Seria's True Identity - Part 2
She no longer carried the innocent air of little Seria. Though a faint trace of the child the past Griffith remembered lingered in her gentle smile and soft gaze, she had now fully embraced the aura of the Demon King Laylaana, the woman both Jason and Griffith had once known. She stood exactly as the tyrannical rulers of the Demon Realm had always been: arrogant, untouched by any above her. Even as the current Demon King—Kim Jae-hyun—ruled her, she spoke in the formal tone of old when addressing him, yet refused the honorific “nim.” That small defiance was a fragment of the unyielding pride she had worn in her Demon King days.
“How did you even come back?” Jason asked, voice tight with disbelief. “No—what purpose does the current Demon King have in saving you?”
Jason had never met the previous Demon King Laylaana. When he had arrived in this era, she had already been dead for ten years. How could he have crossed paths with her? And yet he wanted to know the new Demon King’s motive. He wanted to understand what game the man who had toppled him was playing.
“Curious, are you?”
Laylaana rose a little higher into the cloudy sky, laughing softly, then descended until she stood directly before Jason, looking up at him with the same arrogant tilt of her head.
“Very curious.”
“You’ve never fought me, yet you’re dying to know everything about me—the one who killed Karkus.”
The name of the ancient Demon King who had once crushed Jason fell from her lips. Just as the current Demon King had inherited the knowledge of every past Demon King when he ascended, Laylaana had absorbed Karkus’s knowledge in her own time. Or rather, the current Demon King had passed it to her directly.
“I need to understand my enemy.”
Jason did not flinch at the name. He simply stared at her, wanting every detail of the foe he would soon face.
“True. Knowing your opponent is the only way to raise your win rate.” She stepped closer, circling him with lazy grace. “Before we fight again, let me tell you a few facts.”
Laylaana now wore the body of Irene—the golden-haired, blue-eyed genius who had once been the Flash Magic Swordswoman—but the soul that inhabited it was no longer Irene’s. It belonged to Seria, a child of only eight years, with soft golden hair and wide blue eyes. The petite form should have looked adorable, the very picture of innocent beauty. Yet Laylaana’s expression remained cold, arrogant, and utterly unchildlike.
She was the daughter of Irene, the continent’s greatest beauty. That alone made the tiny body of Seria somehow even more striking. Jason felt the instinctive urge to sweep the child into his arms, press a kiss to her cheek, and bite it playfully. His wives felt the same fleeting impulse, yet they did not yield. They were not taken in. This was not a beauty trap; Laylaana had never employed such tactics before.
She brushed a few golden strands behind her ear with elegant fingers and began to speak.
“When you were still a Hero, I was the Demon King. My second—Jae-hyun—fought me. We battled without interference. I lost.”
Her voice was calm, almost nostalgic. She had always preferred one-on-one duels. The clean, fair fights she adored most. When the Hero had faced her, his comrades had handled her subordinates, leaving the duel itself pure and uncontested. She had no complaint about the outcome. She had simply been weaker.
“I accepted my defeat without resentment. I faced death quietly.”
But death was not the end. The next Demon King must be chosen. That process usually took time—selecting the strongest from the chaos of the Demon Realm while its leader lay dead. She had seized an unexpected chance. Jae-hyun had fallen from the sky, dying, after his betrayal. She had seen the bloodied Hero fighting desperately to survive and had proposed the position herself.
“I accepted the offer without hesitation. You were already a betrayer in my eyes, but I also saw the fire of vengeance and hatred burning in you. You accepted.”
She had prepared to become the next Demon King. But a full hundred years must pass before one could truly rest in the afterlife. She had waited, knowing her body would be examined. The Demon King’s flesh was too tempting a research subject; mages would never resist.
She had expected the violation. She had even laughed when she learned of Griffith’s curse and the way he had used it on Ferdinand. She had enjoyed the scene. But then the current Demon King had awakened her through this little girl’s body.
“Seria’s soul is still part of me. Pure, innocent… almost too pure. The body is young, but the talent is extraordinary. I can wield power freely now.”
Jason’s tongue clicked in disgust.
“You’re telling me the old Demon King became a lolicon?” He stepped back from Griffith, who had lowered his head, and his wives and the Great Archangels followed, their faces twisted with revulsion. Griffith was now branded as both the man who had pierced a youth’s body and the necrophiliac who had defiled a corpse. The very thought made even the Great Archangels—normally unflinching before the Demon King—look at him with pure contempt.
Griffith simply stood silent, the truth of their new judgment sinking in. He would carry the second title of “Corpse Lover” without protest.
Laylaana laughed at the sight.
“What a pity. The child Seria is also part of me now. Her soul is so pure and clean. The body is young, yes, but her talent is superb. I can use this power properly.”
Jason’s eyes narrowed.
“So how did you become this strong? You weren’t that powerful even after your resurrection. Griffith’s memories proved it.”
“I’m no longer the second Demon King. I am now the second Great Archdemon. The current Demon King holds truly interesting power. And the blessing he bestowed upon me only strengthened it.”
She returned to the childlike tone of Seria for a moment, then switched back to her true voice. The blade in her hand pointed straight at Jason.
“Enough talk. Unlike Lucretia, I will show you no mercy. The order is clear—kill her!”
The moment she finished speaking, her form vanished. In the space of a breath she stood beside him, sword already swinging.
Jae-hyun twisted his body sideways and blocked the strike with a flash of his own blade. The two of them clashed again and again in a whirlwind of steel. Each impact cracked the earth; the air itself trembled with the sheer force of the blows. Two warriors fighting purely with swords, yet the ground around them was torn apart.
Laylaana’s face was radiant with joy. She had always been a natural warrior. The same woman who had accepted defeat against Jae-hyun without bitterness, the same ruthless tyrant who loved a fair, clean fight. The demon she had become was exactly the kind of warrior she had always admired.
She had fought and defeated the elite of the Balrog clan, yet none of them had been as clean or as just in battle as she was. Facing an equal right now, blade to blade, was the most exhilarating thing in the world.
“Second Great Archdemon?” Jason asked as he parried a strike. “Then who is the first? Could it be the Flash Magic Swordswoman, Irene?”
His sword moved faster than sight. The petite eight-year-old hand caught the blade and held it steady, and Laylaana—Seria’s body—smiled, small and sweet.
“You’ve guessed, haven’t you? But it doesn’t matter anymore. You will die here.”
The ground exploded outward as a colossal aura erupted from her entire body, expanding into a perfect circle. The space within her domain was now hers alone. No matter how strong Jason was, his power would be suppressed here. Worse, even his body refused to obey.
This was no ordinary power. It was far beyond the similar suppression she had once used against the current Demon King. Ten years of boredom in the afterlife had driven her to train relentlessly—image training, visualization, endless repetition—until she had achieved true enlightenment. Now, reborn in a child’s body, she could wield the evolved strength freely.
Even as the Demon King, her pure combat ability had been unmatched. Now, as the second Great Archdemon, it was even greater.
“Die.”
The sword swung toward Jason’s neck, and the eight-year-old girl’s face was utterly calm.
‘Andbariges!’
Jae-hyun activated the Holy Ring Andbariges at once, weakening the domain’s oppressive pressure. He retreated sharply, but the space behind him was already crawling with a colossal serpent-like aura that lunged after him.
“Damn it!”
He used the boots of Talaris, stepping through space to her side, and drove his blade toward her heart. The attack missed again. Laylaana’s figure had become as translucent as the helmet of Hildegrim, then vanished completely.
“This is… fighting someone who wields holy artifacts?”
Jason’s eyes narrowed. The power of the ancient Demon King, the only other Great Archdemon left, felt exactly like the strength of one who carried holy weapons. It was as if he were dueling a being armed with the very powers he himself wielded.
“The old Demon King turned into a loli and somehow became insanely strong.”