Chapter 45: What Magic Should a Demon Use?
In the second month after the onset of winter, a rare heavy snow fell upon Redstone Fortress.
Lia stood by the window of the mercenary group's headquarters, looking out at the white streets with a cup of hot tea in her hand. The tea was something the Fat Man had scavenged from a merchant from the south; it was said to contain some precious spices, but it tasted like Sichuan peppercorns—it was deathly unpleasant. Yet the Fat Man had praised it to the skies, saying 'one cup keeps you warm for three days,' and had insisted she try it.
She took a sip and set the cup down expressionlessly.
It was too foul.
Worse than dragon blood.
Just as she was thinking of an excuse to pour the tea out, a commotion suddenly erupted downstairs. Mercenaries crowded around the main entrance, craning their necks to look outside, whispering and discussing amongst themselves.
"What's happened?" Lia asked casually.
Barton squeezed out from the crowd, his expression grim. "People from the Church have entered the city. A The Paladin Order—at least two hundred of them."
Lia's brow twitched slightly.
The Church.
Its full name was the "Church of Eternal Flame," the most powerful religious organization on the continent. They worshipped the God of Light and believed in "purifying all heresy." Heresy included, but was not limited to: demons, undead, cultists, pagans, and any intelligent being that did not look human.
Orcss, elves, dwarves—in their eyes, all were "filth in need of purification."
Dragons, needless to say, were at the very top of the heresy list, right alongside demons.
Lia held that cup of foul tea and watched the procession slowly pass through the street outside. The Paladins rode uniform white horses, wearing shimmering silver full plate armor, with the holy emblem of a burning flame branded on their chests. At the front of the line were twelve flag-bearers carrying massive holy banners that snapped in the cold wind. Behind them followed eight prisoner wagons, crowded with people—no, not people.
Orcss.
Furry ears, protruding tusks, and amber vertical pupils. Men, women, the elderly, and children were squeezed behind iron bars, their gazes numb and despairing. The smallest one looked only three or four years old, curled up in a corner, tiny hands tightly clutching its mother's clothes, not making a sound.
The residents along the street knelt one after another, bowing their heads in prayer, not daring to look further.
A few children poked their heads out curiously, only to be immediately covered by their parents' hands and pressed into their bosoms.
The prisoner wagons rolled over the accumulated snow, leaving two deep, black ruts behind.
Lia watched the wagons pass by, looking at that curled-up little figure, and suddenly remembered Aetheriel's scream when he was electrocuted.
Exactly the same.
That kind of sound when one is in extreme pain but holds it back, not daring to cry out.
She lowered her head and took a sip of tea.
The peppercorn-flavored liquid slid down her throat, but she couldn't taste anything at all.
——————
Three days later, the news spread throughout Redstone Fortress.
The Church's "Demon Hunting Operation" had officially begun.
The target this time was every non-human settlement within a hundred-mile radius of Redstone Fortress. Orcs villages, elven settlements, dwarven mines—all were on the list. The The Paladin Order split into three routes, sweeping through them one by one, regardless of gender or age, to "purify" them all.
The so-called purification meant killing them all.
Those who resisted were executed on the spot; those who surrendered were locked in prisoner wagons and transported to the headquarters. It was said that a "Purification Ritual" would be held there—a public burning at the stake to turn all heretics to ash, demonstrating the majesty of the God of Light.
Someone in the mercenary group clapped and cheered: "That's how it should be done! Those bastards should have been dealt with long ago!"
Some remained silent, lowering their heads to drink.
Some peeked at Lia, then quickly looked away.
Lia sat in a corner, flipping through an ancient tome borrowed from the Mage Guild, her expression as calm as if she had heard nothing.
Only Carlos noticed that she had been on the same page of that book for half an hour without moving.
——————
On the night of the fifth day, Lia went out.
Not in human form.
A dusty-grey snowy owl glided silently from the window of the mercenary group's headquarters, merging into the swirling wind and snow as it flew toward the outskirts of the city.
The snow fell heavier and heavier, turning the world into a vast white expanse where visibility was less than twenty meters. This was a desperate situation for humans, but for a snowy owl, it was natural cover. She flew low against the treetops, passing through forest after forest bent by the weight of the snow, gliding toward the direction mentioned in the intelligence.
A Orcs village.
About thirty miles from Redstone Fortress, hidden in a valley between two mountains, it was the only settlement within a hundred-mile radius that hadn't been discovered yet.
She had to see it with her own eyes.
Not because she wanted to meddle, but simply to confirm—just how ruthless those Paladins were being.
Half an hour later, she saw firelight.
Not the lamplight of a village, but burning buildings.
Thick smoke mixed with snowflakes rose into the sky, curling into a hideous black pillar in the night. The firelight illuminated the entire valley, staining the surrounding snow a dark red.
The snowy owl landed on a charred, withered tree at the village entrance, her vertical pupils staring at the scene before her.
The village was gone.
Over thirty wooden houses were all ablaze, tongues of fire leaping from doors and windows, licking at the pitch-black night sky. On the open ground in the center of the village lay a dozen corpses—all adult Orcss, mostly men, still clutching hoes, wooden sticks, and wood-cutting axes. They had clearly resisted before they died, but the gap in equipment was too great; the Paladins' standard longswords could easily cleave through wooden sticks, and their plate armor could ignore the strikes of hoes.
Beside the corpses stood seven or eight Paladins, using spears to flip the bodies over, checking for any survivors.
One of them kicked aside a woman's corpse, revealing something pinned beneath her—
A Orcs child.
Three or four years old, with furry ears and amber eyes.
Still alive.
The child was curled up under his mother's body, trembling all over, yet he didn't make a single sound. He stared at the silver-armored giants, his eyes wide as if to carve this scene into his mind forever.
The Paladins saw him too.
"Oh, there's a little cub here." The fellow who kicked the woman's corpse laughed, his voice exceptionally piercing in the snowy night. "One that slipped through the net."
Another Paladin walked over and looked down at the child. "Take him back?"
"Take him for what? We'd have to feed him on the road, too much trouble." The first Paladin raised his spear. "Just deal with him directly."
The child continued to stare at them, motionless and silent.
The spear was raised to its highest point.
The snowy owl dove down from the withered tree.
Not to attack, but just to sweep past.
The wind from her wings brushed against the Paladin's face; he instinctively tilted his head, and the spear halted mid-air.
"What was that?"
"Looked like a bird." The Paladin next to him looked up. "A bird out in this much snow? It must be brain-dead."
"Never mind that, first this little cub—"
He turned back.
The child was gone.
In his place remained only a mess of footprints leading toward the mountain forest behind the village.
"Shit!" the Paladin cursed loudly. "After him!"
Seven or eight men grabbed their swords and chased into the woods, but they stopped before they had even gone fifty meters.
The snow was too heavy.
The footprints were quickly covered by fresh snow, making it impossible to even tell the direction.
"Go back and get the hounds!"
"It's too late. By the time the hounds get here, this little cub will have frozen to death."
"Then what?"
"Forget it. A three or four-year-old cub won't last two hours in this snow."
The Paladins grumbled as they returned to the village to continue clearing the scene and moving the corpses.
They didn't know that on a branch twenty meters above their heads, a snowy owl was clutching the child's clothes, laboriously flying into the distance.
The child was small, but the snowy owl was also small; she couldn't fly high at all.
After flying less than a mile, the snowy owl landed on an old pine tree and gently placed the child on a snow-covered branch.
The child curled into a ball, his lips purple from the cold, yet he still didn't make a sound.
The snowy owl stared at him for three seconds.
Then, with a flash of light, Lia reverted to her human form, standing steadily on the branch.
The child stared at her with wide eyes.
"Don't be afraid." Lia knelt down, took off her mage robe, and wrapped it around him. "I'm here to save you."
The child continued to stare at her, not speaking.
Lia stared into those amber eyes, remained silent for a moment, and asked softly: "What is your name?"
The child's lips moved, and he finally squeezed out a word: "...Agu."
"Agu." Lia nodded and picked him up. "Hold onto me tightly, we're leaving this place."
Agu reached out his tiny hands and tightly gripped her clothes.
At that very moment, a faint, ethereal singing drifted from the distance.
Lia's movements paused.
It was a human nursery rhyme, floating from somewhere at the foot of the mountain, intermittent and unclear through the wind and snow. But she could tell—it was a lullaby sung to a child, the kind a mother hums when coaxing a baby to sleep.
She lowered her head and looked at Agu in her arms.
Agu also looked at her, something shimmering in his amber eyes.
Lia was silent for three seconds.
Then she turned around and flew toward the direction the singing was coming from.
——————
There was a small village at the foot of the mountain.
Not a Orcs village, but a human one.
A dozen wooden houses were huddled together, smoke curling up from chimneys, and warm lamplight shining through the windows. In the house at the easternmost end, a young woman was gently rocking a child in her arms, humming the lullaby Lia had heard.
Everything was perfectly normal.
Except for the pile of burning things at the village entrance.
Those were five corpses.
Orcs corpses.
Two elderly people, one woman, and two children.
The smallest one was still in swaddling clothes, burned down to a charred scrap of cloth the size of a palm.
They had been piled together, doused with oil, and set on fire.
The flames danced in the wind and snow, making crackling sounds.
Lia held Agu and stood under the old locust tree at the village entrance, staring at that pile of fire for a long time.
Agu was trembling in her arms—not from the cold, but from something else.
"That's..." he spoke, his voice as thin as a mosquito's buzz.
Lia didn't speak.
She saw the footprints beside the corpses.
Paladin footprints.
The kind made by silver-armored iron boots—deep, steady, leading all the way to the brightest house in the village.
That was the village chief's home.
——————
Fifteen minutes later, the Paladins returned to their temporary camp.
At the church camp outside Redstone Fortress, tents stretched out in a continuous line, and the holy fire burned fiercely in the center of the camp, illuminating the entire night sky. Paladins on night watch patrolled back and forth at the camp gate, the snow on their armor melting from their body heat and then freezing back into ice, making light cracking sounds.
The Thirteenth Squad was responsible for the patrol tonight; they had just returned from the half-orc village, still carrying the scent of blood and charred burning. Captain Joseph took off his helmet, rubbed his frozen face hard, and cursed, "This damn weather, it's freezing me to death."
The vice-captain leaned in. "Captain, that brat escaped tonight. Could it be—"
"Escaped?" Joseph sneered. "A three or four-year-old brat, how far can he run in this snow? He's probably frozen into a popsicle by now."
The vice-captain nodded and stopped speaking.
The two walked toward their tent, but just as they were about to lift the flap, they suddenly heard a loud bang from behind.
BOOM—!!!
Turning around, the camp gate was gone.
The heavy wooden gate looked as if it had been stepped on by a giant, shattered into wood chips that flew everywhere mixed with snowflakes. The four paladins on night watch lay on the ground, their status unknown.
Amidst the dust and smoke, a massive red figure slowly emerged.
A wingspan of thirty meters.
A shoulder height of eight meters.
Scales shimmered with a dark lava-like red under the firelight. With every step, the snow instantly evaporated, revealing the scorched black ground beneath. Golden vertical pupils, like two burning suns, looked down upon the small camp from above.
Joseph dropped his sword.
The vice-captain sat directly on the ground.
Screams, exclamations, and the sound of weapons hitting the ground came from the tents. Paladins scrambled out, only to freeze in place, motionless.
A dragon.
A real dragon.
Not an illustration in a book, not a mural in a cathedral, but a living, breathing dragon that could incinerate the entire camp in one breath.
The holy fire in the center of the camp flickered violently, as if frightened by something.
The Red Dragon lowered its head, staring at the humans in silver armor, and spoke.
The voice was like muffled thunder rolling across the horizon, making the tents rattle, the snow fall in heaps, and the paladins' knees go soft.
"Who went to the half-orc village tonight?"
No one answered.
The Red Dragon waited for three seconds, then slowly opened its mouth.
Deep in its throat, an orange-red light began to gather.
The temperature in the camp soared instantly. The snow melted at a visible rate, turning into water, then into steam, as white mist rose to obscure the sky and the moon.
"I'll count to three."
One.
A paladin began to tremble.
Two.
Joseph's legs gave out, and he barely managed to stand by leaning on the vice-captain.
Three.
The Red Dragon breathed.
It wasn't a sweeping pillar, but a precise fan-shaped flame with a diameter that exactly covered the largest tent in the center of the camp—the commander's quarters.
The fire flashed only for an instant and then immediately retracted.
The tent was gone.
Not even ashes remained.
In its place was a perfectly circular, shiny black lava pit as smooth as a mirror, its edges still smoking.
The paladins' minds went blank.
The Red Dragon withdrew its flame, its golden vertical pupils scanning the area as it continued to ask:
"Who went to the half-orc village tonight?"
Silence lasted for three seconds.
Then someone broke down.
"I-I-I-I went—!!" A young paladin threw himself to the ground, trembling all over. "But I was following orders! I was forced! I didn't want to kill those half-orcs! But I had no choice!"
With someone taking the lead, the others couldn't hold out either.
"I went too! But we only killed the adult men who resisted! We didn't touch the women and children! We really didn't!"
"I wasn't the one who found that brat! Joseph found him! He wanted to kill him! I didn't lay a hand on him!"
"Right, right, Joseph even wanted to stab the child with a spear, we all saw it!"
Joseph's face turned pale.
He wanted to defend himself, to argue, to say these bastards were scapegoating him, but he couldn't say a word.
Because that dragon had already locked its gaze onto him.
Golden vertical pupils, brighter than the sun, deeper than the abyss.
Joseph's legs went completely limp, and he slumped onto the ground, staring up at the dragon's face as it drew closer, making rattling gasps in his throat.
"You," the Red Dragon spoke, "wanted to kill that child?"
Joseph shook his head frantically.
"You pointed a spear at him?"
Joseph continued to shake his head.
"You said at the camp gate just now that the brat was already frozen into a popsicle?"
Joseph's head-shaking motion froze.
The Red Dragon stared at him for three seconds.
Then it opened its mouth.
Joseph closed his eyes, waiting for death.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
He didn't die.
He opened his eyes to find the massive dragon mouth closed again. The dragon was looking down at the young paladin in the center of the camp who had collapsed in terror—the first one to break and confess.
"You said just now that the women and children weren't touched?" the Red Dragon asked.
The young paladin nodded frantically. "Not touched, not touched! We only killed the adult men who resisted! The women and children were all—"
"That village at the foot of the mountain," the Red Dragon interrupted him. "In that fire at the village entrance, what was burning?"
The young paladin froze.
"Two elderly people, one woman, two children," the Red Dragon said word by word. "The youngest was still in swaddling clothes."
The young paladin's mouth opened and closed, closed and opened, but no words came out.
The Red Dragon scanned the area, looking at the paladins who had just been desperately shifting the blame, watching their expressions turn from relief to horror, and from horror to despair.
"You said you didn't touch the women and children," she spoke slowly. "So those five people crawled into the fire themselves?"
No one answered.
The Red Dragon nodded.
"Understood."
She opened her mouth.
This time, it wasn't a test, not a warning; she was truly going to breathe fire.
Orange-red light gathered deep in her throat, growing brighter and brighter until it was blinding, so bright the paladins had to cover their eyes.
At that very moment, a scream came from the edge of the camp:
"Stop—!!!"
An old priest in white robes came stumbling over, followed by a dozen young priests, all with looks like they'd seen a ghost. The old priest ran before the Red Dragon, fell to his knees, looked up, and shouted in a trembling but firm voice:
"Demon! In the name of the Eternal Flame, I command you—"
The Red Dragon lowered its head and stared at him.
The old priest's voice caught in his throat.
The Red Dragon spoke, its tone as calm as if asking what was for dinner: "What did you call me?"
The old priest's lips quivered. "De... Demon..."
The Red Dragon was silent for three seconds.
"Demon?" she repeated, a trace of undetectable confusion in her voice. "You demons use shadow flames, curses, and flesh magic, right?"
The old priest froze, not knowing what she meant.
The Red Dragon continued to ask: "Do you demons breathe fire?"
The old priest answered subconsciously: "No... No..."
The Red Dragon nodded. "Well then, that settles it."
She lowered her head, bringing her face close to the priest's, her golden vertical pupils reflecting his pale, terrified face. "What I use is fire, pure fire. Precise, controllable, and tactically sound. This is called Fire-breathing Specialization, not a demon."
The old priest's brain completely failed to process this.
The Red Dragon straightened up, glanced at the paladins who were about to wet themselves, then looked toward the direction where the pile of burning corpses was, and remained silent for a moment.
Then she opened her mouth and breathed.
The fire precisely swept over the camp, avoiding all tents and people, and went straight for the holy fire in the center of the camp.
BOOM—!!
The holy fire was engulfed by the flames, exploding into a shower of sparks before being extinguished completely.
The camp fell into darkness.
Only the dark red glow flowing over the Red Dragon's scales illuminated those terrified faces.
"I won't kill you today," the Red Dragon spoke, her voice echoing in the darkness. "But remember: the next time I see you burning children—"
She paused.
"I'll let you taste the flavor of lava."
With that, the massive red figure took to the sky. Her thirty-meter wings flapped, creating a howling gale and sending snow flying everywhere. In an instant, the figure vanished into the wind and snow, as if it had never appeared.
The camp was deathly silent.
A long, long time later, the old priest finally climbed up from the ground, his legs still trembling.
He looked at the pitch-black night sky, at the paladins lying all over the ground in unknown states, and at the heap of holy fire burned to ash, murmuring:
"Why... Why didn't it kill us?"
No one could answer that question.
——————
Three days later, the Church headquarters received an emergency report.
The report was from a surviving priest of the Redstone Fortress branch, with the following content:
"Encountered a demon attack. Demon characteristics: red scales, giant wings, breathes lava fire. Attack pattern: breathed fire three times. The first destroyed the chapel, the second destroyed the dormitory, and the third destroyed the granary. The fire was precise, with no collateral damage, suspected to have pre-calculated impact points."
A note was attached at the end of the report:
"During interrogation, the demon questioned: 'Demons use shadow flames, curses, and flesh magic, who breathes fire directly?'"
The bishop in charge of organizing archives at headquarters stared at this line for a long time, remained silent for a moment, and then created a new sub-category under the demon classification:
[Flame Demon Mutant Subspecies: Precision Type]
Combat power assessment: Abyssal Lord level.
Recommended course of action: Retreat immediately upon encounter; do not engage.
Note: This demon appears to have tactical literacy and is extremely dangerous.
Half a month later, this file was distributed to all major dioceses, becoming one of the 'high-risk targets' that all paladins were required to memorize.
In the canteen of the Blazing Mercenary Group, Lia flipped through the latest issue of the internal Church bulletin. When she saw that classification, the corner of her mouth twitched slightly.
"Precision Type?"
She closed the bulletin, picked up that cup of terrible Sichuan pepper tea, and took a sip.
This time, she actually tasted something.