Keeper Of Demonic Forces [A Paranormal Vigilante Action Fantasy Story]

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

The Spirit Plane is at constant war with itself and the humans are about to be dragged into it.

Fortunately, one worthy human is given the ability to guard the Seal that would accelerate unimaginable chaos, but in order to do so they must leave behind all human attachments.

Kira Vermillion just moved back to Tokyo with her step family and a series of unfortunate events have led her to taking up the position of the mysterious, urban legend Vigilante the people of Tokyo have dubbed Demona.

Despite the odds and unwilling to give up her normal life for anything, she's faced with two options, await discovery and death or embrace the change and fight.

Armed with new, dangerous abilities, powerful allies, and pesky Demons in her head, Kira must train to become stronger so she can stand up to the evil forces that threaten the city, her family and the sense normality she wants to regain once and for all.

Mystery and adventure now await Kira as she walks a new path as the protector of Tokyo...and maybe the whole world.

An exciting, action packed story with sprinkles of comedy that you definitely don't want to miss out on.

Currently on hiatus.

Updates: Every Two (2) Fridays, afternoons/evenings in my timezone.

(Earlier Chapters going through edits)

Cover art by @RedLenai on twitter.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2022
Author: BellaArtz

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.0/ 5.0
Followers: 101
Views: 40,899

Chapters(72 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

GBScallyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
First off, I'll say this review is part of a swap. But to be honest, I probably would have left a review regardless, as I really enjoyed this story. The premise is relatively simple, with a young girl taking over the mantle of protector from the previous holder of the position. But the execution is a lot of fun, and I found myself flying through the chapters. And I'll update this review as I get further into the story (it probably won't take long.)
Style Score - The style is perfect for this sort of anime-like story, and the writing is snappy without too many details to bog down the reader. The author does a great job painting a picture with their words, and the fight scenes are expertly crafted.
Grammar - The story could probably use a bit more editing, and the additional spaces between the paragraphes is a bit distracting. But the errors are mostly just simple typos and don't detract from the story. The overall grammar is solid without any major mistakes.
Story - The story is a pretty simple tale, but it's told in an exciting and engaging manner. The author weaves together bits of world building in the first few chapters that make you want to read more to learns what's going on. And there's plenty of fun bits, with characters you can't wait to see how they develop.
Character Score - The protagonanist, Kira Vermillion, is definitely the highlight of this story. She has a tragic back story, but she's also a lot fun, with some great lines. And you can really feel her emotions in the writing, especially when she's trying to deal with her adopted family, and also trying to figure out how to deal with her new... demon friend? I have to say I really enjoyed the main character, and I can't wait to read more about her.
_FlameS_Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Reading Keeper of Demonic Forces was like a splash of nostalgia for me. It has all the marks of the type of books I used to read when I was younger, where the protagonists are gifted with insane interdimensional power that can banish demons to the deepest pits of Hell, yet still somehow struggle their way through the ups and downs of being in High School. In short, the story is awesome and a whole lot of fun.
Stylistically, I really enjoyed the author's approach to writing the story from Kira's persepctive, especially when a certain demon is introduced to the story. It makes her a very liakble character and helps push the tempo of the story along. As others have noted, there are some weird spacings in the chapters, but it's really not that big of a deal and you get used to it quickly.
Grammatically, I didn't notice anything that serious that jumped out at me and the writing was overall fairly easy to read. There were some hiccups here and there, but that can be cleaned up fairly easily. It's clear a lot of time and thought was put behind the writing and I really appreciate that.
The characters within the story are fun and feel very real, especially Kira. Her motives are clear and well thought out and she has some real spunk to her. It's still relatively early in the story for me, but the other characters also feel as though they have solid depth and that in the future there's a lot of room for growth for all of them.
Finally, on to the story, although I think my feelings have already been made clear by now. In short, the story is really fun and follows all of the great plot lines of other books in this genre while managing to, so far, avoid the pit falls others have fallen into. Its setting is also very interesting given that it's set in Japan whereas many of the other similar novels I've read were set in America, which gives Keeper of Demonic Forces some added charm. The seemingly non-stop action certainly helps too!
If any of the above speaks to you (which it shou
RighteousEggRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Overall very good. The main character is accidentally taken to a dark world where she gains new powers.
Style
The style and character dialogue flowed well. The battle scenes are also well-drawn. The book is written from a first-person perspective. It's not my type. But the author writes great and I will continue to read.
Story
There is a very grand setting, and the Japanese gods and ghosts and such are great to me. It seems to be a story about a superhero. But I saw someone say it's a light novel? The author also handles the relationship between the battle and daily life very well.
Grammar
I am not a native English speaker, so the author's grammar is okay for me. There seem to be some small mistakes. But I can feel that the author is getting better with each chapter. The free Grammarly can make your grammar perfect. If you immerse yourself in the story, you'll forget some of its minor flaws.
Characters
The main character, Kira, is well-developed. I like it a lot. The calmness and the strength of the character, all these things fascinate me.
Keep up the good work. I will keep my eyes on this story.
TJJonesRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Style: So for the most part, the story uses a first person perspective, which isn't my norm, but I didn't find it to be an issue reading. The only time this deviates that I've seen thus far was an instance of flipping to a third person for a peek at an antagonist. If the author wanted, that could easily be made in first person perspective for consistency, but I'm not the author. Still, it's a solid read so far. The only other cons on the style I can think of is that the formatting could use a little work, but I'm assuming this is probably either raw writing or pre edited. So I'm not that put off by it. I'll get more into why I think this is the case shortly.
Grammar: The grammar is a little rough here and there. It's nothing jarring and like I said, if you take it as a raw read (Treat it like you're beta reading), it's nothing that would cause issues. A transposed word here, a missing word there. Simple stuff that can be fixed up in clean up edits. Though a quick pass through Grammarly or Pro Writing probably wouldn't hurt. It's nothing that feels like the story badly needs either. The grammar is right where you'd want it for baseline readability.
Story: Heres where the book really shines. It's simple but effectively done. I won't spoil it heavily because it's really worth checking out. It's got a small but easily identifiable cast. There're some elements drawn from Japanese mythology/lore that were really nice to see, like Yokai and so on. Mixing judeau christian elements and Japanese folk lore was a solid move. As a guy smashing all manner of mythologies and lore together in my own book, I give thumbs up to the move. Gives the story its own nice vibe and feel to it.
Character: Everyone feels like their own being. No two characters look or sound the same. Each unique individual feels like their own kind of archetype or role. And at no point do they blend or blur together in ways that make it hard to say definitively, "This is x" or "Y" speaking. Some of this is by
Apollo149Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
First things first, the cover looks good. I love how it pops and fits the story really well. I found this one by looking at the review swap page. I have to say, the majority of stories I find on the review swap are pretty good. I would say the same for this story. Plus the author has done a good job on the synopsis. Keepers of Demonic Forces is, for all intents and purposes, a demon-slaying anime possibly ripped from the 1990s and transported to the modern day. Overall, it is a good idea for a story!
Characters: The characters are well-written, especially Kira. The calmness and strength of the Kia is powerful. Some of the other characters are classic stereotypes which isn’t a bad thing! Like the Dad being upset with two daughters.
Story: The action scenes are intense and satisfying.
The grammar is good. I didn’t have any problems with it. However, the structuring aka the spacing between the paragraphs was too much. I would go back and delete the extra space between paragraphs. It kinda kept me from feeling involved with the story, which is really unfortunate since your story is good but \like I said at the start, the grammar is good overall.
Overall, I can recommend it wholeheartedly to fans of Bleach, Soul Eater and Blue Exorcist. If you haven’t watched those animes, then I also recommend those.
PizzaPizzaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
So let's start with the good.
The author has done a very good job in laying out the landscape, characters, and setting. The dialogue and action flows well, the prose is very solid 'light novel' prose.
But there IS one deal breaker
The problem is the styling does need cleanup for readability which is my main critique for what it is. The space margins are extra wide, and I found myself pasting the chapters into a word document and clearing the formatting so I could mentally process and visualize the scenes. Styling and presentation does play an important role in establishing the tempo of words being read and our information processing. I struggle with the same issue in my own work.
Once it's cleaned up, I can 100% ecommend it wholeheartedly for fans of Bleach, Soul Eater, Blue Exorcist, or Shakugan no Shana.
TienSwitchRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Keepers of Demonic Forces is, for all intents and purposes, a demon-slaying anime possibly ripped from the 1990s and transported to modern day.
Or perhaps it's a demon-slaying anime ripped from the current lineup? I dunno, I've never seen Demon Slayer or any of them. The only demon-slaying anime I've ever seen is Yu Yu Hakusho.
I still know just enough about the genre to know that this is a fairly derivative story. But that's okay, because originality does not always mean quality, and any story in a genre could be someone's first. I really don't care if a genre, trope, or any other idea has been done before as long as it's being done well here and now.
And I think Keeper of Demonic Forces does well in at least the ten chapters I've read.
As a superhero author, I'm also happy to see that this is kind of a superhero story, at least insofar as those demon-slaying animes with the teenage protagonists that must balance their civilian and demon-slaying lives and keep those involved in one from learning about the other can be considered superhero stories.
So let's look at Keeper of Demonic Forces.
STYLE
This story is generally written in the first person. Hold onto that word "generally" for one sec.
The story is written from the POV of our female MC, who's eyes can sometimes be felt rolling through the narration and whose emotions are in it, but never to the point where the narration overtakes the story.
I've reviewed stories where the first person narrator starts trying to be your buddy, starts trying to hard to be clever and witty and ends up being obnoxious. Keeper of Demonic Forces never gets anywhere near there. It gives just enough of the MC's personality to justify the first person view without ever compromising the reliability of the narration or turning the narrator into the main character (I mean, yes, the MC is theoretically narrating, but I mean making the story about the narrator rather than the story being narrated).
The only hiccup to this was in one chapter
Urban Goat HerderRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Kira had no choice. She didn' ask to be brought into the dark world where spirits, devils, demons and monsters hungared for the taste of human flesh. But she was, and with the new power, the new dark power, she has a path before her that cannot be passed on to another. She is Demona!
If you are a fan of Blue Exorcist or Black Bulter you are going to enjoy this story!
This story was well structured and paced, with characters that are both enjoyable as well as interesting. They situation and genre is something she really leaned into, and produced this story in an impressive manner.
There are grammar and spelling errors that could have been avoided. The writer needs to proof read more, I suggest either using a text to voice app, they are free, or simply read it out loud. It will greatly reduce the errors. Prowritingaid, and Grammarly would also help. Haste to publish, in this case, did the writer no favors.
The characterization was exactly what you would expect. This kind of story is very well established as Anime, and it is becoming more popular here on royal road.
The scene concepts are strong and well developed. There was real throught put into it, or it was excellent as a tribute to the form. I think this writer has a HUGE amount of potential, I would say this is one of the better stories of this genre on the Royal Road.
x_luminous_xRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
For fans of anime and manga, the shounen-esque nature of the story will be a familiar one, however, the key is in the execution. Like something like Demon Slayer, it takes it's familiar tropes and executes them in a way that is endearing and exciting to read. The writing is snappy and to the point, and of the initial 7 chapters I've read is filled with heart-racing action. Once the story gets started, the wild ride never ends, and the story sinks it's plot fangs in and never let's go. A lot of characters were introduced in the later chapters and I've yet to see what the author will do with them, but the earlier characters are all fun with attitude, and bounce of each other well. There's some grammar mistakes, but not anything to get in the way of the fluency.
My one main criticism is that, of my time of reading, the story hasn't really tried to do something new. If you don't like shounen battle style premise, there's not enough new stuff here to reel you in. With that being said, as someone who doesn't usually watch those types of anime but will not turn their nose up at a good one, I enjoyed this. This is one of the best anime style stories I have read on this site, and tropes are tropes because they are vastly beloved story premises. The book executes its tropes well.
Overall, a great read for fans of stories like Demon Slayer.
Brandon CarterRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Enjoying the story, and really appreciating how the main character refuses to give up her life in the pursuit of this calling.
Style - You've got a good voice. The whole thing reads like the MC is just a BIT annoyed to be telling this tale, which I think goes well with her personality. You're good at filling the space, as these chapters are quite long. I could stand to see larger paragraphs, as it feels like a large amount of them are no more than a single sentence, and roughly the same length as well. Vary it up a bit to keep the energy moving. Also, the chapters feel SUUUPER long. Don't know if this is a function of the shorter paragraphs, but I feel like there are a lot of chances to end on a cliffhanger and start a new chapter but we just keep going. Not really a problem, more of a finesse thing.
Grammar - This is the only part I feel needs real improving. That's okay, because it's still readable. Words get left out occasionally, and proper punctuation is hit or miss. It's not a huge problem, and if it's the worst part of the story, that's actually pretty great. I feel like a few editing passes before posting would catch most of the errors, too. Don't sweat this one. It's easily fixable.
Story - The best part! You've got a fairly well evolved mythos, good backstory, good setting, and you're building upon each previous chapter in pleasing ways. My ONLY complaint is that the appearance of the two angels felt a little...deus ex machina. Convenient, if you will. It's fine. There's a place for that, too. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.
Character - I'm really torn on this one. On the one hand, you have some great characters. Lucifer is awesome. MC is good, mentally strong with her own reasons for doing things. Her dad is overbearing in an interesting way, but it seems like he only interacts with MC for the early part of the story. I'm not sure about the sister. As of now, she just seems to be asshole for asshole sake. Villains are fine. Still not sure about