Chương 155: The Penitent

The Ebon Blade spent days touring the Last City. It tried the north gate, which indeed did not open for it. However, each time it thought about forcing the issue, or moving on without locating the Penitent, it decided against it. The reason for that was simple; the city was too strange to resist understanding it better. A big part of that, though, as it had known from the beginning, was how normal everything was, but the longer it stayed here, the stranger that normalcy got.

Before it had contrasted that normalcy and peace only with the hellscape beyond the city's stone walls. Now that it had been here long enough to compare that normalcy to itself, though, things were even stranger. For starters, the way the city warped in size depending on where it stood was disorienting. Even studying the threads of the world did not help to resolve that entirely. If it were in the middle of a plaza, then that plaza was large enough to contain thousands, and it had dozens of different busy stalls.

If it walked down the street, then that same structure became a shadow of its former self, with only a handful of people. Did everyone experience this circle like this? It wondered as it moved from place to place. How would that even be possible? The blade wasn't sure, but that curiosity, in large part, was what kept it from moving on. Everywhere it went, the world shrank and grew. It was almost organic, like the lungs of some invisible giant. It happened in the markets, the castle, and even the library.

Whatever section it wandered into seemed as though it might hold as many books as all the previous spaces combined, and those totals were in turn eclipsed when it moved on to the next one. It wasn't just the space that was distorted, though; it was the behavior of the inhabitants. It was there long enough for the nobles to beat some of the same commoners within an inch of their lives on a regular basis. In some cases, beggars were even beaten to death, but the next day, they were alive again.

That makes sense, it told itself. This is hell. Here, death is only a distant memory. It wasn't the only memory, either. Though it didn't bother the blade that the sun was always high in the sky, glaring down at them with its faintly green light, the people here acted as if there was such a thing as day and night. It had taken the blade more than a day to realize why the streets were almost completely empty for a few hours.

While the demonic guards didn't quite wander around with lanterns to hold back the night, the daily cycle was certainly interesting. Why should the habits of their last lives matter in this one, it wondered, but of course to ask the question was to answer it. They were here as long as they couldn't grow beyond their mortal failings, so they were chained by these daily rituals as much as the souls of the damned in the jungle had been held in place by vines and webs. It was less cruel, but just as effective.

That train of thought was what finally got the blade thinking about things. Rather than explore the city at random, it asked itself, 'In this strange upside-down place, where would the true ruler of the city be hiding?' The answer was just as obvious as the last one. All things being equal, he'd be in the gutter somewhere.

While that didn't really narrow things down, it did give the blade a place to focus, and it began to methodically walk the streets in the worst areas, looking through the most wretched and destitute faces for anyone with an unusual soul. That search took several more days, and though it started out in the marketplaces and the north gate, it eventually found the demon prince lingering in the shell of a torched warehouse in the worst part of the city where he seemed to be holding court.

The contrast with the King of the Last City couldn't have been more stark. The Penitent man was old and ragged, with a wispy grey beard and blind, milky eyes. He wore rags and looked just like anyone else. Only the power of his soul and the pallor of his skin betrayed the fact that he wasn't just another damned soul wallowing in the past.

The beggars' court was full of such dreamers, lounging around, telling each other careworn stories or lying alone and dreaming of better days as they starved to death in a place where death didn't really exist. The blade wasn't sure what the protocol was here, but it didn't worry too much about it. It just approached the demon prince at a steady, even pace. It did not wish to seem meek, but it did not wish to provoke a needless altercation either.

"Ah, so you are the one cleaving a bloody swath through the nine hells?" the Penitent asked.

"If you've come to take my head, know that I am no warrior. I won't fight you, but even so, you will not succeed." To the Ebon Blade, it felt like a trap, and it pushed the idea aside entirely.

"I journey to the center of hell to face its ruler, but the north gate will not open for me, and I was told the south gate would not reach my destination," the weapon's metal wielder answered. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"If it is not hubris that holds you back, then I have little interest in you," The demon answered with a shrug.

"Those who belong to me will be free to leave when they've learned their lessons and made their amends. Everyone else can proceed to the next stage in their soul's progression."

"You'd willingly let them slip away?" the blade's wielder asked, betraying none of the blade's confusion in its monotone voice. It seemed uncharacteristic.

"That hasn't been my experience with the previous lords of hell." The old man sighed.

"Most of the demon princes overstep their bounds to make their personal power swell, it's true. There's no point to it, though; as you have already seen, it only speeds their downfall. I understand humility more than most, but I understand something even more important than that: all souls seek the heart of fire so they might be reforged anew. Some will get there after centuries of suffering, and others will take millennia. In the grand scheme of things, it hardly matters."

"I can climb that mountain in an afternoon," the blade said, looking past the city and its walls to the smoke-belching peak in the distance. While it could see that a journey through the Sea of Despair might take centuries to make your way, it hardly seemed like it would be difficult to complete the last two circles that remained.

"Even if that were so, the only thing that proves is that you deserve a shorter stay in hell than most," the demon prince answered.

"How long have you been here already?" The blade was unsure and considered the question. It had lost all track of time in the outermost circle and lingered for years beneath the sea. In most other circles, though, it had only been there for days or weeks. Altogether, it was impossible to say, so it offered, "Several years at least, but its hard to say. It might have been decades."

"Even so, a quick trip," the Penitent nodded, still not showing his face.

"By all means, leave and try if you think it for the best, but know that as long as you do not cause trouble to those who do not deserve it, you are welcome to stay, too."

"Why would I?" the blade asked, confused. While it found the place interesting, if the ruler of this place allowed it to move on, there was no reason for it not to.

"You are not a proud soul," the demon prince said, "But you are not whole either. That is something that you should correct. If you truly aim to face Nuella herself, then you should address that. If you stand before her with even a single flaw, you will shatter in an instant." The blade saw no flaw with that logic. Under normal circumstances, it would have agreed, but the fact that it was coming from someone who should be its enemy made it less than trusting.

"While that is good information to have…" the blade's metal wielder started.

"You'll find much information about the challenges that lie ahead in the library as well, if you know how to read, that is," the Penitent told it. The blade was offended by that. It did know how to read in many languages thanks to all of the souls it had devoured, but it had no need to. Books were the opposite of swords, and though not quite as repugnant as the idea of using defensive magic, it was certainly up there.

"... Be that as it may," it continued.

"You know nothing of my soul, and—" The blade had scarcely finished its last syllable when it found itself in the heart of its soul gem, with the beggar king. Crowded around both of them were the shadows of powerful demonic souls. The demon prince didn't seem at all perturbed by that, but the blade was deeply concerned that the man was in here at all. That shouldn't be possible.

It was as terrible a violation as it could think of, and yet, he was there, caressing the edge of the gem, and saying something about the flaw. The blade couldn't hear whatever those words were, though, over the sound of its rage. It reached out to strangle the life out of the man, but of course, here it had no shape or substance. It was just one shadow among many. The demon is here, at its very center, and I can do nothing, it reflected helplessly.

Just like with the mirror so long ago, though, when the demon touched its soul, it triggered an automatic response. Even as it flowed there, helpless in the center of its soul, its wielder's body moved, drew it, and brought the Ebon Blade down like a thunderbolt toward the invader's helpless body. The Demon Prince made no move to resist and was cleaved neatly in two, vanishing from the blade's soul in an instant.

It had just enough time to be annoyed that it had been forced to kill such an opponent in such an unsatisfying way, and then the world ended, at least for the Last City. Before the two halves of the Penitent had fallen neatly in two, there was an earthquake powerful enough to knock people off their feet. The roar of the earth was deafening, but the blade's wielder stayed standing, as rents opened up in the ground, and lava started gushing in the street.

That was concerning, but the blade had just enough time to realize that it had never actually received its victim's soul, when suddenly time froze, and began to rewind. The cobblestone streets sealed up, the failing stone buildings around it righted themselves, and people lay back down as if nothing had ever happened, as the Penitent's two halves mended in a strange but gory spectacle. When it was done, the blade could not decide if it had actually happened.

Did he undo the event, or was all of that an illusion of what might have happened? It asked itself as it regarded the blind man.

"You said you wouldn't stop me from taking your head," th blade snarled, grateful that almost all of its emotions were removed from the Warbringer's words.

"Nor did I. You struck me down, and glimpsed my true power. What that is, well, you may do what you like," the Penitent intoned.

"I will not trouble you further, but if you think to strike me down again, you will regret it." His words answered nothing, and the blade seethed at that response. Still, it did not attack the demon prince a second time. Instead, it turned around and walked out of the warehouse and toward the north gate. While the Penitent might have been trying to help, and might even have a point, it had no business touching the Ebon Blade's soul or its memories.