Demon Core - Chapter 35: An Army Against a King (1/2)

~ [The Demon-King] ~

Translucent, ghostly silhouettes dance through the rain.

The rain splashes down from the dark sky above, the droplets hissing as they strike against the superheated stones all around the area. The sky is dark, as it always is, and the stars nested inside of it hide behind heavy, thick clouds — as if they were children, hiding under their covers from the monsters below.

The sound of water fills the air — not just the rain, but that of run-off, that of the creek, the pond, and the puddles — all of which give off steam as the water evaporates from the power of the Demon-Core, only to then be replenished immediately by the storm that never stops.

Dead water rises into the air, vanishing only to be replaced with fresh, new abundance. The hot steam carries off and upward, drifting between the interlocked hands of a hundred ghosts, who spin in a waltz through the air. The souls of the dead, whom he has claimed have come here together in their abundance to put on an unnatural display.

Standing there, having risen from the depths of his castle, is the Demon-King. He has, for the first time in a while, returned to the outside world.

The giant beast stands there, not sure what it is that has called him here, what has called off his hounding of humanity — if just for a breath.

All around him crumble the ruins of old houses and walls, having been destroyed by the power of his presence, their owners having long since abandoned them to the elements. The Demon-Carnival has stopped here, at his wish, on its way toward the human capital. He had left his throne room, ascended the castle past the intruders, and climbed out of the carriage into the light of the world once again, now that his season of burrowing was over. Rain strikes against him, the droplets screaming as they hit his glowing mass.

Swain holds his hand out, water pooling in his palm and bubbling. Ghosts drift past the monstrosity, the trailing whispers of its presence hissing past his ears.

“What is the meaning of this?” asks the Demon-King, his claw grabbing a dancing ghost from the air — the spirit having been spinning through the rain. The fabric of its whole pulls apart and stretches as its movement attempts to continue, despite the beast that devours all that clutches it. The fear at its core is not extinguished — it is still there, still terrified — but rather buried beneath something even greater than that.

What is the meaning of this? Not only for souls to leave their imprisonment, but for them to take part in such a spectacle, in such unearned, nonsensical acts of happiness? What propels the dead and sorrowful to dance beneath the night sky? They still belong to him, they are still dead. Yet tonight, they revel in their deaths, rather than fear it. Why? He doesn’t understand.

The ghost answers not, simply drifting away as its dance continues and his claw loosens.

Swain turns his head, watching the spectacle unfold — the celebration of the dead, dancing amidst the ruins, dancing amongst the graves, dancing within the heart of the dead-lands to nothing but the song of the rain, splashing against the water. He looks down, staring into it, seeing even more ghosts than those on the surface.

Floating amongst them is that of a bird, a goose, simply drifting over the waters. It never looks their way, nor does it look his. It simply is.

Countless eyes on his body turn to look at the spirit beneath the water. The Demon-King, most terrible and foul, kneels down to look at the specter. It alone haunts him the most of all the ten-thousand ghosts. It is…

His hand reaches out to touch the pool.

However, the superheated exterior of his body disturbed the surface, causing it to bubble and boil over immediately with a violent reaction. The shimmering, rain-broken reflections of some other world are destroyed.

His hand reaches out further in surprise, trying to reach for the illusion in vain. By the time his fingers manage to touch the water to try and grab a hold of the strange thing he had witnessed, the simple truth of his being near it at all has already destroyed his opportunity to touch the gentle thing that he saw.

Swain kneels there for a time, not understanding.

A moment later, overtaken by his burning, he rages. Great, thunderous fists smash into the water, sending a quake out in all directions. The ruins crumble, with what is left of them falling together into a heap of fire and cinders. The ghosts all around him scream in a final second as they are turned into something less than ash. The rip chasms the valley, ripping it deeply asunder as the howl that never stops carries across the world.

In rage, he lifts his gaze, following it toward the distant horizon, where the next location is.

The next stop of the Demon-Carnival on its way to the human capital.

“My lord,” says Cartouche, the dancer, teleporting next to him. “— The caravan.”

Swain stops, looking back at her. “Stay where you are,” he orders.

The demon lifts her head, looking at him as he walks toward the human fortress in the distance, which is buzzing like a hive in alarm. “Do you have anything to do with this?” he asks, nodding his head toward the ghosts. Cartouche shakes her head.

The Demon-King grunts, turning away and walking through the rain toward the thing in the distance, chasing after a white shadow that he sees drifting from puddle to puddle but cannot explain.

~ [Primavera Bastille] ~

“What is it, captain?” asks the young man, standing on the edge of the walls, staring up into the sky, his hands resting on the palisades of the walls of the fortress, which lies on the outskirts of the capital’s territory.

The hundreds of soldiers there, either in training or on duty, have stopped their activities as something unusual happens in the world.

The Primavera Bastille is at a standstill, as hundreds of eyes stare up toward the sky. There, through the rain and the roaring winds that never stop, drift and dance a thousand ghosts. Shadows and lights move through the night with no end, like rolling lightning that never cries out as booming thunder.

“The dead,” replies the captain of the guard, water running through the thick grooves of his wrinkled, time-worn face. “They’re ghosts, cadet,” he says, as a pair of silhouettes drift past them, forceless hands grazing past their faces, but never touching.

“Why are they here?” asks Botticelli, his voice carrying over the muttering of the many soldiers of the fortress. “They’re jus -”

— A shockwave crests over the horizon, a blast of infernal heat crashing against the walls of the fortress. Several people fall off the wall from the pressure. Botticelli loses his footing, too busy covering his face in shock. A pair of hands grab him mid-fall and throw him back against the wall.

A moment later, the blastwave fades. Stones all around them hiss with heat, as the rain strikes against the walls of the castle fortress.

“If I had to guess,” starts the captain of the guard as Botticelli rises to his feet in a daze. He turns his head, looking over the wall. “- It’s because of that,” replies the captain, pointing out toward the distant horizon, which is glowing as red as a violent eruption. Trails of fire rise over the distant hills and mounds like cresting serpents, rising from the waves of the ocean. The air shakes and wobbles, a hiss screaming like the voice of a banshee. There, in the center of it, is a mass, a shape, a thing. It is a thing that moves toward them, closer and nearer, step by step, bringing with it the hellfire on its trail.

The ghosts continue their waltz, entirely undisturbed by any of this.

“Get in formation, Cadet,” orders the captain, walking down the wall.

Cadet Advanced Botticelli looks after the captain and then back toward the distance, toward the thing that approaches. Every step that it takes, even at this distance, he can feel reverberating beneath his feet as it crawls over the landscape and up the walls. Each movement it makes displaces more and more hot air, which blasts out toward him with powerful gusts — like he was an insect someone was trying to blow off of their arm. The heat intensifies every second. The crushing weight in the air all around him is tangible as a force that feels like it is hammering down on him from above, making it impossible to move at all.

Burning, screaming cries from demons and monsters fill the world as the true beast moves toward them, toward him.

The Demon-King.

Botticelli stumbles over himself, turning to run as fast as he can down the wall as alarm bells begin to ring all around the Bastille, thousands of soldiers moving into their many positions and formations to greet the arrival of the monster on the doorstep of their home.

He’s finally here.

The fortress of Primavera stands tall as the stormy night sky brightens with the impending presence of the Demon-King. Despite the heavy rainfall, an unusual heat fills the air, its stifling nature causing beads of sweat to form on the brows of even the most stoic soldiers. All around, panic takes hold as they hurry to prepare for a battle unlike any they have faced before. The alarm bells sound urgently, breaking through the noise of rain and thunder, their desperate cries alerting every man and woman within earshot to brace themselves for what is to come. Soldiers run across damp cobblestones, their boots slipping and splashing through puddles that form between uneven stones. Orders are barked loudly over the deafening clamour, with commanders struggling to maintain order amidst a sea of chaos. Knights clad in armor that seems far too cumbersome and restrictive under such oppressive conditions hoist themselves onto their equally burdened mounts. The anqas snort nervously, sensing both their riders’ trepidation and the unnatural heat lingering in the air.

“FORMATION!” cries the commander of the legion from an upper platform, repeating himself for those who hadn’t gotten the signal yet.

Formations begin to take shape in an attempt at organized defense – archers hastily string arrows while shield bearers shuffle into position just behind them. Swordsmen sharpen their blades one last time before aligning themselves in rows designed for maximum impact against whatever towering evil will emerge from this approaching darkness.

All around them is a cacophony of frenzied activity – blacksmiths hammer away at makeshift repairs, mending dents or sharpening weapons; cooks rush about with provisions for those who may not see another sunrise; healers prepare bandages and salves, all too aware that they will be needed before long — if at all, as this may very likely escalate beyond treatable wounds.

As the last faint echoes of alarm bells fade into the stormy night, a troop of riders clad in armor gleaming with rain and anticipation emerges from behind the fortress gates. Their war-anqas, muscles rippling beneath wet feathers, snort and claw at the ground before breaking into a thunderous stride outward. The riders grip their reins tightly and lean forward as they disappear into the black abyss outside Primavera’s walls.

Botticelli watches them vanish into the darkness.

“We’re fucked. We’re fucked. We’re so fucked.” He turns to look at the man standing next to him, muttering to himself, much to the annoyance of his other neighbors.

Nearby, siege engineers scramble to man balistae, hauling back immense bowstrings with all their strength and gritting teeth against the strain. The colossal bolts they load are tipped with iron heads designed to puncture even the most impenetrable armor; each projectile, tipped with enchanted sapphire arrowheads the size of a head, is a testament to human ingenuity borne out of necessity in such desperate times.

As for the least fortunate of all, the humble footmen, to which Botticelli belongs, gather in large formations in the mud. Their faces betray myriad emotions – fear and determination mingling freely beneath helmets that seem both protective and suffocating in this sweltering heat.

A horn blows from up above.

As one whole, they collectively turn and march toward the gate.

Botticelli, the cadet footman, still unaccustomed to the weight of his armor, marches in unsteady rhythm with the rest of his troop. The air around him is dense.

His gaze flits about the surroundings; he takes in the familiar stone walls that had once felt so encompassing but now feel like a fragile barrier, like thin glass walls beneath the black ocean, about to burst at any moment. The lanterns flicker with an eerie glow, casting dancing shadows across wet cobblestones and causing beads of rainwater to sparkle like shattered glass before dissipating into steam from the unnatural heat suffusing every breath they take.

“— fucked. So fucked. Everything is -”

“- Will you shut your trap?!” snaps the man marching behind the nervous man, hitting him on the shoulder with a fist.

As Botticelli and his fellow footmen approach the massive gate leading outside Primavera’s protective embrace, he glimpses beyond it a landscape barely recognizable as that which he had called home before this whole mess with the Demon-King began. The fields that once flourished under the nurturing touch of sunlight now lay shrouded in an oppressive veil of shadows cast by clouds pregnant with malevolence. Untamed winds whip at tall grasses, bending them into twisted shapes as if bowing down before the unseen Demon-King. The once-lush landscape surrounding them is now a hellish tableau; grasses scorched black by unnatural forces crumble underfoot, while the skeletal remains of trees loom overhead like gnarled fingers reaching for some semblance of salvation that has long since been snatched away.

From the distance, an ominous wave of heat surges forward like the prelude to a cataclysm, signaling the relentless approach of the Demon-King. The sheer force of the shockwave is enough to cause some soldiers to stagger, their faces contorted with pain as the sweltering air threatens to choke them. Amidst this palpable tension, a trumpet sounds, its clear notes slicing through the cacophony of wind and rain like a beacon, beckoning them forward into battle. As one unified mass, thousands of voices rise in unison; screams filled with equal parts fear and defiance echo across the ravaged landscape as Primavera’s last line of defense charges forth.

Botticelli feels an unfamiliar surge of adrenaline course through his veins as he joins this tide of humanity advancing towards its darkest hour. Boots trample over mud-caked ground that seems almost eager to swallow them whole; weapons held aloft glint menacingly beneath the lightning-streaked sky as they race towards an enemy whose mere presence has suffocated all hope from within these desperate souls. Their hearts pounding fiercely against ribcages clenched tight with dread, Botticelli and his fellow soldiers press onward, each fully aware that their charge into battle may well be remembered as both a testament to human courage and a final act before succumbing to eternal darkness.

As the soldiers of Primavera draw closer to the Demon-King, they first glimpse the full extent of the monstrous entity that looms before them — a hulking, red-skinned behemoth that exudes an aura of twisted, horrifying malevolence potent enough to make even the bravest warrior falter, causing the march to slow to a halt.

Ten thousand and then some men stand out in the mud and the rain, watching in quiet horror as the bleak silhouette draws closer and closer, its steps pounding in their heads like the striking of their own confused, adrenaline flooded heartbeats. There’s a smell in the air, an indescribable smell of sulfur, death, and ash.

The Demon-King stops, not far from them, a thousand horrific eyes turning their way, countless more growing from his body, as if one was meant for each of them alone.

The air crackles with tension, and then, in an instant, chaos erupts.