The Starting Point Reset
Slaughtering the Demon King's army I'd finally faced after ten days, one question kept circling in my mind.
Why had the Demon King, whom I'd observed steadily through the White Feather Fan, never moved from the spot near the Demonic World Tree where he'd flown in and landed?
Fortunately, I could finally derive the answer to that question.
'The Demon King asked me how I traveled here when we first encountered each other.'
When Aria unleashed her wide-area magic and the Demon King revealed himself, there would have been no way for him to know the situation inside the defensive line. Under normal circumstances, he would have assumed I'd been lying in wait, or that I'd simply joined the battle late.
And yet he asked his question with absolute certainty that I had traveled from somewhere else.
'In other words, the Demon King knew I'd been fighting to the northwest.'
I twisted a monster's neck and, using Yildun, hurled myself toward the region where the demons were packed most densely. A colossal explosion thundered out, and magic stones rained down over ground soaked in blood.
'So then — can the Demon King's army share information with one another through some kind of power?'
If that hypothesis held true, then the reason the Demon King hadn't moved was to gather intelligence through his own troops. And that information would no doubt have centered on a single question: how did Rohen know exactly where I was, and how did he get here?
'He may not know about the White Feather Fan, but he's realized I can keep him under surveillance.'
Maybe that was why, even as I held back the monsters and demons here, I couldn't shake off a creeping sense of unease.
Everything had gone too smoothly — and sure enough, here we were.
At any rate, now that I had my clue, how was I supposed to respond?
The White Feather Fan's smallest unit of stored time was one full day. Which meant that for the rest of today, deducing the Demon King's movements was impossible.
'...Fine. I'll just have to kill the Demon King as many times as I can before he catches on to the fan's limitations.'
Watching the Demon King's army fall back to regroup, I slipped back inside the Second Defense Line with no time even to catch my breath, and drew out the White Feather Fan.
The current time was 11:30 p.m.
Having obtained whatever information he wanted from his army, this time he would surely begin to move. The one mercy was that the Demon King's army had arrived in the morning — no. It hadn't. Thanks to that stroke of fortune, the quick war of attrition was over, and thirty minutes remained until midnight.
With a soft hiss, the last grains of sand slid through the hourglass — the moment of reversal, announcing that a day had passed.
I refined the White Feather Fan and peered into the Demon King's past. The vantage point: 11:59.
Pinpointing exactly where the Demon King was right now — that was what mattered most.
"Guh—!"
Space and time collapsed, and what lay revealed in the uncovered scene was a panorama of imperial soldiers dying.
The knights wrapped themselves in aura and tried to face the Demon King as well, but the reflexes and speed born of the sheer difference in their bodies were simply beyond them, and they were being cut down helpless before him.
It was only one minute's worth of vision, so the past seen through the White Feather Fan quickly returned me to reality.
"Rohen?"
"I have to go."
"Now?"
"If I don't go now, this will become a catastrophe."
There was no time to write anything down, so I imbued my reply with the power of Lingual Magic.
The location was the Second Defense Line of the Asis Duchy. Duke Asis — Lapis's father and one of the Empire's Aura Masters — was there, but even he would have his limits.
Thinking there was no time to waste, I dispelled the White Feather Fan's refinement and rose to my feet.
"Rohen. This war... isn't yours to fight alone, is it?"
"Of course not."
I pulled Aria into my arms — head bowed, fist clenched tight — and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips.
"I have no intention of shouldering everything by myself."
I was greedy in my own way, too. I had no intention of making some noble sacrifice in this great war, and not a single shred of me wanted to die.
"I'll be back."
"Come back safe."
Through spatial transference, I crossed from Javelin County to the Second Defense Line of the Asis Duchy. A wave of nausea rose up and shook my mind, but I shook it off, lifted my head — and found pandemonium sprawled before me.
"W-We're all going to die!"
"How are we supposed to stop that?!"
"Don't panic! Charge! Isn't that why we're standing here — because we have something to protect?!"
"I want to go home to my family alive, sir!"
"I don't want to die!"
The staff officer here was commanding the troops in Duke Asis's stead — the Duke himself had led a sortie beyond the defensive line — but fear had rendered his control meaningless.
Taking in that scene, I rose to my feet and walked, step by heavy step, toward the fortress gate. The soldiers I passed had their heads buried in despair; not one of them even noticed my arrival.
"Wh-Who goes there...?"
When I forced the gate open from the inside with a shove of strength, the startled soldiers' gazes snapped toward me all at once.
"H-His Highness the Prince!"
"War isn't fought with your head bowed."
The moon had risen. I loosened the cloak that had been holding back the cold-soaked, howling wind.
"You raise your head to see the enemy, don't you? We haven't lost yet — so don't you dare bow it!"
If the Demon King had seen through the White Feather Fan's limitations and seized the initiative, then I would simply reset everything back to zero. Once his count of complete immunities against any method that had killed him once ran low, even Aura Masters and Overlords would become a truly dire threat to him — and at that point he would never again act alone as he was now!
Honestly speaking, I wanted to hoard the Faith I'd so desperately scraped together just a little longer — but I knew this was no time for that.
"Don't be afraid! I am here!"
Corny words, perhaps. But what these men needed was a spiritual pillar.
And then I opened the Divine Instrument menu of my refinement.
[ Adding Ruyi Jingu Bang to the Divine Instrument menu. ]
[ Faith required to refine the Ruyi Jingu Bang: 30,000. ]
"I'll pay it all."
[ The Ruyi Jingu Bang's refinement rate has reached 100%. ]
Beyond the slowly grinding-open gates of the Second Defense Line, the Demon King came into view, conducting his massacre.
I advanced, treading over a battlefield where the soldiers' blood flowed in rivers across the earth. I'd never imagined this would turn into some convenient fantasy where I shed not a single drop of blood myself.
"Refinement."
The divine instrument of the Great Sage Equal to Heaven — the Ruyi Bang — settled into my right hand.
"One-Way Road."
I killed my presence and set my stance. But I couldn't suppress my killing intent after all — the Demon King swung his gaze straight toward me.
"Well met, you bastard—!"
The Demon King frantically leapt backward, but the Ruyi Bang could widen its area of effect as well.
"Stretch!"
The staff's extension was instantaneous — a single flash. A Ruyi Bang rivaling Jormungandr's true form carved across the earth and swallowed the Demon King whole.
It was so massive I questioned whether it could even be swung — yet the Ruyi Bang imposed no penalty whatsoever on its wielder.
"Th-That's incredible...!"
A weapon of mass destruction that crushed a thousand enemies with a single sweep. Steep cliffs towered on both sides, leaving the battlefield narrow — which made the Demon King's army's losses all the more devastating.
They must have assumed a weapon of this size couldn't possibly be wielded properly. But its swing was no different in speed from a sword swung at full strength, so its power was, without exaggeration, absolute and invincible.
Blood sprayed from the demons and monsters bursting like insects under a pressed thumb, covering over the blood my own soldiers had spilled.
"Mirror Flower, Water Moon."
Mirror Flower, Water Moon unfolded across the field, spewing forth phantoms and buying the soldiers their window to retreat.
"Everyone, fall back inside the gates!"
"Your Highness! Allow me to join you as well!"
Duke Asis came to my side, shielding the retreating soldiers, his eyes smoldering with fury. The knights behind him stood rooted in place, as if vowing to avenge their fallen comrades no matter what.
The blood caked on their armor likely belonged not only to monsters and demons, but to their own soldiers as well.
But when I shook my head, Duke Asis answered with unyielding resolve.
"A knight is the sword of the state, raised to protect its people."
How characteristically stubborn of him — Lapis's father, through and through. I gave a faint smile, took a moment to steady my breath, and spoke.
"I have a duty to protect the people. And the knights are among those people."
And so—
"You will withdraw inside."
"Your Highness!"
"You would only be in the way."
"...!"
"I have no confidence I can face the Demon King while protecting someone."
At my words, Duke Asis chewed on his lips in helplessness, then clenched his fists.
"...I withdraw."
"Duke!"
"We withdraw. Now."
It wasn't something I enjoyed saying. But cruel as it was, it was the plain truth.
Duke Asis must have cooled his heated head enough to think it through and conclude that I was right, for he bent his pride. He was probably the one who resented it most of all.
The knights seemed to understand this too, for they raised no further objections and silently began to move.
"Equal Ground."
Shrinking the extended Ruyi Bang back down, I cast Equal Ground upon the Demon King standing in the distance — and the two of us faced each other across the battlefield.
Over the night sky, where a hushed stillness had settled, a fine rain began to fall.
"Don't you think trying to wage a war alone is greed?"
"That's precisely what I wanted to say to you."
As my grip tightened on the Ruyi Bang, the Demon King flinched and drew back.
"Scared, are we?"
"Is that not your heart tremoring, now that your surveillance has been seen through?"
The Demon King's words struck true. I swept my bangs back and gave a bitter smile.
"Which is why I intend to reset the starting point back to zero."
Beyond the fortress gate, the soldiers' desperate gazes pressed against my back. If the times demanded a hero, then I would gladly don the mask and play the part.
"For the record, I'm a coward — I don't fight battles I can't win."
A light taunt to ease the tension, just a little.
"Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts."
The Hundred Ghosts emerged through the mist. With this, there would be no interference from the Demon King's army.
All I needed to focus on now was this duel with the Demon King alone. I readjusted my grip on the Ruyi Bang and unleashed the Firmament-Parting Staff.
"Humans may not win — but they will always, always come to fight."
The Demon King answered lightly, kicking aside the corpses of soldiers sprawled across the battlefield.
"Is that what they call foolish obstinacy?"
Taking it as his reply to my taunt, I curled a frozen smile across my rigid face.
"Sorry, but when I see that, I call it respect."
I rested the Ruyi Bang across my shoulder and extended its length and girth. The gore of demons and monsters clinging to it pattered down, washed loose by the rain.
Miho had drawn close at some point; seeing this, she quietly reached out and conjured a makeshift umbrella for me—
"Standoff."
Before I could even thank her, I spread the word of domain designation — a prison permitting no escape until one of us lay dead.
Thud!
I drove my heel into the ground.
The falling rain was bitterly cold.