Ending Maker Chapter 23
Ending Maker Chapter 23
Chapter 5 - Devil's Hand #4
Demonic Human Minos.
The product of the Devil's Hand's human-demon unification.
Demonic Humans did not merely receive power from demons; they became one with demons themselves, giving them strength on an entirely different level from ordinary demon worshippers.
In Hero Legend 2, the Demonic Human Minos reigned as an "unbeatable boss."
He was the boss of the social-gathering raid event, an encounter designed around the party losing no matter what they did.
The condition for continuing the game wasn't defeating Minos—it was escaping from his grasp.
'But.'
This was reality.
It was different from the game.
Moreover, even the timing of Minos's appearance had changed from the game.
A figure who was supposed to appear at the end, as befitting a boss, had shown himself at the very start of the raid.
The instant Yuder and Cordelia faced Demonic Human Minos, the same thought struck them both.
They moved at the same instant they reached that conclusion.
"Lucas!"
Cordelia shouted Lucas’s name.
The Demonic Human Minos possessed the "Soul Tracking" ability, allowing him to identify and track the souls of beings in close proximity.
His ability to single out Lucas at once was surely also the work of Soul Tracking.
So whether they stood out or not was no longer the issue.
What mattered was securing Lucas.
Since no one could attend the banquet fully armed, Lucas drew the dagger he carried for self-defense and reflexively turned toward Cordelia. At that moment, Minos moved.
"La ksar pio."
The language of the Demon Realm flowed from the mouth of the figure wearing a plain white mask.
His eyes blazed with blue light, and a massive chill began to rise from both of his hands.
Yuder felt his breath catch for an instant.
It was the same pressure he had felt when facing Leisegang—the oppressive weight of confronting a being of absolute power.
No, it wasn't that. The instant their eyes met, Minos's gaze bound Yuder's spirit and body.
"Outboxer!"
Cordelia slammed Yuder on the back and shouted. The blow broke the restraint, and Yuder coughed out a strangled breath.
"Let's go!"
Cordelia shouted again. She dashed toward Lucas and abruptly grabbed his bewildered arm.
"Lady Cordelia?!"
"Cordelia?!"
Sylvia, beside Lucas, also raised her voice, but Yuder ignored the three of them and kept his eyes on Minos.
Minos took a step forward.
The chill rising from his arms began to take shape.
And then.
"Fierce flames of Rhodes! Strike down my enemy!"
Ronin, the fire mage, charged toward Minos and activated his magic. Two beasts of manifested flame materialized on either side of him and hurled themselves at Minos.
"Young master!"
"My lady!"
Jun and Dahlia shouted from afar. Given the nature of the banquet, the two had been waiting on the outskirts and couldn't stay close to Yuder and Cordelia.
They tried to shout and rush over even now, but with enemies attacking them with blades right in front of them, it wasn't easy to break free.
Yuder made a judgment.
The original plan had been to regroup with Dahlia before moving, but now that Minos had appeared, there was no time for that.
"Lucas! We have to run! This way!"
When Yuder shouted, Sylvia nodded immediately, but Lucas did not.
As befitting a sword prodigy, as befitting the heir of the Count Hraesvelgr Household, the leader of the twelve great families, he spoke with dignity.
"What are you saying? Run away while an enemy stands before us? As a knight, I must fight too—"
"What the hell is this crazy bastard talking about? Paralyze!"
Lucas never got to finish.
Because Cordelia, abruptly revealing her true colors(?), activated a paralysis spell and brought Lucas down.
"Co-Cordelia?!"
Sylvia was horrified, but this was no time to care about that.
Cordelia grabbed one of Lucas’s arms as he went limp and collapsed, then shouted to Yuder.
"Let's go!"
Yuder understood immediately. He grabbed Lucas's other free arm and said to Sylvia.
"Lady Sylvia! This way!"
"Yes?! Ah, yes!"
In any case, the entire banquet hall had become a battlefield.
They weren't asking her to stand and fight—they were telling her to flee, so Sylvia had no reason to refuse.
"Whad the hell're you doin'..."
Lucas mumbled something, perhaps because the paralysis hadn't fully taken effect, but Yuder and Cordelia paid no attention.
Even if Lucas was a sword prodigy, this was still the early game.
He was still a low-level noob. Running around with a dagger instead of a proper sword would only get him kidnapped faster.
The fact that Cordelia's magic had worked on him instantly was proof of that.
"Young master!"
The Hraesvelgr knights shouted, but like Dahlia and Jun, they couldn't easily break free because of the enemies in front of them.
Moreover, once the fight between Minos and Ronin began in earnest, the banquet hall became a complete pandemonium, making it difficult even to tell what was happening around them.
"This way!"
Yuder moved to a corner of the banquet hall and activated a secret door.
The restaurant used as the banquet venue had originally been the mansion of a great noble, and like most such buildings, it had a secret room. Outboxer, being Outboxer, knew the secret room well.
'Phase 3.5.'
Yuder and Cordelia had entered the secret room yesterday and made preparations in advance.
They had essentially created a kind of panic room.
"Hah, hah... Where is this?"
Sylvia asked, panting, but instead of answering, Yuder and Cordelia kept moving.
As soon as they set the still-paralyzed Lucas down on the floor, Cordelia lit up the darkness with magic, and Yuder went to the left corner, pulled back the carpet, and opened a lid slightly larger than an adult's upper body.
"This way!"
Unfortunately, it wasn't a secret passage leading outside. It was a pit that Yuder and Cordelia had newly dug yesterday using Dig magic.
"Hurry!"
Urged on by Cordelia, Yuder took out the items they had stored inside.
Moonlight, various armor, a sword, a shield, magic circles, and so on.
"Sylvia, get in. You're not a priority target, so you'll be fine if you just hide."
"Huh? I'm not a priority target?"
Having lived her entire life as if she were the center of the world, she was flustered by something she had never even considered.
Cordelia smiled bitterly and guided her into the pit, and Sylvia, bewildered by being treated like luggage for some reason, hid herself.
"Alright, let's gear up."
Yuder handed Moonlight to Cordelia, then put on leather armor over his tailcoat and gripped the Sun's Necklace like a knuckle.
Even though he had the Heavenly Martial Body, he hadn't properly learned swordsmanship yet, so punching was more comfortable and stronger for Yuder.
"Cancel Paralyze."
Cordelia swung Moonlight and dispelled the paralysis spell on Lucas.
"Take this too, young master."
When Yuder quickly handed over a sword and armor, Lucas moved his still-numb hands to arm himself while glaring at Cordelia with fierce eyes.
"Lady Cordelia! What in the world is this viol—"
"Silence!"
The effect of the silence spell was tremendous.
Lucas opened his mouth wide and shouted like the protagonist of a silent film, but no voice came out.
Cordelia stepped right up to Lucas and glared straight at him as she spoke.
"Hey, listen. This is an emergency. You felt how one spell shut you down, right? Don’t do anything reckless. The enemy is strong. Even if you stay completely focused and on guard, it still might not be enough. Got it?"
The cold, sharp truth was far more intense than any insult.
Lucas bit his lip and nodded, and Cordelia, who had been glaring fiercely at him, broke into a bright smile.
"Still, don't be too scared. Let's do this together."
She patted his shoulder with a light tap, let out a long breath, and then boldly tore the hem of her dress.
"Wow."
"What, falling for me all over again?"
"As if."
The light exchange was good for both of them.
Chaos was still raging outside. Even though they had known this crisis was coming, they could not help tensing up.
"Will he come this far?"
"It'd be best if he didn't, but he might."
Minos's Soul Tracking range was fairly short, but it was still enough to cover the entire banquet hall.
Once he defeated Ronin, he would surely head this way.
"Ugh, I'm nervous."
This was different from the Leisegang incident.
The Demonic Human Minos was an unsealed existence who could exert his full power freely.
"We can do it. We prepared, didn't we? And if we pull it off... it'd be the first."
"Defeating Minos?"
"Defeating Minos."
A great achievement that countless rotten fossils of Hero Legend 2 had never even come close to, let alone accomplished.
"We'd get a feature article on Hero Legend Tales, right?"
"We would."
"And tons of likes?"
"A total bombardment."
"Heh."
Cordelia drew a bright smile as if imagining it, and Yuder also smiled pleasantly.
It was ridiculous banter, but it felt nostalgic and fun.
'All that talk about staying sharp, and now they’re flirting.'
Lucas, still under the silence spell, grumbled internally, but it was nothing more than a silent outcry.
And then a few seconds.
A few minutes.
After what felt like an eternity of cold sweat and waiting, the moment finally came.
Boom!
A thunderous sound erupted outside the secret room.
Screams and shrieks followed one after another, and the sound of weapons clashing rang out even more sharply.
"He's coming."
The moment Yuder spoke instinctively, the door of the secret room froze over. The chill spread along the walls, and soon the entire wall surface transformed into frigid ice.
The Demonic Human Minos.
The ruler of extreme cold!
Craaack!
Cracks appeared in the frozen wall, and then it collapsed all at once.
The suddenly opened view revealed the wrecked banquet hall, Devil’s Hand combatants, and Demonic Human Minos, a pair of horns jutting from his forehead and half his body drenched in blood.
'Ronin.'
Ronin had lost. But he hadn't lost without a fight. As an existence of opposing nature, he had succeeded in dealing massive damage to Minos.
Yuder recalled the map of the banquet hall in his head.
He grasped the battle situation in an instant.
Their side had the advantage.
But the situation was not good.
The Devil's Hand combatants would block the path while Minos subdued Cordelia and Lucas.
For him, subduing the two was child’s play.
As if proving this, a deep smile spread across Minos's lips.
"So the little rats were hiding here."
Minos took a step forward.
Lucas, who had been full of bravado, flinched involuntarily, and Cordelia gritted her teeth and gripped Moonlight tightly.
'He's coming. He's coming.'
Yuder thought. He looked at Cordelia one last time, then stamped his foot into the ground.
Thud!
Yuder’s figure shot forward.
Minos reacted at once. His eyes tracked Yuder’s movement, and then a wave of extreme cold swept toward Yuder.
"Heat!"
Yuder tore a magic circle and generated heat.
But it was only a 1-star spell at best.
The chill, which had hesitated for a moment, engulfed Yuder in an instant, and Minos took another step forward. He intended to subdue Cordelia and Lucas after Yuder.
And at that moment.
No, at the very moment Yuder stamped his foot into the ground.
Cordelia drew a blade across her palm. The moment blood flowed, she slammed Moonlight, gripped tightly in her hand, into the floor.
"Pathetic magic!"
A powerful demonic aura surged up from Minos's entire body.
It was to tear apart the very structure of Cordelia's magic with overwhelming demonic power.
The aura was terrifying. Merely facing it made Yuder feel as though he might suffocate.
But even so, Cordelia smiled.
It was a bitter smile because of the stinging pain in her palm, but it was definitely a smile.
Because it was exactly as Outboxer009 had predicted.
Because everything was flowing according to the predetermined sequence.
Cordelia released her mana.
It wasn't magic.
She simply released pure mana along with her blood, and it traveled through Moonlight to the floor, activating the magic circle.
Fwoooosh-!
A brilliant light rose.
Light emitted from a ring of light covering the entire floor of the secret room pierced through the carpet and shone clearly.
"What is th—?!"
Minos stopped speaking.
No, he couldn't continue speaking.
His breath caught. It felt as if his entire body was being bound by chains.
Why—no, what in the world is this?!
"What do you think it is, f—! Bellastin’s Magic Circle!"
Cordelia shouted with a gleeful laugh.
Bellastin's Magic Circle.
The thing that boasted terrifying power against demons.
Minos had released his demonic aura strongly, and that had instead become his undoing.
The stronger the demon's power, the stronger the force Bellastin's Magic Circle exerted.
Of course, there were limits.
Unlike the Leisegang incident, they weren't using the seal of Solari, the Sun God, so the power source was entirely Cordelia's mana.
The time she could maintain it was at most a few dozen seconds.
Even that was only possible if Cordelia gave it everything she had.
It was too short.
But Cordelia didn't lose her smile. Even though she was dying from the strain, she shouted once more while drenched in cold sweat.
"Outboxer!"
Boom!
He kicked off the ground.
Thirty-Six World Steps.
Yuder appeared right in front of Minos.
It was an impossible feat.
Minos's chill was no ordinary cold.
It was yin energy that gnawed at spirit and body.
For an ordinary human, even if they endured the cold, the yin energy would prevent their body from moving as they wished.
But Yuder was different.
'Because I'm used to it.'
Nine Yin Meridian Blockage.
A disease caused by being born with extreme yin energy.
And on top of that, the Sun's Necklace.
Horror spread across Minos's face.
Cordelia collapsed as if hanging onto Moonlight and raised her middle finger.
Thunderclap Strike.
A lightning-fast seven-strike combination hammered Minos’s entire body.