Chương 23: The Widening Wound

Most demons lose higher reason after astral lead corruption. This should not comfort the reader. A beast that cannot speak may still hunt, obey, remember pain, recognize symbols, follow commands, and distinguish prey from predators. Speech is not often the most important measure of danger. Indeed, many of our men are killed by demons too witless to recite their own names. However, a minority of demons—about one in a thousand—are capable of retaining fragments of language even after astral lead corruption.

Current scholarship has not fully determined why this occurs. Cognizance does not appear to depend on grade, age, race, or proximity to large clumps of astral lead. Verified reports exist of Uncommon-Grade demons capable of fluent speech, while several Epic-Grade demons encountered during the recent northern campaigns displayed no language beyond shrieks, gestures, and command-response behavior. It may truly just be an abnormality of corruption.

Perhaps some demons are simply more immune to the mind-destroying effects of corruption than others. It does not have to be said out loud that speaking demons are disproportionately more dangerous compared to lesser demons. They may bargain, threaten, lie, command lesser demons, recognize important targets, remember old wars, and understand fear well enough to weaponize it. If a demon speaks, do not assume it is more human. Assume it is more capable.

—Excerpt from 'Cognitive Remnants in Astral-Lead Corruption', Written by the Relikov Board of Demonological Studies By the time they burst into the vast chamber at the end of the fourth lower shaft, every demon inside had already been slaughtered. Elkkin body parts lay across the ground in wet heaps, scattered between mine rails and broken carts. Their torsos had all been ripped open. Antlers lay snapped in half beside severed arms.

Heads stared up from pools of shimmering blood, their dull silver eyes still wide with whatever mindless rage had been inside them when they died, and all of it pooled together in this… hot, metallic stink in the air, strong enough to make even the inside of Orland's nose itch. Neither Miriyela nor Sharsana could tolerate it at first. Both princess and mole-drake turned away for a moment, Miriyela's hand going up to her nose while Sharsana gave a low, uneasy rumble.

The mole-drake had chewed demon flesh so happily just a few chambers ago, but now she seemed reluctant to put her snout near this massacre. For Orland's part, though, he only swallowed once before stepping forward alongside Kazimir. The smell was foul. Obviously. Anyone saying otherwise was a liar or dead inside, but years of sleeping in slums had taught him the world could smell much worse than blood and flesh. Summer alleys after three days of spoiled fish dumped into the gutters were terrible.

Dead rats trapped under floorboards were gag-worthy. Men who drank and didn't wake up until flies found them were putrid. He'd even butchered wolfhound rabbits, screeching karski birds, and all sorts of nasty beasts before—demon gore was disgusting, sure, but the smell wouldn't kill him. He crouched near one of the bodies, studying the wounds. Kazimir crouched beside another corpse, doing the same thing. However the old wolf was able to immediately tolerate the smell, he didn't really feel like finding out.

The wounds were interesting enough by themselves.

"... They're not cut clean," Orland muttered, squinting through his mask as he ran a hand along the edges of an eviscerated torso.

"It looks like… something sawed them apart."

"Yeah," Kazimir murmured back, also running a gloved finger along his corpse. The blood he came up with on his fingertip was pure black.

"The blood's still hot as well. Whatever killed them came through here not too long ago." Then the old wolf unsheathed the spatial-restoration blade from his belt, pointing it towards the mineshaft at the far end of the chamber. This time, the blade trembled in his grip so violently that its edge started to blur.

"The rift's right down that mineshaft," he said quietly.

"And I think… we're dealing with…" He trailed off. And instead of finishing his sentence, he stood up, sheathed his spatial-restoration blade, and began marching towards the mineshaft. Orland, Miriyela, and Sharsana had no choice but to skip after him. The princess and the mole-drake tried very hard not to crush the demon corpses beneath them, but it was inevitable for how many corpses there were scattered around the chamber. At a glance, there had to be at least thirty, maybe even forty demons in here.

It would've been a bloodbath if they were still alive when the four of them arrived. But now, it was almost guaranteed the four of them would be facing something much more powerful than forty demons.

"How long has it been since we entered Mine Zimnerudik again?" Miriyela asked as they stepped into the fifth lower mineshaft, making their final descent quickly.

"An hour? Two hours?"

"Three," Kazimir said coolly, keeping his eyes forward.

"I thought nothing of the very first tremble we felt in the first lower shaft. Mines tremble, and tunnels breathe—it happens all the time in the north—but now that we're this close to the bottom, I'm certain the rift's growing at an accelerated rate."

"Three hours?" Orland counted on his fingers.

"So if the rift was Common-7 grade when we came in, it's now… Uncommon-0?" Kazimir nodded.

"Uncommon-Grade demons are now able to pour in through the rift. They're probably the ones who did that back there, by the way." Orland frowned, glancing back through the mineshaft.

"Demons… killed other demons?"

"Yeah."

"But aren't they all working together?" Kazimir gave a humorless little grunt.

"Largely speaking, yes. The demons of Vyrmgaard march beneath the Tyrant's banner, and most of them obey higher-ranked demons in the armies when they're present, but unity doesn't make hunger disappear, and astral lead corruption makes them hungry." He glanced at Orland then.

"Humans can eat demon hearts to develop their mana cores, but demons can also eat demon hearts to feed their astral lead corruption. It makes them stronger, larger, and more capable at manipulating their astral lead. Different demon races and factions fight each other all the time, so don't think they won't eat each other if the opportunity presents itself." And Kazimir definitely seemed like he knew what he was talking about, because the final mineshaft leading them down was completely lacking in demonic guards.

Not only that, the mineshaft was colder than the others. Much, much colder. The fur on his evercoat coat was fluffing up just to keep him warm, which was good, but the astral lead flakes were thicker here as well—the wooden supports lining the walls were completely covered with the metal flakes—and he didn't have any relics to protect his skin from getting scraped. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Even without a spatial-restoration blade, Orland was pretty sure he would've figured out he was getting close to the rift.

"... Be wary," a young man whispered in his left ear.

"This is it," a young girl whispered in his right ear. He had no time to respond to either voice. The moment the four of them saw the light at the end of the tunnel, they picked up their pace and stepped into the deepest chamber in Mine Zimnerudik. It was also the largest chamber by far, and astral lead covered everything: the walls, the ceiling, the rails, the floor, and the half-mined salt veins and the mineral deposits.

The oily metal growths also pulsed in thick lumps across the chamber, glowing faintly with deep blues, bruised purples, sick reds, and silver flashes every few seconds. Even the air tasted metallic enough that Orland's tongue felt coated just breathing it in. The gravity was… just a little bit off, too. That took him a moment to understand, because his eyes kept trying to make sense of what they were seeing and failing. Minecarts floated over his head. Broken rails hung in the air in curved strips.

Splintered timber pillars drifted slowly around the chamber alongside loose tools, shattered wheels, and chunks of salt rock. Almost everything that wasn't alive or firmly attached to the ground hovered, and all of that—alongside the swirling lead flakes in the air—circled the rift at the far end of the chamber. … So that's a rift, huh? The dark blue and red tear in space, horrendously contrasting in glow, was taller than two grown men laid end to end and wide enough for a man to step through with his arms spread.

A 'tear' really was the best way to describe it. It was as if someone had taken a giant blade and just decided to cut open a hole in space, and the hole led to… somewhere. Beyond the tear was something he couldn't describe. It was like rainbow colors without proper shape. Swirly, oily movements without a proper sense of distance. Just staring at the realm made him feel like hurling, so he quickly averted his eyes and turned towards the demons instead.

There were about a dozen of them around the rift, and they were elkkin, but not like the ones Orland had fought. These ones were taller and lankier, with elongated limbs and pelts almost completely swallowed by astral lead.

Their horns were also jagged and serrated, and while half of them stood around the rift chanting in a broken tongue—stamping their hooves in rhythm with the tremors pulsing through the mine—the other half were physically prying at the rift's edges with their bare hands, pushing and pulling at the tear as though they were trying to widen a wound in living flesh. Orland stared at all of them, completely stunned. What the hell are they doing?

The ones facing him also stared back, and the chanting stopped one by one as the demons turned to look at him.

"... You?" someone whispered.

"What are you doing here?" The voice came from above. Orland snapped his head up alongside Kazimir and Miriyela to see—standing on a floating line of rails beside the rift—a much, much larger demon compared to the rest. It had four metal horns jutting from its skull like corrupted crown-spikes. Thick astral lead also coated most of its body, forming plated ridges across its chest, arms, shoulders, and spine, but more than any of that, Orland was just surprised it could speak his tongue. Did it just say 'you'?

Aren't all demons mindless berserke— Miriyela suddenly stepped before him, swinging her right arm. Before he could even jerk his head back down, three metallic clangs rang out—three demons stabbing her with serrated horns that were aimed at his head. His eyes went wide. Fast! Miriyela grunted as she held the demons back. Her bracers blocked the first horn, but there were three of them, and she'd only caught the one.

The second horn struck through a seam at her pauldrons, and the third stabbed through a seam at her waist. She may be wearing chain underneath her armor, but the stabs still did damage—enough to make her growl.

"Away from the Hero, lohsa bastards!" Sharsana snarled and lunged beside her, but Miriyela was already moving. Her molescale armor pulsed blue from the force she'd absorbed, and then she dragged her hammer up in a brutal upwards swing. The hammerhead tore through the ground as it moved, ripping up a wave of stone and jagged shrapnel that blasted forward across the chamber. The demon whose horn was still stuck in her bracer took the full wave head-on.

Its body shredded apart, sliced and battered into pieces, but the other two reacted by dashing aside—one springing left and the other right—before kicking off the ground and landing on separate floating minecarts above them. And there they crouched with their arms spread, heads twitching, dull silver eyes watching patiently as Miriyela staggered a step back with one hand pressing at her waist. Sharsana panicked, and Orland's breath caught.

"Miriyela—" he began.

"The Fifth Hero and the Princess of Kamengrad are supposed to be on the road to the south right now," the four-horned demon muttered, glaring at all four of them in turn.

"You're not supposed to be here. None of you are. And you're not supposed to…" The four-horned demon paused as his eyes landed on Kazimir. At first, he looked annoyed. Then he looked confused. Then his shoulders tensed even more than when he'd first seen Orland step into the chamber.

"Bratstvo Morosov," the demon whispered.

"What are you doing here?" Kazimir didn't react much, though. Ignoring Miriyela clutching her stomach, Sharsana curling around her leg, and Orland supporting her back, he simply snapped his wrist and extended his blade into its segmented chain form.

"I see what's happening," Kazimir said coolly.

"These Uncommon-Grade demons are accelerating the rift's growth by physically pulling and pushing at it. In that case, we just have to kill them and—""The Fifth Hero is here!" the four-horned demon roared, cutting Kazimir off. In an instant, the chanting demons ceased their work. Those prying at the rift turned their heads as one. Even the strange vibrations pulsing through the mine felt momentarily drowned beneath the demon's voice.

"The butcher of demonkind stands before us! The false dawn of mankind has come to strangle the will of our salvation! Should he slay us here, we shall be denied eternal peace in death—so will you let one child deny us eternity?" The demon's eyes burned with naked hatred, and he swept his blade towards Orland.

"Beyond this battle awaits deliverance!" The rest of the demons began growling.

"Beyond this wound in space waits our promised land!" Metal scraped against metal as they all ripped off their horns, sharpened them against each other with showers of sparks as new horns immediately began sprouting from their skulls.

"Beyond this threshold waits the age where demonkind shall no longer crawl for meager scraps of the world!" the four-horned demon bellowed.

"Drown them in lead! Feed their hearts to our king! Kill the Hero and his prophesied companions here, and you! Shall! Be! Saved!" And so the horde of demons surged forward with a disjointed chorus of screams. With it, the astral lead lumps around the chamber began pulsing even brighter, almost as if response to the demons' agitation.

Name: Bladed Mansi Elkkin demons Grades: Uncommon-0 ~ Uncommon-1 Might: 20 ~31 Dexterity: 19 ~ 20 Resilience: 30 ~ 32 Clarity: 19 ~ 20 Mana: 1/1 (+1/hr) General Description: Mansi elkkin corrupted by astral lead. Their skin, bones, and muscles are augmented by astral lead, making them far stronger and tougher than normal elkkin. Furthermore, the regeneration rate of their horns are massively amplified, allowing them to shed their horns and regrow them almost instantly.

However, their brains have also been corrupted by astral lead, weakening their cognitive and logical abilities.

… Fuck if Orland knew what the words on their tags meant, but he could read attribute levels, and theirs were a lot higher than the normal elkkin demons. This might be a little tough, huh?