The 13th Demon King
The building of the Xuanwu Clan fell silent after the chaotic uproar. From within, a man emerged, walking with a leisurely stride. Wearing a mask over his face, he was drenched in blood from head to toe, as if he had bathed in it.
He thought to himself. Will beating these bastards to a pulp actually solve the problem? Of course not. They were nothing more than replaceable tools. To truly end this, he had to sever the root of their operations entirely.
In that case, I just have to kill Guineus. Of course, his rational mind screamed at him not to do it. For a Demon King to slay another Demon King meant turning the entire Demon King Council into his enemies. Until now, the Council had turned a blind eye to many of his actions because of his sheer utility, but murdering one of their own was an entirely different matter.
Every Demon King will mark me as their enemy. If that happened, survival would be practically impossible. But then... had there ever been any meaning to his existence up until now? Had anything ever held as much meaning as the burning sensation currently boiling in his mind?
I will kill Guineus. He didn't know the reason behind this decision. His overheated brain was simply commanding him to do so. Just as Libero made up his mind and took a step toward the Company,
"We finally found you, masked freak!"
"Who the hell are you?!"
Several armed figures began to surround him. They were Heroes and Hero Candidates who had been in the vicinity. Libero scanned his surroundings.
None of them are particularly strong. Normally, he would have ignored them. But covered in blood as he was, they wouldn't just let him pass. In that case... He had no choice but to cut his way through.
Slash.
It was a speed they couldn't even begin to react to. It felt as though time itself had stopped, leaving Libero as the only one capable of movement. Furthermore, his blade sliced through even the Heroes who were clearly standing at a distance.
"How...?"
"I know! That guy is a Demon King!"
Sheathing his sword, Libero left the incapacitated Heroes behind and walked on. In truth, the swordsmanship he had just displayed was a technique he could perform even before he became a Demon King. Yet, they saw it and immediately concluded he was one. A sudden question crossed his mind.
Come to think of it, why did I... become a Demon King in the first place? He had ascended during the Era of Chaos. Since the numbers assigned to the Demon Kings represented the order of their awakening rather than their strength, he was also known as the 13th Demon King. But such details didn't matter. Five hundred years had already passed since he became a Demon King. Perhaps because of that vast stretch of time, his memories of why he had chosen this path occasionally grew hazy. Still, he managed to recall a single reason.
I became a Demon King to gain infinite lifespan. Then why did he need an infinite lifespan? That was because... At that moment, a Hero blocked his path. It was the same Hero he had seen in the tavern earlier. He was also a warrior strong enough for Libero to acknowledge to some degree. Only then did Libero fully remember the reason he had cast aside his humanity.
Was it because I needed power? Yes, that must have been it. That was why he had taken it upon himself to fight the strongest Heroes after becoming a Demon King. It was all to reach the absolute pinnacle of swordsmanship and attain ultimate power. But then, why won't this burning sensation subside? He had remembered his purpose, yet his mind remained entirely consumed by the singular urge to kill Guineus. For now, he manifested a sword. Whether it was to slay Guineus or to grow even stronger, one thing was certain: he had to strike down the Hero before him.
He's a Demon King?
The Hero stared at the man standing before him. Covered in a thick layer of blood, the masked figure certainly looked menacing, but that was about it. He didn't radiate any overwhelming sense of strength. The masked freak. It's definitely him, but...
His Hero rank was 157th. Those around him often remarked that he was more than skilled enough to become a High-grade Hero. However, there was only one reason he hadn't achieved that title yet. I lack achievements.
To become a High-grade Hero, raw talent alone wasn't enough; one had to amass achievements that utterly eclipsed ordinary Heroes. This meant slaying countless Chaos Beasts single-handedly or taking down powerful Chaos Beasts in rapid succession. Yet, among all possible feats, the most highly praised was slaying a Demon King.
Of course, defeating a Demon King was an almost impossible task for an ordinary Hero. Demon Kings possessed power comparable to high-level Heroes, and their regenerative abilities were monstrous. Even so, humanity was not without a record of slaying them.
From the 1st to the 70th, the numbers assigned to the Demon Kings were based on their order of birth, not their strength. In fact, those with lower numbers tended to have weaker physical forms. Because of this, out of the initial thirteen Demon Kings born during the Era of Chaos, only three were believed to still be alive.
One of them was the notorious Hero Slayer, the 13th Demon King. He was a monster who could roam freely inside the barriers, rumored to be so powerful that even high-level Heroes were utterly helpless against him. The Holy Church had spared no effort to capture or kill the 13th Demon King, but he was so elusive that they had never succeeded.
But recently, an incredibly enticing piece of information had reached the Hero's ears: the masked freak currently wandering Sak was none other than the 13th Demon King himself. Unlike those other pathetic, washed-up Demon Kings, defeating a target of this caliber—one officially recognized by the Holy Church—would guarantee his promotion to a High-grade Hero in a single bound. This was a golden opportunity dropped straight from the heavens.
I can't let this slip away. He recalled the countless days he had spent training his fists. He felt the power surging from the Holy Relic embedded in his gauntlet, and he placed his trust in his own strength. Let's see what you've got.
The masked man materialized a sword from thin air. It was an unsettling, pitch-black blade. The man swung the weapon as he closed the distance. A mere sword? I'll just shatter it head-on. Empowered by his Holy Relic, his fists were harder than steel. He thrust his fist forward, aiming to clash directly with the blade.
But then, an anomaly occurred. Time began to crawl. No, to be precise, it felt as though only his personal time had slowed down, while the masked man before him continued to move at terrifying speed.
This is... He had certainly heard stories during his days at the Hero Academy. Tales of a legendary swordsman from before the Era of Chaos who could bend space and stop time with nothing but a sword. Back then, he had dismissed it as a myth distorted by the passage of centuries. Even if those legends were true, he had never imagined he would cross paths with a figure from five hundred years ago.
"Could you be...!"
But the rest of the sentence never left his mouth. The masked man's blade had already severed his throat.
"An opponent of this level is not enough."
To reach the absolute peak of swordsmanship, he needed someone stronger. Libero's gaze bypassed the other Heroes gathering around him, locking onto the Company building.
"What in the world is that..."
A massacre was unfolding beneath the Company building. The problem was that the humans being slaughtered in droves were mostly Heroes. Although none of them were high-level Heroes, they were being cut down with terrifying ease.
"Damn it!"
She had assumed Libero would draw the line somewhere, even if he went on a rampage. She figured he would destroy a single syndicate and call it a day. But she was dead wrong. Was he always this kind of monster?
Wasn't he always gloomy, lethargic, and obedient to the Council's orders without a single complaint, save for his bizarre hobbies? Yet here he was, eyes blazing with fury, charging straight toward her. Why? Had something triggered this sudden change in him? She had absolutely no idea. All she felt was sheer terror.
"Is he insane?!"
Right now, she feared him more than any Hero, even though they were both Demon Kings. At that moment, the noise from the street suddenly vanished, replaced by occasional, distant screams. No way... Then, sounds began to echo from the stairwell—crashing noises and desperate shrieks. He was coming up.
Calm down, Guineus. He must have sustained some injuries in the previous battles. And who was she? She was the 67th Demon King. If they fought purely in their Demon King forms, she wouldn't easily lose to an ancient generation like the 13th. But if I unleash my true form here, my identity will be exposed...
She hurriedly opened a chest in the corner of the room. Inside was a weapon she had prepared just in case. It was a pile bunker, a weapon that used compressed gas to fire a heavy metal spike.
I can only fire it once because the gas has to be compressed beforehand, but... Still, none of the weapons she had crafted could match its destructive power. She raised the weapon and aimed it toward the stairs. If she landed a direct hit, she might be able to kill him in a single shot.
At that exact moment, he finally emerged from the stairwell. Drenched in blood, he looked like a living fiend. Guineus flinched instinctively, but she couldn't back down now. Actually, this is a perfect opportunity to kill him.
Since he had come to kill her, she had perfect justification to defend herself. Furthermore, if word got out that her weapon could slay a Demon King, the value of her prototype pile bunker would skyrocket. A cruel smile spread across her face. Die for my sake, Libero!
Thud!
Steam erupted from the pile bunker. With a heavy, bone-rattling recoil, the metal spike was unleashed. The projectile flew in a straight line toward Libero at a speed that made evasion impossible. The moment the spike reached him, Libero's sword clashed with it. However, even with his strength, deflecting it completely was impossible.
"Ugh..."
The spike struck Libero. However, it didn't pierce the center of his chest as she had intended. At the very last second, Libero had managed to deflect the trajectory slightly, resulting in the spike merely pulverizing his right arm.
Damn it. She had failed to kill him in one blow. There was no time to hesitate. As if to prove her fears, Libero materialized a sword in his left hand and charged forward without showing a hint of pain. Demon King form! Her body began to undergo a rapid transformation. Wings sprouted from her back, and horns grew from her head. Though invisible from the outside, the internal structure of her limbs was shifting.
Faster, faster...! Above all, she needed to fully assume her Demon King form to utilize her mental domination skills to their absolute limit. Whether those techniques would work on a fellow Demon King like Libero was uncertain, but it was a risk she had to take. However, Libero didn't give her the luxury of time.
"Aaaah!"
Libero swung his sword with his left arm, severing her left arm entirely. From her perspective, she had barely managed to avoid a fatal blow thanks to the enhanced agility of her transforming state.
"Stop! Stop, Libero!"
Libero paid her no heed. His eyes had already lost their focus. He was simply hacking her to pieces, driven by sheer momentum. There's something seriously wrong with this guy! Then again, if he were in his right mind, he would never have slaughtered Heroes just to come and kill another Demon King. It was a suicidal act that turned both humanity and the Demon Kings against him.
If his mind is fractured right now, then...
Libero unleashed a tempest of slashes, and her body regenerated over and over to keep up. But even her monstrous regeneration was reaching its limit. Fortunately, her transformation into her true Demon King form was finally complete. In that case...
"Hey, Libero. Why don't we have a little chat?"
Reflected in Libero's vacant eyes, the Demon King Guineus wore a chilling smile.