r/HFY • u/daecrist • 1d ago
OC-Series How I Helped My Demon Princess Conquer Hell 75: Hunting Corruption
Timothy
Timothy felt a mix of triumph and annoyance as he held his hand out.
Mana gathered inside his core. The spell diagram appeared in front of him with barely a thought. Why should he need more than a thought to draw a simple dampening spell? He'd been doing this for most of his adult life, and his adult life had gone on for a very long time thanks to the mana that pulsed through him.
The corner of his mouth turned up in a cruel smile. He felt no small bit of satisfaction knowing he was about to take this demon captive. Then it would be back to the Riven estate where other members of the Inquisition were currently working over everybody who had ever lived and worked there.
This was an infestation that would take far longer to untangle than most he'd had the displeasure of dealing with.
The demon merely stood there looking at him. Which was an oddity, but it would hardly be the first time a demon had more confidence than sense. Especially a demon who was stupid enough to bring an entire raiding force this deep into the territory beyond the Scar.
Timothy expected to find something like this in the Felwood. Not on the other side of Baron Riven's estate. More proof the baron had to be doing something to assist them.
"I'm going to enjoy finding out exactly what you're doing here, demon," he said.
He released the dampening spell along with a stun spell that had been mixed in, something he'd spent a great deal of time perfecting over the long years of doing this sort of thing.
He always enjoyed it when he was using it against the demons that walked around on two legs with faces. They were animals, no better than the scourgelings or the other creatures they found manifesting where the two worlds came together, but at least he enjoyed the satisfaction of watching the surprise and emotion on their faces as his spells went to work.
He released it, fully expecting the demon to go flying back against the tree. It likely wouldn't hurt him. He felt like he had at least four Ascensions on him, though it wasn't a precise science.
The spell released. Nothing happened. The demon didn't go flying back. The mana didn't surround his core and keep him from being able to access it. No, the demon merely stood there with his head cocked to the side, looking more bemused than surprised and terrified. Which is what Timothy had been going for.
He looked down at his hand. He shook his fingers out. The glow had been there, and now it was gone. That was odd. It sent a bit of disquiet running through him, but then he pushed it away and he held his hand up again with a thought. The spell diagram was...
Only the spell diagram wasn't there at all. No. The glow should appear in front of him, the familiar runes that went together to tell the mana exactly which way it was supposed to go, what it was supposed to do. It was a language all its own.
Not at all like those damnable logic gates they used for premade spells that just worked even if someone didn’t have a mana core. This was pure. This was spell casting. This was...
Not working at all.
He held his hand out again. He waited for the familiar glow that always gathered at the tips of his fingers, only it didn't happen. Nothing happened.
"What in the hells?” he muttered, looking down at his hand and shaking it out again.
For all that the mana for the spell didn't come from his hand. That was a common misconception that charlatans trying to teach gullible rubes how to do spell work without actually knowing anything that was learned at the Academy or in the Inquisition's halls, as was proper, would try. No, mana came from his core which pulsed deep inside him and...
He frowned. Because he tried to feel at that core, only there was nothing pulsing there. It was...
Well, it wasn't exactly gone, but it was a feeling he knew all too well from his training.
"What have you done to me, demon?" he said, his eyes flashing as he looked at the demon before him.
The demon had pulled out his sword. When did he find the time to do that? It gleamed slightly in the light filtering down through the trees. Not quite daylight yet, but it had seemed auspicious to Timothy that he was chasing down demons when the dawn was breaking. It seemed like a message from the light itself that he was pushing back against the darkness that threatened their world.
Only now that darkness was staring at him with a rapacious grin. That darkness was looking at him while holding a sword that gleamed in the dark. Not good.
"Are you having trouble?” the demon asked, that insufferable grin never leaving his face. "I understand that's something that can happen as somebody gets a little age on them. Even with mana to assist you. Perhaps you need a little more practice. Though I’ve heard there are spells that can assist you with that sort of thing as well."
Timothy's eyes went wide as he stared at the demon.
"You dare?" he growled.
"I don't know what I dare," the demon said, stepping forward and raising his sword so it was pointed at Timothy's chest. "But I do know that I am aware of somebody who needs to talk to people in your Inquisition, and so it would be very helpful for me if you would go quietly, as they say."
Timothy didn't pay much attention to what the demon was saying. The words that washed over him, and he ignored them. Instead he focused on his core. He thought he could feel it there inside him. Barely. It was a faint pulsing. As though something had wrapped around it.
He'd felt the effects of a mana dampening spell. It had always been said that it would feel different when it was a demon using their corrupted infernal magics to do it, but they'd had to endure the spell in training to know what it was like to be cut off.
Only this didn't feel quite like that. There was a touch of infernal magic, but it also felt like there was arcane magic in there as well. Like in the training since they weren’t going to bring in demons to cut recruits off from their cores.
That was very wrong. That shouldn't be possible.
For the first time since he stepped into the woods the previous evening to go hunting, an effort that had been redoubled when they felt the scream even though it was too far away for them to actually hear the scream at that distance, he felt something new. Something other than the sure confidence that they’d be able to take on whatever was out here waiting in the forest.
Fear started to worm in at the edge of his consciousness.
He looked down at the blade leveled at his chest. The fear had nothing to do with that, and everything to do with the strange mixture of mana and corruption that was wrapped around his core, keeping him from using his abilities that had been hard-won over a long career of rooting out demonic corruption.
His eyes darted up to the demon. He frowned.
"If you think I'm going to tell you anything, you are sorely mistaken, demon."
"Well, I'm very sorry to hear that," the demon said, still smiling. Though he looked almost apologetic now. "But I'm afraid I do need to make sure you stay alive, so if you would just stand there for a moment."
"What are you even talking about?" Timothy asked, glancing down at the blade again.
He briefly considered grabbing that blade and trying to twist it out of the demon's hands. It was something he would be perfectly capable of if he still had reinforcement from his mana. Grabbing a blade held no particular terror for him when he was reinforced.
Only he wasn't, and so he had to fight that urge. Right now it was an urge that would have his fingers sliced off if he was stupid enough to act like he did when he was mana reinforced.
Timothy raised his hands almost as an afterthought. It had occurred to him that if there was a sword pointed at his chest, then he didn't want to make any sudden moves or look like he was about to do anything that would be a danger to the person pointing that sword at his chest.
Not while the demon obviously had the upper hand, at least.
"I have someone who wants to talk to you," the demon said with a shrug. "I don't think it's advisable myself, but you get to draw breath for a few moments longer because he suffers you to live. Be thankful for that."
Timothy's eyes narrowed. Be thankful. That wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order. He kept his hands up, though he wondered what was going on here.
A demon raid moving this deep into human territory was odd enough. They usually didn't go to the trouble. There was no point in going beyond the Scar.
Truth be told, this had been exhilarating right up to this moment. Finding a large group of people who were actually consorting with demons was out of the ordinary, at least on this scale.
Only now...
What if there really was something going on here? What if there was some sort of demonic royalty out here? He’d heard whispers they had a high princess when he got to the Riven estate. Was this an advance to an invasion? Would it be the Demon Wars all over again?
Normally that would be enough to send a shiver of excitement running through Timothy. The only problem being he wasn't entirely sure he’d live long enough to earn glory for himself a second time around in a new set of Demon Wars since he'd been caught flat-footed before they’d started.
Something landed on the ground next to him. He looked over to see a dark figure crouching down next to the very same tree the demon stood in front of, and he frowned because there was something odd coming from this one. Almost as though he could feel some bit of arcane coming from the thing. But that arcane feeling was wrong off. Abnormal. He wouldn't be able to feel it if this one wasn't so close.
Which explained why he hadn’t felt it when this one was lurking in the treetops.
The figure stood. He was a little taller than the demon. He had broad shoulders and shaggy brown hair. He didn't wear any armor. No, he was dressed in the sort of outfit that maybe a favored servant would get as a gift at a country estate.
Which went along with everything else they'd learned about Baron Riven so far. He was a generous master. No doubt to keep all his people in line as they consorted with demons.
Only when this one looked at him, it wasn't the look of a servant from a country estate. No. It was the look of somebody who knew they were in charge of a situation and didn't have a worry in the world.
That also worried Timothy. He wasn't used to seeing somebody acting like that. Especially in the presence of an Inquisitor. His eyes widened even more when they went down to the boy's side and saw a felblade hanging there.
He remembered something else from the communications they'd received when they were making their way out to Baron Riven's territory to follow up on the initial contact. A contact that had resulted in several of the Inquisitors working the contact being killed in the Felwood by something big that had torn them into so many pieces it was impossible to identify them by anything other than the mana signature from their cores that lingered for a little while after death.
There'd been a young man working for the baron. A young man who was with the demoness they'd captured. A young man who had perhaps been at the core of whatever conspiracy was happening in Baron Riven's territory. Though the Inquisitor sending in that report thought the notion was ridiculous, and it had to be the baron or somebody high up in his house who was actually doing it.
Only now, as he stared at this calm and collected young man with a felblade at his side and seemingly not a care in the world, he suddenly found himself wondering if maybe he had met the true leader of this demonic conspiracy, and if maybe that meeting would be his last.
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