Quickening (2)
I could feel it.
The Annihilation Knight was a legion commander-class knight.
A world apart from Myeolcheon, who'd only just seized a body and could barely move in it. That one was a true legion commander-class powerhouse. If I lunged at him carelessly, he would scatter me so thoroughly there wouldn't be a single bone left to gather.
"So you dare attack? How amusing."
The Annihilation Knight laughed. His helmet split clean in half, and a black mouth yawned open beneath it. Within, a pair of crimson eyes gleamed.
Grrrrrk!
An ominous power seized the entire area. A crushing pressure unlike anything I'd felt from the knights before pinned my body down.
"A mere human, and you believe you can defeat one blessed with madness?"
"That's exactly why I have to win."
The owner of that damned blessing and I had a score to settle, you see.
The Demon Spear Dantalion answers your call.
Demonification is now active.
The black lance materialized at my command. I gripped it and accepted the demon duke's power dwelling within my body.
"That form... Could you be a demon?"
"What? Scared?"
"Kwahahahaha! You jest delightfully."
Annihilation unleashed his power. He condensed it into his hand, forging a translucent sword of pure force.
"Come, then. I shall indulge you."
In that case, I wouldn't dream of refusing.
Mist Shadow Step
I struck first. The instant I kicked off the ground, my body shot forward at a speed that frightened even me.
Demonification's stat amplification. The demon duke's strength was projected onto me wholesale.
SKAGAGAGANG!
The moment my lance shot out, Annihilation whipped his sword around with blinding speed.
"...!"
"Tougher than you expected, huh?"
I thought so too. Even if I could only hold this for five minutes a day — right now, in this moment, I could stand equal to a legion commander-class knight.
KUUUNG!
I poured my strength down the lance and thrust it straight through.
"That power — don't tell me...! A duke-class demon!"
He hadn't imagined I would wield the strength of a duke-class demon, and the ease drained from Annihilation's bearing.
"Kgh! KRAAAAH!"
I drove power into my legs, put my whole body behind the motion, and pierced forward.
"You insolent wretch!"
"Smirk it off like you did before, why don't you."
Annihilation clenched his teeth and tore open the distance between us.
"GWRAAAAAAAA!"
Hundreds of mana swords bloomed across the sky. Each and every one of them carried force beyond that of any ordinary S-rank skill.
"I'll kill you in a single blow!"
He seemed to have decided that dragging things out would only work against him. He had no way of knowing that I could only maintain this form for five minutes.
DUDUDUDUDUDU!
Hundreds of swords came pouring down on me all at once. If I took that head-on, I would vanish without leaving so much as a smear behind. This was a full-power strike from a legion commander-class knight, after all.
"Vanish!"
The instant before the blades touched me, I raised my right hand and poured mana into it.
▷ Special Effect
① Protection: Once per day, deploys a shield capable of defending against any attack whatsoever.
Protection
A golden shield unfolded before me. The storm of swords crashed down upon it.
KUGUGUGUGUNG!
A baptism of blades that could shatter mountains whole — and the shield turned it aside as though it were nothing.
The effect of Protection has ended.
At last, having turned aside every last sword, the shield splintered and dissolved into nothing.
"H-how...!"
The moment his all-or-nothing strike failed, the Annihilation Knight stumbled back a step, momentarily thrown. No matter how mighty a legion commander-class knight might be, he was not invincible. He had emotions. He wavered. And sometimes, he left himself wide open.
Like, for instance — right now, when a technique he'd poured out with killing intent had failed to land so much as a scratch and simply evaporated.
Soul Sprint
And striking through that gap — that was how the weak fought.
SWAAAAAH!
Black energy blossomed along the lance.
⟨ Hell Three Spears ⟩
A skill carried within the Demon Spear Dantalion.
Three thrusts, and within them, a guaranteed victory seized from the enemy.
A demonic art that rendered the landscape of hell itself through a single spear.
"Drop dead."
I detonated everything I had gathered in a single instant and thrust at blistering speed.
First Spear: Demon Mountain
The first thrust split a crack across Annihilation's body.
"KEHAK! Wh-what kind of absurd—!"
Second Spear: Demon Sea
The second thrust — a savage, relentless barrage of stabs that conjured the image of hell's burning sea.
FWABUBUBUK!
The fissure in his body gaped wider and wider, and began to break apart.
"Stop it! Stop this!"
His scream rang in my ears. And to me, it might as well have been fireworks — proof that my attacks were killing him.
The final thrust. Hell Three Spears grew more devastating with every strike that landed in the same place. Two thrusts had already struck true at the same spot. And now, from that state, the final blow.
Third Spear: Demon Heaven
A pitch-black sky, stripped of even a handful of light, unfurled overhead.
KUUUUNG!
An unfathomable force came swirling down in the direction my lance pointed. Power absurd enough to raze half a forest. The Annihilation Knight, who had taken that spear head-on, shattered and was hurled away.
"Impossible... this is impossible...! I, blessed with the blessing of madness, undone by a mere human...!"
The last thing the Annihilation Knight left behind was denial. Denial that he could ever lose to someone like me.
Use of the Demon Spear Dantalion has ended.
I had nothing worth saying to him.
You have slain the Annihilation Knight!
A special reward has been granted.
The power of the 'Fragment World' is weakening.
The System's intervention is intensifying!
Rewards have been enhanced.
Reward: Immediate relocation to the Palace of Light
The Palace of Light. The residence of the First Prince, Theo.
"...I feel uneasy."
Seated upon the throne, he gnawed at his lip as he gave voice to his unease. Theo had lived his whole life by ruthlessly casting out such fragile emotions — yet today, of all days, he simply could not dismiss the feeling gnawing at him.
The Great Divine Mandate. The sacred ritual that chose the king. No one could obstruct it, and no one should. If any claimant to the throne were to interfere there, it would be regarded as a grave crime — grounds not only for the forfeiture of their claim to succession, but for their line to be cast out of the royal house for all eternity. All they could do was trust in the virtue they had piled up over the years and pray that heaven would choose them.
Even a man as coarse and hard-headed as Theo was not so reckless as to throw obstacles in the way of the Great Divine Mandate.
"I must become king. And I will become the Monarch."
Long ago, when he and his brother had first learned the truth about the Monarchs, Theo had declared his resolve to Leo.
I will be king.
Whatever stood in the way of that right, he would defy it, and he would grow stronger.
Through the power of the royal bloodline, he would transcend kindred and become a Monarch, guarding the world against the other Monarchs. However many sacrifices that path demanded, he would bear them all — for it was the only way to hold back a greater calamity.
"Come swiftly, Wengrum."
Bring me the name granted by heaven.
Theo closed his eyes tightly and let out a slow breath. That was the moment.
"Brother."
A voice that had no business sounding in this place called out to him.
"...Leo?"
"It has been some time since I came before you in person."
His only remaining blood kin. His younger brother. And above all, a bitterly twisted fate now stood before him.
"Nostalgic, isn't it? When we were children, you used to play with me often. Back then, I never imagined we would end up in a relationship like this."
"Why are you here? You know perfectly well that no claimant may move freely while the Great Divine Mandate is underway!"
"Let us set that tiresome talk aside for the moment, shall we, Brother?"
Leo smiled. A smile brimming with a maniacal happiness that sat ill with his pale skin.
"Brother, what do you believe is the thing that moves humankind?"
"What is this, all of a sudden—"
"Desire. Every human being is a creature that lives ruled by desire. And it is not humans alone — everything that possesses a soul harbors desire within it."
Leo opened his hand. A tiny insect was buzzing shrilly there.
"Even this worthless insect will flee or resist if you try to kill it. That is what we call the will to survive."
As he spoke, Leo clenched his hand with crushing force.
CRACK!
The insect burst, oozing thick fluid between his fingers. He brushed the mess from his palm and continued.
"So long as that desire exists, a living being can never — never — truly submit to the rule of another. Desire is like a blade; in the end, it is fated to pierce someone."
"What on earth are you trying to say?"
"Brother — a Monarch is one who rules. One who simply devours others to swell his own strength, as the Demon Monarch does, can never become complete. That is my conclusion."
The Monarch, mentioned out of nowhere. Leo tilted his head up slightly.
"That is why we once said we could never become Monarchs. We possessed no means by which to dominate others utterly."
"......"
"But now — now, I have it. That means."
SSSSSSSH!
A crimson current of energy came gusting from his body like a wind of knives. Something blood-red glittered within his heart, staining his white skin a deep, dark red.
"The most efficient way to command desire — is madness! It grants them ecstasy beyond compare, and an impulse that never runs dry!"
Ever since Leo had learned of demons and the Monarch, he had agonized and researched over long, long years. A method by which one could become a perfect Monarch. Unlike the Demon Monarch, who had failed to dominate the other demons and simply 'let them be' — a means to reign wholly and absolutely above them all.
He had slaughtered demons beyond counting, and built his theory upon their corpses.
To design 'it,' to test it, to give it form, he had hunted divine beasts and sealed demons without number.
And he had completed it.
A power that mutates kindred to align with desire itself — and grants dominion over them.
"Until now, I hesitated to act. I had never birthed an individual I could truly call 'complete' by my own standards."
Those whose desire ran too shallow were seized by madness and degenerated into mere monsters. But those who harbored desires uglier than any other 'evolved' — beyond monster, into something else entirely. Until recently it had existed only as a theoretical supposition, but lately he had discovered a soul carrying desire that thick.
You have potential. Rage, desire, greed... unlike those 'failures' before you, you will be able to digest this power properly.
Just as he had predicted, the man had shed his shell and emerged as something far above monster — not a mere beast, but a higher being. The existence of the 'Knight' had proven it.
"It seems there is no longer any reason for me to remain still."
Leo spread both arms wide and declared, brimming with confidence.
"I will become the Monarch, Brother."
"You raving madman...!"
Theo drew his sword — but Leo did not so much as flinch.
"Brother, I would have you at the head of the legion I am to lead."
"What did you say?"
"The Great Divine Mandate is already over."
Leo drew a blood-soaked sword from within his coat.
"The Namekeeper, Wengrum. He is already dead. No one remains to carry the name to you, Brother. The inheritance of power through the royal bloodline is, from this moment, impossible."
"You... you little...!"
"In exchange, I can grant you a power far greater than that."
Leo's 'madness' turned its gaze upon Theo.
"Become part of my legion, Brother."