1088. Provisional Alliance
What Saxon used was one of the sacred relics imbued with divinity, infused with the power of an ancient god.
Since it did not belong to a currently existing god, it rendered the divine defenses prepared by the demon useless.
While everyone else was searching for their own means to destroy the demon, Saxon had effectively already secured one. After all,
he was an artifact collector; gathering various relics was his hobby.
Indeed, the Burning Crow gritted its teeth in frustration that none of the defensive spells it had prepared were activating.
Crunch!
“Ahhh!”
And with that, he let out a scream. It was so desperate that it was enough to send shivers down everyone’s spine.
Well, though, there wasn’t anyone here who would lose their mind from the devil’s scream alone.
“Go die.”
Dunbakel spoke with a sweet smile. Up until this point, Rem and Ragnar had been standing awkwardly, but as soon as they realized the situation, they both frowned deeply.
Rem raised the corners of his eyebrows, and Ragnar furrowed his brow.
How did things end up like this?
Upholding justice, condemnation, and discipline.
Saxen continued speaking, paying no heed to the frowning behind his back. At that moment, a crack appeared in the demon’s head, starting from where the three daggers were embedded. It cracked in a zigzag pattern, and black liquid flowed out from within.
It was an object obtained after clearing a trap in an underground dungeon that had swallowed dozens of people. He had prepared three more artifacts just in case this one didn’t work, but he never had to take them out.
“Ah, you. My serpents remain. They will tear your city apart. This will be all that remains for you.”
The devil cursed, but no one cared. Even if he had prepared something and was really going to do something, it wasn’t as if he had left the city without any countermeasures.
Cheer up.
Encred spoke. It was just a habit. Teasing people, whether human or demon. Why on earth did he show an opening?
Even as he lay dying, the demon glared at Encred in anger. This madman bastard—it was a will conveyed without words. In fact, he could sense what he was trying to say just by reading the atmosphere.
Rectangular pupils glared between the splitting heads. It looked as though he would express his rage by biting and tearing at anyone who got close.
Encred just stared blankly at that goat-head.
This bastard.
Even as he lay dying, the demon was about to rage but changed his mind and attempted to send malevolent thoughts to his remaining minions, only for them to snap repeatedly.
His current attempt was not to prolong his life, but to convey his final will to the forces he had left behind in the rear, yet it was blocked.
It was a will to command the remaining troops to immediately charge into the continent, to kill anyone in sight—not just these men—and to bare their fangs at every living thing to fight one another in his absence.
It was an attempt to instigate a war that would ultimately force even the Lord of the Demon Realm to step forward, engulfing the families, friends, and acquaintances of those standing before him to their deaths.
But why isn’t this working?
‘why?’
The devil’s thoughts accelerated at a terrifying speed. Facts, conjectures, and even the habits of the other bastards of the Demon Realm Lords I had encountered so far—everything blended together. Various reasons, facts, and situations swirled in my mind.
Was it because I was on the verge of death?
Was it because my anger had momentarily grown stronger than my attachment to life?
In any case, my mind was working better than ever before. And so, the deduction was finished.
These bastards.
He was truly furious. The remaining bastard lords had been stealing his remaining legions little by little. And they did so while he was fighting.
Of course, if he had survived, reclaiming his legions wouldn’t have been a problem. But he had lost. Therefore, it was a problem.
What bothered him even more was this: weren’t these bastards practically praying for his defeat?
Being an Ascendant, they wouldn’t have dared to pray to the heavens, but it was obvious what they wanted—what their ugly expectations were.
If I lose and die, it’s good because I get to take the legion.
Even if I won and came back, he probably intended to make a deal where he would take my things and return them, essentially saying let’s not fight for nothing.
You damned bastards. Filth that can’t even be used as fertilizer!
How dare you use mere pawns? So you think you’ll lose to a mortal like me?
Looking at reality, he did lose. He was furious that the sense of defeat was eating away at him, but he was even angrier that others had taken his legion. Much, daringly, and incomparably so. Even though
he was dying and his lingering attachment to life should have remained sticky and messy like the traces of old glue, rage consumed it all. In the end, fury triumphed over all other emotions and won.
“you.”
The devil finished his thoughts and opened his mouth. His long life was coming to an end. It would be a lie to say he had no lingering regrets. Even now, his wish remained the same: to ascend to heaven as a dragon.
However, anger came first, and those words came out of it.
Make sure you win. Kill all the other devil bastards.
He really hated the thought of someone other than himself winning as the Ascendant. Envy and jealousy, his friends and neighbors of anger, seethed within him.
Make sure you win.
And so, the devil left something resembling a blessing instead of a curse. Encred stared at the guy blankly.
I wanted to become a dragon.
The moment the demon uttered his last words, the black clouds in the gray sky parted, and the rain began to cease.
The raindrops thinned, and the clouds thinned. At the same time, the color of the sky, which had been turning from gray to almost dark gray, then pitch black without a single speck of light, gradually faded. Back to dark gray, then light gray—as the color faded, a light stealthily peeked its head into the sky.
The Sun, the master of heat born in the east that devours all evil, arrived.
As a few rays of sunlight fell, scattering the air of the surrounding demonic realm, Enkrid faced the final thought the demon had left behind.
I wanted to become a dragon.
It was not that he was trying to look, nor was he doing anything, yet it was visible.
For the fellow who had remained as a monarch on this land for so long, even his thoughts did not easily vanish. He
was filled with lingering attachments, resentment, and delusion. This was something that needed to be watched over and scattered away.
Encred did not know the reasons behind it, but simply stared blankly as he naturally caught a glimpse of the devil’s life. It was an experience similar yet different from peeking into the life of a boatman.
He was a goat. That was how it began.
Meeee.
However, it was a slightly unusual goat.
* * *
When was it that he first realized it?
He saw a leopard while climbing a rock face. The goat thought to himself that to survive, he needed claws and fangs like those.
He didn’t know the details of what happened in between, but one day he saw a monstrous leopard lying on the ground, dying.
The goat chewed the leopard’s flesh and drank its blood.
It was an act bordering on instinct, and by eating and drinking, he gained claws and fangs.
After that, he fought monsters and monstrous beasts, repeating the act of chewing flesh and drinking blood.
I am the king.
The goat ruled the area. There was no one who would not dare look up to him.
Then he met a skilled beastman warrior and nearly died, after which he began walking on two legs and his depth of thought changed.
If you fight recklessly with just anyone, you will die.
It was a time when survival was the most important word. Eating made you stronger, and becoming weak meant death.
If you become strong, you can fight recklessly.
The goat knew how to become strong. It ate anything and everything. It even killed and ate the beastman warrior who had nearly killed it.
By then, its appearance was like that of a beastman. It was the point where it thought that outward appearance was important.
“Still, you’re a goat!”
He was a guy who was similar to me yet different.
“How dare a goat try to stand on top of me? Die!”
He was a guy with a snake’s head. The goat defeated him. But what he said lingered in my mind.
“What is the greatest creature in the world?”
Doubts arose. Once survival was stable, greed reared its head.
Why was I born a goat?
Goats are insignificant. So he went around the rocky mountain area where he grew up and bit every goat to death.
“Still, you’re a goat!”
I heard such words when I secured my territory as well. The goat pulled out the horns of the creature it had killed and planted them on its own head. They were beautifully curved horns. They were the horns of a monster, the one that ruled the area.
Later, after fighting a lion with golden fur, it painted its horns yellow like the creature.
“You’re a fake.”
“A goat like that.”
I heard this often. I killed everyone who expressed such will to me.
“Goat Monster!”
It was a story he had heard even from creatures that walked on two legs.
By this time, it had been over ten years since he had stopped eating the beasts struggling beneath him. Now, no matter what he ate, his strength did not increase easily.
He was already known as the Demon King in the region. And, being a goat that spewed out gold, he called himself a divine beast that chanted light.
Is it over if we just rule this entire land like this?
But if I do that with the body of a goat, wouldn’t I just become something like the King of Goats?
Just then, lightning struck from the sky.
Rumble! Bang!
It was not far from him. A tree had burned black, broken, and caught fire.
It was a flame that did not easily go out, even with falling rainwater.
If I got hit by something like that, I’d die too.
As I pondered the reason for my birth, the instinct for survival seeped into me.
An immortal body.
A body destined for great praise.
That was what he needed. Afterwards, he survived by devouring many things and mastered several spells.
Born a goat, yet endowed with very special abilities,
that was himself. Even before being called a demon, he had already harbored the desire to ascend, though his case was slightly different from other ascenders.
For instance, while the Parasite of Heat was left with only survival instincts, the goat’s goal was to shed its physical body.
However, if one looked deeply into its inner self, the reality was quite different.
I’m not a goat.
A mind that denies what is innate.
I become a new god.
Thus, he would deny the past and change the vessel itself to become a being revered by all.
That was his goal. It was much later that this goal transformed into a standardized term. That is to say, it was when he took possession of the place known as the Demon Realm.
I will become a dragon.
A dragon with golden scales—the demon desired that.
He transformed into a crow to fly through the sky and cast a spell to burn his feathers with flames all because he wanted to become a golden dragon.
He flew through the sky and substituted the gold with flames, but the result was a failure.
A dragon must be a dragon.
It was only after becoming a dragon that he headed toward the sky.
He lived for a very long time harboring a few wishes. And now he has died.
But in a way, this is a natural outcome. Should I say he faced an inevitable moment?
The goat had deliberately committed very wicked deeds and was a monster that created the concept of a chimera by combining demons and beasts, yet his instincts were real, and those instincts foreshadowed his end.
Do you think doing this will lead to ascension?
Was it because of doubt? His aspirations grew increasingly blurred. Now, he just wanted to live like this, rise if the opportunity arose, and if not…
I just keep living like this on this land.
It was a blurred survival instinct and ontology. He wanted to become a dragon, but he didn’t know how to achieve that.
Even combining various monsters and magical beasts, he could not become a dragon.
His thoughts scattered. The goat that had once been the lord of the Demon Realm was no more.
Encred stood there, letting his scattered thoughts drift away.
His belly skin was slightly torn, two ribs were broken, and a thigh muscle snapped with a crack during the fight.
Yet, he did not reveal any of his injuries while fighting. After all,
there was no benefit in exposing weaknesses to the enemy.
“Alright, I’ll send everyone together.”
Encred spoke to the goat that had died and vanished. The epithet “Burning Crow” was a nickname bordering on mockery, implying that he would end up as nothing more than a flying crow, unable to become a dragon. Now, however
, even that epithet had merely turned to ashes and scattered. And the phrase “all together” here was a declaration of intent to kill even the Lord of the Demon Realm.
* * *
“Wow, we can’t just leave this here.”
The Father of All the Dead spoke through the crystal ball.
The magical communication device, through which he forcibly sent his subordinate evil spirits to everyone, flickered and blinked with a faint light.
“Hey, if you guys stay like this, we might get the same way, okay?”
He urged the remaining two demons.
If you think that way, you step forward.
Pure White blamed him. At the sound coming from beyond the crystal ball, the Father of the Dead spoke.
“Hey, that’s not it. We’re separated right now, and we’re shattering into pieces. That thing is insanely strong. It’s the birth of a swordsman who can kill even demons.”
The situation was serious. Really.
Even the other demons felt it. Otherwise, sending the crystal ball wouldn’t have yielded a response.
A voice burst out of the crystal ball once again.
So you’re saying we should form a united front?
It is the answer spat out by a loner of distrust.
“Then are you just going to sit still and get taken advantage of?”
The father of the dead asked back. The two had no answer, but that was a silent affirmation.
It is war. We must prepare for that as well.
The Father of the Dead had said it, and he was right.
In fact, these three had intended to kill all the madmen of the continent—those exhausted from this battle. But
the goat died much more easily than expected. So, their calculations went awry.
If they had rushed in as soon as the fight ended, one of the three would have been seriously injured and then torn apart by the remaining two.
Looking at the situation, the conclusion was that since Encred wasn’t cooperating with the alliance, they ended up forming an arbitrary alliance on their own and using him; however, this crossed the line quite a bit. The
Burning Raven shouldn’t have died so easily.
The demons felt their survival threatened. It was different from when they killed the Parasite of the Heat before.
Back then, the Parasite had acted on its own accord and gotten beaten up, and that guy was a bit lower in rank to begin with. But this time, it was different.
Of course, the Raven is a bit lower in rank too, but it should have at least bitten half of them to death before ending it.
Releasing the bait of a saint.
Whether deceived or not, I waited for the devil to step forward and intercepted him.
This was reality. I deliberately thrust my sword, and it severed the neck of the Lord of the Demon Realm. Furthermore, with the Star Witch, fairies, and those skilled in artifacts by my side, I erased even the concept of resurrection. This was truly dangerous.
“Hey, think carefully. I’ve passed the message on.”
The Father of the Dead fueled anxiety. However, neither Pure White nor Distrust had any intention of dying.
Isn’t that why they survived until now and became the Lord of the Demon Realm?
That was correct.
“United front.”
Pure white speaks.
“If you try to strike from behind like this, be prepared. I have abandoned God. I believe in nothing. Naturally, I do not trust people like you.”
Distrust answers.
It was a warning against a situation where three demons had quietly shared the dead demon’s possessions this time.
“Who told you to trust me? I said let’s draw a line and fight it out on our own. But we do have to fight, don’t we?”
The father of the dead agreed to form a united front.
“Without debating tactics or strategy, we must fight in the winter. Do not forget.”
The two demons did not express any doubts. After all, neither of them were fools.
Winter is a harsh season for humans and other sentient beings. But not for them.
Things awakened from death, like the Draugr, wouldn’t whine about the cold.
The same was true for Pure White and Distrust. It wasn’t that they hadn’t taken hordes of mortals as their subordinates, but generally, the season of winter had little effect on them.
Well, it wasn’t that they liked winter just because they were in the Demon Realm, but everything is relative.
Winter was a more threatening season for humans and other sentient beings.
Therefore, from now on, we are entering into war.
If they were going to fight, they might as well fight at the most advantageous moment. That was how the demon horde united. It was a temporary alliance.
