Chương 169: Over My Dead Body

The Ebon Blade reflected on those words as Life Force flooded out of it in an attempt to keep its wielder's body somewhat functional. I never had a chance. It sighed. There was no heart to strike. I knew it. Those words should have been filled with rage that she'd cheated, but really, what did it expect from a demon queen? In that moment, the blade considered burning a few more demon souls, just to struggle a little longer, but it had to fight its revulsion of being tainted by them first.

As long as you are not in her hands, there is still a chance, it whispered to itself, even though it didn't see one. How? It warred with itself silently. She cannot be killed, and the only way out is through her… In that moment, the blade had a revelation. The odds of success were low, but they were not zero, and that was enough to spur it forward.

"If there was no heart, then what was the point?" it asked, trying to sound as desperate and defeated as it could.

"To enjoy ourselves," she purred.

"What over reason could there—" As she distracted herself with words and reached for victory, the blade used Shifting Blade to emulate her tactic. It didn't try to recreate the vast spiderweb she had; it just needed to strike from the correct angle. -1341 Life Force. She had just enough time to notice what it was doing, but not enough time to understand it. If she had, she would have doubtlessly disappeared and removed herself from danger.

Instead, confident of her own immortality, she took the blow, letting its ever-lengthening blade slice through her chest, because she knew there was no heart to strike. +66 Life Force. Until now, the Ebon Blade had only thought to use that power to turn itself into other actual weapons that it knew and understood. That had been a failure of imagination, and it only hoped that the Demon Queen's demonstration would prove to be her undoing. Ot sliced right through her, reaching the rift behind her as she praised it.

"See, you learn so quickly, and I have much to teach you!" As she said that, though it used Shifting Blade one more time, to replicate the giant axe-like key she'd shown it earlier at the very tip of its reach. The shape felt strange to the blade, as much because it made for an ugly, unwieldy weapon as anything else. She didn't even see that because it was behind her. Nor did she feel anything was wrong until the Warbringer started to turn its hilt to twist the key in the lock. -25 Life Force. +63 Life Force.

"You think to twist the knife—" Nuella started playfully before she realized what it was doing.

"No! It can't be! Only I can turn the key! It is my soul that holds the gate shut, and it is inviolable!"

"Your blood and the key," the Warbringer rasped, turning harder.

"That's what you said. You didn't say your hand needed to be the one to turn it." Her hands grasped the blade, then, trying to break it, or stop it from turning the key and unlocking the lock. The two of them struggled for half a minute. She was stronger than it was, the sword knew that, but now that she'd been joined with the doorway via its distended blade, her strength seemed to be fading.

Neither its strength, though, nor its dedication would ever waver, and the fact that she was fighting so hard only drove it harder. -1, 891 Life Force. +247 Life Force. This is the way, the blade whispered to itself. It was a desperate guess, but it will work. I'm almost there! While it maintained its calm focus, the Demon Queen was increasingly frantic. She didn't teleport away, but then, it didn't think she could while she was linked to the rift. She offered to set it free and threatened to destroy it.

In the last few seconds, she even begged for her life. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Please, don't do this! If you open the rift, it will—" but it was hopeless. Nothing she said could change anything, and in the end, the weapon triumphed, and with a loud click and a louder scream from the Demon Queen, it was done. She shattered and burst apart in a thousand shards of light as the volcano rumbled and began to erupt around them, shrinking their little island of safety second by second. +1 God Soul. You have completed Level 5 of the Infernal Path! Infernal Path Complete!

You have reached the end of your darkest path so far. Where else would you expect blood, death and vengeance to lead besides damnation? You have slain the Demon Queen and stolen her throne for yourself. The Infernal Path: Level 5 complete! Level 5 Powers: Infernal Creature: You are permanently stained with the darkness of the Demon Queen's blood, and naturally deal double damage to all divinities, their avatars, and their devout. Mastery of Hell: Hell belongs to you now, to do what you see fit with.

Without the Demon Queen's mastery of the nine rings it would be difficult to navigate, but not impossible. No demonic wielder could ever hope to resist you now, and the nearly infinite wealth of damned souls now belongs to you. The blade saw the words, but ignored them. It was far less concerned with her death than it was with the rift opening.

Until the moment it had turned the key in the lock, it had been a glowing translucent scar, but now, it was a doorway, and it surged through it in a single moment with Bolt, launching itself out of hell even as the half-molten body of its wielder started to break down. -1, 211 Life Force. Those failures only multiplied on the far side of the door, though. At first, the blade thought it was the sudden temperature change, doing more harm than good.

Then, as it noted parts of the soul steel that powered the thing were beginning to effervesce away, it remembered something that the Warbringer's creator had said about how such a machine could never exist in creation. Now it was seeing why. The metal that made its most complicated mechanisms function was turning to mist as the souls escaped. I suppose that's the best reward I can give this body after all it's done for me, the blade contemplated as it tried to understand the position it had been put in.

It was back in creation, but hell was on its heels, and the meadow it had landed in, along with the thin pine forest that surrounded it, was already bursting into flames. It had expected to have minutes to find a new wielder before Warbringer had failed it entirely when it ran out of Life Force. Now the blade had only ten or twelve seconds before its body failed completely, and it needed to act. -2, 461 Life Force.

This fire will attract attention, but more than likely, that will be gods or mages, the blade noted as the world went up in flames around it. And I will be helpless without a hand to hold me. Its instincts told it that the right move was to retreat to hell and find a suitable demon to wield it, but the sword rejected that. Just because it could affect a demonic wielder now didn't mean that it relished the idea, and the idea of returning to that foul place horrified it.

I have been tainted enough by its dark magics, it decided as i t looked around, for some place far enough that it could be well clear of this place, but visible enough that someone might find it again. A town would have been ideal. A village or even a farm would have been acceptable. There was nothing, though. It was apparently high in the mountains somewhere. The blade searched the skein of fate, looking at the weave of fate. It would take anything. A woodsman's hut, a beastman clan, a goblin den.

It saw the taint of goblins here and there, but the only sign of anything it could call created by the hand of man or monsters was a monolithic henge of strange design on an overlook almost halfway around the lake. It's probably too far away, it told itself, even as it started to move toward it. That didn't matter. The blade compressed the distances involved with Position of Privilege, two and then three times as it ran, losing pieces of the Warbringer as it crossed the vast grassy slopes.

The power was expensive, but not nearly as expensive as the vast quantities that its wielder was consuming just to avoid imploding. -2, 899 Life Force. Stride by fiery stride, the metal man cooled, leaving ashes in its wake. As it went, the blade consumed every demon soul it had remaining save for the demon princes, because it wasn't sure what would happen if it tried to consume them, and right now it could not afford the distraction.

When the Warbringer failed, the blade had almost made it to its destination, but it was still too far away. It had reached the snow line, but it was still nearly a hundred feet from the altar it had planned to set it on, in the hopes that someone would find it. So, with the last dregs of its power, it used Bolt and moved as close as it could. The destination was still fifty yards away when it reached the far side.

The blade then did something it had never done before, something it had told its wielders never to do many times, and it threw itself end over end at the closest monolithic stone. -50 Life Force.