Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 665

The Titan had fallen. And in that single breath, a part of Diane wasn’t just destroyed—it was erased.

I knew that attacking that creature with anything other than a holy relic was pointless. That was why, in the original story, only Ellen and Ludwig had been able to face it in the end. The others had to leave the dragon to them and focus on exterminating the other monsters. No one else could even land a blow on it.

In that timeline, Ellen didn’t have the Cloak of the Sun, and Lament had not yet transformed into the Void Sword. In the end, no one was able to stand against it. Ludwig was forced to summon an avatar using Alsbringer, and perished alongside the dragon.

However, the situation we were in was vastly different from the original, and those changes offered new possibilities. Ellen’s Lament had transformed, and she had acquired the Cloak of the Sun—circumstances that did not exist in the original.

I hoped that, because of these changes, we might be able to handle the void dragon differently this time. Perhaps we might face this final challenge without relying on Alsbringer.

In the end, it seemed that hope was foolish. The moment I witnessed a part of the army being obliterated by a single breath from the dragon, any thoughts of alternative solutions vanished.

We could fight. Surely, Ellen and I could take on that beast. But even if we could defeat it without Alsbringer, nothing would be left over afterward.

Grrrr!

The violence it demonstrated was overwhelming.

A Dragon from the Otherworld... This was the final absurdity I had to confront. I was trapped by the chaos I had unleashed, and had to pay the price. The course of action had been clear from the beginning: I had to use Alsbringer on this battlefield, to slay this final beast. From the moment Alsbringer had been placed in my hand, it had been my destiny.

I needed to act quickly. Questions swirled in my mind, but there was no time to dwell on them. If something had to be done, it had to be done promptly—just like always. The only difference now was that this task would be my last.

Everything I had done to survive, to stave off death, seemed to vanish as the end finally approached. Now that the violence I had only written about became a stark reality before my eyes, all other thoughts faded away.

The army of Immortals was still pursuing me relentlessly, but all the warp gates had vanished. Though a massive horde of monsters had already been unleashed, no new ones were appearing. All we had to do was deal with the void dragon.

I glanced behind me. The army of the Immortals, though they had suffered enormous losses, remained strong and determined to kill me.

Their presence was bothersome. It didn’t matter if they followed me; it was time to finish them off too. The Immortals would be useless against that beast.

The Allied Forces alone would be sufficient to handle the remaining monsters. The Immortals were merely a small threat. There was no need to run anymore. No one had to risk their life dealing with the Immortals anymore.

“Now...”

I reached into my pocket and pulled something out.

Click.

The moment I pressed the button on the artifact...

Flash!

Two figures materialized before me.

“We don’t need the Immortals anymore.”

Boom!

The ground trembled violently, as if the earth itself was shaking.

In an instant, everything changed. The Immortals, who had been relentlessly slaughtering monsters while pursuing me, vanished like a mirage, disintegrating into dust.

Swoosh!

A nullification wave had swept through the area. Hundreds of Immortals, charging at me with unstoppable force, shattered as if colliding with an invisible barrier, unable to reach me.

Two figures emerged.

“So we have to take care of all the Immortals... is that it?” one of them asked.

“Please,” I replied.

The first was Scarlett. The other was Connor Lint.

“Let’s go, Lint,” she said.

Scarlett had been holding her breath, waiting for this crucial moment. Connor Lint, who had brought the imprisoned Scarlett to this place, stood by, watching the situation unfold. Both of them had been waiting for my signal.

It was clear the Immortals would target me. We had been anticipating this moment for a long time. Until this moment, all I had been able to do was run, biding my time until I could finally confront them.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, my people were also engaged in combat with the Immortals. But that phase was almost over. Once I gave the signal, Connor Lint would take Scarlett across the battlefield, neutralizing all the Immortals in their path.

Scarlett only needed a little bit of her power to reduce the Immortals to dust, and Connor Lint could swiftly transport her wherever she needed to be. As long as Scarlett was around, the Immortals couldn’t kill me. That did not mean the danger was past, though. The Immortals had to be dealt with before they could cause any more trouble.

“Hey... That thing. Can you... Can you really handle it?” Connor Lint asked, his voice trailing off as he stared at the massive dark figure looming in the rain, his eyes filled with anxiety.

“I can,” I replied.

That much was true.

“We don’t have time for a long conversation,” Scarlett said, her expression firm, her determination unmistakable. “Survive.”

It wasn’t a plea to save humanity. It wasn’t a plea to save everyone. It was just a plea to survive.

I couldn’t bring myself to admit that surviving felt harder than saving everyone.

I pushed all other thoughts aside. How absurd it was that I had even considered not using Alsbringer? If I dodged the dragon’s attacks, others would perish in my stead. I could resist using the relic, but if everyone perished in the struggle, what would be the point?

As those fleeting thoughts raced through my mind, the dragon’s roar grew louder, its massive form looming ever closer.

I tore through the rain, nearing the chaos where the otherworldly dragon wreaked havoc, when I noticed someone sprinting toward me from the opposite direction.

It was Ellen.

Boom!

Ellen reached the dragon before I could.

Clad in the Cloak of the Sun, she leaped high, her silhouette a shadow against the stormy sky.

In one swift motion, she swung the Void Sword at the dragon’s head.

And then...

Slash!

The dragon’s head, now severed, fell to the ground.

It had been absurdly easy, almost too easy.

The next instant, there was a deafening noise—whether a bang or a boom, I couldn’t tell. But with that thunderous sound, the whole dragon vanished.

“What... was that?”

What had I just witnessed?

***

With the torrential rain still pouring down, some might not have even realized what had happened. Those too far away might not have realized that a Dragon from the Otherworld had appeared. But those who had witnessed it from a distance cried out in ecstatic astonishment. They had just seen the dragon, which had incapacitated Titan with a single blow, felled in one strike.

The final boss had emerged, and Ellen had cut it down with a single stroke.

No one in the world could have been more surprised than I was. That creature wasn’t supposed to have died like that. Not that easily. It hadn’t even been a proper fight. Ellen had simply swung the Void Sword at it as if she were cutting down any other monster.

The Void Sword, which could cut through anything... If the Dragon from the Otherworld and Lament essentially wielded the same power, did that mean that the Void Sword could even cut through a Dragon from the Otherworld?

I was the only one who understood how ridiculous this situation truly was. I had planned to wield Alsbringer, but Ellen had effortlessly defeated the enemy I had agonized over confronting, which meant I didn’t even need to use the full power of Alsbringer.

Perhaps since Ellen’s Lament manifested the void, it could dispatch that last monster with ease, but I had not been able to know if the Void Sword would work on it. I knew the Void Sword could slice through anything except a holy relic, and it seemed the Dragon from the Otherworld wasn’t immune to the Void Sword.

Should I have felt relieved? Yes. I should have been happy. But I knew I wasn’t.

The dragon was gone. The Hero had defeated the final boss, almost too easily. The Gate Incident was over, and all that was left was to clean up the remaining monsters in the area.

Scarlett could handle all the Immortals.

But my task was just beginning.

That was why I couldn’t be happy.

Tap!

Ellen, who had launched herself into the sky, landed gracefully on the ground.

Swoosh...

In the expansive clearing where the otherworldly dragon had emerged, Ellen stood, soaked by the rain, her gaze fixed intently on me.

“...”

She was not that far away, only about a hundred meters distant.

The Dragon from the Otherworld had disappeared far too easily. Regardless, there was still a confrontation that I had to have. The challenge had simply changed from facing the dragon to facing another presence.

I had to confront the Hero.

The instant I laid eyes on the Dragon from the Otherworld, I had felt compelled to wield the true power of Alsbringer, and I had in fact tried to use it.

But then, what about the future I had foreseen? The one where both Ellen and I perished? What did that mean?

That thought flickered through my mind briefly, and I realized that was how it was meant to unfold. There would never be a reality where I would use Alsbringer to defeat the Dragon from the Otherworld.

Ellen stared at me through the rain.

No—it wasn’t really Ellen. It was a gathering of souls inhabiting her body. A collective of vengeful spirits, probably more powerful and intimidating than ever before.

It definitely had a will of its own. When I first encountered it, I had tried to talk to it.

Could I win?

I had fought countless battles in dreams, and I had died countless times. Now that this battle had crossed into reality, could I truly win?

It was inevitable. I was the son of the Demon King, and Ellen was the Hero’s sister. It was bound to happen.

I had sensed it from the moment I grew close to Ellen. Yet even knowing that such a moment would come, I had not hesitated to grow closer to her.

This was the price I had to pay.

If I had ignored Ellen from the start, if I had kept my distance, receiving no help from her and being nothing to each other, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened. But despite knowing I would regret it, I had chosen to grow closer to her.

I had hoped to avoid this moment, but deep down, I always knew it was inevitable. Eventually, I would have to face Ellen in a fight, with my life hanging in the balance.

That path was set in stone.

The final obstacle had been cleared with surprising ease. No more lives would be lost to the Dragon from the Otherworld. But in exchange, a trial awaited me. A brutal trial, meant for me alone.

I had to defeat Ellen.

But defeating her wasn’t enough. I had to bring her back without taking her life. I somehow had to stop Ellen, who was trying to kill me, and bring her back to herself.

Could I really do that? Earning victory by fighting with the intent to kill was already a long shot, but I had to fight without even that sort of resolve. Was such a thing even possible?

In the end, even though others had been spared, I had to face the hardest challenge for myself.

There was one thing I knew for sure. If the future I had seen was accurate, if I lost, it would not just result in me losing my life. Ellen, after killing me, would take her own life as well.

I couldn’t just let myself die. If I died, Ellen would inevitably follow me. I could have sacrificed myself to slay the Dragon from the Otherworld, but in this battle, I hadn’t even been allowed to do that.

I could not fight with the resolve to kill. But if I died, Ellen would die as well.

The Gate Incident had ended, and the last monster was defeated. But would I ever face a day as dreadful as this again?

In the pouring rain, water streamed down “the being’s” face and eyes.

“It” seemed to cry endlessly, though its expression remained blank.

‘No, it’s definitely crying.’

It silently pointed its sword at me.

“Demon King...”

The voice that emerged was a cacophony, as if tens or even hundreds of thousands of voices were layered on top of each other. The sound of it felt like it was tearing at my soul, not just my eardrums. That sound alone seemed to resurrect all the pain and fear I had felt during the time it had consumed me.

How long had Ellen endured that torment? How long had she suffered before she had no choice but to surrender to it?

This “being” embodied the totality of hatred directed at me. The collective anger and sorrow of all those who had lost so much, through no fault of their own...

It had warned me before that it would take everything I loved. And now, it spoke.

“Let us see the end once and for all.”

With that simple, direct challenge, it began to approach me.

In the heart of Diane, everything else had vanished. Only Ellen and I were left standing.

The clamor of battle and the cries of monsters had faded into silence.

Swoosh...

Splash.

The gentle sound of her stepping into a puddle in the rain reached my ears clearly.

We were in the heart of Diane, now a vast crater, hidden away from any watchful eyes.

Splash.

Rumble...

Through the thunderstorm, I quietly observed the steady footsteps, which were accompanied by the rumble of thunder.

There was no urgency or haste in them. Each step was deliberate, closing the distance between us with a calm inevitability.

The atmosphere felt different.

Ellen, who had ascended to the Master class, was enveloped in a blue Aura Armor. An eerie grayish-white smoke rose from her entire body, a manifestation of the vengeful spirits possessing her.

Their true goal wasn’t just to end the Gate Incident; it was to kill me. In this moment, they would unleash their full power. They would stop at nothing to see me dead.

Grrrr...

An eerie resonance and a faint wailing seemed to emanate from Ellen’s very being.

The Hero...

In this state, Ellen was perhaps the strongest among all of humanity. This formidable figure wielded the sharpest sword and wore the most impenetrable armor in existence. The vessel known as the Hero carried the collective anger of all who had perished at the hands of the Demon King.

The final adversary the Demon King had to overcome to conquer the world was none other than the figure standing before me.

Despite the overwhelming odds, my one stroke of luck was that I was different from the Dragon from the Otherworld that Ellen had felled in a single blow.

I had already confirmed that the Void Sword couldn’t cut through a holy relic.

Splash!

Ellen launched herself at me, swinging the Void Sword with a light, effortless motion. Her graceful, almost serene leap, combined with the precise arc traced by the Void Sword, was a strikingly beautiful sight.

The Void Sword was powerless against a holy relic.

Clang!

“Ugh...!”

But even if it could not slice through another holy relic, the impact of that strike was far from something anyone could withstand.

I had managed to block a single blow from the Void Sword.

And my wrist shattered.