Lightning ripped the overcast sky asunder, bringing an end to the mismatch between bright sunshine above and utter carnage below.
I swung my limbs wildly, discharging lightning mana as soon as it was converted. Doing so in my particular situation wasn't exactly advisable, but my mind wanted none of that nonsense.
Of considerations, rules and limitations, I've had my fair fill. Now, something else was needed to take command. "You stinky piece of shit, is this what a daemon looks like?"
A thunderstrike from above pulverised the majority of the absolutely annoying rangers. No longer could they focus on my eyes, no longer annoy me with arrows to the anus and ears of all places.
Between the small earthquake I'd conjured and thunder showering them in electrifying warmth, there was little the double-faced bastards could use to defend against.
Since ashes had no use for bows. They also cast no spell. And were free of any worries. A win-win situation!
Embracing the anger accompanied by the usual note of cynicism seeping out from deep within, the integration of my mana with my first domain, if only partially, was sure to put them on trial.
But that wasn't enough for me. "Can a Daemon do this?" Focusing on some stealthy adversaries, another bolt disengaged from the merry folk racing though the sky, seeking them out like the suckers they were.
"Command the very nature itself?" Shimanda still managed to escape the thunderbolts, albeit not without sacrifices. During the confrontation, an arm was burned off cleanly.
With the obese clergyman spewing holy nonsense being one of the first to kick the bucket, crushed by the very steel-reinforced baldachin he rested below, Shimanda had no way to heal the injuries on time.
Briefly looking all around him after a roll in the scorched mud, he winced. "What...," Another punch closed in on him, followed by a tail sweep coupled with a headbutt and lots of thunderstrikes.
The headbutt literally smashed him into the ground from where he crawled out from only with difficulties. More blood flowed freely. "...are you?"
Here it was, a question I so hoped he'd ask! "A daemon?" My sarcastic reply demanded just the right expression on his disillusioned face.
"Answer!" The beastman wasn't one for jokes. Not any longer, that was for sure. If the grumpy characteristics he so amply proved weren't his everyday mood.
I had one on the ready. An answer. With another round of pummelling done with as lightning flashed through the skies unabated, continuing to do so even on the very ground itself, bent by my will, I addressed the tearful chieftain.
"Inquisitive, ain't we?" The ridicule never left my tone. "Can't be a daemon with half the torso ripped out, eh? Without bleeding mana for this fabulous spectacle, eh?"
In this regard, I always had an unfair advantage over all my acquaintances. Yet for the very same reason, I suffered disproportionally from this ever-accompanying leakage of essence.
"I am of a race who came first. Millennia before the daemons, inspired by our glorious appearance, reared their ugly, misshapen mugs clobbed together by a quack of an alchemist!"
While my mouth informed Shimanda of some events long past, the rest of my body didn't sit idle. He was flung around like the dirty rug he was, his countless injuries worsening.
I then decided to refrain from following up on my history lesson, given the student was a dead beastman walking...
"I wanted none of this." My matter-of-fact choice of tone made his face even worse to look at. "This is not my home, not my residence of choice.
Hell, this isn't even a place I'd like to see dancing to my every whim. This," my finger pointed to the very ground we stood on, travelling horizontally over the sad remains of this city before I continued,
"is what a rulers' nightmare looks like. So tell me, arrogant mortal. Pray tell, why in the blazes should I complicate my life where I am given the choice not to do so?"
Shimanda's eyes glossed over, his reaction speed slowing down noticeably. The injuries he suffered continued to add up, continuously bleeding him dry of life.
"Answer," he lisped, "answer this: Would you have truly left?!" Suspicious until the very last, this beastman. "I would." My answer was firm.
"Yesterday even, if that were possible. But your game of nonsensical interests, of war and political considerations, of never listening to anyone... let to this."
"Hahaha... hehehehe... hihihihihahahehehe..." Amidst the ruins of his own doing, Shimanda lost it completely. The beastman broke down, tears and snot flowing freely.
"Ten years we suffered," he recalled, voice no more than a lisping whisper, "bade our time. Waited for the knights to grow complacent, for the soldiers to turn arrogant, for the Order to self-destruct.
We rallied the people, sought out like-minded patriots, found backers in every corner... signed deals, accepted compromises and waited... waited.
Until the accursed royal family gave birth to a traitor, to an intelligent child shackled by the very rules governing this forsaken, vile place itself..."
What followed was a story like so many others I'd heard over the course of my long life. I would never understand why mortals forever made the same mistakes.
A full cycle at the most only took five generations to boot too... Didn't they write books too, study history, ask questions? ...think for themselves? I couldn't tell.
The lightning in the sky weakened gradually, forcing me to wake up from my musing. I'd have at least a quarter of an hour to deal with the princess, protagonist of this bloody conflict.
A quarter of an hour to end this slaughter, to force peace upon the warmongers so that I could leave.
Shimanda's last moments on the other hand interested me less. I had my very own problems to cope with, ridiculous circumstances a mere mortal could never fathom.
Neither their origins nor the consequences of failure... Turning around, I was just about to get ready leaping all the way over to the castle in one magnificent jump, riding atop thunder, when I was held back once more.
"Wait!" Shimanda gathered the last of his remaining energy, putting up a struggle to get his failing lips moving. "The princess," he croaked a question, "do you wish her death?"
"What do you think?" I answered, disinclined to humour him any longer. "Don't you know already?" And with these words as a parting gift, I left the blood-drenched grounds, leaping high up into the air.