Slayers - Volume 9 - Chapter 4

4: And Now, the Sleeping Sword Awakens

Birds of unknown species called and rows of trees blended into the darkness. If not for the moon and the light at the tip of my sword, the mountain nightscape would quite literally have been as black as pitch.

I know traveling a mountain road in the dark with the possibility of lurking demidemons isn’t what most would describe as “sane,” but there was no way I was just gonna kick back like, “Well, the mountains are scary, so let’s wait until morning, teehee!” Not when it seemed likely that the men in black had taken Sherra this way. She’d once told us that the sword lay deep in an abandoned mine on the mountain north of Bezeld, and that’s exactly where we were headed.

“But... you think the men in black actually came through here?” Luke muttered, trying to cover for his nervousness—or perhaps just genuinely doubting it. “What if they really do got another base and they just ain’t made their move yet? Or what if this ain’t the right mountain? Gettin’ jerked around like that can send a man down a dark path.”

“Do you think you’re walking the path of light now?”

“Guh!” Luke whimpered, apparently vulnerable to criticism from Mileena. “C’mon, babe. I’m livin’ an honest life now! All so we can do the happily-ever-after thing!” he continued with a goofy grin.

“That is not an end goal we share.”

Her heartless brush-off silenced Luke and brought tears streaming from his eyes.

“Okay, enough lovers’ bickering for now,” I interrupted. “We should reach the mine any minute.”

“I assure you there’s no love involved here,” Mileena replied indignantly.

Dang, Luke doesn’t have a prayer!

Soon enough, we came out of the forest and stared in shock at the view that opened up before us—a sheer cliff face towering upward. Sherra was right about this mountain being home to an abandoned mine. But the rock wall was covered in holes of all sizes, each one suggesting the entrance to a different shaft. There were at least ten, and that was just what we could see from our current location. Given that there could be more entrances all over the mountain and that the shafts themselves could branch within, just how much searching were we going to have to do?

“W-Well... guess we’ve established that there’s really a mine,” Luke whispered as he stared, while Mileena nodded in silent amazement.

“So, which one do we go in?” Gourry asked the forbidden question. Unsurprisingly, he received no answer.

Well, it was true that Sherra had never said anything about there only being one mine... And thinking about it rationally, if there had been an orichalcum rush, I should’ve expected more than just a handful of holes in the mountainside.

Hmm... What to do, what to do?

“Huh...”

“This is a toughie...”

“...”

Me, Luke, and Mileena all furrowed our brows and crossed our arms in turn.

“Hey, Lina. That one looks pretty likely, right?” Gourry casually interrupted the tense atmosphere, pointing at one particular hole in the rockface. It was dark and far away, so it was hard to make out, but I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary myself...

“Likely? How, exactly?” I had to ask.

“I think I see a scrap of cloth caught on the entrance.”

“Huh?” I strained my eyes... and still couldn’t see it. “Where?”

“I’m telling you, there. Look! Don’t you see it?”

Luke and Mileena squinted in that direction, but likewise didn’t seem to see anything.

“Okay! Debating it won’t get us anywhere. Let’s head up and take a look. We’re no worse off if it turns out he’s wrong,” I suggested, and the group agreed.

The entrance Gourry had pointed out was on the higher side of the cliff, meaning finding a path up would take too damn long. Instead, I chanted a spell and placed a hand on Gourry’s shoulder.

“Levitation!”

After we lifted off the ground, Luke and Mileena each cast Levitation for themselves and rose up into the night air behind us.

“Okay. A little more to the right, then straight,” Gourry offered.

I directed our flight in accordance with his instructions, and before long, our little procession reached the mine entrance in question. And at that entrance...

“You’re right,” I whispered, picking up the handkerchief caught on a rocky protrusion.

“Gotta say, I’m impressed you could spot that from down there,” Luke remarked in astonishment.

“Aw, shucks...” Gourry laughed, scratching at his head.

The handkerchief looked new enough with no sign of weathering. In other words...

“Either Sherra left this here to signal us, or the men in black planted it to throw us off track... It’s a tough call,” I sighed.

Mileena then chanted a quiet spell, producing a small point of magical light on her fingertip. Brandishing that, she squatted down and examined the shaft floor for a while, before standing back up and saying, “I see signs of someone passing through here. Multiple someones.”

“Really?!”

“Yes,” she proclaimed with confidence.

“Okay! Then let’s get a move on!”

The four of us took off running down the shaft. Luke took the lead, casting a magical light on the tip of his drawn sword. Mileena followed close behind, then me, then Gourry. We didn’t make it far before we hit a fork in the road.

“Which way?” Luke asked Mileena.

She scanned the ground for a time and quietly pointed right. We then took off running once more. Probably due to greedy people digging for orichalcum every-which-way, the mine shaft twisted and turned like a maze. If Mileena was on the money, the signs of recent passage were leading us deeper and deeper into the mountain.

Just how far ahead of us had the men in black gotten? It was possible that Sherra was stalling them, but if not, then they might’ve already gotten their mitts on the sword. I mean, even if they had, as long as we crossed paths, we could still push ’em over and swipe the dang thing, but...

After who-knows-how-long running through tunnels—Rrr... Rrrrumblecrash!—a vibration, like some distant earthquake, set the whole shaft shaking. And it sounded like it was coming from right up ahead! The four of us shared a glance and a nod, then resumed our race further into the mine.

“There they are!” I cried out after a good sprint.

I could now see a stream of magical light coming from around the bend. Of course, this meant the bad guys would be able to see us soon too. I continued forward without slowing down, chanting a spell as I went.

And sure enough, three men in black quickly came into view! Sherra wasn’t with them, however. The tunnel ahead was blocked by a cave-in, and the three men were just standing in front of it. Had it separated kidnappers from kidnappee?

Luke and Mileena came to a halt, possibly on guard for magic attacks. But I decided to charge right on in. The guys in black must have been chanting spells in advance though, because when they saw me coming, they let ’em fly!

“Flare Arrow!”

But I was one step ahead of them! I released the spell I’d been chanting in advance too—Whoosh! A gale kicked up around me, an amplified version of my typical wind barrier. Normally it was just enough to fly with or knock glancing spells off course, but amplified, it created a straight-up wall of wind that could stop the men’s Flare Arrows with ease. With that job done, I dismissed the barrier and—

“Fireball!” Luke’s voice rang out from behind me. A ball of light then flew over my shoulder, right at the men in black.

Whaaat?! A Fireball would certainly take these guys out, but didn’t Luke realize I’d be caught in the blast?! Naturally, there was nowhere to hide in a mine shaft. And so...

Bwoosh! The ball of fire erupted, its swirling flames consuming the three men and licking their way toward me! But before they hit...

“Flare Seal!” Mileena incanted words of power, and the fire stopped short just before my eyes as if blocked by an invisible barrier. The tongues of flame were close enough to reach out and touch, but I didn’t feel any heat.

Mileena had just saved my hide with a pretty high-level fire resistance spell. It was serious business, but because it took so long to recite, you rarely had a chance to use it in a real fight. It was interesting to see it used as part of a tag-team maneuver.

The swirling flames swiftly died down, and then... the four of us gasped. We’d all expected to see three collapsed men in black, but to our surprise, one was still standing tall amongst the clearing smoke.

Of course! When I’d charged, only two of them had unleashed Flare Arrows on me. The third must have had the presence of mind to cast some kind of resistance spell on himself. The fact that I didn’t see the other two guys suggested that they were out of the picture. The explosion might’ve even sent them flying. It had also blown through the collapsed rock blocking the way, opening a path deeper into the mine.

“I can’t believe you caught up to us so fast,” the surviving man in black growled angrily. I knew that voice... It was Zain! “I should have finished things with you long ago... but it ends here! This time, I’ll really—”

“Gwaaaaah!” came a scream from down the shaft, cutting off Zain’s villain blather.

“Galva?!” Zain whipped around, and without another glance at us, took off down the tunnel.

Galva... So that was Gal-whatshisname’s full name, huh? The rest of us exchanged brief looks, but we didn’t have much time to waste here.

“Come on! Let’s go!” I said, running after Zain.

“Raaaaaaaagh!” Galva’s screams echoed through the shaft unceasingly.

The sight that greeted us as we arrived on the scene stopped us all in our tracks. At the end of the shaft was a vast chamber, tall and wide enough to house a couple of small buildings. And at its center, set deep into the ground, was a black sword. It had a single-edged blade with a gentle curve, and a straight, unadorned handle. An almost overwhelming quantity of miasma was pouring out of it.

Galva had both hands wrapped around the hilt, his back arched and his throat bellowing agony. The crackling black plasma shooting from the sword was coursing through him, and next to him... stood Sherra, a thin smile on her face. Zain, who was just ahead of us, froze up at the sight.

“What in the world...?” Gourry breathed.

At this, Sherra finally looked over at us, as if snapping out of a trance. “Ah!” She must not have realized we were here. Her eyes momentarily went wide, and then a slightly troubled expression crossed her face. “Oh dear, you’re here already? And all of you together...” she said, scratching her cheek in a shockingly nonchalant fashion.

“Wh-What in the world are you...?” I asked.

Sherra winced in response. “I was hoping you’d come one at a time... Ah, but it is what it is.”

“H-Hey, Sherra! What’re you sayin’? What in the world is goin’ on here?!” Luke shouted.

I didn’t have a good sense of what was happening myself, but I was starting to get the feeling that our real enemy was actually Sherra.

She cast a loving glance at Galva—rather, at the black sword he was gripping—and said, “Well, I was hoping to run a few more tests... but this is fine enough. Dulgoffa, transform!”

Crackle! Responding to Sherra’s call, the plasma shooting from the sword suddenly grew in intensity. And then...

“Galva!” Zain let out an anguished cry.

Galva, bathed in the black plasma, began to change into a grotesque form. His flesh ruptured and swelled. Strange leg-like appendages sprouted from his body. He wasn’t screaming anymore. The only sounds to be heard were the crackling of the plasma, a bestial growl... and Sherra’s mad laughter.

Tha-thump! A pulse shot through Galva’s body, and it swelled a size larger.

Not good! “Run, everyone!” I shouted, instinctively realizing the danger.

Everyone snapped back to their senses at last, turned tail, and took off running back up the shaft. The growling and the laughter grew distant behind us, but rather than silence—Rrr... rrr... rrrrrmb—an eerie vibration overtook the air. This, too, was growing stronger and stronger. Were we gonna make it outta here?!

Rrrrrmb! The mountain itself was trembling.

The vibrations had escalated into full-blown tremors by the time the five of us made our mad dash to the exit. As you might guess, by “the five of us,” I meant me, Gourry, Luke, Mileena... and the man in black we’d picked up. Zain had been our enemy minutes ago, but now we had nothing to fight over.

Rrrrrrrrrmb! As the earthly tremors crescendoed to shake the very air around us, our newly-formed quintet flew out of the cave!

“Get clear! Hurry!”

Just as we got away from the cliff face and dove into the forest—Cra-kash! Bursting out of the mountain around its midpoint, a giant black figure appeared.

“Hraaaaaaaagh!” The being that was formerly Galva howled up at the moon.

“What on earth...?” Mileena gasped, her voice hoarse with terror.

I was finally starting to get my head around what had happened. Of course, I was still missing some of the details, but...

I’d once heard that demidemons—lesser demons and brass demons—were basically low-ranking demons of the astral plane who’d entered our world by possessing sub-sentient animals, transforming their bodies and abilities in the process. The implication was that, since humans were sentient, it was impossible for such bottom-tier demons to possess and transform them.

But by extension... didn’t that mean a more powerful demon could do the job? The answer to that question appeared to be standing before us now in the form of a massive black lump of flesh the size of a dragon, held aloft on ten spidery legs.

“Hraaagh!” A cry halfway between rage and hatred echoed into the moonlit night, and the thing—the term “hyperdemon” seemed apt—began to move. Its destination? Bezeld.

“Not good! He’s headin’ for the city!” Luke shouted.

“Well, duh! Let’s stop him!” I responded in irritation.

I didn’t know how powerful this thing was, but it was pretty easy to imagine it was leagues stronger than any lesser or brass demon. If it cut loose on a city, its draconic size alone would stymie most of the damage the garrison’s non-magical swords and spears could dish out. That meant our only solution was to take it down before it got there!

I took the cue to jump to action and recite my spell of choice.

Thou who art darker than twilight

Thou who art redder than lifeblood

I swear in thy exalted name

Obscured, deep in the flow of time

And make this pledge to darkness here:

So all those in equal measure—

Fools that they are to block our path—

Shall face destruction unconstrained

Grant me power, and unleash thine!

“Is that...?!” Mileena exclaimed when she heard me chanting.

Yup, this was the attack spell that called upon Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu, ruler of all demons in this world—

“Dragon Slave!”

Kra-koooooooom! Responding to my words of power, a red light coalesced near the hyperdemon and exploded! The smoke quickly cleared, and when it did...

“That thing’s still standing?!” Luke shouted. Sure enough, the hyperdemon had survived a direct hit from a Dragon Slave.

“But it does seem to have taken some damage,” Mileena said calmly, in contrast to Luke’s panic.

Yup. Though I hadn’t blown it to pieces, my spell had taken a chunk out of the mass of flesh that served as the hyperdemon’s body. It seemed like its demonic power had managed to mitigate the Dragon Slave, but couldn’t negate the spell entirely. In other words, it had survived that one, but I could just keep hammering it with Dragon Slaves until it was kaput.

Time for take two, then! But just as I began to chant, the hyperdemon slumped. Hmm? Out of juice? I had to wonder, but only for a second. I knew pretty immediately that it was pure wishful thinking. As the hyperdemon leaned... the chunk of flesh my Dragon Slave had taken out began to fill in before my eyes!

“Huh?!” I found myself rubbing my eyes, and by the time I looked again, the hyperdemon’s wound was completely healed over.

“You’re kiddin’ me... You gotta be...” Luke’s whisper was carried away by the wind.

The rest of us just stared blankly. The crater-sized hole gouged out by the explosion had healed in the blink of an eye. That kind of recovery speed would be absurd even for trolls, and they were the poster children of regenerative powers. The hyperdemon stood in place for some time, then resumed its course for Bezeld undeterred.

“So... what’s the plan?” Gourry asked, scratching at his cheek.

I looked at him in bafflement. “The plan? I don’t... have one.”

I’d met creatures that I couldn’t beat with a Dragon Slave before. Some that could even negate it completely. But... one that could instantly heal from its damage? This was a real first! It kind of felt like cheating, you know? How did that even work? Not even a powerful high-tier demon could spontaneously recover from a head-on Dragon Slave, yet this hyperdemon had just done the impossible and barely batted an eye.

Mileena was the first to collect herself. “Worry about that later. If nothing else, we need to slow it down,” she said and took off running again, quickly followed by Luke.

“She’s right, Gourry!” I called.

“Yeah!”

The four of us could still— Wait, there were supposed to be five of us. Where had Zain gone?!

Well, I guess from his point of view, his mission was just to get the sword. He was under no obligation to help us put down the hyperdemon, but still... Oh well. Not like I was counting on him anyway.

For now, Mileena was right. We had to do whatever we could to hold the hyperdemon off while we thought ourselves up a plan! And so the four of us took off after the giant creature.

“Let’s go!” Gourry charged at the demon’s foot! “Hyah!”

Swsh! His silver blade glinted in the moonlight, cutting a glowing arc in the darkness. It cleanly cleaved one of the demon’s legs, which was about as wide as I was tall. The severed appendage began to slide apart on the diagonal slice...

Did he do it?! In spite of my momentary hopes, something like tentacles began to squirm from the upper and lower sections of the cut limb. They knitted together, and in an instant, the leg was back to normal! That regenerative process was honestly pretty gross when viewed up close... Kinda made me glad I hadn’t had a front-row seat for the post-Dragon Slave show.

The hyperdemon kept walking along at the same pace, not even seeming to notice the brief damage to the leg. We weren’t even slowing it down...

“It’s no use! I can cut through it, but...” Gourry fretted as he leaped back from the hyperdemon.

“What about my sword, then?!” Luke charged in next, his blade aglow. He released a blast of wind that sliced at the hyperdemon’s leg!

...

“Yeah, nothin’,” Luke said with an abashed smile, scratching at his head.

This guy...

“Freeze Arrow!” Mileena incanted. Her icy bolts scored direct hits on the demon’s legs but didn’t even seem to faze the monster. She was probably hoping she could take out all its appendages at the same time and slow it down, but this level of shamanistic magic clearly wasn’t going to do the trick.

Okay, my turn again! “Zellas Bullid!”

The beam of light I summoned scorched through two of the hyperdemon’s legs, which again healed instantly. Hmm, so that won’t cut it either. Shall I try blowing off all its legs at once with a Dragon Slave? I considered it—it would buy us some time, but that was it. I wished I could fire off a chain of big spells to annihilate the demon before it had time to regenerate, but it was healing faster than I could get through chants.

I also knew a spell even more destructive than the Dragon Slave, but I didn’t really want to use it...

Hey... wait a minute.

“Guys, I’m gonna go big! Stand back!” I called, then began an incantation. This one was a souped-up Dragon Slave courtesy of my talismans’ amplification! I honestly didn’t know how powerful it would end up being, but I was hoping it was enough to vaporize the hyperdemon in one blast! I finished the long chant, and then... “Dragon Slave!”

Kra-kooooooooooom! An even bigger explosion than before rocked the night air. Soon, the flames died down, and...

“Okay, that’s progress!” I rejoiced when I spied the hyperdemon through the dissipating dust. The standard Dragon Slave had only been enough to bore a hole in its central mass, but this baby... It hadn’t wiped the hyperdemon off the map completely, but it had incinerated about half of its body.

Except... Yup, there it goes again!

“Oh, c’mon!” I clutched my head in my hands as the creature regenerated once more. How can something instantly heal from that kind of damage?!

Still, there was something about the eerie regeneration ritual that was tickling the back of my mind. While I racked my brain trying to place it, the hyperdemon moved ever closer to Bezeld. As it approached, the sky over the city lit up. I instinctively looked that way to see countless small points of red light hovering over the edge of the city.

A moment later... they came rushing at the hyperdemon all at once!

“Flare Arrows?!” I cried. There were hundreds—no, thousands of them.

Broooooshabooshaboosh! The fiery darts struck the monster with a great explosion.

“That’s right! The garrison!” Gourry cried as he watched the scene unfold.

Indeed, there were quite a few soldiers and sorcerers stationed in Bezeld at the moment. After a huge monster erupted from the mountain and a certain someone started chucking Dragon Slaves around, there was no way they hadn’t been on alert. They must have called all their sorcerers together to fire an organized volley of Flare Arrows at the giant creature closing in on the city.

But as we’d already established, spells of that level weren’t going to work. The hyperdemon just continued its slow and steady march toward the town. Various other attack spells came flying intermittently from its walls, but most did nothing, and those that did deal damage were instantly healed from. Was there no way to beat this monstrosity?!

The hyperdemon was finally upon the city. Chaotic screams rang through the night-cloaked streets. Even as the sorcerers hit the monster with all the spells they had, it continued unhindered. Of course, the soldiers didn’t fare much better... And upon realizing that the garrison was virtually helpless against the hyperdemon, the townspeople fell into a total panic. The soldiers were shouting orders, perhaps to evacuate, but their voices were drowned out by the screams of the citizenry.

That was the state we found the city in when we used our flight spells to beat the hyperdemon to Bezeld.

Still, while it was all well and good that we’d managed to head the thing off, we hadn’t yet come up with a plan. Another Dragon Slave wasn’t going to be more effective just because I hit it from here. There had to be some way to beat this thing—I just didn’t know what it was. There was something, something nagging at my brain... but the hyperdemon wasn’t about to stand and wait while I figured it out.

The sorcerers’ formation at the edge of town fell apart as the black giant loomed. The hyperdemon hadn’t mounted a single attack, but its mere approach inspired terror.

“Stay strong! Hit it with all your attack spells! It’s got to work!” a commander-type shouted, not very convincingly, to the cowering sorcerers. But just then...

Vwoosh! Something tore through the air and the commander let out a scream!

The sound of chanting paused like time stood still. A tentacle had lashed out from hyperdemon’s fleshy core and pierced the commander’s chest—armor and all—with a long, black talon mounted at the end.

Vvm. A shudder ran through his body. The blood instantaneously drained from his face, his cheeks now hollow. Thrm. His skin dried up and his hair fell out. The once-young commander was mummifying before our eyes. Yeah... almost like the tentacle had sucked the very life force out of him.

“Urk! Elemekia—” One of the nearby sorcerers was about to unleash a spell at the tentacle, when...

Fwip! Another tentacle, this one talon-less, appeared out of nowhere and ensnared the sorcerer! No, it wasn’t just him... Countless dozens of tentacles lashed out simultaneously and snatched up the other casters around him too. Despite each one being only as thick as a child’s wrist, they had to be incredibly strong. The tentacles carried their prey to the hyperdemon’s core, and then...

Skwish! The fleshly mass shuddered, and grotesque, fanged, snake-like tendrils sprouted out of it to chomp down on the sorcerers and soldiers. Their deathly agonies echoed into the night. Unable to bear the gruesome sight, the sorcerers around me scrambled over each other to flee. But seeing this all for myself...

“That... That’s it!” I cried out when it hit me. I’d witnessed a similar phenomenon a while back in a city called Atlas.

Raugnut Rushavna was a curse usable only by demons that granted a terrible sort of immortality to its victim. Humans afflicted with it would be transformed into a clod of flesh racked with endless torment. There was no way out but death... except the afflicted couldn’t die through any normal means. The only way to stop their suffering was to destroy the demon responsible.

If this hyperdemon had been created by Raugnut Rushavna, that would explain its absurdly fast regeneration. But it also meant our only hope of defeating it was to find and annihilate the demon who’d cast the curse.

The screaming in the streets grew louder. The people’s resistance amounted to nothing, and at last, the hyperdemon breached Bezeld! Once inside the city, it finally began to reveal its tremendous power. Countless tentacles streaked out of the main body, indiscriminately snatching up nearby people and drawing them in to devour them. The monster’s attacks weren’t particularly overwhelming; its regenerative capacity was the real problem here. All this time, we’d been pressing the offensive...

“Blast Ash!”

Frrsh! The strike I unleashed turned the midsection of one tentacle extending from the hyperdemon’s body to black ash, but thinner tentacles sprang from both halves of the burned-through tentacle, knotted together, and reconnected the two.

Even its extremities have that kind of recovery power?! None of our attacks seemed to be effective in the slightest. On top of that, now that the creature was within the city limits, I couldn’t use big spells like the Dragon Slave. Not that they would’ve done much good either...

“Isn’t there anything we can do, Lina?!” Gourry asked.

“Anything at all?” I couldn’t help wincing. If there was, I would have done it already... Someone merely afflicted with Raugnut Rushavna wouldn’t turn into a rampaging giant like this, and your garden-variety demon wouldn’t have this crazy recovery ability. The trouble here was the fusion of the two—

W-Wait a minute...

“Everyone! Back me up!” I called, picking up a chant as I charged at the hyperdemon!

“Hey! Wait, Lina! Darn it...” Gourry clucked.

“Back you up? For what?!” Luke called.

Either sensing me coming or just continuing their onslaught, countless tentacles lashed out at me. My spell wasn’t ready yet, but...

“Rune Flare!”

“Hyah!”

“Rah!”

Mileena’s bolt of light pierced one of the tentacles, and Gourry and Luke cut through the others. And while they had all of the incoming tentacles disabled, I charged onward.

“Lina! You’re too close!” Gourry shouted.

I ignored him, natch! I had to find out if my hunch was right or not! The tentacles after me twisted and wriggled, but two or three of them moving at random wouldn’t be able to catch me. Even when two more shot my way, I figured I could handle ’em. I twisted at just the right time to dodge, and just then...

“Geh!”

Thmp! My leg was swept out from under me. I’d tripped over a tentacle that had either snuck up on me or stayed low to the ground to go unnoticed. I lost my balance and stumbled, and when I did—Fwip!—another of the tentacles grabbed my left arm!

“Lina!” Gourry shouted, slashing through the tentacle that had seized my arm.

It regenerated immediately, but the moment it lost its grip, I shook it off.

“What are you doing, Lina?!” Gourry asked, but I couldn’t afford to answer him now—I’d lose the spell I’d just finished chanting! I wasn’t ready to let it fly yet either!

The tentacles heading for us were increasing in number, if gradually. Gourry was defending me with his blade and Mileena was covering me with spells from behind, but I was hitting the limits of what I could dodge.

All of a sudden—Vwee!—something streaked toward me, weaving through the tentacles! There it is! This was what I’d been waiting for! I finally unleashed the spell I was holding on to!

“Ragna Blade!”

Vrummm! Borrowing the power of void itself, I produced a blade of darkness in my hands and parried the coming strike with all my might.

Ngeeeee! Was the very air around me straining, or was it a cry of rage? Whatever the case, the tremendous sound rocked my world as my dark blade clashed with one of the hyperdemon’s tentacles... More specifically, with the black claw at the end of it!

Whaaat?! My eyes went wide in shock. My blade could cut through most demons, even pretty darn high-level ones! Yet the hyperdemon’s black claw had blocked it!

Actually... my dark blade was digging into the black claw, but the claw was regenerating as fast as I cut it! There’s no way to break through! Desperation welled inside me. I couldn’t pump my spell’s output in this position, and the Ragna Blade rapidly sapped my magic to fuel its high destructive power.

This is a battle of attrition. Sooner or later, my black blade will be extinguished and the claw will...

Just as I was imagining my own unfortunate end...

“Ruby-Eye Blade!” Luke shouted, and I caught a flash out of the corner of my eye. It was a sword... of red light!

Huh?!

Krk! My black blade and Luke’s ruby razor now had the hyperdemon’s claw pincered! It could bear the pressure from both sides for only an instant, and then...

Zinnng! An ear-splitting peal rang out, and the claw snapped.

“Hraaaaaaaagh!” the hyperdemon cried its last.

“Hey! The demon...” I gasped.

“It’s collapsing?!” Gourry and Luke both shouted in shock.

Indeed, the hyperdemon capable even of regenerating from a Dragon Slave began to fall apart before our eyes.

The swarm of weakly writhing tentacles eventually dropped to the ground, turned to parched earth, and disintegrated. The legs supporting the body snapped, hitting the ground with a series of thunderous tremors. The body met the same fate. All that was left in the end was a large pile of dust, and the uncertain whispers of the townspeople around us.

“Hey, Lina. What the heck just happened?” Gourry asked after the hyperdemon’s body had crumbled without a trace. Luke and Mileena also stared at me in silence, their expressions asking the same question.

Hmm... where to start, though?

“As I’m sure you can imagine, that giant monster used to be the black cloak named Galva. A demonic curse transformed him,” I said after some thought. “But that wasn’t all. He was simultaneously possessed by a demon. That gave him both extreme regenerative abilities and extreme magic resistance. The only way to stop him was to destroy the demon who cast the curse, and while I was wondering where that demon might be, I thought... ‘You know, maybe it’s the same demon that possessed him.’”

“An’ what’s your basis for that?” Luke asked, sounding fed up.

“Well, it was pretty clear from what we saw in the cave that the black sword was what turned him into a demon. That suggested the demon who cast the curse on the guy, the demon that fused with him, and the black sword itself were all one and the same.”

“The sword was... a demon?” Luke said with a scowl.

I nodded firmly. “Pure demons are spiritual beings, so they can more or less take whatever form they want. Gourry and I have fought plenty with weird forms in the past. One was even a single demon manifested as a pair of floating orbs. So a demon taking the form of a sword to try to lure in treasure-seekers didn’t seem too far-fetched.” I hadn’t told Luke and Mileena, but the Sword of Light that Gourry once carried was apparently a high-ranking demon from another world as well. “Anyway, when I saw that hulking thing coming at us, I realized something. Out of all its tentacles, only one had a claw attached. That made me think it might be the core of the fused demon.”

“And... I guess you were right?” Luke asked.

I nodded again. “Yeah. Though if I’d been wrong, it would’ve been time to run for the hills. That’s basically it. You following all this, Gourry?”

“Nope.”

Argh.

“But we beat it, and that’s what matters, right?”

Why did you ask for an explanation then?! I managed to recover my cool, then turned to Luke. “But hey, you did a pretty good job back there. Using the power of Ruby-Eye to summon a red sword of pure magic power... I’ve never seen a spell like that before.”

“Indeed, I haven’t either,” came a voice from some distance away.

The four of us whipped around at once. A small, porcelain hand was reaching into the dust that had once been the hyperdemon’s body. It reemerged holding the hilt of the black sword from the mine.

“You!” Luke shouted angrily when he saw the figure responsible.

“Yes, yes, congratulations on your achievement. I never expected to get the better of Lina Inverse easily, but I’ll admit I was surprised by your competence as well, Master Luke,” Sherra said with a bright smile, playing with the sword hilt in one hand. She was no longer dressed like your average townsperson. Instead, she now donned a costume like a high priest’s vestments, modified for ease of movement. But unlike typical priest garb, her robes were jet black. They were also adorned with patches of silver embroidery that was either purely decorative or writing in some unknown language—I wasn’t sure.

“You were behind all of this. The sword, the demons...” I muttered.

“Precisely,” Sherra replied cheerfully. “I started the rumors about the sword as well. Dear old Glen, that silly old man... He was incredibly useful to me. I let him think I was his daughter, which allowed me to make that place my center of operations. He even spread rumors of the sword for me too.”

“I see... That’s why you didn’t need money to live on. But no one believed the ramblings of a drunk old man. So you got impatient and started generating large numbers of demidemons...”

“Bingo. Then the rumors spread far and wide. Still, I never expected the great Lina Inverse to get involved.”

“Hey... you know what Sherra really is?” Luke asked.

“I think I have an idea,” I responded.

“Don’t worry, my dear Mistress Lina. I’ll introduce myself,” Sherra said with an almost sarcastic bow, cutting me off. “It’s exactly as she suspects. My true name is indeed Sherra. I was born in the Kataart Mountains.” Her smile widened. “It might not be obvious at a glance, but I am a full-fledged demon.”

“What?!” Luke and Mileena cried out in unison, understandably shocked by this declaration.

“So, what exactly is your big plan?” I asked her. “Judging by what you said earlier, you wanted to split us up and lure us to the sword one at a time. Slipping out of the inn at night, wandering off, and letting yourself get captured by the men in black was a ploy to split us up, wasn’t it? I can’t believe you thought that would work.”

“O-Oh, shut up! I never thought you’d reach the mine so quickly!”

“I don’t think your final goal was creating that hyperdemon either. If we take what you said to its logical conclusion... it seems like we caught you with your pants down, and you demonified Galva in a fit of pique, yeah?”

“I told you to shut up!” The sheer irritation in her voice suggested I’d hit the nail on the head. Either her plan had gotten busted, or she just had a short fuse...

“Well, I don’t know what you were plotting, but now that the sword is broken, I guess it’s all up in smoke,” I said with a shrug.

At this, a grin appeared on Sherra’s face. “Is it, though? This sword is a demon I’ve created, and it’s also my weapon. Therefore...”

She gave the hilt a light swing, and then... a new black blade sprouted from the guard!

“What?!” we all cried out in unison.

“...I can do this with it,” she said, and took a practiced fighting stance.

But even if it was with the assistance of a Raugnut Rushavna curse, she’d produced a demon capable of blocking my Ragna Blade... which meant...

“Sherra... you’re not just any demon, are you?” I asked.

A beaming smile crossed her face. “Indeed. Perhaps introducing myself this way would make it clearest... I am Sherra, General of the Dynast.”

“What?!” Her words took my breath away. The General of the Dynast?!

“The what?” Luke asked.

“A high-ranked demon in service to Dynast, one of the five servants of Dark Lord Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu,” I managed to explain.

I had once met the Priest and General of the Dragon, servants to Chaos Dragon Gaav—a peer of Dynast’s. I also happened to know Greater Beast’s Priest. I won’t mince words here; beings like them were absurdly strong. If Sherra, General of the Dynast, was on the same level... then even with a four-on-one advantage, we stood little to no chance of winning. Even if we decided to make a break for it, escape seemed unlikely.

And that meant... we’d just have to get her to withdraw!

“I can’t believe it,” I said, dramatically pointing at Sherra.

“What? The way I tricked you, you mean? Or how I crushed this pathetic little city? Or was it something more silly and sentimental, like how I turned that man into a demon?” She spoke with a confident smile, fully assured of her own superiority.

But I wasn’t rattled in the slightest. “None of all that. I can’t believe... Dynast Graushera named his subordinate Sherra?! That kind of cheap naming scheme is absolutely appalling!”

Krrrrk! At my words, Sherra froze up completely.

“What? Don’t... Don’t be ridiculous! Lord Dynast gave me this name himself! It... It must have a noble lineage!”

Oho? She seems a bit shaken by that. Let’s keep poking! “Don’t tell me, Sherra... Is your counterpart—you know, the Priest of the Dynast—named Grau or Glao or something like that?”

I saw her face twitch, and then she completely froze up. Wait... you’re kidding me. Is that really the Priest’s name? What’s your damage, Dynast?!

“R-Regardless! It may sound silly to humans like you, but Lord Dynast surely gave it a great deal of thought! Surely...”

“You don’t sound so sure. Why don’t you go ask Dynast about it? I bet he’ll start laughing and say, ‘I didn’t have a lot of ideas, so I just named you the first thing that came to mind. Hahaha.’”

“H-He would never! I’m sure it’s an ancient and noble name!”

“And you know this... how?”

“Ngh!” In obvious frustration, Sherra gritted her teeth and pointed her sword at me. “Very well... This isn’t over! I shall depart for now, but the next time we meet, I’ll know the origin of my name!”

Not the greatest parting line I’d ever heard, but hey. Sherra then blinked into the darkness and was gone.

Hoo boy... There she goes.

“Well... pure demons are spiritual beings, so I guess they’re weak to psychological warfare...” I whispered.

“That’s how demons work, huh?” Luke asked, eyes narrowed.