The Silent (Scrap) Demon King
Demons gain immense power along with madness by taking demonic energy into their bodies. And that's not all—they even inherit a portion of the Demon King's Authority, which is also a blessing from the Demon God.
What is Authority? It's a power that manipulates fate itself. Unlike magic, which requires all sorts of complex formulas, Authority skips the process entirely and produces only the result. It's frankly an absurd force. Results should have causes, but it ignores the cause and spits out the result anyway. An illogical, downright bizarre ability, isn't it?
Anyway, Cheon Ji-hoo had ducked into the rift not because he thought he'd lose, but to find a more efficient way.
The Authority of Split was a particularly annoying one. If you didn't wipe out every single body at once, it would just split again. Sure, he could have kept fighting in that situation and worn it down eventually through attrition, but that would have been way too inefficient. If he'd burned through a ton of mana only for another Demon King to pop out, he'd be totally screwed.
A mage is someone who prepares. They itch with anxiety if they haven't anticipated every worst-case scenario and devised countermeasures.
Cheon Ji-hoo lay flat on the ground, racking his brains. Then came a massive explosion.
'Guess it's dead now.'
It had only just awakened, and the extra-large landmine under its feet must have gone off. For it to still not be dead after that—maybe it had a ton of lingering desires even in its dreams.
He rolled onto his side, blinked, and began simulating strategies in his head to take down the split Silent Demon King.
The simulation ran on fragmentary info about the Silent Demon King. Not a single scenario ended in defeat, but they all trended toward attrition wars.
In the past, when he'd fought a demon with the Authority of Split, he'd retreated briefly, sealed off the area so it couldn't escape, and obliterated it in one go. But this time was different. The Demon King's domain was already established.
A domain functions like a swordsman's "range" or a mage's "magic circle." Put simply, it's a game buff zone.
So from Cheon Ji-hoo's position, it was like walking into a tiger's den to fight the tiger itself. He had to beat the tiger to death in its home turf using magic as his brickbat. Of course, he wasn't some ordinary human stepping into that den.
"Hmm……."
After much deliberation, he reached one conclusion.
The only way to counter a domain was to build his own.
Taking on the splitting Silent Demon King inside its domain was a fool's errand. He wouldn't have agonized this much over a mere demon from the past. A Demon King's Split was sure to be something else entirely.
He sprang to his feet and opened the rift's exit. Stepping from one rift into another, a gray world filled his vision. The difference? The ground beneath his feet was thick with viscous demonic energy.
It sloshed so much he could hear the splash, like a calm black sea stretching across the rift's floor.
'This must be a kind of Demon King's castle…….'
He grimaced briefly at the sticky sensation on his soles, and then— just like before—dozens of bodies rose from the pools.
All of them were splits. The dozens of bodies stared at him with black eyes, then kicked off the ground and flew at him in unison.
Dozens of fists closed in to kill him.
Cheon Ji-hoo kept a calm face as he twisted both hands, unleashing Distortion from within the bodies at high speed.
The result of magic that refused silence. The fists from all directions bent at grotesque angles and smashed into their own faces.
He immediately followed with his second spell, Gravity Amplification, crushing and bursting every body. Seizing the brief opening, he superheated the mana circuits inside himself.
Vast mana raced through his circuits. Like a supercar blasting down an obstacle-free straightaway. Faster. Even faster.
The speed hit its limit and control slipped, mana spraying everywhere.
But that was all part of Cheon Ji-hoo's plan.
Thump, thump.
With his heartbeat, ripples spread. Mana pulsed outward from him as its center, and the black sea receded in fear.
Finally, the sticky sensation left his soles, revealing the crumbling silent earth beneath. He gave a faint smile and clapped his hands.
Clap!
The sound rode his heartbeat, forming a massive circle that pushed back the black sea.
The hot mana flowing from Cheon Ji-hoo built a provisional domain, shrinking the reach of the enemy's Authority. He couldn't have hands popping up from underfoot, after all.
"There are many ways to shatter a domain."
One was brute-forcing it with raw power, the kind of thing a swordmaster might do.
Cheon Ji-hoo's method was the elegant way of a mage: build a new domain inside it. The domains would repel each other, leaving only the stronger one standing.
His analysis showed the Silent Demon King's domain was vast but low-density. Full of holes, like it had been slapped together in a hurry.
"And I intend to shatter yours."
Having turned the rift into its domain let it wield Silence and Split freely. But if its domain was pushed back? The Authorities would weaken, restrictions kicking in. Even if Authority ignored causes to produce results, it wasn't entirely free from the laws of the world.
He planned to smash the domain that mitigated those restrictions.
Cheon Ji-hoo cupped his hands and reheated his cooling mana circuits. Vast red mana gathered in his palms. Color bloomed in the gray-and-black monochrome world.
The red mana slowly coalesced into a orb of flame. Small explosions popped in his hands several times.
Between his palms sat a miniature sun. A mystical creation born of magic and mana.
As his circuits steamed from the heat, he exhaled deeply and raised his hands skyward.
The little sun rocketed into the heavens. Once it took position, the gray world began to turn red.
Even the gray sky was overrun by the intense crimson. The reddening sky resembled Falling Sunset. Red dusk blanketed the world.
Where sunset light shone, no black sea could linger. It sizzled and dried up. The domain of Falling Sunset revealed itself. Patches of ground emerged here and there.
As gray earth overtook more of the black sea, the Silent Demon King must have realized it couldn't go on. It burst from what was left of its shrunken domain—a mere puddle now.
Same old pattern: kicking off the ground, swinging a fist. Three times was enough to get used to it, so he slotted magic into the fist's trajectory.
A small magic circle etched in the air. As the fist passed through, he triggered it.
The magic activated between the arm's muscles: a simple Magic Bullet. But it exploded on detonation, blasting the arm clean off.
No need to dodge.
The Silent Demon King's arm flailed through the air and thudded beside him. Cheon Ji-hoo stomped its head, crushing it.
Crunch. Black liquid oozed out and soaked into the ground.
'How many left……?'
He scanned the area, hunting for the Silent Demon King still hiding in its puddle. It was comically terrified, like a scaredy-cat. Where had that cocky attitude gone, acting like this was its world?
"You should think carefully before picking a fight."
He extended his right index finger and slashed the air. Dozens of Magic Bullets formed, tracing elegant arcs toward each puddle.
Explosions bloomed wherever they hit. Dirt erupted simultaneously, blasts rattling eardrums. Rock shards tumbled, gales sweeping the crumbling silent earth.
Even the red sunset shimmered, showcasing Cheon Ji-hoo's overwhelming might.
"Can't use Silence anymore, huh."
It had blocked his magic fine until now. But not this last Magic Bullet.
Obviously. Its domain had been all but devoured by Falling Sunset. Events in an enemy's domain were hard to interfere with, so even Silence wouldn't land properly now.
"Well then……."
Time for scrap to return to the junkyard.
He snapped his fingers with a crack, then flipped his palm.
The remaining black demonic energy on the gray earth and even the old temple ruins floated into the air.
Reverse Gravity.
He looked up at the rising objects. Bathed in red light, they hung in the sky.
For the one spell to topple them all at once, he raised his other hand high.
Ambient and internal mana resonated, amplifying. He thrust a mana-forged blade into reality, demanding compliance.
A massive magic circle etched in the air. Triangles merged with squares. Circles fused with pentagons.
Formulas calculated in his mind filled the circle's interior. The spell was complete.
The circle spun slowly, whipping up a gale that swelled into a storm. It swallowed the red orbs floating in the sky, birthing a colossal Flame Tempest that engulfed everything around.
The space rivaled an S-rank rift in size, but that didn't matter.
Falling Sunset - Flame Dance.
This was the dance of flames.
Magic woven with magic, a calamity that burned all it touched, mercilessly shredding the sunset-dyed world.
No one around, and inside a rift—no need to hold back. He unleashed the storm.
Everything lifted by Reverse Gravity melted, swept away by the icy gale. Everything—the gray earth itself—reduced to a handful of dust and vanished.
Standing alone amid the fiery storm, Cheon Ji-hoo simply regulated his breathing until the gale tore the rift's thick demonic energy to shreds.
Soon the storm died down, leaving only the gray sky in the rift. The silent earth had been gouged beyond recognition, horrific scars remaining.
"……Hoo."
He exhaled shortly and reached out. Something fell from the sky into his hand.
A black sphere. Smaller than a usual core—fingernail-sized.
Peering closely, he saw it was a fragment of something. Demonic energy radiated from it, so probably a Demon King Fragment.
It was also the core sustaining the rift.
"The domain sapped most of its power, leaving just a sliver of Authority."
Deriving cause and effect in an instant, Cheon Ji-hoo smirked and tossed it into his subspace.
The rift began collapsing, the sky cracking.
Yet he leisurely summoned Nok and hopped on its back.
-Amazing! Amazing! Weird guy's dead!
"This is just the beginning, Nok. Let's head home."
-Yeah! Home! Going home!
This was merely the first step.
The Silent Demon King had devoured seven others, so 658 Demon Kings remained.
……What, were they cockroaches or something?