Those Who Brought Ruin (1)
When the Creator fashioned light, He also created darkness beside it. Yet if the darkness should vanish, can light truly remain as light?
The impregnable fortress that had seemed as though it would never fall was now ablaze, belching thick, acrid smoke into the sky. Unlike the stories in children’s fairy tales, it was the Demonians and monsters who spilled their blood as they were massacred, while those who tried to save their children met the same cruel end. The role of innocent victims had always belonged exclusively to the Humians in such tales, yet today it was the Humians who swung their swords and thrust their spears, carving a chilling crimson river into the earth.
Who had ever called the Humians benevolent? These were greedy conquerors who had never known war themselves, yet they drove the Demonians into utter annihilation. They beat the elderly to death, raped the women, cut down the men, and burned the children alive. Resistance was met with death. Surrender earned the brand of slavery.
The castle that had once brimmed with happiness and smiles was now filled only with pitiful pleas, groans of agony, and the final gasps of the dying. The fruit shop that had carried the fresh, sweet scent of ripe harvest, the tavern where fathers gathered after a day’s labor to laugh and share stories, the flower garden where lovers blushed as they met, the plaza where children nurtured dreams while listening to bards’ songs and tales—every last trace was being devoured by the flames.
This was the heart of the Demonian nation Hemonigent: the Demon Lord Castle.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!”
“No! Please! Let her go!!!”
A Demonian man, face pressed to the ground by Humian soldiers, wept tears of blood as he watched his beloved suffer. The soldiers were sawing off her horns. In their greed-glazed eyes, those horns were merely valuables. The woman screaming in agony until she vomited blood was nothing more than livestock to them.
One horn was completely severed and fell to the ground with a dull thud. The pain was like having her bones cut apart. Her eyes lost their light, leaving only hollow emptiness. After fainting repeatedly, her mind began to fracture.
“Enough of this! We were supposed to be surrounding the inner keep by now!”
“Do you have any idea how much a Demonian horn is worth? The big shots will snatch up all the best ones anyway. If we don’t grab what we can, are we supposed to settle for just our wages?”
“You’ve got a point! Kahahahaha!!”
With a wet slice, the chatter ended as every member of the ten-man Humian squad was decapitated.
The Black Knights—the Demon Lord’s personal order—wore full-plate armor forged from Cornium. Their captain had appeared alone, without a single subordinate, and slaughtered the entire squad.
Once freed, the Demonian man rushed to his lover and pulled her into his arms. Her eyes were open, yet she showed no reaction. She only trembled faintly, her gaze lost in some distant void.
“Filthy vermin…”
The Black Knight captain clenched his teeth at the sight of the sobbing man clutching his beloved and kicked the Humian corpses. Though his exterior remained cold, fury seethed beneath it.
Kuuuung—!
A heavy impact shook the ground. At the same moment, a massive cloud of dust surged forward as though it would swallow the entire city. The captain raised his Cornium kite shield to protect the couple. When the brief gale passed and visibility returned, he lifted his head to locate the source.
A colossal wall of magical power now soared toward the heavens. The captain recognized the familiar energy at once.
“My lord…”
“If the captain is here, then who is guarding the Demon Lord?!”
The Demonian man, having regained some composure, asked with a deathly pale face. The captain’s expression was hidden behind his great helm. He might have felt dismay, crisis, or even despair. Yet his voice carried only iron resolve.
“Take that woman and flee beyond the barrier. That is all you need to concern yourself with.”
The man, face streaked with tears, bowed deeply in gratitude, then lifted his lover and began to run. The captain, too, hurried away to aid the evacuation of other citizens, desperately suppressing the violent tremors in his breathing.
The throne that had once radiated unmatched majesty now held only the Demon Lord. She sat alone, without a single god or guard, pouring her power into a crystal orb. The gargoyle sentries that had remained were now shattered into fragments.
“Tsk. What a nuisance.”
A massive, muscular man in plate armor kicked aside the gargoyle debris as he grumbled. Shattered gargoyles lay in heaps of rubble, and one Cornium gargoyle had been sliced cleanly in two. The intruders strode boldly to the foot of the throne.
Yet the Demon Lord did not spare them so much as a glance. She continued pouring magic into the orb, eyes fixed upon it.
Neromeltia di Isis. The Demonian woman praised as the strongest Demon Lord in history. The hero party, granted a divine oracle to slay her, now stood before her at last, yet she showed no reaction.
The black-brown-haired Humian girl chosen as the Divine King’s hero gazed at the Demon Lord with complicated emotions. The overwhelming power radiating from her felt like a cold blade scraping across skin. It was a colossal force—one that could rightly be called a calamity—condensed to an unbearable intensity. That power seemed capable of erasing her companions without leaving even a trace.
Despite possessing such might, the Demon Lord focused solely on channeling energy into the crystal orb.
The saint bestowed blessings upon the party while the sage scanned for ambushes. Her companions, utterly ignorant of the being they faced, showed not the slightest fear. Among them, the warrior and the heavy knight stepped forward with mocking grins.
“They called her the Demon Lord, so I expected something terrifying. She’s actually quite beautiful, isn’t she?”
“What’s a pretty little Demon Lord lady doing all alone without any subordinates? Kihahahahaha!”
The sage, probing with his magic, discovered something and immediately warned the others.
“She’s using that orb to maintain the barrier dividing the Demon Lord Castle! We must destroy it if our army is to advance any further!”
“Is that so? Then forgive me, miss… but I’ll have to be rude!”
The heavy knight charged with his enormous tower shield raised. His massive frame, clad in thick steel plate and bearing the gigantic shield, shook the ground violently with every step.
The Demon Lord did not remove her hand from the orb, but she lifted her previously bowed head and fixed the charging heavy knight with a single sharp glance.
Kwaaaaaang—!
“Ugh…!”
For an instant her eyes seemed to flash. In the next breath, the heavy knight’s tower shield crumpled and shattered as his body was blasted backward.
At that moment the warrior leaped from behind him, flying straight at the Demon Lord. Her eyes flashed again, but the warrior twisted his shoulder powerfully, evading the burst of force. Without losing momentum, he hurtled toward her with everything he had.
Twisting his body in mid-air, he unleashed a ferocious slash. A mana sword blazing with the life mana known as Vitana surged toward the crystal orb.
Kaaaaang—!
The Demon Lord lifted her right hand from the orb and caught the warrior’s blade. Powerful energy coalesced in her palm, radiating an overwhelming presence. The dark mana Luina used by the Demon Lord and her subordinates clashed against the warrior’s mana sword, scattering sparks in a fierce contest.
The sight of a sword trembling violently from striking a bare hand was utterly removed from reality. The outcome revealed itself instantly.
Kwachang—!
“Guh…!”
The warrior’s bastard sword shattered into countless pieces that scattered in every direction. The backlash from his broken mana sword struck his core; he vomited blood and hastily retreated.
Under normal battlefield logic, the moment an enemy’s mana sword shattered and their core took damage, one would press the attack and take their head. Yet the Demon Lord showed no interest in the warrior’s life. She simply held her position.
While the warrior drank a recovery potion and received healing from the saint, the Demon Lord warily observed the others. Then, frowning, she placed her right hand—previously withdrawn—back onto the orb, once again devoting both hands to maintaining the barrier.
Outside, the thunderous roar of the Humian army’s magitech soldiers and magical weapons hammering against the barrier filled the air.
The hero understood why the Demon Lord fought with such desperation. And so she simply watched her in silence, her heart heavy with anguish.