Chapter 310: Ominous Birth

Lance woke up with a start. He went to sit up, but only managed to splash in the frigid sludge that had broken his fall. Every bone in his body creaked. The sea of clouds that he liked to gaze upon while grading homework in his warm office was now far above him, and scattered by his own hand. There were so many demons flooding into the academy's collapsed roof, and so many screams.

'Why?' he thought. 'Why did it come to this? I followed the rules. I taught my students with pride. I finally got them to ask questions too. Pince was close to a breakthrough. Ronlo was finally getting his mind around compound spells. Cerlius had just come back.' He shivered, and not just because of the frigid water. 'Where am I supposed to go now? I don't have a home, not anymore. I don't have a family. It's all gone. I don't even have any mana left.' He shivered again. His limbs grew numb.

He could, however, hear dozens of footsteps getting closer. Some of the demons had survived the fall like he had. They sludged through muck and climbed over rubble. Lance stared up at the sky, and waited.

The first demon to enter his sight seemed to be the most eager of the bunch, and the most unique. It had four arms. Instead of proper armor like the rest, its breastplate was more like iron slaps bound together with leather strips. Since all the other demons followed behind the first, Lance assumed that it was the squad leader.

The squad leader unsheathed a dagger, which was nothing more than a jagged purple crystal. It pointed at him and mumbled something. 'Why not just kill me?' Lance thought. 'I can't even defend myself right now.' When Lance didn't reply, the squad leader repeated the same phrase except louder.

"I don't…" Lance's blurred world slowly regained focus. "I don't understand."

The four-armed demon put its dagger against Lance's throat and with its second hand grabbed his robe. "Do yous know I say?" It snarled as if stooping to speak human tongue was an insult. Spittle flew out of its mouth. It pulled Lance's limp body from the muck, and close to its jagged fangs. "You teacher? King ask you lot." It waited a moment. "You teacher?" It pressed the blade just enough to break Lance's skin. "Tell!"

Lance looked at the surrounding demons, who all radiated sadistic joy. One of them even had a fresh corpse slung over their back - a boy with blonde hair who appeared to be a little younger than Cerlius. Lance shivered again, subsequently digging the dagger further into his neck. "The rules state that…" He glanced up at the collapsed academy and a sobering clarity gripped him. "Rules. That's right. I guess they're gone too."

"Talk small!" The demon insisted. "Simpler."

Lance laughed. He actually laughed right in the demon's face. It opened its mouth to threaten him again but Lance talked over him like his worst students would always do: "I won't answer a damned thing you moron. Go to hell. Do you understand that?" He kept laughing, and tears streamed down his face. "That's what you get from a man with nothing left to lose you demon, nothing. Finish it."

Lance smiled and tried to lean into the blade. He didn't know when the battle had started, or even what he was fighting against, but he was tired of it. The demon simply dropped the dagger before Lance hit a vital point and shook its head. "Fast dead is no good."

"What do you mean?" Lance asked. "I'm useless to you."

The squad leader smiled and threw Lance back in the icy water. "Dead is mercy." It reached over its shoulder and drew a weapon covered in bindings. Each and every leather strap had runes that emanate a faint red aura - an enchantment that sealed a more powerful magic. The squad leader carefully undid the bindings and handed them to an underling. "Hold him." Four underlings splayed Lance on his back by a patch of dirt.

Lance couldn't laugh anymore. The demons had been playing with their food, but now it came time to eat. The squad leader clasped all four arms together and said something in its own language. It held out the weapon for all to see - a sword with a black stone handle and a red crystal blade. "What is that?" Lance's three-fingered hand twitched, seemingly attracted to the energy the sword emitted. His numbed emotions surfaced; the forefront of which sent shivers down his spine. He struggled. They held firm. "What is that?" He repeated. "What are you doing to me?"

"This sword one of us." The demon held the sword to the light and a red aura wrapped around its body. "Now you become sword's host. You go to king. You give answers." It smiled and flipped the sword so the handle was presented to Lance. "Grab and submit."

'A demonic weapon?' Lance thought. 'It was right. Death is a mercy compared to possession.' He screamed out and yelled but no one came. 'I should be next to Mage's Shadow, the depths of the academy, but no one ever goes there. There aren't any Watchmen either.'

The demon with a boy's corpse on its back lifted Lance's arm. The red aura around the squad leader crawled back to the sword, and grew and shrunk like a heartbeat. The aura sped up the closer it and Lance got. Something dwelled inside of that sword. Whatever it was, it was hungry.

Lance barely had strength in his deformed left arm ever since the fight with Sozo. The memory of the incident flashed before his eyes. That day he had sensed an aura far stronger than the sword. It had come from one of two newborn twins, evil incarnate, a half-demon.

He grabbed the sword's hilt. It may have been because he had no strength to hold the blade, or maybe it was because he had seen something stronger, but nothing happened. 'What?' he thought. 'That doesn't make any sense. Just because I've sensed a stronger aura in the past doesn't make me immune to possession.'

The squad leader cocked its head to the side. "What did you do? What did you do to my brethren?" It shook the sword around and slapped him with the hilt. "Again!" It screeched over the ringing in Lance's ear. Lance was forced to grab hold yet again. Nothing happened.

The squad leader narrowed its eyes not at Lance, but the carrier demon holding Lance's arm. "What this?" The squad leader reached forward and pulled something from the carrier's hand - one of the sword's enchanted leather seals. Lance couldn't feel his hand, so he hadn't noticed.

The carrier demon backed away from the group and put its hands in the air. It said something in its native tongue. The rest of its former comrades drew their weapons. The carrier repeated what he had said earlier but louder. The squad leader replied, and the carrier's face paled.

The motionless corpse on the carrier's back sprang to life. The boy raised his blond-haired head and yelled: "Now!" Two figures emerged from the surrounding vegetation.

From the left charged a giant man covered in blue life essence. His shield and mace tore through every demon in his path as if they were paper. Weapons and bones broke with each and every swing.

From the right dashed in a girl with thick layers of life essence around her legs. Her two rapiers ripped through the air. As opposed to her friend's bullrush, she elegantly danced through a barrage of demons and came out the other side covered in their blood.

The blonde boy unloaded bolts from his crossbow into the demons that held Lance prone. The demons fired back. Their arrows sunk into the carrier demon's corpse. It was a slaughter.

The battle ended quickly. The three strangers finally let themselves relax, but not completely. "W-who are you people?" Lance asked.

"Reinforcements." The giant said. "We want our friend back."