Chapter 63

Jiouray POV

A few days ago I stood before the Demon King, he gave important news to me… news about an invasion… the humans had decided to take the matter in their hand and invade our lands. Probably thinking that their heroes are strong enough to cause us problems…However, what the demon king had asked for me was not to participate in the upcoming war…but to go on an even more dangerous mission… I was tasked to try to convince the Herald to come back…or at least relay the news…

The god damned Herald! That man, or thing or whatever is not something that I even want to approach, that day, when he was fighting the Necromancer Therai, I stood there like a damned log of wood, incapable of even doing anything. Inspecting the man gave me a clear indication telling me that that man is dangerous. But that idiot decided to fight him, even summoning a demon was not that much of a threat to the Herald, he commanded it to do a damn dogeza and it did…how do you beat something that can command a true demon to bow to him? You don’t! When you see something like that, you run. And I am doing exactly the opposite of that…

The Demon king ordered me to do this, after having received information that he was headed toward the Elven kingdom, this was only known two days ago when the carriage that was supposed to be escorting them to the human borders came back empty. The one that drove it, had mentioned that the Herald and his party went there. And why was I the one to be tasked with this? Well simple enough, because I had the fastest ride in the whole of the demonic kingdom…

I am a wyvern rider! The only one in this country…

The wyverns are said to be the masters of the skies, fast! Strong! And agile! These beings are masters of flight, and are able to overwhelm almost any of the flying creatures…thy are even said to be the descendant of dragons!

My partner was a red wyvern, able to breathe fire, and is extremely fast, it could make the journey toward the elven kingdom in less than three days, where as a carriage would take more than two weeks. Also, it could do this without being harassed by the creatures of the green lands.

Now, for many years, the location of Elven kingdom was a secret to almost everyone, yet thankfully, Daiki gave the rider its location, and now I am here to verify the integrity of the information, and also to rally the demon king’s instructions.

Far in the distance, I saw a giant tree, its height was so enormous it penetrated deep within the clouds, its width was comparable to a mountain, and its roots grew everywhere, though majestic and grand, the land it stood atop looked to be devoided of life, as if something had sucked the very life out of it.

In all the books that I read about the green lands, I never read anything about this, perhaps this is a tree that just sprouted? Or perhaps this is the location of the elven kingdom.

I commanded my Wyvern to dive down and approach the tree after having verified the safety of the location.

Once down, I headed forward. Still, atop my mount, we moved to the center of the tree.

The place was silent, too silent in fact. I even thought I was being watched. I saw other trees near the trunk of the tree. These, however, were much smaller, but still, they were much larger than normal forest trees, they even had windows and doors on them…Houses?

“Who goes there!” cried someone, and within a minute, about a few dozen men came out.

They were all wearing green clothes, with some armors made from tree bark, though one would, think that they are inferior to metallic armor, if they could feel the mana emanating from them, they would know that they don’t even stand a chance at destroying them with low-quality weapons…Enchanted armor!

They all had pointy ears, long silky hair, and green eyes. Most of them were blond, but some had black hair color, and some even had pale green…they didn’t have swords, but they all used bows.

Aiming them at me I could only hold my hands up and rally a message.

“I am a messenger! I came here in search of a man named Daiki. Did this man pass through here?”

Few elves began whispering and one of them said

“What is your need for the savior... demon?!”

Savior?

“Like I said, I just need to rally a message.”

“Tell us this message, and we will make sure to rally it, I don’t think the savior would want to meet one of you demons right now.”

“God, damn it! This is urgent I said! Just tell me where he is, I will go there myself” I said

Though I know they are not obliged to tell me, the gravity of the situation where the humans were reading up for war, while our god damned Council were still fighting amongst each other on whether they should or should not spend money for soldier recruitment…damn politicians…if they would agree, we can easily set up defenses to halt or impede the enemy’s approach, but they are purposefully creating trouble for the demon king.

Their goal is clear as day, they want to make the Demon King Fight alone with his personal army, while they would stay back and wait for the royal army to either perish or lose the fight. Taking advantage of the opportunity to take down the enemy with their own personal army, and in one fell swoop they would accuse the King of being unworthy, and further, take more of his power…

It was never a good decision to divide the military force between the demon king and the council, giving them an army was the same as handing them a weapon, a weapon that they can easily stab you in the back with…but the king is still young, and not experienced…Sigh.

I then heard a loud roar, something primal and terrifying was nearby, the scream made the hairs on my back stand to no end while I could only shudder, my Wyvern who I thought to be fearless actually dropped down to its knees, while it got its wings to cover its head, almost as if it was begging that whatever the thing that just screamed, would not notice it.

“Well, it seems that the savior is back…”

Within seconds the origin of the roar was visible. It was a gigantic creature, a pitch black beast, with some strands of dark green scales, a real dragon!

It landed, while it looked enormous in size, its landing was nothing short of perfect, as only a gust of the wind and a harmless vibration once the beast landed. It looked grand and majestic, its horns protruding upwards, its wings slowly closing on themselves, and finally its green terrifying eyes, that looked at a person's soul…

On top of the beast was a man…The Herald…though even under a frightening armor, and shrouded in dark smoke above a black dragon, his green eyes, dimly shining below his horned helmet clearly exposed who he is, without me needing to inspect him.

“What is it that you need?” asked the Herald, while pulling on two ignited chains that were linked to the dragon’s horns like a rein, causing the dragon to roar even more.

A scream that made me shudder from fright, a monster riding on top of another monster…

“The Demon king, my lord…The Demon King has a message for you.”

A few hours earlier.

Daiki POV

I left the room where we were supposed to sleep in, though I could understand the meaning behind king size bed that was prepared for me and my ‘slaves’ it seems that the elves need to understand something.

Perhaps it is the way they understood it, they thought that I was going to be ‘using’ them for the night, but no. I am honestly not interested. Though beautiful and have lustful bodies, I don’t feel attracted to them in any way, nor will I force myself on any of them, even if I had the strength to do it. I am not that cruel…

Deciding to head out, and forgetting about resting, I walked out of the room leaving the girls to themselves. I went down to the bottom of the tree, using the same magic that got me all the way up here.

The tree only needed a small offering of Mana and the destination within the tree’s perimeter to take a person from place to place.

Once I was down, I looked at them men and women who were recovering from the illness, yet some were not regaining their consciousness at all.

Looking at an old man that was unconscious and barely breathing, I asked a man that was near him.

“Why is this one not recovering?”

“We don’t know…but it seems that the tree is incapable of regenerating everyone's Mana fast enough, this is my old man, and he will probably not make it, the tree somehow had sucked the surrounding land dry from nutrients to repair itself, and now is using most of its produced Mana to repair the land, and whatever that was left is given to us…so far it is enough to replenish some of our power, but for the ones that are severely lacking…I don’t think they will make it in time for the tree to have fully restored the surrounding land’s health”

So they need More mana than what the tree could give them right now…

Looking at my status, I saw that my curse was still persistent, I don’t think dying will resolve it because a curse this strong can easily corrode one’s mind even beyond death…so it is persistent even if I was to die and resuscitate.

My whole power was reduced to half its original, and my regeneration of mana and stamina and Hp is severely reduced…yet my mana reserves are now full…so I guess I can help in this situation.

“Bring all those that suffer from severe mana deficiency, I will try and help,” I said

The man looked at me like if I was an idiot and said

“Sorry, my lord, though I don’t know who might you be, I believe it is too late to save them…not even the sacred tree was able to do it…I don’t think anyone can…”

“Just move out of the way,” I said and pushed onward

I placed my right hand near the unconscious man’s head and channeled some of my, own mana towards him. Blue particles left my palm and headed towards the man’s head, in about two minutes, and 1000 Mana spent, the Mana woke, while the men around me all looked at the happening like if it was a miracle.

“Bring the rest, this shouldn’t take much time.”

And so they did, one after another, mostly elderly or very young children that were plagued with the Mana deficiency, but they were not much, a couple hundred at best, and it took me about four hours to fully wake them all from their state.

My regeneration was low enough that I had about a couple thousand Mana points in reserve once the last child woke up. These people look simple actually…unlike the rude guard, these people are rather sympathetic, they cared for each other, and worried about one another, they wept and laughed once their beloved rose back, some cried from joy to see their family back, some cried from grief, grief that their loved ones couldn’t make it until I arrived…They all thanked me, those that I cured, those that get their family back, and even those that I couldn’t do anything to… they thanked me because I saved their race…because I saved their tree…because I saved their home.

I didn’t think they would discover it this quickly, but apparently, the guardswoman that was with the elf Queen had a sister that was suffering from mana deficiency, and once I cured this sister, the guardswoman blurted out that I was the one that saved them from the calamity that prevailed them.

I didn’t need any thanks, nor had I needed anything in return for this… they looked to be in need of help, and help I did, though not obligated…I felt sorry for their state, to have been forced to suffer under the tyranny of an oppressive power, without the ability to defend themselves, or to retaliate…they must have had it rough…similar to what I had back in the circles…

I then left the scene, leaving the ill to their caretakers. I went to the outside of the tree, where I found Nemu lying down nearby, I jumped on his back and asked him to fly us up…my mind was all jumbled up at this moment, as I was thinking about several things…

The divine must fall…They are abusing their powers, ravaging through innocent people without warning nor accord, abusing their status to control the ones on these lands, either with rewards like eternal life in heaven or with fear from eternal torment within hell.

Though these divine work under the guise of good and benevolent deities, they all share one thing in common, Control.

They control everything, the humans have no will of their own, afraid of the judgment of the ones above, and so they submit to their will. They bend over and give the mighty the right to use them as pawns for their own schemes…so was the case several centuries ago…

From the books and documents of the Shranvur, I noticed a pattern, once every few centuries, small war breaks, two or more cults of different objectives or different points of view engage in battle amongst themselves, to spread the name of their deity or their benefactor, this further enhances the winning deity’s popularity, and more believers come to join in their cult, by doing so, I think the deity grows in power and would become a threat to stronger deities, so what happens is, another war breaks, where even bigger powers are in play…all for the sake of keeping dominance over the people, but with spending lives as a cost for this expansion of power.

People are being used, the problem is, they know it, but they can’t do anything about it, some probably wants a change, some probably wants to live unshackled, but the decree upon them is forcing them against their will, and if any of them tries to make a change they will be stricken down. A protruding nail is always first to be hammered, and if any of them tries to rebel, then they will destroy them.

Same as what is happening with the Demon king, she is trying hard to gain the power to free her people from the Council, yet they will mostly try ways to either kill or harass her. Because in helping the people, she is defying the council’s oppressive nature, she is unconsciously creating a rebellion against the ones in power, and if it works, then her people will get greedy, probably they will try to even remove the current Demon King, and even more…probably rebel against the divine.

Though far stretched, this is the only logical explanation of the summoning, these people are summoned to do a certain task by the divine, and will mostly be about an agenda that only the Divine knows of. As for our case, it must have been the destruction of the Demon king, that could probably bring about the rebellion against the divine, as for ones before us, then they were probably summoned to fight against other heroes or the enemies of the summoner deity…

There is no logical or correct answer, these are all speculations and something I thought about, yet at the same time, they are based on events that happened and the probability of them being true is not to be underestimated…perhaps each and everyone one of us is a pawn at the hands of a divine, Pawns that have only one purpose, to be sacrificed for the benefit of the controlling deity.

Nemu was flying around the tree for a bit of time now, and while I was lost in my ramblings he managed to see something that peaked its hunter’s instinct.

“I see prey!” said Nemu.

I looked around to see a small flying red creature flying under us. Well, small is a bit overexaggerated, we were a bit too high that everything looked small from this place.

Nemu got closer, yet he didn’t want to make himself known, so he remained a bit far from the red creature's detection range.

“What is that?” I asked

But Nemu didn’t answer, it dove down at a fast speed, trying to kill whatever that dared enter the perimeter of a dragon.

“Oi slow down!”

The dragon didn’t respond, I guess when its hunter’s instinct kicks in, there is no stopping it.

Once we got closer I managed to understand what we were looking at, it was a red small dragon like creature, yet it was a bit different, instead of wings that sprouts from the side, like a dragon, this thing had wings sprouting from its arms. It looked different than a dragon too, as it had no horns and a sleeker and smaller body designed for speed.

Yet there was someone on this thing. It was a Demon-kin, and one I once saw before, he was the same swordsman that was going to fight against the necromancer…

“Nemu stop!” I asked but the dragon was lusting for blood

The wyvern had yet to notice us, probably because Nemu was hiding its presence very well.

This man must have some information, killing him will probably be a bad idea.

But this damned dragon doesn't want to stop.

I then summoned my chains, and wrapped them around the dragon’s horns, while poising myself on its back, I pulled a bit hard until the dragon’s head tilted forward and it flew upwards.

The dragon then roared and as if it was just waking from a stupor, it said

“Sorry to have shown such an unsightly side …this happens once in a while when I start feeling hungry…”

That was only it feeling hungry? And it just ate

“There is no problem, though I will never discuss or judge your eating habits, sometimes you need to know what are you eating. And frankly, that demon-kin is not edible, at least not right now…” I said as I asked the dragon to come down, we have a guest that we need to speak with.