Gonna Be a Demon King!
Chapter 91: Soul Retrieval

Chapter 91: Soul Retrieval

Once again, their swords collided with a resounding clash as the man raised his sword to block, pulling one foot back to steady his stance. Aura surged up his arms and into his blade as he swung it rapidly, sparks erupting at every collision with Ilya’s sword, each blow vibrating up their arms.

Amidst the blinding exchange of swords, Ilya abruptly pulled her sword back and thrust it toward his neck. The knight adjusted his stance to intercept the strike, but in that split second, she unfurled her wings and flapped them forward.

The man’s eyes instinctively darted toward her wings, and that momentary distraction prevented him from reacting in time as Ilya suddenly moved to his left, revealing that her earlier thrust had been a feint.

Before he could bring his blade into position to block, the runes on Ilya’s sword glowed brightly, and in an instant, the blade shot forward with a burst of speed, piercing straight through the side of his chest.

The knight froze for a moment, and Ilya pressed the sword deeper, piercing his lungs, before twisting the blade and ripping it free.

Blood sprayed across the ground as the knight staggered. His sword slipped from his fingers with a dull clang, and he collapsed to his knees.

The knight tried to mutter something, blood spilling from his mouth, but Ilya didn’t even spare him a glance. Without a second thought, she swung her sword, severing his head in one motion.

As the wide-eyed severed head fell to the floor, she flicked the blood from her blade, then turned her gaze towards Xaren who was seated on a rock about a hundred metres away.

At his feet lay the bodies of five human knights, three elves, and nearly a dozen monsters with residual magic power putting them below Level 100.

"Don’t forget about his soul, though," Xaren said, pointing at the knight’s corpse, which had started to glow.

’Wait, glow?’

Xaren and Ilya instantly went on guard at the unfamiliar sight. Ilya took a step back, channelling aura into her sword as she stared at the corpse with narrowed eyes.

Suddenly, the sky above them abruptly transformed. Magic power began swirling in the clouds, forming a ginormous vortex that knocked away the demon army airships, some nearly plummeting to the ground.

As the pilots struggled to keep the airships airborne, a white ray of light shone down from the circular opening at the centre of the vortex.

The descending ray of light burned the demons who weren’t fast enough to escape its path down to the ground—no, to the headless corpse of the knight on the ground.

With the corpse bathed in the white light, Xaren and Ilya momentarily saw the illusion of an angel with multiple wings appear above the knight’s head.

Just as they wondered if it was a trick of the light, the illusion abruptly vanished, and the knight’s soul materialized before them.

The man’s soul was shining white, radiating the same light as that of an angel’s soul.

Xaren and Ilya could recognize that this was unmistakably an angel soul, but what they couldn’t understand was why such a soul was inside a human.

’...was he like me? An angel reborn as a human?’

The thought crossed Xaren’s mind for a moment, only to be pushed aside in the next when he noticed the soul beginning to rise, pulled upward by the beam of light as though ascending to the heavens.

In an instant, several theories formed in his mind, one standing out above the rest.

This human knight possessed an angel soul, and from the spectacle unfolding before them, it was clear that the angels were trying to reclaim it.

He briefly wondered why such a soul was inside a random human knight, but there was nothing that could enlighten him on this.

Xaren glanced up at the sky, trying to gauge the reactions of any nearby angels, but even the closest one was too far away for him to make out their expression.

Still, it didn’t matter. If the soul was important enough to warrant all this fanfare to retrieve it, then surely Xaren could gain some kind of benefit by preventing its retrieval.

Maybe, if he devoured it himself, he could even gain special stat boosts.

His body moved before the thoughts had fully formed. Wings unfurling, Xaren kicked off the ground, shooting into the air at breakneck speed.

He flew straight toward the descending beam of light, his arm wrapped in demonic energy to shield it as he reached into the glowing pillar and grabbed the soul at its centre.

The light seared against his arm, and the soul in his hand burned hot, far hotter than any angel soul he’d touched before.

But Xaren didn’t let go.

Activating his Unique Skill, he coated his arm in gravity magic, hoping to use its light-bending properties to weaken the beam, even if just a little.

Clenching his fist tightly around the soul, he yanked it from the pillar of light. The instant he did, the pillar cracked and then flickered like a dying bulb, before exploding in a violent blast.

The shockwave slammed Xaren back down to the ground, his body crashing into the earth with immense force.

But through the pain, the soul, tightly clenched in his grip, remained his prize.

Almost immediately, he sensed multiple presences closing in from all directions, snapping him out of his daze.

Many demons and angels had witnessed him collecting the soul from that pillar of light, and he had no doubt they intended to take it from him.

The Mid-Rank demons on their way were likely to do so.

Rather than have it snatched away, Xaren decided he would rather devour it himself.

For a moment, the thought that it was Ilya who had actually killed the man crossed his mind, but it was only for a moment.

’Sorry, Ilya. But I can’t afford to be considerate right now.’

He did have a hundred souls stashed away in his magic pouch thanks to the demon from earlier, so he could always pay her back with some later.

That thought crossed his mind the same moment Xaren poured his demonic energy into the soul, but unlike other angel souls he’d interacted with, this one actively resisted being corrupted by his energy.

Its radiance dimmed slightly, but it was still overwhelmingly bright compared to the amount of light the soul continued to emit.

Given enough time, Xaren was certain he could eventually smother it with his demonic energy, but time wasn’t a luxury he had right now.

So, against his better judgment, Xaren tossed the soul straight into his mouth!

Even as he devoured it the souls fiercely resisted, but he forced it down using his demonic energy.

The moment he did that, Xaren felt as though he had swallowed a ball of living fire. The soul scorched its way into his body, searing his insides, burning his flesh and trying to do the same to his soul!

Xaren’s vision blurred, his body trembling as he dropped to one knee, clutching his chest and coughing violently. Blood sprayed from his lips, escaping along with a thick black smoke that quickly dispersed into the air.

The world tilted violently around him, a rush of clashing energies tearing at his insides as the angelic light spread, an invader refusing to be subdued.

The foreign energy from the soul collided with his own in violent bursts, sending waves of pain ripping through him, as though fires had been ignited beneath his skin.

Yet in its desperation to survive, Xaren’s body began to adapt. Something new started to take form within him, and with its formation, the pain from the soul’s light began to wane.

By forcing himself to devour the soul of a light-based entity with a stronger soul than his, Xaren’s body had adapted and formed a small resistance in response, similar to how a vaccine uses a virus to build immunity.

Although dangerous, this new presence laid the foundation for a defence against the angel’s light to develop within him.

It was something demons typically built up slowly by devouring angel souls closer to their own level. But by consuming the soul of a much stronger angel, Xaren had acquired it far earlier than normal.

While these rapid changes tore through Xaren’s body, Ilya, on the outside, closed the distance to him the instant she saw blood.

Her boots skidded across the dirt as she dropped to her knees beside him, wordlessly pulling a potion from her magic pouch and pressing it against his lips.

"Drink."

Xaren barely managed to tilt his head back, swallowing the thick liquid in desperate gulps. The vitality potion spread through him like cool water over searing flames, easing the pain and repairing the tissue that had been burned by the angelic light.

And just as this happened, Xaren’s soul suddenly reacted with a burst of force.

The partially absorbed angel soul was still clashing against the negative nature of his own soul, spewing light outward, and this triggered a violent reaction from Xaren’s soul.

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