The Primeval Era-Chapter 120: Demon! II

Damian’s gaze became chilly at this revelation.

The Murderous Saint didn’t just want power. He wanted everything nearby. The subjugation of every empire, every tribe, every Beast Lord in these Regions!

He father and mother were only the first!

And he was willing to destroy anyone who stood in his way.

When Damian looked at Vienna, he felt such distaste and hatred in his heart that he couldn’t explain. He felt the loss of his mother and father again and again, memories of their deaths playing behind his eyes like wounds that would never heal. It was people like her who had betrayed them in the end. People who had smiled and sworn oaths and then turned those oaths to ash when it became convenient.

He wanted to vent.

He wanted to kill.

But first, he needed to understand.

"The Vakochev Empire was working with all others."

His voice came out cold and controlled.

"They even had relations with the Noble Beasts. Why...did the Murderous Saint break all of that? Why did you..."

His dark blue eyes burned with intensity he couldn’t fully suppress.

"Why did you turn your back on the kindness that Emperor Vakochev gave you? Are you still human? Do you feel any sense of honor?"

BOOM!

His words were so heavy that when Imperator Vienna heard them, she began to tremble.

Emperor Vakochev.

The name seemed to draw an extremely distant memory from her, something she had buried deep beneath layers of loyalty to her new master. Her eyes briefly turned ashen with guilt, the color draining from her face.

Briefly.

Then she looked at Damian.

Really looked at him.

For the first time since he had landed on her vessel, she studied his features with attention that went beyond threat assessment. Her eyes moved across his face, taking in details she had been too shocked and pained to notice before.

His imperious gaze, cold and commanding despite his ragged Dross clothing.

His eyes, dark blue and burning with intensity.

His figure, lean and aristocratic beneath the rough fabric.

His hair, dark and disheveled but carrying an unmistakable quality.

She saw all of this.

And she began to tremble with shock.

His face. His features. They all reminded her of a certain boy who should be dead. A young Lugal she had last seen fleeing into the night, a child whose death had been assumed but never confirmed.

"Impossible..."

Her eyes flashed with recognition.

"You... you’re...!"

Damian saw the recognition dawn in her eyes.

He saw her mouth opening to speak a name that would reveal everything.

And before she could say anything more, tumultuous waves of Mana surged from his hands and into his spear. The crimson-blue weapon buzzed with power that made the air around it shimmer. His blood within the spear responded to his fury, amplifying the force of what came next.

He swung it cleanly toward the neck of this Vessel Completion Warrior.

The blade met flesh first, parting skin that was supposed to be harder than stone. It continued through muscle, severing tendons and vessels that carried Mana-saturated blood. It struck bone and kept going, the spine offering only momentary resistance before it too was cleaved.

And then through the other side!

BOOM!

Her head, still filled with shock, separated from her body.

It rolled down across the ruined deck, eyes still wide with the recognition she would never be able to voice. Blood fountained from the stump of her neck, crimson Mana spraying outward in arterial bursts. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

An immense silence bloomed.

Serala and Masamuk both turned to look at Damian.

The Holy Daughter’s wing-shaped pupils held surprise and shock. The Slime of Chaos’ crimson eyes flickered with curiosity about what had prompted such sudden violence.

But neither of them spoke.

Damian had a cold expression as he remained staring at the headless body of Vienna.

She was dead.

The woman who had betrayed his father was dead.

The woman who had sworn oaths and broken them was dead.

He should have felt satisfaction. He should have felt closure. He should have felt something other than the hollow emptiness that filled his chest.

But then he noticed something wrong.

Her Mana...

It wasn’t fading.

The body of a dead Warrior should have begun losing its Mana immediately, the power dispersing back into the Lands of Stone from which it came. But Vienna’s corpse wasn’t following that pattern. Its Mana still bubbled around the wounds. No, its Mana was becoming even wilder, even more intense, even though her head was sliced off and she should be dead.

Damian’s eyes became sharp.

He felt something heavy and terrifying building within that corpse, pressure accumulating toward an explosion that would devastate everything nearby. Instinct screamed at him to move.

He jumped back while bringing his arms around Serala to push her with him.

In the next moment...

BOOM!

A pillar of vile crimson-obsidian light erupted from the corpse of Imperator Vienna.

The light was wrong somehow, carrying colors that shouldn’t exist together and emanating an aura that made Damian’s skin crawl with instinctive revulsion. It shot upward toward the sky, punching through the obsidian darkness that Masamuk had created and reaching toward the heavens like a beacon of corruption.

The tentacles of the Slime of Chaos that had been binding the corpse were caught in the eruption.

They corroded and melted, obsidian flesh dissolving like water before a flame. Masamuk cried out, the sound carrying genuine pain that Damian had never heard from the Beast Lord before. His massive form recoiled, pulling away from the vessel as chunks of his body simply ceased to exist.

Damian looked over grimly.

On the chest of Vienna’s corpse, where her heart should have been, a runic crimson circle emanated a vile air of taboo and evil. The circle spun slowly, ancient symbols glowing with light that hurt to look at directly. This was something that had been placed within her, a seed of darkness waiting for the moment of her death to bloom!

Her corpse wriggled.

It shouldn’t have been able to move. It had no head. It had no life. But the runic circle cared nothing for such limitations.

Bony crimson-obsidian spikes erupted from her flesh first, punching through skin and muscle to reach toward the sky. Then tentacles of the same corrupted material followed, writhing appendages that bore no resemblance to the elegant form Vienna had possessed in life.

Her corpse rapidly enlarged.

It grew from human-sized to twice that, then three times, then larger still. The flesh stretched and reformed, bones cracking and reconstituting into new configurations. The transformation was horrific to witness, like watching something sacred be violated by forces that should never have existed.

A demonic monstrosity arose.

It towered over the vessel now, a massive humanoid shape that radiated malevolence with every breath it took. Its body was formed of that same crimson-obsidian corruption, muscles visible beneath translucent skin that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.

But the worst part was the head.

The heads.

The front of the creature bore the face of a handsome human male, features so perfect they seemed carved by shamanic hands. High cheekbones. Full lips curved in a charming smile. Eyes that sparkled with warmth and invitation.

And on the back of its head, visible when it turned...

A grotesque hyena face snarled with hunger. Matted fur surrounded features twisted by cruelty and madness. Jaws filled with teeth designed for crushing bones and tearing flesh gaped wide, drool dripping from lips pulled back in a permanent grimace of savage glee.

The creature stood fully formed.

It reached up with both hands and grabbed both its faces simultaneously, fingers pressing into flesh that yielded like clay. Its shoulders shook, and sounds emerged from both mouths at once.

The handsome face laughed with melodic warmth.

The hyena face cackled with grinding malice.

Together, they created a sound that made Damian’s blood run cold.

"Ka Ka Ka!"

The voices merged into something singular and terrible, dripping with evil that seemed to poison the very air.

"Have I been released... so early?"

The handsome face smiled with genuine delight.

The hyena face grinned with savage hunger.

"Ka Ka Ka! How wonderful! How delightful!"

...!

Damian and Serala looked over with heavy gazes.

The Mana within their bodies recoiled as if it had met a horrid enemy utterly opposed to its existence. Blue flames flickered around Damian’s form, responding to the threat without conscious command. Serala’s wings blazed brighter, preparing for combat against something that made Imperator Vienna seem like a minor inconvenience.

This was no ordinary creature.

This was something from the darkest corners of existence.

This was a Kishi Demon.

And it had just been born from the corpse of their enemy.