An Uncanny Echo
I stepped into the Demon Realm. The moment we crossed over, the barrier instantly began to seal shut behind us.
What lay before my eyes was a thick, viscous darkness. This was no ordinary shadow born from the absence of light. The space itself was stained dark. It was as if a layer of black paint had been brushed over the world, stripping away all color and leaving only stark monochrome.
The sky was churning. The remnants of the Demon King that blanketed this world had turned into a black ocean, with ominous demonic energy surging like waves.
The earth was pulsing. Black veins throbbed across every inch of soil and stone like a single, colossal living organism, as if it were slowly digesting the original world.
The air was howling. The demonic energy was not merely dense; it pressed down on us as if it were alive.
The space itself harbored a deep, visceral malice toward us.
I constantly circulated my Aura and Mana. Every time the demonic energy tried to flood my lungs, my Aura and Mana pushed it back.
The oxygen in the air seemed incredibly thin to begin with, but it did not matter; a body that had reached the realm of transcendence barely required breath.
The Hero was also immediately utilizing his holy power. Color only returned to the world in the immediate vicinity of the Hero.
“It seems even moving forward will not be easy,” the Hero said.
It was, indeed, a hellish wasteland beyond human comprehension.
Among us, Hailyn was the only one adapting to this environment.
“This way,” she said, pointing a finger.
Her gray eyes had grown significantly darker. Within the Demon Realm, her Authority seemed to function with far greater clarity than it did outside.
“Is it close?”
“Still far. We’ll have to walk for a few days. But the direction is certain.”
Good. We kept marching in the direction Hailyn pointed. Our sense of time was warped, making it hard to be precise, but we walked without rest for roughly a day or two. During that time, we encountered nothing. It was an eerie, heavy silence.
“General,” the Hero spoke up on the third day. “There is something ahead.”
I raised my gaze, focusing my vision to peer through the gloom. The Hero was right. Something was blocking our path.
“Hailyn?”
“It’s not the Magic Tower Master. He’s still in the same place.”
Another demon, then?
“Hero. Prepare for battle.”
What emerged shortly after was something shaped like a human. Yet, it was undeniably not human.
Things made of viscous darkness packed the landscape. They looked as though they were desperately searching for something, weeping sorrowfully.
Hundreds of cries echoed through the Demon Realm. Non-human entities were trying to act human. As if they were alive. As if they were human.
“What is this...?”
Were they demons? At first glance, they looked like demons, but they didn't feel like them. What kind of demon would mimic humans? They were entities I had never seen, even when I entered the Demon Realm long ago.
Reacting to our movement, one of the entities turned its head. The natural way it turned was uncannily human.
Following the first, every other entity turned its head toward me in perfect unison. Their hollow, black eyes locked onto me. At that movement, which made them seem like a single organism, I unconsciously mirrored them.
“……”
My lungs breathed. My mouth moved. I cried out something. My feet moved forward. Slowly, step by step, each stride felt like a grueling penance. Yet, at the same time, it was salvation. It was terror.
Fear of that entity washed over me. It hurt. It hurt so much. It felt as though my entire body was about to shatter. That thing was going to kill me. No, it would definitely kill me. Did I want to die? No, I wanted to live. No matter how painful, I wanted to live. I wanted to live by that entity's side.
“Ah...”
I raised my head and looked at the sky. No—we weren't looking at the sky. These were tears for Father. I, we, looked up at him and wept—
Thud.
I plunged my sword into my left arm. Stabbing it wasn't enough, so I dragged the blade downward, slicing it open. Blood gushed from my arm.
This was the proof of life. The evidence that I was different from them.
“Fuck...”
My head felt like it was on fire. I immediately channeled my Aura and Mana to their absolute limits, burning away the demonic energy trying to brainwash me.
I had let my guard down too much. Thanks to that, I only snapped out of it after my left arm had been shredded. True to a body that had stepped into the realm of transcendence, the bleeding stopped quickly, but the internal damage remained. Normally, even this would have healed in an instant, but the oppressive environment of the Demon Realm was suppressing my recovery.
I looked over at the Hero. It seemed even his holy power had allowed the demonic energy of those entities to invade his mind. Considering the diametrically opposed natures of holy power and demonic energy, this should have been impossible.
Hailyn was hovering anxiously, at a complete loss as she watched the Hero stare blankly up at the sky. I approached the Hero to snap him out of his trance.
Suddenly, the human-mimicking entities reacted in unison. Had they realized I had broken free from their brainwashing?
They suddenly began to charge like madmen. Screaming incomprehensible gibberish, the hundreds of monsters rushed solely toward me, completely unconcerned as they trampled and crushed one another underfoot.
Black filth splattered from the bodies of those that were crushed.
Watching the grotesque entities charging at me, I raised my sword. An enemy I had never faced before. The Hero was incapacitated. I didn't know their weakness. But I had to cut them down.
To compensate for my ruined left arm, I channeled as much strength as possible into my legs. No complex techniques were needed. I simply raised my right hand, gripping my sword high. The moment the grotesque entities reached me, I brought the blade down.
CRASH!
An overwhelming physical force was loaded into the strike, cleaving through the Demon Realm. A deafening roar erupted, a chaotic symphony of bizarre shrieks, the tearing of the atmosphere, and the gouging of the earth.
From the entity on the far right to the one on the far left, every single monster was sliced diagonally, spewing black filth.
A massive trench was carved into the ground, a testament to the sheer physical power behind the strike.
I immediately lunged at the entities that were already beginning to regenerate, severing their heads.
Slash.
They spewed filth and collapsed limply.
“Tenacious bastards.”
In the time it took to decapitate five, ten regenerated. When I lunged again and cut off the heads of those ten as fast as I could, twenty regenerated.
I tried using magic just in case, but it had no effect whatsoever. I had no other means to obliterate them. All that remained was my body and my sword. So, I raised my blade once more.
I severed necks, hacked off arms, sliced legs, gashed abdomens, pierced chests, and cleaved heads. As I cut through the entities countless times, my entire body became drenched in black filth. I swung frantically, slashing everything in sight.
Once, twice, thrice, four times, ten times, twenty times, thirty times, and then forty. When I had killed a single entity more than forty times—
Squelch.
The sensation of my sword sinking into its head felt different from before. Finally, it began to dissolve. As if returning to this black world, it slowly faded away.
The monsters that had regenerated endlessly now began to vanish one by one, their numbers steadily dwindling. And finally, when only the last entity remained—
With my sword impaling its stomach, it sputtered incomprehensible gibberish and dissolved into nothingness.
“……”
The battle was over. I called out to Hailyn, who had retreated to a safe distance with the Hero. She approached, dragging the Hero along.
“A-are you okay?”
“I am fine.”
I once again circulated my Aura and Mana, burning away the demonic energy that was slowly encroaching upon my body. Then, I approached the Hero and began to inspect his mind. Within his head, a foreign demonic energy and his own holy power were tangled together.
“Vile.”
Upon closer inspection, I realized why this demonic energy had bypassed our defenses so easily. It was a demonic energy that was shockingly similar to holy power. It sounded absurd, but the energy right before my eyes was proof of its existence.
That was how this demonic energy had managed to pierce through the Hero's holy power and invade his mind. As for me, having built up a decent resistance to holy power over time, I had been able to snap out of it midway.
Gathering my concentration to its absolute peak, I carefully separated the demonic energy tangled with the holy power inside the Hero's body and burned it away.
“……?”
Only after a long while did the Hero finally stir and sit up. “What... what happened?”
When I briefly explained the situation, the Hero wore an expression of utter disbelief. “It is my first time seeing such a thing as well. But since it has appeared before us, we must prepare.”
It would take some time to adapt, but I could simply program my Aura and Mana to reject even holy power. The Hero's holy power, however, could not be manipulated in such a manner. In the end, I had no choice but to expand my protective barrier to cover him as well.
“I am sorry for being a burden...”
“Do not worry about it.”
Who could have foreseen this? I had never encountered demonic energy with properties similar to holy power, even during the Great War. It had been the same when I briefly entered the Demon Realm after the war ended.
Could this be related to the Magic Tower Master? There was no way to know. Well, I would get my answer once I severed the Magic Tower Master's limbs and asked him myself.