The Arena of Greed Opens Its Gates
I’m translating the chapter now and formatting the in-universe special content as styled HTML blocks, while keeping the narration in paragraph form.CHAPTER_TITLE: The Arena That Devours Everything
The city that housed the Arena of Greed had turned into a festival ground. Its broad streets were so packed there was barely room to put a foot down.
- A duel between the former Demon King Satan and the strongest human alive.
That was the event the Arena of Greed had prepared.
It was no common sight in the Demon Realm to witness a duel held in the Arena of Greed. Even more so when the match was between the former Demon King and the strongest human acknowledged by the current Demon King.
“This really is a place that lives up to the name Arena of Greed.”
Sitting in the waiting room and looking through the bars at the arena beyond, Yoon Sang-hyuk muttered to himself.
“In the Demon Realm, greed is close to instinct. Kyaa, just listen to that roar. My blood’s heating up on its own.”
Ibrahmut, seated beside Yoon Sang-hyuk, spoke with obvious excitement.
“Then why don’t you go out there yourself? Satan’s nothing special. Go beat him senseless with a whip or something.”
“Hah, hahah. Why do you keep doing this, hyung-nim? Are you trying to kill someone? Either you or Satan are no easy mark. In any case, the one at the center of all this heat is hyung-nim.”
“No matter what I do, I’m the main character. This world revolves around me.”
“Hyung-nim. At that point, that’s a serious illness.”
“It’s fine. At my level, I’m allowed to catch a serious illness. Why? Because it’s cool. Where I come from, I had women following me around by the truckload.”
“Sigh, I have no idea what you’re talking about.... Still, you really aren’t worried at all?”
Yoon Sang-hyuk looked through the bars. On the opposite side of the vast arena, Satan was surely waiting in his own holding room.
“Nervous? Of course I’m nervous. This is the moment I go back to the people waiting for me. How could I not be?”
“Well, I don’t think hyung-nim will lose either... Still, I wish you luck.”
“It’s strange hearing luck wished on me from the very first balrog.”
“Even when your little brother says something nice, you still have to make a remark? Anyway, you’d better win. Otherwise you won’t be able to go back, will you? Well, I suppose staying here wouldn’t be bad either, but since there are so many people waiting for you, I can’t exactly drag you into staying....”
Ibrahmut’s voice, trailing off, trembled faintly.
“It was only for a short time, but I was happy to be with you, hyung-nim. Since I opened my eyes, I don’t think there’s ever been a time as enjoyable as the one I spent with you. Please, be happy even after you return to your original world.”
“Hey, hey, cut it out. You’re going to make me cry.”
“Ah, hyung-nim is ruining the mood again.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk snorted with a laugh and gave Ibrahmut’s shoulder a light shove.
“It was a brief bond, but please don’t forget us brothers.”
Zephyr, who had been standing at attention nearby with the others, stepped forward to speak for them.
“How could I forget? You were the most awkward fool I’ve met so far. So don’t worry. I’ll never forget you.”
“Hahaha! If I can take even one place in Yoon Sang-hyuk-nim’s memory like that, I’ll be delighted. Once you leave, I’ll have my underlings make a statue of you. I plan to decorate our brothers’ palace with it.”
“Sorry, but I’m going to have to decline that. I appreciate the sentiment, though. Just leave me in your memories. I have no intention of remaining in the Demon Realm as a statue.”
With that, he pulled Zephyr close and gave him a light embrace. Zephyr’s brothers bowed their heads toward Yoon Sang-hyuk.
“Please, be happy.”
“Stay healthy.”
Creatin and Arnin lowered their heads as well.
“Well, well. Look at you two. Ready-made demon lords, aren’t you?”
“We’ll never forget the great kindness Yoon Sang-hyuk-nim showed us, not even in our final moment of dissolution.”
“Good. Never forget it. If you forget my kindness, you’re beasts.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk tossed the words out in jest.
The reason they were all acting like this was obvious. Once the bars separating the waiting room from the arena were raised and the duel with Satan began, they would no longer be able to see Yoon Sang-hyuk, regardless of the outcome. Knowing that, they were offering their final goodbyes.
Yoon Sang-hyuk, too, felt a lump of regret at parting from the people he had met in the Demon Realm, brief though the bond had been. If he were being honest, he would have liked to take all of them back to Earth. With Yoon Sang-hyuk, it was possible. Hadn’t he already surrounded himself with more than a few nonhuman companions? But he also knew well that such greed would help neither side, so he let it go.
“You all really can’t keep your faces straight, can you? Who’s going off to die? If there’s a meeting, then of course there’s a parting. If someone ever turns our meeting into a story, it’d obviously be a happy ending, right? So let’s smile. Where I come from, there’s a saying: ‘If you smile, good fortune comes.’ So smile. Hah. What are you all doing? I said smile.”
“H, hahah.”
“Pff—hahahaha.”
The awkward laughter at first soon spread. After a moment, they were looking at one another and bursting into loud laughter. Just as if they had agreed on it, they all stopped laughing at once and bowed deeply to Yoon Sang-hyuk.
“Goodbye.”
“Yeah. Take care.”
Crrrrr-
The iron bars separating the waiting room from the arena rose slowly upward.
* * *
“Hey there. Did you have good dreams last night?”
“Dreams? Heh. Things like that have nothing to do with me. If darkness dreams, it’s only darkness.”
“Now that you say it like that, I guess so.”
“What about you? Did you dream?”
Yoon Sang-hyuk smiled and nodded.
“Me? I’m always dreaming. I dream when I sleep, and I dream even when I’m awake like this.”
“I’m curious what sort of dream you have.”
“Want me to tell you? You’ll get angry if you hear it.”
Satan faced Yoon Sang-hyuk with a deep smile of his own.
“Well, since you’re curious, I’ll tell you. I’m going to cut off your head here and split open your heart. And in exchange for that, I’ll go where I’m supposed to return to. Then I’ll live happily and for a very long time with the ones waiting for me there. How’s that? Pretty nice dream, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s a fine dream. Though I’m the villain in it, I’m honored to be able to appear.”
“Hah, I’m seeing you in a new light. You can say something pretty cool after all.”
The chains that had been wrapped all around Satan’s body were gone. In their place, a grotesque sword stained blood-red rested in his hand.
“Do you know what purpose that club you acquired was originally used for?”
“Let me guess. Some sort of morale lesson for your subordinates?”
“Correct.”
“Kek, I had a feeling it was something like that. It looked perfect for beating someone to death with. So the sword you’re holding now is your main weapon?”
“Indeed. The number of gods I have cut down with this sword exceeds ten. Even the Chief God, Idea, was wounded by it.”
Because of that, the Stigma had remained in the Demon Realm.
“When I handed the throne of the Demon King over to Baal, I considered giving him this sword as well. But I did not. I could not place in another’s hands the friend who had been with me from beginning to end.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk drew out Song of Doom.
“That’s a magnificent sword.”
“Thanks. It’s not like the sword that saw both beginning and end with you. I change friends pretty often.”
“Heh. That’s not bad either.”
Satan slowly turned in a full circle and then faced Yoon Sang-hyuk again.
“Do you hear their cheers? They’re shouting for us to fight already. They’re clamoring to see blood as quickly as possible. They’re singing for us to cut off heads and rip out hearts. If we drag this out any longer, I suspect they’ll leap straight into the arena themselves.”
“Then shall we begin? In my world, the stronger one grants the weaker one the first move. So go ahead and attack first.”
Even after Yoon Sang-hyuk said that, Satan showed no sign of wavering. Instead, he raised his sword.
“I acknowledge that you are stronger than I am. That is why I will stake everything I have on a single strike. If you can block it, you win. If you cannot, then you will not return to your homeland.”
“That won’t happen, so you don’t need to worry. More importantly, you people say dissolution isn’t the end but a new beginning, right? Am I correct?”
“It is not exact, but it is close.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk gave a quiet nod.
“Then I can cut you down without guilt.”
He lifted Song of Doom and held it upright before his chest.
Satan’s figure blurred. Yoon Sang-hyuk knew full well that Satan was standing right there, yet he could no longer make out his shape. Dark energy surged like a storm. It was the utterly pure darkness one could only feel in the Abyss of the Void.
The dark power surged toward Yoon Sang-hyuk as if it intended to swallow the arena, no, the entire Demon Realm.
“Beautiful.”
The surroundings were dyed in darkness. Tens of thousands of blades of shadow targeted Yoon Sang-hyuk. But he did not move at all. The instant he so much as shifted his body, the true body hidden among those countless blades of darkness would pierce his heart.
He opened the hand holding Song of Doom. Yet the sword ignored the laws of gravity and floated in the air. His fingers stroked along the blade, and wherever his hand passed, the steel crumbled away like sand. Even as Song of Doom, a myth-grade weapon of the highest order, turned to dust, Yoon Sang-hyuk did not so much as flinch.
That was because as Song of Doom scattered into powder and vanished, a sharp sword was slowly taking shape within his chest.
Energy began leaking out from Yoon Sang-hyuk’s body in thin streams. Compared to the vast storm Satan had created, it looked small and weak. But the energies that had lain dormant in Yoon Sang-hyuk gradually gathered and formed a single shape.
A sword.
Yes. His energy had turned into a great sword.
The sword slowly rose upward. It cut through Satan’s energy, which filled the area and seemed as though it might shred Yoon Sang-hyuk’s body apart at any moment, and stood upright and unwavering.
Yoon Sang-hyuk’s power and Satan’s were so immense that the surrounding space seemed to become a vacuum. The pressure that weighed upon the world remained unchanged, but the clash of those overwhelming forces instead brought an eternal stillness.
Yoon Sang-hyuk’s sword slowly turned its point toward Satan. Satan’s stormlike power, which had been battering Yoon Sang-hyuk, resisted the great blade.
But the resistance was meaningless. It would only fade in strands and vanish. Each time Satan’s power scattered into fragments, the aftershock grew larger, until at last a massive wave swept through Arena of Greed.
The battle between human and Demon King.
No, it was a battle between god and god.
* * *
The spectators filling Arena of Greed could only stand with their mouths hanging open at the spectacle before them. They could not even cheer.
In the VIP seats, Baal sat upon the throne prepared for the Demon King and watched the battle between Yoon Sang-hyuk and Satan with indifferent eyes.
Satan, the former Demon King stronger than himself, and Yoon Sang-hyuk, the human stronger than Satan.
A bitter smile touched Baal’s lips.
The day before.
Baal had received a visit from Yoon Sang-hyuk.
He had come to the Demon King’s palace to tell him what he had planned.
Yoon Sang-hyuk’s plan was excellent. Baal and Satan had both agreed to it. And so, while everyone else slept, Baal had come to Arena of Greed to carry out the plan Yoon Sang-hyuk had set in motion.
Before long, the final moment Yoon Sang-hyuk had planned would arrive.
As Baal watched the scene before him and recalled what Yoon Sang-hyuk had said the night before, a vast light descended upon Arena of Greed.
It was not a brilliant light. It was the light of endless darkness. A light that, if one stared at it long enough, seemed almost sacred.
That light came crashing down upon Arena of Greed.
Draw a magic circle here in advance to open a spatial rift in the arena. So long as only the final material is added, it’ll activate immediately.
I trust you don’t need me to tell you what that final material is.
When the light vanished, nothing remained in Arena of Greed.
The figures of the beings who had been facing off with power enough to make even gods afraid were gone as well.
Leaving behind the spectators who had no idea what had happened, Baal stood up.
“Go well.”
As he walked away, Baal looked up at the distant sky.
“My friend.”
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