Chapter 312
Chapter 312
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Reversal (2)
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-Y-You...! You!!
-Ah, pleasure, pleasure— Aaaah...!!!
Even among the swarming darkness that resembled a cluster of insects, there existed sentient beings.
While some entities scattered only primal instincts, others revealed fragments of ego and reason.
They gazed upon the transparent crystal scattered on the floor and let out deep sighs.
The fragment of pleasure that had once sealed the immortal darkness now emanated pure purity alone.
The implication was clear.
Annihilation.
The demons fell into extreme chaos.
An absolute, immortal existence.
How could they associate such a being with the concept of annihilation?
-Ah, aaa... Impossible... Impossible...
Some felt terror at the fact.
-Pleasure, aaa... My lord— Aaa...!!!
Others felt rage at the fact.
Within the darkness, various emotions and thoughts intertwined.
If.
If they had sufficient leisure and time, they might have coalesced it into some rational conclusion.
For they were beings who served the common master known as Pleasure.
Crunch.
However.
Crack—
They had neither leisure nor time right now.
The Holy Demon Swordsman.
He was roughly tearing open the rift's crevice.
The darkness trapped within the armor alongside the light seemed to foreshadow their future.
-Ah, how dare you— How dare you...!!!
Darkness.
To them, who had unilaterally conquered and ravaged, this was an utterly unfamiliar experience.
And profoundly humiliating.
Terror. Despair. Humiliation. Rage.
Fierce emotions piled upon fierce emotions.
Piling up, piling up, piling up—they lost even the faint reason they had possessed from the start.
Thus, from now on, it was the realm of instinct.
As they had always done, they sought to unilaterally ravage and devour the things outside the darkness.
Shatter!
The intentions on both sides aligned.
The rift opened wide, like eyelids of an awakening eye.
-Grrrrrrrrrr—
-Aaaagagagaga—!
-Kiyaaaaaaa—!
The confined darkness overflowed.
Countless demons surrendered to instinct and charged toward the world outside the darkness.
And so, one by one.
The first demon to lunge at the Holy Demon Swordsman vanished.
It was a natural annihilation, as if a shadow cast out into the light.
Thus, the chain reaction began.
The innumerable demons surging toward the Holy Demon Swordsman like a massive wave lost their forms without hesitation.
At first, they resembled swarms of insects flying toward fire.
But—
-Kiyaaaaaaa—...!
-Aa, aaaa, aaaaa—...!
-You'll writhe in agony and die—...!
The unchanging pattern, even as their momentum grew, gradually shattered causality.
At some point, it no longer appeared as a torrent of darkness.
The light seemed to pursue the darkness, even though it stood still.
The darkness seemed to flee in reverse, even as it charged forward.
All of it was a spectacle forged from countless immortal deaths.
"My God..."
Fienne and her companions, watching the scene nearby, were tormented by an intense sense of unreality.
Rishir.
His influence over negation was something they had long understood through repeated experiences.
However, the unilateral ravaging unfolding before their eyes was more than enough to overshadow all prior understanding.
"It's probably because they're lesser demons..."
All they could do was rationalize it somehow to convince themselves.
-St-Stop...!!!
-Get out of the way, get out of the way!!!
Reason paralyzed, dominated by instinct.
Even amid that, the darkness sensed something was wrong.
-Aaa, don't push— Don't push!!!
-No, no!!!
Terror.
One emotion protruded amid the mix.
The irrational direction they had been expressing twisted.
The darkness no longer charged blindly at the Holy Demon Swordsman.
The darkness thrashed to close the rift somehow.
Screeech—
However, it was insufficient to shake off the Holy Demon Swordsman's grip widening the rift.
Crrackle—
Thus, the darkness instead began to pry the rift open with all its might.
If the narrow entrance was being blocked by the Holy Demon Swordsman, they just needed to widen it.
Splurt!
The Holy Demon Swordsman immediately tightened his grip, but it was already too late.
-Aa, Plea, Pleasure— Aa...!!!
Darkness leaked out.
A strand of darkness detached from the rift and prowled the room.
It was a mid-tier demon leading a mass of lesser demons, all having shed form to become pure energy.
"...Ah! Everyone, scatter!"
Rishir's comrades hurriedly took action.
They had to exert every effort to shake off the overwhelming dissonance pressing down on them.
The sight of them being pitifully swept away just moments ago lingered in their vision.
Unlike named demons, these possessed markedly lower ranks.
Even so.
They were undoubtedly demons.
Indisputably the most dangerous existences in this world.
"Attack! Right there—"
"Got it, Lunadien!"
Though each was a powerhouse wielding the might of a group, they did not relax their vigilance.
Confronting demons could not be resolved by strength alone.
They moved in perfect unison, herding the leaked darkness into a corner.
-Zwinni! Can those things handle it on their own!?
Rishir.
It was a voice reaching him as he focused on the rift.
'What's this, Dungallon? Worried about the humans?'
-Th-Those verm—... No, aren't those humans precious to you, Zwinni!?
Rishir burst into laughter inside his helmet.
'That's right. People I like and respect. So—'
Grip.
Rishir tightened his hold on the rift and stared into it.
If he closed the rift now, the immediate crisis would be resolved.
But.
If that were the goal, he wouldn't have reopened it in the first place.
'The moment we tried to destroy the Greater Demon's fragment, it pinpointed our location and came...'
That was all the information he had.
Utterly insufficient to infer its exact nature or principles.
But.
Even amid that, one thing was clear—
'If we leave it be, it'll cause trouble later for sure.'
Destroy it.
Rishir had long steeled his resolve.
'The problem is, how the hell do we destroy it—'
Rishir peered into the rift's interior.
-Kyaaaaak!!!
Even now, the rift ceaselessly spewed darkness.
It wouldn't be strange if the rift acted up again, leaking more darkness.
For example.
He couldn't fully close it or fully open it.
-Now I see you, now I see you...
-Bugs... Comrades... Cherish... Here...
-Your comrades... Pitifully... Tear... To shreds...
Mocking laughter from the darkness within the rift echoed.
Truly cunning demons.
They read deception in Rishir's momentary flicker of concern and found a vulnerability.
The essence of the Holy Demon Swordsman was ultimately a frail human—
And his comrades were relatively vulnerable to darkness. They had discerned that.
Now they knew how to topple the Holy Demon Swordsman.
Grind—
The rift shuddered.
As if closing—
As if opening—
The blatant fluctuations in force made the Holy Demon Swordsman's hand tremble.
-.........
-.........
-.........
-.........
The darkness's mocking laughter grew clearer.
The darkness actively mocked and exploited the Holy Demon Swordsman's impasse, unable to do either.
Close it fully?
Open it fully?
The Holy Demon Swordsman could do nothing.
So the darkness believed.
"Everyone! I'll leave the rear to you!"
The Holy Demon Swordsman thrust his body toward the rift.
-..........
-..........
-..........
-..........
-..........
The darkness wavered.
It had never imagined he would turn his back on the light and enter the darkness of his own accord.
Of course.
It was merely momentary bewilderment.
Beings of light.
They rightly feared the darkness.
The darkness was confident.
No matter who, they couldn't maintain themselves wholly in the domain of darkness!
They tried to read the Holy Demon Swordsman's deception.
To find hesitation and fear, then thoroughly exploit the gap.
"Rishir!? What— Are you really okay!? Do you even know what's in there!?"
"No idea!"
And the ensuing conversation.
"But let's give it a shot anyway!"
It bewildered not only his comrades but even the enemy.
There was no trace of the hesitation the darkness so desired.
Before doubts could even arise.
Rishir had already stepped through the rift.
"Ri—...!"
-You no—...!!!
Shouts from both sides cut off simultaneously.
The rift fully closed.
By a being from outside the darkness, within the darkness.
Thus, silence descended upon the place.
Splurt!
The rift abruptly reopened.
"What!?"
Rishir's group fell into shock.
The largest mass of dark energy yet squeezed through the gap.
Crunch!
Immediately seized by a hand bursting from within the gap, it annihilated.
"..."
-...
Complete silence enveloped the place.
At the center of the room grew the World Tree.
The two Archmages and numerous powerhouses guarded the area.
Re-sealing the leaked darkness was not so difficult.
Of course, not entirely easy either.
"Hoo..."
Disrupted breaths flowed rhythmically in the quiet space.
The strand of darkness confined within the intangible barrier.
Gazes concentrated on it, emotions crossing.
"Ha!"
Someone let out a scoff.
The sight of themselves breaking a sweat to seal a mere fragment of darkness.
Overlaid upon that was the figure of one man.
More than anything—
-Aaaaaa...!
-Let, let go of this...!
-Before he comes...!!!
They witnessed it for the first time.
A sealed demon trembling in such fear.
The darkness that had boasted immortality and mocked finite light had vanished without a trace.
"By the way—"
Moments later.
They shifted their gaze from the barrier elsewhere.
-.....
The rift.
Neither fully closed nor open, it revealed the darkness's interior.
"Rishir's still in there—?"
Someone's mutter.
They all moved to the rift at once.
"The one with the shortest lifespan should lead by example."
"Wait, Duke Palrag!?"
Palrag tried to thrust his hand into the rift.
"Even if I can't go with Rishir, at least I can greet him—...!?"
His eyes widened mid-sentence.
Palrag hastily withdrew his hand.
"Duke Palrag!? Are you alright!?"
"..."
Palrag frantically looked down at his hand.
He had merely approached the rift.
Just that, yet his fingertips were blackened as if soaked in darkness.
An ominous hue that seemed impossible to dispel.
But it vanished fleetingly.
When he tentatively extended it toward the World Tree, the energy purified instantly.
"It's the World Tree after all!?"
Someone cried out in astonishment.
"That's a power it didn't originally have."
Lunadien countered in a weary voice.
"...Rishir after all!?"
Someone corrected.
No rebuttals.
Silence descended once more.
"What in the world—"
They could only blankly watch the darkness beyond the rift.
Was it an illusion?
The void darkness that had seemed to swallow even light appeared slightly brighter.
The sudden phenomenon turned the place into pandemonium.
"Block it! By any means!!! We absolutely cannot let that open!"
They had originally gathered to seal the 'Fragment of Pleasure.'
But now.
They had completely forgotten the fragment's existence, focusing on something else.
Crack—
Space suddenly split, revealing endless darkness beyond the gap.
"This happening the moment we try to seal the Greater Demon's fragment...!"
The Greater Demon's fragment and the rift of darkness.
Sensing a clear connection between them, they poured all their power into sealing the rift.
"Yeokcheon! Don't just stand there, do something!!! Are you planning to move only after I'm exhausted and collapse!?"
A giant overlooking the rift from a far higher vantage—
The Star of Yeokcheon twisted his expression.
"Yeah, figures. You know all I can do is punch, right?"
"Argh, seriously!!!"
A figure retaining a boy's appearance bellowed.
The Star of Radiance.
He jabbed his chin toward the rift confined in his barrier and said.
"You serious!? You think whatever comes out of there can be handled with punches!?"
"Fuck! Then what do you want me to do!? What the hell is this shitshow anyway!?"
"Like I'd know!?"
The bickering of the cornered duo didn't last long.
Crackle!
"Urk...!"
A massive wave transmitted from beyond the rift.
Cracks spread through the barrier.
-Kyaaaaak!!!
The dark roar escaping the gap.
"N-No...!!!"
Radiance squeezed out every last drop of power with a scream.
A vision formed in his mind.
Darkness mocking the light, seeking to breach the defenses!
He had to stop the darkness's invasion at all costs.
However—
Crackle!
Crackle!
Crackle!
The waves grew fiercer.
-Gaaaaak!!!
-Hweeeeeak!!!
-Uhuhuhuhuhu!!!
And the roars.
By now, they sounded like screams of intensity.
Radiance felt he understood the meaning within.
-Yes!
-Thrash all you want!
-You pathetic bug!!!
Crackle!
Crackle!
Crackle!
Repeated assaults.
And mockery.
"Ah..."
Finally spent, Radiance clutched his hands and collapsed in place.
The barrier crumbled.
The dark gap immediately widened, spewing confined darkness.
It was a lump.
A being formed from multiple demons fused together burst out roaring.
But soon, its massive bulk halted in place.
Stab!
An arm pierced through its chest and emerged.
-Ah, ah...!
The lump resisted, but it was futile struggling.
The arm hooked like a claw, dragging it back into the gap.
Now, from beyond the gap came not horrific roars, but a silence that rang louder.
And—
Step.
He was there.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Blood overflowed from the helmet's slits.
Blood and flesh. His body bore traces of devastation everywhere.
Within the armor, darkness and light swirled.
Chaos.
It had manifested, borrowing the knight's form.
"Ah, aaa...!!!"
Radiance fell backward, crawling on the floor.
Overwhelmed by the destructive majesty, he muttered blankly.
"De, Demon God...!"
"Hero?"
"?"
Radiance, forgetting his dire situation, looked at Yeokcheon.
Had fear driven him mad?
'How can he look at that and say hero—'