Amid the dust of shattered grass and trees, Shamara’s body crumbled away in sequence.
Shrrrr.
Her corpse began to scatter into dust from her fingertips.
The rising dust passed over her arms and spread across her entire body.
Her straight, outstretched legs vanished, as did her neat attire.
Last of all, the smile with which she had looked at Sopeu, the smile she had shown me, turned to dust as well.
It was a sorrowful farewell, one where I could not even say goodbye. But now was not the time to grieve.
I had sent my comrades on ahead. I could not afford a mistake here.
I focused my mind.
The dust scattered into the greenhouse like all the other dust.
What remained where she had been was a violet jewel.
Only the black stone remained, floating in midair and pulsing.
As if something within it were awakening, waves of consciousness pricked at my senses along with its regular throbbing.
A chill ran up my spine. As expected, it was the Demon King’s core.
Crack!
At the same time, the cracks in the greenhouse raced toward their end.
Fissures covered the glass.
The shield surrounding the glass, the seal, could no longer be seen.
The next instant, the glass burst apart.
Kwaaaang!
Glass flew everywhere.
The dust drifting inside the greenhouse scattered in all directions along with the glass.
There was no longer any greenhouse in this hall.
Where the greenhouse had stood, only the pulsing black stone floated.
In the end, the Demon King’s seal had been broken.
The moment the seal broke, cold air rose inside the hall.
Goosebumps erupted all over my body.
I felt as if I were about to vomit, as if an awl were stabbing into my head.
At the same time, sparks leaped from the shield wrapped around me.
[It’s worse than before… The energy contamination is severe.]
Sopeu’s grave voice reached me.
Because Sopeu had experienced the Demon King before, the shield he had cast could block the contaminated energy the Demon King created.
The chills, headache, and nausea I felt were merely the aftereffects of that contaminated energy colliding with the shield.
And yet it was this bad.
It seemed I had made the right choice in sending the squad members ahead.
I stared intently at the black stone floating in the air.
In any case, it was the core of the Demon King that had been sealed for ten thousand years.
On top of that, since the seal had been forcibly broken, there had to be some kind of problem.
Then, a voice rang out.
[How troublesome. Since it would be a waste of all the time I waited, I was going to wait a little longer.]
A voice reverberated inside my head.
The voice imitating a human was undoubtedly the Demon King from ten thousand years ago, the one I had heard just before.
At that voice, I had no choice but to click my tongue.
“Ten thousand years have passed, and that monster still seems perfectly fine.”
[Even if it imitates humans, a Demon King is not human. It is different from me, who sealed away most of my memories to keep from going mad.]
Sopeu agreed with me, but that was not the issue.
There was something unexpected in Sopeu’s answer.
“Don’t tell me… you remember everything now?”
[I remember most of it. There may still be memories I do not know of, but at this point, it would be fair to say I have recovered everything. I now know why I sealed my memories.]
Could it be that the one who had blocked off his memories was Sopeu himself?
And merely for the reason of not going mad over the long passage of time?
[In truth, it was more to keep the Demon King from seeing my magic, but now does not seem to be the time to explain that.]
I had heard there was another reason, but as Sopeu said, there was no time to listen to an explanation.
Srrrr.
The corpses of the monsters we had killed were gathering toward the black stone.
It was not simply that the monster corpses were rising as undead.
In addition to their huge bodies, every fragment scattered in pieces was gathering toward the black stone.
“Is the Demon King trying to restore his body?”
As I asked Sopeu, I cast magic at the pieces of corpses surging toward it.
Thud! Thud!
The fireballs and ice spears I poured out tore apart the corpses and fragments moving toward the black stone once more.
But it was useless.
No matter how much I smashed the corpses, I could not stop the fragments from moving toward the black stone.
It was not only the fragments. All the white blood was gathering toward the black stone as well.
[Once they have entered the range of the core, those are already my body. You cannot destroy my flesh again with magic like that.]
Even without the Demon King’s words, I could tell.
I had not seen the first spell that had destroyed the Demon King’s body, but I had seen the second one myself.
Shamara had gathered the power of the Sanctuary and shattered his body.
But even she had not been able to destroy the black stone; she had only sealed it.
The Demon King’s core, the black stone, on which magic did not work.
And now, the Demon King was creating a new body.
Sopeu was the first to tell me why the Demon King was creating a body.
[It can use magic even in the state of the black stone, but once the Demon King has a body, hands, and feet, it can use every magic it has seen until now.]
It meant that the Demon King, inside an unbreakable fortress wall, would gain a terrifying weapon.
Then could it be that the monsters left outside the greenhouse had also been for the Demon King to create his own body?
Because the situation kept changing, I could not help but grow more suspicious.
‘No. It’s still all right!’
The moment my mind became unsettled, I remembered the switch in my pocket.
The operation was still underway.
The situation was changing urgently, but it was not as bad as I had thought.
Right now, the Demon King was being complacent.
[Are we proceeding as planned?]
At Sopeu’s question, I nodded.
“Yes. Since all the squad members have gotten out, there’s no problem.”
[We will have only one chance. Magic shown to the Demon King once will no longer work on it at all. The Demon King is a being that can sense and create magic instinctively, just like you.]
Having recovered his memories, Sopeu kept pouring out meaningful statements. At any other time, they would have been things I should listen to in detail even if it took all night.
But I could not ask about them now.
There was too much to do immediately.
[Sopeu, the magic!]
I asked Sopeu without making a sound.
At the same time, I cast a spell as well.
The magic did not target the black stone said to be indestructible, nor did it aim at the monster remains gathering toward the black stone.
My magic flowed through the stone floor and into the shelves.
Crunch!
The shelves buckled.
All the magic circles engraved on the shelves were destroyed.
The function controlling these ruins was destroyed as well, and all the teleportation magic circles vanished.
With this, I had blocked the monster’s means of using teleportation.
I had also blocked my own means of escape, but right now, preventing the Demon King from going elsewhere was more important.
[Is it to hide the coordinates the other humans left for? It does not matter. If it is within this planet, I need only fly there.]
When I destroyed the shelves, the Demon King’s voice rang out again.
Even during that time, the Demon King’s body continued to be created.
Corpse fragments gathered, forming feet and calves.
Thighs and waist, the black body, were shaped in sequence as they moved toward the black stone floating in the air.
[So it was not entirely without effect. The speed at which its body is being made seems to have slowed considerably.]
That meant the Demon King was not simply taking it easy.
Thanks to that, an opportunity arose.
A chance for Sopeu to use his magic properly, and a chance for me to escape.
Before, I had intended to teleport without coordinates inside the Sanctuary’s contaminated energy, but now there was no need for that.
The Demon King’s black body began to cover the black stone.
The Demon King’s arms and legs began to twitch and move.
Soon, the Demon King would move.
I asked Sopeu.
[Are you ready?]
[I am. Since this is the first time I am showing it to the Demon King, it should buy us enough time.]
It seemed absurd to use such magic merely to buy time, but since Sopeu said it, I had to believe him.
[What about you?]
[Yes. I think I can do it.]
[It seems you, too, are no longer bound by limitations.]
For some reason, I felt as though I could see Sopeu’s face wearing a bitter smile in his answer.
It was difficult to understand what Sopeu meant, but there was something I had to do first.
[I’m counting on you!]
I raised my staff high.
The shield Sopeu had made spread around my body, and at the same time, a magic circle unfolded above the staff.
A magic circle from Sopeu’s memories—no, one I had seen several times in the past and in reality.
It was the magic circle that summoned Sopeu’s ultimate technique, called the Light of Judgment.
Perhaps because this was an underground plaza where the sky could not be seen, smog rose throughout the entire hall.
[Interesting. This is a spell I have never seen before.]
The Demon King’s voice came from within the smog.
A voice that sounded delighted to see new magic.
The Demon King’s body, completed up to the neck, moved.
Its hand began drawing a magic circle in midair.
A magic circle that was becoming similar to the one Sopeu had made.
The spell had not even been cast yet, but the Demon King was copying his magic!
[I knew this would happen. Prepare yourself!]
I heard Sopeu click his tongue, and then Sopeu’s incantation resounded.
[Strike down! O Light of Judgment!]
One of the black stones on the spear lost its light.
Flash!
At the same time, light burst forth where the Demon King was.
Originally, it was light that pierced down from the sky, but in this place with no sky, the spell was cast in the form of the target itself exploding.
It was hidden in light and could not be seen, but I could feel it with my senses.
The magic circle the Demon King had been trying to draw disappeared.
The Demon King’s body, which had been about to be completed up to the face, was being shattered by the light.
It even made me think that, while it might not be able to destroy the black stone that was its core, perhaps it could destroy the body currently being made.
But no.
The next instant, a black shield spread around the Demon King’s body.
At the same time, small magic circles continued appearing and disappearing around the shield.
Those magic circles were all meant to block Sopeu’s magic.
Amazingly, those magic circles were continuing to change in real time.
In the manner most suited to blocking Sopeu’s magic.
Accordingly, the shield gradually grew stronger.
Sopeu’s magic bounced off the shield, and the Demon King’s body, which had been breaking apart, began returning to its original state.
After waiting just in case, I was ultimately forced to cast my spell.
My other hand, wearing the glove, which I had been holding up until then.
I chanted toward the ceiling that hand was pointing at.
[Surge upward! O Light of Judgment!]
Along with the incantation, light gushed from my hand.
It could not compare to Sopeu’s magic, which used the black stone on the spear, but a mighty light stretched from my hand and struck the ceiling.
A spell that used air as its medium, just as one used soil as a medium and stone as a medium.
It was different from proper magic, but now I could make the effect similar.
However, the effect of my magic was different from Sopeu’s.
It was not a large-scale strike, but magic that advanced toward a single point.
That magic pierced a hole through the ceiling. A hole large enough for a person to pass through had opened in it.
Then the Demon King’s voice rang out.
[Magic from an archmage who became a staff? It was interesting magic. What remains is you. What can you show me?]
I looked toward where the voice had come from.
Sopeu’s magic had vanished.
On top of that, the Demon King’s body was fully complete.
The magic circle spread above its hand was no different from Sopeu’s magic circle.
It seemed as if the Demon King could use Sopeu’s magic at any moment.
I answered the Demon King’s question.
“It’s magic made on Earth. A hydrogen bomb.”
I put my hand into my pocket and pressed the switch.
Now there were five seconds left.
I looked up at the sky.
I could see the hole I had made in the ceiling.
It was not only the ceiling of this hall that had been pierced.
Above it, and above that as well.
The hole continued beyond the reach of my senses.
Through my enhanced eyes, I could see the end of the hole.
At the end of the continuous hole was a sky that looked no bigger than a pinprick.
Above these ruins, the sky of the Sanctuary.
Then I sensed the Demon King extending its hand.
The magic circle was activating.
It seemed the Demon King had realized something.
I cast magic toward the sky.
“Blink.”
At that moment, I leaped through space.
The instant my vision changed with white light.
The bombs exploded.
Five hydrogen bombs detonated at once.
Kwaaaaaang!
The world turned upside down.
Demon King (2)