Grausam

Grausam cuts a tall, lean figure for a demon, crowned by a pair of ox-like horns that jut outward and curl gently upward at the tips. His chin-length hair fades from a light shade at the roots to a darker tone partway down, and his eyes sit within dark sclera above a sharply pointed chin. He dresses in a low-cut top with loose sleeves and a dark front panel trailing slack cords, a sash bound at his middle, layered strands of beads at his neck, a collared tie, and fingerless gloves.

Grausam's inner life stays mostly hidden, fitting for a demon built around deception. He carried himself quietly, saying nothing as he and Schlacht cornered Macht, and despite the self-serving streak common to his kind he stayed loyal to the Demon King and, through him, to Schlacht. That discipline showed again at the Goddess's Monument, where he kept Solitär trained on the task rather than letting the operation drift.

As one of the Seven Sages, Grausam wielded magic beyond the grasp of human reason, and Macht named him the single worst opponent he could face. His specialty was magic of the mind. He could reshape his face and body at will, slipping convincingly into any era and crafting illusions so seamless they fooled even Greater Demons, which raises the likelihood that his tall, youthful demon form was itself just another disguise. He could also erase himself from perception entirely, standing unnoticed beside the Hero Party. His signature curse, Ansehelschella, sealed its victims inside blissful dreams they had long since abandoned, leaving them defenseless, though a sufficiently devout priest could shake it off and a fighter of rare instinct could still swing back while ensnared. A separate strand of his craft let him read minds and excise whole pieces of memory.

That memory magic shaped events well before the present day. When Schlacht set out to pressure Macht into joining the assault on the Hero of the South, Grausam came along as the guarantee of Macht's cooperation, then wiped the encounter from Macht's mind because Schlacht had foreseen Frieren one day combing through those memories. Seven years deep into their campaign, with Frieren pulled back through time by a Goddess's Monument, Grausam answered Solitär's summons alongside Rivale and Tot, the group meaning to strip away Frieren's knowledge of the future and then kill her. He concealed himself and trapped Heiter, Himmel, and Frieren in his dream-curse, but Heiter's divine protection held and Himmel, fighting blind through sound and motion, severed Grausam's arm and shattered the illusion. With Frieren already returned to her own era, Solitär called the clash off. Sometime afterward, the Hero Party brought Grausam down for good.