◈ Episode 374. There Was Light
Tokyo’s Wise Serpent (賢巳).
Back in his Inazuma days.
Hisagi’s nickname.
‘……
He’s badly wounded.’
Like a venomous snake coiled and watching its prey. It was a nickname meant to describe Hisagi, who always observed everything from a distance. But the scene unfolding before him was something even Hisagi had not anticipated.
Drip, drip.
The bleeding had begun at Hoyeol’s side. The bloodstains soaking the ground stretched all the way from beyond the horizon. Hisagi forced his sluggish mind to turn. One name surfaced.
‘……
Granfell Claudi Arpheus Romeo.’
A member of the Claudi family. Hisagi himself had concluded that the Commander-in-Chief had left Claudi Territory in pursuit of him. After all, there had been a clear trigger: a Mythic-grade quest had begun.
He found himself biting his lip.
‘Did he reduce the Commander-in-Chief to that state?’
In Hisagi’s memory, Hoyeol had never once been broken.
Far from being wounded.
It was rare even for a speck of dust to stain his uniform.
“…….”
But now was different.
He could not begin to guess why Hoyeol’s hair had grown so long that it nearly touched the ground. Even so, one thing was certain. The Hoyeol before them now was not in a normal state.
“What the hell?”
A mad warrior, a berserker.
Whether it was her own or her enemy’s.
Leoni fought battles drenched in blood.
“……
It’s not like he’s a berserker or anything.”
She muttered.
It was a joke meant to relieve the tension, but it had no effect.
Surely, he had sensed their presence.
And yet Hoyeol did not look back.
Nor did he calmly say, as he always did, that there was nothing to worry about.
Drip, drip.
Only the sound of blood falling could be heard.
“Damn it.”
The dwarf leader, Chainwalker, swallowed a groan.
Dwarves spent their entire lives amid scorching metals. The patience they had tempered like steel was beginning to crack before a situation none of them could have imagined.
At last, Walsweil, the greatest blacksmith among the dwarves, shouted.
“Commander-in-Chief! The refinement you requested is complete. I can say with certainty that it is the masterpiece of my life. It was thanks to the fact that you entrusted me with the legacy left behind by the old dragon, Dragon Skin.”
It was worry expressed in the unsentimental manner of dwarves.
Yet there was still no answer, nor any sign that he would turn around.
Hoyeol was simply moving forward.
Whoosh.
From the reconnaissance aircraft overhead came Gunner’s urgent voice.
“What are you all doing? Are you going to leave the Commander-in-Chief like this? This is dangerous. If he keeps going in that direction, the Commander-in-Chief will end up inside that vicious maw……!”
“……!!!”
At those words, they realized it.
They had been so stunned, so fixated on Hoyeol, that they had overlooked it.
It was the Hidden Piece, Behemoth’s Maw.
An unstable permanent rift, a dimensional gap connecting the Arcana Continent and the Demon World.
Whether one was headed from the Demon World to the Arcana Continent, or the opposite.
It was, quite literally, the maw of a great demon beast, where one could be horribly crushed.
The direction Hoyeol was walking led deeper into the maw—to the Demon World.
Why on earth would he go to the Demon World……?
No answer came no matter how desperately they pondered it.
But those gathered did not hesitate.
Somehow, they had to stop Hoyeol.
Chainwalker spoke solemnly.
“If he cannot be made to turn back, then we must consider restraining him.”
Grip—
The dwarves tightened their hands around their hammers.
Hisagi and Leoni.
The elites of the Giant Alliance.
Even Scal nodded.
They would face the Commander-in-Chief, Hoyeol.
Under normal circumstances, they would not even have dared imagine it.
Opposing Hoyeol’s will, stopping him.
But this was not a normal circumstance.
Above all, Hoyeol’s condition was anything but ordinary.
Step.
With Chainwalker at the forefront.
The moment the entire army stepped toward Hoyeol—
Crunch.
“?!”
The sound of their footfalls changed.
The ground beneath their feet had sunk in far too deeply.
It felt as though the gravity pressing down on their bodies had increased dozens of times over.
It was unmistakable pressure.
“Ugh?!”
Everyone’s body stiffened at once.
A crushing weight, as if pressing down from an immeasurably high place.
There was no consideration in it. No mercy.
It felt as though they had become ants being trampled by an elephant.
Chainwalker instinctively shouted.
“Everyone, fall back!!”
Even with all their strength, their legs would not move properly.
Some chose instead to throw themselves backward.
And the moment they retreated one step, the pressure vanished as if it had never existed.
Scal drew in ragged breaths.
“He doesn’t want us to approach.”
No, it was beyond simply not wanting it.
It was more than an unfamiliar response. It was a sharp reaction—a warning.
Hisagi shook his head.
“……
No, it cannot even be called a warning. Right now, the Commander-in-Chief is not even giving us a glance. If we stand in his way, we will simply be crushed.”
It was not even a warning.
It was indifference.
Naturally, that was no comfort at all.
Everyone was deeply shaken.
Nam Taemin, who had been silent, opened his mouth.
“……
The smell is different.”
A barbarian.
A barbarian warrior’s senses were closer to those of a beast than a human.
Sight, hearing, and smell were no exception.
Nam Taemin’s brow gradually furrowed.
Both his hands moved toward the greatsword strapped to his back.
“I’m sure of it. That isn’t the Commander-in-Chief.”
“……
What? What are you talking about?”
Leoni was the one who leaped forward and demanded an answer.
Swoosh.
Nam Taemin lowered his head for a long moment and met Leoni’s eyes. Her gaze demanded proof. But there was no proof. This belonged purely to the realm of instinct.
Even so, Nam Taemin was certain.
“The Mr. Hoyeol I know wouldn’t do this.”
The Battle to Reclaim Frost.
The being that must not be awakened.
The Miracle of London…….
Even if all his actions seemed cold at a glance.
When one looked back, there had been warmth in everything Hoyeol did.
Like one of his many epithets—a single ray of light in endlessly deep darkness.
But the Hoyeol before them now was like darkness that had lost that light.
Even if his appearance, aside from his hair, had not changed.
There was no warmth or light to be felt from within him.
Nam Taemin bitterly raised the corners of his mouth.
“More than anything, if he were going to crush us, he probably would have done it a long time ago. It’s not as if we’ve only annoyed Mr. Hoyeol once or twice, right?”
It was then.
[Behemoth’s stomach twists.]
“!”
A message appeared before the players’ eyes at once. Even in this urgent situation, the variable known as Behemoth’s Maw, which could not be ignored, had begun to stir.
Writhe, writhe.
Behemoth’s stomach was churning.
Between the sprawled fragments of flesh, a wriggling shape could be seen.
A shadow crawling up from the Demon World.
Its flesh burst and scattered in every direction.
Even so, it did not give up.
At last, a sinister voice rang out.
“I have waited only for this day, Buer……! Today is the day I usurp your Ten Thrones. Legion of Plague. Endure the pain. If your flesh has been torn away, then become bone and move!”
[Discus, the Lich of the Demon World, appears.]
Behemoth’s Maw was no ordinary place. Its recommended level was bound to be exceedingly high. Yet an appearance message had appeared in the eyes of the players who had entered that maw. And that was not all.
“A-an army!”
The term Legion of Plague was no exaggeration either. Discus’s flesh and the creatures he summoned burst apart, shrouding the area. A thick, uncontrollable toxicity spread.
[Status abnormality, “Poisoning,” occurs.]
Hisagi shouted to the dwarves, who could not see the message.
“A lich, a demon on par with an upper demon king, has appeared. It seems to have taken considerable damage while passing through Behemoth’s Maw, but it is not an easy opponent.”
Clank.
Dwarven armor would neutralize most status abnormalities. Chainwalker pulled his helmet down without agitation. Yes, what worried him more than the appearance of a demon was Hoyeol.
“We must support the Commander-in-Chief.”
Drip, drip.
The bleeding still had not stopped.
The last demon hunter of Akshan.
It was difficult to imagine Hoyeol falling victim to a demon, but……
Hadn’t Nam Taemin, the adventurer, said it?
That man might not be the Hoyeol he knew.
So.
“I’ll have to grab him and ask, or this dwarf’s stubbornness won’t be satisfied.”
Even if only to ask his identity directly.
Chainwalker intended to charge into Behemoth’s Maw.
He meant to fight the one called a lich.
Nam Taemin was the same.
“I was already feeling like hell, and now we’ve got an intruder? What a pain in the ass.”
[Berserk] activated.
Hoooh.
Nam Taemin’s breathing grew rough, and he adjusted his grip on the greatsword with one hand.
With the arm he had freed, he braced himself against the ground and lowered his body as far as he could.
Hisagi, Leoni, Scal.
Then the elites of the Giant Alliance also prepared for battle.
The appearance of the lich Discus was of no importance.
The battle against him.
And more than Buer, the upper demon king he was pursuing, what worried them was—
Hoyeol’s footsteps.
Even at this very moment, they continued forward toward the Demon World.
Tap.
It was the instant before the entire army charged.
Discus, who had given up nearly half his flesh to Behemoth’s Maw.
His half-skeletal maw opened.
“A foul stench of burning reaches me. The smell of green sulfur. And…….”
He looked around at the Arcana Continent covered in darkness and spat out his words.
“Mixed with it is the reek of you, vile and unmistakable. Buer.”
Flinch.
“What?”
Chainwalker’s muscles tightened.
The meaning of those words was simple.
The upper demon king the lich Discus had been chasing.
It meant that Buer had burned in green flames—hellfire.
The Holy War Alliance.
And Discus’s gaze turned to the same place.
The legion of Discus, robbed of his political enemy by Hoyeol, surged toward him.
“You……!! What scheme did you use!!”
Srrrk.
As befitted a lich, one who ruled death, the flesh strewn throughout Behemoth’s Maw became his legion. An army of undead poured forth. Hisagi’s snake-like eyes swiftly grasped the state of the battlefield.
“This battlefield is far too advantageous for him.”
Because Discus knew that fact as well.
Discus, too, had chosen Behemoth’s Maw as the place where he would usurp the Ten Thrones of Buer, an upper demon king. Gunner’s voice came from the sky, where he had been observing the situation.
“That’s too many. Thousands, no, hundreds of thousands!”
Chainwalker made his decision.
“With Sir Hoyeol in an unstable condition, it is impossible for us to face him. Our top priority is to leave this Behemoth’s Maw together with Sir Hoyeol!”
Nod.
No further words were needed.
The Holy War Alliance and Discus’s legion.
Each for their own reason, they rushed toward Hoyeol.
“……?”
But there was no collision.
Discus looked at his own legion.
He had clearly ordered them to tear him apart.
Clack.
Making only hollow sounds of bone, they had all stopped.
As if millions of soldiers had been blocked by an invisible barrier.
Not one could take even a single step forward or back.
“……!”
The same was true of Discus himself. He could only stand there, frozen, and watch. Watch the man heading toward Behemoth’s Maw—more precisely, toward the Demon World.
Crackle.
Even in the Demon World, the undead had survived until now without being destroyed by demons.
The foresight of Discus, their leader, flashed.
An afterimage rose in his mind.
It was the sight of the Demon World being destroyed by a single man.
……
Dangerous.
Discus desperately tried to stop the man.
But he could not.
His suppressed body was unbearably frustrating.
When Discus barely managed to lower his head, what entered his sight was—
Thud, thud.
His own body, already shattered into pieces and scattering into the air. With every step the man took toward the Demon World, the legion vanished.
More precisely, it was being buried in endlessly deep darkness.
Discus finally understood.
“……
Buer, you were not taken by a scheme.”
This man was an existence even the Ten Thrones could not handle.
In his final moment, Discus thought of Baal.
He prayed that Baal’s whim would not abandon the Demon World.
“……
No way.”
Gunner was watching that sight from the sky.
With just those few steps, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands—millions—of troops scattered and disappeared.
Before he knew it, Gunner muttered.
“Th-that’s a calamity…….”
Then he shouted.
“No one must approach!”
Information gained through reconnaissance must not be interpreted arbitrarily.
There was only one thing Gunner could be certain of.
One look at the crumbling ground was enough to tell.
That calamity would not distinguish between ally and enemy.
Tatadak.
But it was already too late.
Someone from the Holy War Alliance was approaching Hoyeol.
More precisely, someone was charging like a beast.
Nam Taemin.
Crunch.
The savagery amplified by [Berserk] made him blind to fire and water. It meant that, for a single instant, even the pain inflicted on his muscles and bones could be forgotten. And so Nam Taemin was barely able to open his mouth.
“You…….”
Crack, crunch.
Even as his body was being crushed, he asked the question clearly.
“Who are you? As I thought…….”
No one could have anticipated what followed after that, either.
Endlessly deep darkness.
What caused a single ray of light to fall once more into that darkness.
The reason it was not some grand action or ritual, but merely a question.
Only—
“As I thought, Granfell Claudi Arpheus R…….”
Only the person concerned could know that reason—no, that history.