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Although humans weren’t well aware of this fact, Grand Duke Lucifer of the Demon Realm had a weapon that symbolized him.
Lucifer the human was equally unaware of what Joshua was holding right now. The spear in Joshua’s hand was five meters long and had two heads, one on each end, that looked sharp enough to pierce the red moon looming over the battlefield. The spear’s appearance was shockingly unique—in fact, to a normal person it didn’t really look like a weapon at all—and the person who wielded it was just as special. No one in the Demon or the Angel Realms was able to withstand an attack from that spear.
The legend flashed across Lucifer’s mind, but he could never accept that what Joshua had done was a technique pertaining to the Magic Spear Arts.
“…Don’t be ridiculous,” Lucifer growled, his voice taking on a feral timbre. “Don’t be ridiculous!”
Lucifer’s energy burst out, making the red moon shine even over the light of day. The air around them became heavy as if gravity had been multiplied hundreds of times.
Lucifer inhaled deeply and breathed out a mysterious blood-red smoke. His body had gotten a lot stronger, and his aura became much more vivid.
Joshua was about to go up against Lucifer, but he just quietly picked up his spear. Although the weapon he’d created from his black demon power alone wouldn’t be as good as the other one, it was still a weapon that had been made by compressing Joshua’s power.
Suddenly, it felt as if his heart was being stabbed with an ice pick. Joshua frowned. He had already overworked himself by raising the army of darkness, and the injuries he had sustained hadn’t completely healed. Thus, he was at his limit, but if Lucifer had signed a contract with Azazel, then Joshua needed to push himself a little further.
Joshua swallowed the blood in his mouth, ignoring the eyes of everyone and even his own pain. He took a step forward. His head was filled with nothing else but the thought of making Lucifer kneel.
“You bastard!” Lucifer shouted.
A light flashed before Joshua; at the same time, Lucifer struck Joshua head-on with his ominous sword. It was an honest and straightforward attack, but his sword attacks were the fastest in the world.
…Of course, that didn’t mean much. The tip of Lucifer’s sword clashed against the tip of Joshua’s spear, which stopped the attack with an earsplitting clang. Joshua wasn’t able to nullify the shockwave completely, but he didn’t stop at merely blocking the impact. Instead, he embraced the momentum, using it to launch his spear at Lucifer’s waist.
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Lucifer’s breath caught. The natural way that Joshua counterattacked, fluid as a river, meant that Joshua hadn’t stopped his attack by mere luck.
However, Lucifer was an Absolute of an empire and praised by the people on the continent as “the Sky”. The collision earlier had laid Lucifer open to attacks, forcing his muscles to contort bizarrely so he could deflect Joshua’s spear with a diagonal swing.
‘If I counterattack in the same way—’
“…Hup!” Lucifer inhaled sharply as Joshua’s attack cut off his thoughts.
Joshua’s black spear was speeding toward Lucifer’s waist when it suddenly faded away and disappeared in a fraction of a second.
Lucifer looked everywhere frantically.
‘Wh-where did it go…?’
Suddenly, he shuddered as if he had been struck by a lightning bolt. Slowly, he looked down and saw something black piercing his waist and dark red blood spreading out from the wound.
“You’re too strong, so you have a critical weakness that others don’t know about,” Joshua calmly said.
“…Keugh!”
Joshua stood only three centimeters away from Lucifer.
“For dozens of years, your nickname has been ‘One Strike One Kill’—meaning that you wouldn’t have fought for at least dozens of years after you gained your nickname. Compared to other people on your level, you lack experience. And that is the truth.”
Lucifer couldn’t say anything, but it wasn’t because of his physical pain. The psychological shock was overwhelmingly worse than the physical one.
“There are some who fear reaching the peak because it means they’ll fall in the end,” Joshua said with a gleam in his eyes, “but no matter how boring their lives become after they reach the peak, they have to continue to improve themselves. Otherwise, even the most exceptional ones perish in the end… just like you right now.”
“…Haha.” Lucifer smiled crookedly. “Hahaha… Kehahahaha!”
It was the roar of a wounded beast. Up until now, Lucifer had been trying to ignore that fact, but it was still his biggest regret. Regardless, it was the one thing that no one was allowed to mention in front of Lucifer.
“…You’re arrogant.” Lucifer stopped laughing and gave Joshua a death glare. “You managed to stab me once… and you now dare to teach me?”
“…If that’s what you think…”
“By the way, are you feeling okay right now?” Lucifer mumbled with a sly grin.
That was when a change took place.
“This is…?” Joshua looked down quietly and realized that the blood dripping from Lucifer’s wound had crawled up the spear and wet Joshua’s hand. If that was all, Joshua wouldn’t have had to worry about it. The problem was, the demonic power making up Joshua’s spear weakened significantly.
“Kekeke, my blood has the ability to absorb, and since you made direct contact with my blood, you’ll have trouble even lifting a finger.”
The blood on Joshua’s hand swelled up.
“Die.”
Lucifer wasn’t a fool, so he didn’t hesitate any longer and used Blood Sword Level 4: Blood Explosion. The blood rain crashed down from the sky, shaking the ground.
Lucifer scowled painfully. Contrary to his expectations, he had been unable to defeat his enemy with this attack. Before the explosion, Joshua had lightly swung his spear and escaped from the radius of the explosion.
‘Shit, in that case…’
Joshua’s spear snapped into position and… thrust forward with extraordinary energy. The pitch-black spear dissipated and covered Joshua. The monster previously wielding the spear had now become the spear itself, and he was coming for Lucifer.
“Argghhh!” Lucifer screamed in pain.
He had to admit that the demon who had been giving him absolute power until now wasn’t budging at all after he had seen Joshua. Therefore, Lucifer had to accept that fact as soon as possible and come up with a way to fight his outrageously strong opponent, Joshua. Lucifer instinctively realized that to awaken the true power of the demon he had made a contract with, he had to yell the demon’s true name.
Lucifer bit his lip so hard that it bled. Although he really didn’t want to admit it, he didn’t want to die in vain like this, so he had to do it.
In the end, Lucifer screamed, “Azazel!”
His call was close to a howl—his voice had broken down because he had to give up the last of his pride. Although Lucifer was strong, he was an imitation and could never become the real thing.
The first thing that changed was Lucifer’s mana, which was the start of his aura materialization. After that, Lucifer’s demonic power spread out from him like a tsunami. Since a human body was as fragile as glass, Lucifer was absorbing as much of the uncontainable power as possible and immediately releasing it.
“Hahahahahaha!” Lucifer burst into maniacal laughter again as he felt the power rushing through his veins. The power was so extraordinary that Lucifer felt like he could rip apart the sky! Yes, who cared if the demon he’d signed a contract with was Lucifer or Azazel? With the power that was running through his veins, Lucifer felt like he would be able to get rid of not only the eyesore in front of him, but also everyone else in the world.
“O-oh my god…”
“The Gr-Grand Duke is…!”
“I only saw the drawings from books, but he looks exactly like the Demon King…”
“Th-then are all these monsters controlled by the Grand Duke, not the Hero King?”
“But why are they attacking us?!”
The turmoil started from Einberg and gradually spread to everyone else. It was very difficult to think of Lucifer as a human right now.
“Azazel! Azazel! Azazzzelll!” Lucifer shouted rapturously, feeling the demon’s complete descent into this realm. Although he wasn’t able to think clearly anymore, it didn’t matter—his mind and body had to become one with the demon in order to draw out the demon’s true power.
-Kekeke.
At last, Lucifer chuckled again, but his voice didn’t belong to a human.
Joshua had silently watched the whole thing happen.
The demon’s first act after he descended to the Human Realm was…
-I, Azazel, offer my deepest respects to the shining darkness of the Demon Realm.
…to bow with as much respect as possible.