Birth of the Demon God
Kang Hanul was an S-class mental-type Hunter.
He could even read minds.
That was why, even as they acknowledged his skill, the Association staff, fellow Hunters, and ordinary people alike all called him a monster.
Jealous, hateful stares stabbed into his back. Yet he was never lonely.
“This bastard’s spacing out alone again.”
He had one family member left—his blood brother Kang Junwu, who had grown up with him in the orphanage.
“Hey, stop reading people’s thoughts so much. Just treat it like background music.”
“I’m not reading them.”
“For someone who claims that, you sure live pretty conscious of it. Just live however your heart wants.”
Then one day, a mana storm erupted alongside a dungeon. Hanul was swept into it and fell into another dimension.
When he opened his eyes again, the sky was a rotten blood-red. The air was thick with sticky demonic energy.
Every breath felt like his lungs were melting.
“What is this place… Hell?”
He pushed himself up. Starving eyes gleamed from every direction. Howling demonic beasts carpeted the earth, while winged demon swarms ravaged the sky. They seemed to regard Hanul as prey, and they came for him.
Hanul wrung every drop of his mental power to fight them.
He burst the brains of the demonic beasts. He scrambled the demons’ senses until they walked themselves off cliffs.
But there was no end. No matter how many he cut down, crushed, or killed, the legions never thinned.
Hanul’s mental power began to hit rock bottom. His limbs grew heavy—the limit of a mental-type. Demonic energy seized the opening and burrowed in.
Just give up already.
Black mist gnawed at Hanul’s soul.
Become one with us.
You will become a great demon.
Brainwashing began. His self felt as if it were being shredded to pieces, and black spots bloomed across his flesh.
His heart began to turn black. At this rate, he would become a monster that had lost its self.
“Don’t make me laugh.”
He was an S-class mental-type. Even drained, he knew exactly what was happening inside his own mind—and he knew the solution. It was simply a gamble he would have to take.
He did not force out the demonic energy eroding him. Instead, he flung the gates of his soul wide open.
You want corruption? Fine. My ability must look pretty tempting.
The demonic energy that had invaded Hanul’s mind—he honed his remaining mental power into an awl. Then he dissected, one by one, every current of the invading energy.
A vast collective of darkness. As expected, it was something far beyond ordinary demons or beasts. That was why it coveted him and tried to make him a subordinate.
I have to win. If I overcome their demonic energy with my mental power here, I’ll gain resistance. Then…
He stared straight into the slaughterhouse raging in the depths of his soul. Waves of darkness hammered the walls of his brain. Demonic energy bared its fangs and tore at the core of his consciousness.
Hanul swallowed his scream. His lips split and black blood ran. His vision clouded; his ears went dull.
Yet he endured to the end, and within that vast dark current he found a branch. A faint resistance had formed—and the meaning of going from zero to one?
Instead, the poison that was demonic energy slowly began to turn into nourishment. The pain that had been eating his brain transformed into a cool pleasure. His torn self was stitched back together by the demonic energy. The black brand carved into his heart submitted to Hanul’s will. His trembling fingers stilled. The black spots on his skin vanished, and he returned to the appearance of an ordinary human.
That was when it happened. The air rippled, and a form appeared.
“Oh, splendid, human! If your outer form does not mutate and you retain your original appearance, you will make a high-ranking demon—”
“So it was you. The one who tried to brainwash me at the start.”
“What?”
The high-ranking demon faltered at the sight of Hanul, clearly free of any brainwashing.
“…Ghk!”
Their eyes met. Overwhelming mental pressure. The high-ranking demon’s pupils flooded with shock.
“Kh…?! You weren’t brainwashed?”
“You’re awfully casual with your speech. Looks like you need some education first.”
“Don’t make me laugh. Then I’ll use the power of my true body to—Gyaaaaah!”
In that instant, Hanul’s mental power pierced through like an awl—straight into the demon’s mind.
“Keuhk! A-agh! Get out of my head! Please… Gyaaaaah!”
“Just wait a little. I’ll thoroughly carve absolute obedience into your awareness first, then you can go.”
“Ugh… Uwaaaaaaah!”
“Your name is Lucifer, is it? Will you swear loyalty to me, Lucifer? Though I already know the answer.”
Moments later, Lucifer slammed his head to the ground, trembling.
“O-of course! M-Master… Give me your command.”
Hanul smiled coldly. And from that day on, a transcendent being appeared in the Demon Realm.
Kang Hanul. He began to conquer the Demon Realm.
Of course, the deeper he pushed into the Demon Realm, the greater the enemies became. Watcher demons with thousands of eyes tried to peer into Hanul’s mind.
“They bring me nutrients on their own.”
Hanul sneered. He seized their vision in reverse. And then? Thousands of eyes burst all at once. Violet blood soaked the earth. And he subjugated them.
Next came the succubus legion. They projected his most precious memory—of all things, the illusion of his brother Kang Junwu.
Hanul…
Rest a little. Don’t fight anymore.
Come with your brother. If you come here, you can stay with me.
“You bastards dare use my brother’s memory!”
They had touched his reverse scale.
Mental power stormed like a typhoon. The illusions shattered. The succubi’ eardrums burst.
“Gyaaaaah!”
“Aaaagh!”
“That’s the price for spitting those words with my brother’s face.”
At a single word of Hanul’s will, the succubi’s brains overloaded and burned out. Without even a chance to scream, legions numbering in the hundreds of millions, the billions, toppled like autumn leaves.
In the end, the master of the legion—the Succubus Queen, Lilith—dropped to her knees.
“Please… I beg you to forgive me, Demon God.”
Demon God… So that’s what they’re calling me already.
Lucifer had been a mighty force that ruled one axis of the Demon Realm. The Succubus Queen had been the same. But this time he had simply massacred them, and the entire Demon Realm was reeling in shock at Hanul. Demon God—or the Butcher. He was spoken of as a being of awe and dread.
“P-please… I was wrong. Just don’t kill me.”
Thud! Thud!
Lilith smashed her forehead against the ground as she begged.
“In that case…”
At Hanul’s fingertips—whoooosh—the demonic energy he had absorbed through his mental ability had, at some point, formed an entire school of black magic. A black brand rose from his hand.
“Spend the rest of your life dwelling in my shadow and serving me as atonement.”
The brand sank into Lilith’s heart.
“Gyaaaaah!”
With a final death-cry, her eyes turned violet. And a moment later, once the brand was fully set, she raised her head.
“Master… I receive your command.”
Five Archdemons still remained in the Demon Realm. Of the Seven Archdemons, he had subdued two. Since things had come this far, he might as well subdue and tame the remaining five as well.
The unstoppable advance continued. Next, the Ice Archduke who ruled the northern Demon Realm fell first.
The creature charged in, trying to freeze Hanul’s thought circuits. But Hanul’s mental power had already transcended the laws of the Demon Realm.
“Petty tricks. Then I’ll freeze your memories first.”
“Keuhk… Ghk!”
Crack!
With Hanul’s declaration, the Archduke’s self froze solid. An Archdemon who had piled up tens of thousands of years was reduced to an empty shell in an instant.
Brainwashing something like that? Child’s play.
“Baal, the Ice Archduke, hereby offers his loyalty to my lord!”
Next, Hatchery, the Lord of Greed of the southeast. The creature hid behind a legion of hundreds of thousands of demonic beasts. Useless.
“Tear your master apart. Then bring him and offer him to me.”
Hanul’s fundamental mental ability, honed into a spell of black magic, bound the entire legion’s minds into one. He issued a forced command, and the subordinates, drunk on frenzy, ripped their own master Hatchery to shreds and laid the remains at Hanul’s feet. Of course, he subjugated this one as well.
“Three left now.”
By this point, the remaining two had gotten the hint. The Lord of Sloth of the west and the Knight of Wrath of the south came of their own accord and knelt.
The final Archdemon remained—the Demon King of Pride who guarded the heart of the Demon Realm. True to his status as the strongest Demon King before Hanul’s arrival, he put up a proper fight.
“A mere human dares!”
“Oh? Your barrier arts are rather decent.”
“Kh! H-how can a human’s black magic reach this level?! To dismantle my barriers!”
“Submit. I shall grant you the honor of becoming my subordinate.”
“Don’t make me—”
The moment the King of Pride tried to resist, Hanul released the mental power he had been holding back and displayed overwhelming force. Hanul’s violet eyes covered the sky of the Demon Realm. And with that, the brand of absolute obedience was driven into the soul of the King of Pride.
“….”
The King of Pride bowed his head at Hanul’s feet. With that, all Seven Archdemons of the Demon Realm prostrated themselves beneath Hanul.
“Rise.”
At Hanul’s single word, the Seven Archdemons and the tens of billions of demons raised their heads as one. Their eyes held nothing but awe directed at a single being.
Atop a vast mountain peak of blood and bone, Hanul sat upon the sole throne set at its summit. The true birth of the Demon God.
Yet what Hanul desired had always been the same. To return—to Earth, to the place where his only family, his brother, waited.
In truth, growing this strong, seizing a force, forging black magic upon the foundation of his mental ability—all of it had been for one purpose: to open a dimensional gate back to Earth. To raise a mana storm.
KRA-KOOM— BOOM!
And at last, he succeeded. Looking up at the blood-red sky where a vortex churned, Hanul thought of his brother’s face.
Finally, I can see him again.
Hanul rose from his seat. Behind the throne, a vast dimensional gate yawned open.
“Demon God, at last you go to conquer a new world.”
“I shall prepare the army.”
The Archdemons’ eyes glittered with greed.
They seemed thrilled at the thought of ravaging the lives of another dimension.
Hanul turned his head. A chill killing intent froze the air of the Demon Realm solid. Send an army? Had these things lost their minds?
“What lies beyond is my homeland.”
“Keuhp!”
The Archdemons held their breath. Hanul’s aura exploded outward and crushed their souls.
“Do not even think of following. Until I give permission, no one is to cross this gate.”
The command was absolute.
“If even one of you sets foot through it?”
He paused and swept his gaze over the Archdemons.
“I will erase the entire Demon Realm.”
“W-we will keep it firmly in mind! My lord!”
“Forgive us! Until you permit it, we will not even go near that place!”
Hanul stepped without hesitation into the dimensional vortex.
Shaaaaa—
Within the energy drawn by the dimensional portal, he fixed the coordinates with the black magic he had forged all this time.
And as a result—
Kang Hanul.
At last, he returned to Earth.