The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 345: Maze Running

Chapter 345: Maze Running

What came for them was unlike anything Ferro had ever seen.

At first he thought it was an insect, some giant version of a wasp. But then he saw that there were several things about it that no natural creature would have, like external ball joints and skin made of painted metal. And a "stinger" with a flaming tip.

A moment after it appeared it chirruped, and that was when Santina cut it in half through its thorax with a spell. It hit the ground with a tinny lightness that sounded more fragile than it had looked.

"Hm. Guess it’s not made of steel then."

A series of distressed noises sounded from the construct. Ringing out in regular intervals before they died as they shifted down in tone.

Having covered their sensitive ears, Ferro and Lawre both lowered their hands... just in time to hear an even louder buzzing coming from the direction the machine-bug had come from.

A moment later, a squad of ten very similar but obviously more dangerous machine bugs rounded the corner, flying full tilt at them.

"Run!" Ferro shouted as something plinked off the wall nearby.

The three of them ran, Star and Ferro both occasionally turning to cast spells at their pursuers. But no matter how many they killed, the same number would replace them, sliding out from unseen pockets in the walls or coming from other parts of the maze.

"Turn right up ahead!" Star shouted as a split came up. Everyone went right, and then they were forced to turn left immediately. Only at the end of the corridor was... nothing. A dead end.

"What the fuck, Star?" Ferro shouted as the buzzing got closer. "Why did you kill that first one?"

"It was approaching with fire. And not in a fun way."

"Fun?! What the Hell about fire is fun?"

"When you’re more than six hundred years old you’ll get very particular fetishes too. You tick quite a few boxes for me, by the way."

"I’m not going to die listening to you talk about your fucking kinks!" Ferro shouted as he raised his hands to cast spell after spell, trying out everything he could think of as Santina whipped his finger back and forth with the same dark mana.

It took much longer for either of their spells to carve through the larger drones. But with every drone they downed, the group got closer and closer...

"Gah, enough of this!" Star shouted, gathering light at his fingertips before shredding all the drones at the same time with ten distinct beams of darkness wreathed in purple.

The intensity of the spell was unlike anything Ferro had seen the demon use in the past, and it sent the entire group of drones smoldering to the ground.

Ferro looked over at Star, and was shocked when he saw a worn-out, tired-looking demon covered in old scars and the pulsing, glowing veins of mana corruption.

"What?" Star asked as he scowled at Ferro, before looking down at himself. "Ugh." a snap of his fingers and the old Star flickered back into place. An illusion. "I hate ugly things."

"G-guys..." Lawre said from behind them, and they both turned to find the kid holding some kind of dart in his hands. From the drops of blood on his leg, it was clear where he’d been stuck. "I don’t feel so good..." A moment later Lawre collapsed, and Ferro rushed up to him.

Hurrying to check on him, Ferro saw that he was still breathing, but he wouldn’t respond as he tried to wake him-

"Ugh, I guess you can carry the key now," Star sighed.

"He’s just asleep. I’m not leaving him behind," Ferro snapped back.

"Carry him then. But don’t blame me if we can’t stay ahead of the murder bugs... I have no idea why you’d do that for the child of the man who enslaved you for years on end."

"Because he’s not his father!" Ferro grunted as he tried to figure out how best to carry Lawre, settling for something close to piggyback. "Besides, what would you know about that?"

"More than you, kitten," Star snarled. "I’ve seen your confused little nightmares. Seeing yourself out of your body? Classic technique for avoiding the notion you may have felt some pleasure from those little moments. That your body likes what your mind hates."

Rage flushed Ferro’s ears red. "Listen here-"

"No, you listen!" Star interrupted. "You may have years on your sex life but I have centuries of men and women like Lanoch and worse. And four of those centuries have been spent trying to piece myself back into a semblance of what I once was. So I don’t want to hear you whining about one terrible asshole like you have any basis for what I’ve gone through to get here! Just to fix myself! So leave the kid or don’t, but carry that fucking key!"

Star marched ahead and kicked aside the head of a drone that was in his way, letting out a somewhat pained cry as it proved hurtful to his foot.

Lawre was light enough that even Ferro felt he could carry him some distance.

As the three of them walked in silence, finding that every right turn led to a dead end, Ferro had an epiphany.

We’re all broken here, he realized.

Lawre was isolated by fear of his father. He was so invested in saving his sister that he’d given up years of his life to the Duat. And Star... Something about the demon was terribly, terribly sane. And Ferro realized that if he had centuries to endure men like Lanoch, he might end up the same way...

Hellbent on becoming whole... even if it meant caring for nothing and no one.

The knowledge they were alike made him shudder. It made him feel the doors in his mind behind which he’d compartmentalized himself. He felt them like they could burst at any moment...

"Watch where you’re going!" Star snapped as Ferro bumped into him from behind.

As soon as he brought his mind back to the situation, Ferro saw why Star had snapped at him.

In front of them was a trench, the bottom of which held something molten that was flowing outward. Ferro had seen plenty of lava while journeying through the Duat, but this was cleaner. More like liquid metal.

The heat, even this far up, was significant. Star had been sticking his hand into it when Ferro bumped him.

"Alright mortals, this is where we turn back and try the other right-hand turns."

"Why?" Ferro asked.

Star took a gold earing from one of his ears and tossed it to the other side of the three-measure gap. It seemed to be intact as it landed on the other side, before promptly melting. "Think you can survive that?"

"Oh."

As they were talking, one of the drones flew into the trench, dipping its stinger into the liquid metal and siphoning the material into its abdomen, which came away glowing from within. Thankfully it flew off in a different direction, and so Ferro didn’t bring it up to Star as the demon started stalking off back the way they came.

They made a right. Then another right. Then they came back to the trench but from deeper in, only this time as soon as they approached, a bridge began to extend itself across the gap.

"Hmm." Star waved his hand over the bridge. Then he touched it. "Seems cool enough. I wouldn’t trust the edges of the floor though."

"Maybe we should go back and try some of the other paths then?" Ferro suggested.

"What, scared of heights?"

"No, I’m scared of landing in molten metal."

"Fair. But you should be fine if you’re quick about it."

"Let me try something," Ferro said, lifting a hand from under Lawre and condensing some water before shooting it out at the bridge. It landed and began to steam away, but it wasn’t hissing-hot.

"And that was supposed to accomplish what?" Star lifted an eyebrow.

"That was supposed to be continuous. There isn’t a lot of water in the air."

"Just go!" Star shoved Ferro through Lawre, pushing him closer to the bridge.

Gulping, he stepped onto the bridge. It was warm, but not unbearable, and so he took another step, and another...

Five steps onto the bridge, the heat began to sear the pads of his feet.

"Atsu! Ah! Shit!" Ferro swore as he tried to keep his balance with Lawre on his back while moving forward.

Just a few measures, and yet it was the most painful experience he’d ever associated with his feet. At the last measure, his instincts were screaming to drop Lawre and leap to safety, when suddenly he felt the world pitch out from under him.

He landed heavily, rolling to the side as Lawre’s weight tugged him, and he looked up to find Star backing towards him, his tail curled alertly as four drones rose from behind, their abdomens swollen with molten metal. They lowered themselves close to the bridge and Star raised a spell...

"Wait!" Ferro called out.

Star held back.

The wasp-machines lowered their stingers to the bridge, and molten metal began to spill out in little lines, cooling rapidly as they began to add to the bridge, one hovered up and rotated to where its partner began after reaching the end of its half of the bridge.

By the time Ferro stood, there was a hand’s length of metal on both sides of the bridge, fused and bumpy but nevertheless solid.

"What good is making handrails after we’ve crossed?" Star scowled.

"Maybe... these ones are just trying to help?" Not having to kill every machine creature they saw might save them far more time and effort, and up close he saw that while each was similar to him in size, they looked far less aggressive than the ones from before.

A slow, strained rumble began as the bridge sheared itself free of the growing walls, withdrawing into the cliff. Exposed to the heat, the freshly made metal walls quickly began to glow, before sloughing down and returning their material to the river of molten slag below.

As one, the machine bugs made sad burbles and flew away.