#095. The Demon Lord is Too Kind (2)
#095. The Demon Lord is Too Kind (2)
The Demon Lord’s blood frantically scraped together hypnotic commands, desperate to corrupt Ian.
[Self-Hypnosis]
[Command – You are a mother who cherishes children more than anyone.]
[Self-Hypnosis]
[Command – I want to believe. That this time we are only dealing with a slightly larger, more distant, special alleyway, and that this time too, we can guide them out of it.]
The Demon Lord is the progenitor of all demons.
It is common sense that a Demon Lord’s child becomes a fiend.
Therefore, they could not allow the children to go hungry and starve.
They had to lead the children out of the alleyway named the barren North, towards the entire kingdom, across the entire continent.
Against such cunning brainwashing, Ian drew out another set of hypnotic commands, using them as a mental bulwark to protect himself.
[Self-Hypnosis]
[Command – Remain a good child in front of your mother.]
[Self-Hypnosis]
[Command – Forget the child that causes you pain.]
The moment fiends lay their hands on the human race, they cannot become his ‘children.’
Ian would never condone such a bad child.
The Demon Lord’s blood raged.
Every Demon Lord candidate in history had taken the Demon Lord’s blood and succumbed to the destructive potential inherent within it.
And yet, how could the Demon Lord’s blood be pushed back by a mere, diminutive boy?
[Self-Hypnosis]
[Command – Don’t mistake the target you must point your sword at.]
[Command – I will be by your side until the pain subsides.]
The Demon Lord’s blood escalated to more intense intimidation.
This battle would not end unless Ian cut off his sustenance and starved himself until his demonic nature disappeared.
The enemy Ian had to face was not the Demon Lord’s blood, but his own foolish humanity.
A battle destined for defeat.
Why did he insist on fighting him, until the pain subsided and he died?
‘A body already as good as dead. I do not fear death.’
But for a Player living a second life, intimidation involving his life meant nothing.
[Self-Hypnosis]
[Command – You and Marbas are not equal.]
[Self-Hypnosis]
[Command – Even Gretel’s fragment didn’t give up and fall, so whose soul have you subdued and crushed?]
There was once a playwright who grasped another’s life, forcing tragedy upon them, reveling in it.
The vampire, who lived for seven hundred years, though defeated by Ian, drove countless people to ruin for the amusement of appeasing his foul soul’s boredom.
The number of those who succumbed to Marbas is so great it’s frightening even to contemplate.
But how many beings called Demon Lords have appeared since humanity first walked this earth?
Not even ten, at best.
Such a meager Demon Lord’s blood, even Marbas cannot surpass.
‘Gretel’s fragment surpassed even that Marbas. Am I now lesser than that Gretel’s fragment then?’
That cannot be.
If Gretel fought as Hansel’s mother.
He would teach the demons, born only to commit heinous slaughter, otherwise as the mother of all demons.
The destination pointed to by the compassion towards the entire demon race, the demonic kin, is one.
The liberation of all demons from the Demon Lord’s blood.
[Futile resistance. Like all past Demon Lord candidates, you too shall succumb.]
No. That is not so.
If truly all Demon Lord candidates succumbed, how is it that humanity has only faced less than ten Demon Lords?
It is because the Demon Lord candidates themselves resisted and endured their fate, their peaceful times slowed the speed at which the Demon Lord’s misdeeds would spread.
Yes.
Just as Gretel’s fragment did not give up and fall, the Demon Lord’s blood has truly subdued and crushed only a select few Demon Lord candidates’ souls.
[Self-Hypnosis]
[Command – For the sake of the kingdom’s peace, please, hear my plea.]
Surely there are souls of predecessors who faced this blood with the same heart.
Ian clasped his hands together, earnestly wishing.
For the sake of the kingdom’s peace, please, lend me your strength.
Dissolved into the Demon Lord’s blood.
Having already been defeated and succumbed once.
But given the chance for a rematch.
The vengeful spirits of past Demon Lords tore and writhed within the blood.
-Even if it meant mastering the forbidden magic arts proscribed by the Empire, I wanted to become the strongest. But the moment that what I desired, the recognition of all, transformed into fear instead of respect, I understood. The Demon Lord’s blood does not fulfill one’s desires, but distorts them.
-The Empire is a wicked empire, deserving of ruin. I would gladly borrow the power of demons to destroy a country that forcibly lures hazardous waste facilities to local states, threatening the lives of local residents, and crushes resisting countries with economic power until they go bankrupt.
-Even so, innocent and helpless people are watching. Heaven is overlooking this land, and as long as that will does not wane, I will uphold my faith in non-killing.
Not all vengeful spirits deny demons.
But not all vengeful spirits affirm demons either.
I am not alone, I have comrades to fight with.
Upon confirming that fact, Ian gained courage.
[Self-Hypnosis]
[Command – If you do not truly desire killing, then leave the Blood Forest.]
If they are also a part of the Demon Lord’s blood, they can weaken the Demon Lord’s blood by ending their long mission and choosing death along with the Demon Lord’s blood, which is tied to their souls.
In another Blood Forest named the Demon Lord’s Blood, stained with countless deaths, several great crosses bloomed in Ian’s and the Demon Lord’s Blood’s consciousness.
The cross exploded, and countless droplets of blood rained down, but this blood was no longer tainted, no longer impure.
[The final, until the end, futile, resistance.]
Ian felt the self-hypnotic power of the demon lord’s blood – the power that had sought to enslave and corrupt him – weakening.
Now, he might not win, but neither would he lose.
If this balance held, the demon lord’s karmic burden would never threaten the world, not until the end of the vast lifespan forced upon him by that blood.
A smile graced Ian’s lips.
His soul remained unblemished.
[I concede. You, are different.]
[But, the next generation, cannot, match you.]
The demon lord’s blood conceded.
This was Ian’s victory.
Yet, if someday, someone were to appear, someone who would borrow the demon lord’s power to overturn the order of this world…
The day Ian’s soul weakened and crumbled, that day would herald a new demon lord.
And so, in the distant future, the day the demon lord’s blood triumphed would dawn once more.
‘No. Such a future will not come to pass. I have no intention of ending this inauguration until the day you fall.’
[Self-Hypnosis]
[Command – You are a mother who cherishes her children more than anyone.]
[Self-Hypnosis]
[Command – You, too, are half human.]
If all the demons of the world are my children, and half of them are human, then humanity is no different from my children.
Demon lord’s blood, that includes even you.
Ian’s insane self-hypnosis allowed no compromise with mere satisfaction.
‘Just as the demon lords of the past were tested for their humanity by the demon lord’s blood, now it is your turn.’
As the demon lords of the past were tested, now it was the demon lord’s blood’s turn to be forcibly imbued with humanity, to be tested by the fall of a virtuous immortal, deviating from the demonic path and embracing the path of virtue.
* * *
“Is it usually this long for a demon lord’s evolution?”
“No. The longer one resists, the more excruciating the pressure becomes, so the evolution comes quickly. In my case, a month was the limit.”
The previous demon lord gazed upon the cocoon of blood surrounding Ian with awe.
“Ian, that noble saint’s spirit… he has, in effect, surpassed all the demon lords of the past.”
The empire’s threat to crush the kingdom had ended.
The demon lord had been replaced, and they had received information that the next demon lord was fighting the previous one for the sake of the preservation and future of the Northern Independent Kingdom, and had ultimately taken that blood.
If the demon lord were to complete his evolution and emerge with a lingering affection for the kingdom…
What would he think when he saw the kingdom reduced to ashes?
Wouldn’t he think to annihilate the empire?
From the empire’s perspective, it was a future they absolutely had to avoid.
Of course, this compromise was possible because the demons under Ian’s command did not harm humans and showed visible changes.
A demon lord who was not hostile to humanity.
Ian was the second miracle to befall humanity, following the previous demon lord.
“You foolish man. What’s the point of all this if you’re not happy?”
Theresa, taking on Ian’s share, commanded the subjugation army, sealed off the periphery of the evolution cocoon, and crushed the ugly struggles of the power holders who rashly tried to subjugate the demon lord and protect even a hundred-year hiatus.
The power brokers, fearful of Teresa’s immense authority, seized upon this chance, writhing in their desperation.
“Only one candidate has ever overcome the Demon King’s influence.”
“Even then, they did not achieve complete victory, having to offer sacrifices every ten years.”
“Ian, can that small boy truly prevail?”
“If he fails, wouldn’t killing him now be an opportunity to save more people?”
“Teresa, blinded by the blood tie of being Ian’s parent, cannot follow the greater good. She has become a madwoman dragging all the citizens of the Northern Independent Kingdom down into the abyss with her.”
“Open the Demon King Confinement Zone and incinerate the Evolution Cocoon! Anyone who opposes this is a traitor to all of humankind!”
Easy resistance it was not.
Using their noble authority, they ceaselessly attempted to enact laws, reduce the size of the Northern Resource Army, strip Teresa and the Demon King Confinement Zone of troops, supplies, and legal protection.
But Teresa, Cecilia, the Teresa Clan, the adventurers of the Sodom Guild, and the titans of the Holy Army did not abandon the North.
They were there to repel the invasion of humans seeking their doom instead of the silent demons.
They were there to achieve the feat of subjugating the Demon King with more ease than ever before.
They blocked, and blocked again, the ugly attempts to exploit Ian’s sacrifice.
“You…!”
“It has been a while, Teresa.”
“…The head of the House of Starsapphire. What brings you here?”
The head of her birth family, from whom she had estranged, and thus become strangers, and Teresa’s own father.
The middle-aged man with streaked white hair occupied one of the northern gate with the swordsmen of his house as the new support force.
“I lost my precious daughter because I succumbed to the dirty collusion of the royal family and the noble alliance, fearing the Demon King and the Empire. I cannot repeat the same mistake and lose my grandson as well. That is all.”
“…The support of the House of Starsapphire… I thank you deeply, from the bottom of my heart.”
The elderly head of the house gazed far away, towards the land where his grandson lay dormant within the cocoon, amidst the rising crimson cross of blood.
“Just like her mother, so unfilial. Wake up quickly. It is not just you who is protecting your mother, protecting everyone. Your mother, everyone, is protecting you like this.”