The moonlight shattered everything it touched. Even the dark power that attempted to block the moonlight was blown into pieces by it.
But the same went for Eugene’s body. His blazing flames of mana tried to resist the moonlight, but the moonlight just devoured the source of this resistance and glowed even more ominously.
The feeling in Eugene’s left arm, from his forearm downwards, had faded. It hadn’t been sliced off or destroyed. The arm was still hanging from his shoulder, perfectly intact. And although the feeling in his arm had grown faint, it wasn’t like he couldn’t move it how he wanted to.
However, he couldn’t let go of the hilt. It felt like his fingers had become one with the Moonlight Sword. Until now, he had swung the Moonlight Sword in battle numerous times, but this was the first time that something like this had happened.
The sword was running wild — the Moonlight Sword was out of his control. Even though Eugene was desperately trying to hold back his mana, the Moonlight Sword was going against Eugene’s will and was sucking out all of his mana.
Screech.
Eugene felt an agonizing pain like someone was scratching on the inside of his skull with their fingernails.
This was dangerous — this thought filled his head.
He had never seen the Moonlight Sword run wild like this three hundred years ago.
Even though Eugene’s mana reserves were so deep that it was hard to even touch the bottom, if he considered the speed at which the Moonlight Sword was absorbing his mana, he was at a high risk of mana depletion.
On top of that, his mana wasn’t the only problem. The line of moonlight slowly creeping up from his forearm was suspicious. It was like he was being gradually eroded.
‘What the fuck is this?’ Eugene cursed silently.
It was good that the Moonlight Sword had grown stronger. However, now he wasn't able to fully control it. Eugene could still swing the sword as he pleased, but he couldn’t consciously control the flow of power going through it. He couldn’t retract the moonlight either.
Well, he had no intention of stopping the flow of power in the first place.
Ignoring the pain, Eugene kept on advancing. Since he couldn’t stop it, he had no choice but to continue to let the Moonlight Sword run wild. In this situation, where he didn’t know what else to do, there was no other choice apart from that.
Cracrackle.
There was another spike of agonizing pain, like something was clawing on his brain. Eugene heard the sound of static in his ears. Could this be caused by Fury’s dark power? Even though the said dark power was currently being torn into pieces by the Moonlight Sword?
Eugene’s head grew clouded. He bit hard on his lips to wake himself up, but he couldn’t really sense that pain. The sound in his ears gradually transformed into a scream, and there also seemed to be the sound of waves coming from somewhere nearby. Then came a dull roar that sounded like something large was collapsing.
Inside his head…
…something had…
‘I…’
…appeared. And it was spreading. His entire vision was being colored by it.
‘...just what am I looking at?’
A darkness without even a speck of light. Could that be… the sky?’
‘That’s….’
Eugene couldn’t tell. He couldn’t understand what he was seeing.
It was too dark… he couldn’t see anything. No, he simply couldn’t see.
‘Ah,’ Eugene gasped in realization.
This wasn’t the first time he had experienced something like this. In the past, when Ariartelle had first engraved the Draconic incantation onto Akasha, Eugene had once tried to use the Draconic spell to find the whereabouts of Vermouth or of the fragments of the Moonlight Sword.
The same that happened then was happening now. No, things weren’t exactly the same as last time. It felt like he was slowly getting closer to identifying the things he hadn’t been able to hear back then or understand.
The darkness gradually turned gray. Eugene felt something ominous from this shade of color. But at some point, before he knew it, he could no longer feel that sense of ominousness.
Eugene was left in a void of nothingness. The only thing that Eugene could currently see was complete Emptiness. There was no Carnage, no Cruelty, and no Fury here. There was no light or darkness.
Raizakia had seen the Moonlight Sword and identified it as the Sword of Destruction. That meant it had to be a Demon King’s weapon like the Demonic Spear and the Annihilation Hammer. This world, this void of emptiness and nonexistence, was Destruction itself.
But amid this void of Destruction, Eugene saw someone.
* * *
Resistance was impossible. In front of that moonlight, all the defenses the Demon King erected were torn apart in vain. It was useless even when she rebuilt her defenses as soon as they were torn down.
The same applied even when she used the power of her Demoneye in place of her dark power. No matter how many dozens or even hundreds of times she summoned dark matter to block it, the moonlight destroyed everything with just a single pass.
‘The Moonlight Sword…!’ Iris thought desperately.
Her hands that she had held up in front of her were swept away by the light and disappeared. Her regeneration was getting slower. The Demon King’s expression twisted into a scowl.
That moonlight was able to completely destroy any dark power that it touched. The Moonlight Sword hadn’t been this strong when Eugene first started using it, but after those black flames had been absorbed by it, it was able to directly overwhelm even a Demon King’s dark power.
‘I’m getting pushed back?’ Iris thought in disbelief. ‘A Demon King like me?’
She couldn’t accept it. Even though she was experiencing it in person, she just couldn’t believe it. As the Demon King retreated, she unleashed her dark power once more.
Screeeeech!
An extremely unpleasant noise was heard coming from right in front of the Demon King.
Even as the Demon King stretched her hands, her whole devildom had already been erased. Everything had disappeared. Everywhere the moonlight swept through, the devildom was no more, leaving only a void behind. The Demon King wasn’t even able to let out a short scream. Her body was swept away, leaving only her two legs.
As she reappeared, Iris heaved a breath, “Gaaaasp!”
Her complete destruction had even managed to bring a halt to the Demon King’s thought processes. Her revival had still succeeded, but the Demon King’s eyes were left shaking in fear.
Eugene had become an existence that even a Demon King could not resist. At the same time, he was transforming into an unrelenting and ruthless grim reaper.
Eugene’s face could still be seen vaguely through the shimmering moonlight.
The color of his gray hair, one of the symbols of the Lionheart clan, strongly resembled that of the moonlight emanating from his left hand. His golden eyes, without any trace of light, also resembled the void he created.
“We can’t let this continue,” Kristina muttered.
Eugene’s current state was strange. It wasn't normal. Looking up from her perch on top of the figurehead, Kristina shook in fear as she wiped away the trail of blood leaking from the corner of her lips.
The light of the Holy Sword could no longer be seen. Currently, Eugene, who was pushing back the Demon King through overwhelming power, didn’t show any traces of his identity as the Hero. Although Kristina and Anise had tried several times to speak to Eugene’s consciousness or bless him with their miracles, even that hadn’t worked. Instead, each time one of their attempts failed, Kristina and Anise were hit by the pain of the backlash.
‘Sister, should we get a little closer…?’ Kristina tentatively proposed.
Anise couldn't help but hesitate for a few moments. In all her experience, even Anise had never seen the Moonlight Sword run wild like this.
If they got closer, they might also get swept away by the moonlight. In the first place, the light of the Moonlight Sword was unable to distinguish between friend and enemy.
Whenever Vermouth had wielded the Moonlight Sword in battle, the thing that his companions had to pay the most attention to wasn’t assisting Vermouth but instead not getting swept up in Vermouth’s attacks. In the battles where the Moonlight Sword had played a key role, Hamel was the only one who had been able to stand at Vermouth’s side by squeezing through the narrow gaps between attacks.
[Alright,] Anise finally decided.
But Hamel, the only person who could find the gaps in the Moonlight Sword’s attack, was currently being eroded by the moonlight. If neither their light, blessings, or voice could reach him, then they would just have to get in closer.
No matter how dangerous it might be to get closer to Hamel, it probably wasn’t any more dangerous than the situation that Hamel was currently in. Anise was determined to save Hamel even if something were to happen to her.
Her eight wings flapped, and the Saint, who had been standing motionless on the figurehead since the battle began, finally flew up into the sky.
‘It’s similar,’ Sienna thought with gritted teeth as she also flew forward.
She had already tried to cast a spell on Eugene dozens of times. However, not one of them had worked properly. Even with her Eternal Hole, or Frost’s Dragonheart, she couldn’t reach into the depths of that moonlight.
Sienna corrected herself, ‘No, it’s not just similar… it’s exactly the same.’
Sienna was reminded of Vermouth from Hamel’s tomb. Back then, Vermouth hadn't been using the Moonlight Sword. He also hadn’t been wrapped up within that ominous moonlight like Eugene was now.
However, Sienna got the same feeling from the current Eugene she had felt from Vermouth back in the tomb.
Even though it was Vermouth, she had gotten the inexplicable impression that it wasn’t the Vermouth she knew. The same was true of the current Eugene. Through a gradual transformation, Eugene was entering that same strange state.
They couldn’t leave Eugene like this. He didn’t seem to have crossed the line just yet, but if he went a little further — he might just be completely swallowed up by the moonlight. If that happened, it felt like Eugene would become something other than Eugene. It felt as if the Eugene or Hamel that Sienna knew would disappear.
But how to stop it? Her spells weren’t working. It would also be difficult to get any closer to him than this.
What on earth should they do? What preparations should they make? What should they sacrifice to restrain the Moonlight Sword that was running wild?
Creeeack.
In this dire situation, it wasn’t a god who made the first move to assist them.
In the dark skies above what remained of the devildom, a small hole opened up, and chains shot out of it. Sienna and Kristina’s expressions showed shock at this sight, and Anise let out an involuntary cry. From three hundred years ago until now, there was only one person who such chains could represent.
The Demon King of Incarceration.
‘But why?’
No one was able to make any clear guesses as to his reasons for appearing here.
The same was true for the Demon King of Fury, who had been in a desperate situation before his arrival.
Her resurrection could no longer work the way she wanted it to. The inside of her stomach felt bloated and uncomfortable as if it was full of wriggling worms, and her head was also full of thoughts that she didn’t want to admit to.
Iris had felt like she might be defeated if things continued like this. The premonition of her own death was gradually becoming stronger.
Should she — should she try to run away?
Although Iris didn’t really want to spend any time on such thoughts, she had been driven to the point where she needed to consider the idea.
When the hole appeared, Iris had gasped, ‘The Demon King of Incarceration?’
Right at the moment when that terrible and ominous moonlight was about to engulf the Demon King of Fury, his chains had pierced through the moonlight. But the Demon King of Fury couldn’t understand ‘why’ such chains had appeared. For what purpose could the Demon King of Incarceration, who had previously declared himself to be a complete bystander, have to interfere in their battle?
‘Was it…,’ Iris’ eyes shook.
The chains that had pierced through the moonlight pulled away from the Demon King of Fury and then wrapped themselves around Eugene, who was still being eroded by the moonlight.
‘... to save me?’ Iris couldn’t help but have such a thought.
If, hypothetically, the battle had continued, and if she had been completely swallowed by the moonlight and was unable to find a way to escape — if her dark power was repeatedly erased, and even her immortality as a Demon King was tested to its very limits — that moonlight might have had enough power to eventually kill the Demon King of Fury….
However, now that the chains of Incarceration had appeared, the situation had changed. The out-of-control Moonlight Sword had been captured by the chains and subdued. That deadly light that had made even a Demon King tremble in fear was being extinguished. This was definitely Iris’ chance to turn the tide.
The Demon King of Fury stretched out her hand towards Eugene, who was bound by the chains.
Roooar!
A mass of concentrated dark power was shot out like a cannonball.
“No!” Sienna screamed.
For Sienna, saving Eugene was a more critical and urgent matter than trying to understand the current situation.
Booooom!
Sienna’s spell collided with the cannonball of dark power. Eugene’s hair, which was lightly ruffled, shook as he was caught in the radius of the explosion.
Entangled by the chains, Eugene hung in the air limply. His consciousness was still caught within the void that was left by Destruction. The Moonlight Sword had also stopped emitting any of its moonlight.
“Get out of my way!” Iris hissed.
The Demon King was afraid of Eugene reopening his eyes. She also didn’t want to give the Moonlight Sword a chance to start emitting its moonlight once more. She felt a spike of rage rising up towards the Demon King of Incarceration.
Just what on earth was he up to now? If Incarceration was going to tie Eugene up with his chains, he should have just killed Eugene once he was done restraining the Hero. Why was he just leaving Eugene all tied up?
‘Is he leaving it up to me to kill the Hero?’ Iris questioned.
It wouldn’t be an easy task. The Saint’s divine power was continuously eroding her own dark power, and Sienna and Eugene had also managed to directly kill her several times now. And most crucially, too much of her dark power had already been consumed by the out-of-control Moonlight Sword.
The figure of Eugene, still wrapped up in chains, was slowly growing further and further away. Sienna’s desperate flurry of spells was also restricting the Demon King’s actions.
‘It’s not enough,’ Iris thought as she was slowly driven backward.
She wasn’t strong enough, she didn’t have enough dark power, and she wasn’t feared enough. This was her devildom — a battlefield where the Demon King should reign and be regarded with terror — but she wasn’t drawing enough fear.
At that moment, a thought popped up inside the Demon King’s head. Since that was the case, Iris had no choice but to take it all back.
By this, she meant the dark power she had bestowed upon her subordinates. It just so happened to be quite a considerable amount, so if she were to recall all that power, she would be able to replenish her currently lacking reserves of strength. All her vassals might die because of that, but….
“I’m sorry,” the Demon King apologized in a trembling voice.
She couldn’t think of any other way to win. The Demon King’s command was passed on to all the dark elves who had managed to stay alive thus far.
Not a single one of them resented the Demon King for this. Instead, they all felt joy as they ripped out their own hearts. For the sake of the Demon King whom they served, for the sake of their Demon King’s victory, they would sacrifice their lives for Fury. As the direct subordinates of the Demon King, there was no death more noble than this.
Riiiiip!
The dozens of remaining dark elves all tore out their own hearts. This single united motion took place all across the devildom.
It wasn’t just the dark elves who committed suicide. The pirates, who had lost their human identities and had become mere lumps of dark power, and even the giant monsters made up of hundreds or thousands of corpses, all stopped fighting and ripped out their own hearts.
It was a surreal and terrifying sight. This scene, with all of the Demon King’s vassals offering up their hearts in unison, formed into one large ritual that engraved an inexplicable terror into the minds of all those who saw it.
“It is an honor…,” Sepia, who had been serving Iris for the past three hundred years, muttered these last words with a smile.
The moment she had finished speaking, Sepia broke apart into black ash and disappeared.
Shhhhhhh!
A black whirlwind gathered around the Demon King. Sienna’s spell, which had been destroying the Demon King’s body, was frozen in place.
Soon, the spell was erased. Blood flowed profusely from Sienna’s nose and lips as she was hit by a backlash of dark power.
Kristina, who had been focussing her divine power onto the chains, began to feel a dizzying headache. She reached out directly with her left hand, which had been engraved with the stigmata, but the chains refused to disappear. No matter how much she asked for a miracle, recited prayers, and called out his name, Kristina wasn’t able to reach Eugene.
She also couldn’t focus on continuing her attempts for much longer. The Demon King of Fury’s dark power had already begun attacking Sienna.
Kristina’s eight wings flapped once more. Kristina and Anise extended a hand towards Sienna. Sienna also didn’t get any closer to the Demon King and instead took a step back. The Light of a miracle flashed, only to immediately dim. Then, the world went dark for a few moments.
During those few silent moments, the only sound was that of chains moving. Eugene’s body was taken far away as if to shelter him from the impending storm.
Anise was the first to come back to her senses. She continued to flap her wings in place of Kristina, who had lost consciousness. She watched as Eugene was dragged away by the flying chains.
‘But why?’ Anise wondered.
When the world had gone dark for those few moments, Anise had seen how those chains were moving. The attacks made by the Demon King of Fury’s dark power hadn’t been able to get past those chains. She didn’t know their reason for doing so, but Incarceration’s chains had protected Eugene.
‘What exactly does he want?’ Anise thought plaintively.
If the chains of Incarceration hadn’t appeared, the out-of-control Moonlight Sword might have been able to kill the Demon King of Fury. But in that case — Eugene’s own existence might have been lost in the moonlight and permanently erased.
However, due to the intervention of Incarceration’s chains, the Demon King of Fury’s life had been saved. Likewise, Eugene had also been freed from the control of the moonlight.
‘Was it sympathy? Curiosity? Whichever it was… this seems unnatural for the Demon King of Incarceration,’ Anise mused in worry.
That said, what was clear was that the Demon King of Incarceration had saved Eugene. Even now, those chains were moving Eugene out of the danger zone. Anise watched as accompanied by the disappearance of the chains, Eugene was dropped onto another ship.
“What about Eugene?” Sienna asked once she was awake.
“He’s safe,” Anise replied, grabbing Sienna by the shoulder.
The divine power that permeated through her touch completely recovered all of Sienna’s injuries. The two slowly descended from the sky to land on the deck of the Laversia.
“The end is in sight,” Sienna said, only to laugh unconsciously at her own words. “It’s faster than I thought it would be.”
“That’s true,” Anise agreed. “In the worst-case scenario, I thought we might have to fight for a few more days.”
“Don’t let your guard down,” Sienna warned her.
“Is that really something you should be saying?” Anise chuckled as she shook her head.
Tightening her grip on the handle of her flail, Anise stared straight ahead at their opponent.
Boom!
All of the dark power had finally been reunited into one. The Demon King of Fury wiped away the tears of blood flowing from her eyes with the back of her hand.
Where was Eugene, no, Hamel, the Hero? The Demon King’s first priority was to find the Hero and kill him, but the iron ball that came flying at her face occupied the Demon King’s attention.
“Where do you think you’re looking?” Anise taunted.
The iron ball wasn’t able to crack open the Demon King’s head. Although it had been packed full of divine power, the Demon King’s dark power managed to arrest the iron ball in mid-air.
Anise pulled on the long chain of her flail and said with a grin, “Come on then, Demon King of Fury.”
The situation had changed once more. The Demon King of Fury had managed to recharge her reserves of dark power by forcing all her subordinates to commit suicide. The terror that this act had spread among everyone here had only increased the Demon King’s strength.
However, even with that, that didn’t mean the Demon King of Fury was as strong as when they had first encountered her.
This young Demon King had been about as strong as the previous Fury from the very start, and she had continued to grow stronger throughout the course of the battle. But that had reached its limit, and now her strength was fading. If she wasn’t killed and managed to survive this sea battle, Iris could still become an unstoppable blaze, but if they could just kill her here, she would just become a pile of worthless ashes.
“Your enemy isn’t just the Hero,” Anise reminded her quietly.
Of the people who had managed to survive the battle thus far, there were still those who weren’t overcome by the terror of the Demon King. Even as they felt her terror, these people still chose to fight, stepping forward to meet her.
“Ha,” the Demon King of Fury let out a bark of laughter.
A lot of people seemed to be gathering in front of her, who was now all alone after ordering her own vassals to commit suicide.
How insignificant. How hateful. She wanted to kill them all, each and every one of them.
The Demon King tore at her hair as she spat out, “It seems that you want to buy time for… that bastard’s return?”
The Demon King had been about to say Hamel’s name, only to swallow it back. She felt that if she did end up saying his name, the enemy’s morale might just recover.
Now that she was on her own, she had to fight smarter. Since the Demon King’s strength was empowered by the terror she inspired, she could not give them any excuse to make their fear disappear.
“Fine then,” Iris sneered.
And it was very easy for her to sow even more terror among them.
Iris invited them, “Come at me if you have a death wish.”
All she needed to do was make a display by killing one of them. Whether it was a human or an elf, if one saw someone one knew — or even someone one didn’t know — die right in front of them, it would fill one with fear.
The Demon King didn’t think that she was at a disadvantage even now. No matter how much her opponents outnumbered her, any number of humans was insignificant in front of the Demon King’s strength. As long as she brutally slaughtered one of their numbers as an example to the rest, the determination on their faces would quickly turn into despair.
“Heaven Genocide,” a quiet voice was heard. “Destiny Form.”
During today’s battle, Carmen had never once said those words out loud. This was because she had never felt relaxed enough to perform that specific ritual of hers.
The same applied even now. Whether it was the situation or her own emotions, Carmen couldn’t afford to lose control. But that was even more reason why Carmen felt that she should act like she ‘usually’ would and declare the name of her Heaven Genocide while announcing the Destiny Form.
In front of the Demon King, the Lionhearts must not allow themselves to feel fear. They also couldn’t let themselves hesitate or falter. For everyone here, they must act as an example.
To think that someone would actually step forward without any hesitation while declaring such a stupid name. For a moment, Carmen’s actions had managed to fluster even a Demon King.
“Crazy bitch,” the Demon King cursed, her lips twisting in a smirk as she raised her hand towards Carmen.
If Carmen wanted to die so badly, Iris would grant her wish. Back when they had first met in Kiehl, Carmen might have been a tough opponent for her, but now that she had become a Demon King—
Twang!
The Demon King’s expression crumpled into a scowl.
An arrow had come flying at her from afar. Although it didn’t even manage to touch her, the Demon King was still enraged that someone would dare to attempt to shoot her. It was, of course, Ivic who had loosened the arrow.
‘I must be insane,’ Ivic thought to himself.
Since the situation didn’t look good, wouldn’t it have been better to just stay quiet? Even as he felt such regrets, Ivic nocked another arrow onto his bowstring.
He had no choice but to keep shooting. The young Hero had already worked so hard. The Saint, who was brandishing her flail with her slender arms, had blocked the Demon King’s advance. And Carmen, whom he so respected, had also gone out to meet the Demon King. Under such circumstances, Ivic just couldn’t hold his breath and stay silent.
Riiiiiing!
With a deep breath, Sienna rose into the air. Surrounding herself with several different spheres, Sienna glared down at the Demon King.
Booom!
With each step that the Demon King took, the Laversia shook.
However, the ship refused to sink. Sienna’s magic was holding the Laversia together firmly.
“Who do you think you are, trying to order us around?” Sienna spat out as she glared at the Demon King with bloodshot eyes.
