is a Japanese light novel series written by Hajime Kanzaka and illustrated by Rui Araizumi. The novels have been serialized in Dragon Magazine since 1989, before being published into individual volumes. They follow the adventures of teenage sorceress Lina Inverse and her companions as they journey through their world. Using powerful magic and swordsmanship they battle overreaching wizards, demons seeking to destroy the world, and an occasional hapless gang of bandits. Slayers inspired several spin-off novel series and has been adapted into numerous manga titles, anime television series, anime films, OVA series, role-playing video games, and other media. Including the spin-off series, the novels have over 20 million copies in print. The anime series is considered to be one of the most popular of the 1990s. Plot Setting In the Slayers universe, the ultimate being is the Lord of Nightmares, the creator of at least four parallel worlds. An artifact known as the Claire Bible contains information about the Lord of Nightmares' task to regain its "true form", which is only attainable by destroying these worlds and returning them to the chaos (sea of darkness) that it itself is. For unexplained reasons, though, the Lord of Nightmares has not acted upon this desire by itself so far. On each of these worlds are gods (shinzoku, lit. "godly race") and demons (mazoku, lit. "demon race"), fighting without end. Should the gods win the war in a world, that world will be at peace. Should the monsters win, the world will be destroyed and returned to the Sea of Chaos. In the world where the Slayers takes place, Flare Dragon Ceifeed and the Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu are, respectively, the supreme god and demon. Long ago, their war ended more or less in a stalemate, when Ceifeed was able to split Shabranigdu's existence into seven pieces in order to prevent him from coming back to life, then seal them within human souls. As the souls are reincarnated, the individual fragments would wear down until Shabranigdu himself would be destroyed. However, Ceifeed was so exhausted by this that he himself sank into the Sea of Chaos, leaving behind four parts of himself in the world. A millennium before the events in Slayers, one of Ruby-Eye's fragments (which was sealed in the body of Lei Magnus, a very powerful sorcerer) revived and began the against one of the parts of Ceifeed, the Water Dragon King, also