Veltol tried to convince himself of it. He squeezed his hand, open and shut, to rid himself of the reluctant sensation—and to gauge his own power.

“Hmmm… My mana has certainly weakened greatly compared to five hundred years ago, in terms of both output and capacity. Beyond that, my body itself doesn’t feel up to my standards, either. It feels as if I’ve entered the battlefield without any armor, though it pains me to admit.”

“It must be because faith in you has plummeted, Lord Veltol…”

“Yes, I sensed that as well. I’m no stronger than an average human. My power as an immortal is also weakened. It seems hardly anyone in this current era knows who I am.”

Faith was what higher incorporeal beings, such as gods, needed to intervene with the material world. This power was derived from the thoughts or emotions an individual conjured from the masses; the stronger these emotions were, the more power they provided.

There were two kinds of faith: positive and negative. Negative emotions such as anger, sadness, and fear fueled lower incorporeal beings such as demons. Despite their opposite aims, both kinds of faith were based on a third party’s observations and feelings toward a subject.

Veltol, having elevated his soul while retaining a corporeal body, was in between god and demon, so he was strengthened by both positive and negative faith.

Five hundred years earlier, during his reign as Demon Lord, he received positive faith from the immortals and their brethren who adored him; the mortals who spread his infamy and terror throughout the world provided him with negative faith. He had achieved the kind of power that gods could only dream of.

“Even elves live a mere three hundred years, so those who were infants during your reign have long since died,” said Machina. “You are only talked about as part of history, my lord. Even the gods are starting to be forgotten.”

The opposite of faith was oblivion—or even apathy.

Faith was determined by how many people recognized and had feelings toward an individual. A loss of recognition translated to a massive power deficit.

That was the root cause of Veltol’s weakened state. With five hundred years gone, he was just as forgotten as the gods.

“It is what it is,” he said. “In any case, I now have eternal life—it’s only a matter of gradually reclaiming my faith. Now, Machina, what are the other Six Dark Peers and nobles up to? What about the Demon Lord Army?”

As he asked, he looked toward the entrance of a narrow alleyway at one end of the street. He saw an ogre, an orc, and a therian engaged in a fistfight around a steel drum, lit up as a bonfire.

“From what I can tell, it seems members of the Blood Alliance coexist in peace,” he continued. “What happened with the treaty?”

The Blood Alliance was a treaty the Demon Lord Army formed with the orcs, ogres, and therians. The purpose was to give favorable treatment to these three species so that they could prosper together.

Of course, this was only a temporary pact born from aligned interests. Both the immortals and the three species had planned to kill the other in their proverbial sleep.

The mortals greatly outnumbered their immortal counterparts, and the Blood Alliance was formed in order to bridge that gap.

“The Alliance was disbanded after our army’s defeat. The leaders died during the Three Blades Revolution in 1616 CE, and the remaining populace submitted to the mortals,” said Machina.

“I see.”

“The species allied with our army suffered awful treatment. I heard they were forced into brutal slave labor. Discrimination is still very pervasive to this day, just not as explicit as it once was.”

“Mm, I expected as much.”

A common trait between all three species of the Blood Alliance was that none possessed a great aptitude for magic. The reasons were manifold: orc, ogre, and therian mana stores were small and their magitech crude, a byproduct of their paltry education standards. As a result, the other mortals always looked down on them. Furthermore, these three species were sturdier and tougher than the rest, which stoked fear and a sense of inferiority in other mortals. Those feelings only served as further proof among mortals that magic was greater than physical prowess.

That’s why Veltol welcomed the orcs, ogres, and therians into the Blood Alliance. He could easily imagine that they would end up subject to other mortals if he was defeated and the Alliance was disbanded.

“The Immortal Kingdom agreed to a ceasefire with the mortals,” Machina explained. “The Six Dark Peers assembled under Ralsheen of the Blue Storm and decided to wait in hiding until you were to be revived. And just when there were less than a hundred years left before your resurrection, the Fantasion destroyed the world as we knew it. We were also greatly affected by the disaster—the Immortal Kingdom’s citizens went their separate ways to various cities. Then one year after the First City War, several corporations started leading a massive city-wide movement.”

“What kind of movement?”

Machina held her tongue for a moment. Her trembling lips signaled it was hard for her to say it.

Finally, she squeezed the words out:

“…The Immortal Hunt.”

“Immortal Hunt…?”

“Its purpose was to annihilate or imprison all of the immortals scattered worldwide. A number of immortals produced various military achievements during the First City War; our kind doesn’t die and tends to be very experienced in battle, so between the Earthoids who didn’t know of our existence and the Alnaethoids who had largely forgotten about the threat we could present, our wartime achievements came as an enormous shock. During the interwar period, darklings were considered an inhuman evil to be exterminated.”

That was also the common preconception five hundred years prior, and even back in ancient Alnaeth. Darklings, being immortal, were feared by the mortals as monsters because of their extraordinary power.

“We resisted as much as we could, but advances in magineering led to the mass production of anti-immortal weapons. Once those became increasingly commonplace, the mortals grew overwhelmingly powerful, and we were defeated.”

“What…happened to the Six Dark Peers?”

“They were…annihilated…,” Machina replied morosely. “I don’t know where May of the Mournful Firmament, Sihlwald of the Black Dragon, or Ralsheen of the Blue Storm are. I’m not sure if they were killed, or if they’re captive somewhere, or if they’re still in hiding. I haven’t been able to confirm whether they survived the Immortal Hunt. As for Zenol, Duke of the Karmic Sword, since only Ralsheen and I knew how to activate Methenoel, Zenol acted as a decoy so that I could escape imprisonment…and he alone stayed in the enemy camp…”

May, Sihlwald, Ralsheen, Zenol… All of them were Veltol’s vassals, immortals who had served him for a long time.

He had thought the sadness of losing someone was something he’d left in the past. That his ability to think fondly of someone had died long ago. And yet now, the loss and emptiness felt insurmountable.

“But the Immortal Hunt is now a thing of the past. Fear of immortals has been diminishing since the City Wars ended, so there’s no need to be as wary these days. It used to be so much worse—there was a lot of betrayal, and some mortals were even arbitrarily labeled as immortals…”

“The Immortal Hunt, huh…?”

Then Veltol realized there was one person Machina hadn’t talked about. The Six Dark Peers were, naturally, six darklings. The four Machina mentioned plus herself amounted to only five.

“What about Marcus?”

Marcus, Duke of the Bloody Arts.

He and Ralsheen assisted Veltol in political matters. A dark elf, Marcus also oversaw the Immortal Kingdom’s magitech research.

“…U-um…L-Lord Marcus…is…”

Machina looked away and started twiddling her thumbs. It was very clear she was hiding something, but before Veltol could get a word in, Machina shouted:

“I-in any case, Lord Veltol! Aren’t you thirsty?!”

“Huh? No, not rea—”

“The city air may be harmless, but it is much too filthy for you, sir! So! I’ll go get you a beverage to moisten your noble throat! Please wait right here for a moment!”

“W-wait a second, Machina…”

Machina cut the conversation short and scurried off into the crowds.

Veltol couldn’t tell if there was something wrong with Marcus or if Machina simply didn’t want to talk about it, but he knew she wouldn’t to lie to him. Seeing her change the subject indicated that she would rather not say anything than lie, something he felt came from her sense of loyalty.

“Sigh. What am I to do with her?” Veltol muttered. “Machina hasn’t changed a bit in five hundred years.”

He felt relieved that at least she had stayed constant in this world so sweepingly changed.

Veltol stood beneath a streetlight and eyed his surroundings. He could hear people talking and even shop barkers hawking their wares.

To the main drag’s north was the ever-visible landmark: the aether reactor.

A holographic display that covered one side of a building was playing an ad for a flying vehicle. The music was loud but catchy.

“Become one with the wind and leave time in your dust. Always there to enrich your life, IHMI presents the winner of the Shinjuku FVotY award: the Vagen 07.”

The screen showed the hottest virtual idol trio’s adorable avatars riding the flying vehicle into a tunnel full of psychedelic lights.

“Huh… So it’s the same principle as image projection…? But something so large and detailed… Surely it must be a waste of mana…?”

Veltol watched agape, when a black-and-white police cruiser—the words Shinjuku Police written in Japanese on it—passed by, sirens blaring and red lights shining.

“Hmm…?”

Then he looked around. He sensed a slight distortion in the aether.