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Episode 159: The Fateful Noon (II)
* * *
[The time has come!]
Toulouse flew low over its sanctuary, the mansion of the Archduchy of Marquis, and cried out with a loud voice.
Each of the three heads had different expressions, but they were all similar, in a state of extreme excitement.
[Johann! Johann! Open your eyes!]
Johann was covered with a black aura.
They were now going through the last ritual.
The power of Toulouse flowing through his heart grew stronger, and magical powers in the form of black mist gathered into a sphere and embraced him tightly.
In it, Johann was being conceived. Like a demon coming to life.
Jii-jik— Jii-jik—
Sparks flew violently, and the wind fluttered in his dark hair.
In the midst of the storm, he quietly closed Johann’s eyes.
Toulouse said as if he couldn’t take it any longer.
[It’s ‘noon’ now. ]
That was then.
Johann slowly raised his eyelids.
The jet-black eyes were filled with far-flung anger, vast emptiness, and a sense of hellish defeat.
Toulouse looked at him with a raptured expression on its face and exclaimed.
[Ah, my God… I knew you could make it! ]
Toulouse’s heart was beating like it was going to explode.
[Johann, you in your previous lives was nothing more than garbage compared to now! I feel… This time, my power is truly complete! Hahahahahahahaha!]
Tuk, tuk—
Walking out of the sphere, Johann lightly gathered his magical powers with one hand.
Then the black aura disappeared without a trace.
When he flicked his finger lightly again, wild magic was released.
A black light flashed from his grasp in an instant. All of the life within a few hundred meters radius melted without a trace.
The colorful blooms in the flower bed next to the mansion, and the bees that were collecting nectar from the flowers.
The mother deer who was licking the bodies of her newborn fawns.
The father, mother, and children who were laughing in front of the warm lunch table…
All those living things quickly perished and disappeared.
As if it didn’t exist in the first place.
[…Beautiful.]
As if drunk by its mighty power, Toulouse slowly revealed its true form.
All organs were 1.5 times larger than normal humans, and its whole body was covered with black feathers.
With a low metallic noise, the corrupted demon whispered earnestly.
[Now, take my heart. Johann.]
Johann tilted his chin and looked at Toulouse. Then he asked softly enough that it sounded affectionate.
“Is that so?”
[I have to let the world know that a new emperor has ascended to the throne.]
‘That’s myself. Toulouse.’
It had been several hundreds of years. All this while, it had been repeated countless times with only one purpose.
‘How long has it been…!’
Its time on earth was as long as the time it suffered in Marsephone.
But, finally, it was its turn to be rewarded for it all.
The blood all over its body was boiling and it felt like it was going crazy with excitement.
Because success was right in front.
The wish it had been praying for since it fell into the hell of demons would come true right now.
But…
Fu-wook!
[Aaaaaah!]
Suddenly, a ‘long sword’ was stuck in Toulouse’s thick chest.
That long sword was a holy object that had been refined with holy power and reached the status of a sacred sword.
Without blinking an eye, Johann was holding the sword with one hand wrapped in a cloth.
Inherently evil beings naturally could not touch sacred objects.
Chiiiiiik—
Thus, even though it was wrapped with a cloth, Johann’s hand was slowly burning with the energy emitted by the holy objects.
But even faster than that, Toulouse’s heart melted.
[You, you…! Ack!]
Its bloody eyes fluttered in shock.
Looking straight into those eyes, Johann’s lips twisted nicely.
Johann parted his lips with his characteristic good-natured smile.
“I’ve been thinking about it…”
[Kwak, ugh…!]
“Anyway, all I need is this heart, right?”
‘…Oh, where did he hear that?!’
Come to think of it, these were the words of Toulouse himself.
The words Toulouse spit out laughing as it was about to rip out Johann’s heart.
At that time, when Toulouse trembled with shame as his words were returned, Johann clenched his teeth and began to cut its heart out of its chest.
[Aaaaaaah! No! Please! …My… Pwak…]
As indifferent as a butcher who slaughtered pigs, Johann pierced the heart of the begging Toulouse.
After losing its heart, Toulouse’s body slowly began to melt. Like an animal drowning in seething lava… slowly.
[Ugh… Ugh…]
Then, soon after, only an unknown liquid remained on the floor.
Kung, kung.
The heart of Toulouse, now beating in Johann’s grasp, was the concentrated magical power of the demon itself.
The heart gradually changed into a spherical shape and began to be absorbed into Johann’s body.
A new red pupil pierced his black eyes. Black feathers sprouted from the nape of his left neck.
If one killed a fallen demon and received its full power…
Would you be a ‘human’ or a ‘fallen demon’?
Johann parted his closed lips and muttered briefly.
《Gather.》
The ‘Emperor of Demons’, which was linked through rituals to millions and tens of millions of demons, gave orders.
The hard ground began to shake with an unknown vibration.
Johann smiled lowly and headed towards the door of Marsephone.
‘Wait for me, Berylia.’
‘I should at least have you as a doll in a broken world.’
‘We’ll be together eventually.’
‘Writhe in my grasp and let out terrible screams…’
…Forever.
* * *
“The energy is growing, Your Majesty.”
The deepest part of the Illuminati, ‘Molanto’.
An elite knight wearing Spinel’s red armor reported to me.
“…I feel it too.”
I answered in a low voice and looked into the depths of the shore.
In the large cave inside, the frequency was gradually getting stronger.
At first, it was a frequency that only monsters could interpret, but now it could be felt by human ears.
Many knights were gathered at the sides of this place.
An elite knight in armor that shone like fire in the dark with the red color of Spinel.
Next to him was the margrave, riding a horse that was neither dead nor alive like a ghost.
All the members of the army following the margrave were on the same kind of horse, and they too were in a similar state as the horses. The white, ragged robes they wore seemed to have endured a long time.
The transnational knights of Valderi’ were all wearing golden helmets decorated with wings. Each knight looked like a giant ‘golden hawk’.
Lucia, the head of the Valderi Order, was also staring at the cave with a cold face.
And on the tallest rock at the foot of the mountain…
There was Rixus.
Rixus, riding on a sturdy horse with a black mane, was wearing a helmet that was only used when the opponent was to be killed.
Behind him, the elite knights of Aktoum were lined up like swords.
The elite knights of Aktoum, who obeyed their superiors’ orders as if it meant their lives, had black armor attached to their bodies like crustaceans, waiting only for his orders.
The black armor, which seemed dark as though it contained blood, already looked like darkness itself. It was black with a bloody smell.
Bwaaaak—
Then, a bird with large wings flew over them.
“…….”
I looked up at the sky and frowned, my eyes dazzled, and I made a hand awning.
I saw the sun blazing glaringly in the center of the sky, and then rapidly devoured by the clouds.
At noon.
“!”
That was then.
Bzzzt– Kung—
There was a deep sound from the cave and the ground began to shake.
The knights calmed their agitated horses and glared at the cave.
But it was not only the cave that the vibration resonated from.
At some point, the vibration that shook the heavens and earth began to tear the air and create cracks.
It was a strange sight.
Everything was distorted for a moment as space was twisted and vision was blurred.
Kwaaaak!
As the mouth of the cave opened like a giant monster, the twisted space screamed and the door of Marsephone opened.
A mutant dragon jumped out of it, flapping its wings.
“Aaaaaah!”
Then, it chewed and swallowed a knight of Valderi in an instant and flew through the sky.
Without hesitation, Lucia jumped high and cut off the wings of the dragon that soared into the sky.
Thud-!!!
The dragon’s body, which had lost its wings, fell to the floor.
“…Don’t back down!”
At the same time as Lucia’s shout, various monsters began to come out of the door of Marsephone.
Bang, bang.
From a distracting monster that shook the earth with every step it took.
To a vicious monster like a two-headed wolf that ran with a stench.
The endless number of monsters protruding out was overwhelming.
Among them, there was one who came out tearing the surrounding monsters because there was not enough space to accommodate its body.
The one who looked like a giant ogre opened its mouth with flashing yellow eyes.
Woooooo!
“Ugh…!”
Everyone, including me, covered our ears at that deafening noise.
Some were in pain and retreated.
“All troops, don’t back down! Never… don’t let even a single one into a house.”
Rixus gave a command with a low but resonant voice, and lowered his black helmet. Then he rode his horse.
“Let’s go!”
The muscular black horse’s mane fluttered and brought its owner to the front of the giant monster.
Rixus jumped high. A unique purple aura rose from the sword like an explosion.
The giant ogre roared with its mouth wide open as if it would swallow up Rixus.
Wooooo, wooooo! Hwak!!!
With a sword stuck in its mouth as it was, the ogre almost had his head split in two.
Bang, the yellow eyes turned over, and the giant fell to the floor.
Looking at the scene, I shouted at the same time.
“Everyone, advance!”
Swaaak– Saaaak—
But there were too many flying monsters.
They pecked at the knights from above one by one as if they were picking prey while the margrave’s Ghost Army was cutting monsters on the ground.
I frantically shot ice thorns, then looked up at the sky for a moment and recited a spell.
Pak– kwakwakwak!
A huge ice storm blew, and the space began to freeze in an instant.
The ice pillars grew like vines and completely froze the flying creatures.
Spinel’s elite troops drove their war horses and they ran as if flying on the icy road in the sky.
Then they swung their swords. The monsters that were troublesome fell from the sky to the floor like fragments of hail.
‘This is enough to stop it.’
I was confident, and scrutinized the battlefield.
Black monsters were being eaten up by the white waves wherever the ghost-like troops of the margrave reached.
‘With this kind of power… Enough until Joanhn comes…’
It was when I was thinking this way.
“Hello, my queen.”
I could feel a hot breath on the back of my neck.
“!”
When I looked back in surprise, I saw a smiling Johann.
My heart felt like it was falling to the floor.
Johann twisted his mouth into a smirk and climbed onto a flying mutant dragon, soaring high in an instant.
“Everyone is working hard.”
That was then. The atmosphere of the demons changed.