Rebirth of the Nephilim

“It’s a reverse play. He’s trying to manipulate you into thinking he wants Alex into becoming a Demon Lord when he really doesn’t want that at all.”

“Reverse Play?” Jay asked, tilting her head to one side. “You’re talking about reverse psychology, right?”

“What’s ‘psychology?’” Maeve frowned in confusion.

“Accismus,” Noct stated firmly.

“Ass-muss what?”

“It’s a form of rhetoric,” Severina explained. “A noble will feign refusal or a lack of interest in an objective, when in fact they strongly desire said objective.”

“Accismus smashmismush,” Kerr sang mockingly. “Fuck the big words, orange-ass is right! It’s a reverse play! Samleos is just pretending like he has to force Demon Lord on Alex! I bet he doesn’t want to do it at all, but he’s trying to spin it like it’s a punishment that he is going to drop on all of our heads, because then we’ll be looking for ways out of the situation, when really it’s him that doesn’t want Alex to take Demon Lord the most!”

“Wait, so now you’re saying you want Alex to take the Demon Lord class?” Aila asked the therion with a confused frown.

“No, I didn’t say that. What if that class turns Alex into some kind of giant worm monster like Vinea? How are we going to fuck then? I’m just saying that Samleos definitely doesn’t want her to take the class either. And if Sammy the Shit Weasel doesn’t want out girl to become Demon Lord, that makes me wonder if maybe it isn’t the ‘right’ thing to do.”

“But what if Samleos knows all those rhetorical techniques,” Sorcha pointed an unfinished wand at Kerr. “And he knows that we know those techniques, and he’s counting on us thinking that it’s a reverse play or whatever you call it, and really he really does want Alex to take the class.”

“No, no, no, don’t start down that road,” Maeve loudly proclaimed, holding up her hands to stop the goblin from continuing. “That just turns into a back and forth on he knows, she knows, he knows, and so on. I’ve literally stuck myself in a loop like that for two days before and I’m not doing it again.”

“I still believe the bigger question is why Destarious wants Alex to become a Demon Lord,” Aila said as she held up the magical pair of undergarments before her blue eyes. “The fact that he knew Alex would be offered the Demon Lord class a month in advance…”

“He might not, ah, have wanted it,” Thea said quietly at Aila’s shoulder. “He might have just seen it c—coming and prepared for it.”

“He may have suspected this development further back than a month ago,” Meli pointed out. “If Sholto communes with Destarious once every six months, last month was likely the earliest this preparation could be made, while knowledge of the development could have been sooner. Destarious is also a God. He may have known that this would happen from the beginning.”

“What do you mean by the beginning?” Aila asked the Dryad.

“I am not certain,” Meli shrugged her thin shoulders. “How does divinity see future events? I have no insights. But a God may have seen this coming from a great distance away.”

“That question opens another bucket of worms,” Eir murmured as she stared at the cabin floor in concentration.

“A bucket of what?”

“It is a Jadis euphemism. It is like letting the smatterlings out of the pen.”

“Ah.”

“Is this how all these conversations go around here?” Ammy asked quietly as she leaned close to Syd.

“Pretty much,” Syd whispered back while putting an arm around the catgirl’s waist. “That potion you used isn’t going to run out of time, is it?”

“We’ll be fine, unless this chaos goes on until dawn. But I have more powders, too, if I need to keep our protections in place for longer.”

“I hope that won’t be needed, but considering the topic…”

“Right…”

After receiving the wonderous pair of pantaloons from High Priest Sholto, Jadis, Eir, and Noct had addressed a few last-minute details in Eldingholt before departing that evening. It had been a long day, and Jadis was inclined towards sleeping in her own bed that night and leaving for Volto in the morning, but the thought of all of her lovers who were still camping out in the corrupted fields of the occupied territories convinced her otherwise. If they couldn’t sleep in their comfortable bed, then she wouldn’t either.

By the time the three of them had reunited with the Voltonian army, it was late in the night and most of the camp was asleep. Aila had not been able to perform her greater ritual to surround the area in her arcane traps without Jadis, but with how light the demonic activity had been since the farmland ambush, the ritual was more of a precaution than a necessity. The Roc was also floating in the sky next to the Leviathan, having returned from its supply run while Jadis was gone, and the twenty thousand reinforcements that had been marching hard from Thracina were only one campsite behind the main force.

Since they had arrived so late, Jadis did not give her lovers a full explanation of what she had learned from her experience with Samleos and D, instead only giving them a brief summary of events. She had hoped to have a proper discussion in the morning, but even with Sleep of the D she wasn’t able to wake up early enough for that to happen. Several long nights in a row had made it so that she was running low on sleep, and even her system-enhanced stamina couldn’t keep her going without proper rest forever.

After a long, anxious day on the march where very little happened and yet her attention was constantly bombarded with calls for aid and advice from those around her, Jadis was finally able to gather all of her lovers and have a sit-down discussion in the privacy of the Levithan. Just like she had with Eir, she gave everyone a complete account of her experience during the ritual, as well as the meeting with Sholto after. Naturally, the number of opinions on what to do with the new and controversial information outnumbered the number of people in the room. Fortunately, they were at least keeping the topic focused on Alex. For the most part.

“I don’t know, it all sounds like a bad deal no matter what,” Bridget groaned as she scratched her scalp through her dark hair. “Taking the Demon Lord class is suicide—everyone in the world is going to be trying to kill her! But if you don’t take a class, Alex, you’ll be hamstringing yourself to be weaker than you’d be with a tertiary class for the rest of your life. And! And don’t even get me started on Samleos’ deal. You can’t bargain with that bastard, that’s how the cultists get the way they are! Anything he’d offer you would be bloody poison. It’s not even a real option.”

“Better to be weak and alive than hunted by the world,” Sorcha said. “And Alex isn’t weak even without a tertiary class. She’s a menace on the battlefield. Aren’t you, Alex?”

“I am… Strong…” Alex said slowly, her body language showing she was deep in thought. “However… I do not… Wish to… Fall… Behind… Jadis…”

“Yeah, I can understand that,” Sorcha sighed. “But becoming a Demon Lord just to keep up with Jadis is—”

A sudden loud coughing noise caused Sorcha to jump. Spinning around, she glared at Sabina, who had been fiddling with the cigarette that Jadis had received from Samleos.

“What are you doing?”

“It tastes awful!” the smith complained as she gagged and held the offending item far away from herself. “The smell was nice, so I gave it a taste, and it’s horrible! So much worse than pipeweed or yallery, it’s just awful!”

“Did you seriously put something that came from the God of Death in your mouth!?” Sorcha exclaimed as she snatched the cigarette out of the half-elf’s hand. “Eir, please check her.”

“Yes,” the saint said as she hurried over to examine Sabina.

“You know, cigarettes are made from a plant called tobacco on Earth,” Jay pointed out as she waved at the little crumpled tube in the goblin’s hand. “Maybe you or Ammy could figure out some kind of potion from that?”

“It would be a one-off potion, but perhaps,” Ammy mused as she scooted over to sit closer to Sorcha.

“Not necessarily,” Meli said as she sat down on Sorcha’s other side. “If it is a plant, there may be a way of revitalizing and growing more, depending on how much of the leaf is intact.”

“Not sure I want to introduce tobacco to Oros,” Jay muttered as she watched the three women get distracted by Samleos’ bad habit. “If letting me take that cigarette was part of some kind of plan to get me to introduce nicotine addiction to the world, Samleos is even worse than I thought.”

Jadis knew that they were getting distracted. Considering how long they had been talking for, it was impossible for the conversation not to drift at least a little. In a way, the diversion calmed Jadis, reminding her that not everything was as bad as it seemed. No one was running away from the situation; no one was trying to ignore or deny it. Everyone was working together to support Alex, offering their advice and assistance freely and with love. No matter what happened, they would all be working together to overcome whatever chaos might come from whatever decision Alex came to. Because ultimately, the decision was Alex’s to make.

But Alex didn’t have to make that decision alone.

“Let us presume, just for a moment,” Aila sighed as she passed the pantaloons to Jay to hold. “If Alex were to take the Demon Lord class, what would the positives be? We’ve already discussed the negatives at length. Are there any potential benefits that might possibly outweigh the danger?”

“Power, for one,” Severina reluctantly admitted. “The Demon Lord is always a supremely powerful foe. There is a reason why the Hero and his party are the only ones capable of defeating the Demon Lord of each cycle. No one else has the power to match him.”

“No Demon Lord has ever been defeated by anyone other than a Hero?” Jay questioned the group. “Ever?”

“Never,” Aila confirmed. “Certainly, there have been stories of powerful individuals who have assisted the Hero and his party. But the killing blow has always come from the Hero.”

“I wonder…” Jay scratched her chin as she thought that tidbit of information over. “I feel like there has to be a reason for that other than just power. I mean, I’m not sure Wilhelm would be able to beat me in a fight.”

“Your egotism is showing,” Bridget drawled as she rolled her eyes.

“No, really,” Jay insisted. “Think about it. Wilhelm is extremely strong, no question. But with my speed and ability to fly, and how much health I have, and my Mirrored Strikes, and everything else I can throw at him—I’m genuinely not sure that he could beat me in a one-on-one fight. And I’m not saying that because of my big heads, I’m saying that because if he and I are on about the same level of power, why would a Hero be necessary to defeat a Demon Lord?”

“I would point out that you are an extremely unusual circumstance,” Eir said as she finished checking over Sabina for any adverse reactions to sampling the cigarette. “You are not typical, Jadis.”

“That’s true, but I’m also not the only person in the world who’s ever gotten super strong without being related to a Hero. Look at Noll. I know he doesn’t have any magic, but with his speed and skill, he’s a one-man army. Could Wilhelm beat Noll in a fight?”

“I… believe he could,” Severina said, though it looked like it pained her to say so. “But it would be a close battle.”

“A close battle,” Jay repeated. “And that’s just as a one-on-one scenario. What if you got together a group of people just like Noll, at least in terms of power, and threw them at the Demon Lord. You’re telling me that, like, five Nolls couldn’t beat a Demon Lord? What if Jack was with them, with all of his illusions? Or what about the demi-gods? What was her name, over on the island in the Siren Sea?”

“Nagaji,” Thea supplied.

“Yeah, Nagaji,” Jay nodded. “She’s a demigod, right? Supposedly, that’s only possible if you somehow exceed CLR three hundred. And there have definitely been other CLR three hundred people. You can’t tell me that all of those powerful individuals are incapable of defeating a Demon Lord, but Wilhelm is. That just doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, it’s never happened before,” Kerr frowned at Jay. “What do you want us to say? No one but a Hero and his party have ever defeated a Demon Lord. You’ve got that book that Vraekae gave you, right? I bet it tells you exactly how all those old Demon Lords died. Read that if you don’t believe us.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Jay countered, “it’s just that I think it’s weird as fuck that in literally thousands of years, no one other than a Hero has ever slain a Demon Lord. That just seems so unlikely to me.”

“Whether it has happened or not, what does that have to do with Alex’s situation?” Aila asked as she put a hand on Jay’s knee. “Does it matter?”

“I don’t know,” Jay sighed as she shrugged helplessly. “Everything about this situation has me questioning my understanding of how this whole cycle thing works. Demon Lords and Heroes and everything.”

Jadis wasn’t sure what Alex should do, but as always, she relied on her gut to guide her, and her gut was telling her that there was more to the situation than there seemed to be. Everyone had made excellent points about how dangerous becoming a Demon Lord would be for Alex. Nations would turn against her just for the title alone, never mind what the class could do to their personal connections to people like Emperor Somerulf and Wilhelm. Being a Demon Lord wasn’t just a stigma. It was the stigma. There was no worse thing a person could be on Oros, so far as the people of the world were concerned.

And yet…

Shaking her head, Jay turned her gaze onto Alex.

“One thing that I think we can all agree on is that there’s only ever been one Demon Lord at a time. Even Samleos’ own words confirm that much. If Alex were to become a Demon Lord, she’d be circumventing whatever rule is in place that governs the system, preventing there from being more than one Demon Lord at a time. To me, that is positive in favor of taking the class that might outweigh every negative that we can come up with.”

“Why would breaking the rules be a positive?” Severina scowled at the suggestion. “The rules are in place for a reason.”

“Just because they’re there for a reason, doesn’t mean the reason is fair,” Jay replied as she kept her gaze locked onto Alex. “Or for our benefit. The whole reason I was reborn on Oros was to break the cycle of Demon Lords and Heroes. I don’t know if this was all a part of D’s plan from the beginning or not, but circumventing the system to have a second Demon Lord who is without a shadow of a doubt a good person, who loves and cares for her family, and who would never intentionally cause any harm to anyone who wasn’t trying to hurt her or those she loves… that seems like a great way to potentially break a destructive cycle to me.”

As everyone in the room quietly digested Jay’s words, Alex’s expression lightened into a loving smile. Moving closer to Jay, she took her hand in both of hers and gave her a gentle squeeze. The tentacles that reached out and caressed Jay’s arms and legs were no less comforting in their tenderness.

“I will… Always… Be yours… Jadis…” Alex stated with a depth of feeling that Jadis felt in her soul. “Even as… A Demon Lord…”

Jadis smiled warmly at her beautiful, loving, demonic lover. Then the full implication of Alex’s statement hit her.

“Wait, what—”

Alex changed.