I have devoured over ten thousand humans with these hands. He is a beast that eats humans, a predator and natural enemy of humanity. There is no need to fear the King of Humans....
That thought had long since vanished.
The King of Humans was young and innocent-looking. But contrary to her appearance, she was violent and powerful, and above all, intelligent. When Ankra bared his claws and charged, the action the King of Humans took was neither a charge nor a retreat.
She merely drew a hand axe from her waist and threw it.
The greatest characteristic of humans is their use of tools, and that is because they use their forelimbs for grasping things rather than for walking. Unlike other beasts that use their front legs to spring off the ground, humans pick up and throw things.
Using tools is not exclusive to humans, and the act of throwing is not a human privilege. But it is a powerful ability of humans that is hard to find even looking across all beasts.
And the King of Humans, even if not the most powerful human, is a 'concept' that encompasses even that. If considering only the act of 'throwing,' it is comparable to nothing else.
The ragged soldiers were swept away, losing their limbs. Even the powerful warriors who knew no death lost their will to fight before the explosive force beyond imagination. No, even if they had will left, the bodies to exert it were shattered.
Ankra was no exception.
Just when he thought he had barely evaded the axe that had clear-cut the jungle, the King of Humans' other arm blurred into motion. A strike as if pinning the world to a cutting board and bringing it down. At the same time, a fierce storm swept over Ankra's right arm.
"Kra, kraaaagh!"
The horizontally spinning axe ground its way from Ankra's shoulder to his elbow. Where the axe made contact, blood evaporated and red ripples spread. Destructive power closer to crushing than severing, not what one would think possible from a throw.
Ankra bounced away like the trash he used to discard and rolled across the ground. Unbearable terror lingered on his face.
"Your arm grows back quickly?"
In contrast, the girl before him—the tiny absolute ruler bearing the title of King of Humans—looked at Ankra's shoulder stump with an expression full of curiosity.
Having eaten tens of thousands of humans, Ankra's body recovered quickly as a result, and he could enlarge parts of his body. His transcendent vitality played a large role in dominating the jungle with fear. Though it was a completely useless ability now, thanks to it, Ankra bought precious time.
Time to appeal to the King of Humans.
"King of Humans!!!"
"Hm? Me? Why?"
"Why, why did you attack me!!"
At the unexpected question, the girl didn't know what to do and only opened her eyes wide. The sight of her rolling her round eyes was like a beast that had done something wrong eyeing the mood.
"I was living peacefully in this jungle! Raising livestock, hunting, living a fierce and fulfilling life like other humans!! Until you came!"
His words were not wrong. Whatever the dead might think, he had spent pastoral days of slaughter.
Hunting, catching, killing, and eating humans. One could criticize it as cruel, but in a jungle land where hard-to-catch and inedible beasts were everywhere, humans were quite high-quality livestock. Ankra simply ate more than most; man-eating was a frequent occurrence in this jungle.
"But you, who had never set foot in this jungle before! Just because I ate some people, you arbitrarily invaded and try to kill me!!"
The King of Humans tried to kill him first, so Ankra only resisted, only fought against an invader—or so Ankra shouted while vomiting blood.
But the girl's temperature was completely different from Ankra's. Flustered, the girl scratched her head with the back of her axe and spoke.
"Why? You're the one who challenged me first, right?"
"Cha...llenge?"
"Yeah. You bared your teeth at me and tried to fight, right? So I just fought you back?"
"What?"
Ankra lost his words at the completely different temperature.
Ankra was the king of the jungle, and he fought a life-or-death battle against the King of Humans who couldn't accept his way. But listening to what the King of Humans said, the reason for fighting was simply that a fight was picked—nothing more and nothing less.
"Accepting a challenge is a leader's role! I fulfilled your wish!"
It was completely different from what the Prophet said. Ankra asked with a trembling voice.
"Did you not come to take revenge for me eating a thousand people...?"
"Hm? A thousand? Why? I just killed a thousand too, you know?"
It was true. Ankra had brought not only the ragged soldiers but also the tribe's ordinary soldiers. And the King of Humans slaughtered Ankra's soldiers in an instant. Without any hesitation. Rather, as if delighted.
Ankra fell into confusion. The King of Humans was much more powerful than expected, but also much more barbaric. The same kind. The reason Ankra felt fear was because he realized the difference in power as a fellow kind.
"Were you scared of dying? Then why on earth did you pick a fight with me? You would lose."
An arrogant declaration because it was a simple fact. His pride was hurt, but this was no time to care about that. Ankra, seeing some faint hope, hastily made excuses.
"That was because of the Prophet! They prophesied that you would attack me!"
"Whether you were incited or deceived, you still picked a fight, right? You were full of thoughts of beating me. Then that's a challenge."
"It wasn't my true wish! If you and the Prophet hadn't come, I just wanted to live peacefully like now!"
The slaves of the Anka tribe weren't included in that peace, but Ankra's words were undeniably true. The girl, calming the thrill of the hunt, muttered in a slightly more awake voice.
"Really?"
The hostility filling the jungle subsided. The terror of bristling hair all over his body cleared like mist. As Ankra, freed from death, hastily caught his breath, the King of Humans, having withdrawn her killing intent, turned around cleanly and neatly.
"Yeah. You're all scared. So you won't challenge me anymore. It's boring but... if you submit, then fine."
Slightly regretful, showing her back rather openly... but even so, Ankra didn't feel like launching a surprise attack. He had felt the gap in their power.
Above all, the barbarity the King of Humans displayed. It easily surpassed Ankra who ate humans. Even without a regenerating body, she didn't back down—Ankra's spirit was broken by that sight.
'But I saved my life...! The lost power just needs to be recovered! As long as I'm alive, I can plan for the future!'
Just as Ankra was rejoicing in relief at surviving.
Without any warning, someone appeared beside the girl.
"My Lord..."
The Prophet. One who reads the heavenly signs, traces the earth's veins, observes the movements of celestial bodies, and predicts the flow of clouds and wind. The divine maiden of the King of Humans.
She had come to Ankra and informed him that the King of Humans would soon arrive. Probably to induce a fight between the King of Humans and Ankra...
Ankra felt a surge of anger for a moment, but this was still the King of Humans' presence. While he suppressed his emotions and bowed his head for a moment, the King of Humans answered.
"Hm? Why?"
"You must kill him."
A chilling sensation dug into Ankra's body.
Fear? It was different from that. It wasn't the howl of a defeated loser whose only recourse was to be mocked, nor was it a fierce killing intent being projected.
It was like reading a predetermined task. The declaration itself seemed as if it would become reality... an oppressive feeling as if all paths except death were blocked. It gripped Ankra's throat tightly and wouldn't let go.
The girl tilted her head at the Prophet's words.
"Kill? Me? Him? Why?"
"Because it is necessary to set things right, My Lord. He who eats people is a beast of sin that has filled this great jungle with screams and suffering. Because he slakes his thirst with human blood and fills his belly with human flesh, and because he establishes and spreads norms from that sinfulness. His existence is a harm. Breathing itself is a sin. For humans to live as humans, such a beast must be erased as if it never existed."
Denial beyond contempt and hatred. From the past to the present, in all branches leading to the future, they sought to eliminate him.
Ankra broke into a cold sweat.
"He's human too, isn't he?"
"That is precisely why he must be excised. If he weren't human, we could simply make him an enemy. Being an enemy, he would be a trial to overcome, an ordeal to surpass. But he is human... though I don't want to admit it, our kin. That alone makes his sin ours, weighing us down and staining us."
The girl answered, picking her ear as if uninterested.
"Sin? What's that? Is it food? I didn't see any?"
"My Lord. Our beautiful and violent Lord. Humans can see the unseen. We look up and learn. We look to higher places, admire and envy them, and wish to become like them. That is why we need shining stars. We want the North Star to guide our way. That dark and vulgar thing must be erased, and righteousness and justice must be established to lead everyone."
"Really? Then you kill him. You can do that, can't you?"
The King of Humans said it casually and turned away. Without any lingering attachment, showing not the slightest interest in Ankra's life or death, the girl yawned widely and walked away.
The Prophet watched her back with a somewhat desolate and sorrowful gaze.
"I cannot, My Lord. You are the king of all humans. You must act and show them directly. That is the only way humans can change... My foolish and ignorant actions cannot become a shining star. They cannot become the path forward for everyone..."
Ankra didn't understand what she was saying. But he could tell that the two of them were discussing his life and death. Ankra felt bewilderment and anger at the situation where his fate was being decided by a conversation between two people unrelated to him.
The girl replied to the Prophet without much thought.
"Don't worry! I do what I want to do!"
Clenching her fist upward as if cheering, the girl shouted vivaciously. But to the Prophet, it seemed like a disastrous conclusion.
"Ah..."
Glaring at the deeply sighing Prophet, Ankra slowly rose to his feet. His body was stained with blood, but having accumulated power by devouring thousands, his body had already regenerated.
"You deceived me. The King of Humans had no interest in me!"
"Because Her Majesty respects humans. In other words, it could be called neglect... but that is precisely the greatest respect such an absolute being can show to the weak. Should I be glad? Or should I be sad?"
"But I survived! You failed. The power I lost today, I just need to eat and regain!"
Ankra extended his claws long. Claws as sharp and hard as any beast's gleamed with a cold light. Ankra charged at the defenselessly exposed Prophet.
"I'll eat you first!"
The Prophet was an acquaintance of the King of Humans. But the King of Humans wouldn't stop this death for that reason. With that conviction, Ankra targeted the prey before him to satisfy his hunger.
That was when a sharp killing intent pierced through him. Sensing something ominous, Ankra twisted his waist with astonishing flexibility and blocked the blade rushing toward his neck.
Sparks flew as steel and claw scraped against each other. Ankra was horrified by the heavy sensation pressing down on his body. The female warrior who failed her surprise attack clicked her tongue and kicked him away. CRACK. With a loud impact, Ankra's body slid backward.
"How dare you lay a hand on our divine maiden?"
She was a female warrior with a nimble body and fierce impression like a black panther. Her hair was tied back tightly so as not to get in the way, and a quiver was strapped to her back. Daggers and stilettos were bound to her waist and thighs, ready to be drawn at any time.
A well-trained body. Surely a strong female warrior. But the impact Ankra felt on his hands was clearly abnormal. The force, the weight coming from that body was not right.
Let alone the fact that the blade had dug into his claws which could fell trees—Ankra was appalled at the sharpness of the blade.
The female warrior pointed her two daggers at Ankra and spoke.
"Divine maiden. I just need to slice her whole body and kill her, right?"
"Agarta. Be careful. 'That thing' won't die just from having its body cut. To kill 'that thing' which has sucked the life force of tens of thousands, you'll need to stop its breath two hundred and ninety times currently."
"Two hundred and ninety?"
"Originally, it would have taken over a thousand kills. If Her Majesty hadn't intervened, we would have collapsed from exhaustion first."
The Prophet spoke of the future calmly, but two hundred and ninety was still a large number. Agarta, roughly estimating, shook her head and raised her daggers again.
"Anyway, I just need to keep slicing, right?"
"Yes, Agarta. Make it die."
"By your command. The divine maiden's future into reality."
And Agarta charged, wielding her two daggers dizzyingly.
Sparkling light dust fell from the sky. Agarta's daggers were fast, dazzling, and sharp. And more than that, the formless energy covering the blade fiercely targeted Ankra's life.
Squelch. Blood splattered across Ankra's neck and chest, unable to dodge the blade in time. Agarta's daggers succeeded in claiming Ankra's life.
Only once, though.
"Bitch...!"
Ankra changed his tactics. Until now, he had dodged instinctively, but there was no need for that. Having confirmed that he wouldn't die even if hit by the light-wrapped sword, it was now time to give flesh to take bone.
With the blade still embedded in his body, Ankra thrust out both arms. In the moment he paused after driving the blade in, Ankra seized Agarta's wrists. In brute strength, Ankra easily overwhelmed Agarta. Ignoring her struggles to break free, Ankra twisted her wrists with even more force. Agarta's expression contorted.
At that moment, a flash-like slash fell upon Ankra's arm. The swift sword wrapped in light severed Ankra's arm and bone, and with the strength completely draining from his arm, Ankra's body lost balance and pitched forward.
Agarta brightened.
"Grandiomor!"
"Didn't I tell you not to let your guard down? Even with qi, the opponent is the king of this jungle who has even hunted elephants. You should have been careful until we arrived."
He was a handsome man with a gentle impression. He appeared soft enough to embrace the world, yet a firm core could be seen—both his appearance and his inner self seemed undoubtedly beautiful. Even Agarta, who was used to men, felt a blush rise to her face for a moment.
The hero Grandiomor. A handsome man with upright conduct and an even more upright face. His swordsmanship was also excellent, and he too, having been chosen as a warrior of the King, had now arrived following the Prophet.
Ankra's grasp, though having lost its owner, still twitched and pressed down on her arm. Grandiomor used all his strength to peel off each finger one by one. Ankra's hand twitched on its own and disappeared somewhere into the bushes.
"Kraaaagh! You prey!"
But Ankra didn't care. As he drew upon his power, flesh bulged and surged from the cross-section. The newly formed arm was larger and thicker than the previous one. As if several other arms were woven together at once.
"I used ten at once! Try receiving this!"
The power he had used when wrestling with elephants, his secret technique of gaining fearsome power by rapidly consuming the lives he had eaten. An arm grotesquely thick targeted Grandiomor and Agarta simultaneously.
And collided with a massive shadow that suddenly charged in. A blade larger and longer than a person covered Ankra. The clash of power shook the atmosphere.
"Huuuuup!"
A giant man put strength into his waist and swung the blade. Ankra, who had been in a brief contest of strength, couldn't withstand the man's power and was sent flying. Flying far away, Ankra only stopped after knocking down a few trees.
Agarta said in annoyance.
"Hangpa! You're late!"
"You're the ones who are fast."
The man who muttered briefly slung the blade over his shoulder. Hangpa, the strongest human on earth. The pinnacle of brute strength, said to be unmatched in pure power by anyone except the King of Humans. He showed no sign of exertion even after sending the king of the jungle flying.
It wasn't simply because he was strong. Even if born strong, he couldn't be stronger than Ankra who had eaten tens of thousands of humans.
"Qi. The one extreme that humans can attain without the interference of the 'Demon God,' which I found through the future I came from. The limit that can be refined as a human."
The Prophet stood before all of them, murmuring sorrowfully.
"Even that could not reach the current pinnacle of sin. Our power is, yes. Weak. From the shadow of sin that overturned the world. From the hell of shortcuts and heresy that humans abandoned. We must lose if we fight head-on."
Hangpa, who had been quietly listening to the Prophet's words, flared up.
"Hey. Princess. Are you saying I'm weaker than that?"
"Don't argue, Hangpa! That's a prophecy. Just as the divine maiden said, if we fought as is, we would have lost. Whether from exhaustion or carelessness!"
"That would be you. Not me."
"What?! Are you looking down on me because I let my guard down for a moment?"
"Both of you, stop fighting. You know that Her Majesty personally executing that demon is the best outcome. The saint only pursued a good outcome."
While the three warriors fought among themselves, Ankra twitched, dripping blood. Having expended his life force fighting the King of Humans, he couldn't fight against them now.
He had to escape. Being seen fleeing from not the King but the King's warriors—this news would spread through the jungle and invite pointed fingers... but survival came first.
Fortunately, their feet wouldn't be that fast. Ankra straightened his knees in one motion and kicked off the ground on all fours. He dashed frantically toward a place where he sensed no presence.
Watching Ankra flee like a bug, the three warriors spoke calmly.
"He's running away?"
"I guess he valued his life. Not that it matters."
"This too, must have been in the princess's future."
And Ankra collided face-first with someone who suddenly appeared. The seemingly careless man, encountering Ankra, widened his eyes in surprise. It was so unexpected that neither had time to dodge. Hitting each other head-on, the two bounced off in opposite directions.
"Uwaaah! Ouch!"
"Kugh!"
To think they had placed an ambush. Ankra, coming to his senses, reflexively attacked the pursuer. If he retreated, he would flee; if they fought back, he would take them down. He couldn't flee backward, so it was an inevitable choice.
But the choice the man before him made was none of those.
"Huh? Uwaaaagh!"
Seeing Ankra, he got scared and rolled on the ground. Ankra, not expecting the opponent to throw his body, got caught up in it and fell too. Ankra, rolling on the ground miserably, grabbed a vine and pulled himself up.
At that moment, something tightly stretched snapped, and sharp iron stakes flew in from somewhere, piercing Ankra's body.
Terrible pain followed. Ankra struggled to remove the steel stakes piercing his entire body, but the stakes with reverse barbs only tore his body further. Even with Ankra's biting strength, they didn't break or get crushed.
To think iron could be this sharp and hard. Before his appalled eyes, a woman in a headband and short training clothes walked out of the bushes.
"I told you to lure him, not to roll on the ground! You almost triggered all the traps!"
"Ahaha... In the end, it worked as a lure, right? It's a success, Elik."
"What's the point of a good result if the process is a complete mess? I can't know if we'll succeed with the same method next time."
The man scratching his head and smiling awkwardly looked completely unreliable. In contrast, the woman called Elik moved as if interlocking like a precise mechanism. Wearing various equipment, she pulled a rope using pulleys and mechanisms. Ankra felt pain as if his body was being torn apart as he was dragged.
The man shouted toward the Prophet.
"Got him! El, come here!"
And the Prophet and the King's warriors approached the incapacitated Ankra. Sensing death, Ankra panted and spoke. Why were they trying to kill him? Why did they hate him when they had never even met?
To him, the Prophet said:
"He eats a thousand people every year. Not out of hunger, nor because it would be a waste to discard them. Simply because by doing so, the surrounding tribes would expend energy producing children to offer as sacrifices. Long ago in the distant past, he committed this atrocity only once after winning a war that determined the tribe's fate. But he made that a tradition and repeated the horrendous atrocity every year."
Ankra shouted at the Prophet in rage. Had they trapped him? Had they made him challenge the King of Humans?
"As a result of failing to break that chain of sin, sin eventually came to reign with the most powerful force. Had Her Majesty not come, it would have grown so powerful that it couldn't be cut away... and spread even more evil."
Next, he tried to persuade them. The King of Humans forgave me and let me live, so you should do the same.
"He even cuts open the bellies of old women who can no longer bear children and puts dead children inside them, disguising them as pregnant women... because pregnant women count as two. These atrocities using humans, to deceive the number of humans. They are born and spread solely because of him."
Finally, he begged for forgiveness. He pleaded that he wouldn't do it anymore, that they would please spare his life. Just as he had with the King of Humans.
"It must not exist. Ignorance cannot be dismissed with the claim of not knowing. Ignorance and barbarism cannot be the reason for this terrible sin. This is sin and taboo in itself. So that this can never be done again... no, it must be completely erased. Buried in the earth and vegetation so that no one can even recall it."
But these were not the King of Humans.
The Prophet, pouring out terrible sorrow, treated Ankra with emotions beyond contempt.
"In the future I will paint, 'this thing' does not exist."
The Prophet raised two fingers before her eyes, blocking Ankra from view. Sizzle, sizzle. Everything surrounding him began to distort and disappear.
Ankra is denied at the root of his existence. All karma connected to him is severed. Traces will remain, but they will not remain as truth. They will fade into ancient memories.
Because the first saint will bless everything.
Being buried in the earth, Ankra felt a distant despair.
There were too many gods in the world.
Not ones like him, a fake, but real gods.