Chapter 102: Chapter 97: Demon Lord

I hacked at my own webs with a dagger, trying to unstick myself from the dragon's fleshy throat as quickly as possible. It wasn't so much due to the large presence outside, but more that a few things that were easily ignorable in the heat of battle were now making their presence known.

It was pitch black and my normally reliable olfactory perception was struggling to pick stuff out through the pervasive stench of dragon halitosis. That same foul smell made me gag with every breath I took. I was covered in dragon saliva, the viscous fluid dripping down my hair and coating my beautiful scales. It was in my tail, the luxurious fur completely spoiled. I needed a bath. No, I needed a respawn. No amount of bathing could ever make me feel clean.

I successfully freed myself, falling onto an acid-scorched tongue—adding a mix of blood and molten flesh to my hygiene woes—and stumbled my way to a wall of teeth. I strained, pushing upwards with all of my draconic might, and managed to open a gap just large enough for a few rays of sunlight to break through.

Mind magic immunity advanced to level 31

I activated trigger respawn on instinct, but the distraction caused me to shift my attention from my escape, and the mouth once again slammed shut. Whatever the mind magic user was doing, I didn't feel anything. I hadn't felt a thing when the giant centipede had turned my mind inside out, either, but now I had a fourth tier resistance. It should do something.

A quiet plink at my neck reminded me of the mind magic resisting necklace I wore. It plinked again, and reaching up to it, it felt warm. It was defending me, but it was struggling. I needed out of here right now, before it broke, but I also needed to store it in my item box before my suicide. What if I removed it, then was disabled before I managed to do anything fatal?

With my resistances, suffocating myself, or even trying to slash my throat, would be too slow. Blowing myself to bits with a reverse flame breath would be faster, but I couldn't do it until after removing the necklace, and I didn't trust myself to win the race. Instead, I picked a fang, and once again forced it upwards, not trying to escape this time but simply clearing enough space for me to slide underneath. I positioned the fang above my face, stored my equipment and...

My life rewound before my eyes. I saw myself suffocating the red dragon. Looking down on him from above as he ate the fox-kin to heal himself, and the utter contempt and hatred I'd felt at him. My conversation with Ortho. My previous fight. My conversations with the dragon and with Dru'niryeal. I saw Ancora's face.

The fang, which I'd unconsciously released the moment the mind magic ripped into me, impacted, destroying my brain.

Mind magic immunity advanced to level 32

I took a moment back at the castle ruins to collect myself. It hadn't been an attack, but an interrogation. An effective one. Despite my so called 'immunity', whoever it was had ripped a substantial portion of my time in the demon territory from my head. They knew my respawn cheat and my powers. They knew I valued the fox-kin enough to make them useful hostages.

And as to who 'they' were, the presence being stronger than the red dragon left few options. Almost certainly another dragon, but likely the demon lord himself. I needed to get back there.

"Katie!" exclaimed a guard, the same trio still waiting around the altar. "Lord Grelingham wanted to talk to you."

"Again? I'm in a hurry."

"It's important."

"Fine. Lead on then."

I made the same trek back to the same stone house, occupied by the same group of people. "Don't any of you need sleep?" I commented.

"I would love to, and perhaps soon I will," answered Ortho.

"You will?" I asked, blinking. "Why? What happened?"

"That's what I wanted to ask you. About an hour ago, the demon armies withdrew from the barrier. They're still camping within sight of it, but, for now, the pressure is off. What did you do?"

A ceasefire? Why? I just killed the red dragon; things should get worse, not better.

"The red dragon is dead. I saw what I believed to be the demon lord, but didn't have a chance to engage."

...And he read my mind, was the bit I didn't add. He saw I sympathised and didn't want to kill anyone. The only reason he would withdraw his forces would be as a token, a sign that he wanted to talk.

"I was about to go back there, before he left," I added.

"Then go. If he wants to negotiate, we are willing," said Ortho, drawing the same conclusion from the withdrawn forces as I had, "but you have no permission to offer concessions on our behalf."

I rushed back to the altar and fast travelled to the temple. Dru'niryeal was standing before the statue, wearing a complicated expression. "A little more than an hour, just as he said it would be," she muttered.

I bit my tongue to avoid making a flippant remark about the big bad demon lord waiting for me, not wanting to accidentally antagonise the soul mage.

"You have nothing to fear from me," she continued, reading my expression. "Go ahead. He's waiting in the air."

I already knew that; I could sense him. Well, here we go. Off once more to the big, black dragon. I activated trigger respawn for safety's sake, then stepped out of the temple, the priestess not following this time, and took off into the air. Pinned in place above the town in complete defiance of gravity, not flapping his wings or moving even a single muscle, was a dragon. Hanging there like a bad special effect, he was maybe very slightly larger than the red one, and certainly a stronger presence. There was just one problem: he was green. A dark green, with maybe a touch of brown, but certainly not black.

[Untranslatable], draco viridis
Detailed appraisal blocked

"Oh," I commented. "I expected the demon lord. I don't know you."

I felt mind magic brush past me, but again my necklace absorbed it with a plink, growing warm in the process.

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The new dragon moved for the first time, rotating his head to stare at me as I hovered in the air, an act into which I had to put far more effort than the dragon suspended in front of me. "You are acquainted with the one the humans call the demon lord? How interesting. What, prey tell, does he look like?"

"Dragon? Your size, but black. Melts the brain of anyone who looks at him. He and the red one called each other brothers."

The green dragon raised a quizzical eyebrow, which was an impressive feat, given that he had no eyebrows. The ridge above one eye shifted upwards, and proficient empath had no difficulties in interpreting the gesture.

"How interesting. I would be delighted to discuss your encounter in greater detail another time, but alas, you have something else to answer for first."

I glanced over at the corpse of the red dragon, still sitting where it had been left. How cross was this green one at me for killing him? And also, what sort of mana crystal would a dragon contain?

"Yes, precisely," said the green dragon, following my gaze. "He was my brother too, after all. I have to say, everything about you is fascinating. Never before have I seen one blessed by the Goddess. The Goddess has not directly interfered in our world since a time long before my birth. Everything I know about the humans' summoning ritual implies that it is a farce; a fakery created by a long-dead king as a threat to a rebellious territory. For it to actually work... I would not have believed it possible, had I not seen it with my own eyes. Even if the blessing didn't directly increase your power and merely offered you potential, that potential seems to be limitless. Furthermore, you possess equipment that doesn't follow the conventional rules of enchantment. And, of course, the only reason we're having this conversation; your motive for murdering my brother."

So, like the red dragon, he's never seen anyone with a blessing before? And he thought the summoning ritual was a hoax? At least this one was more willing to accept being wrong, unlike his overheated brother. "Whether he considered them pets or slaves, he dared to use a child as a hostage. And then he ate them. And they queued up to let him."

"I agree," said the dragon. "His attitude was why I never granted him subjects of his own, forcing him to create some. But since he did create his own, they were his to do with as he wished. Even then, it wasn't as if he took pleasure in their suffering. His recent acts were simply because you put his life in danger. He has always had a tendency to favour rapid victory over minimising casualties."

Imagine having a god like that... People point at the hands-off attitude of any Earth gods that may exist as evidence that they don't, but such people should stop to consider what things may be like if they ever decided to get hands on. Then again, no-one here doubted the existence of the Goddess, and no-one worshipped the red dragon.

Wait... Why would this dragon be in a position to grant subjects?

"You are the demon lord?" I asked in confusion. "But... Oh, the Void! That's why he said he was stronger."

Again the dragon radiated surprise, and I felt the touch of mind magic once more.

Mind magic immunity advanced to level 33

This time it was strong enough to force its way past my necklace, which started glowing red hot, charring the collar of my nightie, but the magic that was left was brushed off by my immunity skill.

"I do not understand you. You speak as having met us, yet our actions and even appearance surprise you. It cannot be foresight or prophecy. You can resist my telepathy at a level beyond that which your necklace offers. But those mysteries can wait for later. I do not wish for this continuing war any more than the humans do. The human king has always refused to negotiate, but now he is dead by his own summoned hero's hand. A hero which I deem will be a trustworthy intermediary. When I heard of the success of a hero summoning, I feared the Goddess had turned against us, but I now see that is not so. Yet time is of the essence. The commander of the army, Ortho Grelingham, has taken smooth control for now, but you can be certain that the aristocracy are already plotting beneath the surface to install their own preferred candidate on the empty throne. He will not maintain control for long, and my suspension of our attack will only embolden those who would selfishly undermine their own kingdom."

"If we can end this without fighting, I would be more than happy to cooperate."

"Then return to the land of humans. Dru'niryeal will present you with our terms for humanity's surrender."

"Those nobles you mentioned are not going to be happy with anything that suggests they surrendered," I pointed out.

"That is the intent. This war was caused by the greed and arrogance of humans, and it will not end without them swallowing their pride."

Again with the arrogance. Well, whatever, I was only playing messenger. The alternative was attacking the demon lord right here and now. My chances of victory wouldn't be zero, but neither were they great. If he chose to attack with mind magic, I doubted my necklace would last. And if I did win, I imagined the fate that would await the town below would be horrifying. If there was a chance for peace, I wanted to take it.

"Fine. There's no harm in asking."

"Then go. I shall wait here for a response."

Whatever other opinions of humans he may have, he certainly seemed to overestimate their ability to get things done. The terms of the surrender could be as simple as a promise to keep the border closed and not to attack again, and they would surely still argue over it for days. A long time to be hanging in the air. Or maybe he was just extremely patient.

Regardless, I dropped from the sky and headed back to the temple. Dru'niryeal handed me a sealed envelope, which I checked over with perceive mana and discern danger in case it was trapped somehow in an attempt to kill the human leadership. It could still be trapped in a more mundane way, but it wasn't triggering my poison absorption or disease immunity skills, and hopefully wouldn't do anything without being opened. I assumed the humans would have procedures to open suspect messages.

As I carried my message towards the statue, Dru'niryeal spoke up once more. A simple, one word question. "Why?"

"Because no-one should be treated like that."

"Would you chastise a farmer for harvesting his fields? Slaughtering his livestock? Would you attack the Goddess herself for letting a child die from disease, when she could rid the world of all pestilence with no more than a thought?"

"Where I'm from, there are indeed a lot of people who are against farming animals, and you're obviously much more than any animal. As for the Goddess... I can't even begin to comprehend what she's thinking, assuming she has conventional thoughts at all."

People make the same complaints about Earth gods, after all. The normal answer is something about dying of disease and starvation being an important part of free will, or that humans rejected the plans the gods had for them and brought disaster down upon themselves.

She said nothing more, so I tapped the statue and invoked fast travel. It was time to see the humans' reaction to their hero, who they'd summoned as part of a strategy to kill the demon lord, acting as a messenger for him to demand their surrender.