The Most Loyal of the Underworld
Who in the entire Underworld followed the Death King most faithfully? All Seven Deadly Sins served as the Death King's closest aides, reigning at the pinnacle of the underworld, yet if one were to name the single most fanatical follower and worshipper among them, no one would dispute that it was Pride.
He was the first within the Underworld—including the rest of the Seven Deadly Sins—to begin following the Death King. Even back then, Pride had already reached the level of a superhuman Ebon user and commanded considerable renown throughout the underworld, but he refused to be satisfied with that. Despite possessing immense power, he began retraining himself from the very fundamentals of dark magic. The reason was simple: his master, the Death King, stood at the apex of both Ebon and dark magic.
Like a child mimicking their role model, Pride followed in the footsteps left behind by the Death King, who was far younger than himself. In the end, through nothing but a madness-fueled obsession that talent and effort alone could never explain, he succeeded in carving eight stars into his body.
Flash!
An 8-star dark mage. The sky above the cavern where Pride stood turned crimson. Negative-dimensional mana radiated in every direction. The moment the overwhelming wave of undead reached him, Pride's eyes snapped wide open as he glared at the approaching mass of corpses.
Crunch!
The wave never even reached him. It was crushed right before his eyes. The stench of blood spread outward. Blackened blood rained down, staining the crimson sky. As Pride stepped over the mangled corpses—now unrecognizable, like crushed garlic—his brow furrowed.
'He's gone.'
Tenma's presence had vanished. After unleashing a flood of undead, he had fled without looking back. One moment he had boasted that he would kill Pride, the next he was running with his tail between his legs. It was pathetic.
Whoosh!
Just as Pride let out a derisive chuckle at Tenma's actions, a blade suddenly shot out from between the crushed undead, aimed straight at him. It plunged deep into the back of his neck, sending fresh red droplets spraying outward—different from the blackened blood that had been scattered until now.
Under normal circumstances, it would have been an instant kill. Yet Pride didn't even scream. He calmly turned his head and simply stared at the one who had stabbed him.
"Where did you come from?"
The wound on his neck tore sideways as he moved. Did this man feel no pain at all? Instead of caring whether his neck was being severed, he focused solely on analyzing the situation. His utterly indifferent gaze startled the doll that had attacked him.
"The Astral Realm."
After staring straight into the doll's eyes, Pride soon arrived at the correct answer and smirked.
"So you stored your dolls in the non-material realm. That explains how you could wander the living world in a soul state without a body—because you could interfere with the Astral Realm."
The boundary between life and death, truth, the Akashic Records, all creation, enlightenment, the detour to ascension, Dream Walkers, the illusory realm—Avalon, and so on. The non-material realm was composed of things humans dismissed as fiction, illusion, or mirage. Though modern logic and theory had yet to confirm its existence, an Inner World created by a dark mage could bring it into reality.
Crack!
Following Pride's precise deduction, multiple dolls lunged at him from all directions. Dark Magic—Inner World: Heavenly Demon Cult. Tenma's doll technique. Strictly speaking, it was a form of necromancy, yet these were no ordinary undead. They were living people preserved alive in formalin or wax—living dolls. A type of corpse manipulation technique that shattered the memories stored in the brain and implanted another ego to create duplicates of oneself. In a sense, it was the lowest-quality branch of necromancy.
And Tenma was the one who had once thrown the Fan Empire into chaos using this very doll technique. Though he had returned from hell without fully regaining his former divine status, the power he possessed was undeniably real.
Thud! Slash! Crack!
The negative-dimensional mana wrapped around the dolls' skin destroyed Pride's black mana and pierced his body. Blood streamed out. Wounds that should have been fatal. Yet Pride merely examined the dolls impaling him with a curious expression.
"……!"
Was it because they had been made while still alive? Their expressions were far more varied than expected. Their pupils trembled violently as they stared in shock at Pride, who refused to die despite having his heart and entire body pierced. If anything, Pride—who gazed back at the dolls with no emotion whatsoever—seemed more like an inanimate object.
"Surprised I didn't die?"
Pride's Divine Rule: In this space, no one can die without my permission. A limited form of immortality. Though he had copied everything about the Death King, he had inscribed the opposite law of his master's world-destroying rule into his own Inner World. It was like a declaration of Pride's arrogance—that he would handle what his master could not. And that Divine Rule extended to Pride himself. The only being in this world capable of killing him was his master.
"How presumptuous."
Pride's expression twisted savagely. His Ebon ability, Charisma. A power that endlessly amplified his presence and radiated it outward. Using it, he slammed the dolls attacking him into the ground and spoke.
"How dare you lot covet what belongs to my master?"
His life belonged solely to his master. And the price for touching his master's belongings without permission was death. There was no room for compromise in that process.
Crack.
Necks twisted at unnatural angles. Bodies riddled with holes. Blood streaming down. Looking more like corpses than the undead themselves, Pride crushed the arm of the doll that had pierced his neck beneath his foot, killing intent flashing in his eyes.
Crunch.
The space before him shattered like glass fragments. A black pocket dimension opened in front of Pride. Without hesitation, he reached inside and drew out a long greatsword. Or rather—could it even be called a sword? Its blade writhed grotesquely, as though made of gathered flesh rather than steel. Countless eyeballs covered its surface, blinking grotesquely enough to induce trypophobia. The demonic sword Sacrifice. An artifact Pride had created using curse magic. Its effect was to amplify its power in proportion to the wounds its wielder received. It was the perfect sacrificial sword of equivalent exchange for a dark mage who possessed an Inner World of immortality.
Swish!
Gripping Sacrifice, Pride immediately swung it behind him. Negative-dimensional mana lashed out in the form of a slash. His Ebon ability, Charisma, infused the attack, turning it into a massive storm that swept away everything in its path. The passage that had been clogged with undead was blasted open. Fragments of undead, unable to withstand the tremendous impact, rained down like a downpour across the entire space.
Grrrrr.
But the now-empty space was soon filled again as another wave of undead surged forward like a tsunami. Just how many undead had Tenma unleashed before fleeing?
'As expected, seven stars isn't enough to deal meaningful damage.'
Pride's eyes narrowed. Perhaps the enemy had finally decided to get serious after that attack. The Inner Worlds of two 8-star dark mages collided, sending dark-red sparks flying through the air. Concept against concept. Law against law. The one with the weaker will would lose. The one who had more firmly accumulated their own karma would win. And within that clash of Inner Worlds, the one gradually gaining the upper hand was, surprisingly, Tenma.
"……"
Pride's Inner World was being devoured by his opponent. It meant his rank as a dark mage was inferior. Perhaps it was only natural. After all, his opponent was Tenma. If it had been anything less, Pride would have been greatly disappointed. There would have been no need to go through the trouble of summoning him in the first place.
Boom!
If he was going to lose anyway, there was no point clinging to it meaninglessly. The moment Pride realized he was being pushed back in the Inner World battle, he cleanly abandoned the contest of power. Raising Sacrifice high, he slammed it down onto the approaching undead with all his might.
Crash! Squish! Crunch! Thud!
And with that, he began swinging Sacrifice as he charged forward. Pride was no martial artist. There was no technique whatsoever in the way he swung his sword. Like a child swinging a stick picked up from the ground, he simply flailed Sacrifice wildly, carving a path through the wave of undead. Yet the Charisma imbued in Sacrifice granted his attacks destructive power far beyond common sense.
"Hup!"
Tenma's Inner World tried to push Pride's world away. Pride forced it back using his Ebon ability. The absurdity Tenma had inscribed into his world was helplessly repelled by Pride's Charisma. And Pride's Inner World meticulously filled in the gaps. The dolls that reappeared among the undead tore into Pride's body mercilessly, but that only served to further amplify his attack power.
"For all your confidence, your skills are nothing special."
At that moment, Tenma's voice echoed through the air. He had boldly declared he would kill Pride, yet his abilities were disappointing. A limited immortality that prevented death within his Inner World. And the sacrificial demonic sword that repaid any damage received with interest. A dark mage who would never lose in a battle of endurance. But dark mages were a profession where hierarchy was far more clearly defined than among other ability users. The moment he had been pushed back in the Inner World battle, the outcome had already been decided. What Pride was doing now was nothing more than refusing to accept defeat and charging forward in desperation. Foolish.
"If you have any other tricks, you'd better use them quickly. At this rate, your immortality will become meaningless along with your Inner World."
"You talk a lot for someone who's hiding because they're scared of what tricks I might have prepared."
If Tenma had fought head-on from the start, the battle would have already been over. As Tenma himself had said, his power was clearly superior to Pride's. Yet Tenma had feared Pride's hidden cards and chosen to attack from behind in small, hesitant strikes.
"Are you afraid of dying?"
The reason was probably because he had experienced death once before. Having met an unexpected end at the hands of the first head of the Masao family, his caution had increased dramatically. So much so that he would hide in the Astral Realm even when facing an opponent weaker than himself.
'Pathetic.'
A dark mage fearing death. Was there anything more ridiculous?
Whether angered by Pride's sneer or not, Tenma's mana surged even greater. The collapse of Pride's Inner World accelerated. His dominance was being mercilessly gnawed away. Yet amid it all, Pride simply gazed calmly at the crimson sky.
"She's here."
In truth, Pride had made no grand plans for this matter. He hadn't meticulously reviewed any strategies, nor had he prepared contingencies for mistakes. The reason was simple. Once an Absolute Being had personally stepped in, schemes and plots had become utterly useless. The mere existence of an Absolute Being made the operation perfect.
Slash!
The sky of the Inner World split into countless fragments. A single slash extended infinitely, mercilessly slaughtering the undead in every direction. Unlike Pride's earlier attack, this was a single strike containing countless compressed techniques. An overwhelming conceptual violence that transcended both his own immortality and the concept of Tenma's Heavenly Demon Cult. And what descended from beyond was a single woman.
"You're late."
It was the first time Pride had seen her face directly. Moreover, in terms of raw power alone, she was one of the few individuals capable of fighting his master on equal footing. Yet Pride still spoke with his usual expressionless face, chiding her mistake.
"My apologies. I miscalculated the time difference between the underworld and the living world and overslept."
The woman readily accepted the rebuke. Her attitude was impossibly polite—something never seen among the Absolute Beings living in the modern era. At the same time, she slowly drew out her massive scythe, the Death Scythe, and stared toward the Astral Realm where Tenma was hiding.
"Thank you for giving me the chance to personally capture a criminal who escaped from the underworld. As the Death King's aide, I will take over from here."
The leader of the Grim Reapers who guided the souls of the dead to the underworld, and the daughter of Hades, ruler of the Underworld. The Absolute Being Thanatos radiated overwhelming presence as she pointed her Death Scythe toward Tenma.