Chương 64: Chapter 57 - Peace and the Slayer

I didn't even know anti-magical fields existed. I pulled on my power. Or, well, I tried to, because I couldn't feel any power. With an unhurried gesture, Peace motioned toward me.

"Capture him alive. We need his blood." I drew Sarah's sword and stepped into a stance, blade in front of me. The raiders carried a large maul, a war axe, and a pair of hand axes. The dog-like beasts stood the size of calves, hairless, with too much jaw and skin like poured wax. One of the raiders clicked his tongue twice. The mutated beasts bolted toward me. I stepped in and ducked, lowering the sword. The first beast ran straight onto the blade I put in its path.

The tip pierced its ribcage, the blade sliding through. It still crashed into me, dead weight carried by inertia. The impact made me stumble. The other beast pounced, biting into my thigh. Pain exploded through me. The wound was deep. As I regained my balance, I rammed the sword's pommel into the hinge of its jaw. Its mouth jerked open, the beast stumbling back. I spun the sword and stabbed. The blade pierced its neck and slashed through. Blood flooded out.

Gritting my teeth against a shout, I stepped forward, straightening the sword back into proper form in front of me. My leg bled badly. The raiders charged. I bolted at the one with the maul. He swung, and I feinted a stab at his throat. He jerked his arms up to block. I dropped low off the feint, diving in with a stab at his midsection. The tip pierced his gut. I spun, slashing his belly open, throwing him over my shoulder with the motion. His entrails spilled out as he rolled. An axe hit my side.

It dug deep, rattling my ribs. The second axe came for my neck. I sprang into him, smashing my head into his face. His nose cracked under the impact. As he stumbled, I spun into a heavy slash. He raised an axe to block. My blade knocked it aside and cut deep across his throat. Blood sprayed from the wound. The third raider swung at my back. I shifted my weight. Too slow. The axe buried itself in my back, bending me forward. He stepped in, launching a knee at my face.

With a shout of pain, I straightened against the axe. The blade cut deeper into my back, but the motion threw him off. The knee missed. Before he got his leg back down, I stabbed at his groin. The tip hit. He screamed, leaning into me. I jerked my body upward. My shoulder hit his face with a sickening crunch. It forced him a step to the side. I grabbed the sword with both hands and slashed. The blade cut him across the face, bone and teeth flying.

I stepped in, turned the motion into a stab, and ran the blade through his gut. With a spin, I disemboweled him, and stumbled toward Peace. From within her coat, she drew a double-barrelled shotgun. She braced it against her shoulder and shot me in the gut. Pain whited out my vision for a second. My legs lost all feeling. I crashed to the floor. With calm steps, heels clicking on the floor, Peace walked to my side. I still held the sword. I tried to raise my arm to throw it at her. She shot me in the elbow.

The joint burst apart, the pain nearly knocking me out. Peace dropped the shotgun on the floor. She crouched beside me, reached into another inner pocket of her coat, and produced a jar and a piece of cloth.

"Try not to bleed to death too quickly, please." Ah, fuck. Everything was getting cold. I stopped feeling the pain. All right. Imprison me, you piece of shit. Throw me into a stasis field, and see what an unrestricted demon princess looks like. I pulled on the tower interface. I had to extract. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. No menu showed up. The anti-magical field stopped the interface too. She put the jar next to me.

It was more machine than glass, pink light forming a helix inside. She took the cloth, gathered blood from around me, and started squeezing it out into the jar.

"I must say that I am impressed," she said. Her voice was so insufferably calm and even. As if nothing at all had happened.

"You can actually fight." I grunted.

"You just have to rub it in, don't you?"

"I am not rubbing in anything." She pressed the cloth into my gut to drench it.

"I have spent my entire life watching people fight. I have seen so much of it that I can tell how good someone is. Personally, I abhor violence." She held the cloth above the jar and squeezed more blood into it. Damn it. None of my triggers for Elsha were going to fire. I was going to despawn, and that had no condition attached to it.

"That is why I like the name Peace. It is what I wish I could live in. The person I wish I could be. But we do not get what we want." With gentle precision, she moved the cloth through my gut, gathering more blood.

"And yet I will get what I wish. Your blood will open the path to the new world. To paradise." I coughed out blood.

"Spare me the religious bullshit."

"Not a believer, are you?" She formed an amused smile.

"That is fine. In a few days, we will find out whether I am a religious nut, or whether paradise is truly at hand." She gently caught my cheek, turning my face toward hers.

"Is your name truly Damian?"

"Yes," I pushed out.

"Yours?"

"Peace. Liberation, Life, and Feast are monikers the founder assigned, inspired by my name. But my name is my own. I made Paradise into what it is today, and I will turn our dream into reality. I deeply appreciate you coming to chase after me. Had you simply stopped entering the tower, I would have had no way to get the blood of the slayer." Ah, fuck. My form wasn't even shimmering yet. I probably had at least another minute before I bled to death.

"I'll kill you for this. And for Sarah." A smile split her face.

"I have heard that plenty of times. You are the first one worthy of it. I do not want to die, of course. Nor do I plan to. But once I succeed, I will make this up to you. The paradise I create will be for everyone. That includes you." My form started shimmering. The jar was three-quarters full. She even put down the cloth. We both knew she had enough.

"We seem to be out of time." She stroked my cheek.

"I'm up three to zero now. Just in case you win next time, I should make you a little badge saying I beat Peace once." She chuckled a little.

"We will meet in the new world. May you find peace, Slayer." My consciousness faded. Darkness took over my vision. The Hague, here I come. I woke up in the pod. The backlash from zeroing out my timer hit like an Orion express to the head. Everything spun. My vision strobed between normal and black, and the spinning included my stomach. I wrenched over the pod's edge, ready to hurl. Except I had nothing to expel, because I hadn't eaten anything physical in days. I only retched, my vision still flashing.

Somewhere past the retching, details started trickling in. Soft light. Climate-controlled air with a faint scent of sandalwood. No dome noise, no technicians shouting, no crowd, no cameras. Wherever I was, it was quiet, and quiet was expensive. A nurse rushed to me and jabbed a needle pen into my arm.

"Try to move as little as possible," she said. From my arm, she pulled out an IV, touching my jacket's pocket in the meantime. The flashing stopped. So did the retching. I exhaled and leaned back into the pod. I wasn't tied up. No shackles, no cuffs, nothing limiting me at all. And the nurse wore a nice uniform with the Golden Sands' symbols embroidered into it. Which made no sense. My return itinerary had exactly one stop on it, and that stop was a cell in the Hague. I glanced at her.

"Thanks." She jerked her head back, dodging my horn. Wait… my what? I reached for my head. A horn jutted from my forehead. Just one, on the right side, curved, sharp, angled forward. The surface was smooth and warm, ridged near the base. Very much attached. Very much mine. My hand looked wrong too. The skin had gone rougher, and my nails were black. I caught my reflection in the pod's canopy glass. Still my face. Mostly. The horn ruined the whole ensemble, jutting out, completely out of place. The fuck?

My mana hadn't been removed when I zeroed out. I still had about thirty million left. I had to save it, though. I breathed in, and shouted, "Elsha!" Everything around me froze. Inside the time stop, my vision stabilized, the sick feeling gone. Past the frozen nurse, Elsha floated on a sofa made of pink petals.

"Trying to see me without spending mana. I shall take it you are saving up for my next summoning." I pointed at my horn.

"What the fuck is this?" She floated over to me, touching it gently.

"That appears to be a horn."

"Why do I have it?" She chuckled.

"Probably a little side effect of summoning me. It should be harmless."

"Harmless." I raised my hand, showing her the black nails.

"And these?"

"A side effect of a side effect." She drifted a lazy circle around me, inspecting.

"Count yourself lucky. Very few humans can pull off the half-demon look. But you look great. As my apprentice should."

"How do I get rid of it?" With a giggle, she faded, and time resumed. I needed a better mentor. And a better main summon. Better everything, actually. I started climbing out of the pod. The nurse helped me, half pulling me out. My legs were still wobbly, my head spinning a bit. I looked around. My pod sat in the middle of a spacious office. The very luxurious kind, with dark wood, gold inlays, and statues lining the walls. Winged bulls, robed kings, heroes wrestling lions.

The kind of collection museums wrote polite, desperate letters about. This wasn't a holding cell. It sure as hell wasn't the Hague. A massive desk with four monitors stood at the far end. Behind it sat Gilgamesh.