The reality, so unfair that it felt almost absurd, surged in like a nightmare.

Even after eight Masters poured in everything and unleashed a full-on assault, the Death King shrugged off the damage. Even if he hadn’t recovered, it wouldn’t have mattered.

Minutes of chain bombardment left no lasting harm on his ectoplasmic body. The ground had sunk by over a hundred meters from the aftershocks, yet that frame towering over five hundred meters had only settled to about his knees.

The only reason he had displayed the Grand Art of Soul Separation was simply to flaunt how meaningless his enemy’s resistance had been.

—It is not too late. Lay down your swords. Kneel and submit. Then, you, too, shall be saved.

No one was taken in by the Death King’s sophistry. However, after feeling that overwhelming difference in power, losing the will to fight was inevitable.

With despair clouding his eyes, Valter muttered, “The Clyde Empire... was a nation that should never have existed ...”

They couldn’t win. If that were all, Valter might have met the end with stoic calm.

There was a fact that all who reached the peak of the martial path knew. Once one made struggle their vocation, being defeated and dying to someone was a natural conclusion.

One cannot forever win and cut; the day will come when they are beaten and cut. The problem here was that the end Valter had braced himself for was his own death, not the ruin of the country to which he had devoted his life.

Cedric, by contrast, raged at the reality that his blade couldn’t reach the Death King.

“Tch. I can’t cut him down, huh.”

Ten Thousand Severing Strikes was a power that could cut not only incorporeal spirits but even space itself, which was a conceptual realm. If his mastery were sufficient, he should have been able to cut even a demi-god-tier creature. However, even if he unleashed the power stored in Dainslife, it would only multiply its output severalfold, not raise its order.

There was no chance of winning.

On the other hand, Elahan and the two Cardinals shuddered before the great evil, but they did not retreat a single step.

“O Goddess, grant me strength, grant me the courage not to yield!”

The Holy Iron Inquisitors were the same. Even if it cost their entire lives, they would win a better tomorrow than today.

For those who had always lived by that creed, death and fear could not tempt them in the least. This fight was a holy war, and the Goddess looked down upon them from the heavens.

Thinking of Lyon, who must be watching this battle from afar, the old knight tightened his grip and murmured, “Your Highness, please flee.”

Gilbert, standing beside Valter, felt the same despair as him, but having chosen the path of a knight over that of a mere warrior, he raised his sword with only his master’s safety in mind. If they could hold out for even a few minutes, Lyon might yet escape this accursed land.

“Heh, I knew this would happen,” Karen muttered.

In the air frozen by despair and grim resolve, she alone smiled. Her own resolve had been settled long before.

From the moment she chose to raise her name alongside the Hero’s, Karen had anticipated the difficulty of this journey. They would not face enemies they had a more-than-likely chance to beat, nor hardships they could more-than-likely survive.

It was only natural. A true Hero appears to avert ruin from the land, and such an adversary would be, at minimum, Demon-King-level.

“Even so, the one who laughs last will be the Hero!”

Knowing all that, Karen didn’t lose the smile on her lips. Because she had watched Leon all this time—Leon, who always pushed forward when everyone else had given up. There was no way he would bow to a mere Death King.

And then, with a roar, Leon leaped into the air once more and drew up the Aura he had left, unfolding the North Star Cross. The golden cross of swordlight gouged the ground that had already been torn again and again, dropped it several meters, and roared like thunder.

—Trifling!

Ignoring the attack, the Death King mocked Leon and then suddenly fired a beam of sheer destruction straight at him.

Leon instantly brought the Holy Sword up and assumed a guarding stance.

The scale of that force was hundreds of times greater than his. Without a favorable affinity, he would vaporize within seconds. No matter how mighty, most power dispersed like foam before the Holy Sword, which symbolized the world’s natural order.

Sure enough, the destruction beam scooped a perfectly round crater a hundred meters across with Leon at its center, but it could not wound him.

“Why keep repeating an attack that doesn’t work on me?” Leon asked, standing in the middle of the crater. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

It was a fair question. The Death King had other means than a beam attack.

—To make you acknowledge it.

“Acknowledge what?”

The Death King answered as if it were obvious.

—If you are truly the Hero, then you are the most cherished servant and the executor of the will of that harlot. Rather than take your life by force, I will break your spirit, and thus make the world see that I, not the Goddess, am the rightful savior.

“Hah. Over my dead body. You dream quite big.”

—Then strike Me until your consecration fades. Exert yourself until you learn for yourself how meaningless, how paltry that Holy Sword and power the harlot gave you truly are.

It was arrogance beyond belief. The gaze of a completed transcendent was just like a human looking down at an ant. It was as if he were telling Leon that he could never surpass him, no matter how he thrashed.

Leon, however, did not cower. Instead, he curled his lip in a smirk and spoke.

“Idiot.”

And he had a good reason. He had intentionally made the Masters focus their attacks solely on the Death King’s feet and bound the monster’s movement with the sacred spell barrier.

By dismissing those preparations as mere “pointless flailing,” the Death King had already made an irreparable blunder.

Meeting the gaze stabbing down from hundreds of meters up, Leon raised his voice without flinching, “Hey, Nex. If you still have the memories of your human days, then you know this, don’t you? There’s a long, tangled web of secret passages under Calelum.”

—And what of it?

“Didn’t Morse tell you? To block our entry into the capital, the Evil Order set things summoned from the other dimensions loose inside as sentries.”

And the North Star Cross Leon had unleashed moments ago had punched effortlessly through tens of meters of bedrock and smashed into one of those beings’ bodies.

Speak of the devil. Right on time.

As if answering Leon’s words, the quiet earth heaved, and everyone felt a vast presence surge up from deep below. It was the equal of the Death King, perhaps a higher tier.

The Death King, belatedly recalling that existence, was aghast.

—Apophis?! Ridiculous! A creature Morse summoned would never dare attack Me...!

“Maybe that was true back in your human days,” Leon said.

Even Morse hadn’t foreseen this twist in the plot. The Death King’s vessel was built on the soul of Nex. After turning hundreds of thousands of souls into cells of his own body and fusing with the power of an outer dimension, there was no scenario in which Apophis would recognize him as the same individual.

Besides, the outer dimension Apophis came from and the spirit realm Nex had contracted with were completely different domains.

From Apophis’s perspective, the Death King, an otherworldly demi-god who had just invaded its territory, was an enemy it had no choice but to attack.

“KYAAAAAH!”

Bursting through the ground at last, Apophis opened both eyes wide and searched for the one who had struck him.

Its tide of scales, made of pure darkness, reflected no light. A monster whose body, unlike its avatars’, held divinity, and it bared a pair of murderous eyes. With the Death King’s presence already crushing them, the added pressure of Apophis was enough to make even the Holy Iron Inquisitors’ legs tremble.

Realizing that the Death King’s legs had sunk into the earth up to his knees, Apophis sensed that its own domain had been violated.

“KYAAAAAH!”

At the same instant, it lunged faster than sound, stealthier than a shadow. The Death King had no time to react before the colossal serpent wrapped around his entire lower body.

And then he began to drag him down with overwhelming force.

—Guh?! N-no... let go of me! A snake dragged in from another realm dares...!

The Death King hastily reached down and grabbed Apophis’s body, but he couldn’t pry him off. Apophis’s constriction was several times stronger than his own grip.

Seeing that, Leon finally allowed himself a breath of relief. If Apophis had seen the Death King and still had chosen to kill Leon’s party first, that would have been the end to it all.

Well, not that it was going to happen.

If Apophis and the Death King were ogres, then Leon and the other Masters would be orcs at best. There was no universe in which Apophis would ignore a truly dangerous threat like the Death King to go after Leon’s party first.

Before the stunned subjugation force could speak, the two transcendent beings began to clash.

With a sharp roar, Apophis’s fangs sank into the Death King’s body again and again before tearing free. Compared to the true body that rivaled the sun god Ra, this form was small, but a mature Apophis’s venom was potent enough to kill even lower-ranked gods. Even the Death King’s ectoplasmic vessel could not be entirely immune.

—Be... gone...!

With a two-syllable command, the Death King unleashed another destructive beam. The blast scorched Apophis’s scales and scattered his toxic blood, but the serpent never let go.

That was how snakes hunted—bind the prey, inject venom, and slowly suffocate it. And in a situation where movement was restricted underground, the method was even more effective.

The Death King was being dragged further and further into the ground. Nex might have become a transcendent being with time, but unlike him, Apophis was a monster who already stood opposite the sun god Ra. The Death King lacked experience and mastery of his powers; Apophis did not. Even with lower raw output, Apophis could easily overwhelm him as long as they were of similar rank.

Not yet... we have to wait just a little longer.

Leon carefully tracked the battle and waited for the right moment. He couldn’t let Apophis swallow the Death King entirely. If the serpent managed to exist independently afterward, the resulting disaster could surpass even the Death King.

At that moment, a familiar voice echoed from far above.

“Your Majesty!” Morse cried out. “Your Majesty! Can you hear me?!”

The Nine Hell Bishop of Evil had once again revealed himself. He had vanished during his fight with Adela, and no one knew where he’d gone. To see him appear here was shocking.

And in response to his call, the Death King spoke. His voice and gestures were desperate, like a frightened child calling out for an adult.

—Oh...! Chancellor! You have come! Good. Help me tear this insolent serpent away at once! Now!

“Your Majesty, I cannot break Apophis’s binding by force. However, you can free yourself!”

—Then, tell me how! Quickly!

Morse didn’t even look at the subjugation force as he shouted, “Separate your body at the waist, Your Majesty! Abandon the part Apophis has bound! You are no longer mortal. The distinction between upper and lower body—no, even the shape of a human—exists only because you still cling to your old assumptions! Cast off the portion Apophis has seized and restructure your form with the power you have left!”

It was sound advice. If the Death King did as he instructed, he could escape Apophis and rise back to the surface, where the serpent couldn’t easily pursue him. Even losing half his body wouldn’t matter since he could simply absorb more souls to recover.

Leon and the others blanched.

No! If he does that, then...!

Leon instinctively drew his sword and prepared to leap, but at that instant, something that no one expected happened.

—That is impossible!

Shockingly, the Death King rejected Morse’s suggestion. Even Morse froze, lips twitching.

Why?

Everyone, ally and enemy alike, wondered the same thing.

—This body belongs to the citizens who gave their lives to me! I am singular, yet I am not singular! I will not discard any part of them by my own will, even if an enemy tears me apart! Suggest another method!

“W-what are you saying, Your Majesty?!”

—'What am I saying?’ Isn’t it obvious?!

The trauma buried deep within the Death King’s madness peeled away the veneer of cold reason. Nex, the Mad Emperor, might have been born with the makings of a wise king who could’ve been remembered throughout history, but his nature was fundamentally righteous. He may have been twisted, warped, and driven mad, but he was unwavering in conviction.

—A ruler must not abandon the subjects who follow him, just as a parent must not abandon their child! I am their paradise! I am the savior of those torn apart by the cruel goddess’s blade of fate!

Only now did Morse realize it. The Death King was truly insane.

Madness had always been in Nex’s core, even as an emperor, but now it was far worse. Even Morse, who could calculate madness like an accountant tallying numbers, could no longer read him.

Madness could not communicate with madness. Every lunatic had a different shape of insanity; the overlap was small, and the core could never align.

And then, Nex presented his conclusion.

—Indeed. Thinking on it, you too are my subject, and the benefactor who elevated me to greatness. A reward is in order!

“U-ugh?! Y-Your Majesty! Please reconsider this!”

The Death King’s madness outpaced Morse’s predictions by a step. A gigantic arm shot toward the bishop, who was floating hundreds of meters above. He had no time to dodge. The Death King’s body moved at the exact speed of his will.

A hand of ectoplasm seized him and lifted him toward that gaping maw. And then, with an audible gulp, he swallowed Morse whole in a single bite.

woo: HAHAHAHAHAHA