Round 41: Demonized Elf

Anton was flung out of the darkness, sliding a long distance before being stopped by a rock not far in front of Milia.
“I use faith and courage as my shield…” He lay on his side, his hair disheveled, his left arm curled against his chest—apparently broken. A faint shield-like glow flickered a few times before disappearing helplessly.
“Your gods and justice can’t save you, old man.” Forty-Seven emerged from the darkness and landed in front of Anton, his steel wings drooping, with dark clouds swirling around him like a cloak, accompanied by rolling heat waves and dark red flames.
“I actually rather like you.” The shackles transformed into armor with sharp spikes, reattaching to his arms. Forty-Seven now held a sword in each hand. “You’re quite interesting sometimes… I’ve always been lenient with interesting things… It’s a shame your stubbornness ruined my kindness.”
“If we can’t hold onto what we consider beautiful and right and fight for it… what’s the point of life?” Blood seeped from Anton’s lips, yet he was smiling. “From that perspective… aren’t you the same, my artificial friend? It’s just that you’ve taken the wrong path… And for that, I must stop you…”
Friend? You want to kill me, and now I want to kill you too.
Stop me? You can’t even hold a sword properly.
Forty-Seven ignored the old holy warrior’s words, as if he never understood the so-called profound meaning when watching EVA.
He raised his giant sword and swung it down, its serrated blade tearing through the air. Just as it was about to strike Anton, the blade suddenly lifted in the opposite direction—seemingly shifting from one extreme to another. After a loud clang of metal, a blinding flash vanished in an instant.
Milia flew into the air; the anti-evil magic array attached to her holy sword was completely shattered. She landed on the ground, her legs giving out as she collapsed.
She trembled, her face pale, her gaze unfocused. She had never felt such despair and helplessness! All the evil beings she had faced before had suffered and feared under her powerful holy energy, dissipating like snow in sunlight—but the impact from just now felt like facing a raging evil river! Her prideful holy energy was like a handful of sand thrown into it—unable not only to stop the river but even to slow it down slightly!
“Little girl,” Forty-Seven sneered at her. “If you keep playing with fire… then sadly, you’ve now burned your delicate fingers.”
“It’s not strength that defeats evil… it’s courage…” Milia stood up, leaning on her sword, her voice trembling as she prayed.
What self-deluding nonsense. Forty-Seven’s red eyes lit up briefly—perhaps he rolled his eyes. “In modern terms—women against women.”
“What?” Before Milia could understand the meaning, a sudden gust of wind blew from behind her.

Thanks to the training Anton had once given her, Milia barely managed to block the attack. The enemy’s weapon scraped against her greatsword, emitting a sharp, grating sound—as Milia swung her sword in retaliation, the enemy leaped up with extraordinary agility, casting a blood-red gaze at her. The moment her eyes met that gaze, a sudden sense of weakness and powerlessness spread throughout her body. The attacker rolled twice in the air before silently landing beside Forty-Seven.

“Fergas? You—” Zalidan and Eirdris both paled.

The female elf known as Fergas had long, strong arms. Her left arm appeared somewhat lighter in color, a dull gray-black, while her right hand’s fingers were nothing like those of an elf—more like demonic claws, sharp as blades.

Her face had fully regained its beautiful, ethereal appearance. The runes cut by the blade had healed, leaving blood-red marks on her smooth skin. But the most astonishing thing was her red eyes—those eyes emitted a scorching, abyssal light. Anyone who met that gaze felt disgusted, as if a part of their vitality was drawn away by it.

“Let me introduce her,” Forty-Seven said, his expression now utterly demonic. “This is a corrupted elf—a corrupted elf under my command. By the way, your name is Fergas, right?”

“You iron-hearted scoundrel! What have you done?” Zalidan suddenly shook off Eirdris’s hand, rushed forward, and thrust his sword at Forty-Seven.

On his first step, he was still himself, his sword still his sword—his posture perfect, his strength immense, a perfectly focused thrust from a swordsman who had trained hard for years. But on his second step, his sword began to glow with an overwhelming force. It wasn’t the holy power generated by holy knights like Anton and Milia through devout will and faith, but rather the pure sword energy and killing intent cultivated through relentless training and life-and-death battles. By his third step, Zalidan was almost flying—his furious shouts drowned out by the blazing sword aura. Forty-Seven, facing him head-on, was no longer facing an elf or a sword, but a massive wave of sword energy!

The torrent of sword energy crashed against the black rock, sending up clouds of dust.

Zalidan was flung backward, coughing up blood. His long sword was almost completely embedded in Forty-Seven’s body, running from chest to back—but Forty-Seven paid it no attention at all.

He grabbed the sword and slowly pulled it out of his body, the metallic scraping sound making everyone present shudder. Halfway out, Forty-Seven simply broke the hilt and then pulled out the remaining half with a single motion.

Forty-Seven looked down and let out a hoarse, deep breath.

The corrupted elves stood up silently, just as they had appeared silently.

These elves had largely regained their former appearance—quite incredible, as if some immense force of darkness had reshaped them. Yet now they differed slightly from normal night elves, whether it was small horns on their foreheads, sharp teeth and forked tongues, skin covered in black scales, or tails with sharp spines… One night elf without legs even grew a pair of hooves resembling goat legs!

“You’d better explain this, Construct. While I can still tolerate it.” Yldris’ expression darkened as the magical energy unique to elven priests surged violently within her body, seeking an outlet for her complex emotions. She had already identified the source of that earlier discomfort—the corrupted elves stared at her with sorrow, pity, compassion, helplessness, and resignation, yet all mixed with a chilling coldness and hysterical evilness—that was by no means the gaze a night elf should have.

Even setting aside their mutated appearances, Yldris was almost certain it wasn’t the elves who had embraced the power of the abyss, but rather the flesh of demons that had devoured them. These creatures were nothing but some unknown kind of monster hidden beneath the guise of night elves—unforgivable evils from the depths of hell attached to her kin and come to this world. They were mocking Yldris, mocking her incompetence, her stupidity…

Yldris stared at the black Construct before her, barely suppressing her urge to strike. This Construct was nothing but a vessel brimming with darkness! Why had she ever thought she could control such power without losing her sanity?

“Explain?” Forty-Seven admired his destructive servants with satisfaction. “There’s nothing to explain—I’ve never been good at magic. Now we can fight Agus more effectively, right?”

“Not good at it? But why do I feel like you tampered with the ritual?” Yldris stepped forward, her skirt swaying. “You used filthy dark powers to twist their souls and destroy their minds! They’re no longer elves—you’ve killed my kin!”

“I’m not the only one who tampered!” Forty-Seven hissed, his figure growing larger in the black mist. “Don’t act so aggrieved, Miss Night Elf! I’m not the only one who initiated the summoning ritual either! If you insist I killed your kin, then you share some responsibility!”

His voice softened slightly afterward. “Besides, they’re not dead! They’re standing right in front of you alive! How do you define death, miss? The destruction of the body? No, clearly not! You believe it’s the departure of the soul that marks death! So, what is a soul?”

Forty-Seven turned to Phylgas beside him. “From my experience… a soul isn’t anything but intact memories, right? Look, she recognizes you! She remembers everything! Her memories are like data stored on a tape recorder, not a single bit lost! The only thing that’s truly changed is her upgraded, stronger body—Isn’t that the best of both worlds?”

“Nonsense! You’ve manipulated their minds!” Eirwen shrieked in anger. “Don’t think I can’t see it! You’ve turned our free people into slaves who bow to you!”
Forty-Seven let out a strange, mocking laugh.
“So you’re upset because you want control over this small group? Don’t worry about that! After all, our goal is the Agus! Since I and these demonized elves are meant to be pawns in the war against the Agus, I have reason to believe their obedience will help me adapt more easily on the battlefield… This wasn’t planned in advance! I swear! I just suddenly thought it might work—you should thank me. If I hadn’t marked their souls, who knows which abyssal creature they’d be obeying now!”
Eirwen was momentarily speechless. The eloquent construct before her resembled a Batzu demon, cunningly twisting her intentions to justify its evil deeds—demons?
She suddenly cried out, “I’ll help you fight the Agus, and you help me complete the ritual! I never agreed to help you build an army! Construct! You’ve broken our agreement! You can’t do this!”
“Agreement?” Forty-Seven grinned. “I’m modifying our agreement.”
Zaridan stood up with the help of an elven warrior, his right arm hanging limp—apparently broken. “Cough… Stop wasting time with this evil metal creature… Eirwen. Let’s join forces against him to protect the honor of the night elves…”
“That’s what you think? How unfortunate.” Forty-Seven casually drew his giant sword again. “Then let’s end this pathetic farce. It seems the old saying is true—to get things done, you have to do them yourself… But don’t expect me to order them to close their eyes. I don’t want them to develop the habit of avoiding seeing the blood of their own brothers.”
“Wait…” Anton struggled to sit up, trying to stop it, but no one was listening anymore.
Eirwen’s face darkened, and a greenish glow emanated from her hands, as if she was still struggling internally. Suddenly, she seemed to sense something and looked up.
A loud noise came from above. Debris and dust fell like rain, and several bright lights swept back and forth. The dissonant vibrations from spatial teleportation spread throughout the hall like ripples.
A strange floating machine appeared out of thin air above everyone. Its huge hemispherical body was covered with no fewer than a dozen thick, flexible tentacles, writhing in sequence. Its gray-brown exterior resembled a mix of steel and organic matter, with intricate pipelines and textures that looked like biological veins. A monstrous mouth with sharp teeth and rotating eyeballs occupied the lower half of the machine, while the tips of the tentacles also had eyeball-shaped crystals, seemingly composed of hundreds of facets in red, green, and blue. The dust scattered from them was bright, almost colorless light.

The floating machine tilted slightly. Dagulas seemed to be standing inside a vast, eerie skull, holding onto a railing that resembled blood vessels, laughing heartily: “The traffic is terrible, and this weird thing keeps acting up—have I missed anything?” She adjusted her hair blown away by the wind, like a high school girl late for a date, showing not the slightest hint of embarrassment.

But since she was late, she had to make amends somehow.

Bombs filled the sky along with some new types of projectile weapons, their numbers almost matching those of the beetles before—some even detonated mid-air, causing the flying machine to shake slightly.

It was unclear whether Agus’s men would occasionally utter bold statements like “Blast you back to the Stone Age,” but this indiscriminate carpet bombing, which was nothing short of wasteful, clearly embodied the essence of bullying from those who dominated from above—the successive shockwaves turned the entire hall into a buzzing bell, leaving no chance to dodge or defend. The elven warriors and priests had almost no chance to fight back against such an onslaught of nearly a hundred instant spells. The only elf who managed to stay unharmed was Ildris; her magical shield glowed with emerald light as she struggled to hold out under the relentless attacks.

“Watch that female elf! Prepare the anti-magic field!” The command mage, who had just spent a fortune, shouted. “Don’t give her a chance to cast spells—”

A flash bomb fired from Dagulas’s hand dutifully fulfilled its purpose, not only knocking the reckless mage out of the flying machine but also affecting several others. They covered their eyes and ran around the deck, trying to grab anything to hold on to—a truly spectacular and ridiculous sight.

“Do you think the anti-magic field only affects the elves below? Maybe. Your pathetic tricks probably don’t even deserve to be called magic!”

Dagulas abandoned her earlier graceful demeanor and snapped at her subordinates still reeling from dizziness. She casually turned one who accidentally touched the control stick, causing the entire floating machine to shake, into a hive oozing red honey.

“…Kill them.” From the moment that strange flying machine appeared, 47 had noticed the red-robed female mage with blue tattoos. She stood on the flying machine as if the chaos around her had nothing to do with her, watching it all like a farce—her expression annoyed 47, even making him feel a bit aggrieved.

The corrupted elves rose at her command—they scattered and climbed the surrounding stone walls with eerie movements, approaching the flying machine. The torrential attack earlier seemed to have had no effect on them. Or rather, rather than being unaffected, the impact on them was negligible compared to the force driving them.

From below, the soaring figures of the corrupted elves resembled graceful dancers in the night sky.

“What beautiful kittens!” Draculaus marveled at the demonized elves trying to leap onto the flying craft, but this didn’t stop her from manipulating those mechanical tentacles with crystal-like eyes to fire deadly magic beams.