Disclaimer: Black Clover is owned by Yūki Tabata, Studio Pierrot, and Shonen Jump.
Saga 33: Ready to Die
Valley of White Death, Spade Kingdom, Morning
Throughout the choking blizzard that has been blowing throughout this desolate frozen wasteland for generations without cease, a pack consisting of cloaked Adaptors and two Princes representing [War] and [Conquest] waded through the white storm.
Just beyond the relentless winds of endless winter, stood the Lich King and his immortal army of [Dragurs].
"Alright everyone," growled Astaroth as he brought out his [Remembrance] gunblade from his grimoire. "... Ready?"
The wolf-eared girl nods as she takes out her [Athame] dagger. "Born ready."
"Five fucking months," Caspar growled. "... This time, our eternal quarry shall be brought low!"
The Prince of War then raises his weapon before firing a bolt of [Anti-Magic] at the undead, scattering them about, catching the skeletal monarch's attention.
"CHARGE!" Astaroth roared as their combined forces sped towards the undead horde.
"Kill... them!" the Lich King then points his bony finger at the charging mob of Adaptors and two Princes, signaling the [Draugr] to strike back.
The living and the dead collided. Tides of bone broke against a wall of flesh and iron.
"I... will... destroy... you!" the Lich King then blasts a wave of unseen energy towards the enemy mob.
"MOVE BACK!" ordered Astaroth as he and everyone else jumped back upon the blast sweeping over them.
The wave that subsumed them felt warm rather than the freezing touch of death.
"It's working!" Caspar exclaimed as his heels slid back on the frozen ground. "Now that monster's magic can't harm us!"
Two Months Prior...
The two Princes were situated in a cabin provided by the Der Freischütz Dorf's populace. Astaroth himself was now walking around in his refurbished body made of spare body parts, flowing his [Anti-Magic] through the stitch-up cadaver like if he were manipulating a puppet, or if he were wearing clothes and that his [Anti-Magic] itself was the naked body.
"So, how is it?" asked Tiamat as she tossed a cloth ball against the wooden wall before it bounced back to her.
"Feels weird being not able to feel my own body," answered the Prince. "... Then again, it's not like I need to."
Casper then walks in before shutting the door. "... Sorry, but wings aren't even salvageable. You're stuck walking like the rest of us."
"Noted," Astaroth replied before sitting down.
But just as Tiamat was tossing the ball towards the wall, one collision then bounces off-course before rolling towards next to Astaroth.
"Hey, can you throw that back at me?" requested the Prince of Conquest.
But just as the Prince of War's hand could reach for it, he stops as his eyes widened.
"... What's the matter?" asked Tiamat.
"Tia," Astaroth then tosses the ball back into her hand, "can you... can you roll the ball towards me?"
"For what?" asked Caspar.
Astaroth then looks back at his Adaptor benefactor with a serious look. "... I want to confirm something."
"Oh-okay," Tiamat then gently rolls the ball towards her Demon peer, the latter staring at the rolling ball heading towards him until it came to a slow stop.
A spark of knowledge then flashes by the Prince's consciousness before he then lets out a cry of realization. "THAT'S IT!"
"What's what?!" Caspar replied as he and Tiamat then saw Astaroth pick up the ball again before rolling it elsewhere, but following it as it rolled across the floor before it also came to a stop.
Astaroth then looks back at the two with an ecstatic grin. "... I figured out how the Lich King's magic works!"
"Oho, is that so?"
Coming through the doors was a grizzled old man with an eyepatch, his standing supported with an old cane made of wood and slabs of rusted metal acting as support. He also wore the same fur coat and cloak like the rest of the Adaptors in this hidden village, albeit covered in patches and with the chainmail visible through their tears.
"Elder Ottokar?!" exclaimed Caspar.
The old Adaptor smirks as he walks in. "... For all my years alive, the following words have echoed in my minds ever since I founded that dreaded bone-walker when I was but a boy," he explained. "... [Negative Magic]. The power to decrease everything that it sustains over."
"[Negative Magic]?!" everyone else exclaimed in surprise.
Ottokar nods as he looked at the ball. "... I thought that I was missing something. Of how that blasted Lich King's arcane arts worked," he stated with deep thought. "The power not to siphon as I initially thought and began to doubt recently. But the power to drag everything low. Air becomes colder. Movement slows to a crawl. And life sinks into death. Those are the fundamentals of the Lich King's [Negative Magic]."
The old man then turns to Caspar before shoving him.
"Hey! What gives?!" the younger Adaptor barked.
"I'd like to test something else myself as well," he requested. "... Let me push you again. But this time, try moving your body in the direction I'm pushing."
Caspar complies as he was shoved back, but felt as if he weren't as being pushed, almost as if he felt like if he wasn't being touched in the first place.
"Notice the difference?" asked Ottokar, to which Caspar nodded. "... My theory is that [Negative Magic] is contingent on how much we resist. Take that ball, for instance, and the force that slows it down being the Lich King's power."
The three of them widened their eyes in realization.
"... So when the King uses his magic, we simply move away to elicit the opposite effect?" Caspar pointed out.
"It's only a theory, I assure you," Ottokar warned. "Now comes the matter of testing it-"
"I'll do it," Astaroth volunteers. "I'm the least likely to get torn apart by his [Dragur] minions and force his hand. That and it's a good way to familiarize ourselves with our foe."
The old Adaptor smirks. "... Then I trust you, Prince of War."
"HOW ARE YOU FEELING, OLD MAN?!" asked Caspar.
"AS IF I WERE A CHILD ONCE MORE, BRAT!" cackled Ottokar as for the first time in his and his younger charges' lives, felt warm going outside. "THE SUN IS OVERRATED!"
The Lich King, upon seeing that his victims weren't freezing, shrieks in rage before plunging his bony hands into the snow, freezing them into hardened solids before surging a wave of ice blades towards the Adaptors.
Astaroth and Tiamat block the spell with their blades before the former shoots his [Anti-Magic] into the earth, disrupting the flow of the Lich King's [Negative Magic] before Tiamat plunges her [Athame] into the breach, memorizing the spell's signature.
"I GOT A LOCK ON HIM!" confirmed Tiamat. "ALL OF HIS MOVES ARE OPEN BOOK NOW!"
"Perfect," sneered Astaroth as he pointed his gunblade at the Lich King directly. "EAT THIS!"
A bolt of pure [Anti-Magic] was fired towards the Lich King's head, to which the soon-to-be-recipient counters by exerting his [Negative Magic] to slow the projectile's trajectory even faster until it was dropping off.
However, one Adaptor fired his rifle at the drooping bolt, hitting it from behind to give it an extra kick to realign its firing path by adding its own momentum into the projectile, resulting the bounce to spring the [Anti-Magic] shot to then connect with the skeletal monarch, chipping his crown.
"You... dare... strike... ME?!" barked the Lich King.
"We dare a lot of things, King of Delusion," the Adaptor who made the daring shot replied. "Our lives are nothing but defiance."
Four Months Prior...
"I have returned," a woman's voice spoke through the door as it opened, bringing in a slain [Drake] sporting a fresh hole through its skull.
"Ah! Agathe!" Caspar remarked before spotting her kill. "... Another daring shot, I presume?"
"I had to make it quick lest it was snatched up by someone else," the female Adaptor replied as she shut the door while dragging in her kill. "... Made my shots about eight-hundred paces away while the blizzard blew around me. I was lucky to spot a straggler within the fringes of the valley."
Astaroth, while still a head, raised an eyebrow at that feat. "... That far of a shot? Without aid?"
"Get good or get wasted," Agathe replied. "No one is an exception to that rule save for the deceased."
"She's our best shot in the whole village, I'd tell you," boasted Casper as he wiped his glasses with his cloak.
"How good?" asked Astaroth. "... Not doubting your skills. Just curious."
"I don't boast my skills," the female Adaptor remarked as she leaned her back against the cabin wall while Casper took out his scaling knife to process the [Drake]. "... All I ask is that when the time comes, trust in my skills."
Astaroth smirks in glee as his trust in her skills was rewarded with results that surpassed expectations.
In response, the Lich King summons even more [Dragur] from the snowy depths, now adding undead Wilderbeasts among the coming crowd.
"You know... I never thought that we would be ever not afraid of this monster that kept a grip over these accursed lands," Casper smirked before smashing the undead Thaumaturge's head with the butt of his rifle into pieces. "Now seeing it closer and clearer... it's clear... THAT WE HAVE LITTLE TO FEAR!"
"Summoning minions or just attempt to freeze us," Ottokar pointed out as he blasted an undead [Wyvern] who couldn't even fly with his own rifle. "Strong but inflexible. A result of him being drunk on eternal victory!"
"Stay calm and stick to the plan," Agathe spoke as she ducked a swipe and letting her fellow Adaptor take it out for her. "We are weak, but our foe is brittle as his bones."
The undead monarch then blasts another cold wave in an attempt to freeze up their weapons, with layers of flash-frost caking their rifles.
"NOW... DIE!" the Lich King, assuming that they're rendered helpless, orders his undead to charge at the seemingly toothless opposition.
However, the frost breaks apart from the weapon's feeding mechanism as its parts underneath moved smoothly as ever.
Contrary to being a complicated formation of levers and cogs, the rifle now fed its bullets through a bolt running on a toothed rims. The rimmed shaft plowed through the frost as it cycled the weapon's payload before firing it, breaking the horde of undead apart as if nothing had happened.
"Man I love this new model," giggled one Adaptor.
"Heck yeah!" another one giggled. "It doesn't freeze up every time we have to load in another shot!"
"Admire later," Agathe chided as she worked her bolt. "Kill now."
The rest of the Adaptors then followed suit as their shots followed Astaroths.
In the meantime, the Lich King tried to wrest control of his own magic from Tiamat, the latter's influence acting as an interference to his own [Negative Magic]. In desperation, he then picks up one of the [Dragurs] by its neck before throwing the animated cadaver towards the Hellhound Prince, knocking her down after being struck by the aerial tackle.
The undead tries to take a bite out of her upon mounting her, but Astaroth kicks the zombie off before stabbing it with his gunblade. "You alright?!"
"I'm fine!" she replied as she scrambled back up. "... Although I lost my grip on his magic. Sorry!"
"Save it for later!" Astaroth exclaimed as the Lich King began freezing the air from above before dropping giant chunks of dry ice onto them. "MOVE!"
Everyone scrambles to safety while those who caught on too late were crushed into sanguine slush underneath the hissing glaciers, all the while the Lich King cackles in a broken chortle at their misery, continuing the cascade of death of his own making.
"Dance... dance... dance... for... ME!" the undead monarch bemused himself right before spotting the Prince of War close in towards him, pointing his [Anti-Magic] gunblade right before the Lich King's head.
A shot fires point-blank, knocking the Lich King down onto his back as Astaroth was flung back by [Remembrance]'s recoil. The latter tries to quickly get back up, only for his path forward to be cut off by the still-present rain of dry ice falling around him.
"TIA!" the Prince of War called out as loud as he could. "WE NEED TO CUT THE SPELL OFF FROM ITS SOURCE!"
"HOW?!" she asked while evading the dry ice and carrying the two kids over her shoulders, her animal-like fur now frozen at their tips like icicles. "YOU CAN'T FLY, REMEMBER?!"
"Nah," Astaroth remarked as he then curls a smirk before running towards Tiamat herself. "I'M NOT THE ONE FLYING!"
"Wait, WHAT-?!"
In an instant, Astaroth then grabs Tiamat before throwing the latter (and the two kids) into the air after sneakily implanting his [Anti-Magic] into her [Athame] knife.
"USE THE KNIFE!" the Prince of War shouted towards the heavens, which the Prince of Conquest heard and obliged.
Sensing the mana print in the sky itself, Tiamat draws the [Anti-Magic]-imbued [Athame] before stabbing it in the air, striking the Lich King's magical signal and cutting it off, causing the rain of dry ice to cease.
As she and the two kids then fell back onto the earth, Astaroth catches the trio by sliding into their direction of where they were about to land. "You're welcome, by the way."
"... Jerk," grumbled Tiamat as she let the two Adaptor kids go.
Upon the rain of dry ice stopping, Caspar looks around to ascertain their side's headcount. "... Shit, that took out nearly half of us!"
"INCOMING!" Ottokar shouted as he and the others raised their bolt-action rifles at the Lich King as the latter resumed his engagement.
Three Months Prior...
"Dammit, another one jammed mid-fire!" Caspar cursed as he slammed his lever-action rifle on the work counter manned by Ottokar.
"It won't make it any better if you handle it like how the Zogratis treat our captured kin," deadpanned the elder as the two Adaptors stared at the pair.
"Should we be watching this?" asked Astaroth.
"There's nothing to do around here," replied Tiamat. "... I'll take watching this over being starved for entertainment."
Then a pair of yelps were heard as a pair of Adaptor children fell through the open doors, causing the cold air to come sweeping indoors. Both of them were a boy and a girl respectively, sharing roughly the same height, build, and mannerisms with each other.
"What the heck, Änn?!" the girl cried out as she squirmed under the boy. "I told you to not run while the ground in frozen over!"
"Excuse me! But there's a blizzard coming our way!" exclaimed the boy.
"Excuse me, did I hear 'blizzard'?" Caspar remarked before an approaching howl of a coming blizzard came towards their way. "SHUT THE DOOR, NOW!"
The Adaptors present all then rushed towards the door before slamming it shut right before the blizzard hit the village. Upon pressing their bodies against the wooden door, Caspar locks the door in place before the other Adaptors pushed furniture in its way to block the winter storm.
"... Okay," sighed the adult Adaptor before he turned towards the pair of children. "... Next time, tell us that there's going to be a blizzard first."
The two children nod in compliance before Caspar turns towards the Princes.
"Girl's name is Max, boy's name is Ännchen," he introduced the pair to Astaroth and Tiamat. "Please excuse their behaviors from this point."
The kids look at the Princes (one of them being just a head), puzzled by them.
"Hey, are you two Demons?" asked Max.
"Princes, specifically," replied Astaroth.
"We're a cut above the rest of them," boasted Tiamat.
"So why are you guys so weak?" Ännchen pointed out, stunning the two Princes into silence.
"... That actually hurt, not gonna lie," the Prince of War chuckled awkwardly.
Tiamat then turned towards Caspar. "... They're kinda mouthy, aren't they?"
"I think that comes into the territory of them being well... kids," the adult shrugged. "... In any event, guess you brats are staying here until the blizzard passes by."
"Aww," the two groaned.
As the kids were pacified into slumber while their elder Adaptor kept watch, Astaroth and Tiamat stare at the blockaded door while the howls of the blizzard surged just beyond the wooden panel.
"... Hey," Astaroth's voice then caught Caspar's attention. "What is that... metal-bar looking thing on the door?"
The Adaptor blinks. "... Never heard of a sliding bolt lock?" he points out. "I mean, the design is pretty popular among Avalon. Specifically made to keep working even after it's frozen over."
Tiamat then looks at the lever-action rifle on the work table before approaching it. "... And this jams because it gets too cold?"
"Before you ask, the lever was our design," Caspar pointed out. "It's meant to accommodate for one-handed firing in case of emergencies."
The two Princes exchange a look towards each other before coming to a silent consensus of sharing the same idea.
"... I have an idea regarding your gun jamming in the cold," declared Astaroth. "And yes, a few things are going to have to be changed."
Caspar raised an eyebrow. "... Go on."
Then three began brainstorming throughout the blizzard, and by the time the snowy storm ceded, they managed to concoct a rough draft for a new, snow and frost-proof rifle design.
"... I'm surprised that you guys didn't come up with this kind of idea sooner," Astaroth pointed out.
"Initially, a design for a two-handed rifle was in the works," Caspar replied. "... That kinda changed when some of our own had their arms frozen off from frostbite, so we had to work around that little accommodation."
"Now comes the hard part: actually getting around to make this thing," grumbled Tiamat. "Know anyone who might give this thing a shot?"
Caspar ponders for a moment before nodding. "... Come with me."
Tiamat then carries Astaroth's head under her shoulder as she follows the Adaptor outside and towards another cabin. Upon the latter opening the door, the two Princes heard the sounds of metal clanging from within, heralded by a warm glow akin to a fireplace.
"Shut the door before the metal cools too fast," a gruff woman's voice remarked over the sounds of metal being heard over her words.
"Right, my bad," Caspar then quickly shuts the door after Tiamat and Astaroth enter. "... So, this is Samiel. She doesn't talk much, but she's our resident maker of weapons."
The two then noticed that her right arm was replaced with an artifical appendage with a hammer on its rounded end, swinging it on a slab of heated iron.
"... If you have something to say to me," spoke the aloof Adaptor as she continued hammering on the metal without batting an eye, "then save it for after I finish making a spare barrel."
The three of them wait in silence while they watch Samiel work before them. The way the one-armed Adaptor worked was like watch an artist practice her craft, watching as the slab of metal being folded over on itself elegantly around a heated rod. Upon molding itself perfectly around the tube, the shaped metal was then slipped off from the shaft it was hugging around, placed into the vat of lukewarm water before steam shot out from where it was dunked into.
"There," she remarked as the Adaptor then placed the cooled spare rifle barrel into a crate sitting at the opposite end of the room. "Now what do you want?"
Caspar then hands their rough draft of their new rifle design.
"Two hands?" she asked.
"Frost ain't gonna clear by itself and we need to simplify the parts so they're less likely to jam," Astaroth pointed out. "Think you can do it?"
Samiel looks down at the proposed design before looking back at the three of them. "Give me a week."
The three then left the cabin as they let her do her work.
"By the way, I have to ask," Tiamat spoke out, "how can you guys tell the time in this dense of a blizzard or without the sun?"
"Like we do with everything," Caspar answers vaguely. "We don't assume, unless we accidentally do."
"This place is solely held together by spiderwebs at this point..." muttered Astaroth as he was carried back to the cabin where the kids were.
An indistinguishable amount had passed, to which Samiel came in with the finished prototype in her possession.
"Week has passed," Samiel remarked as she placed the prototype on the table. "Checked everything. Made it simple as possible, per your request."
Both Princes and Caspar observe the new rifle before the latter picks it up.
"Feels just about the same," the Adaptor remarked as he cradled the prototype in his hands. "Weighs the same too. As for the action..." he then works the bolt and sees a deep chamber beneath the mechanism. "... Okay, smoother than our usual lever-action. Samiel, how many bullets can we load into this thing?"
"I was going for max capacity of of five rounds, but I messed up on the new spring design beneath the feed," the gunsmith Adaptor explained. "The prototype can generously load three rounds."
"I'll get Cuno to go through with the tests," Caspar remarked as he then walked out of the door with the prototype with Samiel following behind.
As the two Princes waited indoors with the younger Adaptors and the eldest, there were then sounds of cracks of black powder combusting within each short interval.
"... Have to ask," Astaroth spoke. "How do you folks did not get caught?"
"This whole lands has been in a perpetual blizzard since time immemorial," Ottokar pointed out. "We're not so much as living here as much as we are trapped here."
"But it's really great when some idiots think they can make it through here without paying for it with their lives," giggled Max.
"They have good things with them sometimes," Ännchen pointed out. "... And more people pass through this place more than you think."
"Thaumaturges?" Astaroth asked, to which the children nod in confirmation. "... Good."
"Seen their corpses once," interjected Tiamat. "... They're way bigger than I thought. Makes me wonder if my [Summon Magic] kinda blinded me from having to face them head-on-"
Then suddenly, a louder pop was heard, followed up by a groan.
Tiamat then carries Astaroth's head outside, spotting Caspar lying in the snow, visibly in pain while the prototype laid on across of him, its barrel exploded outwards in a black bloom.
"... I'm okay!" Caspar reassured as he got back up. "Barrel just exploded. Happens all the time."
"Good news is that I figured out what's wrong with the concept," Samiel confirmed. "The firing pin's spring needs to be lessened so that it doesn't strike the round too hard and have it over-combust in front of our faces. Otherwise, the rifle is working as intended."
The two Princes sigh in relief. "... Thank, Hell."
"Thank Hell, indeed," remarked an older voice coming from a redheaded man with a visible slash scar over his defunct right eye. "... I take it you're the ones who came up with the new rifle design?"
"Yep," Tiamat nodded. "... And you are?"
"Call me Cuno," spoke the man. "I'm what you call a... 'problem solver' in this village of ours. Nice to meet you folks in person."
"Likewise," nodded Astaroth. "... Normally, I'd extend a hand to give you a shake, but being just a head has its own downsides."
"Speaking of, you know when his new body is gonna be finished?" asked Tiamat. "I'd rather not carry him around for the rest of my life, if you know what I mean."
"Patience," Cuno replied. "We just need to find new legs and arms, and the only we have lying around are either too rotten to repurpose or belong to children-"
Then from the outer fringes of the village, a loud yelp was heard.
Running towards where the sound had come from, the three find themselves standing before an Adaptor with messy green hair akin to a common shrub faceplanted on the snow, his hand firmly grasped around a rope connected to a freshly-killed Thaumaturge roughly the size of Astaroth's previous body that the former was dragging back from.
"... So who's the spaz?" asked Tiamat as the Adaptor quickly sprung back to life and onto his feet.
"I am no 'spaz"! Thank you very much!" the Adaptor huffed defensively. "I have a name, you know!"
Cuno sighs. "... This is Kilian," he introduced reluctantly. "... Our resident village idiot whose luck and madness are of equal measure."
"I can see that," Astaroth pointed out as he looked at the body the klutzy Adaptor had procured/killed. "... Hey, can we just use that body instead?"
"Uh... you mean for tonight's dinner?" Kilian asked.
"No, and for several reasons," Cuno remarked. "... Not the way it is though."
"What do you mean?" asked Tiamat before Cuno gestured Kilian to follow him elsewhere. "... Hey! Wait up!"
The Princes then follow the two Adaptors into a building that looked familiar to Astaroth, bringing back faint memories of living there once. Upon entering, they find themselves upon rows of piled-up corpses all laid before an idol resembling an angel with a moth's wings and its empty eye sockets endlessly crying tears of black, tar-like substance that spilled down into an iron vat resembling a goblet, overflowing with said substance as it spilled into the cracks of the floorboards.
"... You feel what I'm feeling?" Tiamat asked Astaroth.
"I'm only a head and even I know what's that thing," growled the Prince of War. "The heck's a Demon doing here?!"
Cuno turns around to face the Princes. "Ah, you've noticed," he remarked. "Good. That's saves me giving you the full explanation."
"So this is your guys' patron Demon?" asked Astaroth.
"Yep yep yep!" Kilian replied. "Although... more specifically, it's a half-dead Demon my ancestors found way back and has placed it into a state between life and death, keeping it trapped here on this world in hopes of giving our non-magical ancestors a semblance of power in a world where people can and will hurl fireballs and other elemental menaces at them simply because they can!"
Cuno smacks his junior aside the head. "... That said, this is how we were able to... salvage you in the first place," he pointed out. "... Any objections?"
"No objections," both Princes answered.
"Good," Kilian then hooked his recent kill before pulling it up. "Now all that's left to do is to get the EVE out of their system."
The Adaptor then lets the corpse bleed onto the floor, its red ichor spilled onto the black puddle, causing it to react violently, bubbling and hissing like boiling acid as it began glowing in a golden light before it was slowly smothered out by the ceaseless black tide.
"For the record, last time someone ate a Thaumaturge unprepared, they died horribly and painfully," Cuno pointed out. "... EVE is kinda like what poison is to... everything else."
"I get it, I get it. No need to rub it in," sighed Astaroth. "... That said though, can I request that you put that guy's limbs onto my new body?"
"That can be arranged!" Kilian replied.
The Adaptors and the Princes, for the first time in their lives, were now pushing back against the Lich King's ceaseless assault of his army of undead [Dragurs], an act that wasn't even feasible until now.
Even as if they've lost a significant amount of manpower, the fact that they had a chance of winning was nothing short of a miracle.
Yes. The word "miracle" now finally existed in their collective unconsciousness. After being trapped in the Valley of White Death since time immemorial, they can now finally dream of something beyond mere survival.
"WE HAVE NOW NOTHING TO FEAR!" Cuno roared as he raised his bolt-action rifle. "THE LICH KING'S SKULL SHALL ADORN OUR PIKE!"
The Adaptors all roar in united resolve as they storm through the thinning Dragurs while Astaroth and Tiamat made a beeline towards the monarch himself.
"WE'RE GETTING CLOSE!" Astaroth cried out as he rammed through the endless horde of [Dragurs] that simply broke against his shoulder-tackle. "HE CAN'T PUSH US BACK FOREVER!"
"COMPARED TO THE HELLHOUNDS I CONTROLLED, THIS IS NOTHING!" Tiamat grinned as she then drove her [Athame] into one of the undead's heads before instilling her own influence into their connected hive mind. "I GOT IN! THEY'RE ALL UNDER MY CONTROL NOW!"
Slowly, the tide of [Dragurs] began to shift back towards where they've risen from, infecting the undead with the Prince of Conquest's own influence, subverting the Lich King's own army into the Demon's own.
Tiamat then opens up her grimoire of the Inverted Spade once more, now seeing names of the undead being filled out on her once-emptied pages. "HELL YEAH!"
"CHARGE!" barked Astaroth as he and the rest of the Adaptors all rushed towards the now-alone Lich King with his own army of the undead acting as the wind on their backs.
However, even as the undead monarch had no facial muscles to express himself with, there wasn't even the slightest evidence that he was even slightly dismayed by this sudden turn of fortunes.
If anything, the skeletal king was amused that he was pushed this far.
"... Fools."
Then all of Astaroth and Tiamat's instincts screamed as they both sensed impending danger.
"EVERYONE GET DOWN-!"
In an instant, the army consisting of the [Dragur] that had turned against their master, the Adaptors, and the Princes, were all the flung into the air as if the ground below them had blew them up towards the sky as if one would blow off dust.
... What happened?! thought the Prince of War. I know that an attack is coming, but what kind of attack is it?!
Fromt the upper rims of his eye, Astaroth spots the Lich King draw a sword from the snow. The weapon itself looked painfully simple, consisting nothing but a straight blade akin to a contemporary longsword and a handle without the guard.
However, it's plainness was immediately betrayed the fact that said weapon was a full-blow Relic.
"... Reduce... everything... to... NOTHING!"
Grabbing the handle with its two bony hands, the Lich King then swings the blade horizontally.
"[NOTHUNG]!"
Upon the air itself being rent, everyone toss into the air now found themselves quickly being drawn in towards the Lich King's proximity. Several [Dragurs] were the first to reach their former monarch's presence, but right as they were about to either strike or grovel, it mattered not.
They were the first to be compacted into subatomic particulates of their former selves, their frozen flesh and bone crunching into themselves, one after another, in grotesque, visceral sequence.
"... You forced my hand," the Lich King chillingly hissed as he coldly executes his traitorous subjects before the Adaptors and their Prince cohorts. "... You could've just joined me... fearless... deathless... but you instead bite the hand... that attempted to feed you all... so disappear... INTO NOTHINGNESS! [NEGATIVE MAGIC: MINUS PILE - DESTRUCTION]!"
Everyone thrown into the air began being drawn in towards the forming vacuum as if they were all sliding into the pit's epicenter. Everything that touched the singularity were instantly reduced to the finest of dust coming out, vanishing into the wintery winds.
"SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!" cursed Astaroth as he tried to interfere the spell with his [Anti-Magic] from his gunblade, only for his efforts to be reduced to nothing as he saw wisps of his own counterspells be sucked into the void. "WE'RE ALL GONNA BE ASHES AT THIS RATE!"
"OUR SHOTS AREN'T LANDING!" Cuno cried out as he and everyone else shot their rifles towards the Lich King's direction, only for the bullets to instead swerve into the void's mouth. "IT'S GETTING CLOSE-!"
Several screams were heard as several Adaptors reached the bottom of the pit, their cries quickly fading like slaughtered animals while they were disintegrated from the feet up.
"NO!" Ottokar cried out.
The two children screamed in fear. The rest of the adults weren't ready to accept their fate. While Ottakar, the elder, was on the cusp of resigning to his and everyone else's inglorious demise.
"ASTAROTH!" Tiamat cried out as she then pulled out her tome with and inverted Spade and her [Athame] dagger before shoving them into the Prince of War's chest. "USE THEM! HURRY!"
Having no other options left, Astaroth then imbues the two Relics of Prince of Conquest's possession with a ton of [Anti-Magic], turning their ambient aura from greyish-monochrome black and white into reddish-black.
If he recalls correctly, Astaroth remembers that Tiamat's [Summon Magic] works as "registering" names into the grimoire's pages, and with [Athame]'s innate ability to trace and track others' magical signatures, this combination can potentially insert his own [Anti-Magic] itself into the Lich King's [Negative Magic] attribute and potentially render it inert.
"GO TO HELL AND EAT SHIT!"
Against all logic, Astaroth then dives headfirst towards the void's epicenter with Tiamat's gifts in hand, quickly passing the others that were falling into it. As he got close into the spell's center, he then plunges the knife through the tome upon coming in contact with the pit's mouth, causing a concentrated surge of [Anti-Magic] to breach into [Minus Pile - Destruction]'s very fundamentals.
The pit devoured itself before it could engorge upon the rest falling in, freeing everyone from certain death and all of them to fall onto the semi-frozen snow below with an explosion of colliding mana and [Anti-Magic] propelling everyone away from the spell's epicenter.
"Ow..." groaned Ännchen. "... Is everyone okay?"
"The heck just happened?!" Max asked before she looked next to herself spotting the unconscious Tiamat laid next to the girl. "I found her!"
Astaroth then helped his fellow Prince up before slumping him onto the young Adaptor. "Take care of her for me."
Caspar looks around, seeing that every other Adaptor save for himself, Cuno, Ottakar, Ännchen, Max, Samiel, Agathe, and Kilian were all nowhere to be found. "... You've got to be shitting me."
"Our inflicted casualties are higher than prior estimates," Samiel analyzed before looking around for other survivors.
"Now what?" Agathe remarked as she pulled her rifle out of the snow.
"Don't bother asking," Cuno remarked before he then lifted his rifle up and pointed the barrel towards the Lich King. "I'M ENDING THIS NOW!"
A shot then cracks through the air, but before the bullet can reach its target, the undead monarch deflect the shot with a simple flick of his sword.
The rebound shot then was about to hit Cuno, but Astaroth shoots the rebound bullet out of the air, saving him.
"... What are you all doing?!" Astaroth snarled. "Get out of here! NOW!"
Reluctantly, the Adaptors pull out of the battlefield.
"You sure you can handle him?" asked Caspar. "I mean, the last time we found you in the snow, you were in pieces!"
The Prince of War smirks as he brandished his [Remembrance] gunblade at the undead monarch.
"... I've waited five months for this," he growled. "This time... it won't end with me the one in pieces!"
As the Adaptors retreated with Tiamat in tow, Caspar looks back with concern as he saw Astaroth approach the Lich King, the latter struggling to maintain his form with his [Negative Magic] being sabotaged by the Prince's escape ploy.
"... I don't need magic to kill you," the undead monarch declared as he pointed his [Nothung] at the Prince.
"Good," Astaroth smirked.
The Lich King and the Prince of War swing into each other's blades amidst the intensifying blizzard, sparks flying from the grinding blades through the surging sleet.
A bellowing howl piercing through the raging storm of snow shrieked from the Lich King's gaping maw as he thrusts his blade towards Astaroth, but the latter dodges as he also tries to shoot his [Anti-Magic] bolt after angling his blade to point towards the skull, only for the monarch to angle his own head away from the shot's trajectory.
After dodging the point-blank shot, the Lich King then kicks Astaroth away from himself before planting [Nothung] into the snow and whipping it back out, releasing a tidal wave of white upon the receding Demon Prince of War, but the latter bounces back as he ran his [Anti-Magic] through the weapon's edge to cut through the curtain of snow, opening a gap to reveal the Lich King charging forth with his blade in hand from behind.
Upon the wave of white collapsing, the two combatants reengage in their melee.
"Must really suck of not being able to freeze me solid with a thought, huh?" taunted the Prince.
"Keep mocking me..." the undead monarch hissed, his maw exhaling a stream of mist with each syllable, "... YOU WILL ALL DIE THE VERY SAME!"
Rather than make any attempts to break off the weapon lock from either side, the two side began pushing their blades against each other, attempting to pin the other down through a contest of sheer physical force.
Astaroth was on the verge of overclocking his own [Anti-Magic], running the power through his new body as he felt all of his nerves and blood vessels heat up from the generated friction coming from the pumping Demonic magic, whereas the Lich King, even though he was nothing but bones and one [Negative Magic] short, was still formidable enough to actually present the risk of defeat to the Prince and by extension should he fail, everyone else who have retreated.
What drove this King without a kingdom or a single subject to his name to continue resisting?
What drove this Prince without an army or a single soldier to his name to continue fighting?
What drove the two toward unfathomable depths of insanity in this land of ice and death?
One Month Prior...
He'd trained his eyes for weeks to see properly through the snow.
He can still remember the feeling of his body hardening like a rock and shattered like dropped pottery ever since that day where he was miraculously reconstructed as a head.
Through the perpetual blizzard, the Prince's eyes spotted silhouettes shambling about under their monarch's unspoken edict.
He kept a fair distance between himself and the [Dragurs] that prowled the land. No less than five-hundred paces between the Prince and the undead.
For now.
Thanks to his new body, his [Anti-Magic] wasn't fully manifesting properly since the former still hasn't gotten used to utilizing his innate gifts. But that provided an advantage, in that neither mana or "mana-blinking" (the latter being a method to blank out the whole area with dense mana particles to spot "silhouettes" within the density, used by Thaumaturges to detect manaless Adaptors in hiding) could ever detect him.
This provided a golden opportunity to act as their scout to scope out the [Dragurs], the Lich King, and their overall capabilities.
Let's see what they can do... thought the Prince as he began observing the enemy from afar.
Through the howling snowstorm, Astaroth sees several [Dragurs] engaging against a contingency of Thaumaturges while the Lich King himself watched the conflict from afar, letting his subjects do all the grunt work.
The armored Demon-slayers were easily dispatching the undead with their weapons imbued with holy magic, but the issue at hand was that the human combatants were being worn down as they were slowly surrounded from all sides.
This confirms that the [Dragurs] are individually frail, but amend that little issue through superior numbers, noted Astaroth as he continued his observation with utmost focus.... Speaking of said numbers.
The Prince then sees one of them get bitten on an exposed part of his armor, the undead's teeth sinking into the cloth between the plates.
Upon being bitten, the Thaumaturge twitches before dropping his weapon, before he mindlessly lunged onto his former compatriot. During the struggle, the infected one had his helmet knocked off, revealing a human's head now foaming and shrieking with blue veins creeping up to his cheeks as his eyes were rolling back.
Now the Prince wondered what would happen if a non-magical person like the Adaptors got bit by them.
As for the Lich King... he then turned the attention towards the monarch, seeing him just standing there aloofly. ... I have to assume that he's only appearing as if he's doing absolutely nothing... but the nature of his [Negative Magic] should be taken into account.
Astaroth then turned his attention towards the remaining Thaumaturges who successfully broke off from the horde of undead, now seeing them fight with less vigor than before.
It can be inferred that they're naturally losing morale... but I doubt that this is natural, Astaroth shook his head at this observation. ... Thaumaturges are humans cut from another cloth entirely. Raised to destroy all forms of evil, even at the cost of their own lives. I would know-FOCUS!
He narrowly escapes from his own trauma spiral before snapping back to reality.
... I have to hypothesize that the Lich King's job is to act as the [Dragur]'s collective beacon. They swarm the opposition, while the mere influence of their monarch drains the will of their enemies to fight on, thought Astaroth as he witness the Thaumaturges slowly lose vigor until reaching the point where the last one standing fell to his knees and let himself be devoured. Question is, how is it affecting them? I mean, surely, even my own [Anti-Magic] wasn't enough to stop me from being completely frozen... gonna have to get back and share my findings with the others.
The Prince then slips away from his hiding spot before making his way back to the village in record time. And immediately upon his return, the following question was addressed.
"Did any of you guys get bitten by those [Dragurs] beforehand?"
The adult Adaptors present all roll up their sleeves to reveal numerous bite marks arranged like human teeth layouts.
"And before you ask, no, none of us turned," Caspar pointed out as he rolled his sleeve back up to his wrist. "... Only a few of us got sick and died, but otherwise, no. None of our corpses are walking on their own suddenly."
"I see..." Astaroth pondered before turning towards Tiamat. "... Tia, did you ever get bitten by a [Dragur]?"
"I... um... maybe?" she replied hesitantly as she then brushed back her fur to reveal her own bite mark. "Just felt ticklish, but I don't think I noticed it when it happened."
"Okay, this is getting weird..." sighed Astaroth before he took a seat next to Samiel. "... So, I assume that turning into a [Dragur] is contingent on whether the one has mana or not."
"Probably?" shrugged Kilian as he looked at his own scar. "... I mean, none of us are actually looking forward to getting... you know, bitten?"
Astaroth would've replied otherwise, but due to the nature of his prior scouting mission, he accepts the fact that he has no ground to reprimand him on and moves on.
"Anyway, that brings up another question," Astaroth spoke up. "... Aside from my... prior state of ending up as the Lich King's bitch, does anyone here know how he fights? If at all?"
The Adaptors looked at each other, befuddled as no one had an answer to give, and all of them were hoping that someone else in the room did.
"... Ugh, fuck my life," Astaroth then facepalms before wiping his hand down across his face. "So no one actually knows if the Lich King ever fights?!"
"To be fair, if one has the power to summon an entire army without end, the last thing on their minds is fighting themselves," Tiamat pointed out. "... I mean, how do you think that I went from an overnight superpower to now a deposed monarch in an empty dominion without a single Hellhound subject to my name?"
With that thought in mind, it was easy enough to adopt that mentality that the Lich King would be nothing without his undead subjects. However, even Astaroth realized that was too simple of a ploy to deploy.
Rather than adopt this line of thought as his sole strategy, he instead choose it as a mere means to an end, with the "end" being to bring down the Lich King once and for all.
"... Remind me something, Tia," Astaroth spoke up before turning his head towards her. "What does your [Summon Magic] do again?"
Even as the Prince of War collaborated with his Prince of Conquest for their upcoming plans of action, he always kept in the back of his mind that whether their plan would work or not, he will have to fight the Lich King head-on.
Like a hidden blade, concealed out of sight until its time came.
"NO MAN...! WILL LIVE...! TO DEFY ME...!" roared the Lich King as he swung [Nothung] down against Astaroth's [Remembrance]'s edge. "... ANY LONGER!"
Astaroth now found himself in the backpedal as he was the one being pushed down by the undead monarch's blade.
Shit! I knew that his whole "rely on my minions to fight for me"-angle was too good to be true! the Prince cursed himself as he continued to resist. Either that blade of his runs on a different kind of magic... or he's just this good while he was alive and none of his skills eroded over time!
Regardless of what was happening, the fact that the Lich King was still a substantial threat even without most of his magic active.
"DIEEEEEEE!" shrieked the Lich King as the blizzard intensified around them.
Then suddenly, a gunshot rings through the howling winds.
At the same time, the undead monarch had parried the bullet by simply angling his [Nothung] towards a certain direction, blocking the bullet by catching it midair with the sword's edge wedging the shell across its twain.
It was within that one second that Astaroth manages to point his gunblade at the Lich King's head, blowing it off with a point-blank [Anti-Magic] shot.
He tried to put the pieces of his shattered skull back together with his [Negative Magic] lowering the trauma, but the inflicted [Anti-Magic] interferes with the process long enough for the immortal Lich King to finally expire.
His back laid on the snow, looking up towards the falling bones, Astaroth came out the victor. "... I'm no man," he boasted. "So I can defy."
Getting up after the euphoria of victory passes, he then takes [Nothung] and the undead's crown for himself before returning back to the village. As he walked back, the Prince began to notice that the blizzard was ceding.
Looking back, he faintly spots a familiar-looking man akin to a king standing behind him, looking at the Prince with nothing to show but pity and sorrow towards him.
"... He looks familiar," the Prince remarked before ignoring the fading phantom, the latter disappearing like the earthbound spirit he was.
As he walked back, he spotted Agathe and Tiamat together, the former holding the rifle on the latter's shoulder acting as the weapon's crutch.
"Not gonna lie, you kinda saved me back there," Astaroth remarked. "... But still, how did you make that shot from that far of aa distance?"
"Don't underestimate me," Agathe boasted. "... Admittedly, I also had some help."
Tiamat waves her hand in acknowledgement before sniffing the air. "Hey! Look!" she pointed up towards the sky. "I think the blizzard's stopping!"
The cloud-choked skies above were revealed in full as the snowy winds began to die down. Following soon after, the clouds began to part, rays of sunlight peeking through the parting gaps.
"... That's the sun?" the Adaptor asked as years began to seep from her eyes before noticing them trickling down to her cheeks. "... What's happening to me?"
Astaroth smiles. "... Let it out."
Agathe began to weep as her eyes, for the very first time, witnessed natural light.
Tiamat began to bask in the sun's rays as well, letting the light's warmth soak her fur and skin. "Ah... why does this feel better than the hearth?"
Astaroth elects to remain silent and let the two enjoy themselves. But as he let the two soak up the rays, a certain thought began to gnaw at the back of his head.
"Uh, guys? A question," the Prince spoke. "... The village we stay at... it's out in the open, right?"
Agathe turns her head before nodding. "I mean... what else did you expect?" she replied. "It's not like we had any reason to... build our... settlement... out of sight."
The Adapt then looks around her surroundings before spotting her village clearly from where she and the Princes were at, exposed to the rest of the world, wide open.
... Vulnerable.
"... Fuck," she cursed.
"INFORM THE OTHERS! WE NEED TO FUCKING BAIL!" Astaroth barked as Tiamat then grabbed the Adaptor before pitching her up onto her back and speeding off towards the now-exposed village with the Prince of War near their heels.
Upon reaching the village, the three wasted no time informing the remaining survivors.
"You've got to be shitting me!" Caspar bemoaned. "We won against the Lich King and this is our prize?!"
"To think our jailor was the sole reason why we were able to evade the Order of the Spade Cross' prying eyes..." Ottakar seethingly sighed before looking at their members gathered at the cabin. "... And we're too few in number to mount a prolonged resistance!"
"ENOUGH OF THAT!" Astaroth cried out. "ANYONE KNOW A WAY OUT?!"
"I... I THINK I GOT IT!" Kilian raised his hand. "We still have the place where we process our black powders, right?!"
"You mean that hole in the ditch we use?!" Samiel replied. "What are you suggesting?!"
"Maybe... just maybe! We can blast a hole through its end and expose a cave network!" the jittery Adaptor pointed out. "I went in there last time, and I felt a small draft coming from within! Maybe there might be something else deeper in there!"
The Adaptors look at each other before coming to a consensus that they have no other viable options left.
"... Lead the way," ordered Cuno.
Kilian then takes everyone towards the area where the village stores all of their black powder. Upon entering the cave, he then walks ahead of the group and begins inspecting the wall at the end of the tunnel.
"Quick question, but where are the black powder?" asked the Prince of War.
"Down here," Caspar answered as he kneeled down before brushing aside the dirt to reveal a wooden barrel cap buried underneath. "No air to get in nor the cold to make them useless."
"I FOUND THE GAP!" Kilian cried out as he pointed towards a small crack in the stone walls.
"STAND BACK!" Astaroth then winds back a fist before smashing it into the wall, breaching an opening leading elsewhere underground. "... Well, what do you know."
"We have a way out!" Tiamat exclaimed. "Come on! Let's go!"
The remaining Adaptors then all make their way down underground after getting their things, including Sargatanas, the said effigy of a half-dead Devil was being dragged behind by Kilian.
"Is this everyone and everything?!" asked Astaroth, to which everyone nods. "Good."
Taking out his [Remembrance], he then shoots the exposed barrel near the entrance of the tunnel, igniting the payload and triggering an explosion before them. The blast then causes the cave's maw to collapse into itself and sealed shut from the outside world.
"We should be safe," sighed Astaroth. "... Best not leave that to chance by lingering. Come on!"
The two Princes and their Adaptor compatriots then make their way deeper underground and away from the sun that they've seen for the first time in their lives.
"... It's not fair," Ännchen wepted as Max comforted him.
"It never was," Caspar shook his head as he then lights a torch. "... That hatred? Hold onto it. Let it grow into your inner strength."
To Be Continued...
Author's Notes: Okay, have to be real, this chapter was experimental. This is my attempt at writing "Rashomon"-style chapter, but there's no "who is right?"-angle that all the stories from said writing genre had, so consider my foray into said genre a once-and-done deal.
That said, the following will be said for transparency's sake.
I'm thinking of ending this fic within this volume. For a few reasons.
One, Black Clover is wrapping up and by the time the fic ends, the manga will have ended as well.
Two, I want to work on other projects that I have more investment into. After finishing The Dustbin, I realized that said fic was my wheelhouse.
And three, Black Clover is coming to an end. I might as well not linger for too long.
Overall, it would be easy and more favorable to just axe the fic right here and now, but I'm not that kind of person. I made this mess of a fic since I was in high school, so the responsibility fall onto me to finish properly. And I'm going to try and implement brevity into my fics to avoid another "Forest Arc"-scenerio and to not mentally kill myself to wrap up the plot.
With that said, I've been playing and finished Unicorn Overlord after I finished writing my Dustbin fic, so getting back to writing after a month off is rather perplexing and taxing. Oh, and my alumni status just got revoked at the end of May of this year/2024, so there's that for me to chew on.
Wish me luck. I got into this mess myself since High School. I'm ending this even if it ruins me.
References:
- This chapter's name is named after the same song from Andrew W.K.
- Samiel's overall design is partially-inspired by Tetsuo Daishinji from Kamen Rider Saber.
- Sargatanas is named after a moth-like Demon from The Grand Grimoire who's subservient to Astaroth, whose abilities consist of invisibility, teleportation, universal lockpicking, and necromancy. The way its depicted as a half-dead Demon idol for the Freischütz is similar to Mundus' statue form from the original Devil May Cry and The Visitor Night Creature from Castlevania (2017) Season 3.
- The Bolt-Action Rifles that replaced the Freischütz's previous Lever-Action Rifles (based off the Martini-Henry), is loosely based off the Murata Rifle with some Mosin-Nagant and Accuracy International Arctic Warfare influencing the designs of the charging handle and bolt.
- The Lich King's signature Relic, [Nothung], is named after an alternative name for Sigmund and Siegfried's sword, Gram/Balmung, meaning "child of need" in German, and its usage by the Lich King and his [Negative Magic] is a pun of the world [Nothung] sounding similar to "nothing," which what [Negative Magic] does to its targets, ala reduce them to nothing. This also serves as a connotation that the Lich King is the Granberryall founder/Yuno's distant ancestor, since Yuno himself is wielding [Gram].
- The Lich King's [Negative Magic: Minus Pile - Destruction], is based off the incinerator scene from Toy Story 3.
- The repeated weapon clashes between the Lich King and Astaroth is based off Link and Ganondorf's fight in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Kingdom.
- Astaroth's Post-Mortem One-Liner is loosely inspired by "I am no man."-line from The Lord of the Rings.