Chương 135: The Way Forward

Ch. 135 - The Way Forward While the Iron City wasn't quite a burning crater when the blade left, it was a close thing. The demonic denizens of the place were apparently as fearful of leaving it as they were of it, and it torched the place until there were no hiding places left, killing demons by the score.

In the opening rounds of that conflict, they would occasionally get brave enough to fight it in mass, but by the end, they just fled, no matter how many it found wedged into the ruins of some building that still stood. -840 Life Force.

+3455 Life Force. +656 Least Demon Souls. +109 Lesser Demon Souls. Those kills weren't very satisfying, but they did keep it well fed, which was good, because now that it was moving in this body, its Life Force reserves were fueling not only its own soul, but the engines at the heart of the strange clockwork knight. Every five minutes, the blade lost a point of energy, and every few hundred feet, it lost another.

That second category of energy bled out much faster in a fight, though, and when it moved quickly, it could burn through life force in seconds. So, as it finally walked beyond it, to the seventh circle of the pit, the blade took a leisurely pace with its body, striving for efficiency over speed as it took in the area.

It was strange, because the gate that it had come in, which had led from the ninth circle, there was only endless barren wasteland, but out of this one, there was only mud, and pools of stagnant water that were all covered by a mist. Its ugly yellow sky and black mud were no uglier than the city of rust and ashes it had just left, but the blade cared very little for aesthetics. In fact, the only detail it paid any attention to was the pools of water, so that it could avoid the deeper ones.

At least that was the case until it started to sink at one point, several miles into its journey, when it wasn't even close to the water. It leaped free of the quicksand without too much effort. However, after that, it paid more attention to the weave of the terrarian and navigated along the firmer parts to avoid sinking deep into the muddy depths. That wouldn't harm me, the Ebon Blade reminded itself, but it would be a pointless waste of energy to escape from. The blade had plenty of Life Force.

It even had enough to consider paying for its last available upgrade, but for now, it decided against it. It didn't need to repair its soul, and frankly, it wasn't sure it wanted to until it was free of this poisonous place. Even if it did opt to make such a large purchase, it would do so when it had a clearer path forward. It had left the city with just under twenty thousand, and over two under expendable demon souls as well. Still, it was burning twelve to fifteen an hour at its current pace.

That was enough to continue for a long time, but not forever, and it had no idea how far it was supposed to go. I'd be less concerned if I could just find something to kill, the weapon thought. Unfortunately, the place was as desolate as the eighth circle had been crowded. There were no roads or signposts to guide it on where to go, either.

There wasn't even a slope to follow, but the blade could read the strands that made up even this hellish place, and though it could not see the center of the loom that held this world together, the weapon could see what direction it was in, and it moved toward it. There was some vegetation here and there, in the form of ugly mangrove trees, and after a few hours of walking, it sighted occasional geysers and fumeroles, but on the whole, the place seemed barren.

At least, that was the case until the first time the blade wandered too near one of the larger trees with the strangely shaped roots. Then, those roots came out of the ground like worms or serpents seeking to drag it below and devour it. For a mortal, or even a weak demon, that might have been a danger, but there was nothing that its weak limbs or giant thorns could do to it, or the automaton that carried it.

Still, it sheared those limbs off with a single deadly motion, then it walked over to the tree that issued a keeping wail from a man-sized maw that had been closed until a moment before and thrust itself deep into the thing's heartwood. +44 Life Force. The blade did not use Vorpal Strike to cut through the thing, or even try to fell it.

Instead, it embedded its sharp tip almost all the way through the torso, thick trunk, and let it bleed out over the course of several seconds while it withered and died, and its sap turned to ice. Well, I suppose there's no danger of being stranded here if most, or even all of the trees are demons, it mused. +38 Life Force.

There wasn't too much foliage, of course, but there was enough, dotting the horizon, and as the blade drank deep and claimed the tree demon's soul, it pondered how far this thing's scream had actually carried. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. +81 Life Force. +1 Demon Soul.

While it finished draining its first victim, the one nearby started to uproot itself like a strange wooden crab in an attempt to escape, but it moved with arthritic speeds, and it had only managed to uproot itself and move a dozen feet before the blade reached it and gave it the same treatment. The only reason the strange plant even got that far was because, on the way, the blade hacked away experimentally at the reeds and smaller trees that hadn't moved, but got no similar reaction or influx of souls.

+206 Life Force. +1 Demon Soul.

"What lazy predators," the blade rumbled in its metallic voice as it slaughtered and drained the second.

"They sit and wait for something to eat and then drag it to its death without anything like fair combat." The idea was cowardly, and it repulsed the weapon, but not so much that it didn't put its demonic soul to use once it had obtained the second one. To the first one, it commanded, Tell me everything you know about the seventh ring, and to the second demon tree it had slain, it commanded Tell me all you can about the Demon Prince that rules this place. What armies does he wield?

What weapons and magics does he favor? The blade was bombarded then by begging and pleading for mercy and escape more than anything, but it still got many of the answers it sought. The first demon soul told it about the ring, which it referred to as the Swamps of Sorrow. Though it knew nothing of anywhere beyond the ring's borders, as it described it, the Ebon blade got the sense that the place was nearly as desolate as the barren ninth ring it had left so recently.

Monsters were few and far between, but settlements were even rarer. The souls of the lazy and feeble come here, the tree creaked in pained explanation. Some might find the motivation to build a place of safety by letting clay blocks bake in the sun until they have enough to build a wall, but safety will only ever be an illusion here. Even those rare sanctuaries sink into the muck, and those that do not are leveled by the ring's princess whenever she finds them.

The weapon didn't have to wonder who that was for very long. The Hag rules the swamp, the second soul shrieked. She has many magics, but prefers to use her teeth and claws to bite and rend! The image that came to mind was hardly of a hag, or even a woman, for that matter. If she were a she, then she was a female ogre, covered in hair and moss. What she could do, though, apparently, was transform into other beasts of the swamp, which meant that becoming a giant wolf, a troll, or even a bog kraken was not beyond her.

She had no armies, though, and beyond her shape-shifting, her mastery of the mud seemed to be her most potent powers, neither of which intimidated the blade. Anybody can be hacked to pieces, no matter what skin she chooses to wear, it told itself as it continued on through the much toward the next copse of trees in the distance. No place is truly endless, it reminded itself as it went. Even if some of these levels seemed to go on forever, it knew that eventually it would find the gate to the next realm.

There were only six more after this one, so it wasn't concerned. It might have lingered in the darkness for a decade, but in a week it would be back in creation, waging war on its real enemies. Half a day later, the only thing that it had found which had caught its eye beyond the trees that it slaughtered as it found them, were a large set of lizard tracks. It knew they didn't belong to a dragon, but that was all it could say.

Still, the blade followed them in the hopes they might belong to the Hag herself, but it was disappointed in that regard. In every other way, though, it was happy for the detour. The tracks led it to a shallow lake, and in that lake it found not one, but three giant crocodile demons. Each was at least twenty feet long, and although they'd been fighting with each other, as soon as the Ebon Blade set foot in their domain, they quickly shifted to fight him. What happened next didn't rise to the level of a fight.

It was a slaughter, but a diverting one, and though the flesh was foul tasting, it enjoyed cleaving through bone far more than wood. It hacked the first one to charge it in half, using its momentum as much as its strength. Then, it switched gears and charged through the cloud of black blood while the other two thrashed about searching for it. The blade was knocked off its feet once by a tail, though the creature lost that ten-foot whip in the very next exchange, and its life a few seconds, and a few slashes later.

+391 Life Force. +2 Demon Soul. The final creature managed to swallow it with its massive, toothy jaws, but that did it no favors either; the weapon just killed it from the inside out. +156 Life Force. +1 Demon Soul. By the time the bloodbath was done, piranha-type fish had come out of the woodwork to feast. There were hundreds of them devouring the halved and quartered demon carcasses.

All it took was a single bolt, though, and hundreds of them died instantly, bobbing to the surface as it walked ashore, leaving nothing but death in its wake. -25 Life Force. +805 Life Force. +607 Least Demon Souls. Perhaps if I'd used poison to pollute the water at the beginning, that could have been done faster, and with less energy, it mused as it left the scene.

It didn't really matter, of course, but next time in might, and it had grown far too comfortable using only a couple of its powers when it had half a hundred to choose from at this point. If you become predictable, then someone will learn how to defeat you, the Ebon Blade chastised itself. It didn't really believe that, of course; it was undefeatable, but it would pay dividends if it strategized like it wasn't.

After all, it had already come close to losing everything twice in hell, and it had no wish to make a habit of it.