Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 664

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

I was trying to live by that saying, but the real challenge was that both enemies were closing in on me from opposite directions. If I faltered even slightly on this precarious tightrope, I risked being overwhelmed by both sides at once.

It felt like I was somehow running backward into the fray, yet ironically, I wasn’t even in the heart of the battle.

The heavy rain made it hard to see, but I could make out the flickering void in the distance and the bodies of monsters, sliced through cleanly in one stroke, scattered everywhere.

Ellen had thrown herself onto the battlefield from the start and was far ahead of me. She had already plunged into the heart of Diane, cutting through waves of monsters with her Void Sword and scorching them with Lapelt.

She had recklessly charged in without any escort, but she had Lapelt and Lament to support her. Meanwhile, I had the Immortals on my heels, which made my situation even more perilous.

The deeper I ventured into Diane, the more monsters I encountered, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to choose whether to keep ploughing through the monsters ahead, or turn around and try to break through the Immortals behind me.

Ironically, the only reason I had made it this far was because of the relentless magical barrage being aimed at me. Thousands of archmages were still unleashing large-scale spells on the area around me, determined to end my life.

Boom! Crash!

Since they lacked proper visibility, though, their attacks were blind, and so the destructive spells cast by the Immortal mages did not touch me; instead, they obliterated the monsters blocking my path.

Kururung...

Shhhhh!

The torrential rain conjured by Riana acted as a protective curtain around me, and so the magic intended to kill me was instead wiping out the other creatures that were trying to do the same.

Flashes, explosions, cold, fire, and lightning—magic so powerful I couldn’t even identify rained down around me. I was grateful that there was no direct interference magic binding my feet.

I wasn’t sure whether it was due to the poor visibility or my anti-magic resistance, but the attacks were not directly affecting me. I was like a moving target in the chaos as I pushed forward through the flames and the relentless downpour.

Ellen relied on her Void Sword and Lapelt to advance, but the attacks meant to destroy me became a spear that pierced through the front lines for me.

That didn’t mean I could let my guard down. If I didn’t keep moving, the masters of the Immortals would catch up to me.

Thanks to my spearhead and the Immortals’ relentless pursuit, the Allied Forces were quickly advancing into Diane.

Even though the city was in ruins, I had memorized the locations of Diane’s warp gates. I just needed to lead the Immortals toward a warp gate, let them destroy it, and keep running. It seemed straightforward, but I had to navigate the most dangerous part of the battlefield without letting the enemy catch up to me.

Something was protecting me, but I didn’t know how long it would last.

Groooar!

Suddenly, a massive explosion of flames erupted from a spot in Diane.

“What... is that?”

An explosion had erupted in the distance, pushing the torrential curtain of rain away momentarily and giving me a clear view of the scene. A shockwave of flames sent out from Lapelt obliterated a ring of monsters, while the dark blade of the Void Sword sliced through the warp gate with precision.

I watched as one of Diane’s warp gates was neutralized in an instant, turning the source of the monsters into an empty field.

Ellen was accomplishing alone what I had planned to do with the Immortals. I always knew Ellen was strong, but with two awakened holy relics, she was even more formidable. But could she really face what was awaiting her in the final battle alone, without the knights of Shanapell she usually led? 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

I’d heard that Ellen had grown stronger since her condition had overtaken her completely, but it seemed impossible to comprehend just how powerful she had become. Ellen, like a ghost raging across the battlefield, destroyed a warp gate and vanished into the downpour beyond my sight.

If I caught Ellen’s eye in her current state, would she attack me, or would she focus on the monsters first? I did not know.

But getting too close to Ellen was dangerous.

And the Immortals might target Ellen instead.

With these thoughts swirling in my mind, I prepared to run in the opposite direction from Ellen.

Rumble!

An alien black aura exploded into the air at a different location.

Like Ellen, the Immortals, and I, it happened near the heart of the battlefield.

I wasn’t sure if “burning darkness” was the right phrase, but that was the only way to describe the force sweeping through the monsters in the depths of Diane.

I wasn’t alone on the frontlines of the battle; the Allied front extended across a large area. Something else was breaking through a different section of the front line, with the Allied Forces trailing behind it.

This figure, wielding a massive dark sword in its right hand, wasn’t slicing through the monsters—it was smashing its way through them.

I did not need a long look to recognize who it was. It was undoubtedly Ludwig.

I couldn’t fathom the limits of the power he had gained through dark magic, but like Ellen and me, he stood at the forefront of the battlefield. Whatever was on his mind, Ludwig’s advancing steps radiated unwavering resolve, unlike Cristina.

A powerful determination surged within me to end all of this somehow.

A warp gate stood ahead of Ludwig. I could see him through the downpour. He was alarmingly close to me.

I had to avoid him. Just as encountering Ellen on the battlefield was perilous, meeting Ludwig was equally dangerous.

Destroying Diane’s gates was my top priority. Everything else could wait.

Kurururung!

With each swing of his greatsword, Ludwig’s dark magic aura shattered the monsters in front of him, clearing a path. His ominous presence, reminiscent of a berserker wielding dark power, must have struck fear into the hearts of the soldiers advancing along the path he carved.

The downpour made it impossible to see the entire battlefield clearly. And even if it hadn’t been raining, there was no time to take in the scene.

Kwakakakak!

A monster was right in front of me, its massive footsteps causing the ground to tremble. I leaped and struck it down in one blow.

Bang! Kwarung!

I managed to evade both the monsters and the Immortals, and finally reached the warp gate.

It was a medium-sized one. Monsters poured out of the crimson dimensional hole like a flood. They surged forth with the force of water gushing from a broken dam, as though making a last stand.

I didn’t have to face those monsters myself.

Rubmleeee!

The destructive forces unleashed at me through the torrential rain shattered, tore apart, and incinerated the creatures surrounding me. In that moment, I felt like a god of destruction. All sorts of devastating magic was raining down on my position, making it seem as if I were the one wielding that immense power.

A gap had suddenly opened among the monsters. I had achieved my goal using the very force that sought to kill me. It was a ridiculous yet strangely plausible situation.

The battlefield was chaotic and gruesome, but all I needed was to accomplish my purpose: to survive. To achieve my goal, I had to destroy the warp gate.

I took a deep breath.

Kururururung!

Like a vortex condensing, the power of destruction and decay gathered in Tiamata, which had transformed into a dark magic sword.

I channeled the maximum amount of mana into it. With Tiamata infused with the full divine power of destruction, I sprinted through the rain of destructive magic and the monsters being shattered around me and I plunged the sword into the dimensional maw that was spewing out monsters.

Rattle!

I watched as the warp gate crumbled before my eyes the moment I released my power.

I couldn’t slice it in one stroke like Ellen, but I still had enough power to destroy the warp gate on my own.

Grrrrrrr...

The Immortals might have ignored the gate and continued their pursuit, so I had to destroy it with my power. But the monsters served as both the enemies blocking my path as well as the barrier slowing down the Immortals behind me. With the warp gate gone, the speed of the Immortals’ pursuit only increased.

There was no time to rest.

“Damn it...!”

Even though the Immortals’ attacks were inadvertently aiding me, their intent to kill me remained unchanged.

I started running again.

Was this what a game of tag felt like when everyone around you was “it”?

I couldn’t even tell how long I had been running.

I found myself in a state of an empty mind, not from wielding a sword, but from constantly fleeing.

Relying solely on my barrier, the magic that altered the environment around me, and the relentless onslaught of monsters felt overwhelming.

I ran, destroyed the next warp gate I reached, and then ran again.

I lost track of time. With each warp gate destroyed, the spawn points for the monsters dwindled.

The Allied Forces had already entered Diane. The Immortals were still on my heels and had nearly caught up, while still cutting down the remaining monsters in Diane.

The Titan’s presence had faded, likely because it had exceeded its operational time.

Ellen was acting on her own, while I led the Immortals on a chase as I dismantled the warp gates one by one.

Meanwhile, the Allied Forces that had reached Diane were also advancing through the city, destroying the gates as they went.

The number of monsters Ellen and I had taken down paled in comparison to the devastation an entire army could unleash, but the destructive power that the Immortals could unleash made them feel like an army at my command.

My heart raced, but not from fear of the Immortals closing in on me.

This was truly the end. We were so close.

Somewhere, the sound of phantom horses charging through the battlefield filled the air like an eerie hallucination, and I watched as massive monsters were toppled, crushing the army of other monsters beneath them.

The warp gates in Diane were being destroyed one by one. We were on the brink of having to make our next move. Could we even find a moment to discuss our next steps?

The Allied Forces had finally reached Diane, and were on the brink of destroying the last gate, a goal everyone had longed for.

As the number of warp gates dwindled, the monsters pouring out of each remaining gate increased. However, with fewer gates overall, the total number of monsters pouring out still decreased.

The Allied Forces had already cleared the outskirts of Diane of monsters, and were poised to besiege the city itself.

The number of monsters had indeed decreased significantly. As a result, the number of monsters blocking the Immortals who were pursuing me was also dwindling. Ironically, the closer we inched toward the end of this ordeal, the more dangerous it became for me.

As I seriously contemplated whether it was time to confront the Immortals, I realized I had endured enough.

In the distance, through the relentless downpour, I noticed a red aura forming and expanding in the sky.

“Ah...”

I recognized that phenomenon immediately.

We had been systematically destroying warp gates across the battlefield, and only one remained.

There was just one warp gate left.

What would happen after? The Gate Incident would finally come to an end.

The Gate Incident would come to an end, but we would be left to confront the aftermath.

Rumble!

The torrent of monsters flooding out of the final gate ceased, and the gate itself began to expand.

The crimson vortex of the warp gate, suspended in the sky, grew enormous, blazing like a fiery sun.

And then, something emerged.

Thud!

From the crimson maw of the warp gate, now stretched to its breaking point, a colossal figure emerged and crashed to the ground.

As soon as this last warp gate expelled its final creature, it vanished.

There had been many dragon-shaped monsters before, but none as massive or as alien as this one.

This was the final calamity. A bizarre dragon with a body resembling a projection of the night sky, adorned with six pairs of enormous wings.

In the original story, it was simply called the “last monster,” without even a name. But I had named it the Dragon of the Otherworld.

Even in the pouring rain, its colossal form was visible from anywhere, an overwhelming presence that dominated the landscape.

The Dragon of the Otherworld bellowed, and its roar seemed to shake the very world.

After unleashing the Dragon of the Otherworld, the last gate vanished, dissipating into nothingness as if it were the most natural thing.

The Gate Incident had finally come to an end. But now, there was the Dragon of the Otherworld to contend with.

If we could find a way to handle that alien creature, we could finally discuss our next steps.

The Dragon of the Otherworld opened its gaping maw.

And then...

Thud!

From the depths of that enormous mouth, the void poured forth.

There was no explosion.

Only the emptiness that swept through everything in its path, utterly erasing a part of the world.

***

The unexpected emergence of the final monster.

The battlefield fell silent, as if the entirety of the Allied Forces were momentarily struck dumb by the sheer, senseless violence unleashed by that creature.

Shhhhhh...

Even through the relentless downpour, everyone could make out the silhouette of that alien, pitch-black figure in the distance. A bizarre silhouette that had appeared out of nowhere. And the inky breath that obliterated everything it touched...

Thud! Thud!

Every time the creature opened its maw and exhaled, there was no shockwave, no explosion, no blast. Instead, the void it released simply erased everything in its path.

“What... is that...?” Harriet murmured, stunned by the senseless destruction caused by the entity that had suddenly appeared on the far side of the battlefield.

Cliffman, who had just dispatched the last Immortal threatening their lives, stood beside Riana, both of them equally bewildered by the scene unfolding before their eyes.

Countless mages were already hurling spells at the ominous silhouette, hoping to stop it, but their efforts were in vain. Lightning, fire, explosions—none of it seemed to touch the creature that took the form of the night. Even the bursts of light from the magical stars couldn’t touch it; they simply passed through the creature and exploded behind it.

It had a shape, but no substance. It seemed like an incorporeal enemy.

Harriet unleashed a powerful beam of light, infused with exorcism magic, at the mysterious silhouette in the distance, but even that just passed through it.

She could not be sure what it was, but it was a creature wielding a power unlike anything she’d encountered before.

“What is that thing...?” she wondered aloud.

Every monster was unique. Some were immune to fire, others to magic. But this one exhaled a breath that erased everything in its path and shrugged off all attacks.

It was as if it existed in a realm beyond the world’s laws.

Harriet stared harder, trying to take in its form.

Even up close, it remained incomprehensible.

She watched as it effortlessly shrugged off all the magic directed at it.

The energy emanating from the Dragon of the Otherworld resembled the power of Ellen’s Void Sword. If Ellen’s Void Sword, Lament, was a blade of night that erased everything it touched, then this force could do the same, but on a much larger scale.

Harriet finally understood the true nature of Ellen’s sword.

The Void Sword didn’t merely cut through everything it touched. It erased everything it touched.

It was a common misconception that it cut because it was a blade; in truth, it was a sliver of the void itself.

One could understand the Void Sword’s power by simply witnessing it in action. Since the Void Sword could slice through anything, nothing could harm it in return. In essence, the Void Sword wasn’t the ultimate weapon of attack, but the ultimate defense.

The creature looked like a dragon, cloaked in the night. Therefore, it was beyond the reach of the world’s laws. And yet it held the power to destroy the world.

Why did something like that exist? How could anyone hope to defeat it?

Just as Cliffman had awakened to the path of the Master class and survived the Immortals’ assault, this new threat emerged.

It felt as if all their efforts were in vain, as if the universe itself was mocking them.

Pazizizik!

A crack appeared in the space before them, revealing another massive silhouette. Beside the dragon of unimaginable size stood Titan, a colossal weapon of equal magnitude.

Titan, having retreated from the battlefield for a brief recharge, was poised to confront this creature of overwhelming despair.

Whoosh!

This time, the dragon swung its tail instead of unleashing its breath. In an instant, the Titan’s waist vanished—not destroyed, but simply erased from existence by the path of the dragon’s tail.

What was the point of sustaining the morale of the Allied Forces for so long, if this was the result?

Titan crumbled. Even if not everyone could see it clearly, they could hear it collapsing and feel the tremor through the ground as it fell.

That massive tremor mirrored the despair felt by the entirety of the Allied Forces.

“What... are we even supposed to do...?”

The Immortals had vanished and then reappeared, and Titan had been deployed early. But what did any of it matter now?

If something like that appeared at the end, what was anyone supposed to do? Was all of this something that couldn’t be stopped?

Riana and Harriet stood there, watching the monster that remained untouched by any attack but could unleash its own devastation at will, overwhelmed by a sense of futility that went beyond despair.

The rain continued to fall, whispering softly against the ground.