Becoming the Strongest Through (Draconic) Racism - Chapter 4 (Patreon)

Cadre Satanael POV:

Dragon Slayer.

In order to understand why such a phrase elicit instinctual terror within the supernatural world, one needs to focus on the operative word of that title; Slayer.

What is a Slayer one may ask?

In the utmost of layman terms, and a very basic definition to completely flatten the importance of the title, it is one who specializes in hunting a specific species.

To any supernatural being with the least bit of common sense, a Slayer is their worst nightmare, should they happen to be the designated target of that slayer's abilities.

For a scientist as Satanael, a Slayer was a much simpler thing to identify.

They are humanity's immune response, their white blood cells.

When a magical species terrorizes mankind on a prolonged period of time, such that their existence becomes a clear existential threat, that a large enough human population laments, fears and hates said species, eventually a Slayer would be born.

A human who becomes a natural enemy to the species they are a target off.

And in those ancient days, no one knew when a human might awaken into a Slayer. It would just be a normal random day, and a werewolf king or the like would be plundering another villain, when a human they terrorized had experienced enough trauma, that rather than break, they slaughter the werewolf pack and their king right then an there.

A Slayer tends to grow in strength relatively very fast to at least be one level of power below the source of their hatred. And that would usually be enough, as their natural advantage would take care of the rest. Their very energy would harm their target species just as well as Holy Power harms devils.

Slayers tend to plateau around the level of strength of the enemy they originally awakened against, but would slowly but steadily grow in strength should they continue to fight their target species.

Part of why the Vampire Faction(s) are treated as a joke is because, even in the modern world, even with all the evidence of Slayers existence, and the reason why they shouldn't terrorize human populations whole while showing off their existences, and while having all the resources of the modern world to easily get blood without too much antagonism; vampires still act in idiotic ways that create genuine Vampire Slayers in the modern world.

A big part of why the masquerade on the knowledge of the supernatural exists, was for this specific reason to avoid humanity's immune response.

The reason why the modern world had been directed to one where civilization pursues comfort, pleasure and luxury was to dull this immune response.

Devils were masters of this, as their influences lead to the rise, or even outright, creation of multiple entertainment industries and other means of making everyday life convenient.

Along with making the existence of magic and monsters be fictional in the public eye, humanity's existential terror turned inward, or at the mundanity of their nine to five.

The Church, despite all their efforts, all their training, all their indoctrination hadn't managed to gain a genuine Devil Slayer in nearly a thousand years. Because toward the end of the Great War, the devil's operations consisted mainly of targeting specific humans of influence to corrupt or to control.

The rest of the human population feared devils in an abstract sense, or feared them because of the Church. But not because of personal experience. They didn't have the terror of fighting devils face to face, and then carry that pain, terror and anger, day by day, from generation to generation.

It's also why around the time of the Savior, or a bit after it, war operations in the Great War never directly included humans. Oh sure, they fight in the name of God, and against devils and all that.

But they never directly fought those devils themselves. It was always humans who believed in God, against humans motivated by temptations of the devils, or machinations of the fallen. A proxy war, while the real one was between the actual Angels, Fallen and Devils.

So that's why Slayers are scary, if you're part of their targeted species.

Vampire Slayers. Still a problem for vampires today, showing how stupid they are.

Werewolf Slayers. Exist, but more more rare, as werewolf tended to migrate rather than stay in one location.

Oni Slayers. Those caused the entire Youkai Faction, East and West, to come into existence have the current structure that they do. None of the Japanese supernatural beings know if a full on Youkai Slayer ever existed, and no one wants to take that chance.

Devil Slayers. A thing of the past, and regardless of all the Church's propaganda, none have come to being in over a millennium.

Fallen Slayer. A few appeared in history, but it's a point of pride for the Grigori that there were only a handful.

God Slayers. Those terrified Pantheons whenever they appeared. Caused quite a few divine wars to start, because gods, no matter how wise, knowledgeable, or strong they think they are, are nothing, if not walking imbecilic self-fulfilling prophecies.

Angels? As a race, they are the only ones that can boast to have never created a Slayer for their existence. When angels faced the humans of other factions, odds are, those humans never thought of them as an existential threat, but simply, 'the enemy of my god', or 'the servants of my god's enemy'. They were never a threat or fear of humanity in and of themselves.

It also helped that angels were never cruel in war. Simply decisive. The terror was never prolonged, or tainted with hatred for generations.

And that all brings us to dragons, and why their Slayers were seen as the most frightening.

The reason was quite simple. Dragon are the Apex Predators of this World, and thus by design they are the strongest type of Slayer.

The worst par thought, was that due to Dragon Slaying Magic of any kind being the strongest Anti-Racial Magic, it meant that, while a Dragon Slayer was a natural enemy of Dragons, by default, they are also Anti-Every-Other-Race sans other humans.

Dragon Slayers gain a natural advantage against every race, magical or otherwise, as a bonus. Because being the natural predator of dragons, crystalized power given form, wasn't enough.

Dragon Slayers, or any Slayers, for that matter was a unique existence born of circumstances where the stars align. It can't be artificially created.

It's why all of the Church's special projects, like the Sigurd Institute were destined to be failure from the onset. They wished to clone the Legendary Hero, Sigurd.

The best they could do was clone Sigurd the Hero, never Sigurd the Dragon Slayer. A biological component might be possible, but the spiritual was beyond any of their means.

All of that, begins to describe the terror of Caleb Gunnar just awakening as a Dragon Slayer.

The thing that fascinated and slightly filled Satanael with dread and morbid curiosity was that...

Caleb became an Ultimate Class simply upon awakening as a Dragon Slayer. Satanael though, which, well... did not make sense.

The natural course of events dictate he would awaken to a level of a High Class being, and that would be enough to fight and defeat someone of Beithir's level.

Not only that, but a Dragon Slayer is the product of a human community experience at least one generation of humans who have faced and survived dragons to know that they are real and see them as an active and present existential threat.

Instead, Caleb skipped that whole process and awakened immediately at the level of an Ultimate Class, allowing him to slay Beithir in one single stroke.

Which means that the dragon he was born to slay, the focus of his hatred wasn't Beithir? Satanael realized. But then what other dragon could it possibly be? That was a tantalizing mystery the Fallen Angel wished to unveil.

"S-S-Satanael, w-what do we do? We can't fight him. And if it comes out that we caused the birth of a Dragon Slayer, we're doomed!" Ignatius whisper shouted, as if the Ultimate Class Human can't hear them.

Then Caleb did something completely unexpected. He fell down, completely losing consciousness.

"...Huh." Satanael made a sound. He supposed the exhaustion finally broke through Caleb's mental barrier and overtook him.

Caleb entire trial was once miracle after another. They had to run out eventually.

"Is... Is he...?" Ignatius looked on in wide-eyes with disbelief. A laugh slowly began to climb its way out of his throat, as he couldn't believe their luck. "HeheheheHAHAHAHAHAHA! He fainted! HE FAINTED! AHAHAHAHAHA OH THANK THE SATANS!"

Right. I should deal with that now. Satanael kept his smile.

"Oh, we, hahaha, this is truly fortune." Ignatius Naberius started to calm down. "I'll have to report this to my higher-ups. A Dragon Slayer is too valuable as a subject. Especially one found to voluntarily." Then the devil's better senses got to him. "Although... maybe if we hide what happened here, we could just get rid of him and never speak—"

Snap-hiss.

Ignatius' mouth opened but no sound came out. He looked down to see a Light Spear sticking right out of his chest, through his heart.

"Sa... Satanael...? What... are you... doing?" The Naberius Devil used all his strength to force the words out. He could already feel the spear made of Light Magic weakening him, poisoning his body and breaking it down, as life was fleeing from him.

"Humanity gained a Dragon Slayer in this era of false peace. That..." Satanael replied with a smirk. "Is far too valuable for him to be used or vanquished by the hands of ones like you."

Before Ignatius could even scream, the Light Spear burst into a blast of Light Magic erasing the devil's body.

Satanael flew down to the sleeping Caleb. His body seems to have healed with his rebirth, however, naturally he will be starving when he wakes up. Satanael nodded as he made plan on what diet to put the boy on to facilitate his recovering and further improvement.

The Fallen kneeled down and picked up the boy in a bridal carry. He held him with a care he hadn't bothered to exercise in far too long. Honestly beyond the food, housing, and convincing the boy not to go on some immediate rampage, the biggest obstacle Satanael can foresee was finding dragons opponents to aid Caleb reach his full potential.

And to find out which dragon is the target of the boy's hate.

Or maybe it was Fate. Sometimes, Slayers are born due to the terrorizing tales of some magical being oppressing humans in some place, and in a different place, another human would awaken as a Slayer.

That could be the case here, but if so, where would they even begin to look for that opponent?

All questions he'll have to take his time working through.

For now he should find some place to stay within Hexennacht. Walburga would be a good host for him, since he was well acquainted with the Incinerate Anthem Longinus holder and her former master.

Satanael paused before he could take off, as he heard a low wailing pains of someone dying.

He could hear and see far into the mainland if he bothered to, where human authorities were gathering to investigate, what they will most definitely call a 'natural disaster', that fell on the island.

The barrier he original put up served two functions. One was to make people not care about visiting the island, or notice said barrier or what happened inside, expand the space within the barrier, and make it sturdy to attacks from inside.

The reason he didn't bother with anything too complex or that covers mass swath of variables, was because with influence Naberius had on the local police, it was easy to just make the Alcatraz Island blocked to visitations due to renovations, or some such excuse.

Humans were natural receptive to information, when they didn't have a strong emotion about a subject one way or another.

'Alcatraz Island is closed for renovations? Alright.'

'The police said no boat to Alcatraz or there's a fine? Aaarrgh, fine, whatever. I don't care anyways'.

And so on and so forth.

Apathy and distractions served to keep the masquerade up far more than any magic.

Satanael moved to the naked boy down on the ground, crying out with empty pain for it can't reach anyone. Anyone who would care that is.

"He..lp... me..." Chad Richardson begged, only able to whisper, as he laid on the ground next to a tree with a broken back.

"I'm afraid there's no helping you, young Chad." Satanael said with false sympathy. "You see, you have lived a very sinful life. You oppress the weak, you lusted after women, you acted maliciously on others, those who have wronged you and those who haven't. You have lived a very self indulgent life, while making the lives of other around you miserable. The only destination for your soul, could only be Hell. Even I have no power to do anything about the fate you wrought with your own hands." He said with an amused smile.

"I meant... heal... me!" Chad uttered with all his strength, let out a wheeze carrying those words.

"Ah! You mean physically saving you. Healing your body" Satanael said in an exaggerated motion. "Now that... is also beyond me." The Fallen Angel took that time to enjoy the anger, fear and above all despair in the pitiful Reincarnated Devil's eyes. "For you see, you literally had your Sacred Gear, an object bonded to your soul, punched out of you. Or rather, you were punch out of it, which I admit, I've never seen before." He let out a chuckle recalling how it happened. "So soul-wise, you are dying because your soul is damaged. Incomplete. Nothing can be done about it." Satanael shrugged carelessly.

"B..ut..."

"Well, maybe if we had the equipment for it, maybe we could have gotten Rage Reaver back into your body. All it would take is a few teleports to my lab there and back," Satanael continued. Hope began to return the Reincarnated Devil's eyes. "Ooooh," the Fallen hissed in fake sympathy. "Buuuut, sadly it seems like Rage Reaver has already left the place, likely registering that you're dead and returned to the Heaven System to be recycled and given to another human."

"...A...h..." The light of hope died again.

"There's also the fact that you're back is broken. Your body is physically shutting down from that critical injury." Satanael looked around. "Also, also it seems like the island's grounds are now consecrated. Seems that last attack had a Holy Element to it. That is actively radiating and breaking down your Devil body." He smiled in amusement at the sinner's pain. "I'm afraid I can only save one person right now, Chad. It's just a roll of the dice that it wasn't you."

"SAVE... ME... PLEA...!" Chad with all his might tried to shout. He couldn't even fully say 'please'.

"As I said, can only save one." Satanael looked off into the distance. "Maybe the coast guards will manage to find you, but you're dying from three different ways, so I wouldn't count on it. It would be false hope."

Chad's tearful eyes, fell to the only other person he could blame or be angry at. The sleeping Caleb in Satanael's arms.

"Hi...m... why...?"

"Him? You mean Caleb? Caleb Gunnar the kid you used to bully? Well, you see, he's now a Dragon Slayer. Which you might not understand the importance of, but just know it makes him infinitely more important than you at the moment." Satanael said in a cheeky way.

"Him... loser... orph...an...?"

Satanael smiled at Chad, his eyes holding clear contempt, pity and disgust in them.

"This boy, even should he die, has already made a service to mankind that will far outstrip any work you could have done in the world, even if you lived for a hundred lifetimes Chad. He evolved a Sacred Gear. Fully transforming it from an ordinary one, to a true reforged Longinus. That is a work, that would live beyond even his lifetime.

"Humanity in the future will be stronger, having one more weapon against the dark because of his effort. The dark that you jumped to join at the first opportunity might I add." Satanael said, watching as confusion filled Chad's eyes, as he cried wanting someone to save him, and can't understand why his victim was being prioritized over him. "And all that, is if he did nothing else, starting from now. But as you have witnessed these last few day, Caleb is someone destined for greatness. Something that in the face of strife, thrived and grew beyond you could ever imagine.

"This boy has the potential to completely change the world, once he comes into his own. And while you? Well... you, Chad Richardson, were just lucky enough to win the fate lottery ticket and be born with a Sacred Gear and nothing else. You managed to build nothing, accomplish nothing, and now you'll leave behind nothing." Satanael's words stabbed into the body's heart, his insecurity and his sanity. "For someone who is sooo... lacking, why would I bother to exert any effort?

"Caleb seems to have dissociated with his past complete at the end, so I can't even use you as a method to cultivate this growth." The Fallen laughed. "Honestly, it's such a shame, but I guess that's all you could amount to. All the use you had." He shrugged, and turned to leave.

Satanael supposed the American magical side of things would take care of any details or things that need to be hidden about this area. Should he send them a heads up, or would they be, on the ball as the youth say these days, and have dispatched to San Francesco already?

"...dad...dy... help... me...!" Chad gasped at nothing, his eye sight beginning to darken.

The Fallen Angel paused.

"Oh that's right!" He snapped his fingers. "I should kill your father so he doesn't talk to other devils and point them to this island. Need to stall investigations for as long as possible. The longer people don't know about Caleb's existence the better." Satanael turned to Chad with a smile. "Thanks for reminding me to take care of that loose end, Chad."

Chad tried to cry out, but his lungs gave up and collapsed.

"Don't feel bad, Chad. Don't you know?" A teleportation magic circle flashed under Satanael wide enough to cover him and Caleb whom he was carrying. "We all become orphans in the end."

Both disappeared having left the island.

Chad Richardson stayed there on the ground, naked, in pain, choking and dying while knowing his dad would be dead soon, and thinking it was his fault.

Chad couldn't have known that the Fallen Angel was planning to kill his father, Brad anyways.

Thus when the coast guard found the body of a naked teen dead near, what the new reported, a fissure that opened up and separated Alcatraz Island in two.

They attempting to find his closest kin, but his father, Police Chief Brad Richardson seemed to have been killed in his home by his wife, who was now missing.