Chapter 40
Watching Zeronia’s duel with Andromalius, Yoon Sang-hyuk muttered, “Still an idiot.”
“You could call it the limit of someone satisfied with the very bottom of the hierarchy,” Baal said, his face as expressionless as ever.
“Not because of the Demon Lords’ arrogance?”
“Hardly. Demon Lords are constantly honing themselves. They know better than anyone that the moment they are looked down on, everything they’ve enjoyed, all the glory they’ve built, will collapse like a sandcastle. There are a few fools who settle comfortably into reality, but only a handful.”
“They’ve stayed stagnant for too long. Water that doesn’t flow eventually goes rotten, and rotten water always attracts worms.”
“Shall we have a drink?”
“Fine by me.”
“Use something from Earth, if you’ve got it. Demon Realm liquor is just harsh; it has no real flavor.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk snorted. “How much have you even drunk to start talking about flavor?”
He pulled out a bottle of wine.
“Those dark elf brothers are stronger, I take it?”
“Why ask when you already know the answer?”
“Then Dantalian and Seere will end up like that too. Still, why isn’t that dark elf using all her strength?”
“She’s not used to fighting at full power yet. You know better than anyone the difference between someone who’s gambled their life and someone who hasn’t.”
“True. Hm. She’s slowly drawing out her power. Is the real duel about to begin now?”
Taking a sip of wine, Yoon Sang-hyuk watched Zeronia drive Andromalius back with two whips.
* * *
Swish-
Every time the flame whips danced in the air, a storm of fire raged around them. That inferno sealed off every escape route Andromalius might have had.
Like a sealed chamber with water slowly rising, his room to move kept shrinking.
“Aaaaaah!”
As the duel veered in a direction he had never intended, Andromalius screamed in fury and unleashed his power.
A tremendous blast erupted from the center of the firestorm.
Zeronia’s eyes flashed with a chilling light. Her senses were sharper than ever in this moment, and she coolly analyzed every faint signal drifting out from the site of the explosion.
Swish-swish-
The flame whip coiled through the air.
Thud- crash-
Andromalius tried to hide himself within space itself, but the whip caught his ankle and dragged him out, slamming him onto the ground. More flame whips came crashing down where he fell.
Even if he was only the lowest-ranked among them, Andromalius still occupied one of the seventy-two seats of the Demon Lords. He would not be taken down so easily, and he threw himself this way and that, desperately trying to escape the onslaught of flame whips.
At last, the Demon Lord managed to crawl out of the fiery hell the whips had created, in a spectacle so humiliating it was hard to believe he had ever been a Demon Lord at all. Andromalius flailed both hands, red energy bursting from his fingertips and shooting toward Zeronia.
The crimson light pierced through Zeronia’s faint afterimage and vanished beyond it.
“Ghhhhh-”
A flame whip coiled around Andromalius’s neck.
Zeronia wrapped the handle around her wrist, clenched it tight, and yanked his body into the air, spinning him with brutal force. Andromalius struggled to tear free, but the more he fought, the tighter the flame whip constricted around his throat.
The remaining flame whip coiled around his body. The smell of burning flesh spread through the air. The louder Andromalius’s screams of pain grew, the louder the cheers filling the Arena of Greed became.
Maybe the crowd was even more ecstatic because the seat of the Demon Lords had not changed for what felt like an endless age. Perhaps those watching were projecting themselves onto Zeronia, who was overwhelming Andromalius, and taking vicarious satisfaction from it.
“I, I lost. I...,” Andromalius gasped, as if he wanted to say more, but the rest of the words would not come out.
Zeronia hurled his body into the arena floor once more. Andromalius was already in no condition to continue fighting, and she knew exactly what he was trying to say.
“Is it your pride as a Demon Lord?”
He likely wanted to beg her not to erase him. Simple defeat and defeat that ended in annihilation were worlds apart. If he was erased now, he would have to start over from the weakest existence again. As a Demon Lord, even if he were destroyed by another being, he could open his eyes again as a Demon Lord, but this was a problem of an entirely different order.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if you said it properly so I can understand?”
“P-plea...”
“Is it really that hard to say please? Everyone you’ve looked down on until now has begged for their lives in far more miserable shapes than you are in now, just to survive one more day. They needed to keep their lives intact, even if only for a little longer. Now then, say it. What do you want me to do with you?”
“Please... don’t let me be erased...”
“Erased, what?”
Andromalius’s face twisted horribly. But that expression soon gave way to one of humiliation and submission.
He would lose his honor as a Demon Lord, but the rank of High-level Demon would remain. He would be far weaker than before, deprived of his authority, but like Zeronia had been while fighting him, if he gathered his strength quietly and slowly, there might one day be another chance to reclaim a Demon Lord’s seat. But if he were erased, that chance would disappear forever.
Andromalius said, cringing, “Please... don’t erase me. Please, show mercy.”
Zeronia smiled brightly. Then she slowly turned around. The hot, seething energy that filled the Arena of Greed swirled around her body.
“I’d like to do that. But...”
Zeronia looked toward the spectators and said, “far too many people want a different choice.”
Kill him!
Erase him!
Cut off Andromalius’s head!
The thunderous roar beat at the ears of both Zeronia and Andromalius.
“You know Yoon Sang-hyuk, don’t you? He told me something like this. On Earth, where he lived, there’s a method people use when they have to make a difficult decision. It’s called majority rule. A very simple way of deciding in favor of the side with more votes. But that also makes it reasonable, doesn’t it? Now then, let’s apply majority rule to this situation. The only ones who don’t want your erasure are... you and me. Just the two of us, it seems. But on the other side...”
Zeronia spun once in place.
“There are so many I can’t even count them.”
Swish-
With a flick of her hand, the flame whip wound itself around her wrist. Zeronia drew the dagger from her back. A sharp murderous edge ran along its blade, and despair settled into Andromalius’s eyes. Yet perhaps having already foreseen his own erasure, he made no more pitiful pleas.
He only glared at Zeronia with a venomous look and said coldly, “I’ll wake again and crawl up from the very bottom to challenge you again. Until then, have sweet dreams.”
“I don’t know if they’ll be sweet dreams, but... I’ll be waiting with pleasure.”
Andromalius’s head shot into the air.
The heat inside the Arena of Greed grew even more intense.
* * *
The second match.
The duel between Jerome and Dantalian ended with almost insulting ease.
Less than a minute after the battle began, Dantalian’s head was severed from his body by Jerome’s sword.
What Yoon Sang-hyuk had said was true: Jerome was stronger than Zephyr and Zeronia combined. It had been a terribly anticlimactic fight, but the spectators once again erupted in excitement at the birth of a new Demon Lord.
But the third match was unfolding in a way no one in the crowd had expected.
* * *
Zephyr clenched his teeth and forced strength into his legs. The trembling only just stopped, and his stance finally steadied. In his hands were the Fallen Divinity he had obtained from Yoon Sang-hyuk, originally Ibrahmuth’s, and a sword slightly longer in blade than the ordinary dagger he had used before.
Zephyr tried to calm the pounding in his chest. Ahead of him stood a handsome blond man whose brilliance looked wholly out of place in the Demon Realm, his expression haughty, his eyes full of contempt. He was Seere, the 70th-ranked Demon Lord, also known as the Prince of Origin.
“Because of the one who fought through the Clash of Struggle with Dantalian, I had high expectations. But you won’t be meeting them.”
Seere was right.
If one looked only at their abilities, Zephyr should have fought the second match and Jerome the third. But because Zephyr was the eldest, he had been the one to challenge the highest-ranked Seere.
Watching Andromalius and Dantalian fight had given him confidence. But Seere, who was only one rank above Dantalian, possessed power on an entirely different level.
“Two Demon Lords have already changed in a single day through the Clash of Struggle. Those people must be hoping for a third new Demon Lord to be born.”
Seere said this while sweeping his gaze over the spectators, who were roaring in excitement.
“But that kind of upset won’t happen. You think so too, don’t you? Dark elf boy.”
“Don’t talk shit.”
“Hmph! You’ve been running around with a rotten bastard, and now your mouth reeks of rot too.”
“It’s fine if you insult my weakness, but don’t insult Yoon Sang-hyuk. I heard you were erased twice by him, right? Hah, hahahaha. What a disgrace for a Demon Lord.”
“Shut up!”
Seere bristled.
Still, his battle with Yoon Sang-hyuk was indeed the kind of nightmare he never wanted to relive. The second time, especially, he had been erased in an utterly one-sided crushing defeat, too overwhelmed even to lift a finger.
Zephyr gave a rough laugh and steadied his swaying body, tightening his grip on the sword.
“I’ll gift you a third erasure.”
“Do you really think you can? Maybe if it were your younger brother, I’d believe it.”
“Yoon Sang-hyuk once said this.”
Zephyr spat out the thick blood collecting in his mouth.
“One who has never experienced the danger of death can never grow strong. One who has not resolved to die has no right to become strong. Keep death at your side at all times. Always think death is following behind you. Regard today as the last day left to you. Then you will grow strong naturally.”
The wild, violent energy around Zephyr gradually settled into stillness.
“I didn’t understand what he meant. No, I thought it was nonsense. But now I think I understand.”
He raised the Fallen Divinity and pointed it at Seere.
“From this moment on, I will fight with my life on the line. Even if my existence ends in erasure because of it, I will not regret it. This is the first decision I’ve made in this world with my own life as collateral. I will cast away everything I have. Now answer me. I am wagering my life on this battle...”
Zephyr surged toward Seere.
“What will you wager?”