Admiral Adisa Afolabi found sitting waiting for something to happen hopelessly boring, sitting reading the few books in his relatively larger cabin. He wished the enemy would come so they could fight. Of course, he did not know that moments later he would have cause to regret that idea.
The first thing he felt was an oppressive heaviness weighing down on him. For a few moments he thought the tedium of boredom had finally caught up with him. Perhaps he would have to pick out another book or take out his boredom with a surprise training session for the men. However, after a few moments he realized how unnatural the feeling was… and how it grew stronger by the moment.
The oppressive weight grew heavier and heavier. Something was wrong. Admiral Afolabi tried to stand up from his desk… but he couldn’t even find the strength to move a muscle. Perhaps it was better to say he couldn’t find the willpower to actually consider moving, lest he spark the notice of whatever great creature it was causing the feelings.
If someone had tried to convince him that no such sea monster would come to such relatively shallow waters, he wouldn’t have believed them. He’d fought several, and the oppressive feeling of seeing them was much the same. Except… with them, it stopped growing stronger once they started fighting back.
The feeling of weight grew… and with it came a coldness, yet also a sense of rage. Even when his fleet had engaged a kraken, there had only been a sense of fear and maybe the slightest bit of hunger… though perhaps that was just him over analyzing the feelings a monster made him feel.
He wasn’t sure how much more he could handle. He felt like his bones would be crushed… and soon even the entire ship might fall apart. Then the door to his quarters was ripped of the hinges- a completely unnecessary feat, since it had been unlocked. Not that he had time to think about that, as he stared into the eyes of the Demon King.
He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t bring the willpower to move his eyes to the side, or even to close them. He felt like he had been pulled into the darkest depths of the sea where there were said to be monsters even more terrible than krakens… complete with the cold wetness he would experience there. He was absolutely covered in sweat after only a few moments.
Then the horned and black skinned figured reached out and grabbed him by the throat… and into him. He could only scream in agony as it started to tear him to pieces.
-----
Admiral Adisa Afolabi was happy to be called in to the council to receive his orders. He was finally going to get to fight demons, instead of messing around with patrols and clearing paths for sea routes. It was exciting, especially since a half dozen years earlier he wasn’t even sure if he would ever have a chance to fight demons.
His orders were a bit strange. He couldn’t fathom what transporting criminals would do to help with the war efforts, but he would take them and a number of magical materials- along with an archmage- to a specified location. He wouldn’t find out the full plan until they got there.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
-----
Though he had a decent proficiency in magic- most officers of New Eclea did- he was utterly dumbfounded by the formations set up on the island. It wasn’t clear where most of the energy would come from, or what it did… but it would certainly be terrible.
The archmage who set it up briefed him on the basic premise. As for what he could tell the troops- only that there was a dangerous magical formation, and they were not to set foot on the island. Admiral Afolabi himself was privy to a bit more information- it would use the lives of the criminals on the island as power to destroy the demons.
He grinned at that thought. He could just imagine a whole fleet of demons dying at merely the sacrifice of a few useless criminals. They were only there to wrap things up, and of course to control the activation of the formation. He wondered if the archmage would let him be the one to activate the formation… though of course the archmage would have to be the one to control it.
-----
Archmage Okorie Opeyemi reacted to the commotion on the other command ship as quickly as he could. He wasted no time shouting for his men to activate the formations, then began chanting to gather as much mana as he could.
It was only when he stepped out into the corridor he noticed that none of his subordinates were doing anything… though he couldn’t tell if their prone figures were just dead or unconscious. He barely managed to keep control of the mana because of that surprise, but he wasn’t an archmage for nothing.
He looked toward the other command ship at the same time a figure stepped out. He prepared to launch a devastating spell with all the mana he had gathered, but before he could the Demon King- it must have been the Demon King- pointed his crystal staff at him and shouted… nearly rupturing his eardrums from over a dozen yards away and wresting all of the mana from his control.
For a moment he thought the Demon King also couldn’t control the mana, as it was used to launch a giant lightning bolt over Archmage Opeyemi’s own head instead of striking him with it… but then the figure had suddenly crossed the distance between them with a great leap, and he found himself clutching as his throat, unable to even slightly bend a single finger with both of his hands together.
-----
When he was done with him, William jumped with the archmage into the sea before destroying his soul- using the water to lessen the intensity of the shockwaves it caused. The Admiral had just barely escaped that fate… though the damage William did to his soul would certainly make it impossible for him to reincarnate cleanly, the archmage wouldn’t have a chance at all.
While the admiral might have been willing to sacrifice the lives of his own people- even if they were ‘just’ criminals- he wasn’t entirely aware of the consequences it would have. The archmage, however, had full knowledge that he was destroying souls, and the methods to cause that to happen. In fact, the method had already been used to some success in testing. Because of that, he simply couldn’t be allowed to continue existing. That also included the two other archmages who had worked with him to develop the technique, and the entire council who had approved it in full knowledge.
The only thing that William had to comfort him was that ‘old’ Eclea had nothing to do with that particular branch of research, and had historically considered it taboo. It was still a shame, though, because William had considered possibly letting some of the council of New Eclea live… but the circumstances had changed.