The hero who was blessed by the goddess of snakes

Chapter 6: History of Demons and Devils

We continued to walk through the big arsenal until we finally reached the end of it.

There stood a podium with ten ancient-looking weapons and three ancient sets of armor, and in the middle of them, all was a weapon wrapped in cloth.

However, the form of the weapon was still similar to that of a sword.

“Well, here we are. The relics under the care of the order.” William said with a proud face.

“Relics?” I asked in confusion, from the books that I read relics were usually things with immense power, but if that were the case here, then why wasn´t the order or the kingdom using them?

Seeing my confused state, General Selena sighed and said, “Sadly, it is not like what you think. We call these weapons and armors relics because they are ancient. All of them are at least three hundred years old, if not older. As far as we know, none of them was anything special, or if they were, then they no longer are…”

As I heard her explanation, I could swear that she sounded a bit disappointed about it.

“They are no longer in a state in which you could use them, except for one.” William said and walked toward the wrapped sword.

William slowly began to unwrap the layers of cloth from the sword.

What emerged was a longsword, its blade seemed to be made from bone, while the hilt was made from metal and wrapped with leather.

An emblem was on the end of the hilt, a dancing lamia with four arms and a sword in each hand.

“As far as we know, this sword is by far much older than the other relics and yet is still in a condition in which it can be used for combat. Many had tried to take this weapon for themselves but for some reason all of them returned the weapon shortly after, having become terrified of the weapon. The followers of Athena had inspected it for many years but were never able to learn anything about it, their records also never mentioned a weapon like it. To make matters even worse, the symbol on it is even more of a mystery.” William explained while holding the sword in his hand.

I was barely able to hear what William was saying, I was simply not able to look away from the sword as if it was calling to me.

Both the General and William noticed how I was staring at the weapon.

With a smile, William threw the weapon toward me.

“Teacher!? Are you nuts?!” General Selena yelled angrily at her former teacher.

William said something, but I wasn´t able to hear it as everything else was getting farther and farther away, only the sword remained.

I reached out with my right hand and easily caught it, and as I held it in my hand… It felt right.

I swung the sword vertically, mid swing, the sword split into multiple parts that were connected with a steel rope.

The sword had transformed into a whip, a whip sword.

The whip flew sideward and hit the ground in an arc before being pulled back.

The rope moved back into the hilt and the sword pieces rearranged themselves into the sword again.

I looked at the sword and touched the blade with my free hand and looked at the emblem.

“Echidna…” was all that I could say to the emblem, although I had only seen a single statue of the goddess, something told me that the emblem was depicting the snake goddess.

“You are right, that is the emblem of Echidna, the goddess that had blessed you. And that is why you will not take the weapon with you back to the church.” General Selena said with a frown.

William sighed and said, “She is right, if the followers of Athena would see you with that weapon, they would be even more afraid than they already are. I am sure that Selena had already told you that the followers of Athena are afraid of what they don´t understand, and that weapon is one of the things that they don´t understand.”

I could only look helplessly at the weapon that I had just received.

“But that doesn´t mean that you can´t train with it outside of the church.” General Selena said with a smirk.

“THEN START WITH THAT!!!” I yelled as soon as I heard that, causing both the general and William to start laughing.

“Sorry about that, it´s just an old habit of ours.” General Selena said apologetically.

I pouted a bit, that prank hadn´t been funny at all.

“Then why have you brought me here and given me this weapon?” I asked while pointing the blade at the two.

General Selena raised her eyebrow in surprise.

“Easy, to strengthen you so that you will be more powerful in the war against the demons.” General Selena said.

Demons, demons, demons, until me and the others arrived here, we have heard that name multiple times, but they never explained what the hell demons even were in the first place.

I also have no idea about the gods, let alone the goddess that had blessed me.

On the way here, the general had talked about the demons as if it was obvious and common knowledge.

I had enough of that situation and finally snapped.

“The followers of Athena, the knights, and even you have mentioned the demon’s multiple times, but you have never even explained what the demons are and why they are such a danger that they have to be exterminated. None of you have also ever talked about the gods, even the followers of Athena had barely said a thing about her.” I yelled.

The two were stunned before William angrily looked at the general.

“Selena… You never told them about the demons?” William asked in a threatening tone, the easygoing nature was completely gone.

General Selena on the other hand was sweating profusely and was completely terrified.

“Please t… teacher I… I can explain…” General Selena said, trying to save herself from her teacher’s wrath.

Sadly, her attempt failed.

“YOU IDIOT!!! WHAT YOU HAVE DONE IS EXACTLY LIKE THOSE FOOLS OF THE CHURCH!!! YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE DIFFERENT YET YOU USE THE SAME METHODS?!” William yelled furiously.

He then continued to give the general a lecture about her behavior and her mistakes.

General Selena sat on the ground while listening to William´s lecture, not even trying to say anything even though she outranked him.

I on the other hand was too scared to move, so I just watched as the general was lectured by her teacher.

“*sigh* And here I thought that I had taught you better.” William said after he finished lecturing the general.

He then looked toward me with an apologetic look and said, “Sorry that you had to see this. Before I answer your questions, let us go back to my office, since it will take a long time to tell you everything.”

I agreed to his proposal, I had already anticipated that the explanation would be rather long, a thousand years of history isn´t something that you can compromise easily.

However, there was a problem, I wasn´t sure if I was allowed to take the weapon with me.

So, I asked both William and the general if it were ok for me to take it with me.

Both of them had nothing against it and even encouraged me to take it with me.

“As long as you are outside the church, you can take this weapon with you. The weapon belongs to you now.” William said, reassuring me that it was ok.

We walked back to William´s office, William brought two chairs and both me and the general sat down before William´s desk.

William set down at his desk and looked at both me and the general.

“What I am about to tell you has information that not many people know about, not even you, Selena, know some of these. I need you two to swear to me that you won´t tell anyone about this unless I allow you to do so, do you understand?” William asked in a serious tone.

I and the general could only nod our heads, both of us were too scared to say anything.

“Good, then let me begin with what the demons are.” William said with a wide smile.

Not wasting any more time, William started his explanation.

The term demon was not the name of a race but a designation, a name that was given to the different beings and races that had once been under the influence of the beings called the devils.

The devils were beings that more than a thousand years ago had invaded the planet, trying to conquer it, the gods, and the beings that lived on them, while also trying to state their unending bloodlust.

These beings who had invaded and conquered numerous planets, using magic to create connections between them, had enslaved multiple races under them.

Over countless years, these beings had been corrupted and moved by the devils themselves, they had become so twisted and warped that only the word demon was fitting to them.

Demons had no free will of their own, their minds controlled by the devils, and would follow every command that the devils would give them, no matter what.

They were also the soldiers of the devils, every one of them incredibly strong and able to wield magic.

As the devils invaded this planet, the demons fought against the mortal races of this world, and no one was able to oppose them.

The devils fought against the gods, trying to capture them, corrupt them and make them their loyal slaves, or simply slaughter them, to feast on their blood and flesh.

As both the mortal races and the gods were slowly losing to the devils and the demons, the gods took one last gamble and performed the first summoning.

With it, the first heroes had been summoned.

Together with the might of the heroes, the gods were able to finally go against the devils.

Some of the heroes helped the mortal races in their war against the demons until one hero and one God managed to free the demons from the control of the devils.

Having free will for the first time in their lives and remembering the horrors that they had to go through, the demons turned on their masters and fought against them.

With the combined power of the gods, the heroes, the demons, and the united mortal races, the devils were either killed or imprisoned.

After the war, the gods were forced to return to their realms and recover their strength.

The mortals went back to their lands, trying to live in peace with each other and the demons.

The demons had no other choice but to stay, they didn´t have the power to travel between worlds and settled down onto the land in which the devils had been imprisoned.

At first, it seemed that the races could together in harmony, however, not even a century later and the flames of war broke out again.

Many of the conflicts over the following millennia involved the demons, however, for some reason, the demons never invaded the lands of the mortal races and instead protected the borders of their empire.

And no one was able to break through their defenses and invade the lands of the demons.

The last war with the demons was a hundred years ago, the humans tried to invade the empire of the demons with the help of the elf tribes and the dwarven clans.

On the other hand, the demon’s defenses had been lighter than usual and not many soldiers had been stationed at the border.

Seeing this as a sign that the demons were getting low in number, the combined forces attacked the border defenses of the demons and came up victorious but had received such high casualties that the forces had to retread.

Many called this victory more of a tie than an actual victory, but it was the first defeat that the demons had ever received so nobody cared about it.

Now one hundred years later, the followers of Athena believed that the demons were still recovering from the losses from the last war, many kingdoms agreed with this and a new offensive against the demons was planned.

Which would lead to the current situation.

“But why does everyone hate or fear the demons? From everything that you just said, the demons never attacked any of the other races, after they had been freed from the demons.” I asked after William had finished his explanation of the history of the demons.

General Selena wanted to say something but before she could say something, she sank back into thought, as if her answer hadn´t been right.

She would try multiple times to answer but failed every time.

“To tell you the truth, there isn´t a good answer. On one hand, you could say that some are afraid that the demons would try and resurrect their former masters. Some would hold grudges from the previous wars, from the losses that they had to suffer from the battles with them. And others simply don´t trust them, which mostly goes for the races that have a long-life span, such as the elves.” William said.

I didn´t know how to react to this, back on earth, war was something that felt like something out of a fairy tale or something like that.

Since there were no longer any major wars.

And now, being thrown into this, even to this day it felt surreal.

I think that I simply wasn´t able to wrap my mind around the fact that I and the others would have to fight and kill, but now, hearing these reasons, this history of bloodshed…

I think I can finally believe it a bit more, the reality of the situation, and the scoop of things.

“You, okay?” William asked.

“Sorry… The whole thing was still a bit surreal for me, and it still is…” I said, not sure how to think about anything anymore.

“I don´t think that any of us can understand what you are going through. For us, this is daily life. Life and death are constant things. Even though we are technically in an era of peace, conflicts still happen. People die every single day. However, you need to snap out of it, for you nor the others don´t have the time to think about it, to sort out your feelings. For the beginning of the war is not far away, and if you want to survive, then you need to steal your heart and your will.” General Selena said and placed her hand on my shoulder.