A Tale of One Deviant (Book One)

Chapter 147: Try and Fail...Don't Fail to Try

They'd passed through regular forest for an hour at a blinding speed, startling animals that never managed to find the source of their alarm, only to hesitantly head back to their burrows with one eye open. Basusda roared notoriously in the distance as if to make their destination seem even more dangerous, to ward them off, but they still kept going in cloudy conditions and through ambiguous paths. The ground felt like it was shaking as the night began, but neither the knight nor his falling noble had any trouble with the landscape.

     "To summon a Demon, a summoner must have three things."

     Earl looked up to the sky, grabbing onto a branch as he'd taken off from the shifting ground. Slapping his bare feet down onto the increasingly bloody surroundings was unpleasant, even if it wasn't as painful as it would've been with tree needles and all sorts of natural deterrents marring the path. The thick skin of a Nightrider Demon was known for its defensive properties, and with every campaign, dread filled the hearts of every soldier standing on the western front when it was announced that one had slipped into the ranks. The beast it rode, the spear it had on hand, and the obvious announcement of its arrival when bodies started flying through the air, was a culmination of multiple nightmares into one.

     "The first is black magic. However, only Demons may utilize this dark magic, for every other being is born from mana and can only use mana."

     The irony Earl had felt when first realizing what his own Black Mark was turning out to be, after the second bath when his skin began to peel off, was probably the strongest feeling he'd been able to have as his human qualities were muddled and mixed and drowned in the verpultra. Seeing himself in the mirror as his flesh bubbled and paled, turning transparent to see his organs and blood coursing through every vein of his body, feeling lost when he could no longer identify his facial features because he had none-

     That was when it truly sunk in, what he was doing. And that was when he realized, upon feeling the sudden pangs of hunger in his stomach and the salivating of his disappearing mouth, that his humanity was tainted - even after the Black Mark left after using up the black magic it provided, he would never be the same again.

     "Therefore, in order for a non-Demon to utilize black magic, they must place upon their bodies the Black Mark. This would obscure their own mana and channel 'anti-mana,' otherwise known as Demonic energy, in the outer shell that would form."

     It likely made his knights uncomfortable - no, it surely did - to see a Nightrider dwelling in the household for the few days he'd huddled in his office. Frederick glanced forward once in a while, since he seemed to be lagging behind the earl in terms of speed and willingness to charge into the Basusda Monster Forest.

     "The stronger the Demon being summoned, the more black magic necessary, the more consuming the Black Mark must be, and the more verpultra must be used."

     Earl's hood flew back when caught under a branch he hadn't ducked under far enough. He'd never imagined himself to be bald that early in life, and it felt strange having six fingers with which to pull the hood back on. It felt strange to have six toes on each foot to launch off with, and he still hadn't gotten used to it despite having had the form for two days. Unable to move farther than the confines of four office walls and the mountains of books he'd piled inside to discourage outsiders from even attempting to scrounge for evidence of his wrongdoing hidden in the distractions...he focused only on reading, refining his growing Black Mark, and coming to terms with his future actions.

     Everything else was unnecessary. Everything else was extraneous. Only the task ahead mattered, because if he succeeded, it opened the world back up that had shut him out. If he failed because he wasn't focused, because he'd done a misstep in his refining, because he second-guessed himself and how far he was willing to go to "set things right," then it really would've all been for nothing.