33 Past Demons (Part 2)

(Evelyn POV)

As I was dragged into the large doors to the throneroom, I couldn't help but want to gag. I saw piles upon piles of bodies of elves, humans, beastmen, and many other citizens littering the hallway. The image of their hollowed eyes and deathly grey skin burned into my retina as I was pushed along to the end of the chamber.

There must have been thousands of these corpses here. The stench of sweet rot filled my nostrils and made me want to hurl, however, I didn't lower my head and I bore with the unpleasantness of the situation and glared at my father, sitting upon the throne looking down on me with an almost disinterested gaze. The demon who wore the flesh of my mother's body kneeled as it approached him, however, I remained standing.

"Won't you kneel before your father, Evelyn?" the monster said to me.

"I will never kneel to you! Not again!" I spat back.

My father closed his eyes and sighed before waving his hand in a gesture to the guards. One of them tried to kick out my knee from behind to force me to collapse, but I remained unmoved. The knight, being frustrated by this, pulled out a small knife and stabbed my leg in an attempt to force me to collapse involuntarily.

I cried out in pain and stumbled but held my ground and didn't fall. I defiantly glared up at my father who had a slightly amused look on his face seeing my resistance. The demon, however, didn't seem to be pleased with all and quickly stood from his position and grabbed me with one hand by the throat. I felt a burning sensation covering my body as he touched me and I wanted to cry out in pain. It seemed he was using some sort of magic that stimulated the pain receptors throughout my body, as every inch of it began to wale in agony.

Although my stance faltered, I didn't allow myself to collapse. I would rather die on my feet here than lower my head in front of this man again.

"I despise women like you." the demon said with venom in his voice before lifting me off of the ground from my throat before slamming my face into the stone floor below us. I struggled against my chains as I attempted to stand, but the demon once again kneeled while using his overwhelming physical strength to keep my head pinned to the floor. The only resistance I was allowed was to glare at my father with hatred in my eyes.

"Now that you have received the proper position for listening, there is much for us to discuss." He said, standing from his chair and gesturing to one of the guards who stood nearby.

The guard nodded and obeyed, drawing his sword and presenting it to the king. My father took the bladed weapon and examined it for a moment before quickly swinging the weapon horizontally in front of him. This action split the guard in half vertically, much to the other guard's shock.

"Now then, that's the required amount of bodies taken care of." My father said as he walked down the few steps to stand in front of me. He pointed the blade in my face, meer centimeters from my eyes before he addressed me directly.

"My daughter, won't you join me once more? You are extremely skilled in curse magic and it would be a shame to lose you. You'll make a good assistant and perfect lure." He stated.

"Lure?" I asked hatefully.

"Indeed. Your relationship with that human, Alaster was it? He will make for an excellent pawn. From my memories, he is the lover of the True Dragon Velzard. If I can lure him in and control him, then I also gain control over the True Dragon. Then I will have my revenge." He began to monologue.

I lay there, pinned to the ground in shock. 'What does he mean by 'Revenge?' Does he have something against Alaster or is it someone else?'

I grit my teeth and continued looking at him with hatred. "Never!" I spat back at him.

He looked down on me with a face of disappointment. "That's a shame-" He started but I interrupted him.

"I'll never let you hurt him! You'll have to kill me!" I said before I felt the demon who held my head down tighten his grip.

I wanted to cry out in agony as tears filled my eyes. I felt a slight moment of relief from the pressure followed by a wave of pain in my skull as it began to crack. Blood began to leak from my head and into my face and eyes.

"I believe you're misunderstanding something here." My father said after waiting for me to get used to the pain so that I could hear him. "You being alive or dead doesn't matter much. In fact, him being blinded by rage and coming to avenge you would probably make things easier on me. I just wanted to see if you would work with me willingly. That's why it's a shame."

I was suddenly lifted by the chains binding my hands together. The demon brought me to my feet but I was in so much pain I couldn't even stand on my own. That was another reason I had refused to fall earlier, as I knew I wouldn't be able to get up again.

My father walked past me and raised his left hand into the air. A large-scale magic circle quickly formed in the area in front of him. It completely encompassed the entire throneroom and all of the corpses while also causing all of them to begin to glow red.

"I've let these corpses rot for long enough that all residual energy from their consciousnesses will have dissipated. Now the Undead Elf I create from them will be a hollow shell with no emotion or soul. A perfect host." He said before all of the bodies began to dissolve into particles of red light that began to gather around a torrent of red energy directly in front of him. "{Demon Death Birthday}!" He cried out.

Once all of the bodies were absorbed into the spinning vortex of energy, a glowing flash of light ran through the castle. As the light began to intensify, I noticed a small but evil smile on my father's face which sent shivers down my spine.

When the light finally died down, I noticed that standing in place where all of the corpses were was the naked body of a horrendously ugly man with a face that looked like it was cut into chunks and then haphazardly glued back together with no regard to how a normal facial structure should look. Its eyes were red, not in color, but permanently bloodshot with golden pupils. The nose was contorted and bent in multiple directions looking closer to a pig's nose than a human's. Its lips were unnaturally long and thin while patches of facial hair grew unevenly around the entire face.

I recoiled instinctively, I felt offended as a humanoid to even superficially resemble this creature in body structure, however, my father was laughing manically at the sight. "It's even better than I expected! Hahaha!" He then turned to look me straight in the eye.

"Evelyn, my daughter. It is time for your rebirth as my ultimate assistant and my son, Kazaream." He said as he slowly began walking towards me.

My eyes went wide and I began to struggle against the demon's grip, tears in my eyes. "No! I don't want that! If I become that then I won't be able to be with him!" I cried out, struggling with all of my might.

"Don't worry. It'll only hurt for a second." The monster in front of me said in an obviously fake voice as it to comfort me like I was a small child.

He raised his sword into the air and brought it down with all of his might as hard as he could. I instinctively closed my eyes to avoid seeing what happened next.

"What the hell do you think your doing to my friend?" I heard a voice call out in a calm manner.

I was no longer in pain and felt my normal reserves of energy fill by body. I opened my eyes and noticed I was no longer in the grip of that demon and was in the arms of the man I loved as he carried me in a princess carry. My face flushed and I briefly thought that this must be the afterlife, that I was now in heaven. I didn't want this feeling to go away so I closed my eyes and snuggled in closer into his chest.

"I told you, you can't be the second wife, so please let go of him now." I heard another voice from beside me and opened my eyes. I turned my gaze away from the handsome face of Alaster and to my side, seeing his wife's annoyed look.

Seeing that I instantly understood the situation and blushed deeply in embarrassment, being let down by Alaster who was looking extremely pissed off.

"I see. You are here sooner than I expected. Was it because of her?" My father asked and pointed his blade at the woman to my left.

Standing there was Nolla who looked like she was totally worn out. Despite her clearly exhausted state, she still didn't miss the opportunity to tease us. "Looks like you were having fun. Finally got to be held by Alaster huh? I'm so jeleous."

"Maybe next time you want to be subtle, don't use a spell with a massive lightshow like you just did. We were going to sneak in before, but the fireworks caused us to just break in manually." A woman who I later recognized as Lilithsaid with a frown on her face.

"I see. So the light from the {Demon Death Birthday} tipped you off? Well thats fine. I was planning on the lot of you coming by soon anyways." My father said.

"Scar, why are you with that man?" Alaster asked.

"Who the hell is Scar?" The Demon asked, noticing that Alaster was looking directly at him.

"I see." Alaster said before summoning both his Sword and Spear.

"Guards, come and deal with the intruders." My father called out.

Out from the shadows of the court, several dozen majin emerged. My eyes opened wide as I saw them. Most were some kind of beast-like creature that were given magical and mechanical upgrades. Each one's aura was wild and fierce and from what I could tell, their auras were about as large as my own. I knew Alaster was several fold stronger than me, and even Lilith was about on my level, but if he had to face THIS many threats then even he would be eventually overwhelmed and killed.

"Alasetr! We need to retreat! We can't beat him here! I know a place where we can hide out and white down hi forces until we can-" I quickly began to advise him before I was stopped when he put his hand on my head.

"Don't worry about such smallfry. I've got this." He said to me full of confidence. I blushed hard at that and melted under his touch. After a moment that I wished would last forever, he finally let go and began walking towards the crowd.

"Velzard could you-" He started.

"Yeah yeah. I'll protect your little mistress." Velzard called back.

"Thanks. Lilith, you take Sca- I mean the red haired demon." He commanded.

"What should I do?" Nolla asked.

"Stay close to Velzard. I don't know what Rudra, Velgrynd, and Lucia are up to with the superweapon, but if things go south then Velzard will protect you." He said.

My father's eye twitched whenhe heard the plan. It was clear he was worried that those people Alaster was talking about earlier would do something to disrupt that horrifying monster he had chained up. Alaster called it a superweapon, so it seems he knew at least a bit about it.

"Alaster, about that-" I started but he stopped me with the raise of his hand.

"Sorry, Evelyn, but I'm going to kill the guy that possessed your father right now and his goons. Tell Velzard about it, she'll relay the information to the other team." He said before swinging his blade at the approaching guards.

In one moment he instantly decapitated several dozen of them and their body began to disintegrate into nothingness. This sight filled my with happiness and hope. He came for me, he came all the way here and saved me. Now he was going to save my country and take revenge for my country! I was filled with a unique euphoria, like I was in a dream.

My body swelled with power unknown to me. I looked down at my fingers in wonder as my body was glowing.

"Wow! I didn't think she'd have such a strong reaction instantly upon receiving it!" A woman's voice rang out from behind us.

I turned around and noticed the woman appeared to be absolutely gorgeous with long golden blonde hair that shone with a rainbow of different colors. The silvery wings on her back clearly indicated this woman was some kind of fairy. She looked back at me smiling confidently for some reason. Besides her was Aunt Sylvia and her husband Sarion. Behind them was Roa and many of the other prisoners who had been locked up with me.

"You granted her a Hero's Egg? Why" Velzard asked the fairy woman.

"Well she was Alaster's friend, so I had an eye on her from the start. I felt like it was an appropriate time now that I've gotten the hang of it." She said.

Sylvia raised her eyebrow. "Didn't you give one of those to my and my husband? Ramiris. What do you mean by 'Got it down'? Were we your guinea pigs or something?" She asked in an accusatory tone.

"Wha-! Uh, no um... ah! I just meant that it was becoming a habit of mine. Yes, that's it! Perhaps I'm being too generous about it." the woman called Ramiris said obviously trying to cover up her tracks.

I don't know why. Maybe it was the relaxed nature of the conversation going on while Alaster was massacring the people in front of us, maybe it was the fact that Roa was now hugging me, thankful for my safety, or if it was the strong presence I was sensing from all of the people around me, but I didn't feel like we were going to lose.

I saw one of the Majin slip past Alaster and head straight for us. Velzard raised her hand to do something, probably destroy it, but I quickly interrupted and cast one of my most powerful spells at it, engulfing it in a fireball that destroyed even the spiritual body.

Velzard looked back at me confused but I only smirked and answered her. "This is my home too! I can also fight. Plus, I don't feel like I'm going to lose right now!"

The others heard me and grinned. They armed themselves and took off after Alaster, ready to get involved in the fighting just as much as I was. It was time to take back my home and get revenge for everything Jahil has done to it!

.~.~.~.

Lore Bit: The reason why Evelyn is feeling so hopeful right now is that she is experiencing her Unique Skill [Unyeilding] react to her new Hero's Egg in an attempt to evolve into the Ultimate Skill [Hope King: Sariel], but Evelyn can't get that skill until the egg hatches. If she does hatch, she'll only be about as strong as the Awakened Demon Lord version of Gabiru or Geld. This will put her stronger than most but still well below the True Powerhouses like Guy and Alaster, mostly because she didn't min-max like he did.

This is also where the first MAJOR plot derailing of the timeline will occur. Before the MC was subconsciously trying not to change the world too much to affect Rimuru, but now he just doesn't care and this abandonment will be shown to have ripple effects that he will have to deal with to ensure Rimuru becomes a thing. For example, how will Yuuki get to the world without Kazaream summoning him or how will this affect the Demon Lord's Council in the future?

Lore Bit 2: The Majin referred to in this chapter with animalistic features are Cryptids born from Ivarage's magicules which Jahil has ensnared to be his servants. Since they were such a problem for the Angels/Phantoms of the Otherworld to deal with, I've decided to give Alaster a hint at the hellscape that Feldway and the others will be dealing with during that time.

Jahil found Ivarage while he was still hibernating in one of Twilight's secret bases because he wanted to use it as a pawn against Alaster, who he knew he couldn't defeat in a one-on-one scenario.