Chapter 48
Yoon Sang-hyuk stared into a darkness deeper than the darkness that was cutting through the blackness toward him.
“So you finally showed up.”
It was only a boy, looking no older than his mid-teens. And yet the boy was wrapped in a heavily refined aura of darkness, thick chains binding his entire body. There was no mistaking it: this had to be Satan.
“Though you look very different from what I expected.”
“And what did you imagine?”
The boy, Satan, smiled faintly as he approached at a measured pace.
“Did you think I’d have a huge pair of horns on my forehead, with four eyes and eight arms?”
“Well, maybe not that much. But I did expect something a lot more imposing than this.”
“Like this?”
Without warning, Satan changed.
A curled pair of horns rose from his forehead, and three pairs of wings, black as soot, unfurled behind his back. The boy was gone, replaced by a man whose age was impossible to guess. As Yoon Sang-hyuk had said, he looked imposing enough to make anyone feel it at a glance.
“That’s more like it.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Still... I half expected it, but you really are human.”
“Disappointed?”
“Not in the slightest.”
Satan shrugged. The chains wrapped around his body gave off a strange metallic sound.
“Idia always said things like that. That human potential is so great even they can’t measure it, that the human body is an infinite pouch that can contain anything. To be honest, I didn’t believe it when I heard it. To me, humans were nothing more than insignificant creatures that didn’t even live a hundred years, beings whose limits were painfully obvious no matter how hard they struggled.”
“That’s a statement no human could possibly agree with.”
“My opinion changed after the war with the divine realm as well. The humans who stood with the divine realm and resisted the Demon Realm were truly impressive. They threw their lives away and charged at the great warriors of the Demon Realm, enemies they had no hope of facing. I thought they were extraordinary. Quite a few of them had already reached heights far beyond the human realm. Of course, they all died by my hand in the end.”
“So what’s your impression of me?”
“I suppose I’ve finally come to understand the true meaning of what Idia said.” Satan’s mouth curved. “When I first sensed your aura, I thought it might be a grown Baal coming here to settle things with me. But your aura was very different from the Baal I knew. It was stronger than Baal’s, for one thing, and beneath it lay something mixed with so many different powers that it became something I can’t even put into words.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk pulled a chair out of his subspace and sat down. Satan tore off a strip of darkness, shaped it into a chair, and sat across from him.
“You came here for me, of course.”
“Obviously. It already makes no sense that I, a human, came to the Demon Realm. Why do you think I came all the way out to the middle of nowhere?”
“Baal sent you?”
“He said there’s a material I need if I want to return to the world I came from. That material is... you know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”
“You’re trying to open a spacetime passage that connects one dimension to another. To do that, you’d need a vast amount of dark energy.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk asked, suddenly curious.
“Couldn’t you just open that spacetime thing here?”
With the pure darkness existing within the Abyss of the Void, it seemed like there was no need to draw on the dark energy contained in Satan’s heart at all.
“Well, I suppose they sent you for more than one reason.”
“More than one reason?”
“Isn’t it obvious? From Baal’s point of view, I’m a thorn in his side. When he became Demon King after defeating me, the power he had at the time wasn’t enough to erase me completely. So he used an expedient method and sealed me away here. But I’m sure he regretted it more than once after that. As you can tell now that you’ve come here, this place is truly... special.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk nodded as if he agreed.
“Special enough to be a problem. And yeah, I can see why Baal would regret it.”
Satan was strong. Stronger than the Baal Yoon Sang-hyuk knew. At this very moment, looking at Satan before him, it was clear that if the two fought, Baal would lose.
“So he sent you. He can get rid of me, the nuisance, and then drive you, another nuisance, out of the Demon Realm.”
“In human terms, that’s called killing two birds with one stone. You throw one rock and take down two birds.”
“A fine expression.”
“So, are you going to die quietly? Or would you prefer another option?”
“Is there another option?”
Yoon Sang-hyuk said it as if it were nothing.
“I assume you know how to open interdimensional spacetime yourself?”
“Of course I do. It’s a secret art passed down to every Demon King. Once you sit on the throne, you know it automatically. But I won’t be taking that path.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk smiled brightly.
“I thought as much.”
Satan wanted to fight. No one knew how many long years he had spent here, in the Abyss of the Void where no one could enter. He had grown stronger and stronger on the pure dark energy endlessly supplied by the abyss. But even an existence like that had things it couldn’t solve: the loneliness built up through long solitude, and the particular kind of boredom that clung to the beings of the Demon Realm. If Yoon Sang-hyuk had never come, those things would have remained with him forever like old companions. But the situation had changed.
“This won’t be an easy fight.”
“I’m already getting excited.” Satan’s eyes gleamed. “And this is a secret I’m telling only you, but I wasn’t this excited when I was about to fight Baal. You may not believe it, but Baal wasn’t my match even then. I only handed him the throne because I wanted to rest.”
“I believe you.”
Baal was still worried about Satan. Perhaps he even knew that Satan had let himself lose on purpose. Even after becoming Demon King and gaining the authority of that position, Baal must have carried a lingering unease. That was why he had sent Yoon Sang-hyuk here, someone who stood on equal footing with him and might even have been able to erase him.
Of course, in the meantime, Yoon Sang-hyuk had only grown stronger.
“I heard you brought subordinates.”
“Not long after they arrived in the Abyss of the Void, one by one they started to vanish. The pure dark energy here turned into poison for them. Compared to that, the ones who came with you are holding up rather well. Those two in particular are... interesting. Their levels seem low at first glance, but when you look again, that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
He was talking about Creatin and Arnin.
“And that one over there is... Ibrahmut.”
“Long time no see.”
Ibrahmut greeted him with a strained expression.
“You were a fellow who couldn’t even meet my eyes properly back then. You’ve grown, haven’t you? The first Balrog.”
“Who says I couldn’t meet your eyes? I was just lowering myself because you were the Demon King.”
“For someone saying that, you look rather shaken even now.”
Ibrahmut straightened his chest and said proudly, “I’m not shaking. And I’m not scared. Do you know who I am?”
“The first Balrog, Lord of Flame Ibrahmut.”
“And Yoon Sang-hyuk hyung-nim’s little brother.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk let out a snort of laughter. Satan thought about it for a moment, then understood the meaning behind Ibrahmut’s words and burst out laughing.
“Kahahaha! Ibrahmut, you’ve become a very entertaining fellow since I last saw you! Good. If keeping strong people at your side is a skill, then that’s a skill worth having. And that last Death Knight is unusual too. He’s no ordinary Death Knight. Back when I sat on the Demon King’s throne, even the Death Knight who commanded all the undead was nowhere near that one, not even by a toe. You’ve gathered impressive subordinates.”
“They’re not subordinates. They’re comrades.”
“Comrades. A good word. But in the Demon Realm, there’s no such romantic thing as comrades. Only the self exists.”
“And that’s why you ended up shut away in a place like this, living lonely in your old age. Get it?”
“Well, I can’t exactly deny that.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk pointed at Satan.
“Why do you keep all those chains hanging around you? It doesn’t look like you’re wearing them because you can’t break them.”
“After spending so long together, they began to feel like part of my body. Ah, now that I think about it, I can sense something familiar in you. Can you tell me why?”
“Ah, that.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk told him the story behind the iron rod Satan had used, the one he had received from Ibrahmut. Satan listened and smiled brightly with delight.
“How interesting. To think that something so trivial of mine ended up helping you so much.”
“I’ve always been grateful for it.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk stood up.
“Shall we begin? Any last words?”
“Last words... Somehow, this is getting awfully solemn.”
“That was the intent. You were once a king who ruled the Demon Realm, after all, so I figured it’d be polite to hear your last words. So? What are they?”
“Hmm. Last words, is it? That’s not exactly what I mean, but I do have one favor.”
“If it’s something I can grant, I’ll grant it. Say it.”
Satan turned his head and gazed into the distance.
“I want to see where I lived one last time.”
“Nothing else to it?”
“Haha, the one I’m speaking to is far too absurdly strong for me to hide any ulterior motive from.”
“Fine. I’ll indulge you.”
“One more.”
“Trying to give you a last request is starting to feel like getting tangled up in all kinds of trouble.”
Satan laughed heartily, then spoke slowly.
“I want to meet my end in the Arena of Greed.”
The place where the beings of the Demon Realm proved their strength. The place where the strongest demons challenged the seat of the Demon Lord.
Satan wanted his final moment to come there, in the Arena of Greed.
“I was there recently.”
“Oh? Was a Clash of Struggle held?”
“Yeah. Three Demon Lords were replaced.”
“Good heavens. I missed an entertaining spectacle. It’s not easy for a Demon Lord’s seat to change hands.”
“Two more seats might change before long.”
Satan glanced at Creatin and Arnin standing behind Yoon Sang-hyuk and nodded.
“If it’s them, they’d have enough to challenge a lord’s throne. So human beings are the ones creating Demon Lords now.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk looked at Satan in surprise. His expression asked how Satan knew that.
“Your aura and those children’s auras are remarkably similar. That means the form of your power isn’t following the usual Demon Realm pattern.”
“I see. Well then, shall we go? Right, how do we get there? Do you happen to have one of those all-purpose fingers too?”
“All-purpose fingers?”
Satan looked at him in confusion.
“Baal does all kinds of things sometimes just by snapping his fingers.”
“Ah. Like this?”
Snap.
Satan snapped his fingers.
And the scenery around them changed.
Baal was sitting high upon his throne. Seeing Baal frown deeply, Satan bared his white teeth in a broad grin and greeted him warmly.
“Baal. Long time no see.”