Quite a Few Levels, Quite by Accident
I ended up gaining quite a few levels without even meaning to.
He hadn't come to the Demon King's Castle for that, truth be told. Still, a good thing was a good thing.
More unexpected spoils than I counted on. Coming here was the right call. I picked up a Fruit of Evolution, and my level jumped a good deal besides.
Level 400 wasn't far off now. The pace of his growth was absurd, and Yujun pressed on with a satisfied smile.
"Manuela."
"What?"
"Do you really think a Transcendent Stone would be sitting somewhere demons wander around in the open? Wouldn't our odds be better if we headed somewhere out of the way?"
"There's a hidden space not far from here that the other demons don't know about."
"And how do you know that? A prophecy?"
"Not a prophecy. More of a witch's intuition, I suppose."
That damned intuition. Yujun's face tightened with frustration. Even so, he couldn't dismiss a hunch out of hand. His own summon, Paranet, had instincts that were anything but poor, and following the fellow's word had never once cost him.
That was when they appeared — a column of demons with no end in sight. A rough count put them in the hundreds. No. Thousands, easily. Yet they paid Yujun's party no attention at all, hurrying toward the upper floors as if something urgent were driving them.
"…What's this?"
"Could the Demon King be in danger?" Do Jiyun said.
It wasn't an unreasonable guess. If Tolkai's condition had turned critical, or if he had been driven into a crisis—
Manuela shook her head. "I don't think so. Those are Duke Jonas's demons."
"…Jonas had that many under him?"
"Not his subordinates, strictly speaking. They only happened to share his aims. Even so, there's no doubt they're on his side."
"There are far more of them than we saw before we entered the castle."
"Jonas used his head. He never called his real fighting strength to that gathering."
"…Ah."
More meticulous than Yujun had given him credit for. With a force of this size, and with the number of demons Yujun himself had already dealt with, it no longer seemed impossible for Jonas to seize the Demon King's throne.
Can't let this chance slip.
The demons who had just gone up would do a great deal to split the Demon King's army's attention. All he had to do in the meantime was find the Transcendent Stone.
The Demon King's Castle was swallowed in chaos. It was nothing like the usual order, held in check by powerful guard demons. Corpses of demons lay strewn through every hall, and someone's scream rang out without end.
The castle had become a shambles. Even so, its master, Demon King Tolkai, was perfectly at ease. He had raised hundreds of scrying orbs and was watching, in real time, everything unfolding within his walls.
"Amusing."
A smile touched the corner of Tolkai's mouth. It was not a show of composure, nor empty bluster. He genuinely found the situation entertaining.
I expected Duke Jonas to raise his banner. I did not expect him to have prepared this thoroughly.
Jonas himself, in truth, was no great problem. What nagged at Tolkai were three undead and one witch. A Lich Lord that had manifested like a divinity had been tearing through the Demon King's Castle, and the thousands of demons sent to deal with it had lost their lives.
A mere undead, stronger even than Duke Jonas.
An unforeseen variable. He was not rattled by it. However powerful a mage might be, every mage had a natural enemy — and a mage's natural enemy was the Demon King himself. He did not fear that Lich Lord, for all the tremendous majesty it displayed.
What in the world is that lich looking for?
He could not tell. Nor could he understand why the undead and the witch, who seemed to be on Jonas's side, were heading for the lower floors rather than the upper ones. The Demon King scratched his head with a thick finger.
So Duke Jonas has finally reached the ninetieth floor.
The forces he still had left inside the castle were not many.
Well. It doesn't matter.
Tolkai was hardly unaware that Duke Jonas had prepared and planned this with meticulous care. A meaningful smile crossed his face.
"Found it!"
Yujun had rarely been so glad to hear words blurted out of Manuela.
"The Transcendent Stone?"
"Not that. The place I saw in my vision."
"The place where someone used a Transcendent Stone?"
"Yeah."
"Where?"
Yujun's party stood at the end of a very wide corridor on the twenty-fifth floor. Manuela did not answer him. She closed her eyes and remained that way for a long while.
"There really was a hidden space."
"So where is it?"
"A space made an incredibly — in-cre-dibly — long time ago."
"…Don't tell me you imagined it again."
"Yeah."
Prophecy. Witches prophesied as a matter of course, over things great and small. He had no idea why. Perhaps they were simply born that way.
"It just came to you again, didn't it?"
"Yeah."
"Can you really prophesy this often? You're looking at the future. Aren't there limits?"
"A high-grade pureblood like me has no problem at all. The downside is that I can't see the future when I want to."
Manuela said it as if she were complaining, but that alone was already extraordinary. Future Sight with no price attached.
Even so, Ju Donghyeon's ability still seems better.
Either way, it had worked out.
"How do we get there?"
"There's a mechanism linked to that hidden space. We have to find the mechanism first."
"Okay."
He activated as many search spells as he could sustain. At the limit of what his mana would hold, thirty-eight waves of power stretched out in every direction — thirty-eight search spells cast at once. It was possible only because Yujun possessed a staggering reserve of mana. The whole of the twenty-fifth floor was blanketed in it.
He stood still, eyes closed, and focused on his senses. The number of demons had dropped considerably. The relentless tide that had kept pouring in was nowhere to be found; only demons with nothing to do with this affair passed by.
Looks like the Demon King's army doesn't have much strength left.
He had to find the Transcendent Stone while the opening lasted, and with that thought he poured mana into the search spells without restraint.
Vmmm. Drrrr…
A faint vibration reached him from above. Not from the floor directly overhead — from somewhere much farther up.
Has Jonas started fighting the Demon King in earnest? Perfect.
If so, there would be no spare force to send down here. The search grew easier. Even so, a place unknown even to the Demon King was not something they could uncover quickly. Yujun's party spent a full hour more that way, and they did not spend it in vain. They found the mechanism.
Shaped almost like a machine, it was hidden with cunning care among the ornate murals on the wall.
"What do I do here?"
"Just pull it."
"That's it?"
"Yeah."
Yujun did not hesitate. He hauled the mechanism toward himself.
Krrk.
The wall began to rotate — and the floor beneath their feet with it. In the blink of an eye they stood on the far side, inside the wall.
"Whoa…"
Do Jiyun looked around with shining eyes. What opened before them was nothing like the corridor of the Demon King's Castle they had just been standing in. Green grass, and warm light pouring down from lamps set in the ceiling. The space was artificial, and yet it felt peaceful. Here and there he even caught sight of small herbivores — squirrels, rabbits.
"The Transcendent Stone is in here?"
"Yeah. We came to the right place." Manuela smiled and nodded at Yujun's question.
"In your vision it was some luxurious castle, wasn't it?"
"Right."
"I don't see anything like a castle."
"Which is why we keep looking. You didn't think the Transcendent Stone would come easy, did you?"
"Fair enough."
She was right. A Transcendence-grade item that, in all likelihood, no one currently possessed — and the Transcendent Stone was the only thing that could put such an item in his hand. A little hardship was nothing.
I do feel a bit bad for Jiyun, though.
He had asked her, out of nowhere, to come with him to the Demon Realm, and she had gotten tangled up with the Demon King besides. Honestly, even with their old acquaintance from the game, it could have been an unreasonable request. He felt no small gratitude toward her for following without a word of complaint. She had helped him a great deal early on, too.
I'll have to repay her later.
Yujun wandered the grass as if he had come on an outing.
Not bad.
It had been a very long time since he had felt this kind of leisure. The Demon King's Castle was surely in an uproar by now, but this place, at least, was quiet. The park of grass and trees was not especially large. That was a relief.
Yujun cast the search spell again. Standing still, he spread his mana, and about five more minutes passed.
There was a scarecrow. It looked suspicious, so he went to check at once.
"Yujun. There's an old scrap of paper clutched in its right hand."
"Paper?"
He looked over what Do Jiyun handed him.
Power that surpasses limits. A crisis of life and death. An overwhelming powerhouse. Hunt, or slay.
Only then will you obtain what you desire. The ordained order twists.
The words translated themselves. That was all of it.
"What do you think these words mean?"
"They seem related to the Transcendent Stone. I don't really know either."
"Ah."
Manuela studied the lines closely, then let out a gasp.
"What?"
"I think I know what they mean."
"We can read the words too."
"I'm talking about the meaning inside them." She shot Yujun a glare. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Like what? Just — be quiet for a second."
She went silent for a while, as if concentrating on something, and then she spoke.
"We have to kill the Demon King."
"What?"
"We have to kill the Demon King to get the Transcendent Stone."
"It doesn't say that."
"It's a method high-ranking demons in the Demon Realm used long ago, when they exchanged documents. Nobody uses it now, and I doubt many demons even know it. Well, two thousand years have passed. That's a very long time even for demons."
"How do you know it, then?"
She didn't answer.
"Well?"
"…Because I was there then."
"Ah…"
The silence sat between them.
"So we just have to kill the Demon King? Then we automatically get the Transcendent Stone?"
"I don't know. It might be handed over right away. There might be something else we have to do."
"The one who made this space prepared the Transcendent Stone, right? Why?"
"No idea."
He had plenty of questions, but there was no way Manuela would know the answers. Yujun let out a heavy sigh.
"Then our destination is set."