Bloodstained Blade-Chapter 158 - A Litany of Choices

The Ebon Blade waited almost two weeks before consuming the next demon prince's soul. For a few more days, it lingered there, on the rooftop, studying the corruption that coursed through it in the aftermath of devouring Princess Rizzeldah. After that, though, it descended into the library that it had been perched on for so long. If it wasn’t going to move on to its next goal, it might as well see what there was to learn there.

The answer, as it turned out, was a great deal. The building was vast, and in the same way the city distorted wherever it moved, the sections of the library did the same, adding more scrolls and shelves at every turn. This was not a blessing; it was a curse. The spirits that worked there were mute and offered the blade no directions in helping it find what it was looking for, leaving it to search each shelf manually.

The Library of the Last City contained a mountain of pages, but most of the facts written on them were things that it couldn’t bring itself to care about. The most common document by far was histories; many of these seemed to be written either by or about those who had died horribly, providing only as much information as was necessary to explain why they deserved to be damned to hell.

‘Galbraith the Elder was one of seven children, but the only one who survived to adulthood. He ran over a thousand acres of vineyards, so it was not without a trace of irony that so much wine was involved the night of his untimely demise that night in Abithria…’

‘Trinara Madon died as she lived, in the arms of a stranger. That is not notable; what is, was that it was in the Colosseum in Geldaria where she met her end. How such a noblewoman would have ever been forced to bleed out on the sands, though, makes for an interesting tale.’

It’s a mountain of obituaries, the blade realized after leafing through a hundred similar documents. A few that documented the life and times of the Mage-King Al’Hazzarin.

Given the interaction it had with its tomb, the blade was curious about those times at least, but most of the rest was junk. Still, the beggar king had mentioned that there was information about the ruler of hell tucked away in here, so the blade kept looking for lack of anything else to do.

The range of its Aura of Hunger meant that it could siphon from the locals at almost any point in the city, so it was untethered by concerns about hunger. Only its desire to escape the flaming pit of hell drove it on, and only its need to wait between consuming the souls of the Demon Princes lest they get too large a grip on its soul forced it to stay longer.

Still, its hunt through the records was a tedious one, and only one scroll in a hundred was worth the time to read it. If these were spirits, I could simply command them to tell me what they know of Nuella and be done with it, it cursed. It had grown used to that power, perhaps too much, and the idea of researching anything manually seemed tedious and slow.

Still, it kept it up and was rewarded with scraps that slowly came together to form a more complete picture. Its first glimpse of that was the volcano, not the demoness herself. Mount Knoeal, as it turned out, wasn’t a place that locked her away from hell as the blade had first suspected, but a place where she chose to stay, making more of a sanctuary than a prison.

Really, a potter's kiln might have been the best metaphor, given the temperatures involved. She stayed there on purpose to bask in the heat. According to yellowed old records of ancient deaths, she wandered all the circles on occasion in the past, but stopped after the corruption that afflicted her spread too much. No one said what exactly that corruption was, or why fire slowed it, but it was mentioned on several occasions. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

‘As she walked through the muddy pits of the seventh circle that day, her feet were unstained by the filth. Instead, she left a path of fired clay in her path as she met the army of the prince who’d ruled it at the time. Prince Eforenzzo was a man carved of wood, which was a poor match for a being of pure fire; nevertheless, neither he nor his army retreated when they found her, forcing a confrontation.

What he asked her is not recorded, and her answer survives only in part. “Only in the heart of the flame can purity be found,” she told those arrayed against her before unleashing her fury. “Only there can…” The rest of her statement goes unrecorded as no one remained alive long enough to hear the rest of her words.’

There were many bizarre records in this vein, and they revealed much to the blade, even if that knowledge was fragmentary and incomplete. The first thing was that its rampage was not the first time that the rulers of the various circles had died. While not a common occurrence, it was certainly infrequent, and over the course of a week, the blade found reference to eight different rulers of the Iron City.

Its quick trip through the area had made the place seem almost two-dimensional, but apparently that was not the case. It had tried to conquer the badlands on several occasions, and in one case, the ruler, Lord Bastovk, had built an iron giant to form a beachhead for expansion. That attempt had failed when it had run out of fuel to stoke its internal furnaces, apparently, but the blade didn’t care about such details.

What it cared about were the environs that lay before it, and more information about the strengths and weaknesses of those who ruled them. The fact that the ruler of the next circle could be anything from a three-breasted, sulfurous harpy to a twenty-foot-tall bronze minotaur, according to the accounts it read, did not clarify things in that respect. But with Nuella at least, such uncertainties didn’t apply.

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Every reference to her implied that she was eternal, or nearly so. She was there at the beginning of things, and most sources seemed to believe that she’d be there at the end of days too, given her common sobriquet, The Angel of the End.

The Demon Queen had many names. She was the Prime Evil and the Mother of Torments. She was the Heart of the Darkness and the Wandering Star. It was widely considered folly to oppose her, but still, people did from time to time when the other lords of hell grew too bold.

The weapon never found an account from any of their perspectives, but sometimes it found one from one of their underlings or a bystander. It also never found an account from one of Nuella’s underlings; she didn’t seem to have any. She was a solitary force of nature that moved on whim throughout her domain.

Even accounts about the way to escape from the torments of hell, which were inevitably the reason she was challenged most of the time, seemed to imply that she could leave if she wanted. The door was not locked from without by the gods, but from within by her. She simply chose to stay for reasons that no one understood.

The blade didn’t try to understand her motives, though. It wasn’t interested in her history or her reasons for doing what she did; it wanted to understand what she was capable of, and on that topic, there was almost nothing. How could there be when her enemies died almost instantly?

The stories and documents that mentioned her were invariably incomplete because of how quickly and thoroughly she would destroy those that opposed her. All they agreed on was that she was dangerously fast, hopelessly strong, and wielded fire in some manner. Everything else was conjecture.

The Ebon Blade did not allow itself to get frustrated. Even after scanning thousands of documents, it had barely scratched the surface of the material that was present, which was only to pass the time between demon souls.

The third Demon Prince it chose to devour was Prince Angarazon. It was the first demon that had wielded it down here, and arguably the weakest, since he came from the outermost circle of hell, farthest from true power. Still, he was no pushover, and almost as soon as the blade clutched at his soul, he fought. The Ebon Blade could respect that. It valued nothing more than a worthy opponent.

The wasteland warrior’s struggles couldn’t stop the blade from slicing deep into his soul and scanning what was left for possible upgrades.

Wars Without End: You have been forged by battle, body and soul. It makes up who you are, and as such you get stronger every time. You gain a +1-50% bonus during combat that is directly proportional to how challenging your primary opponent is. Further you gain a +1-50% bonus based on the number of opponents you face.

Warlord’s Mantle: You are a leader of men, and your armies would find it almost impossible to disobey you. Increase the effectiveness of soldiers, demons, and monsters fighting under your command by 33%, and they will not retreat unless magically compelled to do so as long as you continue to fight.

Fueled by Rage: Behind your iron will is a furnace powered by endless rage. This power stokes those reserves, making them all the more powerful. All Life Force counts double when spent, effectively reducing the cost of all powers by half, but anger, rage, bloodlust, and all similar emotions are also doubled in strength.

If the blade had been back in creation, pursuing its previous plans, it would have chosen the second power without hesitation. The weapon was already unfathomably strong, but if it could make everyone it led stronger… well, Warlord’s Mantle was a force multiplier for the ages. It's only hesitation concerned how much power it would take to support such a broad enchantment.

It wasn’t in creation, though. It was still in hell, which meant that its most urgent need was getting strong enough to defeat the queen and escape from this place. To that end, both Fueled by Rage and Wars Without End were better choices.

The former was clearly stronger, but the latter didn’t have serious drawbacks, making this one at least an easy choice. Last time, it had agonized over the correct power to steal from the Bog hag. This time, it chose in the space of a few seconds.

As it did so, the demon prince’s soul struggled free of its grip and challenged it. To take my powers, you must first best me in combat.

The Ebon Blade wasn’t sure that was strictly true, but it much preferred the man’s direct approach to the wheedling of the first demon prince it had devoured or the poisonous stain that was Princess Rizzeldah. So, it didn’t even try to resist as everyone else in its soul gem faded from view and the demon prince drew a blade made of shadows.

After I slay you, I will claim the warbringer and then conquer the eighth and ninth circles myself! Prince Angarazon responded with a mocking salute.

The Ebon Blade didn’t even bother to respond. It had seen the demon fight once before, and it was unafraid, even in this strange battlefield. With a Bolt or some Hellfire, it might have won the battle almost instantly, but it didn’t want to win easily; it wanted a distraction.

So, instead of fighting to dominate, it fought to wound, wearing the same, hazy spirit body that it did whenever it was in its soul gem, the blade drew a perfect copy of itself and charged to meet its opponent. Even holding back, it wasn’t close to a fair fight.

That wasn’t because of the demon prince’s moves, though, which were adequate. He parried and repostied in the correct ways, and showed himself to be very competent, if a bit sluggish. His problem, though, was that the dregs of his soul weren’t nearly as solid as the blade’s soul was, and every blow fractured him like he was a stained glass window.

All that the Ebon Blade wanted was a real fight, but today at least, it was denied that, and as its opponent faded from view, it was forced to accept Wars Without End as a consolation prize.