It was the second day of travel through the forgotten Blackwood Forest. Trees stretched in every direction, with mountains and deep valleys overrun by green.
BLACKWOOD FOREST
That's when Leofwynn questioned the human who had accepted a ride on the serpentarium:
— Are you sure it's this way? Where exactly are you going?
Æthelflæd drank from the pungent liquid in her glass vial.
Her face was flushed, and she never lost her smile easily:
— Absolutely! We won't be long now. And, once again, I must cordially, and with some fear that in another life I might not have met you in a similar situation, admit, without you, I wouldn't know how to cross all this vastness.
She finished her speech with a small hiccup.
There were three lolis.
The vulcan, Leofwynn, with her sheathed sword, had fiery red-orange hair and muscles on her youthful body.
The human was Æthelflæd, distracted by the landscape below, or perhaps, just woozy.
And the unicorn girl was Cwenburg, a water mage.
Unicorn girls were born with split souls.
Half in their own bodies, which differed little from a common human's, except for the horn in the center of their foreheads and their light-blue hair. The other half in a serpentarium, a creature that carried them among the clouds.
Cwenburg's serpentarium was six meters long, like a huge white-scaled snake with two long, snowy white wings.
It was broad, and the three small girls could sit, half-kneeling, side by side.
— This makes no sense, human. There's only the Demon King's Castle around here. Not even the bravest lineages risk living in the Land of Eternal Night. — Vulcans had magma and lava in their veins, and as Leofwynn's blood heated up, lava and magma changed state, glowing beneath her skin. — Who would be crazy enough to have the very abomination as a neighbor? Spit it out, where are we going?
The two, the vulcan and the unicorn, were exploring the Saltwater Falls when they found the human and offered her a ride. She, without details, said her destination was only a few days away.
Æthelflæd seemed weak.
With black hair down to her shoulders, suspicious herb leaves tangled in her locks.
A thin body.
Unarmed and without armor.
Emanating no aura, revealing a total lack of contact with magic.
In fact, Æthelflæd in no way resembled an adventurer, which worried the two friends.
— It's there.
— There where, human? — Leofwynn lost her patience easily, but, facing the silhouette of the Black Castle emerging in the distance, her anger was stoked.
The walls were shrouded in the Demon King's magic, which turned all hours of the day into perpetual night. This for ten miles around its very existence.
— I have a great plan. Actually, I don't know why nobody ever thought of something so obvious. — Æthelflæd's voice dripped with arrogance as she drank more of the alchemy she carried. — I'm going to kill the Demon King.
Cwenburg, sleepy, yawned with her little tongue sticking out before dozing off, lying down hugging the serpentarium.
Normally, female unicorns remained lethargic.
Male unicorns were totally different, having an equine appearance, also with a horn on their forehead, and unparalleled perception.
— Wait… — Her face frozen, the vulcan pondered, a rare thing for her lineage, for almost two seconds, then screamed. — How is a useless human going to fight the Demon King!
DEMON KING'S CASTLE
— Blith! — For years, that name hadn't echoed through the castle.
The voice of the Demon King, on his throne of bones, could be heard in every corner of the six floors of the dark structure.
Awakening in his own room, in the basement that was nothing but dust, with nothing but remnants of the good years, two eyes lit up in the darkness.
Leaving the throne, the Demon King walked angrily, sensing the presence approaching through the skies.
So many, many years.
He expected an army, perhaps the union of all twenty lineages, with millions of soldiers, and all kinds of physical and magical warrior classes, beasts, tamed monsters. Yet, there were only four, with no perceptible aura of any kind.
— A concentrated attack. Perhaps the greatest warriors of this era? The last war was eight thousand and eighty-seven years ago… — The Demon King talked to himself as he walked down the corridor. There were no more doors. And soon he saw what was once his glorious garden, now abandoned with more weeds than flowers. — My blood, my soul, my very existence craves battle. Blith! — He roared, the trees and walls trembling.
Birds took flight, and animals scurried among the roots, branches, and leaves.
From the sky descended the serpentarium, leaving only the human behind as the other two departed.
— So you are the hero. You come alone, your servants have left. Should I comprehend your existence as Bellicose? An abyssal force that could obliterate this dimension. — The Demon King swelled with joy trying to predict Æthelflæd's movements, who stood paralyzed before the four-meter-tall creature, all muscle under red skin, with two long black horns above its terrifying skull.
He was the Demon King of the nearly extinct lineage of the Legendaries.
— We have to go back there, Leofwynn. — Cwenburg awoke, ordering.
The unicorn rarely focused on anything, but she sensed the seriousness of the situation.
She could control the serpentarium just by willing it.
The snake's wings beat, with the two mounted girls aiming for the paralyzed Æthelflæd.
— Cwenburg, it's literally the Demon King! What are we going to do there? Turn around! Don't listen to her, serpentarium! — But Leofwynn was ignored, watching terrified as they approached the vast atrium. — Look at this place! It's completely cursed! Let's go, Cwenburg, the human is doomed!
— It's not that bad, the gardens just haven't been tended to for a while. — The Demon King, with his extreme hearing, tried to justify himself. Then he turned his attention back to Æthelflæd. — So, human?
At that moment, with all the speed she had, which was little, drastically little, Æthelflæd threw a glass vial at the Demon King's head.
The two flying on the serpentarium watched the absurd situation in astonishment, remembering Æthelflæd's explanation moments before:
— I'm still level one. That means if I kill the Demon King, I can level up to 999! All at once! Isn't that a great plan? — Æthelflæd's happiness only left Leofwynn even more perplexed. Cwenburg waved her little hand in the air, as if to say, I don't mind.
Even so, the vulcan insisted, perhaps she had misjudged that human, and, indeed, she hadn't known many other humans in her life, which led to the main question:
— And how will you do that?
— Do what?
— Kill the Demon King! — Angry at the human's smile, Leofwynn heard:
— I'm an alchemist, I'm going to poison him!
Neither the vulcan nor the unicorn could have predicted what happened.
The Demon King, standing still, was hit by the venomous vial!
And his face was covered in the greenish toxic liquid.
That smile, that damned smile on the human's face, didn't falter even as she heard:
— Actually… — The Demon King licked and savored the poison running down his face, his voice guttural. — My species is immune to poisons. — As Legendaries were incredibly rare, such a condition could not have been foreseen by the trio.
The lolis saw no salvation!