Chapter 121
Chapter 121
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 121
Chapter Title: Lucifer's Weakness
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5.
4.
3.
2.
1.
“Detonate.”
Boom!
A pillar of fire erupted.
The flames spread out like a storm from the explosion.
It packed enough power to evoke a 6th-circle mage’s Fire Storm.
The golem horde that had filled the space in front of the cathedral was shattered in a single instant.
What had felt like an insurmountable great wall collapsed in a heap, just like a house struck by a shell.
The moment the golems crumbled, I shoved Gawain’s back.
Gawain’s eyes flashed.
“As expected, you had a plan all along, my lord.”
[‘Sun Knight Gawain’s loyalty has reached 100%.]
[Gawain’s perfect loyalty unlocks a special ability.]
[*Dragon Subduing Strike: Borrow the power of the dragon to annihilate enemies in one strike. (Consumes all mana)]
‘Dragon Subduing Strike….’
A legendary-grade ability, a swordsmanship skill that could only be learned by surpassing the limits of humanity.
Who would’ve thought Gawain would acquire the skill that Ma Jeongwoo had barely obtained back in the fourteenth round.
I whispered to him with a bright smile.
“Annihilate the enemies. Don’t kill Mammon until I give the signal again.”
“Yes.”
Thud!
With the sound of him kicking off the ground, he charged straight ahead. The battle resumed as the enemies faltered.
With all the golems in the vanguard toppled, the demon soldiers trailing behind froze in fear.
Golems, imps, and the hellhounds following in their wake.
All of them had ground to a halt.
I scanned my surroundings.
No death message for Mammon had arrived yet, so the bastard was definitely still alive.
“……There.”
My finger pointed at a bug not far off. A tiny tick that had survived amid the flame storm.
Gawain swung his sword, and Mammon burst out of the tick’s body—like steam jetting from a boiling kettle.
Slash—
The blade tore into the ground, popping the tick, then halted in midair.
Mammon stood atop Gawain’s sword edge with a sullen expression and spoke to me.
“I didn’t hear anything about a mage?”
No surprise there.
Zero mages had joined this round. Most players had picked survival-friendly jobs like holy knights and priests.
In a hellhole this dangerous, only maniacs like Jo Younggi would opt for mages with their abysmal survival rates….
I thumped the ground with my scythe and replied.
“Guess there isn’t one.”
“……Your brothers had it coming. Lucifer told us to keep an eye on you—and you took out Satan too, didn’t you?”
“How’d you know? You shouldn’t have any news from the north.”
“That’s nothing….”
Did the system tip him off separately? The Satan sub-event shouldn’t have been known to the other archdemons.
Gawain swung his sword once more. Mammon hopped lightly into the air, dodging the strike.
Unlike the other demons, there wasn’t a trace of amusement in him. Was that creepy laugh from before just a battle signal?
He flapped his twig-like wings, whipping up a fierce gust. The hellfire seeping from the ground surged violently.
“Kim Cheonjae, let me make you a proposal. Come under Lucifer now, and I’ll spare your life.”
“……You’re going to let me live?”
“That’s right.”
I nodded with utter exasperation.
“Then I’ll just die.”
“……No regrets?”
“You think I will? No matter how I slice it, you can’t beat me.”
He’d just witnessed the corpse explosion’s power firsthand—half his soldiers vaporized in one shot.
Where the hell was that confidence coming from? His skills were surely just ‘Hide,’ burrowing into other lifeforms, and ‘Combine,’ reassembling fallen golems.
Of course, like the other archdemons I’d faced, I figured this one had at least one more skill I didn’t know about.
I kept talking without closing the distance to Mammon.
The gold and silver golems stationed in the rear hadn’t sortied yet—and what if the bastard had some devastating skill he could only use at close range?
Mammon drifted slowly toward me. I hurled a fallen monster corpse into the air and chanted.
“Corpse Explosion.”
[Activating ‘Corpse Explosion.’]
[Explosion triggered on 1 Imp.]
[Countdown begins: ‘5 seconds.’]
The monster corpse between us detonated, blooming into a massive fireball.
Boom!
He halted his approach and peered down at me.
“I see. So that was the Corpse Explosion skill.”
“Yeah. You’re so pathetic, I gave you a preview before you croak. Figured you should at least know how you died.”
“……Such arrogance.”
“Not the kind of talk you get to dish out.”
“Foolish wretch.”
Sharp, thorn-like dark aura bled from Mammon’s body. I kept my eyes locked on him while backing away slowly.
The golems downed by the blast began rising one by one. Crumpled steel golems unfurled their plates bit by bit; shattered stone golems had their fragments converge and knit back together like clay.
“……Kill them.”
At my order, Gawain, the skeleton soldiers, and the Vietnamese players launched another assault.
We hammered at them relentlessly to stop any reassembly.
Whoosh—
Thud!
Smash them we did, over and over—yet the golems kept regenerating.
I watched Mammon closely, tracking his every move. Even an archdemon had mana limits.
Once that ran dry, he wouldn’t even be able to hide—and that’s when I’d finish him.
I extended my senses in all directions, staying vigilant.
Not just for Mammon, but for any potential ambush from Japanese players too.
Mammon, who’d been endlessly reviving golems, abruptly stopped chanting.
‘Here it comes?’
I readied an attack—only for him to dive at the ground and gnaw into an imp corpse.
Crunch!
Bones ground audibly between his teeth.
The sheer bizarreness froze me solid. It was too shocking—like a modded zombie scarfing down a body to heal.
[‘Greed’s Mammon’ uses Corpse Absorption.]
[Health regeneration and mana regeneration greatly increased for 60 seconds.]
‘……What?’
I caught sight of his blood-smeared face. The health bar over his head filled back up steadily. The explosion had shaved off one full segment earlier, but now he was at full HP.
“Damn it.”
My gut screamed it.
This fight was going to be way tougher than I’d bargained for. Never imagined our matchup would be this bad—if he pulled that trick, he could revive golems indefinitely.
Which meant my summons, limited by their health pools, would get overrun eventually.
“……Hoo.”
No helping it?
There was one way to take him down. Release the souls of the Vietnamese players I’d summoned, then Revive the golems to keep them from regenerating.
The catch? I wouldn’t be able to revive the Vietnamese players afterward.
Michael could only bring them back if they weren’t infected and their bodies weren’t too mangled.
Cancel the summons now, and it’d only be a matter of time before their bodies turned to mincemeat.
In other words, it meant I could revive all the Vietnamese players again.
I called out cautiously to Mammon.
“Hey.”
“Too late. Don’t even think about crawling under Lucifer now.”
“Not that. Just wanted to ask one thing before I kill you.”
“……Out with it.”
“Whose side are you on—Lucifer’s or Beelzebub’s?”
My question twisted his face into a grimace. His eyes sharpened; it had clearly struck a nerve.
“Lucifer’s, obviously. Why would I serve a worm like Beelzebub?”
“Because Beelzebub’s the strongest demon in Hell.”
“Beelzebub?”
Mammon’s stony expression melted into mirth. He burst into roaring laughter, as if I’d told the dumbest joke imaginable.
“Puhahaha! Beelzebub stronger than Lord Lucifer? What nonsense! Don’t you know he’s locked up after losing to Lucifer?”
“But Lucifer lost to the angels and got sealed too, didn’t he?”
“That was the angels. Beelzebub lost to Lucifer.”
“Yeah?”
“Obviously. He’s got no chance against Lord Lucifer.”
“Why? I think Beelzebub’s a cut above.”
“That’s—”
He started to speak, then clamped his mouth shut. Something he shouldn’t tell me, apparently.
“Sigh… What’s it to you?”
“……Just. Beelzebub’s about to attack Lucifer soon.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Never mind. You don’t need to know.”
“Spit it out.”
“Forget it. You won’t talk, so why should I?”
I shrugged with a smug grin. Mammon scowled, brows furrowing in suspicion.
“An info swap, is it?”
“Bingo. Smarter than you look.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Why you think Beelzebub’s weaker than Lucifer—and who’s guarding the throne he’s trapped in.”
He tilted his head at my questions, face blank with confusion.
“……Kim Cheonjae.”
“Talk.”
“You’re asking who’s guarding the throne where Beelzebub’s imprisoned?”
“That’s right.”
Mammon fell silent, hovering in place with lazy wingbeats. As I moved to speak again, he twirled a finger in the air and said:
“First off, I reject your info-swap proposal.”
“……Why?”
“Your intel’s next to worthless.”
“Worthless?”
“Yeah. Beelzebub ditched that throne ages ago—how are you still yapping about it?”
Beelzebub left the throne?
The second main flow of the seventh round was literally rescuing him.
Did killing Leviathan early derail the story flow big-time?
No!
The PC version would’ve played out the same. I’d tested skipping Leviathan before.
So Leviathan’s death had zilch to do with the story flow.
“……Lucifer left the throne?”
“Yeah. And you didn’t even know that? Yet you spout off that Beelzebub’s attacking Lucifer? You think that’s possible?”
“……”
“What an idiot. Thought maybe you knew something, but I just wasted time.”
“……”
“My poor brothers, duped by your word games. I’ll rip you limb from limb in their stead.”
Mammon began chanting.
The golems rose again. Once more, my summons clashed with his demons, filling the battlefield with fervor.
As the fight dragged on, my mind raced.
If Beelzebub’s revived, where the hell is he?
And why was Mammon so dead certain Beelzebub couldn’t touch Lucifer? What was the reason?
The Beelzebub I knew radiated an aura on par with Lucifer’s.
“……”
Got it.
I pondered what might’ve changed over those five years I didn’t know about.
The answer hit me as to why he’d said that.
The difference between Beelzebub, once Hell’s king, and Lucifer, Hell’s current king: the innate power of their races.
Beelzebub was pure demon. Lucifer was demon too, but classified as a fallen angel—so he could wield holy power as well.
In short—
Against Lucifer, who commanded both light and darkness, Beelzebub faced an uncrossable wall.
That was my answer.
From talking with him, I’d gained a massive revelation.
I’d found a way to end the fifteenth round I’d failed to close out.
“Thanks, Mammon. Thanks to you, I learned Lucifer’s weakness.”
“……What?”
“Now that I know everything I wanted, you can die.”
“……?”
“Die, Mammon.”
Slash—.