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Chapter 523 – Saved By An Enemy

As I dangled from the lopsided bridge, soon to fall apart entirely, luck chose the worst time to leave my side. As there was only one end still supporting the weight of the bridge now, wooden planks began falling apart as the rope railings went loose. I struggled to climb up, but for every plank I climbed, it seemed the one below me fell. At this rate, I wasn\'t going to make it.

Somehow, this was reminiscent to me. A similar situation had happened to me once before—during the investigation of the Grey Scourge, I had fallen into the abyss below after the bridge fell apart. This time, though, there would be no Princess of Death waiting for me down there. There would only be a painful, burning Death itself, accompanied by Fire.

I raced as hard as I could to reach the top. Adrenaline surged through my veins, and I worked harder than ever before, with my life on the line. With no time to even breathe, I climbed and climbed, from wooden plank to wooden plank, until at last, I felt my hand wrap around rock instead of the sharp, splintered wood I was already accustomed to by now.

"… Whew."

I let out a sigh of relief. 

But then, I heard the noise of a crack.

Not like before. No… this was different.

This did not belong to wood. This noise… it belonged to rock.

And then, I glanced up, and saw what happened. The part of the cliff I was holding onto had a crack in it, and was splitting apart.

"… Oh, shit."

Those were the last two words I could say before the cliffside crumbled, and I began falling towards the lava.

So much work… all for nothing. Looks like I would have to use that second life after all, huh?

It was over. I couldn\'t use magic, and my angelic wings could not be activated as they were stolen using Thief\'s Hand, which required mana to activate. There was no way out. I was done. In my heart, I had already given up. All hope was lost. There was no getting out of this one, unfortunately.

Perhaps, this was fated to happen. I mean, Newton\'s law of motion says that a force will always create an equal force in the opposite direction, right? I wonder if the same applies to luck—I\'ve been getting so much good luck throughout this entire volcano that now, all the bad luck accumulated is coming to haunt me.

I closed my eyes as I felt the intense heat of the lava\'s steam hit my back like a truck, and I knew my end was near. Still, this was not goodbye. I just had to somehow regain all of my memories again. That won\'t be easy, of course, but it wasn\'t impossible.

But even so… this was kind of sad, huh? Staring at the rocks and wooden planks falling with me, I slowly reached out to the air with my hand, like I was holding on. But deep down, I knew there was no one coming to save me.

That\'s right… no on-

"—!"

Suddenly, I felt two thick, burly arms wrap around my body, and my eyes snapped back open to see a purple demon\'s square face staring down at me.

I blinked. "Uh… you kind of ruined the moment there, but uh… hi?"

"… You are not allowed to die yet," the demon said in a low voice. "You must die at my hands."

"Wait, what?"

Before I could receive a response or mentally prepare myself, he shot upwards with his dark purple wings with me in his arms. I held on as tightly as possible, not giving a damn that I was currently getting princess carried. I want to live, after all!

Soon, we arrived at the very top of the cliff where I had fallen from, and he set me down on the ground.

Well… that was a light way to put it. Actually, he simply tossed me onto the floor like a sack of grain or something, and although it didn\'t hurt that much, the disrespect factor was still somewhat infuriating. Could be worse, though. He could\'ve slammed dunk me into the ground, basketball style.

"Ngh…" Struggling to my feet, I shot the demon a glare. "You… you\'re one of the Four Cardinals, aren\'t you? I remember your face. Why did you save me? Did your master not order my death?"

"He did," the demon replied. "However… his orders are not the only reason I came to kill you. I must avenge my two comrades whom you have already slain, and to do so, I must defeat you in a fair and just battle, by myself. Until we face off and one of us two fall in the fight, you are not allowed to die by any other means."

"Wow, how commanding," I snorted, folding my arms. "Thank you for saving me, but… those comrades of yours came at me themselves. You\'re a warrior, are you not? Is there any wrong in killing those who attempt to kill me?"

"There is not," the demon said stoically. "You misunderstand, boy. I am not saying you are in the wrong here. What you did to them was their own faults for being weak and losing the battle. That is just and fair. However, even so, they were my comrades—and for that, I need to avenge them with my own two hands, no matter how weak they may be."

"Huh… I see," I snickered, and drew my Chaos katanas. "How loyal of you… unfortunately, you should\'ve simply let me die there."

"… Hmph," the demon snorted, as if any further conversation would only be a bore. "Let us fight."

But before we could begin, the loud laughter of a man cut through.

"Ha ha ha ha! What is this? Another challenger? Perfect! Very well, young mortals! The two of you shall brawl without weapons, and the winner will receive my inheritance!"

"… Without weapons?" I arched an eyebrow. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

That was the demon\'s strongsuit! Who was Ignis working for?!

"… Who is this clown?" The demon asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Don\'t tell me you came into this place without knowing what it even was…" I muttered, shooting him a pitiful look.

"I did. The identity of this place means nothing to me. I came here to find you, and kill you. Nothing more."

"I am Ignis, the Empyrean of Fire," the voice declared, not seeming to be mad at all. "The place you are in right now is my lair."

"… So, a god of fire," the demon said, closing his eyes briefly. "He is quite… temperate."

"Right?" I rolled my eyes. "You would think the god of fire would have a more… I don\'t know, explosive personality, but this guy is like the exact opposite of that, in a good way."

"He is getting in the way of our fight," the demon said. "By limiting you to not use weapons, he is making this fight not just. As such, I have a proposal."

Faced with his serious tone of voice, I furrowed my brows.

"Yeah? Let\'s hear it."

"We work together to sack this god first, then have our battle."

"…"

The demon blinked. "Is there a problem?"

"Uh, yeah," I said, elongating the \'eah\' part. "About that. Do you know what the term \'god\' means?"

"Yes. My mortal enemy."

… Oh, right. He\'s a demon.

"Well, uh, you see… gods are called gods because they are unkillable. Understand? Un-kill-a-ble. So, basically, we can\'t defeat this dude, no matter how hard we try. Got it? Tell me you got it."

"… Hm, I suppose I \'got\' it."

"Alright. Now… you wanted to fight?" I grinned, cracking my knuckles. "I\'m fine with not using any weapons. Let\'s do this. After I\'m done with you, only one person will be left in my way."

"Are you certain you wish to fight me barehanded?" The demon asked, narrowing his eyes as if this was surprising to him. "I will not show mercy, human."

"So be it. After all, that\'s only fair—I won\'t show any mercy either."

"Yes! I want to see a manly fight—a fight of fists!" Ignis roared excitedly. "The arena is all yours, champions. Who will win, I wonder? The boy my three younger siblings chose, or the dark horse? Let the fight begin!"

"Huh?! Wai-"

But I didn\'t even have time to finish my sentence as the demon came charging at me with his fists, and I quickly swerved to one side to evade the punch.

"… Hmph." He slowly turned his head at me, as if gauging my skills, and I dematerialized my Chaos katanas with a deep sigh.

"… Well, what he wants, he gets," I muttered. Since I needed to obtain Ignis\'s power, I had to play by his rules. Besides… even though hand-to-hand brawling was the demon\'s strongsuit as he didn\'t use any weapons anyway, I had faith I could match him in terms of physical strength, thanks to my vampire and angelic blood. 

Cracking my knuckles and tilting my head both ways, I got into a combat stance.

"Alright… let\'s do this."