Then wear the black cowl, if that will kill them;
If you can slay fast, slay for God too,
Till all cry "Slayer, black-cowled, fast-killing slayer,
You must save us!"
—TOM “PAIN” INVILLIER
Chapter 1.1
In my younger and weaker years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
"Whenever you feel like criticizing a slayer," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the training that you've had."
He didn't say any more but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality of darkness when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in journeying I was unceremoniously obliged to fight due to the secret griefs of evil, unknown men. Most of the clashes were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that a demonic force was quivering on the horizon—for the ultimate revelations of demons or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious signals. Reserving God’s judgment is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something undeserving if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a set of the fundamental abilities is parceled out unequally at birth.
And, after boasting this way of my skill, I come to the admission that it has a limit. A warrior spirit may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes of a battlefield but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on. When I came back from Omadon, the demon land’s border last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be bright and at a sort of moral attention not visible in the demon lands; I wanted no more riotous excursions with bloodied glimpses into demon carcasses. Only Gatsu-be, the man who gives his name and title to this book, was able to spark my bloodlust—Gatsu-be who crusaded against everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If sainthood is an unbroken series of successful battles against evil, then there was something godly about him, some heightened sensitivity to the evils of hell, as if he were related to one of those intricate spells that register demonic rifts ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby professionalism which is so-called “dignified” under the name of the holy church—it was an extraordinary gift of righteousness, a desired resoluteness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsu-be fought ‘til the bitter end; it is what preyed on Gatsu-be, what foul darkness floated in the wake of his accomplishments that permanently opened my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men to the insertion of a demons will.
-----------
My clan have been prominent, well-to-do warriors in this middle-western kingdom for three generations. The Chi-Weis are something of a legend and we have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Bookloo, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather's grandfather who came here after fighting in the Civility War and started the Heaven’s Strike Dojo, a legionnaire training center that my father carries on today.
I’ve never seen it but I'm supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in Father's dojo office. I attained legionnaire mastery from Heaven’s Strike just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Daemonic migration known as the Great Demon War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of the world the middle-west kingdom now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go east and learn the guild business. Everybody I knew was in the guild business so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a martial style for me and finally said, "Why—ye-es" with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to equip me for a year and after various delays I came east, permanently, I thought, in the spring.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
The practical thing was to find rooms in the city but it was a warm season and I had just left a land of wide battlefields with diseased trees, so when a young merc at the guild suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather beaten balsawood lodge at eighty silver a month, but at the last minute the guild contracted him to a job in the Capitol and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog- a large two-headed Cerberus- at least I had him for a few days until he died from a random Vrock attack, and an old wagon and a Vornnish woman who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Vornnish wisdom to herself over the stove.
It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.
“How do you get to the West End village?" he asked helplessly.
“What business have you there?” I asked him. My senses honed from years on the front line caused the hairs on the back of my neck to raise. Then I saw the proof of what my subconscious warned me about.
Demons come in many forms and it is often difficult to stop the more insidious ones from passing to the calmer parts of the country. Eventually they all show themselves due to their insatiable need to murder and consume the souls of humans. The best way to catch a demon is to watch their eyes.
This demon’s eyes flashed inky black like a wave that passed slightly slower than a blink. Had the monster suspected my history it surely would have concealed any indicators of its true nature. The demon assuredly took me for an unsuspecting villager. Its goal was to lure me over then strike while I was distracted. I would give the beast what it wanted.
I walked toward the vehicle while reaching out with my aura. I wanted to evaluate the demon’s strength. It was a class D or C demon, which was impressive for the fact that it made it so far into the human lands at such a low power. With a weapon I could easily dispatch it, unarmed as I was would make it an interesting melee.
As I reached the demon, I lashed out with a quick jab in an attempt at stunning it. My fist struck true and the demons head rocked back. I wasted no time by grabbing the collar of its jacket, pivoting and flinging him over my back. I moved quickly again with preparing to leap forward and exploit my advantage. The demon did not give me a chance. Instead of crashing hard on the ground in a precarious position, he rolled with the impact then sprang up in a fighting position. If there was any chance I was wrong in assuming it was a demon, the move wiped away all doubt.
The demon’s illusion of humanity slipped further with its face pulling taught against bone and sharp, oily teeth protruding away from its lips. Its mouth opened in a hiss of anger. I could see how the demon made it so far with such agility. If I did not defeat the demon promptly it would have the chance to escape and cause further calamity on others.
Assured from our brief skirmish of the level I needed to defeat the demon, I solidified the best attack combination. The demon looked left for a way to escape but I had already channeled my energy to my legs. A cloud of dust was left in my wake as I rushed forward like a professional sprinter. I was in front of the monster as its eyes moved back forward.
“Devil Piercer,” I bellowed as I surged all my energy to my fingertips. The blue glow of my technique jutted from my knifed hand just before I rammed it through the demon’s torso.
The demon’s body shattered into ash and motes of cinder and its spirit dispersed into the ether currents. I did not move from my position nor breathe until the ash was dissipated having inhaled too much in my lifetime. And as I waited, I was lonely no longer. I was a guard, a protector, an official warden. The demon had casually conferred on me the defense of the neighborhood.
And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees—just as things grow in loose dreams—I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
There was so much training for one thing and so much fine chi to be converted out of the young ether-filled air. I bought a dozen stones of ether and chi and energy purifiers and they waited in my dojo shining like new gems from a mine, promising to open the shining secrets that only Musashi and Morgana and Meliodas knew. And I had the high intention of increasing the size of all my chakra channels besides. I was rather enlightened in training—one year I cultivated in a series of very difficult and obvious positions for “Full Enlightenment”—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the "well-rounded man." This isn't just an epigram—demons are much more successfully fought at from a single stance, after all.