Chapter 163: That which belongs to the Demons

Chapter 163: Chapter 163: That which belongs to the Demons

The portal was still open above the sky.

It had stopped pulsing. Now it simply stood there, a black hole of pale violet stretching from the clouds to the academy’s central courtyard, and the air around it hummed like a struck bell. Every window in the Imperial Academy rattled in its frame. Somewhere below, a student was screaming for her friend. Somewhere else, an instructor was shouting orders no one could hear.

Theon was still hovering in the air close to the balcony with both hands locked around his body, staring upward.

The figure was staring at Lazaria.

She was still in Ifrith’s arms, pale and small against his chest, her fingers curled into the fabric of his coat. She hadn’t woken. But her body shivered, as though something in her recognized the thing floating in the sky and wanted to flinch away.

Theon looked back at the begin. His jaw tightened.

"Who is that?" he said under his breath. Then, louder, narrowing his eyes, "Who could that be?"

A familiar voice rose in the back of his mind, calm and flat.

**[World Archive.]**

A text unfolded in front of his eyes, white lines on the dark of his vision.

**Race: Demon**

**Classification: Unidentified being**

**Rank: Supreme Demon General**

**Affiliation: Demon Army**

Theon’s eyes contracted.

"What?"

His heart skipped hard enough to hurt. *Demon?* He stared at the armored figure and tried to make the word fit. The Demon empire. He had read about it once, in a brittle old record buried at the back of the imperial archive, a few paragraphs of faded ink that most scholars dismissed as myth. Humans were not the only beings in this world. There had been other races. Ancient ones. Powerful ones. Demons had been counted among them.

"But what would a demon be doing here?"

He folded his fist more and raised his voice, putting every ounce of nerve he had into it.

"Who are you?"

For a moment there was nothing. Then the figure in the beam turned his head, slow and unhurried, and answered.

"I am Valerath."

The voice did not echo so much as fall over the academy, heavy as a dropped anvil. The entire atmosphere thickened. Theon felt his ribs press inward. Down in the courtyard, a few students simply collapsed.

"Supreme Demon General of the Demon Army."

Valerath lifted one gauntleted hand, and behind him the clouds split. Shapes stirred in the darkness there. Ranks of them. Banners and horns and the glint of black steel.

"And I have come to take what belongs to the Demon Realm."

Theon frowned. "What belongs to the Demon Realm?"

Valerath did not bother with words. He pointed one finger downward, past Theon, past the balcony, directly at the girl asleep in Ifrith’s arms.

"She."

Theon moved before he’d decided to. He stepped forward and planted himself in front of Lazaria, small shoulders squared, arms spread. He was ten years old and had nothing in his hands. He did it anyway.

But before he could say a word, a hand settled gently on his shoulder.

"Stand back," Ifrith said.

Theon looked up at him. "What?"

Ifrith did not answer right away. He crouched, and with a care that seemed absurd for a being of his size, he transferred Lazaria into Theon’s arms. She weighed almost nothing. Her head lolled against Theon’s collarbone.

"I told you," Ifrith said. His eyes never left Valerath. "I can handle this."

Theon hesitated. His mouth opened to argue.

Then it came back to him. *Ifrith is the Primordial Demon Sovereign.*

The tension in his shoulders eased, just slightly. If that was true, then a Supreme Demon General, however terrifying, shouldn’t be able to threaten him at all.

Theon stepped back.

Valerath watched the exchange from above, and a slow, thin arrogance spread across his face. He looked at the boy, at the girl, at the tall man in the plain coat, and he saw nothing worth fearing.

"Little human peasants," he said, lifting his chin. "I order you to—"

He never finished before Ifrith was gone.

There was no sound, no flash, only a smear of displaced air where he had been standing. The balcony stones cracked in a perfect circle around the spot. A heartbeat later, there was a noise like a mountain being split.

BOOM!

Ifrith’s fist hit Valerath square in the face.

The Supreme Demon General’s head snapped back. His body followed, launched upward through the violet beam so fast it tore a ragged hole in the light. He went up and up, past the towers, past the low clouds, trailing a ribbon of black blood. Below him, the demon army looked skyward in stunned silence. Their commander was already hundreds of meters above their heads, and still climbing.

He had barely begun to slow when Ifrith appeared above him.

He hung there with one arm cocked loosely at his side, wind snapping his coat. He looked almost bored.

"Too slow."

He swung his leg over his head and drove his heel downward.

BOOM!

The strike hit Valerath between the shoulder blades. The general fell like a thrown spear. He punched through the layer of cloud, trailed fire through the sky, and slammed into the academy grounds with a force that shook every building for a mile.

The earth shattered. Cracks raced outward across the campus grounds in wide, jagged spokes. A wall of dust rose and rolled over the nearest fountains, swallowing statues, benches, a stray practice dummy. When it settled, a crater had opened in the ground, deep enough to hold a house.

The demon army stared at it.

Ifrith drifted down until he floated above the lip of the crater, his shadow cast long across the broken stone. Then his aura rose.

It did not explode. It unfurled, slow and enormous, like something very preditory waking up. The air trembled. Loose gravel skipped across the ground. The nearest demons, rank after rank of horned soldiers who had been ready to storm the academy a minute earlier, took a collective step backward.

Beside him, a small figure stepped into the open.

Silver’s eyes had begun to glow, a cold, clean white, like frost on glass at the very first light of sunset. Her hair lifted in a wind that touched nothing else.

Ifrith glanced back toward the balcony and found Theon watching.

"Master, don’t worry." His voice carried easily across the distance. He gestured at the army with a lazy tilt of his head. "Silver and I are enough to deal with these peasants."

Another figure stepped forward from the edge of the balcony. The primordial frost dragon,

"I can help," she said.

Ifrith turned his head and looked at her.

It was a single glance. No threat in it, no raised voice. But it was so cold that the dragon girl felt it settle in her stomach like a swallowed stone.

"Stay back."

She stopped. Her fists curled at her sides, and after a moment she stepped back, tight-lipped.

On the balcony, Theon tightened his arms around Lazaria. She was trembling now, small shudders that ran through her whole body, and when he looked down, her eyelids were fluttering as if she were fighting to wake.

"Come on," he whispered. "Let’s get you inside."

He carried her back through the doors and into the chamber, past the overturned chair and the scattered papers, and laid her gently on the bed. He pulled the blanket up to her chin. She stirred, and her eyes opened a crack.

"Stay here," he said.

Lazaria looked up at him. Her lips parted. "But—"

"It’s fine." He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. It probably wasn’t. "I’ll be back."

He turned and ran for the balcony.

The moment he stepped outside, he looked down, and the breath went out of him.

The academy grounds were full of monsters.

They were everywhere. Black-scaled, many-limbed things poured out. A creature the size of a wagon was tearing through the east gate as though it were made of paper. Another bounded across the rooftops of the dormitory, shaking tiles loose with every step. Students ran in every direction, many of them still in their uniforms. Instructors stood in knots, shouting spells, and the spells were barely scratching the beasts. Wards flared, flickered, and went dark. Wherever the monsters pushed, the academy’s defenses collapsed.

"What’s happening?" Theon gasped.

Even from here he could read the ranks. A-Rank. Not one or two. Dozens.

"The demon general brought monsters?"

"Not exactly."

The voice came from beside his feet. The little wolf had climbed up onto the railing, its tail curled neatly around its paws. Its eyes were fixed on the battlefield.

Theon looked down at him. "What do you mean?"

The wolf lifted a paw and pointed toward the center of the academy grounds, toward the crater and the fading violet light. "A demon’s aura attracts monsters. That’s common knowledge. But when a demon is strong enough..." He paused. "...the aura doesn’t just attract them. It creates them."

Theon’s eyes narrowed. "Create them?"

"Yes." The wolf looked toward the place where Valerath had fallen. "A Supreme Demon General has enough power to create multiple A-Rank monsters. Those things down there were never born. They were pulled out of his aura. Every one of them is a piece of him."

Theon clenched his fist so hard his nails bit into his palm.

"Then we have to help." He looked out at the burning towers, at the students stumbling over rubble. "We need to protect everyone."

Something tapped his shoulder.

He turned. The small wolf had climbed up beside him, standing on its hind legs with one paw resting against his arm. The wolf looked directly into his eyes, and in those eyes there was no hesitation at all.

"I’ll go."

Theon stared at him. He saw the determination there, steady and quiet, and he understood what was being offered.

"All right," he said softly.

He reached out and released the seal.

The wolf’s body began to change. Its form stretched, limbs lengthening, the fur retreating from its skin like frost under sunlight. The shape rose and narrowed and settled into something older, the lean frame and pointed ears of an ancient elf. Then the shape shifted again, and the figure of the Headmaster stood on the balcony before him, long robes settling around his ankles, elven hair stirring in the wind.

The Headmaster dropped to one knee.

"Thank you."

Theon nodded. "Go."

The Headmaster rose. He stepped off the balcony and descended toward the academy, the air parting around him. His feet touched the ground in the heart of the chaos, and a magical rod appeared in his hand, tall and pale and carved with runes that burned gold as he gripped it.

He raised it high.

Then he drove it into the earth.

BOOM!

A golden shockwave tore outward from the rod. It swept across the imperial academy, over the walls, through the monsters, and as it spread, it rose, climbing into the air and curving overhead until a massive golden barrier stood around the entire Imperial Academy like the shell of a vast, glowing egg.

The Headmaster lifted his head. His voice was quiet, and it carried to every corner of the grounds.

"Eternal.....