Violent God

After a beat of held silence, Serius went to draw the spear back.

Putting force into the arm —

— What.

— he noticed, for the first time, that the situation was wrong.

The spear — would not pull free.

— …Surely not.

"Surely you're not still —"

The spear ran clean through the heart.

The face was tipped down; the neck hung slack from the body still suspended in the threads.

And yet —

"— !"

— a pulse came back through the spear-shaft.

He caught his breath, eyes wide, focus fixed on Merea's face.

The white hair fell across his face; the expression was hidden.

But, in the next breath —

— Serius saw the snow-white hair flicker, just for an instant, black.

And then — the same instant —

From the roots of Merea's hair, black came spilling out, like writhing insects.

The black moved like liquid, in lines, and ran into Merea's white hair, eating it.

Whole-head, eventually. Black.

In the same beat —

— Merea's hand twitched.

A chill went up Serius's spine.

— This is absurd.

A chill he could not ignore. The body felt, briefly, as if it had frozen.

This man.

— was alive.

Whether he willed it or not, a crawling sensation ran through every part of him.

Nothing was binding him. He was not the one bound. — And yet he could not move.

And —

---

"— My heart isn't there."

---

The voice came.

Serius pulled his eyes back to Merea's face — and saw a cold expression on it.

A face that read as if Merea had deliberately chosen to wipe his emotions clean off it. In the present situation, that very absence of emotion amplified the eerie note. A dreadful expression.

"Heart — surely not —"

In a single beat, the file on a particular Demon Lord came up in Serius's head.

The mass of records he had pounded into himself for the work of hunting Demon Lords.

Among Mūzeg's long-collected dossiers on former Demon Lords and former Heroes —

— 〈Heart of the Death King (Acht Cyrus)〉…!

The man rumoured to have no heart at all.

A man said never, in his life, to have died of a wound.

Even when a heart-strike landed cleanly, the man came back from the field calm — fuelling the whisper that he, in fact, had no heart in the standard place.

Mūzeg, naturally, had wanted that secret. The Death King, however, had shaken every Mūzeg pursuer of his time and gone to ground.

He had not been ageless, so he had presumably died of old age. Beyond that, the records were thin.

The instant Serius's brain pulled that file up unbidden, he was certain.

— This man has inherited that.

"And — my body regenerates."

〈Resurrecting Body of the Life King (Myuzel Blue).〉

A second file shot through Serius's head.

— Wait. When did he tear the threads.

He noticed, only now, that Merea's right arm had freed itself from the 〈Light Threads of the Doll King〉.

Threads ordinary muscle could not snap.

Threads that, under enough force, would bite into the arm and cut it off in the attempt —

— He cut it off.

A single instant. While Serius's eye had been on the hair-colour change — Merea had thrown the arm away.

No — thrown away, and immediately regrown.

The proof was there: a wet, mauled lump of meat lying on the ground at Merea's feet.

"What kind of regeneration speed —"

Even with 〈Resurrecting Body of the Life King〉, there were limits.

That Demon Lord's body, the records said, had carried fearsome regeneration. But not this fast. Not this immediate.

What Serius was seeing was past 〈Resurrecting Body of the Life King〉. Possibly exceeding it.

— How.

Method — no idea.

But for now —

Serius, the chill at last loosening enough to let him move, went to pull the spear free.

But —

"Hh — let go of it. The spear —"

Merea, with the now-free right arm, was gripping the spear stuck through his own chest. Holding it there. Refusing to let it be pulled out.

Even with full force on Serius's end, the spear didn't budge. It was around there that Serius first started to understand: the Merea in front of him now was a different thing from the Merea of a moment ago.

Past Serius — Merea kept moving.

"—"

He let his left arm bite into the threads as well, on purpose. Cut. Regrew.

Watching it at this range, Serius could no longer think of him as a human being.

That fear he had felt, unbidden, toward Merea before they had ever met — the fear of an unfathomable bottom — was rising in him again now, in full.

Merea, free left hand and all, was reaching slowly toward Serius.

Black hair fell over his eyes; the dreadful red was partially hidden by it; but Serius could see clearly that the pupil had gone vertical-slit — the eye of a demon.

"— Ten minutes."

Merea, hand reaching for Serius's face, said it small.

---

"〈Fury of the Violent God (Curza Catastrov)〉 — 〈Unsealing of the Four Gates〉."

---

"Tch! — Caligula!! Mouth open—!! White light cannon — fire!!"

The instant Merea named the formula, Serius's chill spiked to its peak; he let go of the spear entirely.

There was no margin left to be hung up on it. Alarm bells in his head, unbroken.

Serius pulled back from the black-haired Merea as if running, and snapped the order to the red dragon.

Caligula obeyed — rose up, and opened its mouth toward Merea on its back.

Out of the mouth came the captain and the spell-corps, spell-circle pre-built —

"〈White Light Cannon〉!"

— and fired into Merea at point-blank.

Will land, the captain thought.

But —

"— !"

Just before the white light hit the demon-god's chest, the captain saw — at an absurd speed — a spell-circle weave itself between the body and the cannon.

---

Even so, Merea's body was thrown back.

The arrays competed, the direct hit was avoided, but the residual force punched him into the air.

He came to a stop directly above the rough position of his comrades.

Inertia carried him sliding down, diagonally.

Below, the Demon Lords waited, half-flailing, for the black-haired Merea to land.

"Oi, oi, oi! — That's some return! Catch him!"

Salman, looking up at the falling Merea, called the order.

But —

"Oh?"

Just before he hit, the six wings of wind unfolded at Merea's back and lifted him gently.

He came down on the air slowly, and the Demon Lords watched him touch down stunned.

Three ran for him first.

Elma, Marisa, and Aiz.

"Merea—!"

"Merea-sama! That spear —"

Seeing the spear-shaft still through Merea's chest, the blood drained out of Elma's and Marisa's faces.

That his hair had gone black — that was the smaller concern, by far.

But Merea checked them with one hand —

"It's all right."

— and, while saying it, drew the spear out cleanly. The wound closed in the same motion.

Without much of a reaction to that, he turned the spear in his hand —

"Hasim."

— and threw it across to Hasim, who was a little distance off.

"Yours. As payment for the old soldier's life."

"A- ah, I owe — thanks."

Hasim caught it on horseback, mouth half open, weighing it in the hand — and could not, in the end, take his eyes off Merea.

"Merea-sama… your hair —"

Marisa, finally caught up to the visible difference, said it.

"Don't fully know why myself. When I try to use 〈Violent God (Curza Catastrov)〉's power, this is what happens. He went on about the quality of the soul, or something. What Curza was saying was hard to follow."

"Tch — what name did you just say."

"— 〈Violent God (Curza Catastrov)〉."

Marisa knew the name.

〈Marisa Catastrov.〉

Make no mistake — that name —

"You — have met my ancestor —?"

"Yes. — I have. I wasn't trying to keep it from you. I just couldn't find a clean moment to bring it up. — I'm sorry."

The name of her ancestor — the source of the Title Marisa herself carried.