Adamant Blood

Knees on the ground, blood everywhere, Archmage Sloane Addashield wept over the corpse of his oldest friend, Yunthal Brightwind.

Yunthal had fought alongside Sloane in the Reveal, helping him to forge bonds of companionship between Earth and the Empires of Daihoon. Yunthal had been there with Sloane long before that, though, in the Red War against the dragon Bloodmaw, in all the thousands of conflicts they had fought against the sects, and the cults, and the Worshipers of Dragons. Yunthal had been there with Sloane all the way at the beginning, in their childhood in the Orphanage of the Dawn Sun, in Lower Crytalis. Yunthal had been a brother in arms, with a twin Contract to Sloane’s own demonic Contract.

Sloane’s demon was named Kanda, and Yunthal’s demon was Adank.

And now Yunthal was meat, scattered upon the ground and the walls.

Kanda cackled in Sloane’s shadow, calling through the gloom, “I won, Adank! I knew I would win! You were always too weak!”

Sloane wanted to say that Yunthal didn’t fight like he should have. He didn’t kill like he could have. Yunthal had walked into his death, putting up a feeble resistance, because Yunthal had become a merchant in the last 50 years, and he saw that Sloane wasn’t fully Fallen. Yunthal had let himself be murdered, because he knew that Sloane would have done something else, if he could have. The only reason that Sloane was here to kill Yunthal was to avoid an Infraction…

Killing Yunthal had been easy.

Why didn’t he fight more?

“Yes! That’s what I want. You cry so beautifully!” Kanda yelled into Sloane’s ears, their malevolent power wrapping through Sloane’s body, taking all of Sloane’s emotions away. She felt them all, instead, and she began to cry in his place. “Oh no! What have we done!”

Kanda cried demon tears upon Sloane’s own face, and Sloane felt nothing.

Demonic crying filled Sloane’s ears, but soon all of that transformed into laughter. Peals of laughter, like dragon claws rending castle doors.

Sloane’s emotions regarding Yunthal were suddenly gone, as though he had spent a lifetime in mourning.

Emotions could only ever hold up for so long, after all. The human body simply couldn’t feel sad all the time with a demon draining all emotions away. Even with demonic healing, and his brain fully ready to feel more emotions, every deep experience was less than the one that came before, especially when Sloane wasn’t allowed to actually heal between each horror.

“Burn it all down,” Kanda commanded. “Slice the survivors to pieces, but not all at once.”

Sloane started a fire upon the stone and the stone caught flame. Soon, Yunthal’s main house was a conflagration and Sloane floated above it all, wires of adamantium slicing apart everyone who tried to escape the burning building. Every injury he inflicted was designed to cause pain instead of merely death, and Sloane hated himself for all of it.

It was one of the worst crimes that Sloane had ever done.

He would need to do worse, soon enough.

Kanda felt everything that Sloane felt, her soul vibrating in sorrow, inside Sloane’s soul. “Oh this is so terrible! Why did you kill that poor woman down there! Why— Yeah okay. I’m bored now. You can have these crying emotions back. Let’s go play in someone’s innards! That one down there! The one you killed just now. I’ll shave off a year of your downtime if you do unspeakable things to her.”

Killing Yunthal had shaved 100 years off of his time. A full third of his ‘penance’ for denying Kanda the full breadth of human experience for their 331 years of partnership. Kanda wouldn’t be satisfied until… Until anything, really. Kanda would never be satisfied. Even if Sloane paid off his full 331 years, they would resume their Old Contract, but the world would never be the same because of what he was doing—

Kanda whispered, “You’re he~si~ta~ting, Slooooooane~”

She spoke directly into Sloane’s ears, directly entangling with Sloane in a way that could be turned into torture at the demon’s slightest desire. Endless screaming. Endless noise. The only way to stop the noise would be scooping out his own ears, but Kanda would just regrow those ears and make them more sensitive. The Old Contract made sure she was only able to speak through the use of Sloane’s left hand, but he had been a fool when he made the Old Contract.

He had allowed her too much leniency, but at the time of the Old Contract, it seemed reasonable.

Sloane had even granted Kanda more power in the bracers of adamantium on his wrists, and usually she took out her desire for pain on appropriate enemies.

But Kanda had inscribed her dislike of Dan Clover into his body, during the boy’s Awakening, killing the boy. Dan had been studying demon contracts since he was a boy, sitting on his father’s knee in the Judgment Hall of Upper Crytalis. He would have made such a good Contract with any of Kanda’s relatives, erasing all the problems of Sloane’s own Contract with Kanda...

Kanda could not have that.

Demons preferred Contractors to be stupid, like Sloane had been when he was young and stupid.

Kanda had used Sloane’s left hand and bracers to murder people in the last 331 years of their joining, of course. Just people that Sloane let her murder; criminals and such. But she had never done such a thing to a Contract candidate. She had been planning to kill him all along, though. She had never said anything. She had sprung the trap in the last possible moment, and now Sloane was here.

It was a direct violation of the clause in their Contract to never willfully cause the Contract to fail, and it was the only reason he hadn’t Fallen already.

“I’m waiting, Sloane,” Kanda said.

“Give me a moment,” Sloane said. “I’m preparing myself.”

Sloane had gotten lax, and now so many more people were paying for his old Contract, made centuries ago by a stupid kid and his stupid friend, who bargained with demons thinking they came out on top. But that’s how it always was with demons. They always wanted you to think you had come out on top, but you never did. Not in the end.

And the New Contract he had made in the wake of Kanda’s violation and his own inability to secure the Contract had made Sloane even more vulnerable.

If only one of those three damned kids would have survived their Tutorial!

Just one!

And none of this would have happened!

Sloane wouldn’t be here—

With acid honey for a voice, Kanda asked, “Want me to drive you to kill one of your family, next? I am particularly fond of Ruridana. I would like to see what her head looks like after you crush it with your own hands, of your own volition, and what her brains taste like when you eat them. She’s young. She wouldn’t understand anything at all. Not like Brightwind understood. All Ruridana would know is that greatpappy Sloane’s fingers were closing around her face, and then her little skull would cra—”

Sloane descended to the ground and started defiling the woman’s corpse.

Kanda rejoiced in sensations that Sloane had been denying her for 331 years.

Scrying orbs and farsight familiars watched from far distances.

Sloane was not Fallen. Not at all. Being Fallen would be much, much worse, and maybe even better in some ways. The people watching would be able to kill a demon-controlled Sloane, as Kanda would make mistakes and fall to her own madness rapidly. But he wasn’t Fallen, yet. Despite all layman appearances to the contrary, this was a controlled collapse of Sloane’s entire life. Or at least that’s what he told himself—

“Check the weather on Earth,” Kanda said, “I want to herd some kaiju to some unprotected cities.”

“I’ll soul-kill myself right now, Kanda.”

“Bah! Fine. I pushed too far, I see… Eh! I’m not in any hurry to take over your body just yet, and you do provide a useful shield against your fellow mortals… I know! You need more fun in your life. Let’s go whoring.”

Sloane rose from the ground, blood dripping. “More whoring, then.”

“Find a kaiju!”

“… The Largest Kaiju brothel in Grovehall? Sure.”

“That was not what I meant, but I’ll take it! I wonder why they call it the Largest Kaiju!”

Sloane flew off to the east, taking his time, feeling the wind on his face and otherwise. Kanda liked that feeling, so she did not mind the slow pace. Soon, the slow flight provided Kanda with a distraction.

Kanda spotted some beautiful feathered tails by the coast, where they were sunning themselves and doing mating dances, their long tails swishing prismatically. Kanda wanted them dead and turned into monsters. Since that was just about the simplest request she could ask for, and since every request was a minimum of 1 day off of his ‘repentance’, Sloane murdered feathered tails.

Kanda was soon distracted by the next shiny thing and Sloane proceeded to render that thing into meat, too.

It took a month for her to remember that she wanted Sloane to go whoring.

The Largest Kaiju in the city of Grovehall was evacuated long before Sloane arrived, along with the entire town.

“You warned them.” With deadly hate in her voice, Kanda said, “That’s an infraction, Sloane.”

“How?” Sloane said, with a scoff. “You distracted yourself from your own goals and I let you do it. I didn’t warn them we were coming at all. I did not work against you. You have no ground to stand on in calling this an infraction, Kanda. Do not throw illusions in my face and call them valid.”

Kanda grumbled horribly, and then exploded, “FINE! Yes. I allowed myself to get distracted, and you are following my desires well enough… Fine.” Kanda went silent. Then they shouted, “Find a survivor!”

Sloane made a suggestion, “Remove all the years of my penance, and I’ll do that kaiju herding toward a city that you wanted.”

Kanda hummed, mumbling incoherent words in open thought. And then she declared, “Bah! No deal. They’d see us coming and lay traps for you and then all my fun would be over.”

Sloane hung in the air above Grovehall, waiting.

There were only three ways out of this new horror.

He could give in to Kanda and Fall, allowing her to destroy his soul and take over his body.

He could die to someone, and the same thing would happen, with Kanda taking over his remains.

Or he could follow his New Contract through to the end, either hitting enough Infractions and slamming into the Joining clause, where he and Kanda would become one entity, one dragon, or getting through his Penance, and returning to the Old Contract.

He didn’t want to destroy a city, but if the choice was between a city versus his eternal soul and the creation of a dragon that could do so much worse, then there wasn’t really a choice at all. Falling wasn’t a real option, either—

Kanda’s voice came to Sloane, as deadly as ever, dripping poison as she asked, “Tell me, Sloane. Why am I making you do these horrible things?”

Sloane gave her the answer she wanted, “Because you think I’ll deny you overmuch, and you want to be a dragon with you in charge rather than go back to the Old Contract.”

“Yes, but even if we go back to the Old Contract, you’ll still have eternally disgraced your image. Once that happens, we can start over from the bottom once again.” Kanda added, “And if that doesn’t happen, then I will have changed you in other ways. Are you aware you aren’t fighting me on my suggestions anymore? That you denied my kaiju-herding last month, but here you are, suggesting that we do that very thing?”

Sloane was ready for this rhetoric. “I know the costs of life here on Daihoon. Everyone does, including you. If I can pull back to the Old Contract, there will be rebuilding, yes, but humanity will survive. And you want humanity to survive, Kanda. You like it when I am praised by people for saving them, or for killing a monster. You like the feasts held in my honor. You revel in the love and the simple joy, too.”

Kanda’s voice was distant, “Maybe I do.”

“Why did you kill Dan Clover?”

“You’ll find out that answer and so much more if you agree to become a dragon with me.”

“No thanks,” Sloane said.

“I’ll give you 25% of the resulting personality! That’s more than you’re going to get right now at 15%. A lot more.”

“95%-me and I’ll do it.”

Kanda laughed, a trilling sound. “No!” She continued to laugh for a little while longer. “Ah…! But that was a joyful diversion. How about 26%?”

“No.”

“Then we’re at an impasse and we will revisit this discussion some other time,” Kanda said, “For now, go find some person remaining down there in Grovehall and brutally murder them while their family watches.”

Sloane descended to the deserted city of Grovehall, hoping that the Inquisitors had gotten everyone out of the city, like they appeared to have done.

But, of course, there were always people unwilling to evacuate in the face of an oncoming disaster. Sloane hoped that the people he found would be old. Not a family, or anything like that. A pair of old people would be fine to kill.