Massacre
The next Demon King Sloan encountered resembled a snakehead fish that fired crimson beams from its eyes.
"D-die— gack!? Gaaargh!?"
The red flashes punched through dozens of greenskins and tried to cleave Sloan's torso clean in half — but her sword stroke came far faster. The creature never even had time to react.
"Luurun! Naeinooooom!"
Beside it was another fish that looked exactly the same. Its peculiar gift was the ability to swim through solid earth as if it were water.
A remarkable power — yet the moment the Demon King dove underground, half its body exploded outward. Sloan had driven her fist into the ground, and the resulting blast carved out a crater dozens of meters deep.
Urk Heizen could not believe what he was seeing.
This can't be… happening.
His plan had been perfect — or so he'd thought. Level that pathetic city wall, crack open the so-called Hero's skull. Flawless.
So where had it all gone wrong? The number of troops? The quality of those troops?
Unfortunately, even with both in abundance, none of it mattered.
A single freak of nature named Sloan had shattered every carefully laid scheme.
A greenskin legion forged over centuries of painstaking effort was collapsing. The moment Sloan charged, an ogre unit that had taken years to prepare was torn to shreds.
Ah — how could this be… His vision spun. Everything was vanishing into nothing… his precious army evaporating at the hands of mere humans!
"We have to fall back. The mother nest is still intact. Given time, we can replenish—"
"Boss!"
"Huh?"
One of his idiot goblin adjutants — the kind who still couldn't learn the proper title of "Demon King" no matter how many times he was told — came sprinting up, drenched head to toe in blood.
Urk Heizen barely had a moment to register that his messenger was a walking bloodstain before Sloan herself burst through the ranks and stood before him.
"You the boss?"
Her black hair was soaked through with blood. Guts and scraps of flesh clung to her entire body.
The only thing still clean was the holy sword in her grip. The instant any scrap of meat touched the blade, the heat rising from its light seared fat and blood away. And still it shone pure white, hungry for more enemy flesh.
"Yes…. I am a great king of the Demon Realm. The fifty-first ranked — Heizen Urk."
"Whoa…. So you really are? Pretty high up among the ones I've killed so far!"
Sloan let out a sound of genuine admiration and raised her holy sword. The provocative stance made Urk Heizen's pride twitch.
"I'll let you have the first move."
"You dare—! Challenge me—!"
Every Demon King possessed a unique innate ability. Vallitics had stealth. Urk Heizen secreted a special cerebral compound that doubled his physical capabilities.
An axe swung with that kind of raw power needed no technique. Paired with a three-meter frame and a steel axe weighing measured in tons, the weapon hit with force closer to artillery than anything else.
He whipped it up and down so fast the blade itself blurred — all to crush the reckless Hero standing before him into a lump of meat—
"Wha—"
KRAAAANG! A jolt shot through Urk Heizen's entire arm. His shoulder ached. Small wonder — the blow had been knocked aside hard enough to nearly wrench his arm clean behind his back.
"You oughta eat more. That was ridiculously light."
"You—!"
"Oh, right. Sorry! You won't be able to!"
She had a point. Once your jaw was shattered, eating properly was out of the question.
Sloan stretched her arm forward the way someone might casually reach for a distant object, seized Urk Heizen's left arm, and yanked. The motion was so fast and so violent he was already being dragged before his mind could register it.
"Guaaagh!"
Yanked past Sloan, Urk Heizen pitched forward like discarded trash. His own weight, combined with the force of the pull, smashed him into the ground and pulverized his jaw.
Thanks to the special cerebral compound, there was no pain — setting aside the psychological wound to his pride. But he was certain his organs and bones were screaming. And his head was spinning…. A concussion, maybe.
To die like this.
An overwhelming difference in power.
This had nothing to do with technique or magic.
It was simply… the gap in raw strength was too obvious. The way an adult might playfully roughhouse with a child, Sloan was cooking Urk Heizen however she pleased.
But when I saw her before, she was only dealing with a few hundred goblins…
The realization of his mistake hit him all at once.
Yes — Urk Heizen's greatest error had been underestimating Sloan's full strength.
Seen through the eyes of dying goblins, she had looked weak. Easy enough to take down. He'd arrogantly assumed his kin had only fallen to underhanded ambushes, and that in a straight fight he would win.
Hubris. Sloan didn't ambush anyone. She simply charged head-on and cut her enemies down. She loved tearing them to pieces. She savored the look of agony on their faces.
Look at that smile carved across her brown face…. Urk Heizen trembled as he forced an arm upward.
"What… what the hell are we to you?"
"Huh? Hmm! Toys? Sturdier ones, something like that."
"You… you're no Hero."
"Aw, I am a Hero. The Goddess chose me, y'know? Anyway. You're… tougher than I expected. Ah! If I'd known, I would've held back a little more. Think I went a bit too hard."
Not human. That thing wasn't a Hero either. It was something far more primal—
"You! You're not! Human! Why are you even he—"
"Haa…. Suddenly this got boring. You — just die."
Shunk! And just like that, Urk Heizen was dead — the holy sword driven deep through his eyeball.
"Playing with Demon Kings is fun and all, but the real fun is…. Vali."
The way that little man flailed around never got old. And he was perfect for working off the party's sexual frustration, too. She grinned to herself and picked up her pace.
She wanted to watch Vali squirm a little more. She snickered under her breath.
This is completely absurd.
That Urk Heizen would die that easily…. I couldn't even imagine it.
To a low-ranking Demon King like me, that bastard had been a terrifying existence. And he'd gone down in a single exchange.
It wasn't even an ambush. She just walked straight in and killed him.
It felt a little hollow — until I felt the power flowing into me from his death, and that thought evaporated.
At this level…!
My body evolved several stages in an instant. My senses sharpened dramatically; my vision grew far clearer. My skin itself toughened — blades and spears wouldn't pierce it now.
On top of that, my magic had been massively reinforced. Enough that I could even cast simple spells.
In terms of rank, I just jumped a full ten places in one go!
I was no longer the 72nd Demon King. I was the 62nd!
…Still firmly in the lower ranks, though. And the only reason I was even that high was because everyone stronger than me kept dying off, leaving me stuck near the bottom.
One thing's certain — Sloan is strong enough to carve through low-ranking Demon Kings like she's having lunch.
Whether she could beat one of the top thirty-six, though, I had no idea. Those ones…. They barely even felt like my own kind.
Some of them couldn't even communicate. They were kin in the sense that they didn't attack me on sight — and that was about it. If they got hungry, they'd probably go after me too.
But it's clear she can handle anything a bit stronger than him the same way.
If you measure strength by Demon King rank, hers would be…. around 41st? Being able to thrash Urk Heizen like a dog puts her somewhere in that range. I still haven't seen her full power, but probably.
"Vali."
"Ah? You're back. I didn't expect it to end this easily."
Ah, why did she have to find me first…. This is driving me insane. Elisa had been standing behind me, and the moment Sloan approached covered in gore, she clamped down hard on my ass.
A groan nearly slipped out from the sudden pain — but fortunately I managed to hold it in.
But my physical abilities just went up. So why?
That meant those delicate-looking hands were strong enough to hurt me even now.
That couldn't be right. Was Elisa hiding her strength too? Then there was no way she should have lost to something like goblins. Outside of Sloan, the rest of them were at best below full combat strength, no matter how generously you rated them….
"Oh, the power that came in this time is pretty substantial."
"The one I just killed was on the strong side. Oh, right. Vali. Your power should've gone up too. Wanna check?"
Gone up…?
It was common knowledge that a Hero grew stronger the more Demon Kings they killed. That was why so many Heroes had tried to start with me, the absolute bottom of the ranking.
But party members getting stronger too? That was news to me.
"Pretty nice, right?"
"…."
"Ah, this is your first time! Sorry."
"I have no idea what you mean…. Stronger how?"
"Ah! I never told you about my unique ability, did I."
She smiled faintly.
"My unique ability lets me kill a Demon King and share a portion of that power with my party members."
That's impossible. This ability would be useless for any normal Hero — no Demon King had ever actually been killed before. But once a monster with Sloan's deranged combat power got her hands on it….
This ability deserved to be called the worst unique ability in history.
"Alright. Time to clean up the rest. I hate mopping up, but massacres are the exception."
I had been arrogant. And stupid. If I'd known a freak like this had appeared, I should have fled as far as possible and scraped together whatever survival I could.
Infiltrate the Hero party? Sow discord and make them tear each other apart?
It wasn't even funny. This…. was a plan that never had a chance of working from the start.
"Surprised? Well, you've never seen anything like her before, right? It's easier if you just accept it — that Sloan is a complete monster."
"Nngh…."
Squeeeeeze—! The moment Camilla spoke up, Elisa's grip clamped down even harder. Why am I the one getting the backlash!?
"Her, you see. Hmm…. How do I put it — she just loves fighting things? So we put a lot of restrictions on her day to day. If she shows her real skill, the fight ends too easily."
"Restrictions… you put on her?"
"Yeah. For example…. deliberately swinging her sword at half strength. Or not using the holy sword's magic."
Which meant what I'd just witnessed might not even have been her full power.
"You look like you don't believe me. Just accept it. Think of Sloan as a monster you can't reason with…. But Elisa, what's with that face?"
"What about it."
Only when Camilla addressed her did Elisa finally release my ass.
"I was talking to Vali, and you looked like you were staring down a mortal enemy. Hmm…. Don't tell me you like Vali? Is that why you're making that face?"
"As if."
"Ah! Right? Then you won't mind if I share a bed with Vali tonight."
Share a bed with me again…? What is she planning to do.
"Absolutely not."
"Hm?"
"Never."
The elf archer muttered it in a tone dripping with contempt. Camilla's expression soured to match.
Whether Sloan was strong or weak…. internal conflict was already brewing in the party.
Meaningless internal conflict, at that.