Reincarnated in a novel: I am the villain!-Chapter 288: Racist Metals?

HUMMM.

The portal snapped shut behind them, sealing the fiery chaos of Layer 4 away.

Damien braced himself for an impact, a crash into jagged rocks, a splash into acidic sludge, or a tumble into a pit of bones.

Instead, his boots made a sharp, clean clack against a surface that was perfectly smooth.

He opened his eyes.

"Bright," Damien whispered, instinctively shielding his face with his hand.

For the first time since falling into the Abyss, there was light. Blinding, pristine, white light that didn’t come from a sun, but from the world itself.

They were standing on a massive plaza. But it wasn’t made of stone. The floor was a flawless mirror of liquid silver, rippling gently under their weight like water, yet holding firm with the surface tension of steel.

And around them... was a city.

It was a metropolis of impossible geometry. Towering spires of chrome twisted into the sky, connecting with bridges that flowed like rivers of mercury

Buildings didn’t sit static, instead they shifted, walls melting and reforming into new shapes with a quiet, fluid elegance.

It was silent, sterile, and terrifyingly advanced.

"Master..."

Beside him, Isabelle collapsed.

The adrenaline of the battle with Thraka had burned out. The power of the Demon Queen, a form she had forced into existence by burning her very life, vanished.

Her violet fire extinguished. Her horns retracted to nubs. Her skin, usually pale and flawless, turned grey and cracked like broken porcelain.

"Got you," Damien caught her before she hit the silver floor, lowering her gently.

He placed a hand on her chest. Her heartbeat was faint, fluttering like a dying bird.

[System Scan]

[Target: Isabelle]

[Status: Soul Burn Aftermath. Critical Exhaustion.]

"Rest," Damien ordered gently.

He activated his Celestial Life Physique. A warm, golden light flowed from his hand into her heart, stabilizing her crumbling life force.

"You broke the ceiling, Isabelle. It’s all over now, you deserve to rest. Sleep."

Isabelle’s eyes fluttered closed, her breathing evening out as Damien’s vitality anchored her soul.

"Master!"

A voice echoed across the plaza.

Elian Vance came running, or rather, hobbling toward them from the shadow of a nearby chrome statue.

The old mage looked terrified, but strangely clean. The grime of the upper layers seemed to slide right off this environment.

"You made it," Elian gasped, clutching his bone cane.

"The Sanctuary Lord... he actually sent you here."

"Where is ’here’, Elian?" Damien asked, looking at his own reflection in the floor. "This doesn’t look like a Sea."

"It is a Sea," Elian whispered, looking nervously at the passing figures in the distance. "But it is a tamed one. This is Argentum. The City of Flowing Silver. It is the capital of Layer 6."

Damien followed Elian’s gaze.

The "people" of this city were not Orcs or regular demon species, neither are they beasts.

They were humanoids made entirely of mercury. They had no faces, just smooth, reflective heads.

They wore elegant robes made of hardened mesh that seemed to be woven from the metal itself.

They didn’t walk, instead they glided, their feet merging with the floor and reforming with every step.

"Liquid Demons?" Damien noted. "Elementals?"

"The Argentans," Elian corrected, his voice hushed.

"They are High Nobles of the Middle Abyss. They value fluidity, purity, and wealth. To them, creatures of flesh and bone like us are... ’Solids’."

"Solids?"

"Primitive. Dirty and Static," Elian explained, wiping sweat from his forehead.

"We are considered lower class because we cannot change our shape. We are ’stuck’ in one form."

As if on cue, a patrol approached.

Three Argentans glided toward them. They were taller than humans, their liquid bodies flowing with a predatory grace.

They held staffs made of white gold.

Stopping ten feet away, their faceless heads turned toward Damien, Elian, and the unconscious Isabelle.

One of them rippled. A mouth formed on its smooth face, a perfect, artificial slit.

"Disgusting," the Argentan vibrated, its voice sounding like water rushing through a pipe.

"Solids dripping their fluids on the Plaza."

It pointed a liquid finger at the spot where a drop of Isabelle’s sweat had fallen on the silver floor.

"Where is the sanitation squad?" another Argentan chimed in, forming eyes just to roll them.

"Filthy refugees. Probably fleeing the war upstairs. They smell of iron and rust."

"You there," the lead Argentan commanded, extending a hand that morphed into a blade.

"Permits. Now. Or we’ll flush you into the recycling drain."

Elian trembled, reaching for his robes. "I... I have a temporary writ from the..."

Damien stood up.

He adjusted his trench coat. He checked the fit of his mask.

"Primitive?" Damien chuckled. The sound was distorted by his mask, cold and metallic.

He stepped in front of Elian.

"Elian, hold Isabelle."

Damien took a step forward. His boot hit the silver floor with a heavy, deliberate thud.

CLACK.

"You seem confused," Damien said to the lead Argentan.

"Confused?" The liquid demon sneered, its face rippling.

"Do not speak to me, Solid. You are static trash which cannot flow, you cannot even change. You are weak."

The Argentan surged forward, its blade-arm swinging down to intimidate, or perhaps execute the refugee.

However Damien didn’t draw his sword nor did he he cast a spell.

He simply looked at the floor.

*Boom!*

He pushed his Will into the liquid reality of the city.

FREEZE.

The silver street beneath the Argentan’s feet turned to Still.

Damien’s Will overwrote the concept of "Fluidity" with the concept of "Solid."

CRACK.

The Argentan screamed, a garbled, static noise as its liquid legs solidified instantly into brittle, grey metal.

It tried to shift its form to escape, to dissolve and reform, but Damien’s Will held it in a rigid, fixed shape.

The flow stopped and the mercury hardened.

The Argentan fell forward, crashing onto the ground not with a splash, but with a heavy, metallic clang.

"You seem to have trouble moving," Damien said, walking up to the terrified demon.

He tapped the frozen, solidified leg with his boot.

Clink.

"Who is the static one now?"

The bustling plaza went dead silent. Hundreds of faceless silver heads turned to look. They saw their kin, a being of pure fluid grace, locked into a jagged, unmoving sculpture.

"I am not a refugee," Damien announced, his voice ringing off the chrome towers.

He flared his Hollow King’s Authority. Black shadows bled from his coat, darker than the deepest ocean, contrasting violently with the bright city.

"And I am not a Solid."

He leaned down, his mask inches from the frozen Argentan’s face.

"I am Zero."

As he said this, high above, in the tallest spire of the city, a being made of pure, liquid gold looked down from a balcony.

It watched the street freeze. It watched the Solid dominate the Liquid with a power that wasn’t magic.

"Interesting," the Duke of Gold mused, swirling a goblet of mercury.

"Bring him to the Exchange."