The Reunion of the Demon King and the Ancient Hero
"Hah... hah..."
Having brought Laylana down, Yu Ji-ho sank to the ground, clearly spent. The moment she fell, the domain she had unfurled vanished without a trace. It was already deep night, so the change was not dramatic, yet the moon and stars that had been swallowed by darkness revealed themselves again, and a thin wash of light returned to the world.
"Damn it... struggling this hard against a mid-boss, not even the final boss."
To the ancient hero, being pushed this far by what should have been nothing more than a mid-boss was pure humiliation. He had believed that the only being stronger than himself was the Demon King alone.
But Laylana had been a power he could never have overcome on his own. Even now, it was only because of his companions that he had been able to unleash that ultimate strike with their combined strength.
"Did we... defeat Laylana?"
Among Ji-ho's wives, Ruina asked him, her brown hair plastered to her skin with sweat. A faint edge of fear colored her voice—Laylana's power had been that terrifying, that overwhelming.
The force Lucretia had shown with the Wings of the Goddess had been fearsome in its own right, yet she was still someone Ji-ho could have beaten one-on-one. Facing the power of a tenth-circle black magic spell he had never seen or even heard of—World of the Tenebrositas—and realizing that even Ji-ho alone could not bring Laylana down, Ruina's terror was only natural.
Rachel, Silvia, and Kim Da-gyeom had felt that same fear.
Even the archangels—Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and Uriel—had known dread. If a subordinate of the Demon King, even a former Demon King, was this strong, then how vast was the power of the Demon World under the current Demon King?
And it was not only Laylana. She herself had said there was another Great Archdemon of her own rank.
If that Great Archdemon possessed strength anywhere near Laylana's... then if they failed to defeat the Demon King this time, Heaven would have no hope left. Even if all three hundred million angels of Heaven staked their lives on the fight, they would likely be stopped not by the Demon King himself, but by his subordinates alone.
Jason and Griffith, who still remembered how the world had once teetered on the brink of ruin before Laylana's overwhelming power and who had tasted that terror firsthand, looked even darker than the rest. Their fear ran deeper than anyone else's.
They had always carried a dread of the being known as Demon King Leyrana Francis Sil Erna Ariadne. That she was no longer the Demon King, that she now served the new Demon King Jae-hyun as a Great Archdemon, and that she had returned even stronger than before—it was a shock beyond measure.
In the first place, they had had no way to stop Laylana, so they had summoned the Earth boy Kim Jae-hyun to deal with her. Once his usefulness was spent, they had betrayed him and tried to eliminate him. When he escaped and returned as the new Demon King, they had summoned the ancient hero Ji-ho to stop him. That they had to lean on beings from Earth at all only proved that the pure strength of this world alone could never hold back the Demon Kings.
Faced with Laylana's crushing power, Jason and Griffith found their minds dragged back thirteen years, to the moment she first descended upon the Intermediate World and plunged the continent into terror.
To the year in which half the continent burned, when every power of the Intermediate World united and still fell helplessly before her.
To the overwhelming might of Demon King Laylana as she trampled the allied armies of countless dragons, humans, and other races.
Ji-ho was not blind to his companions' state. He himself was shaken that a mid-boss had forced him to this extreme, even to the point of using his trump card.
That was supposed to be the secret art for bringing down the Demon King.
If the Demon King was Kim Jae-hyun, he had almost certainly been watching the fight with Laylana. Having seen that ultimate strike, he might already be devising a countermeasure.
But there was no turning back. They had come too far. To stop now would be no different from sitting still and waiting for the Demon King to kill them.
"There's a high chance Laylana is still alive."
Ji-ho answered Ruina's question honestly. If he lied and said she was dead, they might feel relief for a moment—but the shock and terror of later seeing her alive would be far worse than simply telling them the truth now.
Better to be frank from the start.
"Y-you mean even that attack didn't kill her?"
Ruina asked, her face twisted with horror, her body trembling. The same stunned dread was written across the beautiful faces of Rachel, Silvia, and Kim Da-gyeom.
They assumed Laylana's skill was simply so great that she had been able to evade even that strike and survive.
Ji-ho looked at them and spoke.
"It isn't that. Laylana definitely took the hit. She was driven to the brink of death. The Demon King simply pulled her out midway."
"The Demon King?"
"But... we didn't sense a thing."
It was a relief, at least, that Laylana herself had not been strong enough to survive that attack on her own—yet they still could not rest easy.
It meant the Demon King possessed the ability to snatch her away from under that assault without any of them noticing. And the enemy they would now have to face alongside Ji-ho was that very Demon King.
"Haa... Let's rest a little before we go. Charging in like this would be nothing but suicide—asking the Demon King to kill us."
"Yes. I think so too."
"Haa..."
The moment Ji-ho suggested rest, his wives, his companions, and even the dragons and angels waiting behind them all sank to the ground at once.
The dragons in particular had all polymorphed into human forms as they sat, every one of them recovering mana and stamina. Having fallen to Laylana's Apocalypse and risen again, they all carried internal injuries great and small, and the drain on their mana and holy power was nothing to dismiss.
Ji-ho himself had burned through an enormous amount of mana and magical power; he needed the break. Aegis, too, had been pushed too hard and needed an hour or two of rest. Push any further and the sacred armament would no longer be able to fully display its power.
At least I gained a little insight. I suppose I should be grateful for that.
Having experienced dimensional travel and awakened a terrifying talent, Ji-ho could not decide whether to rejoice or despair over it. Neither Rachel, Ruina, and Silvia—who had each crossed dimensions twice—nor even the Earth-born Kim Da-gyeom possessed anything like it. Their talents had multiplied several times over through dimensional travel, yet they still fell far short of his own.
Only those summoned as heroes from another world carried this kind of gift, born of the desperate wish that they would save this world. That wish maximized the talent of every summoned hero.
The only beings who possessed it were himself and the Demon King, Kim Jae-hyun—just the two of them.
Watching himself grow stronger with every battle through sudden insight only made him more uneasy, certain that Demon King Kim Jae-hyun must possess a talent no less monstrous.
Still, he could not charge in simply because time was precious.
If they went now, far from peak condition, there was no chance they could win.
So Ji-ho meant to rest and recover what he had spent—until his face hardened.
A beauty like a goddess stood before them: silver hair, a pure-white tank top that bared the skin around her navel, and blue hot pants that flaunted her figure. Saintess Lucretia had appeared.
Already she had unfurled the Wings of the Goddess, standing in the night sky and scattering a brilliant radiance of holy power. To Ji-ho's party, her beauty registered first as terror, not wonder.
"Of all times..."
Ji-ho muttered and took up his sword. He was thoroughly exhausted. Against Laylana he had not unleashed his techniques at absolute maximum output the way he had against Jae-hyun, holding nothing back—but using that art at all still left his body screaming with fatigue and his energy heavily drained.
Facing Lucretia in this state, his odds of victory were vanishingly slim. Yet, unexpectedly, she made no move to attack.
She simply stood with her arms crossed, looking down on them with open scorn.
"What a sight you all make. Defeating Laylana is impressive enough, I suppose—but with only that much strength, you still won't be able to beat Jae-hyun."
The former Saintess of the Holy Kingdom of Astraea, still wearing the mantle of a saintess, had become a terrifying enemy to humanity—no, to the entire world—alongside the previous Demon King, Laylana. She stood there sneering, holding the authority to decide the fate of mankind and the world in this very moment.
If she chose to act here, Ji-ho's party would be annihilated. Exhausted as they were, they no longer had the strength to contend with Lucretia under the Wings of the Goddess.
"Kh!"
Ji-ho rose and drew the Archangel's blade, yet he did not charge her. He meant to buy even a little more time, to recover even a fraction more of his strength.
An hour of rest would have been enough to regain the power to defeat Lucretia. As he was now, it was impossible. In this state he could not hope to win—he could not even wound her.
"Hmm. Planning to fight?"
Lucretia asked, mocking him. The sight of Ji-ho drawing his sword while so obviously spent was, to her, nothing but laughable.
"Crushing all of you here and dragging Gabriel and your wives away would be simple enough—but Jae-hyun, in his mercy, wishes to give you a chance. It would be wiser not to attack. He intends to grant you a full six hours of rest."
At her words, Ji-ho answered with a look of pure disbelief.
"The Demon King really said that? What the hell is he thinking?"
"I told you. Jae-hyun is showing you mercy."
"The Demon King showing mercy? A passing dog would laugh."
Ji-ho did not believe her. The Demon King, merciful out of the goodness of his heart? He would sooner believe the Demon King had choked to death on an apple.
The Demon King clearly had some scheme.
"Believe it or not—that's your choice. I only came to deliver the message. Rest for six hours, then come to the Demon King's Castle. Jae-hyun is waiting. And please, do rest properly before you face him. Come at full strength. Don't make some pathetic excuse afterward about not having rested enough. And you—Archangel Gabriel. And Rachel, Ruina, Silvia, Kim Da-gyeom, was it? All of you should prepare yourselves. It's late tonight, but by tomorrow you'll be carrying Jae-hyun's children."