Ch.127Dissociative Entity

As Serena infused mana into Wind Shear, a storm raged in response.

The flow of wind began to change gradually around Wind Shear. Her brilliant golden ponytail, tied behind her head, fluttered wildly in the current.

Wind Shear absorbed all the incoming mana, transforming into transparent glass as it contained the wind and storm within its blade. This meant the mana had been stored to its limit.

The black blood demon flapped its wings. The flapping corrupted the surrounding air, emitting a terrible stench of decay. Its strangely twisted goat eyes glared at Serena and me.

“Do you intend to interfere with the union?”

“I merely follow my lord’s orders.”

Two emotionless voices collided with each other.

Demons were naturally creatures without anything that could be called emotions, and Serena likely had nothing in her mind except my order to kill the demon, so this was the expected outcome.

“If you truly serve your lord, I advise you to accept. That would be true loyalty.”

“Nonsense.”

The demon made its proposal to Serena in a flat voice, and Serena dismissed it as nonsense—that was the limit of what I could observe.

Because in the very next moment, Serena vanished and reappeared right in front of the demon. Whatever happened in between was beyond my ability to perceive.

Various substances that made up the demon’s body scattered in all directions. Pieces of flesh and black blood were caught in the raging storm, dispersing chaotically.

Serena, having disposed of the demon in less than a single breath, descended back to the ground.

The blue aura surrounding her body gradually faded, and the wind swirling around Wind Shear somewhat subsided.

The black blood masses that had been flung high into the air by that wind now poured down onto the wasteland with splashing sounds, a beat too late.

Serena stood majestically, without even the slightest stain on her body despite the black blood raining down from the sky.

With a careless, indifferent kick, she crushed one of the severed flesh pieces, causing it to burst. As she swung Wind Shear, another falling piece of flesh split into smaller fragments that rolled across the ground.

Believing she had completely disposed of the demon, the Wind Shear in Serena’s hand gradually became transparent.

Up to this point, everything was normal. I give an order, and Serena follows it by disposing of the enemy in one go. Occasionally, one strike wasn’t enough, but that was generally how it went.

At least until now.

Serena, who was about to return to my side, stopped in her tracks. Her pair of blue sapphire eyes scanned the surroundings intently. World Eater, which had been about to dissipate into the wind, reappeared in her hand.

“Accept.”

The demon’s voice was heard. It was the same voice I had been hearing since it started behaving strangely, demanding that I accept something.

The difference now was that it came from everywhere.

“Accept.”

“Accept.”

“Accept.”

“Accept.”

“Accept.”

“Accept Him.”

From each piece of flesh torn apart by Serena’s storm, the voice echoed repeatedly, telling me to accept Him.

Minute cracks appeared on Serena’s face, which had been as serene as a noble lake. I too was equally dumbfounded by this unprecedented situation.

“Accept Him.”

“Accept Him.”

“Accept Him.”

At the very least, this was the first time I’d experienced a situation where all the flesh pieces—torn apart to the point where reassembling the demon’s body would be nearly impossible—spoke to me at once.

“My lord!”

Serena’s urgent voice echoed on the wind. Almost simultaneously as I heard her voice, her golden ponytail left an afterimage as it flashed past me.

A faint scent of Serena lingered where the afterimage remained. She had rushed to stand behind me at the same speed as her voice had traveled.

I turned around.

I saw Wind Shear transformed into transparent glass, Serena who had slashed all the demons approaching me while wielding it, and six demons flying away with their heads burst open.

They were identical to the black blood demon before it was torn to pieces by Serena, soaring into the sky while bleeding black blood.

‘Six of them?’

Before I could properly question the number of demons I was seeing, Serena moved again and vanished from my sight. I felt a gust of wind from behind, suggesting she was swinging Wind Shear.

The number of demons was no longer just one.

I observed a demon flying away with its head burst open by Serena. Tendrils shot up from the flesh pieces that had separated from its head.

These were vines of a color much closer to black than red.

The black vines began to intertwine with each other. They formed a head, a torso, limbs, and wings.

Dozens of vines shooting up from a single piece of flesh transformed into the shape of a demon. All the flesh pieces that Serena had burst were undergoing the same transformation.

Suddenly, the wind stopped.

I looked at Serena. She was in a stance where she held both sides of Wind Shear’s crossguard at her waist.

Before I could recall what that sword technique was, the hundreds of demons surrounding us were simultaneously cut into seven pieces each, tumbling to the ground.

And then each piece grew into seven more demons.

Before I knew it, an army of demons numbering easily in the four digits had surrounded us, forming an encirclement.

Every single one was identical in size and form to the original black blood demon. Even the fact that they held World Eater in their right hands was perfectly the same.

“The union must be achieved.”

“In a world where only two remain.”

“You shall be granted eternal life.”

“Accept.”

Despite the demons surrounding us numbering easily in the four digits, their sentences connected precisely.

Though it was equally confusing since hundreds of these precisely connected sentences were being spoken at once.

Serena scanned the surroundings with busy eyes. Those eyes showed no sense of crisis or concern about the situation.

There was only a knight considering how to carry out my order to kill the demons.

The demons charged endlessly. Serena swung Wind Shear endlessly. Wind raged, afterimages remained, and techniques were used.

Flames wrapped around Wind Shear’s blade, sending fire-infused wind directly at a demon flapping its wings and charging. It was a technique that utilized flame wrapping.

The wind that flew with the flames cut the demon’s neck, and the fire burned its head. The black vines directly hit by the flames helplessly burned down, leaving something shriveled behind.

Vine tendrils sprouted from that something again. The same happened with the body that had been burned together. At least five demons emerged.

Although Serena’s movements were too fast to be captured by the eye, and despite the demons charging with complete disregard for their own bodies, they couldn’t reach me. But that didn’t mean the situation was being resolved.

My decision was quick. Wind Shear cut through the ground the demons were standing on instead of their bodies. The nearby earth crumbled completely, and the demons’ bodies rolled into the newly formed deep pit.

It was just a temporary measure, a stopgap solution. Since those creatures didn’t have wings merely for decoration, they would surely fly up and attack again soon.

However, it was enough time to revise our plan.

Serena, who had practically ground up the demons that had fallen into the pit using wind paths, approached my side.

Despite moving in all directions and cutting down thousands of demons in a short time, her face showed not even a single disturbed breath. A question followed in a calm tone.

“What would you like to do, my lord?”

“Well, I’m a bit surprised since I’ve never heard that demons could transform like that. No, perhaps I should have been surprised from the beginning that there was a demon with black blood.”

“If my lord commands me to kill them, I will do so by any means necessary. Even if it means completely overturning this place.”

“I don’t mind tearing this place apart. There are no people nearby anyway. But before that, would it be alright if we try one experiment?”

“If it is my lord’s wish, I shall only obey.”

“Serena, how many pieces do you think you could cut those things into?”

One of them must have untangled itself as it flapped its wings and flew up into the sky. The timing was perfect. Serena, who had caught my intention, made a small movement with Wind Shear.

That was enough.

The demon stopped moving. And then, not long after, it transformed into thousands of thin paper-like pieces and fluttered down into the pit.

Vine tendrils sprouting from the thin paper-like pieces were the demon’s final appearance.

“Should I tell you the exact number, my lord?”

“Just tell me how many digits. About how many was it?”

“It well exceeded four digits, and was almost approaching five digits, my lord.”

Almost approaching five digits, huh.

I ran some calculations. Dividing monsters weren’t unheard of. It was a characteristic mainly possessed by slime-type monsters.

But even those had clear limits to their division.

Before the demon first showed this characteristic, when it was torn to pieces by Serena, it created demons from each of at least hundreds of flesh pieces.

And just now, despite Serena slicing the demon’s body thin enough to approach five digits, it still managed to successfully divide.

Considering that the limit for ordinary dividing monsters barely reaches two digits, this was an absurdly high number.

While I was lost in thought, a few more demons climbed up and charged at me as soon as they saw me.

“Finish those off too.”

No sooner had I finished speaking than a wind swirling around Serena shoved the demons back into the pit. The sound of their flesh being crushed could be heard continuously from below.

“I have disposed of them, my lord.”

The sounds made by the demons in the pit grew louder, but neither Serena nor I felt any sense of crisis.

We were only considering how to deal with these annoying creatures.

‘Charlotte would probably like it if I gave her one.’

At least one of them seemed worth keeping.

The reason I had banned research on black blood monsters was because I was concerned that someone might delve into black magic while studying them.

But I had firmly instructed Charlotte never to touch black magic for any reason, so there was no worry about that.

When these creatures first appeared, she had even conducted experiments right in front of me.

“Serena.”

“Yes, my lord.”

And there was no need to deal with them by cutting or breaking them one by one.

“It seems we can’t handle these things simply by cutting them. Right?”

Before she could apologize, I stroked Serena’s head. The silky soft texture of her hair slipped between my fingers.

As I expected, Serena’s expression momentarily became gloomy, but it recovered rapidly as soon as my palm touched her.

“So, let’s try a bigger technique.”