The Fool’s Fate
Satou here. When a villain meets their end, it will be said that they were evil to the last. Perhaps this allows their demise to bring a form of catharsis.
“…Nanashi the Hero.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise when the sage saw through to my secret identity, but luckily my maxed-out “Poker Face” skill covered for my failure perfectly.
At least, I’m fairly sure I managed to maintain a blank expression.
I have to admit, I may have gone overboard. I was enjoying getting the sage to fall for my traps because of his inexperience with the “Flashrunning” he copied from me using his Unique Skill a little too much.
The assassin showed up on my radar, and I saw him from the bird’s-eye view of my Clairvoyance spell anyway, so it was easy to deal with him. And since I figured the sage would use his preferred Shadow Magic to try to attack me at the same time, I was barely able to deal with that, too. The fact that my back was soaked with a cold sweat is a secret.
“Nanashi the Hero? Of the Shiga Kingdom?!”
“That masked hero is really Sir Pendragon?!”
The key figures from Parion Province murmured in surprise, and in the other view from my Clairvoyance, I saw my companions turn pale and exchange nervous glances.
“Wh-what should we do, Master?”
Arisa’s voice sounded worried over Tactical Talk. I told her it would be fine.
Then I put on my best What do you mean? face for the sage.
“You think I’m Nanashi the Hero?”
“Don’t play dumb with me!” the sage shouted, looking confident. “My powers are at the peak of humanity’s limits. If not a hero, only a god or a god’s apostle could trifle with me so easily!”
He had his Reflective Scales positioned between us, as if he was wary of me.
Each time the sage yelled, I thought I saw jet-black smog leaking from his lips.
Hopefully, it wasn’t a sign that he was going to turn into a demon lord from using his Unique Skill so much…
“You overestimate me. Besides, Sir Nanashi the Hero is right over…”
I quickly dressed a substitute dummy in Nanashi’s outfit within Storage, then took it out on the other side of the collapsed ceiling of the Heavenly Room, along with a magic-charged mass-produced Holy Sword.
Normally, these dummies were for testing equipment. I probably hadn’t used one as a stand-in since Labyrinth City Celivera.
“<Dance,> Claidheamh Soluis!”
I used my “Ventriloquism” skill to make the dummy shout, then took out thirteen Holy Swords and waved them around the dummy with Magic Hand.
It was clearly not Claidheamh Soluis, but someone who had never seen the real thing wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
After all, those thirteen Holy Swords were real, even if I did make them myself.
“What the…?!”
The sage’s eyes widened at the Nanashi doll floating in the sky. Then he suddenly took out two ampoules, one red and one purple, and bit them open.
Those were the lethal drug samples I’d seen at the cardinal’s mansion: archdemonic potion, a concentrated form of demonic potion, and the mysterious high-concentration magic stimulator.
“Stop, sage! Do you want to die?!”
I reached out with my Magic Hand to stop him, but the Dark Magic barrier around him canceled them out.
“Mew!”
Tama’s throwing star shattered one of the ampoules.
“Aim…and fire!”
Lulu’s bullet followed and broke the other one.
Good work, you two.
“How dare you use those against me…!”
Clicking his tongue, the sage tossed the shattered vials aside and fired a dozen or so javelins at them in retaliation.
Tama dodged them nimbly, while Arisa’s Space Magic spell Deracinator protected Lulu.
I had to get the sage’s attention back on me.
“I got rid of the demon lord and rescued Pontiff Zarzaris, so don’t worry. He’s in a safe place now.”
I spoke from the Nanashi doll with “Ventriloquism.”
It was difficult to keep maneuvering the doll while keeping my eyes on the sage as Satou.
I don’t want to use that as an excuse, but it took me an extra moment to notice a man in priest’s robes approaching the sage.
“Sir Sage, it is time for the last resort, indeed.”
“L-Lord Green!”
Green… The man in the priest outfit had green fingernails and lips, and his sash and shoes were green as well.
He looked just like the former Count Poputema from Celivera, who I used to call the “green noble,” when he was being controlled by a greater green demon.
“You must use Call Immortal, indeed!” the green priest cried.
Call Immortal?
That was the Unique Skill that Cardinal Hozzunas had used to summon the Evil God’s Spawn in the royal capital of Shiga Kingdom at the end of the year.
The sage had copied that Unique Skill, too?
This is bad. Really bad.
We’d only managed last time with help from my Divine Blade and support from Hikaru and the sky dragon.
If the sage used Call Immortal while those two weren’t around, there would be serious casualties in Parion Province.
“I’m afraid I cannot, Lord Green. I have used my Unique Skill too many times already. If I use that now, I will most likely lose to the power of the gods and be turned into a mindless demon lord.”
“Not to worry, indeed. I have a plan, indeed.”
Ugh, you’ve got to be kidding me.
“Impressive, Lord Green!”
“Take this…”
I saw the green priest reach into his breast pocket.
“Pen-Pen!”
Giving an order from the Nanashi doll, I used “Blink” to get close enough to stop the green priest.
“Stay out of this!”
The Reflective Scales knocked my hand back.
I tried throwing one of the Holy Swords floating next to the Nanashi doll, but a simple toss from my Magic Hand wasn’t enough to break through the Reflective Scales, only to crack them slightly.
“‘Draco Buster’!”
Liza jumped in faster than the wind and broke through the Reflective Scales, pinning the sage to the pillar.
The new upgrades to her Cricket Spear were clearly worth the effort.
Thankful for Liza’s interference, I used a palm strike to knock the green priest away.
“Lord Green!”
“The die is cast, indeed.”
Something black pierced the sage’s back.
It turned into smoke before I could reach out and grab it, absorbing into the sage’s body.
“Uuuurgh…! Lord Green! Y-you…!”
“It was sitting around in your base, so I brought it with me, indeed. Now, be of use to me…”
The priest bounded onto the floor and twisted his neck to look at the sage.
“…and become a proper demon lord, indeed.”
As soon as he spoke those words, black fog blew out of the sage’s body, and his skin began to turn dark purple.
“Damned evil demon! You deceived me!”
The sage’s body began growing larger, producing spikes and bumps all over.
The top of his head turned into something like a diadem, and the purple orbs that were floating above his head slotted into it, like jewels in a crown.
“I did not betray you, indeed. You were too afraid of becoming a demon lord to use Call Immortal, so I simply gave you a helpful push so that you could use it without worry, indeed.”
The green priest looked unapologetic.
In my AR display, I saw the sage’s race change from monkeyfolk to demon lord.
The black object must have been an item to hasten a demon lord transformation.
“Arisa! Retreat to safety now!” I shouted in a growing panic.
If that black object could turn someone with a God Fragment into a demon lord…I shuddered to think what might happen if such a dangerous thing was anywhere near Arisa.
I had to make sure it wasn’t used on her, no matter what.
“Pen-Pen, evacuate everyone and leave this to me.”
“Got it!”
Acting out a conversation with the Nanashi doll, I turned my attention to the emergency evacuation, to make sure Arisa was safe, as quickly as possible.
“Ah yes, the Evil God’s Protection works quite well on those whose vessels have broken, indeed. Normally, they would simply betray us and perish, indeed.”
I heard the green priest snickering.
The Evil God’s Protection works quite well on those whose vessels have broken, indeed.
So that’s the condition that triggers a demon lord transformation?
“Lord GreeEEEEEEEEEEN!”
Before I could be sure, the green priest was crushed by the gigantified sage.
His shadow loomed over me, too, as I stood frozen in place, so I picked up a few people who had fallen onto the floor and escaped from the Heavenly Room.
“LORD GREEEeeeeeEEEEEEN!”
The demon lord bellowed to the heavens.
“I won’t deny being evil, but I still don’t believe I betrayed you, indeed. We established that the plan was to unlock the seal on the Evil God’s Prison using a demon lord, indeed.”
The “indeed” demon’s voice echoed from nowhere.
“Now, destroy the holy city, indeed. Plunging people who are living happily into the depths of despair is the best way to create dense miasma, indeed.”
“LORD GREEEeeeeeEEEeEEN!”
The sage’s voice became more and more garbled with his transformation.
The sage—or rather, Demon Lord Sorijeyro—destroyed the Heavenly Room in a fit of fury and began walking out of the cathedral.
“Master! Hurry!”
“The exit is getting blocked!”
Arisa and Lulu contacted me urgently.
“Tama will heeelp?”
“Pochi will carry people, too, sir!”
“Stay put, you two!”
Luckily, Liza stopped Tama and Pochi from coming to help.
“Hurry!”
“Master, move quickly, I declare.”
Mia and Nana urged me on as the ceiling began to collapse.
The exit was being buried before my eyes.
“Catch them!”
With that, I used Magic Hand to help toss the people I was carrying through the exit.
I also kept the rubble from falling on them using Magic Hand.
“Master, you have to get out, too!”
“I’m going to use Return. You girls start evacuating people from the holy city, please.”
Then I escaped from the crumbling cathedral.
This way, I could swap into the Nanashi doll’s place.
“Now, then.”
I took Nanashi the Hero’s outfit off the substitute dummy and put it on, then flew up high.
“The high-ranking priests’ mansions near the cathedral have all been destroyed…”
It didn’t seem like there were many casualties yet.
The sage—Demon Lord Sorijeyro—was burning the capital with Fire Magic, then creating tendrils from the dark shadows cast by the raging flames to mow down buildings.
In the distance, a wall of wind was whirling up black smoke and flames, blocking my view past that point.
“How is the evacuation going?”
“Master, we are being blocked at the gate, I report.”
“The other gates look to be the same way.”
Nana, who was guarding the key figures, and Lulu, who was stationed at a high vantage point, reported in.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
“HeeeEEEEeerooOOOOOOO!”
Once the demon lord finished destroying the district of high-ranking mansions, he began moving toward the regular residential district with a roar.
“Master, don’t let the demon lord leave the area of the cathedral until we’re done evacuating! My Endless Deracinator and Mia’s Garuda’s wind barrier can’t stop his magic!”
“All right. I’ll take care of it.”
“The demon lord is level one hundred ten now. Be careful!”
I didn’t notice until Arisa pointed it out that the sage had gone from level 99 to level 110 as a demon lord.
I remembered the Sandstorm Lord that Hayato the Hero defeated in the Den of Evil.
That one suddenly went up by ten levels partway through the battle, too. Although this one had gone up by eleven, that was a minor difference.
“HeeeEEEEeerooOOOOOOO!”
The demon lord roared as if it was losing its mind.
I found out in my interactions with Demon Lord Shizuka that miasma hastened a demon lord transformation, so I turned my spirit light on full blast to erase the surrounding miasma.
“Over here, demon lord!”
I used Ice Storm on the demon lord’s back.
Since the flames were making this area intensely hot, I figured it might cool things down while also grabbing the demon lord’s attention, but apparently I overdid it.
The high-ranking priests’ district, which had already been evacuated, was covered in ice and snow, and the waterways went from boiling to freezing over.
It was probably dangerous to use wide-range attack magic like that inside a city.
“HeeeEEEeeeROOooooOOOOooo!”
Huffing out white breath, the demon lord shot Lightning Magic at me, which I dodged with “Flashrunning.”
Last time I looked, he only had the four basic elements and Shadow Magic. Now, however, he had almost all the magic skills covered.
“…That’s intense.”
The demon lord’s attack magic was much more powerful than before.
If I stopped at just keeping his attention, someone might get killed by a stray spell.
“Then we’ll have to take this outside the city!”
I closed in on the demon lord with “Flashrunning” to grab him and use Return—then stopped in my tracks.
“Master, what’s wrong?”
“It’s a trap.”
He had set up a trap for me to run into with “Flashrunning,” just like I had done to the sage earlier. A web of shadow blades too thin to see with the naked eye surrounded the demon lord in a dome.
If it weren’t for my “Sense Danger” and “Trap Detection” skills, I might’ve run right into it.
I used Break Magic to destroy the shadow blades, then “Flashrunning”—
Before I could dive in, a Reflective Scale flew toward me. It multiplied from one to many before my eyes, swirling around the demon lord.
Each time the demon lord flashed with dark purple light, the five lights in his diadem increased. When there were eight of them, they would produce more Reflective Scales, then go out one by one, repeating the cycle.
He seemed to be using Copy Plagiarism to reproduce his own Reflective Scales. As he did so, the purple light surrounding the demon lord’s body grew blacker.
My spirit light was barely having any effect at all.
“Stop it, sage! If you keep using your Unique Skill, you won’t be able to turn back, ya know.”
Nanashi’s tone isn’t ideal for being convincing…
“Bwah-ha, bwah-ha, HA-HA-HA-ha-ha-HA…” The demon lord laughed toward the night sky. “…It’s alrEADY too LATE for THAt.”
The Reflective Scales surged toward me at the demon lord’s will, and I deflected them with dual-wielded Holy Swords.
They were coming so fast that I couldn’t move, at which point other attack spells came flying at me, making it difficult to make my next move.
I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t too late, but if I devoted my breath and attention to that, I might not be able to block all the Reflective Scales.
“Aim…and fire!”
A blue light bullet pierced the deluge of Reflective Scales and struck the side of the demon lord’s head.
Although the disposable acceleration gun evidently wasn’t strong enough to pierce the demon lord’s skull, it still gave me enough of a chance to recover my balance.
I used “Flashrunning” to climb high into the air.
“Thanks, Lulu. You’re a big help.”
“N-not at all! I still have a long way to go.”
Lulu’s flustered reaction to being complimented made me smile.
“HeeEEEeeeerooOOOOoooOOO!”
The demon lord caught up to me in seconds—maybe he was using “Flashrunning,” too. Maybe now I could lead him away from the holy city.
I used “Flashrunning” to keep moving, bringing the demon lord in tow. His “Flashrunning” couldn’t cover as much of a distance as mine, so I limited my own speed so that he wouldn’t lose sight of me as our chase unfolded in the night sky.
“STOOOoooOOOOP!”
When I paused for a moment, the demon lord fired an attack spell at me.
Fireballs exploded around the area I was heading toward, an Ice Storm blocked my escape, and a barrage of Remote Arrows and Thunder Bolts chased after me like a bullet hell game.
Even when I dodged them all by “Flashrunning” in random directions, the demon lord refused to give up, firing more volleys of magic.
In between the spells, he tried to use a feint and cut my head off with Reflective Scales, but I kept avoiding all of them with “Flashrunning” and baited the Reflective Scales into crashing into the ground. A breezebranch tree got cut down in the crossfire, water bursting out of its trunk like a geyser.
“HeeEEEeeeerooOOOOoooOOO!”
I dodged the demon lord’s advanced Fire Magic spell Inferno with “Flashrunning.”
This was a big one, maybe because I paused for longer than usual. Although I was getting fed up with the persistent attacks, it probably looked like a beautiful light show from the ground. The fact that he was using all these spells in a row without running out of magic must mean that his MP got a serious boost from becoming a demon lord.
Still, this game of “Flashrunning” tag was getting mentally exhausting, since it was a battle of reading each other’s moves in advance.
It was especially annoying when he used a Fireball to distract me and set a Dark Magic trap in front of me.
“Now, then…”
Since we were far enough away from the holy city now, I decided to try to talk sense into the demon lord.
Up until now, the only way I could deal with a demon lord was by defeating them. But now that Shizuka was on my side, I could come up with other options.
“Sage! It’s still not too late. Just give up your God Fragment, ’kay?”
“LIIiiiiIIIIEEEEeeES!”
The demon lord’s roar was followed shortly by three magic circles in the air.
Three wyvern-like demons with camouflage coloring emerged from them.
“Kweh-heh-heh-heh, it’s no use, indeed.”
“A fragment imbued with the Evil God’s Protection is fused deep into the monkey-man’s soul, indeed.”
“Even with the depressed demon lord’s power, you can’t turn him back, indeed.”
The wyvern-shaped intermediate demons taunted the demon lord.
Judging by their speech and coloring, they must be underlings of the green greater demon.
“SIiiiLeeEEENCE, HELLLLL spaaAAAaaawNNN!”
The demon lord’s flames destroyed one of the intermediate demons in one shot, while the other two narrowly escaped, mocking the demon lord as they flew toward the holy city.
They must have been sent to lead the demon lord back to the city.
“Satou, demons.”
“I saw some here, too. I was able to defeat them in one blow, so they must be lesser demons, I believe.”
“Pochi beat two, sir!”
My companions who were evacuating the holy city reported demon sightings one after another.
I used the Space Magic spell Clairvoyance to check in on them.
“I will not allow this slaughter, I declare!”
“Chaos baaad!”
Nana blocked some walking cactus-like demons that were barging toward evacuees, while Tama used ninjutsu to immobilize some hedgehog demons.
“Well done! Leave the rest to us!”
“Aim…and fire!”
Once the demons were dropped into pits, trapped by shadows, or forced into buildings by gusts of wind, Liza and Lulu eliminated them one by one.
“Sylphs, protect.”
“Rip and tear! Rip and teeeear!”
Mia’s mini-sylphs guided and protected the citizens, while Arisa was getting weirdly fired up as she bought time for the others to arrive with a barrage of Space Magic.
I was a little too far away to support them with magic. Trusting that they could handle it, I returned my focus to the demon lord.
“First, let’s get rid of the pests.”
I pulled out my magic bow and notched two magic-overloaded Holy Arrows.
Using Acceleration Gate from my magic menu, I produced a hundred and twenty magic circles in front of the bow.
It’s just like reading the wind.
I remembered Lulu’s words as I adjusted my aim, then fired two arrows toward the demons’ projected positions.
“Speed alone can’t catch us, inde—!”
“Nice try, indee—!”
The two Holy Arrows left laser-like trails as they shot straight through the demons and vaporized them.
“HeeEEEeeeerooOOOOoooOOO!”
The demon lord came after me enthusiastically with “Flashrunning.”
I had no interest in dancing with someone wearing a dress of Reflective Scales.
Time to settle him down a little bit.
I waited for the demon lord to pause and fired off an Implosion spell.
“GUUaaaAAAAAAAHhhHH!”
The demon lord howled in pain at the direct hit.
Using “Flashrunning” to run circles around the demon lord, I used spells like Fire Storm, Ice Storm, and Thunder Storm to keep him blinded. With help from the bird’s-eye view provided by Clairvoyance to find his Reflective Scales’ blind spots, I pummeled the demon lord with a barrage of Implosions.
The rapid-fire intermediate attack magic broke through his Reflective Scales in no time.
The demon lord seemed to have an auto-recovery skill like me, so I attacked as hard as I could without killing him.
After a while, the demon lord’s groans and yells quieted.
“Ready to quit being a demon lord yet?”
“I surpassed human limits and became a demon LORD, reached a high level even compared to demon lords of the PAST, and yet I still cannot touch YOU? WHY?!”
Instead of answering my question, the demon lord started complaining in slightly more fluent speech than before.
Well, I’m more than twice your level. That’s to be expected.
“So you realize you can’t beat me now? Then surrender already.”
“Surrender, you SAY?! You ruined the plans I spent a lifetime preparing just before I could SUCCEED, and on top of that, now you would offer me MERCY?! I have no desire to keep living in such disGRACE!”
The demon lord huffed out black miasma as he howled.
“I have no CHOICE but to use my last RESORT—”
Does he mean Call Immortal?
“If you try to use that, I’ll finish you off without a second thought, got it?”
I didn’t want to fight the Evil God’s Spawn produced by the Unique Skill Call Immortal if I could help it.
To be honest, I’d almost prefer to deal with the outcome of whatever is sealed inside the Evil God’s Prison getting released.
I prefer not to kill if I can help it, but that’s not an absolute rule.
The safety of my friends is far more important.
“I would gladly lay down my LIFE if it means I can see FEAR on your FACE.”
Uh-oh, the demon lord’s getting desperate. I might really have to finish him off at this rate.
I really want to avoid the stress of killing someone who I had friendly conversations with, if possible, though…
As I racked my brains, I heard a very familiar voice from below me.
“Mr. Saaage, please stooop?”
I looked down and saw Tama peeking out from my shadow.
She must have used ninjutsu to get there. I didn’t think she’d been in my shadow the whole time, though; maybe she’d used her natural instincts to travel here via the connection of Tactical Talk. If something like that is even possible anyway.
“What are you doing HERE?”
“Give up and say sorry, okaaay?”
Tama used her limited vocabulary to try to convince the demon lord.
“How ABSURD. I will never suRRENDER.”
“But at this rate, you’re going to diiiie?”
“What of it? Everyone dies in the END. Now that Shizuka is GONE, there is no point in me sharpening your ninjutsu any FURTHER. You cannot provide NUTRIENTS, either. You are worth less than TRASH.”
“Meeew…b-but…”
Even as tears welled in her eyes at the demon lord’s harsh words, Tama kept trying to talk him down.
When he’d insulted Tama before, I’d thought he was just acting evil for her sake. At this point, though, it was probably safe to assume that he was really just a villain.
“If Mr. Sage dies, I’ll be saaad…”
Tears streamed down Tama’s cheeks.
She still wasn’t giving up on the demon lord, even though he kept rejecting her.
But those feelings don’t always reach the other person, no matter how sincere they might be.
“Why should I care? Your tears have no value to ME… No, if you are over level fifty, I suppose you might provide some experience POINTS. Your life will give me more STRENGTH to defeat that monster who calls himself a HERO!”
The demon lord brought a giant lightning bolt down toward Tama’s head.
“Meeew!”
I picked Tama up and brought her to safety with “Flashrunning.”
Behind me, a jet-black shape like a cloak absorbed the lightning bolt and nullified it.
That was probably Tama’s shadow stone powder ninjutsu.
“You will not let even me crush the small fry, then…”
“It’s just as I said, indeed. If you wish to defeat this overpowered beast, you must use Call Immortal, indeed.”
A small green bat whispered in the demon lord’s ear.
It was another Avatar of the demon lord. I pulled the Dream-Chase Spinning Wheel Hikaru lent me out of Storage and drew back the string.
“I suppose that may be the only WAY…”
Uh-oh.
The demon lord was about to give in to the green demon’s cajoling.
“Quit making this harder.”
I used a Remote Arrow to knock the bat out of the sky.
“C’mon, don’t be hasty. When Cardinal Hozzunas used Call Immortal, he turned into a pillar of salt, you know?”
“Do not compare me to Hozzunas, who could not surpass human LIMITS.”
“Mr. Sage, nooo!”
“Be QUIET!”
The demon lord swung his arm and produced a torrent of flames that threatened to swallow us up.
I used “Flexible Shields” to deflect them, then canceled them out with “Ice Storm.”
“Mew!”
A giant spherical barrier appeared around the demon lord.
It seemed to be enhanced with Hayato the Hero’s Unique Skill Immovable Shield, too.
Was he planning to use that to buy time for Call Immortal?
“Tama, stay back.”
I used “Warp” to get close to the sphere and attacked it with a prototype Dragon Claw Spear from Storage.
Blue and purple light clashed violently, and it pierced the barrier a few seconds later.
“…Seriously?”
There was yet another sphere inside.
The demon lord had produced several layers of spherical barriers and enhanced each of them with the “Immovable Shield” effect copied using Copy Plagiarism.
Inside the multilayered barrier, I saw a purple magic circle appear at the demon lord’s feet.
It must be a Call Immortal summoning circle.
“Tama! Come here, quick! I’m sending you to a safe place.”
I kept breaking through the barrier spheres with my Dragon Claw Spear.
“Buuut…”
Tama was uncharacteristically reluctant.
“I’ll take care of things here.”
“…Aye.”
Tama nodded, and I used “Unit Deployment” to send her to a secret location.
Arisa would probably be angry if she knew I’d used “Unit Deployment” without the soul shell garland, but this was an emergency.
Since the Dragon Claw Spear alone wasn’t cutting it, I also started using the dragon fang–coated dragon’s-claw short sword, which I’d made when I’d upgraded Liza’s spear, to pick up the pace.
Shoot.
A pillar of purple light stretched up to the sky.
The final stage of the summoning.
In just a few seconds…
“You’re too late, indeed. Call Immortal is complete, indeed.”
A gecko that seemed to be another green demon Avatar appeared next to me. I evaporated it with a laser without slowing my destruction of the barrier spheres.
Unfortunately, this cut the thread that I’d attached before, but I couldn’t worry about that now.
“One more!”
Just as I reached the final barrier sphere, it exploded from the inside and vanished.
A jet-black shape descended in the pillar of light, and the demon lord reached up to it.
It’s so…small?
It was small enough to fit in the palm of the demon lord’s hand.
And thin, too, like a piece of jet-black parchment.
“Wh…what is THIS?”
A magic circle appeared above the paper, and a feminine silhouette appeared inside.
“Thank you for using our summoning system. At this time, you are outside of our service area, so your summoning request has been canceled. Be assured that we will not collect any usage fees. We are also working on expanding our service area in the future. We appreciate your understanding.”
The shadow girl read off a long message in “Hallowed Language” with the droning intonation of text-to-speech software.
This must be the Evil God’s doing. Treating it like a cell phone service area seemed a little wrong to me, though.
But of course, if no Evil God’s Spawn was going to show up, I’d happily take it.
“Aah, so it was a failure after all, indeed.”
A lesser demon teleported into view.
It was another Avatar of the green demon.
“What do you mean, a FAILURE?”
“Exactly as I said, indeed. Better luck next time, indeed.”
The green demon’s Avatar patted the demon lord’s back with its short arm.
“Next TIME? I have lost Call Immortal NOW! There is no next time for ME!”
The demon lord stamped his feet, crying bitter tears.
He tried to tear up the black parchment in frustration, but even his powerful claws couldn’t rip it in the slightest.
“It’s no use, indeed. Those are indestructible, indeed.”
On hearing the green demon’s words, the demon lord rolled up the parchment and threw it to the ground.
“Aah, I wouldn’t do that, indeed…”
“What do you—?”
Before the demon lord could finish his question, the ground turned black.
I instinctively used “Flashrunning” to back away. By the time the demon lord tried to do the same, his feet were already sinking into the ground.
Geh.
An endless amount of hands reached for the demon lord from the blackened ground.
My “Sense Danger” skill told me that they were just as dangerous as the Evil God’s Spawn.
“NooooOOOOOO!”
Though they were all silhouettes, I could see the shapes of human hands, beast paws, fish fins, lizard legs, bird feet, and all manner of insect legs, all grasping at the demon lord and dragging him into the ground.
“Sage! Give me your hand!”
Although I wouldn’t gain anything from saving him, Tama would still be sad if he died.
The demon lord reached out to grab my hand, only to knock it away at the last second.
“I do not need your HELP!”
He had prioritized fending me off over trying to fight the countless hands.
The demon lord shook off my Magic Hand with Shadow Magic and fired all kinds of attack spells to keep me from getting any closer.
“I have surpassed the limits of HUMANITY! I am the sage! The enlightened ONE! Sorijeyro the SAGE!”
Even as I tried to slip past his attack magic with “Flashrunning,” I could tell I was never going to make it in time.
With a myriad of limbs twined around him, the demon lord sank into the ground and vanished before my eyes.
The black surface washed away like the tide, turning back into normal sand.
“…A pitiful end for a monkey who wished to revive his people, indeed.”
The green demon’s Avatar looked down at where the demon lord had vanished, and it sneered.
I resisted the urge to destroy him immediately. I had questions to ask first.
“What was that? Where did it take the demon lord?”
“Oh my, your tone is different from before, indeed?”
The green demon flapped around me self-importantly before it went on.
“That was a jailer left by the great Evil God. The demon lord is now in the true Evil God’s Prison, enjoying a full course of hell with the other prisoners, indeed.”
So the sage who tried to undo the seal on the Evil God’s Prison was now a prisoner of it instead. What a painful irony.
“That is the end for this round, indeed.”
The green demon made a selfish declaration.
“Since the jailer is awake, I cannot approach for another hundred years, indeed. If I try too soon, far from removing the seal, I will suffer the same fate as the monkey, indeed.”
I didn’t know whether I could trust the words of a demon, but after seeing those “hands” for myself, I suspected that he was probably just about right.
“You win this time, indeed.” The green demon applauded me mockingly. “But I won’t let it happen again next time, indeed. Next time I will gather enough resources and strategies to outwit you once and for all, indeed.”
“There won’t be a next time. Not for you, that is.”
When the green demon appeared using the lesser demon Avatar, I used the Dream-Chase Spinning Wheel on it.
Now I pulled on the thread, targeted the tiny seal slate I put on its other end, and used Return to teleport there.
Before me was the green demon, its body joined to a giant magic device.
“H-how did you find this place, indeed?!”
The green demon sputtered, trying to buy time. But I wasn’t letting this once-in-a-lifetime chance slip away.
I’d already made preparations before I teleported.
“Check…”
My black Divine Blade slashed faster than the speed of light.
“…mate.”
The green demon was dead before I finished declaring my victory, and the seeds of evil that it had planted throughout Parion Province and other nations to sow chaos all turned into black smoke and disappeared.
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