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“I’ve heard of it. But isn’t that… the name of a foul god?”
“Because it was once worshiped as a god.”
South of the empire.
A desert where only hot sand and dry winds blow.
Long ago, among the desert tribes, there was a being revered as a god.
Its name was Zahhak.
Humans trembled at Zahhak’s strength and cruelty, and tried to avert their fear through worship.
People often worship inscrutable, fearsome unknowns, but this was by no means ordinary.
Even among super-class demons, being worshiped as a god was almost unheard of.
That only meant Zahhak was an especially powerful and terrifying being.
“…But why would something like that be here…”
Hamel frowned.
Super-class demons are usually vague entities passed down only in legend.
Partly because they haven’t been defeated, but also because they rarely reveal themselves.
‘How long has it been since I faced Reteil…!’
Behind the rabbit, the shadow of a three-headed snake swayed.
‘…A shadow?’
Only then did a faint memory flash through Hamel’s mind.
It was the story of the family’s founder he had heard before leaving the house.
The founder, a great archmage, sealed a vast evil that had flowed into this land into the body of a frail beast, buried it, and founded an estate above it.
‘Certainly his specialty was…’
Shadow magic.
In other words, it was the Gilmore family’s hereditary magic.
The puzzle fit rather plausibly.
The Gilmore family is a venerable house of mages.
The last record of Zahhak was about five hundred years ago.
Around the same time the Gilmore family came into being.
‘It was the founder.’
He had sealed Zahhak in this salt mine.
There was no other plausible explanation.
He must have locked it deep where no one could reach, but over time that fact would have slowly been forgotten.
His deeds became old tales, preserved at best as the ‘forbidden area (of the mine)’ passed down to the present.
‘Did a Doppelganger break the weakening seal over time?’
It was a somewhat forced interpretation, but hard to think of another possibility.
Hamel clicked his tongue lightly.
This was an eventuality bound to happen.
The founder must have sealed Zahhak instead of killing it to leave the task to later generations.
Perhaps he couldn’t kill it with his abilities, or was wounded in the fight.
But unfortunately, Hamel had no method to kill Zahhak.
Information about the power the creature wielded was also unknown.
Super-class demons are beings of complete uncertainty.
Reteil, the Man-Faced Lion belonged to a category with relatively more information available.
The only relief was that it hadn’t yet fully broken free from the seal.
─Hop
The rabbit approached Hamel and Daniel, who stood on guard.
Hamel and Daniel quickly stepped back to keep their distance.
“We must either kill it or re-seal it.”
“How?”
“We’ll have to find a way.”
“…This is going to be troublesome.”
Daniel shook his head as if annoyed.
Hamel gripped his sword tightly.
Since absorbing it earlier, the number of runes on his sword had noticeably decreased.
‘At this level I can’t use the talisman control ritual.’
He could only rely on his body and the Azure Flame.
Hamel gritted his teeth.
“Moving out.”
“Alright.”
Hamel pointed his sword forward and began to run.
Daniel followed closely, watching the rear and sides.
─Shh!
With a snake’s hiss, shadows lunged from all directions.
Shadows surged underfoot; when Hamel brought his sword down, a snake head darted aside.
“Left!”
At the same time Daniel slashed the left wall beside Hamel with his sword.
Another head charging from the corner quickly recoiled.
The other shadows refused to approach when the Azure Flame scattered.
By repelling the shadows several times, Hamel and Daniel closed the distance to the rabbit.
But the rabbit had no intention of being captured; it kept its distance and harried them.
After several exchanges of blows.
Zahhak within the shadows hissed angrily, shaking its body.
It seemed enraged at not being easily caught.
Just when they thought it was manageable.
─Boing
The rabbit suddenly turned and ran deeper into the tunnel.
“…Did it flee?”
“No.”
Hamel clenched his teeth.
It hadn’t run away.
“It’s luring us in.”
If they lost it now, greater harm would follow.
So it moved the battlefield deep into the tunnel, knowing they would pursue.
“Cunning.”
Daniel clicked his tongue in incredulity.
Hamel nodded in agreement and picked up a torch from the wall.
The torch was unlit, so Hamel transferred some nearby Azure Flame to it.
“We’ll pursue.”
“Do it.”
They tightened their grip and advanced into the tunnel again.
The tunnel filled with darkness.
Only the faint blue glow of the Azure Flame lit their way.
How far did they go?
“…This place…”
Daniel frowned.
Hamel also made a small sound.
After a long walk they reached an open cavern.
The problem was that the cavern walls were riddled with holes.
‘It will strike from all directions.’
They knew it instinctively.
This was the hunting ground it had chosen.
“…It’s coming.”
They heard the sound of snakes crawling along the walls.
The cavern hummed, making it hard to tell where the sounds came from.
─Kang!
A sharp metallic sound rang out with sparks.
Daniel’s swing had struck the rock.
Hamel’s was the same.
─Kakak!
They swung at shadows that sprang from the cavern walls, but only sparks flew; the rabbit’s form was nowhere to be seen.
“Feels like fighting a mirage.”
They’d swung at an oncoming shadow-snake, but the opponent vanished.
Daniel complained, and Hamel agreed.
“This will go on forever otherwise.”
Hamel cut his hand once more.
He scattered his blood toward the cavern holes and ignited the Azure Flame.
Only one opening remained unblocked.
He did it because there was no other way, though he’d bled too much.
“Let’s finish this.”
Hamel said as he kindled Azure Flame on his sword.
Daniel drew mana and aimed his blade at the empty hole.
─Ssshk
Something pale and whitish leapt out of the hole.
It intended to finish them too.
“Now…!”
It had almost reached the entrance.
─Crack
Something brushed past the side.
Blood splattered where Daniel had been standing.
“…?”
Hamel stared blankly for a moment.
A shadow-snake burst through the Azure Flame, seized Daniel, and hurled him against the wall.
Daniel slammed into the rock and collapsed, motionless.
─Shiiik!
The Azure Flame that clung to the shadow-snake bought a brief moment.
It writhed as if in pain, rubbing its body against the wall to extinguish the flame.
“Sir Daniel!”
Hamel hurried to the fallen Daniel and checked for a pulse.
“…Ha.”
Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.
‘He’s alive.’
Now that he looked, the wounds weren’t severe.
He must have lost consciousness from the impact against the rock.
But the situation was not that favorable.
─Hop
The rabbit reappeared.
The wounded shadow-snake had recovered and flicked its tongues toward Hamel.
It leisurely eyed Hamel and Daniel as if savoring victory.
All three heads.
‘I can’t keep all three heads in check by myself.’
While protecting Daniel?
He couldn’t hold out for even a minute.
Hamel gritted his teeth.
He needed another tactic.
What did he have?
How could they survive?
There was no time.
What to do…
“….”
There was a way.
A method he never wanted to use again.
Hamel took a small glass vial from a leather pouch inside his robe.
A deep crimson liquid sloshed within.
Refined dragon’s blood.
The terrible sensation of drinking dragon’s blood came back to him.
“…”
There was no time to hesitate.
Hamel shut his eyes and swallowed the dragon’s blood.
─Gulp
The hot liquid burned down his throat.
It felt like swallowing fire as his esophagus burned.
“…Huh.”
Hamel exhaled deeply, slowly releasing the heat.
At that moment.
─Thud
His chest throbbed.
Not his heart.
Something deeper.
Something began to pulse within his body.
‘Ah.’
The mana-filled world came into Hamel’s vision once more.
His body burned hot while his head cooled.
A vivid blue light emanated from Hamel’s eyes.
Like that of a dragon.
─…Shh
The rabbit.
No, Zahhak’s body stiffened.
As if a prey had met its natural enemy.
It was ridiculous.
‘Sealed in a rabbit’s body and behaving exactly like a rabbit.’
The fear was tangible.
─Shh!
The rabbit hurried to turn and flee.
Hamel tapped his foot lightly.
Talisman control ritual: Open.
Shadow Bind.
Rising shadows coiled around the rabbit’s body.
Shadows were not something the Gilmore family’s Hamel should fear.
Hamel himself was the master of those shadows.
Zahhak was sealed within them.
─Shh!
Shadows wrapped coils around the rabbit.
All three heads raised and hissed threateningly.
It was pathetic.
Hamel walked calmly toward it.
The shadow-snakes thrashed violently to menace him.
But when Hamel did not stop, the snake-forms lunged at him like springs.
And in the next moment.
─Kwa-zhh-zzk
The charging shadows were torn to shreds along with sections of the cavern walls and floor.
When Hamel slashed his hand as if scratching, deep, enormous claw marks scarred the path.
─Tremble tremble
Even after the Shadow Bind released, the rabbit could no longer move.
Hamel slowly approached, grabbed the frozen rabbit by the ears, and lifted it.
As it struggled, Hamel met its eyes.
“Quiet.”
“….”
The rabbit lay still as if unconscious.
“…What on earth happened here?”
Daniel, awakened from unconsciousness, held his throbbing head and asked.
Coming to, he saw the cavern on the verge of collapse and Hamel, eyes blazing, holding the rabbit in one hand and shaking it.
His already aching head felt worse.
“I drank the dragon’s blood.”
“That was reckless. Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
Hamel nodded faintly, indicating he was fine.
Daniel’s gaze shifted uneasily at the vertical blue pupils.
His look toward the rabbit quickly turned to puzzlement.
“Why didn’t you kill it?”
“It’s immortal.”
Zahhak.
The snake that swallows death.
It is a being that cannot be killed.
‘Even if you sever its life now, it will resurrect somewhere else.’
Then it would be free from the seal.
Of course, immortality wasn’t omnipotent.
Even those celestial gods had weaknesses.
But there was no immediate way to find such a weakness.
“We have no choice.”
Hamel pushed the rabbit into the Azure Flame.
─Piiiiik!
The rabbit cried out in pain and thrashed, but Hamel didn’t flinch.
“You said you wouldn’t kill it?”
“….”
After a short while.
─Beep?
The rabbit stopped struggling.
It realized it was not dead.
“What did you do?”
Hamel looked down at the rabbit and answered Daniel’s question.
“I weakened the power of Zahhak sealed in its body as much as possible.”
Hamel had no magical knowledge to reinforce the seal, but he could weaken Zahhak’s demonic power.
Now it was only an ordinary rabbit, no match even for a cat.
Its gray-brown fur had mostly turned pure white, with only faint gray at the tips of its paws.
“For some reason I can tell now: while its fur is this color, it won’t be that dangerous.”
“…That means…”
“We can’t kill it or release it, so there’s only one option.”
Hamel bound the rabbit and met its eyes.
The blue-glowing eyes had grown cold.
“We’ll have to take it and keep watch.”
Facing that gaze, the rabbit—no, Zahhak—only trembled.
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