Humanity must realize that the Demon World War was not completely over.
Eleris understood as someone who knew what was at stake, Loyar didn’t question the matter at all, and Sarkegaar didn’t seem to know why they should, but he didn’t object.
Lydia Schmidt was not to be sent into battle. I left her under Eleris’ watch, in case she goes off the rails.
The situation unfolded before us.
Once I saw Sarkegaar succeed in taking Olivia and Adriana away, I sprang into action.
Once they were dropped off somewhere safe, they would run away though they would question the motives of the demon that rescued them.
The mysterious slaughter that will happen today must be reported as the actions of demonkind.
I’ve asked Sarkegaar to fly around the area a bit in his demonic form. We needed witnesses to spread the word.
Of course, the men in the monastery couldn’t be witnesses.
They were all going to die soon, after all.
In the monastery that was destroyed by Eleris’s magic, most of those inside were all killed by her Firestorm spell.
The spell harmed neither Loyar nor me. The fact that it didn’t even touch us was a testament to the level of skill Eleris possessed as a mage.
Loyar and I were the only ones unaffected by the heat that should have burned our bodies into cinders.
The dead left no corpses, and those who survived were going to be forced to face us in these extreme conditions of storming thunderbolts and flames.
During the Demon Prisoner incident, Eleris had unleashed a firestorm as well, but at that time she wasn’t willing to kill anyone.
This time, however, the spell was used to annihilate all enemies.
The paladins seemed to be overwhelmed by the task of using their divine power to protect themselves in this kind of hellish heat.
But right now, only the most elite paladins remained breathing, including Riverierre Lanze.
-Ohhhhhhh!
The Lycanthrope Loyar also fought, this time with lethal intent.
-Boom! Clang! Bang!
Instead of pushing the paladins away with her demonic claws, she was picking them up, throwing them to the ground, grabbing and then tearing them apart with both claws.
-Kwadduk!
-Crunch!
Loyar bit off the head of one of the paladins, grabbing him by the torso and pulling him down while simultaneously lifting her mouth upward.
-Pshhh!
-Crunch…er……
Loyar chewed roughly on the decapitated paladin’s head.
Blood dripped from the corners of the silver beast’s jaw, and red bloodshot eyes glared at the enemy.
Loyar.
I already knew about it, but Loyar’s true colors were still truly terrifying.
But as long as she was strong, that was all that mattered.
It wasn’t a full moon, but it was near enough.
Eleris and Loyar were at the peak of their powers.
“Hmph!”
-Thwack!
I was forced to take a few steps backwards as I parried the greatsword that Riverierre Lanze swung down at me.
Among the elite paladins here, he was the heart of this case and the enemy I must kill.
Riverierre Lanze.
He was the one I was facing.
“Why is the Demon King allowed to hold the Tiamata?”
“Because it is the will of the gods.”
Normally, I would not be a good match against him.
However, I stood in front of Riverierre anyway. As I declared that I was acting in accordance to the will of the gods, his face twisted.
“How dare you,a demon-kin, talk about divinity!”
“How about you? Are you denying it even in the face of its divine power?”
“Shut up, little demon, I don’t know where you found it, but I can’t stand to hear you insulting the gods anymore!”
Riverierre Lanze swung at me with his greatsword.
The Commander of the Knights Templar and a veteran among veterans.
“Hmph!”
-Clang!
Even if I was using Magic Body Strengthening, it would be impossible for me to face a veteran like this.
With just a single downward swing, I was sent stumbling backwards with a shock that felt like my whole body would be crushed.
“You are pathetic. Are you really the next Demon King?”
Riverierre Lanze had used up most of his divine power defending himself against Eleris’ spells.
Even so, I was vastly outmatched.
No surprises there.
Nevertheless, I stood before him.
I must stand before him.
I had to stand before this bastard who kidnapped Adriana, who couldn’t let go of his obsession with Olivia, and who did this kind of bullshit.
With that, I would be able to draw out my anger.
-Fwoosh.
“If this isn’t the power of the gods, what is it?”
With this anger, I would be able to draw on the true power of Tiamata.
“A demon… using… divine power….”
I saw clearly the gleam of astonishment and disgust in Riverierre Lanze’s eyes.
-Flash!
White light burst forth and enveloped my body.
Magic Body Strengthening followed by the physical boost gained from divine power. I felt Olivia Lanze’s power entering my body.
-Clang!
The greatsword and Tiamata collided, creating a fierce shockwave.
Riverierre Lanze’s greatsword glowed. He wasn’t a Swordmaster, but he was not that much different from one in terms of skill. At my current level, I should have been killed a hundred times already.
However, Riverierre Lanze couldn’t just focus on me.
He was fighting in a furnace that could turn a hunk of iron into molten metal.
And I had Magic Body Strengthening, Self-Suggestion and Tiamata’s divine power on my side.
And then there was also [Word Magic].
“Go to hell!”
-Bam!
“Thud!”
Riverierre Lanze, who had retreated against my attack, looked in disbelief.
Even though I was the heir to the Demon King, he must have thought that I was a mere child, yet he couldn’t understand why he was the one backing down.
I was equally confused.
The level of [Word Magic] should have been too low to draw out its full potential.
“Don’t talk about the gods anymore. Demon child.”
Riverierre Lanze’s eyes were filled with cold fury.
Although he didn’t understand what was happening, he was seemingly becoming progressively more focused on our fight. His divine power was still increasing.
“Alright, whatever you are, I must kill you before you become a more dangerous seed of evil.”
-Crunch!
The white light within Riverierre Lanze’s body exploded.
Towan’s divine power was most powerful against impure beings. The power of exorcism, so to speak.
However, since I wasn’t technically an evil spirit, I wasn’t affected by the purifying divine power of Towan.
-Cack!
“Ugh!”
But the same situation applied to Riverierre Lanze
Even with my Magic Body Strengthening and Tiamata’s divine power combined, it was still inferior against Riverierre Lanze’s power.
If it weren’t for these circumstances, I wouldn’t have been able to cross swords with him even a few times. Riverierre Lanze approached me, towering over me like a giant.
“If you had survived, you could have lived quietly, in the farthest reaches of the Darklands. You’re rushing to end your own life in pursuit for your past glories.”
Riverierre Lanze looked at me as if he was admonishing a child.
I had a powerful mage and a Lycanthrope as underlings, but he seemed to have already figured out that I wasn’t that powerful after all.
This was an epic battle between the leaders of the opposing forces.
But Riverierre Lanze was the strongest paladin in his faction, while I was weaker than my underlings.
Therefore, my presence in this battle was merely a distraction.
I could draw on Tiamata’s power, but even then I would be gradually pushed back.
Riverierre Lanze slammed down one blow after another with a determined expression.
“I see, there was no need for the Nameless Order. You revealing your presence is a boon. If I can kill you, the spark for the next Demon World War, and retrieve Towan’s Divine Relic, I won’t even need this organization.”
-Ka-ching!
“Hmmph!”
A single clash of our weapons was enough to send me flying backwards, almost rolling on the ground.
I could detect a hint of jubilation in Riverierre Lanze’s stony expression.
“Is this a revelation from Towan?”
He put his own spin in this situation where the nascent Demon King wielding a holy sword stood against him.
Regardless of what actually happened here, he believed that he could have the honor of being the one to have slayed the next Demon King, and at the same time, also receive the honor of recovering Towan’s Divine Relic.
When I showed up with Tiamata, he came to the conclusion that I was his golden ticket to resolve all his problems.
Now that I was here, he didn’t need Olivia anymore.
He thought Towan brought him both the Divine Relic and my head.
-Kadadag!
”!”
I couldn’t perfectly deflect Riverrierre Lanze’s thrust and was pushed back.
It was obvious that Riverierre Lanze was delusional. But I wasn’t in a position to deal with him right now.
-Cla-clang!
“Pfft!”
The force of his greatsword was too much for me to parry, so I had to expose an opening several times, but even though he struck at every one, his greatsword didn’t directly wound me, thanks to all of my enhancements, though I could still feel the blunted impact.
It felt like I’d been hit in the head with a hammer, and I could barely think straight.
Several more intense attacks from Riverierre Lanze followed, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for me to maintain Magic Body Strengthening
My opponent was incomparably stronger than me.
That was an indisputable fact.
-Bang! Kagak!
“Keugh!”
I realized that this was a desperate situation. Even Loyar, who was slaughtering paladins right now, would probably be pushed back.
But I wasn’t fighting alone.
-Thwack! Flash!
“Tsk!”
Four consecutive [Thunderstorms] spells slammed into Riverierre Lanze’s body in quick succession, causing him to narrow his eyes and take a few steps back.
I wasn’t alone. Eleris had unleashed a large-scale destructive spell, creating space to prevent Riverierre Lanze from landing the decisive blow on me.
However, even a single strike of a thunderbolt, which would have reduced a normal person to ashes, was only able to slow him down slightly.
-Thud! Thud!
“You may be worthless, but your subordinates are definitely something!”
I wasn’t about to argue against him about that.
As he steadfastly approached, Riverierre Lanze no longer looked human to me.
This was the true power of paladins.
Can that really be called human? If anything, it was more monstrous than me, an actual demon.
By now.
I’m sure they’re doing it.
Even if I went back now, it would be too late.
Swinging my weeping Tiamata upward, I parried the downward slash of Riverierre Lanze’s greatsword as he rushed toward me.
“Get lost!”
-Thwack!
With a loud crack, Riverierre Lanze’s armor broke and his chest was exposed, and I thrust my Tiamata into it.
-Flash!
-Thud!
I felt a frighteningly strong rebound from my thrust, and Riverierre and I were thrown off in different directions.
“You, what are you?”
Riverierre Lanze’s expression hardened. As if he’d sensed that I’d used an unnatural power.
“A demon.”
Tiamata was crying.
It was reacting to my anger.
I was furious for no other reason than….
“Because of you….”
I pointed Tiamata at him.
“I couldn’t go… to Miss Temple.”
“…What?”
It wasn’t the reward.
I’m not angry that I missed it.
She said she needed just one vote.
Only that one vote, but I couldn’t give it to her.
I was worried that if I went to the contest, I’d have to figure out whom to vote for.
But I didn’t have to worry about that anymore.
Riverierre Lanze didn’t understand what I was talking about.
-Crackle!
I thought to myself, in the midst of this storm of fire and thunder..
I wondered what Ellen was thinking right now.
You must be resenting me because I’m not there.
You asked me to come.
You’re not the kind of girl to invite me to something like that, but you did.
Saying I couldn’t help it doesn’t mean anything.
Saying that it couldn’t be helped doesn’t solve anything. Excuses will just continue piling up and warp into sadness and resentment.
But I really couldn’t avoid coming here.
I couldn’t just leave people in trouble. Trouble that I was responsible for in the first place.
I’ve created another problem, and I’ve made someone sad.
I’m angry at this horribly fucked up situation.
I’m furious at the asshole who was the cause of all this in the first place.
“So fuck you.”
I’m angry.
Yeah, I was angry enough.
-Fwoosh!
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t need to have a conversation with a soon-to-be corpse.”
-Crunch!
With powerful strides, he took a step, then another, toward me, bringing his divinely empowered greatsword down.
That was dangerous.
With my intuition screaming that I would die if I was hit by it, I flung myself to the side.
-Crack crack!
I didn’t get caught because I threw myself sideways with all my might, but the ground that Riverierre Lanze struck was blown away as if it had been devoured by a giant beast.
While being an unbreakable shield, his divine power was also capable of unleashing a powerful physical force.
Riverierre Lanze was, after all, a master of his craft.
If it weren’t for my varied enhancements, I would have vanished in a blur of blood with that single strike.
“All you can do is run away.”
“Yeah, but your zombie-like life force will eventually run out.”
“How dare you compare this divine power to such a lowly, disgusting creature!”
Comparing a paladin dedicated to Towan to the undead was the greatest insult one could heap upon them.
-Ohhhhh!
In the distance, Loyar’s roar cut through the noise.
Once again, Riverierre Lanze, who looked very singed by lightning bolts, lunged at me.
Once again, he pointed his greatsword at me in a torrent of divine power.
“Hup!”
Riverierre Lanze was a paladin.
With the overwhelming defense granted by his divine power, he paid little attention to defensive maneuvers. He fought by focusing his power into mighty blows while enduring his opponents’.
He could certainly do that. With that much divine power at his disposal, it’s going to take some serious firepower to even tickle him.
Riverierre Lanze’s strike came again. The distance between us was about twenty paces. In mid-stride, he aimed his sword at me, channeling divine power into his greatsword.
He didn’t approach me. It was as if he didn’t need to.
Twenty paces separated us.
He just stood in place and brandished his weapon at me.
I must dodge or I’ll die.
-Whoosh!
The entirety of my vision was flashed white, and a torrent of physical divine power crashed into the spot where I was just a moment ago.
“Keugh!”
I dodged the attack, but it was too late; part of my left shoulder was literally ripped off, and an intense pain surged from it, like it had been set on fire.
The divine power surging from Tiamata was already sealing the wound, but nearly half of my shoulder had been blown off.
The pain was bearable, but I couldn’t use my left arm.
Crazy.
This shit had already gone beyond the realm of mere swordsmanship.
Just as Saviolin Turner could cover her sword with an aura and unleash a magical shockwave, so too could Riverierre Lanze strike far beyond the reach of a sword with something like a beam of divine power.
At its most extreme, swordsmanship could do things that were comparable to magic, and the worst part was that my opponent had reached such levels.
“Have you lost your resolve, Demon King?”
Riverierre Lanze’s power was simply beyond me. Eleris supported me with spells as near as she could be to a master paladin, but Riverierre Lanze’s defenses were still intact.
Loyar was too busy being swarmed by at least five paladins to pay attention to my predicament.
I felt like I hit a wall.
It’s different from the kind of wall I saw Ellen as.
Instead of feeling like I couldn’t keep up, it felt like a wall of death was slowly closing in on me.
What was I supposed to do?
Should I have waited for Adriana to die, for Olivia to fall to him?
Should I have just watched as the empire tore itself apart?
I knew I was standing in front of an enemy I could never match at my current level.
Was I just supposed to stand there as someone died and was sacrificed?
It’s one thing to understand that not everyone could be happy.
But understanding that and accepting it were two different things, so I stood in front of Riverierre Lanze undaunted.
It was what I had to do.
The pain in my shoulder gradually faded, but Riverierre Lanze had his sword slung over his shoulder once more, and he began to imbue himself with holy power.
I couldn’t do anything about that beam of divine light.
I didn’t know if I’d be able to dodge it this time, since the beam would cover a wide area and I was just a few paces away now.
I might survive a severed shoulder, but if it severed my head, heart, or body….
I would be dead.
That was not all.
Loyar couldn’t possibly preoccupy all of the surviving paladins.
-Commander! I will join the fight!
One of the paladins who had escaped Loyar’s onslaught ran to Riverierre Lanze’s side, offering to join him.
Riverierre Lanze looked back to the paladin rushing to him and ordered.
“It is enough to keep him bound for a moment! Go, Rondell!”
“Yessir!”
It was hard enough to fight off Riverierre Lanze by himself, but when even just one more joins in, it would really be over for me. If that paladin could hold me down for just a moment, I won’t be able to defend myself against Riverierre Lanze.
The paladin who had started to join us from afar was about to charge past Riverierre Lanze and into me.
-Chack!
“Ku…hagh!”
I watched in horror as the paladin’s blackened fingernails burst from Riverierre Lanze’s back through his chest.
The paladin shouts.
“My lord, your humble servant has arrived!”
It was not actually a paladin, but Sarkegaar.
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