She imdiately knelt.
"I was unaware of your greatness, Your Excellency," she said, and continued, "I, Albedo, apologize for my rudeness." She spoke.
The silence that followed wasn't empty, it was rely heavy.
Strax's aura still crushed the space like a divine pressure, distorting the air around him into visible waves. The demonic energy didn't just roar, but possessed an invisible authority that couldn't simply be explained—it simply subdued. It was the difference between a wildfire and the gravity of a planet.
Strax frowned slowly, not in confusion… but in distrust.
His draconic eyes descended to the figure kneeling before him.
She called herself Albedo. A demon, that was clear. After all, her horns, wings, and imnse demonic aura made it quite clear what she was.
He watched her like a god; she remained bowed, wings folded close to her body, horns bent downwards in absolute submission.
Her forehead almost touched the cracked stone floor. Every muscle trembled, not from fear but from a demonic instinct screaming at her to simply bow and obey.
She clearly felt the hierarchy weighing on her body, hence the sudden change in behavior.
"…" Strax remained silent for a second longer than necessary.
Then his voice ca out deep, laden with a restrained growl. "What the hell is this?"
Albedo didn't raise his head. Nor did he try.
"Reverence," she replied softly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "The minimum acceptable before an absolute superior."
Frieren narrowed her eyes. She was quite confused by the change, but she rembered so things she had read about demons. What she was doing wasn't acting, it wasn't a trick.
Albedo's mana was… aligned. Truly subdued. Every layer of her essence was pressed down by sothing far above her in the demonic chain.
Strax stepped forward, the ground cracking beneath his feet.
"I didn't ask for any reverence," he said coldly. "And you still haven't explained why you tried to cross her barriers and hurt my Frieren."
Albedo hesitated, her body trembling slightly, almost imperceptible, but Strax saw it.
She slowly raised her face.
Her golden eyes t his and imdiately looked away, as if direct eye contact was too dangerous.
"Because I wanted to," she replied, simply and unapologetically.
Frieren felt her mana waver.
"That's no answer," the elf said, her voice sharp.
Albedo turned her face toward her. And for a brief instant… sothing ugly passed behind the flawless gold.
"I don't like," she said, with a smile too thin to be kind, "won who are too beautiful near ."
Frieren blinked once. "…what?"
Strax closed his eyes for a second as his aura began to gradually grow with so much… idiocy.
"You tried to kill soone," he said, opening his eyes again, now completely cold, "out of jealousy?"
Albedo shrugged slightly, still kneeling.
"Attack," she corrected. "Not kill. I would have stopped before permanent damage." She spoke with a crooked smile, now she was really lying! However, she continued, "After I sensed your aura, I saw it was impossible."
Frieren felt sothing rare cross her expression. It wasn't fear, it was just an irritation so deep that her body trembled and her hands clenched tightly. She had just heard that… she was an easy target and if it weren't for Strax… she would be dead?
She? The Queen of the Elves? The woman capable of holding up the world tree with her own powers for decades? Her?
Strax noticed and thought about saying sothing, but before he could—
"You broke through six of my defensive layers," she said. "That's not 'attacking without lethal intent,'" she said, after letting go of his hand and calming down. Yes, she cald down, enough to continue her questioning.
Albedo tilted his head slightly, conceding the point.
"I admit it," she said. "I was… impulsive."
Strax took a deep breath. The scales along his arms were still partially visible, signs of the draconic form about to erge again if he allowed it.
"So let understand," he said, each word heavy. "You are born from a vessel made with hundreds of sacrificed souls, you try to assassinate a millennia-old mage in the first minute of existence… because you found her too beautiful next to you?"
"Yes." The answer ca without hesitation.
"But to correct myself, I wasn't born from that nucleus or whatever," she pointed to herself, "I'm seven thousand years old. Soone tried to make a contract and all that to give a body as paynt. But apparently the contractor isn't here, so there's no contract and I'm stuck here." She said, shrugging, "Not that I'm complaining, the underworld is a boring place."
Silence returned, but now it had a different weight.
It wasn't just Strax's overwhelming presence anymore.
It was the implication.
Frieren took a few seconds to process.
"…seven thousand years," she repeated slowly, as if testing the sound of the words. "So you're not a newly ford entity."
Albedo smiled slightly, still kneeling, but with a clear trace of boredom in her expression.
"Not even close. I brought down empires before you even learned to write decent runes," he replied with casual disdain. "That thing," she gestured vaguely with her hand, indicating the destroyed core, "was just an improvised receptacle. A poorly made one, actually."
Strax narrowed his eyes.
"So soone tried to summon you," he said. "Using that core as paynt."
"Tried," she corrected. "Failed. The contract was never finalized."
Frieren felt a chill that didn't co from fear, but from calculation. "And when a demonic contract isn't finalized…" she began.
"…the demon isn't obligated to obey," Albedo finished, with a slow smile. "Nor to return if it fails."
Strax let out a short sigh through his nose. "Great. So besides an idiot ssing with forces he doesn't understand, now we have an ancient demon without any connection loose in the world."
"Hey," Albedo raised a finger, as if offended. "I consider myself extrely civilized."
Frieren arched an eyebrow.
"You tried to attack out of jealousy of my appearance."
"Civilized by demonic standards," Albedo corrected.
Strax ran a hand over his face for a mont, clearly controlling himself to avoid crushing sothing.
"Who tried to summon you?" he asked directly.
Albedo made a thoughtful face.
"Hmm… I didn't see the face. Too cowardly to show up in person. But I felt the signature," she replied. "But the demon summoning magic was quite advanced, since it managed to summon . Soone with power… and a gigantic inferiority complex."
Frieren nodded slowly. "That fits half the human mages I've ever t."
Albedo chuckled softly. "He wanted power. Control. Status. Those pathetic things. He thought he could use as a tool."
Her smile vanished. "I hate that."
Strax's aura flickered slightly.
"So you destroyed the core."
"Not exactly," she replied. "It collapsed when I forced my way out. But…" her golden eyes moved to the crater, calculating, "the ritual was initiated from more than one point."
Frieren grew serious. "A distributed ritual?"
"Yes. It seems there's a demonic energy line in that direction." Albedo pointed to the cave's exit towards the forest.
"I don't sense the summoning pentagram, but clearly the idiot tried to summon there, but I ended up here because of the body. And since he's not here, well, there's no contract and I have a body." She shrugged.
Strax let out a long, heavy sigh, one that ca from deep within his chest.
For a mont, the pressure of his aura lessened just enough for the air to move normally again, though the presence was still too overwhelming for any demonic entity to ignore.
"I imagined sothing like this could happen…" he said, running a hand through his hair, his eyes still fixed on the destroyed crater. "But I never seriously considered that possibility."
Frieren turned to face him.
"Neither did I," he admitted. "There was too much mana, too much miasma… everything overlapping. It was like trying to hear a whisper in the middle of a storm."
Strax nodded slowly.
"Excess demonic energy masks traces," he continued. "Especially if soone knows what they're doing. The summoning trail should have been there from the beginning… just buried under enough layers to fool even draconic senses."
He closed his eyes for a second.
"Even I didn't feel it. Nor you."
Frieren didn't like that conclusion. But he didn't argue.
Albedo tilted her head slightly, still kneeling, as if she were participating in a lesson.
"That makes sense," she said. "The trail is almost undetectable. Not because it's faint… but because it's contaminated."
She pointed again toward the cave's exit.
"Deadly mana mixed with demonic miasma, remnants of sacrifice, echo of an incomplete contract…" Her golden eyes glead. "A perfect magical ss to confuse anyone."
Strax glanced at her sideways.
"And you only noticed because it involves you."
Albedo smiled.
"Exactly. It's like feeling soone calling your na in the middle of the chaos. It's not sothing you hear… it's sothing that bothers you."
Frieren took a deep breath.
"That ans the conjurer is still active."
"Most likely," Albedo confird. "And frustrated."
Strax clicked his tongue softly.
"Great. Incompetent mage, ritual distributed, ancient demon loose in the world, and an incomplete contract looming like a ti bomb."
He then turned his gaze directly to Albedo.
"So tell ," he said, his voice firm. "What do you intend to do now?" For a mont, there was silence.
Albedo blinked once.
Then again.
As if the question were… strange.
She then smiled, opened her black wings just enough for the feathers to scrape the ground, and bowed her head with utter respect.
"To serve you, of course."
User Comments
0 comments from readers