The Demon Lord's Wrath
The faces of the Humian soldiers, who had never known anything so cruel or terrifying, turned ashen. With lifespans barely exceeding a hundred years, they had never wielded force against anyone except the frail survivors of other races on the continent of Astaris. In their narrow view of the world, the weapons in their hands were the strongest. No being could withstand the mana beams that erupted from the stored power in mana stones, and any who offered meaningless resistance met a pointless death or simply wept in despair. They had lived believing their only true rivals were dragons and that only the Twelve Gods stood above them.
Yet the Demoniac woman before them, radiating fury and a killing intent so intense it seemed to stop their hearts, shattered every one of their narrow assumptions. With a single strike, she burst the squad leader’s head into nothing more than chunks of meat. The Humian soldiers trembled before a display of overwhelming might they had never witnessed in their lives. From the sheer speed and ferocity of that blow, it was clear she could have effortlessly dodged their concentrated fire. Instead, she had taken every shot with nothing but her bare body, no armor at all. She had endured their full barrage until the mana stones in their rifles were drained, and she remained completely unharmed. It was a deliberate display of contempt.
“Your attacks aren’t even worth dodging.”
The Humian soldiers already understood Neromeltia di Isis’s true intent. They should have quickly swapped in spare mana stones and fired again, but not one of the nine soldiers managed even that simple task. Their hands shook violently and their vision blurred; they couldn’t even unbutton their storage pockets, let alone retrieve the replacements.
Neromeltia di Isis, who had introduced herself as the Demon Lord, had no intention of showing mercy to their pathetic state.
BOOOOOOM!!!
“Ghh… Aaaaaaaaah!!!!”
One soldier, growing frantic after failing to unbutton his pocket, violently tore the button off and tried to grab a spare mana stone. The instant his fingers slipped inside, Neromeltia appeared right in front of him. She had crossed the distance without even seeming to take a step, leaving no afterimage, and kicked his leg sideways. The blow looked light, almost casual, as though she were merely playing a game of kickball. It barely reached below his knee.
Yet the tibia of the Humian soldier shattered completely. It wasn’t merely broken; the bone exploded into fragments so fine that finding the remains would have been impossible. The sound that rang out was nothing like two legs colliding. It resembled the detonation of a blasting charge used to open a mine.
“Hiiii… Wh-what is this… Uuuhuhuh…”
CRACK!!!
The soldier who had let out a terrified whimper at Neromeltia’s sudden appearance screamed in despair the moment his leg vanished. It was not a cry of pain, but a reflexive expression of horror at the reality of losing a limb. Even that ended when he collapsed, face pressed into the dirt, and began laughing like a madman. His body was flooding with endorphins to endure the sudden agony, leaving him strangely euphoric. That pitiful laughter ceased the instant Neromeltia crushed his skull beneath her foot. His head burst like an overripe tomato, splattering bright red blood and brain matter across the ground until it was indistinguishable from the earth itself.
“H… Hiiiiii!!!”
“Huuuuh…”
The remaining eight soldiers reacted in the only ways possible: screaming and fleeing in madness, or collapsing with vacant moans. Neromeltia’s merciless attacks continued, leaving behind one horrific corpse after another. The bodies of the Humian soldiers were so brutally mangled they could scarcely be called human anymore. All eight were dead in less than ten seconds.
“Hiiiiii!!”
When Neromeltia quietly turned around after the brief slaughter, the already terrified dwarves let out whimpers that bordered on sobs. Though they were a race of blacksmiths who also prized the honor of warriors, they had intended to risk their lives to protect the Demoniac woman who had appeared before them. For an innocent victim to die because of their actions would be a greater disgrace than their own deaths. For their choices to cause the death of the innocent would be a greater despair than their enslavement. They had steeled themselves for death, weapons raised, and roared their battle cries—only to become nothing more than frightened puppies before a Hellhound the moment they witnessed Neromeltia’s killing intent. Never in their lives had a single growled warning felt so terrifying. What followed—the scene of the massacre—was beyond description. It was a crimson hell born of overwhelming power and bone-chilling bloodlust.
“There’s no need to be so frightened. If my earlier behavior was excessive, I apologize.”
“Hiiiiiiik!!!”
Neromeltia tried to soothe the dwarves with an awkward smile. She had been swept up by a thousand years of rage and slaughtered the Humians without hesitation, but she had never expected the dwarves to be this terrified. Dwarves, driven by desire and instinct, were a race that struggled to distinguish courage from recklessness, pride from arrogance. In Neromeltia’s memory and understanding, they were the sort who would charge headlong with axes or hammers even against an overwhelmingly powerful foe. She had never imagined that a thousand years could have made them so timid. Of course, she hadn’t met every dwarf, so perhaps these particular ones were simply more cowardly than most.
But what happened next was simply too much.
Trickle, trickle, trickle.
“Uh, uhhh?”
Neromeltia stopped in her tracks, visibly flustered, and even took a step back from the dwarves. As she drew closer, several of them had wet themselves. The acrid smell of urine seeped through the tough fabric of their trousers. The leader of the dwarf investigation team rolled his eyes back and collapsed, and one by one the rest followed, slumping to the ground.
An awkward silence hung over the middle of the plain. Neromeltia looked down at the unconscious dwarves and let out a deep sigh.
“Uuuuugh…”
Some time later, the leader of the dwarf investigation team regained consciousness. The moment he recalled what had happened, he jolted upright and frantically looked around. Then he examined his trousers, checking every inch for any sign of what he feared.
“Phew……”
He exhaled in relief and wiped the cold sweat from his brow. He convinced himself that the horrific memory of the massacre had been nothing but a dream. He distinctly remembered soiling himself right before losing consciousness, yet his trousers were now dry and clean, with not even the faintest trace of odor. Everything had been a dream. The desperate flight across the plain while being chased by Humians. The Demoniac woman who had seemed like death incarnate. The blood-soaked scene of slaughter. All of it had been nothing more than a fleeting nightmare, and the realization brought him such relief that he nearly felt happy.
“Have you come to your senses?”
“Hic!!!”
The leader gasped in terror at the spine-chilling voice that came from directly behind him. The voice itself was not unpleasant. On the contrary, it was soft and beautiful. What made it terrifying was that it was identical to the voice of the Demoniac woman from the nightmare he had just dismissed as a dream. Paralyzed by fear, the leader could not bring himself to turn around. Cold sweat poured down his back and he struggled even to breathe.
“Haa…… With fear this great, how can you still call yourselves proud dwarves……?”