225

Chapter 225 — The World Is (10)

SKREEEEECH!!

The instant a demon’s cry stabbed into his ears, Deathbringer’s fading consciousness snapped awake.

He was not yet in a situation where he could afford to remain unconscious.

“……!”

He carefully lifted the plank crushing him and checked his surroundings.

Perhaps the building had collapsed.

Everything around him was filled with what had once been the building.

SKRREEEE!

“…….”

Fortunately, because Deathbringer was buried beneath pieces of the building, the demons had not noticed him.

At the same time, the debris was not arranged in a way that threatened his life.

Only wooden planks that had probably once formed the ceiling covered him, allowing his body to remain almost completely unharmed.

Perhaps it was because the building had only been three stories tall.

Or perhaps because he had been on one of its upper floors when it collapsed.

Whatever the reason, it was extraordinary luck.

“Ow…….”

The question was whether that extraordinary luck had applied to Meister as well……

Deathbringer got that far before feeling pain in his arm.

Keeping his body curled up, he reached toward it with the hand he could still move.

His fingers came away wet with blood.

It seemed some piece of debris had lodged in his shoulder.

“Damn it…….”

Had he been wounded while the building collapsed on him?

If that was all, it was almost fortunate.

Around then, a fragment of memory suddenly flashed through Deathbringer’s mind.

The demons had not caused this building to collapse.

The artillery device had exploded at the same time it fired, bringing the building down.

And the person closest to that artillery device had been……

“Ugh.”

At that instant, a faint, low groan reached his ears.

Nearby.

“Hey. You alive?”

No answer came to the question he whispered.

Instead, something nearby shifted slightly.

It didn’t seem as though the demons outside had disturbed it.

Then was that Meister?

Were they buried under something?

No.

It didn’t seem like they were fully buried.

Apparently Meister, too, had been lucky enough to have only a few pieces of what had been the ceiling fall on them.

Still, if something had impaled them, they might bleed to death.

Worry made Deathbringer shift his body.

SKRREEEE!

If not for the demons still wandering around outside, he might already have crawled out.

“…Please just go away.”

But despite his wish, the demons merely circled overhead.

He didn’t know whether they had smelled the blood or noticed the shifting debris.

Either way, they showed absolutely no intention of leaving.

Damn it.

He needed to dig Meister out quickly, and he also needed to bind his shoulder or do something else to stop the bleeding.

But until those damn demons left, he couldn’t do anything.

Still in danger and having done nothing more than preserve his life for the moment, Deathbringer ground his teeth.

KABOOM!

Ironically, what saved him was another demon.

Beyond the gaps between the wooden planks and rubble, pitch-black flames suddenly erupted wildly.

Thunder followed.

So did lava.

Startled by the commotion, the demons shrieked and spread their wings.

Judging from the direction they flew, they almost seemed to be fleeing for their lives.

KABOOOM!

But no wonder.

The scene that followed did not belong in the mortal world.

“Fuck… you call that a fight……?”

Deathbringer, who had quickly crawled out to search for Meister, pressed his lips tightly together.

“Erasing a drawing with bread would look messier than that.”

Once, when Sir had been drawing, Deathbringer had seen him use bread to erase a few incorrect lines.

At the time, his only thought had been something like, What a waste of perfectly good bread.

But now, that actually seemed preferable.

Damn it.

Those insane demons were erasing the buildings standing upon the earth as if rubbing lines off a drawing with bread.

With a single gesture, fragments of everything that had filled the land disappeared until only traces remained.

If that thing turned this way, I’ll die without even leaving a trace.

Deathbringer shuddered at the miserable thought and searched for Meister.

He knew perfectly well that there were many deaths in the world where no corpse could ever be recovered.

Still, he did not want a death that would leave behind not even a handful of bone dust.

“Damn. Your luck isn’t too bad either.”

Deathbringer removed the boards and several stones pinning Meister down.

Meister was unconscious.

Their leg had been trapped somewhat, but they did not appear to have suffered any major wounds.

“Why the hell won’t this move……?!”

He strained to clear away what was crushing Meister’s leg.

But however the wreckage was arranged, it refused to lift.

The strip of cloth he had temporarily tied around his own wound to slow the bleeding grew even redder.

“Who knows when a demon might come……”

BANG!

Fuck.

Shouldn’t have said that.

Wondering uneasily whether he had just jinxed himself, Deathbringer slowly turned his head.

RUMBLE.

Even then the earth continued shaking, informing him that something was still falling.

“…What the hell.”

They were demon corpses.

Every last one slaughtered.

Deathbringer’s legs suddenly lost their strength, and he nearly toppled backward.

“Damn it…….”

Unconsciously crawling backward, he shook Meister where they lay beside him.

“Hey. Wake up.”

It was an action born half from instinct.

Waking Meister wouldn’t solve the situation……

but at least the end of life would not be lonely.

“Fuck, we’re about to die…….”

Crackle.

Something resembling a human, yet utterly featureless and plain, stopped in front of Deathbringer.

It was the being that had carved every flying demon into pieces.

And despite that, it inspired no sense whatsoever of being an ally.

Honestly, Deathbringer wasn’t even sure it counted as a living creature.

“Ugh…….”

But then what the hell was the Inquisitor doing in its hands?

Deathbringer froze at the unexpected sight.

Then the being reached out.

Black energy dripped away like melting wax and wrapped around Deathbringer’s entire body like vines.

Meister was bound in the same way.

The debris crushing Meister’s leg was suddenly eaten away by rising black flames and vanished entirely.

“This crazy…….”

Should he resist?

But his entire body was bound so tightly that he couldn’t even draw the Corruption Sword.

Just as Deathbringer despaired, thinking this truly was the end, his vision suddenly lurched.

The creature holding him had abruptly launched itself forward.

The impossible speed compressed his entire body, while his insides churned violently enough to make him want to vomit.

Gray.

Black.

Red.

White.

The scenery switched so rapidly that he could no longer distinguish one direction from another.

“What the—!”

Only much later did the shaking stop and his vision stabilize somewhat.

A familiar voice entered his ears.

But his body, which had been thrown onto the ground, prioritized dry heaving far too much for him to respond.

After retching several times, Deathbringer finally managed to look around.

The first things he saw were the people sprawled beside him.

The Inquisitor and Meister both lay unconscious.

“…Lady Fighter.”

Even more astonishing was Berserk, collapsed immediately beside the Inquisitor.

She was drenched in blood and not moving at all.

His heart dropped for a moment.

“D-Demons…….”

SLASH!

While he staggered and crawled toward Berserk, the unknown creature that had carried them here slaughtered most of the demons in every direction with a single gesture.

Its gesture did save people who had been dying while facing the demons.

Whether that had truly been its intention was another question.

The careless attack caused plenty of people to be crushed beneath demon corpses or swept up and killed along with them.

It was true that the temporary losses caused by this were smaller than what would have happened if the demons remained alive……

But could Deathbringer really consider it an ally?

Whoosh.

After finally confirming that Berserk was alive, Deathbringer returned to that question.

Naturally.

If it was not an ally, then the lives they had barely managed to preserve might all end here.

He wrapped himself protectively around the person he had somehow failed to care for the most—

and therefore the person toward whom he felt the greatest guilt—

and stared at the mysterious creature.

Before he could say anything, however, his back suddenly became lighter.

The troublesome longsword he had been forced to carry everywhere because circumstances had never allowed him to leave it somewhere had passed into the creature’s possession.

Deathbringer realized that half a beat late, and his eyes widened.

“That’s—!”

It’s for the Demon Knight.

He was about to shout exactly that—

but the creature that had taken the sword plunged directly into the shadows.

No.

Could that truly be called a shadow?

The instant the creature sank into the flames of Demonic Energy pooled there like darkness, the Demonic Energy dwindled like water draining through a small hole.

Before long, it vanished completely.

“It disappeared…….”

Deathbringer truly had no idea what was happening anymore.

“You!”

“You damned grandson……!”

Until the two Great Sages came running from the distance, Deathbringer remained that way.

* * *

——!

The instant an attack that devoured even sound swept across the area, Mammon was struck speechless by the incoming impact.

Was this the flash strike that had killed Gluttony, Beelzebub?

[Thank hell you aren’t in your prime……!]

Watching something and experiencing it directly were entirely different things.

Mammon had admired those flames because they were so breathtakingly beautiful.

But once exposed to them personally, beauty and ugliness alike ceased to matter.

Only despair remained.

[What’s wrong? You look scared.]

Of course, an attack consuming that much Demonic Energy could not be fired endlessly.

Even against Beelzebub, Mammon had only seen the flash strike used a handful of times.

But after personally clashing with it, Mammon reached a conclusion.

A direct hit from that would simply kill them, regardless of any difference in Demonic Energy.

The throbbing agony throughout Mammon’s body proved it.

Mammon had spent twice as much Demonic Energy as Mephistopheles just to defend against it, yet the body still screamed in pain.

The sheer power was chilling.

[Wouldn’t you be scared if you were me?!]

[Hmm… I’ve killed every bastard who ever frightened me, so I wouldn’t know!]

Yes.

Of course.

Asmodeus had tormented Mephistopheles by keeping them as a pet human.

Beelzebub had tried to hunt Mephistopheles for intruding upon their territory.

And Mephistopheles had found ways to kill both of them in return.

What could possibly frighten someone like that?

Even fear itself was probably nothing more than fuel that fed those flames.

Mammon remembered the being who had raged at everything in the world even before gaining the name “Wrath,” back when they had been called Deception and Trickery.

If Mammon could return to that time, they would not have sent a double to observe.

They would have gone personally and killed Mephistopheles on the spot.

The regret came far too late.

SLASH!

But it was already too late.

Now that the battle had begun, Mammon had no choice but to win.

Mephistopheles would never spare them.

And Satan would not forgive failure either.

[Fine… then I’ll have to do the same!!]

But if Mammon won, all the gold of Hell would belong to them.

That became the driving force that made Mammon move.

Mammon would win.

At Mammon’s gesture, the ground erupted everywhere like active volcanoes and spewed lava.

There was enough mass to cover the sky and fill the air.

It was meant to prevent Mephistopheles from approaching—

and force the enemy to waste Demonic Energy.

Several razor-sharp attacks cut through the lava.

They accomplished little.

Unless Mephistopheles spent Demonic Energy to burn it away, slicing through magma that behaved almost like liquid was meaningless.

[Tch.]

[What’s wrong?! Almost like your attacks aren’t working!]

After watching Mephistopheles make several futile strikes, Mammon regained some confidence.

If this were Mephistopheles’s original body, perhaps things would be different.

But in that state, the attacks would not reach Mammon.

Mammon smothered the black fire beneath overwhelming mass and used lava puppets to crush the entire area indiscriminately.

Even Mephistopheles had no suitable answer to lava crashing down over entire hectares rather than mere square meters.

They had no choice but to retreat.

The city that had flooded its waterways with seawater was now being buried beneath lava.

SLASH!

Of course, Mephistopheles was hardly the sort to simply endure attacks forever.

Ratel, which had taken the form of a sword, melted down.

At the same time Mephistopheles stomped the ground, Demonic Energy plunged beneath the earth.

CRACK!

The land broke apart and rose in the shape Mephistopheles desired, becoming a shield that blocked the incoming attack.

KABOOM!

Then a tremendous cannon blast shattered the entire barrier from beyond.

Taking advantage of the obscured vision, Mammon had twisted flames into a spiral and fired them forward in a straight line.

This much could be endured.

At Mammon’s gesture, a giant rose from the lava and blocked the attack before countering with something similar.

An attack formed entirely from condensed Demonic Energy melted and split the earth as it swept over the place where Mephistopheles had stood.

Tap.

Naturally, Mephistopheles was only human-sized and frighteningly fast.

There was no chance an attack like that would hit.

Mammon knew that and continued attacking without pause.

Dozens of boulders crashed into the ground, making the earth ripple like waves, while the magma that had half-submerged the city sprayed in every direction.

SHHK!

[Slow.]

When did they—

Mammon was startled, but immediately plunged into the lava and rapidly accumulated power.

Before spikes could rise from every direction, crimson fire swept across the area like a flash and annihilated everything where it passed.

Mammon barely escaped.

A chill ran across the back of their neck.

SLASH!

But Mephistopheles’s attack still wasn’t over.

A sword strike came from the opposite direction from Mephistopheles’s true position.

With six ears to hear it, Mammon could tell the source was a precisely constructed puppet.

That damned sword of Mephistopheles—

Ratel—

had raised its claws in the form of a living creature.

[You use a sword in the filthiest ways imaginable!]

[That’s a compliment. You know that?]

BOOM! BOOM!

Black flames buried in the magma became sparks and exploded.

Mammon watched Ratel melt down and return to its master.

CRASH! KRAKOOM!

Mephistopheles was not completely at ease either.

Continuous Demonic Energy was being consumed to block the lightning crashing wildly around them.

[You’re starting to fight pretty dirty yourself. That bat bastard would be thrilled if they saw you!]

A veil of flame floated above Mephistopheles’s head as they drew a blade—Ratel—from their palm.

Then they kicked off the ground hard enough to produce a thunderous boom and closed the distance to Mammon in an instant.

SLASH!

Dozens of pitch-black trajectories were carved through the air in the span of a heartbeat.

SHHK!

But Mammon still possessed plenty of Demonic Energy.

At worst, if the Magic Tower within Mammon’s sphere of influence were stripped bare, the Demonic Energy already spent could be replenished.

Keeping that option in mind, Mammon hid inside the lava and retreated.

Then they summoned and poured down a mass of lava hundreds of meters across.

No matter how fast one ran forward, backward, left, or right—

this could not be dodged.

[What a pathetic trick.]

Mephistopheles knew that too and abandoned any attempt to evade.

They understood Mammon was deliberately trying to exhaust their Demonic Energy.

But there was no special alternative.

Mephistopheles transformed Ratel into a ring and floated it around them, then gathered Demonic Energy.

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SPLAAASH!

The tsunami of lava swallowed them whole.