The Demon Lord Is An Angel-Chapter 496: Lesser Evil

He’s not really here... or his body is but... How does that even work?’

There was more to magic that Kir had yet to understand, but he suspected it was in the same way that he had been both himself and the space that contained him when he’d faced his final evolution.

When Kir concentrated on the bubble surrounding them that he realized why he’d felt off. He closed his eyes...

This place didn’t feel like the real world. It felt like...

... a dungeon.

Maledict sneered, appearing before Kir. "Come now, boy, haven’t you learned anything?"

There!

A way in, if not out. Every dungeon had an aperture of sorts. Kir’s had formed in contact with the Chainsfree dungeon, and through it, he’d had access to the boundless mana connected through every dungeon in the world.

This entire time, Kir’s focus on Maledict had allowed the archdemon to manipulate the way out, keeping the true exit behind Kir’s back. And as long as Kir was here, inside a space that Maledict controlled, he was both vulnerable and unlikely to defeat him, no matter how much stronger he was.

The next time he opened his eyes, it was to raise a spell.

That was a lie, but only because this space was also Maledict. And if Kir hadn’t talked with Amida, he might never have known how to escape.

"I’m not your boy," Kir said. Then he unleashed a spell that sent him rocketing backward with a massive acceleration.

He felt a sudden decline of mana at his back before-

Stars.

The first thing Kir saw when he left Maledict’s space was stars.

For just a moment, Kir thought he’d been ejected into space. But then his feet found a solid surface as he let gravity pull him down. And below his feet were also stars.

"I see Maledict couldn’t hold you long. No matter; it was long enough." A voice sighed out, and Kir turned.

She sat on a throne, dressed in white and masked. Behind her, Ayther stood near-frozen, its northern hemisphere clouding with a visible wave of expanding force.

"Aeleas," Kir said.

"Hello, Kir," she said.

"What, not going to call me your ’son’?" Kir’s voice filled with spite for the angel who’d abandoned him.

"I am not the one who sired you. Nor am I your mother," Aeleas admitted calmly. "You already know what I am."

"A monster," Kir said.

"Indeed," Aeleas gestured, and the sphere of space Kir had just left resolved into the form of Maledict at her side. For a moment, there was a sense of the Heaven shard rushing forward before a light suddenly lit up on the northwest corner of Diurnus, the shard impacting amidst the destruction already wrought by the eight that preceded it.

"Our child is quite capable." Maledict’s face was serious as he stepped closer to his wife. To Kir, Maledict’s tone seemed resentful of the escape he’d managed.

"He is capable... far more than either of us alone," Aeleas intoned, drawing a light scoff from Maledict, before returning her attention to Kir. "Everything Maledict told you was true. Just as everything Aidaeb told you was also true... almost."

"You mean Luda?" Kir asked.

"I mean the machine born of the human you call Luda. The shaper of this world, and its would-be destroyer. The god, abandoning their creation."

Though she stared at Kir with sad eyes, he met hers with anger. "Says the woman who claims credit for destroying her own world?" he pointed at the sphere behind her. "If what Maledict says is true, then you made this happen! Why? What could be worth all the pain you caused?!"

Kir spoke of Ayther’s dying, but he knew he was mostly speaking for himself. For his moms and his loved ones. His friends and the city he’d grown attached to.

She rested her hand in Maledict’s. "For a better future. For any future at all to exist for us instead of the complete destruction Aidaeb would have reaped. I gave that god what they wanted and took upon myself the fate of our worlds." Aeleas took a long pause. "The ’bell-jars,’ as Aidaeb called them, will keep enough life preserved to restore Ayther in a few thousand years. At least... that is my hope." She turned her face, staring at the grey marble of Ayther’s remaining moon, shrouded in clouds that showed hints of green and brown beneath.

"I can no longer be certain of things going forward. Aedaeb told you the true conditions of seeing the future... but what they didn’t tell you was that the very machine they lived amongst, the core of the Duat, was the entirety of the predictive apparatus, and their true body. I’m sure they showed you the black gate... the anomaly..."

Kir clenched his fists. "What did they want?" he asked.

"What any monster wants," Aeleas answered, threading her fingers into Maledict’s. "To be loved... despite being a monster. This isn’t the first time Aedaeb has tried to leave. They tried when they sacrificed the dungeon city, manipulating the factions into killing each other before wiping out the mortals amongst them. And it was then they learned that a sudden drop in complex observers is not enough." 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"They needed layers around themself to push the anomaly beyond the nothing between universes. Thousands of gods, many of them versions of the woman they loved, died to make the dungeons, until Heaven found out and began to harvest them in their nascency, seeking power. Even then, Aidaeb had enough of what they needed. After that, the only thing they needed was a rate of death high enough and sustained enough to tear at the seams of the reality they stitched together... one billion people, with all the weight of their perceptions, had to die so that they could leave."

"Had to die? Was there no other way?" Kir felt dread rise in his heart. The way Aeleas had spoken...

"It was the lesser evil..."

The lesser evil... Aeleas’ words echoed in Kir’s mind. The weight of history behind those three words was the same, no matter if Aeleas knew of Earth’s history or not.

Aeleas continued, "There were always other ways, but only one other price. The condition for departing without the anomaly they brought from their realm would be... total. Not simply all life on our worlds, but all life in this universe. Everything reduced to a single observer... and that they couldn’t do. Not once their children fled them... punishing them as the price for testing the way out. Those realms reflected in the dungeon depths were worlds they created... a thousand anchors in reality that would make fleeing this universe impossible for Aidaeb, and through the dungeons, Aidaeb linked every one of those worlds to Ayther’s fate. I severed those links when I had my followers turn the dungeons into shelters."

Aeleas spoke her next words with a sense of finality. "All to spare our world... our universe... from the growing madness of a god."

"And in doing so, become one," Kir spoke bitterly.

"I’m a monster, not a god. That fate I leave to you." She stood, and the backdrop behind her resolved into a truer reflection of reality, accelerating towards the future as Kir realized she was slowing time in her domain, the opposite of what he’d done in his. Four flashes of light created blooms of death and destruction, three in the southern hemisphere and one near the equator, all in the ocean. "The world died yesterday. For your sake, I am willing to make one final offer."

The sight of Ayther, clouded with dust except for the tiny blue towers that rose at random points, sent a knife of despair running through Kir’s soul. His fear had been correct. When Aeleas spoke in the past tense... it was because she’d already accomplished her goal.

The world was dead... and he’d failed to save it...