"Don't retreat!! Push!! Push!! PUSH!!"
The commander shouted at the top of his lungs, and the shield wall advanced forward in unison. Before them, orcs and tauruses with bloodshot eyes were charging madly.
This wasn't fear or fighting spirit. It was behavior bordering on insanity. These creatures seemed to have lost even basic combat tactics, simply crashing, clawing, and biting randomly before dying.
She recognized this phenomenon well.
-Slash!
Edelplat narrowed her eyes as she cleanly severed the neck of a taurus that had leaped over a shield and a comrade's corpse.
"Tumor..."
This was what happened when the Mountain Tumor descended. It caused surrounding demons to be consumed by rage and hatred, driving them into a frenzy.
This ferocious momentum and the overwhelming presence dominating the battlefield... it was as if Tumor himself were here.
As Edelplat's sword danced, the charging demons were swept away. Without even sparing them a glance, she lamented.
"Have they truly gathered all the divine powers?"
Right foot forward, sword angled down to the left.
From there, bend the knee with more force, while the other leg firmly supports against the ground.
The mental image is... the mental image...
"Why...!"
The trajectory she had always desired, the path she had always struggled to follow from a distance, was now distorted.
"WHY!!!"
Isabelle cried out with a sob. The sword strike failed to complete. But in her mind, there was no room left for "tactics" or "plans."
What was the best strike supposed to be? What was it?
-CLANG—!!
The Demon King deflected her sword with ease. He looked down at his arm for a moment, then tilted his head and said.
"Do as you were taught. I'll give you one more chance."
"Answer me!!"
-CLANG—!!
Swordsmanship, technique, will, visualization.
Such things had vanished in her fury. The magical power blazing within her body ran wild without control, making her clothes and hair flutter with its chaotic surges.
"Why did you do it? Why... Everyone, everyone loved you—!!"
The hero who slew the Demon King. The champion who brought hope to a world filled with despair. The one who ended the war and brought peace...
Chosen by the gods, he slaughtered those who called themselves gods, and halted the demonic armies that had destroyed dozens of cities and several nations.
No, rather.
The one person who prevented humanity's extinction.
The faithful of all worlds gladly worshipped the hero, and all the kings of the world paid him respect. Yes, everyone loved him.
Humanity cherished and loved him. Statues of him were erected in nearly every major city, and his life story was recorded in epic poems in human history.
And now.
The second great war had begun. A war where gods fell silent, the pope corrupted, nations divided, and all frontlines collapsed.
Under that man's hand.
"I... I respected you. Being your daughter was my pride!!"
-CLANG—!!
Her sword strike wavered. The distorted trajectory collapsed miserably. Isabelle wailed as she thrust, struck, and slashed at him, but none of her attacks reached his body.
After watching her for a moment, the Demon King tilted his head. He sighed briefly and reached out his hand. With a gesture as gentle as caressing a cheek, yet with unexpected speed.
"Isabelle, stop!!"
Oskar rushed forward, grabbed Isabelle by the waist, and leaped away. An explosion sounded where she had been standing. The Demon King rose from the dust cloud after striking the empty ground.
"Get a hold of yourself!!"
"Let go!! Let me go!!"
"Isabelle de Etoile!! Snap out of it! I lost my father!!"
-SLAP!!
Oskar struck Isabelle's cheek harshly. His steel gauntlet left an angry red mark on her cheek.
"My father died by his hand! By the hand of that man who was his most trusted friend!! How dare you, in front of me...!!"
"Oskar!!"
"If anyone has the right to be angry, it's me, and if anyone has the right to revenge, it's mine!! Don't ruin the plan! Stick to the strategy!!"
Oskar shouted roughly and pushed Isabelle aside. She rolled on the ground with a groan.
Without even glancing at her, Oskar raised his sword and shield straight, glaring at the Demon King. The Demon King was still watching them calmly.
"Ah, Enrique. I see."
The Demon King said with a smile.
"Though I didn't pursue you when you lost your power and fled... Yes, you've been watching?"
"Yes."
A shadow at the Demon King's feet writhed and drew a dagger. In an instant, numerous daggers shot up and climbed the Demon King's body.
Even with daggers densely embedded from his legs to his waist, the Demon King smiled and looked down at his feet.
"What's next?"
"Me!!"
Oskar shouted as he charged. He deflected the Demon King's hand with his shield and drove his sword forward.
He concentrated all his superhuman leaping power into the sword tip. In this moment, his charge was no different from a full-speed lance charge.
Beneath it lay the principles of martial arts he had honed. The angle of the blade, the distribution of weight, focusing speed and impact force into a single point.
And when the collision occurred, Etakrih's sword plunged deep into the Demon King's abdomen.
"Son of Gilbert. You've learned well."
"My father taught me nothing, Demon King—!!"
Grinding his teeth beneath his helmet, Oskar twisted the blade. The sensation of flesh and organs tearing was distinct.
"I learned from a better teacher!"
"I know."
The Demon King smiled and grabbed his helmet. Suddenly, Oskar's body was thrown back with the same speed he had charged. When his body finally stopped rolling roughly across the ground, the light had faded from Oskar's eyes.
"Oskar!!"
A suppressed scream escaped from Yuri's lips. The Demon King looked at her and narrowed his eyes.
"A transmigrator. Another wanderer from a distant world. Haha, yes. Were you all in such a hurry?"
The Demon King pulled Etakrih's longsword from his stomach and ran his fingertips along it. The ornate family crest on the guard and pommel melted away, leaving only a plain iron sword hanging from his fingertips.
"Even with such limited time."
The Demon King walked forward. Past the fallen Oskar, toward the panting Isabelle.
Yuri's eyes trembled slightly.
Her "special ability" that normally calculated odds in any situation had fallen silent.
Her eyes, which had always found a thread of hope even in despair to light the way, now reflected nothing.
There was only one person. A man walking toward them with the dawn sky at his back, holding a twisted sword like a dried branch.
A man wearing an eye patch, dressed in tattered clothes, taking steady steps—neither hasty nor impatient—was all she could see.
Deep darkness. A being before her eyes for whom she couldn't even calculate the odds.
And then.
-THUD—!!
A small vibration shook beneath her feet. Simultaneously, a faint line appeared in her vision. A thin blue glowing line, barely visible unless she concentrated, cut through the darkness.
Odds. A slender line representing a probability so slim it might as well be considered non-existent.
-SLASH—!!
An axe blade followed that blue trajectory, rising to slice across the Demon King's back.
-CRUNCH—!!
A rough hand grabbed the Demon King's head—
"Maximillian."
A cracked voice flowed from behind him. Brightly glowing pupils stared straight ahead from within the shadows.
A voice growling like a wounded beast plunged toward the Demon King's nape.
"Always punctual, our scout."
"Don't speak."
-CRACK!!
The axe fell and embedded itself in the Demon King's neck.
"Hasn't the time for conversation already passed?"
Crack, crunch, squelch.
The mechanical attacks continued. The axe dug into his neck, shoulders, heart, and forearms, hacking them to pieces.
Amidst the spraying blood and flesh, the Demon King smiled.
He reached out, brushed past the falling axe, and placed his hand on the chest of the most skilled scout.
-Thump.
With a small vibration.
"Kuh—hack!!"
Ivan slid his axe away and clutched his chest, while the Demon King, suddenly without a single wound, raised his longsword.
"Let's try a bit more."
-CRACK!
The longsword plunged into Ivan's chest. The thin blue line flickered briefly and then broke. Yuri froze in her position, having been about to rush forward to help.
"Uncle—!!!"
Isabelle, watching the scene, shouted roughly.
Ivan dropped to one knee, felt the sword embedded in his chest, and then collapsed to the ground.
Everyone who had attended his classes knew that the blade had pierced his heart precisely. They also knew that even superhumans sustain injuries when blades pierce their bodies.
And that when the heart is torn, anyone will die.
"No—!!"
Isabelle grabbed her sword and charged. Oskar, barely conscious, supported her side, while Lucia sprang from the shadows to plunge her knife in.
Meanwhile, Elfihera, having completed her spell, extended her hand, causing lightning to strike down toward the Demon King.
Damn, so that's how it was.
Ivan had to acknowledge it bitterly.
So this was the cliché. The role of the comrade or mentor who falls to the Demon King's hand before the final battle? To think I was Dumbledore—what a shame.
The joke didn't help. His body temperature was rapidly dropping, and his vision was turning black.
Sight was the first to go, then smell and touch, and finally hearing.
But at this moment, Ivan had reached the Domain of the Transcendent by squeezing out his last magical power. Delaying his own death as much as possible was part of his survival instinct, something he couldn't control.
A slow and certain approaching death. How terrible.
Ivan could feel his bodily functions shutting down one by one. In frozen time, darkness gathered and finally covered his eyes.
His sight was gone. In time slower than sound, it felt like floating in a universe without any stimuli.
Was this how everyone died?
Would this awaken the hero, enabling him to kill that Demon King?
So that the world could regain peace... or rather.
Would Elizabeta and my child be able to continue their reign in peace?
I wish they could live.
"It's not your time yet, Ivan."
His vision returned. The sudden restoration of function caused information overload, scrambling his mind.
The Demon King was smiling before him.
And Ivan's axe was embedded in his neck.
Time accelerated again. Breathing in the same timeline as the world, Ivan looked down at his chest.
The sword that had pierced his chest was gone.
"How...?"
"Your vessel is no longer human. Haven't you felt it? Were you cursed after killing Nekinon?"
"...No."
"Yes, it means your ascension is near. Ivan, you now stand on the path of ascension. Like me."
The wounds densely carved into his body quickly disappeared. Like rewinding time.
Droplets of blood were sucked back into his body, wounds closed themselves, and torn tissues firmly reattached.
From beneath the axe embedded in Maximillian's neck, his overwhelming divine power was being drawn in, flowing through Ivan's body.
The hand holding that axe was still caught in Maximillian's grip.
Did he stab himself using my body as soon as I died?
Does that mean he doesn't want to kill me? But why?
"Freedom is not far off."
As if reading his thoughts, the Demon King answered.