"Do you really think you’ve won?"

Zerathos froze in place. With stiff movements, he turned around and looked up.

Hovering there was a man in a black cloak wearing an intimidating demon mask.

"Y-You..." Zerathos backed away in fear, his finger trembling as he pointed. "How is this possible!? Why are you still alive!?"

Nolan folded his arms and smiled thinly.

"Who said I was dead?"

His words struck Zerathos like a blow. He turned and saw something that left him speechless.

Nolan’s body—the one he had just killed—had turned into a puddle of black liquid on the ground.

His face paled, and his breathing grew uneven.

"A transformation? So you’ve been deceiving me all this time!?"

He glared at Nolan again, rage boiling over.

He had been deceived twice now by Nolan, and that was completely unacceptable.

"That’s right. I was toying with you. Why? Angry?" Nolan chuckled.

BOOM!

Demonic power erupted from Zerathos’s body. His wings spread wide, and without hesitation, he charged at Nolan with all his might.

"Die!"

He swung his fist toward Nolan’s face.

BOOM!

The impact created an extraordinary shockwave. However, Nolan caught it effortlessly, as if it were nothing more than an ordinary attack.

"W-What!?"

Zerathos’s eyes widened in shock. But it didn’t last long—he quickly pulled back, spun, and kicked Nolan with his left leg.

BOOM!

The attack, powerful enough to shatter a mountain, was once again easily blocked by Nolan.

BOOM!

BOOM!

He kept launching attack after attack, but all of them were parried without difficulty. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Zerathos’s rage slowly turned into fear. Every attack was neutralized so easily. That meant one thing: this man had been toying with him from the start.

And now, he looked like a clown in the face of a power far beyond his own.

Suddenly, Nolan raised his hand, and the Demon Emperor Zerathos quickly crossed his arms in front of his chest.

When the blow landed, there was no explosion or dramatic shockwave. It was just an ordinary punch.

But only Zerathos knew how terrifying that punch truly was.

The space around him seemed to freeze, trapping his body completely in place.

The next second, he felt a violent pull downward. His body shot toward the ground at increasing speed, the acceleration multiplying tenfold every second.

BOOM!

His body slammed into the earth, creating a crater three hundred meters deep.

Nolan chuckled softly and muttered, "Feel that."

The attack didn’t look powerful at first glance. But it was far from harmless.

Upon impact, the space around Zerathos had been compressed, narrowing until it trapped him completely, then forcibly driving him downward under extreme spatial pressure.

The effect was similar to a stone launched by a slingshot—except the acceleration kept increasing to hundreds of times its original speed.

By all logic, Zerathos’s body should have been shattered. But he was no ordinary being; he stood at the pinnacle of this world.

"Cough!"

Zerathos crawled out like a cockroach. His armor was cracked and shattered, revealing his muscular frame marked with red lines across his abdomen, chest, and back.

His hair was disheveled, and his skin had turned visibly pale.

"Cough..."

He covered his mouth as red blood continued to spill out. Though he was strong, he was still ultimately bound by the laws of this world.

Facing such an unimaginable attack clearly left him reeling.

A few moments later, he managed to compose himself, though the pain throughout his body had not completely subsided.

He forced his weakened body upright and looked up at Nolan.

"Who... are you... really?" he asked haltingly. "It’s impossible... for a living being... to be this strong!"

In his mind, he was certain he had already reached the pinnacle of this world and that nothing could threaten him except the Dragon Ancestor.

However, the mysterious man before him had far exceeded all his expectations.

None of his attacks had left even a scratch. The man stood there completely unscathed.

Meanwhile, it was he who had been injured by what he had considered an ordinary strike. He couldn’t accept that reality.

Nolan smiled faintly. "That’s not important. By the way, you’ve already unleashed all your power. Let me show you a little of mine."

After those words, the atmosphere suddenly grew silent and heavy with tension.

Nolan stomped his foot in midair. In an instant, the space around him trembled, and a portal opened behind him.

"The Supreme Throne!"

From within the portal, a throne slowly emerged. It was magnificent—black in color with gold inlays along the armrests and backrest.

A black crown hovered above it, enhancing its majestic and intimidating aura.

When Nolan sat upon it, a shockwave spread across the entire land of Vulatus.

Even the Demon Emperor Zerathos was caught in the shockwave, his body hurled dozens of meters away.

Nolan crossed his legs, rested the right side of his face on his palm, and snapped his fingers.

"Spatial Dimension... Expand!"

Whoosh!

The ground began to shake violently. Zerathos’s eyes widened in shock.

Before he could even beat his wings, some great power pushed him down to the earth.

"ARGH!"

He cried out, struggling to break free—but it was no use.

The force was too overwhelming, as if gravity itself had turned against him, dragging even his very cells downward.

BOOM!

Demonic power erupted from his body, but even that effort was useless.

"It’s no use. The entire area of this land is under my control. Not even an ant can escape. So, surrender," Nolan taunted playfully.

"Ugh..." Demon Emperor Zerathos gritted his teeth in anger. He forced his head up and stared at Nolan in horror. "Who... are you... really!? That power... That power isn’t something any living creature could possess!"

He had never seen anyone as strong as Nolan before. And he was certain Nolan could not possibly be from this world. Perhaps he came from a realm beyond this one, or maybe... the realm of the gods.

At that thought, Zerathos’s hair stood on end, and a cold fear crept up his spine.

If that were true, wasn’t his defeat already decided from the very beginning?

Nolan merely smiled, too lazy to waste words on him.

Besides, he had no intention of killing Zerathos; he merely wanted to fulfill the man’s own wish.

"As I promised earlier," Nolan said in a calm voice, yet one that carried immense pressure. "I will show you what true power means."

Snap!

Nolan snapped his fingers. In an instant, an immense gravitational pull erupted from the sky above.

Zerathos was startled and struggled to lift his head. In the blink of an eye, his face turned pale. A gigantic black sphere filled his vision.

The sphere rotated faintly, while a bright white ring of light circled around it.

Just looking at it made Zerathos feel as if his soul were being drawn toward it.

"W-What is that?" he asked, trembling.

His belief that Nolan was not human grew even stronger. That kind of power was not something a mortal being could possess.

"Don’t pass out just yet," Nolan taunted, a playful glint flashing in his eyes. "The real torture is just about to begin..."