Chapter 39: I, Your Demon

“You do him no favours for this,” the Giant declared, even as Lune stood between them. “Step aside.”

“He already gave you his answer,” Lune coldly countered. “His honest answer. Is that not enough?”

“It is not. Do not mistake my intent. I take no pleasure in this,” Ymir snapped. “But it must be done. He is broken, and if left alive, the System will mould him into an instrument of their murderous entertainment. Killing him is a kindness — both for himself and others.”

“He is not a monster!”

“He is not,” Ymir agreed, to their surprise. “He mourns and carries the faces of the dead with him. He is not the mad Demon he pretends to be. But neither can we ignore his past actions, nor the future that holds for him should he be allowed to persist. I have heard his words — spoken purely from behind his fragile mask — and it is weak.”

Axel flinched.

“He has no resolve; no strength of heart to resist the hand that might wield him,” Ymir accused. “It is not greed that compels him, for then at least I am assured of a practical nature reigning in his madness. It is not even bloodlust, for a rabid beast with only a taste of violence could be trusted to seek its death before it grows to strength. No, what hides inside him is cowardice.”

“You call him a coward when he has killed an entire Zone and its Bosses alone?” Lune sardonically retorted.

“He is a coward because he is too afraid to make his own choices; he allows others to make them for him instead. He does not take the easiest Path, or the most rewarding, or even the one that might fulfil his own needs and desires,” Ymir calmly elaborated. “He is a weapon. It is not a matter of satisfaction or self-motivation; Even if it was no fault of his own, he has been indoctrinated to obey whoever is in command of him. The System, his sponsor, or whichever Guild that claims him first… They would all seek to turn him into their pet the moment he leaves the Zone. And he would not resist.”

Ymir was not wrong. The moment he first arrived in the System… When his new Handler came to him, he had not even thought to deny her or even question her motive. Left without a master, the moment the first hand came to wield him…

He had accepted their ownership of him without a second thought. Without regret.

Axel simply buried it all away, enduring every command from his Reaper regardless of morals, reason, or feasibility.

The White-Haired Demons… Supersoldier weapons. Conditioned to kill or die at the amusement of their handlers. That was who they were.

And he was their leader. The one named ‘Harbinger’ among the 76th Cadre. He was the most unquestioning and murderous of them all.

Fourteen thousand deaths and rising… His superhuman memory never lets him forget. From the moment of his birth, he remembered all.

Even the face of his mother whom he killed.

“I have heard his words. I have judged his worth. And it is not enough for me to spare him. The outcome is pitiful, but I will not deny him this mercy,” Ymir spoke softly. “Lune, he does not even want to live.”

“And yet he fights. Even when the odds are impossible, he fights with everything he has,” Lune retorted. “That is not the action of someone who wants to die!”

“That is precisely the action of a coward who wants to die!” Ymir roared. “Why else would he seek such powerful foes, perform feats of such danger and risk?! Just because he seeks the means of his suicide through the hands of others rather than his own, it doesn’t make him any less of a coward!”

Lune snarled, another argument on her lips, before Axel sighed and grabbed her. 

“Alright. Enough,” he said. The soldier pushed himself up. “The big guy is not wrong, you know. I’m an abomination. It’s better for everyone, including me, if we get this over with. I don’t know how you deluded yourself into thinking I’m a person worth saving, but you are wrong. I have killed thousands. Men, women, children. There’s nothing redeemable within me, so just let me—!”

“Why did you save Jhil?” Lune suddenly interrupted him.

Axel paused. He frowned as he turned to her. “Who?”

“My handmaiden. Why did you save her during the troll fight?” Lune pressed. “She was already on the brink of death. She held no practical value whatsoever. Why did you save her and then pull her out of the conflict? Why not just kill her then?”

Axel was taken aback. “What?”

“Kill her for the experience. Take her inventory. Why save her and give her a health potion? If you were truly as murderous and broken as you claim, then why didn’t you kill her?”

“You are basing my entire morality on one good act?” he argued. “I— She was just in the way! Maybe I thought she could still help in the heat of the moment!”

“Then what about me? Why save me from the Troll King?” she asked accusingly. “I was already crippled. The toxin was already delivered; I had no value to you except perhaps as another kill for experience. Why didn’t you kill me?”

“I, well… The distillery! I still needed you to—!”

“After, then! Why didn’t you kill me after the fight? Or just kill me back in the cave, before we formulated that stupid alliance?!” She was yelling now. “If you were truly just seeking death and murder as a thoughtless weapon of your Admin, you would have simply done anything to kill and devour power without any regard for your life or anyone else! Me, Jhil, that Troll King, whatever! Looking at you now, I’m confident to say that I cannot win against you, even back then in the cave.”

“The poison—” he tried to reason, but Lune interrupted before he could get another word out.

“If the poison really played a part at all, you could have just slit my throat the moment I delivered the drink and then proved myself dead weight in the fight after. Even my handmaiden, after her injuries, was of no use to you except as another corpse to reap for experience and loot.” 

Her eyes softened. “Yet you did not betray me for power—not before we went up to the Troll king, not even during the fight, and not even after.”

“There were reasons for all of them!” he snapped. “In the caves, you threatened to blow us all up—”

“If you were as suicidal as Ymir and you claim to be, you won’t have cared,” Lune countered. “In fact, you didn’t care. You still charged forth and tried to kill me anyway. It was only after you heard my tale that you stopped and decided to help.”

“Well, of course, I stopped after you proved to be a tactical asset! As for the fight itself, I already explained that I needed your distilleries to kill the King. And afterwards, well, I can’t really do anything with your blade at my neck, can I?”

“Please,” she snorted. “As if that would have really stopped you. I have seen how you fight. You would have strangled me to death with my knife lodged in your throat if you really wanted to kill me.”

“Well, maybe it’s because I wanted you to finish me off!” Axel’s patience was fraying. “What part of ‘I wanted to die’ don’t you understand, you stubborn woman?!”

“... Then why didn‘t you just let the prince kill you?” she calmly asked.

Axel’s rage died in his throat. “W-what?”

“You were ready to die at my blade. I had seen it in your eyes; if I had pressed down the edge and slit your throat, you would have just allowed it. You would not have even fought back,” she said, voice trembling slightly. “You… Some part of you was even begging for it. But when you faced my brother, rather than allowing him to kill you, you fought with everything you had, only allowing yourself to mutilate your body to self-destruction after he was dead. Why? What was the difference between my blade and his?”

“Well, that was because he… He…” 

The words died in Axel’s throat. He recalled that monster’s words:

“Oh, I know my wayward sister helped you. I will need to hunt her down later. You have killed all four of my Fae-Hybrid Royal Guards, after all. I will need replacements. She will do nicely.”

“He would have… gone after you,” he murmured weakly. “And I… I could not allow that.”

It was not just her. The other Fae-Hybrids… He saw their agony and relief when they died. He saw how their facial features reflected the Prince’s. He heard their final words, felt their blessing upon him… 

Begging him to kill the monster that made them, so that no future kin would suffer his pervasions.

Axel had prepared to die when the enemy first arrived — whether it was at the Fae-Hybrids’ hands, the Dragon’s, or the Prince’s, he had not cared.

But then the Fae-Hybrids spoke; then the Prince threatened Lune. And once the whole scope of what evil the Dragonrider sowed upon his own kin dawned on Axel…

That… damning familiarity with his own existence…

Suddenly, the Prince became a target that the soldier would not suffer to live anymore.

[Is that not hypocritical of you?]

Axel blinked. Darkness now covered his vision.

He was back in the void. Lune and Ymir were gone. Only an inky fog of blackness and silver remained.

The Pale Eyes of Death settled upon him.

[To beg others for death, yet killing them when they fail to reach whatever absurd moral standard you place on them. What defence could you even possibly begin to craft to justify such nonsense?]

Axel said nothing. The Reaper chuckled.

[You who despise yourself, yet dare respect yourself as one who despises. Your hypocrisy is nothing but self-contempt made manifest — A murderer preaching virtue.]

“... No.”

[No?]

“It is not hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is to act against one’s own professed values. I cannot betray myself, because the weapon that I am is not afforded such luxury. There is nothing for me to internalise; no shame or self-hatred to scream at a grave of broken ideals. I do not deceive myself or others. I have simply given up. I despise myself too much to keep on living.”

[So it is merely resentment? At what? Everything?]

“No. I am not capable of that,” Axel chuckled. “There was only ever that one question. From the moment I was born… When I stared into my mother’s dying eyes, when I saw…”

Blood. Agony. Suffering. And yet, buried behind it all, right at the moment before the last light faded from her life, when their eyes met…

“Why was she relieved that I was born?”

He remembered. That flicker when all the darkness in her eyes washed away, when the only thing left in her gaze was…

A smile. And tears. And a sincere solace in the knowing of his birth before she passed.

The first life he took. His gene-modded mind never let him forget it. And that was why…

“I hate her. If she had simply loathed me as she died, it would have made me whole: a Demon without hesitation. But she gave me that final smile, that final look, and I… I can never forget that.”

Those dying embers of empathy: passed from a mother to her child.

[You deny your true self, then?]

“I deny nothing. Do not perceive my sincerity as hypocrisy. I will kill. I will always kill. I forsake my living and keep with me the company of the dead. But it is not a sin to carry the faces of the departed with me. Nor is it wrong to pray that my killing could be used for a purpose beyond the murderous edge of my Handler. Because… Demon I may be…”

Even I eventually learnt what it is like to drown under regret.

Somehow, within that void of burning silver looking down on him…

Axel thought he felt his Reaper smile.

[Good grief. Who knew you could have grown so much?]

The world snapped back into focus.

Lune was standing protectively before him. The Giant was looking solemnly at him.

Axel glared back, his eyes no longer clouded.

“I hear your voice. It is heavy with the weight of your grief. Even so… I cannot let you live,” Ymir said. “The System will play into your bloodlust. It will tempt you to commit ever greater atrocities for power. In a way, your unique madness makes you well-suited for the Great Game. If I let you continue, you will no longer recognise yourself. Not even the embers of empathy can save you.”

“I do not need empathy to save me.” Axel gritted his teeth and stood fully, pushing Lune gently aside. His body burned with wounds, but still he stood, looking Ymir straight in the eye. “Nor do I need to temper this violence of mine.”

He felt the cold arms of Death wrapped around him, holding him up and steadying his feet. The words came freely to his lips, unhesitant and strong.

“All the evils of this world and the next, I shall devour them whole.” Axel took a step forward. “To this worthless hunger of mine, I shall feed it sin-bloated corpses. In doing so, I shall give my existence sincerity.”

His fingers felt feverish. The light in his eyes was bright. The air was growing cold and heavy. Lune gasped, faint condensation leaving her breath.

Ymir’s grip tightened on his iron pillar, frost forming on his weapon and skin.

“Only then shall I sate my yearning for a violent death,” he snarled. “To purge the living of Beasts, until the day of my final agony!”

Light was being drowned out. Something beyond darkness came, burning with unholy affection.

My hand’s the Reaper’s, and I, your Demon. If you have need of my killing edge, then hear my Demands, and LET MY DEAD MARCH WITH ME!

Darkness fell. Ymir, having heard his words…

Sighed.

“No,” the Giant declared solemnly. “You are not capable of that.”

With blinding speed, the Giant lifted his weapon and swung.

Axel looked up, gazing upon his impending death…

And smiled.

“For your unwavering fervour, I open my Gates for you.”

[Trait Conditions met.]

[Reaper’s Piety Activated]

[The Pale Parade of Death pay their fealty…]

A crack. A roar.

And then the festering corpse of the Fae Dragon behind them rose to life and tackled the Giant.

The sudden, violent interruption threw the Giant’s aim off. The iron pillar smashed the ground beside Axel, scant inches from ending his life.

All around, the bodies of the dead began to rise.

The Harbinger laughed madly, unholy power flooding forth from his form. 

“My dragon now, stolen from that princely fuck! I hope you are ready, Ymir, because I am not leaving this fight as a corpse!”