Chapter 111: Please Be Patient
Rhodes kept repeating the name. He had never imagined that the first Demon King would be Eirik. Was this destiny? For the hero who slew the dragon to become the dragon himself?
As he spoke the name, the black lines under his skin began to writhe, as if they were alive, and they began to radiate a dark, ominous aura that resonated with the name of the Demon King. The taint within him, as if sensing a call from its own kind, began to stir.
"Norne, give me the 'Light of Ersten'."
He had no other choice but to resort to a crude, direct method.
Norne, though a little confused, took out the holy sword. Imbued with the faith of the human race, it now shone with a silvery light.
For the first time in decades, Rhodes held the sword once more. Its weight was so great that he could barely hold it steady. He pointed the tip at the black lines on his arm and plunged it in.
Black-red blood spurted out, staining the carpet a deep crimson.
Norne was so shocked he couldn't speak. He rushed forward to stop him, but Rhodes waved him away.
"Don't worry. I'm just using the power of faith within the sword to suppress the divine corrosion."
The taint had already seeped into his very bones. If he didn't stop it now, it would spread throughout his entire body. Then, he would have to abandon this vessel, create a new one, and then be corroded all over again, a cycle of endless torment.
"Did it work?" Norne asked anxiously.
As the silver light of the sword flickered, the black lines on Rhodes's arm began to recede, until they were just faint, barely perceptible threads.
"To fight a divine power, you have to use a power of the same level," Rhodes said.
He pulled the sword out, and Norne immediately began to cast a healing spell. He had, in the past thirty years, learned the healing magic of the holy scripture, and had even taught it to others.
"Thanks. My own mana is too low; I can't cast a high-level spell like this," he said with a satisfied nod as the wound closed. "It worked better than I expected. It seems the power of faith can indeed suppress the corrosion."
Hearing this, a flicker of hope appeared in Norne's eyes. He thought of Eirik, who was still in the grip of the same corrosion. "Rhodes, can Eirik... be saved this way as well?" his voice was a weak whisper, the last desperate grasp of a drowning man. The very air in the room was heavy, suffocating. Even the moonlight seemed to have dimmed.
Rhodes looked at Norne's face, a face filled with a mixture of pain and pleading, and he didn't answer right away. He was silent for a long time, so long that Norne thought he would not answer at all.
Finally, slowly, and with an immense weight, he shook his head.
"I'm sorry."
Norne froze.
"I'm sorry, I can't," Rhodes said, his voice filled with a desperate helplessness. "I've been through it. I know it's a poison that taints you to your very core, to your very soul. Once it has spread... there's no turning back." He clenched his fists, a sharp pain shooting through his palms. "If I had been there when it started, I might have been able to do something. But it's too late now."
He knew that the divine corrosion had likely already spread throughout Eirik's entire body, that his very soul had been tainted. He himself had only been saved because he had made the decisive choice to abandon his body at the very beginning, before the taint had fully taken hold of his soul. But for Eirik... it was too late.
"The Goddess of Procreation's final, desperate act was to imbue her dying curse with the purest essence of her authority, the parasitic nature of procreation itself. Eirik's will, his memories... they have long since been deconstructed and reassembled. He is now a Demon King, a being created from the remnant of the goddess's will, with Eirik as its base. The Eirik we knew... he is gone."
Though he had killed the Goddess of Procreation and had ended any chance of her resurrection, in her final moments, she had used her connection with the demons to imbue her dying curse into the surge of divine power that had erupted from her. Eirik had been the unfortunate one to be caught in it. He had become the first human to fall and become a demon. And he would be the last. The Goddess of Procreation was dead. No one else would ever be corrupted by her power.
When he had finished, Norne swayed, and had to lean against the cold wall to keep himself from collapsing. Though he had already prepared himself for the worst, to hear the truth so bluntly... it was still a shock. Decades of friendship, fifteen years of guilt... and in the end, a final, irreversible sentence.
Rhodes watched his friend's slumping form, his own hand outstretched, but then quickly retracted. The taint within him was not yet fully gone. He didn't dare to touch him.
After a long time, Norne finally looked up. His eyes were red, but he was holding back his tears. He took a deep breath, as if to suppress all the emotion in his chest. "I understand."
He didn't ask what was to be done. He just... accepted it. And Rhodes, in a tacit understanding, did the same. The best thing, the kindest thing, would be to give Eirik peace. But to ask his best friend to be the one to do it... it was too cruel.
Until Norne himself brought it up, he would not act. His own problems were still far from solved.
And when that day came, he would go and find a certain elf, an elf who still owed him a promise. He would have him complete his own, fated, world-saving journey. Though that, too, would be a cruel burden to place upon him. But it was the only way.
Norne closed his eyes and, having calmed himself, forced a change of subject. "So... what will you do now? Will you go and find Serie? She's been looking for you."
Serie.
At the sound of her name, a complex emotion flickered in his eyes. It wasn't that he didn't want to see her. It was just... not the right time. If he could completely remove the last of the taint from his soul, he could use his authority over life to achieve a continuous reincarnation, to be able to walk with her, through the long years.
So he couldn't be rash. He would have a long time with her in the future.
He had to be patient. Please be patient, he told himself.
(End of Chapter)
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