The Demon of The North-Chapter 134 - 133. Twenty Miles

Mara spotted one of the mixed-blood demons, the original Borgia knight she had dispatched earlier, descending toward the port, wings cutting through the air effortlessly. He landed before her with a thud, bowing his head just briefly.

"The elves have roughly three hundred aboard," he reported, voice steady. "The humans are about the same—perhaps a few more."

"Good," Mara said, arms folding as she glanced toward the distant silhouettes of the foreign ships. "Then we treat them well while they wait for our emperor."

Marvessa stood beside her, her expression calm, despite the tension humming through the port. She hadn’t planned to accompany Mara, she just wanted to protect the empress. But she was the fastest among the shadow knights and knew every hidden path and shortcut across Kaelindor. Vivianne had sent her personally to speed the coordination. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"Did Her Highness tell you anything more?" Mara asked, her eyes flicking sideways.

"No," Marvessa replied, "only to ensure the fleets remain twenty miles off our shore." She paused, her attention shifting as a faint whisper of mana curled around her. The spirits were speaking to her. "And... be prepared. Someone is already attempting to ’test’ our warning."

Of course they were. There’s always someone who never listens.

The spirits’ murmured report is clear: a few individuals aboard the ships doubted Maxwell’s warning, doubted the dangers of Kaelindor’s mana, and doubted that stepping foot on their shores could kill them. It seemed that some arrogance transcended both race and continent.

"Max," Mara said sharply, nodding toward the open sea where the outlines of two small boats were approaching, bobbing unsteadily on the dark water. "Get the others ready. Watch them. Don’t let them die."

Maxwell’s lip curled in a mixture of annoyance and resignation. "Those morons," he muttered, wings snapping open with a low thrum of demonic energy. With a single beat, he shot back into the sky, soaring toward the would-be challengers.

The first small boat pushed away from the elven ship with the sharp scrape of wood against wood. Four elves sat inside, two warriors, one scout, and a healer, each gripping their oars with a mix of suspicion and pride. They rowed hard, faces set in grim determination, ignoring the tense shouts from their shipmates behind them.

A second boat launched from the human vessel moments later. Five men and women, mages and knights, followed the same path, equally unwilling to accept the warning of the winged man who had halted them.

"What nonsense," one of the elves muttered as they rowed. "Mana poisoning? From excess? We are the ones blessed by the Tree of Life. If anything, we should handle mana better than anyone."

"Kaelindor must be exaggerating," another agreed, though his shoulders were stiff with uncertainty.

The two small boats cut steadily through the waves, oars dipping and rising in practiced rhythm. Those aboard, elves in the first boat and humans in the second, kept their eyes fixed on the distant shoreline. From afar, the land of Kaelindor looked deceptively ordinary, a stretch of forested cliffs and pale sand kissed by the tide. Nothing about it appeared deadly.

And the people standing on the shore—those strange warriors with dark armor and unfamiliar markings, didn’t look like the barbarians their stories warned of. In fact, they looked almost disappointingly normal, save for the few towering figures behind them.

Those hulking silhouettes resembled the nightmares that had torn through Aerthysia weeks ago: massive horned shapes, plated skin, and burning eyes. But these stood still, calm, as if awaiting orders.

"They exaggerate," one of the elves muttered, keeping his voice low. "This mana poisoning is probably just a trick to keep us from landing."

"Maybe their continent’s magic is denser," a human answered, "but dense doesn’t mean lethal." The others murmured in agreement, emboldened by their proximity to the shore. But even as they spoke, the air around them began to shift.

At first, it was subtle, like humidity settling over their skin, warm and velvet-thick. Then came the faint shimmer, a delicate glimmering like dust made of light. It clung to their hair and their clothes, sinking into their pores. The elves slowed their rowing, exchanging uneasy glances.

"Do you feel that?" one whispered.

"Just mana," another said, though his voice lacked confidence. "We’ve trained in the Tree’s aura all our lives. This is nothing—"

His words cut off abruptly.

The shimmer thickened, accelerating from dust to mist. The air pulsed, each wave pressing against their lungs like a physical weight. The humans in the second boat were the first to gasp, hands flying to their throats.

The healer frowned. "Do you feel—" The words crumbled into a sharp gasp.

Her hands trembled violently, mana surging inside her veins like boiling water. The glow on her skin intensified, crawling up her arms and spreading to her throat. She tried to channel it away, but the moment she attempted to circulate her core, the foreign mana slammed into her like a tidal wave.

"Agh—! " One of the warriors lurched forward, clutching his chest. His breath hitched, uneven. Sweat poured down in thick beads, and the whites of his eyes turned faintly luminous.

On the human boat, it’s even worse.

The two mages, overconfident and eager to disprove the warning, breathed deeply, only to collapse almost instantly. One vomited over the side as raw, unrefined mana flooded her channels. The other convulsed as his magic flared violently, manifesting in sparks that burned holes in the boat’s wooden planks.

"Row back!" A human knight shouted, voice shaking as his arms tightened uselessly around his comrade. "ROW BACK NOW!"

But it’s already too late. Their bodies couldn’t adapt. Mana—dense, pure, unfiltered—forced its way into every pore, every breath, every cell. Their limbs grew numb, movements sluggish, then abruptly rigid. Even their hearts struggled to keep rhythm as their blood shimmered faintly with excess spiritual energy.

From the shoreline, Mara watched with a scowl, muttering, "Idiot."s," she muttered.

Marvessa stood beside her, arms crossed, eyes narrowed in irritation. "We warned them. They never listen."

A beat later, a dark streak shot across the sky. Maxwell descended like a falling star, black wings cutting through the sunlight. Three other mixed-blood demon knights followed, fanning out in formation behind him. They reached the ocean in moments, hovering silently above the writhing boats.

"Told you," Maxwell growled. "Morons."

Mana poisoning was almost unheard of in Kaelindor’s borders. The land itself raised children who breathed pure mana from their first heartbeat; their bodies adapted, resilient in ways outsiders could never comprehend.

Still, the old protocols existed, ancient instructions passed down from the age when wandering spirits occasionally dragged foreign creatures too close to the continent’s heart. Roxanne had sent those instructions ahead, and the Borgia’s knights, with their mixed blood, are among the few capable of following them without crippling themselves.

Maxwell knew the signs the moment he felt the humans’ mana spiraling out of control. Their auras flickered violently, like flames starving for oxygen yet devouring everything around them.

Sweat broke over their foreheads, not from exertion but from their cores overheating. The purer mana in the air is forcing itself into their channels, overloading every pathway, turning veins into molten circuits. If left untreated, their mana would destabilize, collapse inward, and stop their hearts within minutes.

He tucked his wings and dropped, landing on the human boat with a heavy thud that nearly capsized it. His aura surged outward, creating a buffer zone, thin and fragile but enough to shove the boat backwards, away from the lethal saturation. The other three Borgia knights mirrored him at a distance, forming a barrier of their own, each pulse of their wings forcing back the mana-rich air.

Maxwell stretched a hand, weaving a spell that only demon-blooded knights could perform safely: a siphoning bind. It wrapped around the boat like dark mist, lifting it gently above the water. He tipped it toward the main ship and released, letting the stunned humans tumble back onto their deck while the boat thudded harmlessly beside them.

Then he crouched, grabbing the two unconscious mages. Their breathing is shallow and erratic, mana poisoning at its peak.

The moment he landed on the boat, the humans’ bodies reacted violently. Their skin flushed red, mana veins lighting under the surface like overfilled channels about to burst. Their breaths stuttered, shallow and erratic.

Classic early-stage mana saturation. Maxwell snapped his fingers, releasing a controlled pulse of demonic energy. His magic didn’t add mana to the surroundings, it ate it. Demon blood consumed raw magic like a predator, pulling it into himself and neutralizing the ambient density around the boat.

The air thinned immediately. Not safe, but survivable.

He hooked an arm under one mage’s armpit, lifting him effortlessly while the man’s head lolled back. "Stay awake," Maxwell growled, slapping him again. "If your consciousness shuts down, your core collapses. Don’t make this situation harder."

The mage gagged weakly, coughing out a mouthful of blood, a mana rejection, where the body tried to expel excess energy the way it expelled poison. His partner isn’t doing much better: trembling, eyes rolled white, sparks escaping his fingertips uncontrolled.

Maxwell thrust out his hand, summoning the signature Borgia anti-flux field. A dark sigil burned briefly in the air before sinking into the wood beneath them. The field stabilized the boat’s mana pressure, preventing further saturation.

"You two are lucky," he muttered. "Anyone else would’ve already ruptured a main artery."

Above, three other Borgia knights swooped in, winged silhouettes cutting across the sky. Two of them landed on the next ship, put the elves back, and the other one followed Maxwell, each of them radiating the same mana-devouring aura that Maxwell had unleashed.

"Containment," Maxwell ordered without looking back.

Immediately, the three demons spread their influence, forming a triangular barrier around the boat. The air within the perimeter dulled, the shimmer fading from the water’s surface. The oppressive pressure eased.

The poisoned ones are barely conscious when Maxwell flicked his wrist and sent the entire boat gliding back toward their ship. With a casual twist of his hand, he dumped the humans onto their deck, gently enough not to break them, but firmly enough to make a point.

"Next time," he said, voice low, "listen the first time someone warns you about mana saturation."

One mage retched again, clutching his ribs. Maxwell crouched beside him and forced a breath of demonic anti-mana into the man’s lungs. The shaking eased.

"Sleep later," he warned. "If you pass out now, you won’t wake up." The man nodded weakly, terrified.

Maxwell rose, giving their commander a cold look. "Keep your people on the ship. Kaelindor isn’t a place for fools."