The Sword Devil

by Nathan Valerio

  Void frowned, “Like I know. I guess I’ll find out.” he said and did as his father had said. To his shock, his little brother had gone as far as to build a spring bath by opening channels from the ground to make a ‘spring’ bath and what is more is that before it falls down, there are five ‘boxes’ built of stone and Xero had formed a mana gathering magical formation to feed four heating magic formations that cause the water to turn warm before spilling out into the main bath before spilling into a drain leading down once more into the ground propelled by magic to keep the water down.

  “Little bro is getting better and better.” Void sighed and got in the bath and scrubbed himself clean quickly getting a lot of the dirt, dust and grime from training and… whatever happened the previous night, off.

  When he got out, his skin tone had even lightened, his hair had loosened after using some hair soap, which was a noble’s luxury, and he smelled much fresher. Gargling to remove the smell from his mouth and brushing his teeth with a toothpick like brush with soft bristles that cleaned his teeth while getting out the grime from between his teeth.

  He then took out some social clothing they had bought making him look like an actual noble since it was a white suit like a knight without his armor but he lacked the medals and adornments unlike Nil who had shoulder adornment and his medallion hanging on right breast buttoned in that position.

  The two walked out and followed the knights to the manor Xero had built and entered and was lead to the throne room, a room specifically made for meetings.

  When they entered, the king and the princess appeared but Void’s face looked at her and the king when walking but he could not connect the puzzle immediately and just followed his father and bowed.

  “We greet, your highness! We have come as you have summoned for us?” Nil asked.

  Morgan remained quiet for a long time and sighed, “Second Rank Great Knight, Nil Null, I wonder if you know what I have called you for?” he asked.

  “I do not, your highness.” He said after a moment.

  Morgan nodded and sat up before gesturing towards the girl next to him, “I believe you know who this is?” He asked.

  Nil nodded, “Yes your highness, it is your royal daughter, 2nd Royal Princess, Hilda Lurian.” Nil said.

  The two looked up and Void looked at her again but this time for some reason he felt a bit of nostalgia as he looked at her.

  “Okay, so you know.” Morgan said.

  “I wonder why her royal princess is within the dungeon, I heard your royal princes were the only ones allowed to enter the dungeon.” Nil said.

  “Yes, this is the topic I was hoping to touch. This girl snuck in… she snuck in along with the common capital’s knights and was hiding out in a small magic tent.” He said.

  At these words, Void suddenly paled almost losing all color of blood from his face.

  “It seems your son has realized.” Morgan said.

  Nil looked at his son who was pale and had begun to sweat greatly.

  ***

  And so, returning to the present, Nil remembered what he heard this morning and connected the dots figuring out that the female dwarven knight that his son had bed was most likely the princess in disguise causing his forehead to break out with sweat.

  “It seems you also realize.” Morgan said.

  Nil nodded slowly, “My… my son said that his memory blacked out last night after… a drinking contest with her royal princess.” Nil said.

  Morgan sighed, “Yes, this is why the situation is as such, although this little brat of mine did get taken home by him, she provoked him until he bed her. Even if I wanted I am truly unable to blame your son for her.” Morgan said.

  It shocked the two men but that did not drop their worries a bit. After all this was an illicit relationship with someone of the royal family. ‘Officially’ the male would be in the wrong for bedding or ‘forcing’ the princess but there was a single fact that made this impossible. “If your son had been at least a rank 1 knight with strength over level 30 I might have done something to him but he hasn’t even broken the chains of mortals while my Hilda… she is already level 42. It’s impossible to say that she was forced because even under the effect of ale she could crush your body with a flick of her palm.” He said.

  Realizing this, Void did not calm down and instead paled even more because he knew he had bed someone like that, if she did not have even a single iota of true rejection during the night he did not even remember, he wouldn’t even be awake to enjoy today.

  “Really, if not for the fact that your family’s 3rd son was connected directly to Grunt and you, Sir Nil, didn’t have the Idol beast of the Dark Ice church, and your three sons had demon type familiars, I would have secretly executed all your family and cleared this instantly.” Morgan said making Nil pale as a sheet of paper. “That said, giving my old drinking buddy a hell of a lot of face, I will give your son three choices.” he said holding up three fingers before leaving one, “First, die and be done with it.” Raising the second finger, “Cut ‘it’ and become an eunuch…” He said and raised the last finger, “... or marry my little girl. Of course, without the political rights that come with the position, until you actually show you can handle the position of duke by reaching at least level 50, the minimum as well as undergo nobility training.” He said.

  Void was in a daze by the three suggestions, all three would probably ruin him, the first was a dead end, the second removed his manhood, and the third… how many people were not suiters with the 2nd princess after the 1st had married. How many powerful, overwhelmingly arrogant, people didn’t want the duke post gained by marrying a royal prince or princess?

  “Y-your highness…” Nil began but Morgan lifted his hand,

  “This fact, your son marrying my daughter, she is marrying into your family but I will send all the required trainers and instructors to make him into someone worthy of the position of Duke. As long as he reaches level 50, he will become the Duke of the North west’s Desolate mountain range. It would become a new duchy he and my daughter would be in charge of. As long as he reaches level 40 Great Knight, builds up his forces and builds his own city well enough, as soon as he becomes a duke jumping from Rank 2 to rank 7 giving him control of all the villages and to knight his own nobles.” He said.

  It was clear, his words were easy to understand, either die, cut your manhood or marry her and train for his life, learn under the torturous methods of the royal instructors and build enough forces to set up his own duchy.

  “Why… why me? Why is it that the only time I drink myself to sleep it had to be with the princess?” Void cursed his own luck.

  “So… what do you choose?” Morgan asked.

  Void was sweating but bowed, “I-I thank your highness for… allowing someone with such low rank to marry your esteemed princess.” he said.

  Morgan nodded, “I will say this now, this fact will stay within trusted, it would cause the nation to much trouble but be prepared to deal with her suitors. Most are all above level 30. Take the chance we are here in the dungeon to train to your limit or else it will only end badly.” He said.

  “I-I thank your highness for the warning and chance.” He bowed.

  “Good, my daughter will continue to disguise as a knight but now under your family, as for her sleeping arrangements…” her narrowed his eyes.

  “Father, I shall deal with that myself.” She said narrowing her own eyes at him.

  He looked at her and smiled like a doting father, “Papa is just worried for you.” He said.

  She rolled her eyes. “I choose him from the get go so it’s not your place to judge father. I’ll deal with my own love life from now on. Also warn those sleazy bastards that if they keep coming after me I will crush their balls with my familiar and leave them crippled.” She said snorting and turning and leaving.

  The three men paled at how vicious she acted, the King turned to them and stood before walk to them and pat Void on the back, “Good luck,
you're going to need it.” Morgan said and chuckled while Void only cursed his own luck while leaving with his father.

  “Father, when she comes, tell her I went out hunting.” Void said and turned simply to leave the walls so that he could vent on something, even if it was a large tree that he could punch.

  Nil just sighed, coincidences are far too unpredictable and some are just too big to react quickly enough to deal with them and can only be adjusted to with time. “I better give him some time alone. It will probably do him good, or maybe I can try and see if Xero spars with him a bit.” Nil left with a sigh.

  ***

  BANG! BANG!

  The last of a series of hammer hits. Xero slowly gets up after a while and thanks his brother while stretching and hearing the popping on his body.

  “Senior, you're really brave to go under that hammer.” One of the 1st years said.

  Xero looks at them while washing his head with water. “If you five go under together you could handle it. Your strengths are already starting to be left behind by your familiar you know.” Xero said.

  They paled when they looked and shook their heads. Without desire, they wouldn’t openly ask for such a torture just to grow quickly when they can get the same result with safer training.

  “Master, I finally finished it.” Ashley said and handing Xero a sword. It was a common long sword but it seemed to be made of steel.

  “So this is the Metal Sword minion.” Xero said and admired the sword that lacked any spells. “Master, the defensive and close combat offensive power of this is higher than all the other ones for now.” Ashley said.

  “Really?” Xero muttered and began to try and merge and met much stronger resistance showing it was female as well as a strangely more developed spirit.

  “It took me 25 iron swords to make a spirit sword of this and then 100 kilos of pure iron ore and charcoal mixed together to allow it to feed from before I could forge it. The sword spirit is really developed well thanks to the mana here. In its linked form it is a katana, the curved blade like when master uses the wood minions in.” She said.

  “Is that so. That sword is good for quick drawing but this is metal so wouldn’t it be weaker in normal situations?” Xero asked.

  She shook her head, “Metal is considered a branch of earth in hell and this world. Probably only in certain worlds with different elemental systems it might represent something different.” She said.

  “I see.” He said and suddenly the sword began to shine and suddenly Xero was covered in full body steel armor that shined in the light of the sun and in his hand was a katana that he held in his left hand before grabbing the hilt by the right and slowly pull it out showing a glowing blade and when the blade was half out he suddenly drew it quickly shooting the mana blade in a concentrated stab.

  The mana shot like a penetrating bullet and cut its way to a tree all the way 300 meters from him.

  The armor glowed and came off and he pinched the spirit’s gem before he even collapsed and stood firm. “The sharpness is much better since the material is made for this anyway. Maybe we should go hunt something.” Xero said.

  “It has been boring, why not, I’ll gather the minions and we can go hunt for something to kill time.” Ashley said nodding.

  ***

  Flying in the skies, a sapphire drake made its way past the second wall of Everlight city. This was Univa and Tryus, in the last month, with the presence of so many serpents, Tryus was, amazingly, about to grow and almost reached peak of his rank while Univa was a step back due to humans being weaker but her strength had been evolving like a dragon's since the dragon aura Innate Skill appeared.

  The Crost family were a family with a unique bloodline for dragon type creatures, this bloodline almost always induced an aura to appear and this aura affected both the familiar and the master. The aura was the greatest benefit, specifically, the Dragon aura was always active in a passive state around the two, it improved sight, smell, hearing and reflexes. What’s more, the dragon aura, while in passive form, already transformed the strength of a human into the strength of a dragon.

  Comparing a human and a dragon at level 20 would not work. The dragon’s strength caused their strength to be nearly 10 levels above others. Of course, because of their size, dragon type creatures were slower but to fix this, the dragon aura aided the dragon in spreading the damage causing the impacts on the ground to send shockwaves, the wind blows powerful winds and magic was many times stronger.

  Because of this, Univa did not really fear the level 30’s within the surrounding space outside of the city and freely came and went. Within the second city walls was only at most level 30 monsters so her strength was too much for it not creating a challenge for her.

  Grr!

  Tryus growled and stopped in the air vigilant. Univa frowned and looked around and looked around. Even as she looked she found nothing and looked down. Already having learned how to control her aura, she focused it on her eyes, ears and nose making her senses evolve to a dragon’s level. Her pupils turned into slits and like a bird of prey it seemed like her vision zoomed in on her surroundings and everything became as clear as day.

  “What is it?” She asked Tryus and looked around slowly.

  Sniff!

  Tryus was sniffing while she stood up and looked down only then she saw a green snake but on its head were two dragon horns.

  HISS! BANG!

  Like a spring a 50 meter green snake burst out from the treeline and amazingly flew at them.

  “TRYUS RUN!” Univa said and he suddenly flapped bursting forth.

  Univa crouched but turned around and drew in a cold breath. “This is a Nature Wyrm, why is there one so close? Wait we already passed 10 kilometers! Did it come in close to pull us out?” This thought appeared when suddenly a voice reached her ears.

  “Puny drake, cease your pitiful struggle and let me swallow your blood and chew your marrows so that I may ascend further as a dragon!”

  Univa turned pale when she heard the voice. Normal monsters could start speaking only when they reached level 41, this is when they evolved into mythical creatures with high intelligence. Dragons on the other hand, naturally speak after reaching level 31 no matter the type. What is more she looked back and measured the Wyrm by eye and grew cold. “This is an adult Nature Wyrm. It must have met some kind of low ranking dragon in this place and got lucky when killing it as a Vine Snake to evolve but… that means this is at least level 41.” She said.

  Although her Dragon Aura was strong, the gap between level 40 and 41 was just that big. A perfect example was Nil’s Lesser Fenrir Infant, it broke through ‘only’ to level 41 but it could outpace, and kill, a level 40 alone even without the help of its spawned pack. The bottleneck between level 30 and 31 was large but the gap is possible to cross but a huge gap like from level 30 to above level 41 couldn’t be made up so easily. Dragon aura raised power by a lot but it wasn’t that domineering since it raised overall strength. Still she would not resign.

  “Tryus, start slowly circling back to the city, I will try to distract it. Focus on flying faster.” She said.

  Tryus roared back to her and suddenly began to speed up.

  “Pitiful!” the wyrm roared and also began to speed up.

  Univa turned around and lifted her wand. In her mind, a quick smokescreen spell formed but she gathered her dragon’s aura “Dragon smoke!” she said.

  From her wand suddenly a roar came and a cloud of very thick black smoke spread out even covering the two but Tryus dove momentarily before turning around and doing a 180 and burst back towards the city.

  “WHAT IS THIS!?” The Wyrm roared but very quickly Tryus burst out from the back of the cloud just as a massive roar came from inside causing the smoke to instantly disperse. When it looked around and did not see them, it looked back and saw them running away back to the city. It instantly caused the Nature Wyrm to enter a rage.

  ROAR!

  “YOU LITTLE BITCH! DON’T GET IN
MY WAY!” He roared as suddenly the green body suddenly shot out thousands of thick thorns on its body. It then suddenly whipped its body causing all those arm length thorns to shot out like cannons towards them and suddenly burst into countless needles.

  “Kya!” She shouted.

  Tryus reacted to her shout and suddenly stopped and turned around while breathing in deeply. A red aura gathered around it and mostly around its throat as it opened its jaws and released a torrent of flame.

  Even so there were so many needle projectiles that it pushed through the flame and Tryus suddenly had to use it’s own body and wings to shield Univa.

  Tik!Tik!Tik!Tik!Tik!Tik!Tik!Tik!Tik!Tik!Tik!Tik!

  Countless clicks hit it but the drake scales, tempered by Cinder, were already more powerful than common scales, not only that, it was tempered in a chaos storm. Defensively, with its body covered in it’s Dragon Aura, it was enough for its defensive power to reach level 40 so these tiny needles couldn’t pierce.

  That said, much to its dismay he heard Univa shout.

  “I-I was hit.” She said holding her leg that had instantly numbed.

  “Human, you are lucky I do not use killing poison as I like my food fresh, but your puny body will not survive long with my paralysis poison in your system. You’re simply too puny to handle the dose. Tiny drake, hand yourself over so I can drink your blood and marrow and I will heal the girl.” The Wyrm said.

  Just as it finished, Tryus turned and gathering even more wind mana and burst forth.

  “So be it!” He said.

  POFF!

  As his voice reached the drake the drake suddenly felt something pierce its tail making it roar in pain.

  When it looked back, it found a massive thorn halfway stuck in its tail. Tryus looked solemn as it burst even faster to get back within the wall’s barrier where level 40 and above monsters could not get in.

  That said, unfortunately for them both, in the short time they ran away, the two had traveled nearly 20 km away. With so much paralysis poison flowing into the drake’s body while Univa was getting more numb, they had the luck to reach only the 10 km distance were there would be people hunting still.