How does a human know me?”
Henrik didn’t answer; he ran a quick check on himself.
‘Velperia, Sovereign of Sloth.’
Specialties: brainwashing and wide-area illusion. Watch for her shadow whip.
The Sovereign of Sloth is, true to her name, too indolent to train her own body.
She recovers power by raising gifted children in orphanages, then devouring them-absorbing their talent and long lifespans to restore her prime.
In other words-
12/31
-tonight, the night she first feeds on the orphans, is the only window to kill her.
Then-
“P-Periol! Periol!!!”
Baron Vendal burst in from behind.
He pushed past Henrik, and the knights who followed fanned out to encircle Henrik instead.
But their sword-points trembled oddly; every terrified eye stayed on the Baron.
He cradled the severed head of Periol against his chest.
“P-Periol! Are you all right?”
He might have been speaking to a living daughter.
Brainwashing.
One of Velperia’s talents, unmistakable. Villagers were already fleeing at the sight of the talking head, yet the Baron behaved like a doting father.
Long years of illusion and indoctrination.
Beyond the Baron, Velperia’s voice slid out.
“Useless fool. Bringing trash like that before me.”
“Ah... ahh....”
Shhk-thuck!
Periol-no, Velperia-her shadow whip punched through the Baron’s back and out his chest.
“P-Peri...!”
“Prove your worth as an offering.”
She clicked her tongue, planted the whip in his ribcage, and yanked his heart free. Crunch, crunch-she chewed it with dreamy relish.
Creak-crack-
Her body reshaped.
Shadow whips sprouted from her neck, writhing downward, then braided into a human silhouette.
The encircling knights dropped their swords and ran.
Screeee!
“M-monster!”
Villagers screamed and scattered; the knights, mere mercenaries who valued their skins, followed.
Among them, Ted came pelting toward Henrik, panting.
“W-what happened!?”
“Exactly what you see.”
“A demon? No, wait-”
Ted’s eyes narrowed; the girl called ‘Periol’ now wore an unmistakably demonic form.
“...Henrik.”
Backing away, Ted asked, voice steady, “You knew from the start?”
“Of course.”
“Why didn’t you say?”
“Would you have believed me?”
“Fair point.”
This was no longer human.
Ted accepted it at once. Henrik stepped between him and the creature.
“You’d better retreat. That’s one of the Seven Sovereigns-Velperia of Sloth.”
“...What?!”
Aaaagh!
Fresh screams rang out as Velperia moved, watching the rout.
“No running. Everyone here is my fodder.”
Slither-
Shadow whips unfurled from her body, racing after knights and townsfolk.
The lashes snapped around legs, arms, mouths-hog-tying them in mid-stride.
“Ngh-urk!”
They thrashed, then hung limp.
“...That?”
Ted froze; Henrik warned,
“Shadow whip. One touch and you’re done-watch it.”
“Not that, Henrik.”
Ted pointed at his own feet.
“....”
“....”
A ribbon of darkness already cinched his ankle.
“Damn mage,” Henrik muttered.
“I seek knowledge-”
Henrik’s hammer smashed the shadow whip binding Ted’s ankle, scattering it like ash.
But Ted’s eyes were already darkening.
The curse had taken root.
“Feels... weird,” Ted muttered, swaying.
“Remember one thing,” Henrik said.
“What?”
“It’s not real.”
Ted’s mouth opened; he pitched forward, unconscious.
Henrik hauled him into a corner, spun, and sprinted straight at Velperia.
Crunch-
The drug hit his bloodstream.
Muscles ballooned; time slowed to a syr crawl.
He shot forward like lightning.
Velperia snarled and lashed a dozen shadow whips overhead, black ribbons blotting out the sky.
Henrik veered, slipped between the lashes, closed the distance, and hoisted his warhammer.
A whip grazed his flank-no pain, thanks to the nerve blockers.
WHAM!
A full-power overhead smash.
The whips knotted into a shield, but silver met shadow and the silver won; strands touching the weapon melted and slumped away.
The warhammer punched through, burying itself in her ribs.
-crack!
“Gah!”
Black blood sprayed as Velperia was flung aside.
She hit the ground and didn’t rise.
Silver, the purification ore, was poison to demonkind. Flesh around the wound blued, regeneration sealed shut.
That weakness applied only to mid-rank demons-third or fourth grade. Baal, who had once severed Henrik’s head, was fully immune; Velperia, a future Demon King, would be too-
-but that was years ahead.
Right now she had only just ascended to mid-rank.
The skin around the hammer-blow was already sapphire.
Henrik pressed in, refusing her time to breathe.
One strike, two, three.
Each impact twisted her face further.
It’s working.
Keep this up and she’ll go down.
He raised the hammer again, sighting the demon core in her skull.
The instant he committed to the killing swing-
“......!”
Velperia’s pain-warped smile flipped into a playful grin.
She’s laughing?
“Not yet? Not yet?” she singsonged.
Henrik’s eyes narrowed.
The world flipped.
Illusion.
He’d expected it; a graze from the whip guaranteed the trap.
The village square dissolved into a desolate battlefield.
“......”
A sight he knew too well-he had died here, in his previous life.
At whose hand?
Right in front of him now:
“......”
[I ask your name myself. What is it?]
Baal stood waiting.
The scenery’s fake, Henrik told himself; Velperia’s real body is still on the ground.
Her illusions dredged up the memory you fear most, the trauma that gutted you.
Veins bulged at his temples.
I was afraid of him.
That enraged him more than the memory.
Everyone fears or despairs at the sight of Baal.
Henrik felt only fury.
“Baal...”
He tightened his grip on the warhammer.
“No-Velperia.”
Because in this illusion, she becomes the thing you dread.
In his first life he would have broken here.
Not this time.
He lived now to erase the seven sovereigns and Baal himself.
This mirage was nothing beside the real battlefield where he had fallen.
CRASH!
The hammer caved in Baal’s skull-
[Henrik!]
“......!”
A woman’s voice, long forgotten, rang out.
Even illusions, it seemed, could remember.
The voice of the woman stored in his last living memory spoke his name.
At that instant, brilliant glyphs burst from Henrik’s flesh.
Shatter-
The scenery cracked like glass and collapsed.
Before him stood Velperia, staggering, her face bleached with horror.
“W-what...!?”
She couldn’t comprehend the attack that had just landed.
“H-how did the illusion...!?”
While she gaped, Henrik charged, warhammer locked in both hands.
Using the illusion to jolt him had been her mistake.
Thud-! Crunch!
The hammer slammed into her again and again; Velperia crumpled and slammed to the floor.
Shadow whips rained down like a monsoon, but this time Henrik slipped every lash and kept pressing her back.
‘I can see them.’
At first he’d only survived by letting the painkiller steer him away from fatal strikes.
Not anymore.
‘What is this power?’
Every whip’s arc etched itself into his pupils-where it would go, when it would land-instinct fed the data straight into his brain.
It felt as if each strike were flashing a second before it happened.
That woman’s voice...
‘Did the glyphs react to it?’
Inside the illusion he had summoned her sound.
The moment he pictured black wings, his body blazed and the golden letters flared.
A new power.
Flash-
Velperia’s eyes refused to believe it.
Light poured from Henrik’s body in blazing runes!
“Th-those glyphs...! This can’t be...!”
She stumbled backward, clearly knowing what the symbols meant.
She lashed shadow whips with everything she had, tried to bind him, but nothing worked.
Her authority had no effect.
“Th-this is insane!”
Snap-snap-crack!
The shadow tethers holding Henrik tore apart; he surged forward and planted the hammer in Velperia’s face.
Crack!
“Aaagh!”
The impossible force smashed her to the ground.
“W-who are you!?”