Dragon King: Throne of Demons and Gods-Chapter 191: Act III, Scene XIII: Four Seconds to Extinction

A black and white storm raged in the void. It twisted once, paused, then burst outward like clouds torn apart by a scream.

Smoke and light flew high. For a moment, the world was nothing but static, frozen between one second and the next.

Then, the illusion was gone.

The city of Castella returned.

The dream world, its soft lights and surreal shapes, had vanished. In its place stood the real city, grounded and whole.

The buildings were back in their proper place. Streets reformed. Stones solidified. Trees swayed in the real wind.

And the people appeared one by one, blinking, confused, exactly where they had been when the wave of destruction reached them.

It was like waking up from a nightmare, only to find yourself still standing on the edge of a cliff.

There was silence at first.

The demons were the first to feel it. Sleep demons and crimson agents scattered through the city staggered and looked around, stunned.

Some were halfway through casting spells. Some were raising weapons. Some were just standing.

But before they could form a single thought...

Another wave came.

Back in the Glass Garden, Bel stood tall.

His arms were wide open.

He hadn't moved since the attack. He didn't need to. The moment the dream shattered, he was already preparing the second strike.

His body was still glowing faintly from the surge, but now, something deeper stirred inside him.

He closed his eyes.

Inside, it felt like a maze.

Ever since his last evolution, his power had changed.

New layers unfolded with every moment. Some were memories. Some were instincts. They all felt like truths he had always known but only just remembered.

He didn't need destruction this time. Not yet.

If he used it for his next move, the consequences could be terrible for the city.

To kill demons, he needed to find them.

So he focused, and released.

A new wave burst from his body. Not violent, not sharp.

Just pure aura.

In a single instant, purple light swept across Castella. It passed through walls, flowed across roofs, slipped under doors. It didn't burn or break anything.

It just touched.

The purpose was to map the whole city, like a bat using sound to navigate the dark, Bel used this pulse to feel, sense, and hunt.

Every living soul in the city appeared to him like a dot on a map.

But he wasn't looking for all of them.

He was looking for the ones with demonic essence.

And one by one, they lit up.

Bel opened his eyes.

In a quiet public park, Morpheus froze.

Between the complete destruction of the dreamscape and this new wave, barely three seconds had passed. Far too little time to understand what was happening.

But already, Bel was in front of him.

A hand reached his head.

Silence.

Then—

"..."

In a single moment, without even understanding it, Morpheus was beheaded.

- Destruction.

His head and body burned away, dissolving into purple-black light. The last thing he saw was the glow overtaking his vision. He couldn't even scream.

That was all it took to kill the second seat of the Slumbering King.

Now only one remained with the power to cast the domain.

But Bel didn't go after Hypnos. He remembered Regulus' advice and chose to trust it.

So he moved.

By the fourth second, Bel was already in the streets, passing through three demons in an instant.

- Destruction.

- Destruction.

- Destruction.

Three touches. Three deaths.

Another blink, and he was in a building. Then a garden. A tower. An alley.

He moved with terrifying speed, leaving behind a trail of silent death.

Each second stretched longer.

A brush of his hand, and a demon burned into nothing.

In the span of a heartbeat, he crossed rooftops, entered homes, stepped across lakes.

Every moment, another demon vanished.

Sleep demons, Crimson agents, he didn't care. Anything marked by the demonic essence was touched and burned right away.

They fell one by one.

From the outside, it all happened in a blink.

The dreamscape shattered. A wave of light rolled over the city. And before anyone could speak, every demon began to fall.

Inside the Coliseum, Hypnos froze.

For the first time, the puppet master didn't speak.

He just stood there. Silent, eyes wide, mouth slightly open.

Spared by Bel, he had enough with those four seconds to receive and process every information.

The Ravager.

The worst variable.

Not just a Demon Lord, the traitor. A force that even the Gilded Maw feared. A being who was on part with his Lord, and now he was unleashed.

The feeling in his chest wasn't fear.

It was dread.

In one second, Hypnos had registered the death of Morpheus.

In the next, forty-nine other demons.

A breath later, the number doubled.

Then again. And again.

He didn't need to see it to understand.

Bel was moving through the city like a flash of absolute end. No battle, no resistance.

Just a touch, and then nothing.

The aura. The method. The precision. It was annihilation.

Hypnos turned his head slowly, scanning the air like it might be a lie. But it was all true.

His fingers twitched, his wings shook, but not because of damage nor from fear of a fight.

But because he had already calculated the outcome.

There wouldn't be a fight.

If Bel reached him now, there would be no time to act. No time to defend. No strings to pull.

He would just die.

Without a word.

Without even a thought.

"No," he whispered. "This isn't... how it's supposed to go."

His breath hitched. He clenched his fists.

"The... The world... My Lord..."

His voice dropped lower, strangled by disbelief.

"He's still fighting the Hero. He can't come out... I need to handle it..."

He wanted to cast the dreamscape again. To create another layer of control.

But just as the thought came, he paused.

What if that was what the Ravager was waiting for?

"What if... What if Morpheus tried to cast it again... and that's how he was found?"

His hands locked. He stood still. For the first time since he was born, Hypnos hesitated.

His thoughts raced. He needed a plan. He needed time.

But time was exactly what he didn't have.

And just then...

A sharp pain tore through his chest.

His head snapped down.

Kardrax stood there, leaning on his last strength. Blood dripping from his mouth. One arm useless. The other driven forward.

A finger driven straight through Hypnos's chest.

"You..." Hypnos whispered, eyes wide.

His aura flared.

"You dare... waste my time?!"

He raised a hand to crush Kardrax where he stood.

But the moment he moved it, the hand cracked.

Smoke curled off the skin. His fingers crumbled like burnt paper.

He stared.

His other hand followed. Then his leg.

"What... is this?"

Kardrax, eyes half-shut, looked up to him.

Hypnos stumbled back, staring at his cracking hands.

"What... is this?"

He took another step, but his foot gave way. The bones in his ankle snapped. His heel turned to ash. He faltered, looking down in disbelief.

Across from him, Kardrax stood with one knee on the ground, panting. Blood dripped from his chin, his eyes locked on Hypnos.

Then his gaze shifted.

Just behind Hypnos, half-hidden in the shadow of a broken pillar...

Regulus.

Or something that looked like him.

There were no words. No gestures.

Just a faint smile. A soft glimmer of peace in his eyes.

And in that moment, Hypnos understood.

His lips parted. His teeth clenched.

"Regulus... you..."

The decay spread faster now. The edges of his wings crumbled.

He turned back to Kardrax, panic rising.

"What did you do?! This isn't... this isn't anything like you did before ! What did you do to me?!"

Kardrax raised his eyes.

"Shut up."

Hypnos flinched.

Kardrax took another breath. His voice was low.

"Don't get it twisted. I didn't do anything. When you go to hell, remember this: the one who killed you... is a young mage named Regulus."

Hypnos stared.

"Regulus? The boy? Don't joke with me, I already killed him. I folded him like paper, just like you'll be."

Kardrax raised his head, face twisting in anger. There he got his answer.

The raw hate in his eyes silenced Hypnos.

"Then something went wrong. Because a weakling like you could never beat Regulus."

Kardrax pushed himself to his feet.

"I don't know what happened. But one thing's certain."

The cracks on Hypnos's skin reached his chest. His ribs turned black. Smoke emerged from his shoulders.

"You're dead."

And Hypnos, Marshall of the Slumbering King, the master of dreams, began to disintegrate.

No one present could fully explain what was happening.

Kardrax, bleeding and half-broken, had known Regulus only briefly. A few dungeons, a few late-night conversations. But he had judged him as someone who might even be stronger than himself.

Regulus's power was strange. He didn't summon fire or shake the earth. He changed things by naming them.

Giving them new meaning. He could rewrite the nature of anything. A wall became flame. A scream could be sealed into silence. He didn't destroy, he redefined.

And in that final battle with Hypnos, Regulus had done something terrifyingly simple:

He had placed a seal on Hypnos.

A single word.

"Death."

Not pain. Not destruction. Not a wound that could be healed or a curse that could be reversed.

Just... death. Simple and inevitable.

While the dreamscape was still in place, the spell was locked away, unable to take full effect. But once the dream fell, so did that barrier.

Hypnos froze. His hands dropped to his sides.

"I am... dead?"

For a moment, all fear left him.

The collapse of the dream, Morpheus's death, the Ravager tearing through the city... the sheer chaos was too much to grasp.

There was no path forward, no trick to save him. Nothing left to calculate.

He was truly going to die.

But as the weight settled in... it twisted.

His face contorted in rage.

"How... how did I lose?! That boy?! Regulus?! What the hell did he do to me?!"

His aura flared. The power erupted from his core and immediately shattered more of his body. Chunks of his wings crumbled. His jaw cracked. He screamed.

"DON'T MESS WITH ME!"

He turned to Kardrax, howling.

"YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY?! Is this what you're proud of?! I'm dead?! And not even by the Ravager's hand?! Not in battle... but by some BRAT?!"

He tried to summon more power, but the more he forced it, the faster his body disintegrated. Ash trailed behind every motion. He was burning himself out. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Kardrax said nothing. He turned his back and limped away.

Hypnos screamed after him.

"LOOK AT ME! YOU COWARD!"

No response. Just the slow, limping walk of a man finished with the moment.

"DON'T YOU DARE IGNORE ME!"

Kardrax didn't flinch. He was thinking about Regulus. That soft, awkward voice. That quiet certainty. That one final smile.

"You did good," Kardrax whispered to no one. "He won't rest in peace."

Hypnos screamed one last time. He pushed, clawed at the air, trying to muster any final spell.

But nothing came.

Only air.

Only ash.

His body cracked apart.

"REGULUUUUS!!"

And then, silence.

The Marshall of the Slumbering King fell into dust, cursing the name of the boy who killed him.