Otherworld Conquest Record (4)
‘What is that?’
A question regarding an unknown entity.
Right now, thoughts of nothing but that swirled through the Demon Lord of Infinity’s mind.
[Kwooaaaah—!]
“Kill them!”
[You rotten corpses! I’ll shove you back into Purgatory!]
[We offer this world to the King of Death!]
A massive war was currently raging across the great plains before the castle he had made his stronghold.
Fierce battles broke out everywhere, including close-quarters combat between high-ranking demons and undead that blew away the surrounding area in a single strike, making it a fight so intense one could not look anywhere without breaking into a cold sweat.
But such things did not even enter the eyes of Infinity standing atop the castle walls.
Because there was only one existence that immediately seized his gaze.
[You are the Demon Lord of Infinity.]
Something gazing down upon the world languidly above that great army.
An incomprehensible existence wearing a bizarre mask and emanating an abyssal aura from its entire body, as though a nightmare had manifested in reality—that was it.
[What? Just what are you? How can an impurity like you exist in this world?]
Though they were quite far apart, such spatial constraints meant nothing between them.
Infinity, facing him, could instinctively realize it.
That it was absolutely not something born of this world.
‘Even when Grief and Destruction fell, I had wondered if it might be possible. To think it was actually real.’
Though he was now inevitably bound by numerous constraints after leaving Hell, he too had once been an absolute being who observed the world from a supreme position.
There was no need to examine in detail just how alien ‘that thing’ was.
‘A monster born in another world, devouring death karma and divinity indiscriminately to grow stronger.’
Its momentum was enough to remind one of the ‘Demon Lord of Death’ who had once reigned supreme among Hell’s Demon Lords.
No, perhaps it was closer to that otherworldly invader who had killed him and stolen his existence….
[Keheh, me, you mean?]
Then, as if answering his thoughts, the Avatar of Death floating in the sky spoke in a low voice.
[This one’s name is Hannibal Straus. King of all Death, the end of the world, and—]
A self-introduction seemingly steeped in inexplicable sorrow.
But before he could grasp the emotion contained within it, the continuation cleanly blew away such trivial doubts.
[—your demons’ death.]
[…Arrogant.]
At that arrogant declaration, Infinity’s lips twisted.
He well knew his opponent was not an existence to be ignored.
But he too stood at the pinnacle of this Devour.
Was he not in a position to never kneel?
Moreover, he was quite displeased that his opponent wielded ‘Death.’
Perhaps in the past it would have been different, but now he was undeniably the strongest representing the Demon Lords.
[Hmph, fine. There is no longer any need for long words. I do not know how trash like you crossed over into this world, but this works out rather well.]
The crimson tattoos densely engraved upon Infinity’s pitch-black body and his red eyes began to gradually emit light as he spat out the words.
Conserving strength before such a powerful adversary was a luxury.
He had to go all out from the start, holding nothing back.
Phaaaht—!
The red light erupting from his body shot high into the sky.
Space shook from the aftermath, and fierce storms swept across the battlefield.
[Hoo?]
Hannibal did not stop it.
He had already grasped long ago that his current body was merely a terminal.
‘Destroying the terminal is meaningless. To finish him off for sure, I must strike the main body.’
And just as he expected.
From the rift in the high heavens split open by crimson light—something massive began to reveal itself, tearing through space.
An enormous eyeball peering down at the ground, parting the ashen clouds.
Despite the tremendous distance, rings densely embedded with small eyeballs spun chaotically around a pupil so large it defied perspective.
‘…As expected, hiding its main body in the gap between worlds. This is practically cosmic horror.’
As he expressed such impressions, a voice like a revelation from heaven rang out across the entire battlefield.
[I am Infinity! Eternal immortality that cannot be ended by mere death! I shall eliminate you here and now and prove to the world that Infinity stands above Death!]
Those of relatively lesser rank staggered and collapsed from that overwhelming presence.
Some who had been wounded and weakened in resistance were crushed flat against the ground.
But neither Hannibal nor Infinity paid the slightest attention to such trivial matters.
‘Because once I deal with him, everything ends anyway.’
The moment that shared thought flashed through both their minds.
————!
With a soundless impact, the space between them shattered outright.
Thanks to the world’s restorative power, it recovered before long, but that was because space could not overcome the aftermath of near-infinite energy clashing from both sides.
‘This can’t be resolved through a simple contest of strength.’
He could tell from just a single clash.
The power the Demon Lord of Infinity could mobilize was as infinite as his name.
If this continued, the world would perish faster than he could subdue his foe.
‘Well, I’m fairly confident in contests of strength too. But that’s not what matters now.’
As several more exchanges occurred, pitch-black energy gradually began to spread from Hannibal’s body.
Black demonic power mixed with the power of the Abyss.
It resonated with the dense death permeating… no, soaking the entire world, and slowly eroded the world.
‘…This is the first time the response has been this favorable. Just how many people had to die… There’s no way I can lose under such optimal conditions.’
The aura of death, granting endless power to the dead and eternal rest to all other existences, covered the battlefield.
Undead destroyed by him returned to pristine condition in an instant, and demons who had drawn their last breath sprang up and turned their blades around, but this phenomenon was merely a secondary effect of exercising his power.
[You! This is…?!]
The death of the world was converging upon a single point.
The lethal quintessence of death capable of influencing not just living things but even abstract concepts.
Sensing crisis from the flow of that mystery touching the domain of Authority, the Demon Lord of Infinity glared with widened eyes, spinning his countless rings even faster.
‘He dominates the death karma overflowing in this world.’
Authorities devour weaker powers with stronger ones.
Perhaps, maybe, a one-in-ten-thousand chance—if his ‘Death’ surpassed his own ‘Infinity’….
[Ridiculous! Impossible!]
Even if it was impossible, he could not take such a risk.
In the end, he quickly brought out the ace he had been saving.
[Infinity is eternal! Be crushed and perish under endless time and space!]
Strange patterns filling his massive pupil spun, drawing the spiral of infinity.
An absolute decree closely intertwined with the laws of this world, one that no one could resist.
It was the Authority that had made even the Demon Lord of Eternity, who possessed the cheat-like power of time stop, give up on opposing him.
The miracle that had allowed him to survive to the end while other Demon Lords died to the suddenly arrived ‘Angel of World Destruction’ in Hell.
A pillar of light poured down from the eye floating in the sky upon the other-dimensional invader.
***
“Hoo, hoo. So I’ve finally arrived.”
McCarthy, his entire body covered in blood, staggered forward.
But even so, his eyes were fixed upon the grand, lavishly decorated door located in the deepest part of the castle.
“Finally…”
The war between undead and demons was not taking place only on the plains.
With both sides boasting overwhelming numbers, and the demons preferring to attack head-on rather than defend, the castle at the center had naturally been swept up in the fighting.
The undead did not necessarily thrust their blades at the humans inside the castle first, but neither were they soft enough to spare enemies who attacked them first.
Infiltrating the castle interior swept up in such chaos was extremely easy for McCarthy, who was not only human but also held dominion over some of the undead.
‘Though it did get harder the closer I got to the center.’
At first he could pass through simply by wrapping his left arm and around his eye with bandages and disguising himself as a wounded soldier, but later he had no choice but to fight directly.
And in that process, McCarthy could acutely feel just how tremendous the power he held was.
Kwaaang!
He slowly walked through the broken door.
Not only had he cleared the way and broken the door himself, but he was also escorted politely by undead guards attending him.
This was the end of the group that once clung to the Grand Lord, indulging in pleasure and committing evil deeds.
“…Lapua!”
Soon, McCarthy, having completely entered the room, found his target for revenge standing at the far window, looking outside, and ground his teeth low.
He had already known through his soul-seeing eyes that he was here, but facing his enemy at point-blank range, he could not control his boiling emotions.
“Tch, what vermin has crawled all the way here.”
A thug he had never seen before had led a swarm of undead right to his nose.
But Lapua glanced at them and merely clicked his tongue lightly as if it were no big deal.
“Since you failed to properly complete your mission, you deserve death. However, I simply cannot forgive you for becoming the dogs of an invader and turning your blades on me.”
They had moved like hands and feet according to his orders until now, but his expression looking at them was colder than ice.
“Treason is collective responsibility. Once this situation ends, I shall hold a festival with the families of those wretches. Since it will be right after a great incident, I’ll need to capture all their acquaintances as well and prepare it grandly.”
“…Hah, they have merely become undead. Their bodies are nothing but puppets with no will remaining, and yet you would punish them?”
“Hm? What does that matter?”
McCarthy had unknowingly made excuses on their behalf, but Lapua simply showed an attitude of truly not caring.
And right after his gaze tilted slightly in that direction.
“Rather than that, now isn’t the time to worry about others, is it?”
“Kuk!”
McCarthy was forced to slam his face into the floor by the overwhelming pressure pressing down from above.
He tried somehow to get up, but barely managed to raise his upper body.
Had it not been for his left eye and arm, he would have been flattened into a handful of blood long ago.
Just like the undead who had guarded him until now, gone without a trace.
“Hoo? What a peculiar power. Is that the mark of your pact?”
“Kuk…!”
Lapua approached the barely-holding-on McCarthy and looked at him with interest through pupils where strange patterns spun.
They were eyes greatly resembling the massive pupil floating in the sky above.
‘I thought the Demon Lord Infinity’s absence made this my chance. To think he was still at this level even without the demon here…’
A demon contractor.
It was an existence granted a portion of an Authority through a contract with a demon.
And quite naturally, one contracted to a Demon Lord at the pinnacle of this world—and no less than the ‘Demon Lord of Infinity’—could not be at an ordinary level.
To a degree that McCarthy, who had only just obtained supernatural powers, could not possibly dare approach.
It was his mistake, blinded by revenge and acting rashly.
“It seems you hold some grudge against me.”
Truthfully, those in this world who held no grudge against him were probably rarer.
It was an unavoidable position from the very start.
The name of a Demon Lord’s contractor.
“Still, making it all the way here before me is worthy of praise. And it seems you have quite some connection to this commotion as well.”
His shoe pressed down hard on the head of McCarthy, who had barely raised his upper body.
And slowly grinding him against the floor, he began to string out words of mockery in a calm tone.
“But that ends here. Whatever the true identity of the demon you contracted with, Infinite can never be defeated. Even if it is Death or Eternity from the stories, the same holds true.”
A full hundred years.
That was how long the Great Demon of Infinite had reigned as the pinnacle of this world.
The karma and terror he had accumulated in that time were, quite literally, beyond imagination.
Even if they returned now, closing that gap would not be easy.
“Heh heh heh. If you crawl on the ground and beg forgiveness even now, I may make a special exception and spare your life. Of course, I will have to gouge out both your eyes and cut off both your arms, but in return, I’ll allow you to enjoy luxuries you have never experienced until—”
“Ptooey! Go fuck yourself, you bald, castrated bastard.”
“......”
The reverse scale he had been forced to give up in order to form his contract with the Great Demon.
At those words that touched it, Rapua’s expression hardened coldly.
“...I see. It seems you don’t want to die peacefully. Then I should grant your wish.”
A savage gleam flashed in his eyes as he slowly raised one hand.
He intended to cut off both arms first.
So she could look upon the result of her insolent words and deeds and regret them.
And after that...
“Mm?”
“Huh?”
But at that moment.
A single word of confusion slipped from both their mouths at the same time.
“What is this!”
Aghast, Rapua reached out his hand again, but nothing happened.
No, that was not all.
The pupils where bizarre patterns had been rotating had become ordinary eyes, and the force suppressing McCarthy had, at some point, vanished completely.
“W-wait! O Infinite! This is a breach of contract!”
This authority was a power Rapua had obtained by offering “his everything” as the price to the Great Demon of Infinite.
It was his everything, which should never have disappeared so easily.
All the more because he had already given up many things as an advance payment, including his existing abilities and physical prowess.
Sssk—
However, this current situation, which was no different from despair for him...
“I don’t really know what happened.”
...was the moment someone else had wished and wished for so desperately.
“But it seems the situation has changed, doesn’t it?”
McCarthy slowly rose from her seat, her obsidian-like left eye gleaming, and took a step forward.
Opening and closing her left hand, where black light rippled.
“Ghk, stop! I am Rapua, the Grand Lord! How dare a thing like you...!”
At that, Rapua’s face twisted as he strained with all his might to somehow use his authority again, but nothing changed.
Like an ordinary peasant, he merely flailed his arms pitifully.
“I do hope you last a long time.”
McCarthy clenched her fist tightly.
And the hand she had been granted in exchange for swearing loyalty for the sake of vengeance—
“Because I have no intention of letting you die peacefully.”
“Guhk!”
—smashed straight into the face of her longtime enemy.
***
“It’s certainly a dangerous ability.”
I tilted my coffee cup, took a sip of the warm drink, and let out a light breath.
In one corner of my consciousness, the scene of Hans thrusting his knife-hand into the center of a gigantic eyeball and pronouncing a sentence of death was playing out.
He looked perfectly fine, to the point that it was hard to believe he had been embalmed in infinite time only moments ago.
“Well, it doesn’t really mean much to me.”
It was merely a brief anomaly in one of more than ten divided streams of thought.
Of course, during that process, the load on “Mind Hub” had spiked, but perhaps because mental-type skills such as “Great Mind” were combined with Hans’s own rank, it was not burdensome enough to matter.
‘Still, the fact remains that I took a hit. I should make sure to return it properly.’
There was one commonality in the “death” that pervaded Devour.
Namely, it was densely entangled with the grudges and prayers of the sacrificed humans, as well as the causality connected to them.
In other words, for the demon who was the decisive culprit behind the world ending up in that state, it was no different from a poison that would act even more fatally.
And right after his desperate move, attempted as a trump card, failed, he was struck by a counter while unable to put up any proper defense...
“Ah, is it over? Lucky me. It ended sooner than I thought.”
An eyeball, shriveled pathetically with none of its initial overwhelming majesty remaining, was held in Hans’s grasp.
It was the moment the invading Immortal King defeated the demon and took the world into his hands.