Chapter 683 The Curse
Chapter 683 The Curse
Nobody at the Palace could relax just yet. With the threat of the curse spreading through the area, and the damage that it could do before it was purified, everyone was on edge, even the more powerful Demons, who were unlikely to be seriously injured by the effects.
But what was more concerning was that they were unlikely to be the only targets of this effect. If the Fallen Crusades had gone so far as to sacrifice their own Archbishops in order to try to score a Demon King kill, they would definitely be targeting more than one location.
The King had already sent an official message to his allies, but none of them were under attack at the moment, which led him to believe that it was the more chaotic and unaligned smaller Demon Nations that were under the most severe attack.
They wouldn’t have the strength to easily fight off an attack, or the magic to prevent a catastrophe when the curse started to spread, but they also were not friends of the Ancient King of Magic, so he couldn’t just go there and talk to them.
“Could you send a scout to see if they’re in trouble? I’m not sure what the relations between nations are like, but there might be some level of solidarity there that would allow them to accept a warning that they’re about to be cursed by anti-demon crusaders. Even sending back a fake spy or double agent would likely be enough for them to be on their guard.” Wolfe suggested.
“You’re quite kind, even to the feral Demons. They likely wouldn’t listen to anyone that we send, but if we spread the rumour in the right places, they will hear of it soon. The question is if it will be soon enough. Some of their tribes are likely already under attack, and that will be a disaster for the feral lands.
They need to interact with each other to trade and survive, so if this curse is a lingering one, then they will inevitably spread it across huge distances.” The King sighed.
“Is there no more reliable way to warn them and check on them? Surely, you don’t just leave a feral population unmonitored, or am I misunderstanding the meaning of the word feral?”
The King thought about that for a while. “They don’t border my lands, that’s a job for the Incubus King and Victoria. I will talk to them and make sure that they pass on the warning. They will have someone embedded with the ferals.”
The thought of a feral incubus was actually a bit horrific. The more civilized ones were basically wanton porn stars, but the feral ones tended to kill their prey in the legends of Wolfe’s world. Of course, those legends assumed that they were all like that, and they were a bit exaggerated, but there had to be some level of truth to it.
The King busied himself with the messages, while Wolfe watched the funeral pyre for signs of magical flare-ups. The decapitated bodies of the crusaders, the ones that wouldn’t rise as undead, were also in the pile, and they might have various hostile spells on their corpses. He hadn’t stripped their armour or equipment from them, for fear that it was also cursed, and using magic to destroy enchanted items could have unpredictable results.
It was over an hour later when the King sent an envoy to the wall to inform Wolfe that the [Mana Purification] had cleansed the curse from the Palace, and that there were no lingering signs of it anywhere in the grounds.
The Guards were still using magic to keep the wind from blowing the curse all over, now that they understood that it was airborne, and the King himself had begun to expand his senses to check the rest of the territory between where they entered and the Palace to ensure that there were no side stops or secondary casualties.
If they had even dropped a few more of the items along the way, someone was bound to find them eventually, but with the senses of a Rank Nine Demon King, he would be able to find any specific magical signature he wanted within his territory.
“Let me know when he’s finished his search, I will remain here until the last of the glowing embers has faded, and I don’t detect any more magic in the field. If there is some, I might have to resort to Nether Lightning to destroy the last of it.” Wolfe informed the messenger.
“If there is something that survived the fire, it’s likely a Demonic Keepsake. I will send someone out to retrieve it, and then they can wait in the quarantine shack with it until we are sure that it is purified.
Most of the guards wouldn’t take anything truly valuable into battle, but they were called up suddenly, so there is a chance that someone forgot to take off a sentimental item.” The messenger replied.
“That makes sense. As long as they’re not forced to go out and potentially get themselves cursed, I have no objections.” Wolfe agreed, and the Demon laughed.
“If it makes you feel better, I will wait with you, and then I will personally go get any keepsakes that are on the battlefield. If nothing else, that will guarantee that the one going out really is a volunteer.”
Wolfe patted him on the shoulder, and waved at the stairwell to the main towers, where he could see a Maid waiting for orders.
“Miss, would you kindly bring us out a couple of chairs and a light snack with some good tea? We have some time to spare.” Wolfe instructed the young Demoness with a smile.
The messenger shook his head, but didn’t object until the Maid was gone.
“Tea and snacks at a time like this? Everyone else is on the edge of panic about where else the Crusaders might have passed by and cursed.” He remarked.
Wolfe just shrugged. “You know that there is a good chance they cursed someone along the way, and I know that as well. But what you have forgotten is that there is not a single thing that we can personally do about that at the moment, so we are going to watch the fire for signs of cursed items being destroyed, and then check for surviving keepsakes afterwards. That is something that we can do.”