Do You Need Power?
"Do you need power?"
Seraphina's eyes snapped wide at the voice echoing from the ring.
The spoils plundered from their raid on the auction house were countless. This was because they had seized not only the items up for auction, but also the personal belongings of the attendees. She had assumed this ring was merely one of those miscellaneous items. In fact, she had even deemed it out of place among the genuine valuables.
It was a simple band, devoid of any engravings or ornaments. The material, a blend of brown and yellow, possessed a certain mystique, but it was dreadfully plain compared to the various gemstones of the Continent. The aura it exuded was no different—gloomy and desolate, bringing an inexplicable chill like walking down a dark forest path at night. Even that was a flaw for an accessory. While it was common for mana-infused items to radiate a unique aura, true luxury goods had such traits refined and concealed before release.
Thus, when sorting through the spoils of the raid, Seraphina and Merlin had dismissed the ring as a mediocre, mid-grade item.
But at this very moment...
"Pray. Offer. If you offer everything you have..."
The voice echoing from within the ring was by no means ordinary. A vivid temptation brushed against her ear, a deep resonance like looking down a well in the dead of night. Seraphina's sense of perception, which had grown far sharper through her communion with her god, instantly recognized the ring's true worth.
The more she focused her mind on the ring, the more a deep, dark brown—previously hidden beneath an infinite silver light—reared its head. It was a mass of power that, though weakened by a seal, still maintained its own ego.
Seraphina felt a prickling sensation, like needles, at the tips of her fingers holding the ring. 'At this level... it's at least demon-class. Maybe even a Demon King.' Seraphina clicked her tongue at the unimaginable identity of the entity.
No matter how high-class the auction was, artifacts from the other world couldn't be used here. That was why they had merely stored it away after a rough classification.
"...I shall personally grant your desire."
A pearl had been hidden in the mud.
Seraphina looked at the sinisterly whispering ring with a thoroughly satisfied expression. The ring, too, read her mind. The soul of the ancient Demon King whispered with smug satisfaction.
"Yes. Reach out. Accept me onto your left hand, the place of promise..."
But before the fallen Demon King could finish his sentence, Seraphina's muttered thoughts cut him off.
"If I sell this, I wonder how much rice I could buy...!"
"Wh...at...?"
An unexpected answer. An unexpected word. For a moment, the ancient Demon King's mind reeled in utter confusion. Sell? Who? Me? ...Why?
The ancient Demon King could not comprehend the girl at all. It wasn't as if she lacked desires. Even if only a fraction of his soul and authority remained, he was once a mighty Demon King; reading a mortal's emotions was child's play. The burning vengeance smoldering inside the girl was plain as day to his eyes.
Yet, she wanted to sell the ring. And not even to exchange it for some rare, legendary treasure. Just rice. To sell a grand, ancient legacy for something as mundane as rice.
He wouldn't have been this bewildered even if she had declared her intent to seal him away. If she were prioritizing some grand cause over personal greed, he could at least understand it, even if he would have mocked her as a foolish, self-righteous idiot.
"With that much rice, even considering how much the order will grow, we'll be set for two or three years... Hehehe..."
But now, the girl before him neither succumbed to her desires nor denied them. Despite clearly sensing the immense power within the ring... she merely stared at him as if looking at a highly lucrative commodity.
"You foolish wench...!"
The Demon King lost his mind at this unprecedented disrespect. Not only during his reign as a living sovereign, but even after being reduced to this pathetic state and sealed within a ring, he had always been met with absolute terror and awe. How dare she look at him as if he were some gold-dropping goblin?
Infuriated, the Demon King immediately unleashed his power. Without hesitation, he channeled the energy he had accumulated over centuries of confinement to corrupt the foolish woman's body.
Ssshh, sshhh, sshhh— A yellowish-brown haze erupted from the ring, burrowing into the girl's flesh.
Starting from the fingertip touching the ring, it crept downward. Its advance was fluid yet heavy, like storm clouds sweeping across the sky. Though invisible from the outside, it rapidly seized control of her internal pathways.
Seraphina surged her mana to counter the sudden intrusion, but the ring's demonic energy crushed her resisting power, expanding its domain of corruption. In an instant, the yellowish-brown haze bound the girl's veins.
Unsatisfied, the Demon King pushed his power even deeper. The moment his corruptive touch reached the girl's wrist—the Demon King's soul sneered.
"Ah, yes... I wondered why someone of your talent was acting so foolishly. Now I understand."
The bracelet-style rosary wrapped around her wrist, and the divine mana radiating from within it. Upon sensing this, he finally understood the true meaning behind the girl's words. Her absurd claim of selling a Demon King for rice wasn't because she was insane or stupid. It was merely the pathetic struggle of a priestess who already served another master.
"You already serve another. Have you offered your body to those weak, arrogant fools who call themselves stars?"
In an instant, the pieces clicked together in the Demon King's mind. She was suppressing her natural instinct to surrender to her desires using her convictions as a priestess. That had to be her current state. The proof was her expression. Even as his power corrupted her hand, she stared blankly into space, entirely unperturbed. Deep down, she surely wanted to give in to her instincts. If so, the solution was simple.
"Very well. I shall personally prove to you just how powerless your master is...!"
He would go directly to the god she served and sever their connection. It would consume a vast amount of his accumulated power, but he did not hesitate. This vessel was perfect. Her talent for divine descent was unprecedented. Her spiritual output was so immense that had she not subconsciously desired power, he wouldn't have even been able to transmit his mental whispers to her. If he could claim this priestess, his true resurrection would no longer be a mere dream. The Demon King had no intention of letting this once-in-a-centuries opportunity slip away.
"Now, feel it! Just how powerless the false idol you worship truly is!"
Soon, the yellowish-brown haze made contact with the rosary. It wrapped like a serpent around the Sacred Relic, which rippled with black particles. The ancient Demon King acted swiftly. A Sacred Relic imbued with a god's aura. It was an item that proved a Constellation's favor, but right now, that worked against them. Those who called themselves gods—the ascended Constellations and fallen Demon Kings—all possessed their own sanctuaries. Demon Kings claimed their demon castles as their sanctuaries, while ascended Constellations were granted their own domains in the celestial realm. Under normal circumstances, the ancient Demon King would never have been able to reach the domain of the ascended. But this time, he had a clear compass. A Sacred Relic that proved a connection to a Constellation. By tracing that path backward, he could find the coordinates. The Demon King projected his consciousness toward the place linked to the Sacred Relic.
'Sensing the faint trace of Order from the Sacred Relic, this must be the domain of a lower Constellation serving Order.' He could easily handle that. In the celestial realm, the constraints of causality were weaker compared to the Continent. There, by consuming his stored power, he could temporarily exert his prime strength. Furthermore, if it was merely a subordinate Constellation and not Order itself, severing the priestess's connection and seizing her supreme vessel would be child's play! Dreaming of his resurrection, the Demon King traversed the spiritual pathway. In an instant, he arrived at the sanctuary. The Demon King gathered his power for a swift, decisive strike, and—
——!!
"...What?!"
He saw it. A colossal figure. Seated upon a throne of indistinguishable material, positioned at the center of countless windows displaying different images. A being that gazed in all directions with deep, dark blue eyes like the currents of the deep sea.
'Is this not a subordinate Constellation of Order? No, is this even a Constellation at all...?!' The Demon King's soul stared blankly at the entity.
The face, appearing to be in his late twenties, was remarkably ordinary. His haggard expression as he slumped into the throne almost looked comical at a glance. Yet, the Demon King did not dare mock him. For a spiritual entity sealed within a ring perceived its opponent with far more than just physical sight.
'The constraints are bizarre. No, there are no rules here to begin with. If this were a place touched by Order, this would be impossible...!'
The entire space crushed his soul, scraping away at its very contours like a grater. The concentration of mana was unnaturally high. It was as if the mana that should have been dispersed across the entire Continent—an entire planet—had been crammed into a tiny cage. Consequently, its flow was violently turbulent. It was chaos incarnate. Centered around that colossal being, mana particles expanded and condensed. Even the Continent's most notorious magic zones, famous for their erratic mana flows, were infinitely tranquil compared to this place. Comparing the two would be like pitting a ripple on a lake against a raging ocean wave. Before such a torrent, even the ancient Demon King's soul struggled to maintain its form.
Mana was merely the most obvious manifestation of this chaos. Concepts far superior to it were also fluctuating irrationally. Causality was no exception. The primordial laws, the very force that prevented Constellations and Demon Kings from turning the Continent upside down at whim, wavered erratically in this chaotic space. One moment, it relaxed enough to allow him to draw upon his peak strength; the next, it tightened with suffocating precision, as if trying to erase his very existence. That alone shattered his plans. If he gathered his strength during a lax moment, he would be instantly obliterated the second causality tightened again. In the face of lawless chaos, calculation and logic held no meaning.
Consequently, the Demon King's soul had no choice but to shrink to an infinitesimally small size. In truth, this was likely his natural scale here. Even with the grand techniques of a Demon King who once ruled the Continent, maintaining a size no larger than a human palm was the absolute limit. And that was precisely why the Demon King was struck with horror.
'How is he maintaining that size in this chaotic space? How can he wear such a serene expression? It is as if he were born from this very chaos!'
Could the dawn of creation have been like this? He stood in the center of a massive vortex where all concepts and laws fluctuated, yet that being maintained the size of an ordinary human. If so, how colossal was his true form? Or... perhaps... was this chaos itself merely the interior of that being's body?
As long as one claimed to be a god, no matter how much they blocked their senses, they would inevitably feel the violent flow of mana. Yet, that being merely hugged a doll with a peaceful expression. He calmly cradled the very source of this chaotic mana, this incomprehensible anomaly, in his arms.
'This is impossible. Such a thing, such a being cannot exist...!!' The Demon King, who had run rampant without fear his entire life, suddenly felt an entirely foreign sensation. A suffocating tension that made his non-existent heart pound wildly. This was what mortals called awe. For the first time in his existence, the Demon King felt true terror.
His body froze. Even though he was a bodiless soul projecting through a spiritual link, his non-material joints locked up. The Demon King stared at the ancient being, not daring to move a single finger.
Before long, the gaze that had been scanning the countless windows shifted. It locked eyes with the Demon King's soul. The Demon King could easily read the emotion dwelling within those dark blue eyes. Annoyance. That was all.
Whoosh! The being lightly waved his hand. It was a gesture filled with the sheer irritation of shooing away a bug. The careless swipe didn't even touch the contours of his soul. Yet, the turbulent torrent of chaos that surged in response to that simple gesture was more than enough to tear the Demon King's form apart.
The Demon King's soul acted instantly. He had to survive. He had to go back. He fled back down the path he came, running for his life. He prayed that the being's hand would not pursue him. There was no shame in fleeing. A man who draws his sword against a typhoon is not brave; he is merely a fool.
I scratched my cheek awkwardly. It was because of the hallucination I had just seen. It looked like a yellowish-brown monkey had entered the observation room, rather than just appearing on the monitor.
"Tsk. A hallucination. I thought I overcame this kind of mental illness a long time ago."
Maybe I had gotten too comfortable lately because life had become a bit more bearable. Still, it was a relief I managed to shoo it away easily this time. If two or three of them had shown up like in the old days and started throwing tantrums...
'...I don't even want to think about it.'
I let out a sigh and looked back at the monitor. On the screen, Seraphina was conversing with the ring with a confident expression.