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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Ruby
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The gate of the Blood Realm Castle opened.
Creaaak…
Yuma walked toward the Blood Realm Castle.
He approached the castle gate of the most massive and iron-like place in the demon realm.
Step—
The Demon King Lilith, her demon realm army under her command, and Bell stared intensely at Yuma’s back as he walked alone toward the ten thousand demons of the Blood Realm Castle.
Yuma stepped on the castle gate of the Blood Realm Castle.
On top of the towering structures, numerous troops stood densely packed.
Swords, spears, axes, and shields.
Each with their own armaments.
The atmosphere was tense with impending battle.
Yuma carefully observed what appeared to be a platform.
‘That’s him.’
A toad wearing sophisticated dark armor on the platform.
That toad was Berzet, The Master of All Blessings.
His level was slightly higher than Lilith’s.
Yuma quickly scanned the remaining troops visible to his eyes with his search vision.
‘As expected.’
At this place, at least among the frontline troops currently visible to the naked eye, there were none of Berzet’s direct bloodline.
It seemed there was no chance of any of them getting caught up in [Absolute Counter], eliminating the possibility of a Seal Clan member dying.
Zzzzzzk— Zzzk—
From the massive Blood Realm Castle and the countless demons standing densely packed at the top of the castle, numerous ferocious currents flowed out, tearing through the atmosphere.
ZZZZZZK—!
The terrifyingly massive demonic energy mixed with killing intent, pressing down on the atmosphere itself with pressure, swelled like waves throughout the Blood Realm Castle.
Having crossed the castle gate and fully entered the Blood Realm Castle, Yuma just stood still despite the massive demonic energy that swirled around like a living demon.
“Human.”
A voice mixed with powerful resonance spewed from the toad’s wide-open mouth.
Immediately after saying those words, the body of [The Master of All Blessings], Berzet floated up.
While it looked like a giant toad flying in the sky, not a single person could simply disparage that appearance.
The aura emanating from Berzet’s entire body was too extraordinary for that.
Berzet’s heavy body descended to a position facing Yuma.
Although they faced each other, the distance between them was quite far.
“What is your name?”
Berzet’s deep and massive voice spread across the ground.
“My name is Berzet, as you well know.”
“Yuma.”
Berzet slowly nodded his toad head.
“You killed two demon kings in the middle realm? So you seem quite arrogant now. But you know nothing. The terror of this demon realm.”
Berzet grinned.
His voice continued as his mouth stretched long enough to immediately feel the massive malice.
“You will die now. As the price for daring to judge me and this Blood Realm Castle with your narrow-minded view.”
Right after Berzet’s words ended.
Red currents rose sneakily from his feet.
Not just from his feet.
The ground.
Thousands of dark red lines wriggled and gathered behind Berzet.
Sssssssss…
The demonic energy that had been deposited in all the land of this Blood Realm Castle for a long time was being drawn together.
The massive clumps of demonic energy concentrated behind Berzet began to take form.
KWADUDUK—!
Behind the giant toad.
A form of a red octopus much larger than him was created.
It resembled one of the legends of the sea, the Kraken.
The red form had eight robust tentacles.
They were massive tentacles with an indescribable ominousness.
They materialized like the legs of the giant octopus Kraken, one of the disasters of the sea.
“Human.”
The tentacles moved slowly.
“You should not have set foot in this Blood Realm Castle.”
The absolute realm possessed by gods of the 2nd rank or higher—Divine Domain.
Yuma had already encountered such a Divine Domain once before.
The endless world of death, Termination, that the god Incrinew had unfolded was Incrinew’s Divine Domain.
And the Great Demon Kings of the demon realm could also unfold a realm that fell into the same category as the Divine Domain.
Paradise (Rakuen).
The Great Demon King Berzet proclaimed Paradise.
Paradise—Blood Realm Master.
“You cannot possibly evade my attack.”
The shadow of the massive red form, Blood Realm Master, was directed at Yuma.
“Absolutely not.”
Berzet’s preparation didn’t end there.
Berzet bestowed all the blessings he possessed upon the Blood Realm Master.
The golden eyes of the purple toad spun around.
The Blood Realm Master grew taller and larger.
Enough to encompass the entire Blood Realm Castle.
“Die, human.”
Tentacles larger than the legs of the Giant King Ades whom he had faced before.
Three of the eight tentacles moved first.
They were ferocious weapons that churned the atmosphere of the demon realm just by moving.
The three tentacles rushed without a sound.
From the front.
And directly above.
Finally, from within the shadow of the Blood Realm Master.
‘—Paradise.’
Yuma could understand why Berzet was so confident that his attack would hit.
‘Once I set foot in this Blood Realm Castle, there’s nowhere those massive red tentacles can’t reach.’
The tentacles that rushed as flexibly as whips struck down as rigidly as spears.
But Berzet had made a serious misconception.
Yuma had no intention of evading the attack from the beginning.
Time flowed slowly.
Only from Yuma’s perspective.
He searched for the parrying point.
The point right below the tip of the tentacle.
Yuma swung Balmung.
ZWEEEEONG!
He deflected the tentacle that sprang from the shadow with a diagonal slash.
KWAAAANG!
He struck the transcendent red spear thrust that rushed from the front with an upward diagonal slash.
He remained unwavering despite the heavy pressure pushing through the tip of his sword.
ZWEEEEEONG!
Finally, he deflected the tentacle that struck down vertically like lightning.
Golden circular impacts burst out three times in succession.
Berzet couldn’t easily believe that not a single one of the tentacles, each as large as a castle building in the Blood Realm Castle, had managed to touch Yuma and had been deflected instead.
“…What?”
And then an even more unbelievable thing happened.
Paradise, Blood Realm Master, which he had realized by drawing together even the demonic energy of this land.
Faint, but clearly, behind Yuma, a red energy that closely resembled the Blood Realm Master flickered like flames.
SWAEEEEEEK—!
And from that red form, three strands of current stretched out.
Currents large enough to completely cover a fortress.
BWEEEEEOOORK—!
A red pillar that struck down diagonally like lightning crushed the Blood Realm Master above Berzet.
And the two currents that stretched out like red sword energy.
The purple toad used his imprint ability.
Like Yuma, the Lightning Imprint received from Selene.
He activated that teleportation ability.
Pop—!
Berzet’s body blinked away.
The two red sword energies that lost their target crossed through the empty air.
“Human…!”
The Master of All Blessings, Berzet concentrated his full magical power in both hands in an instant.
However, there was something else Berzet had overlooked.
He didn’t know that his paradise wasn’t the only one with homing ability.
Attacks generated through Absolute Counter do not stop until they reach their target.
Absolutely not.
KIIIIIING—!
The two strands of red current twisted their direction 180 degrees. Berzet’s eyes shook violently.
He activated the Iron Wall Imprint received from the deceased former head of the Seal Clan, along with all the blessings related to defense that he possessed.
The current that rushed like a whip wrapped around Berzet’s right leg.
“Huh…?”
Clearly, he shouldn’t have felt any pain.
It was an overlap of such powerful blessings that even if a group of demon kings attacked, they couldn’t even inflict a minor wound.
KWADUDUK!
But why was the bone breaking instantly?
“KWAAAAAAAK!!!!!!”
The power contained in the current extended from behind Yuma was strong enough to crush all those supreme blessings at once.
WUDDUK.
It was being torn off.
The right leg, no.
The entire lower body.
“KWAAAAAAAAAK!!!”
PUHWAAAAAK—!
Blood poured down like rain.
The Great Demon King’s lower body rolled on the ground of the Blood Realm Castle that he had ruled.
KWAAANG!
The upper body and head of the giant toad crashed to the ground simultaneously.
“UUUUK…! HUAAAAAAK!!!!”
Great Demon King.
A groan so ugly it was hard to believe it came from a being of the Great Demon King rank.
A red flash swept over the head from which that groan burst forth.
KWAAAAAAAAAANG——————!
The ground itself was swept by the red flash.
What the flash did was not just vaporize the Great Demon King’s head.
The foremost wall was ruthlessly destroyed.
And a hundred of Berzet’s personal guard demons who had been lined up in case of an emergency died instantly, turned into bloody pulps.
Blood Realm Master.
Berzet’s breath stopped right there due to the power of the great paradise he himself had created.
Yuma slowly walked toward the purple toad whose lower body and head had disappeared.
KWADUK! KWAJIK!
“……”
The demons of the Blood Realm Castle remained still even as they watched Yuma hacking the upper body of the king they had served with his sword.
As if they had been cursed by Medusa, turning to stone upon eye contact.
Fear of the unknown situation.
Fear of the overwhelming gap.
It was fear of a being who had killed a Great Demon King in an instant and swept away the most powerful guard unit in the Blood Realm Castle like sweeping with a broom.
Tremble tremble tremble!
Katler, the great general of the Blood Realm Castle, blankly stared at his gray legs trembling with fear.
It was something he had never experienced in a thousand years.
Yuma extracted the red gem that was Berzet’s heart.
It was definitely larger than a demon king’s heart.
If he extracted the clean blood from this red crystal and stored it in something like a flask, it would become a material that could be fused with the Dragon Heart.
Yuma put the red gem of the Great Demon King Berzet into his spatial pouch.
As he was trying to decide what to do next.
“Yuma!!!”
Yuma heard Bell’s cry.
He could feel trembling in that cry.
Since Bell wasn’t the type to show such emotion for trivial matters, it meant something serious had happened.
Without hesitation, Yuma activated
– The ability of the Lightning Imprint
Yuma’s body blinked away.
Having teleported outside the Blood Realm Castle in an instant, Yuma ran toward Bell.
There was a woman in the place Bell was looking at with a distraught face.
A woman who even to Yuma’s eyes was visibly dying slowly.
Cough.
Dark red blood flowed from the woman’s mouth.
Blood splattered on her scattered platinum blonde hair.
The person lying with her head on Bell’s lap was the head of the Seal Clan Levain, Selene.
“Yuma! Se, sister Selene suddenly…!”
Bell wiped away the blood flowing from Selene’s mouth with a handkerchief, tears welling in her eyes.
Yuma knelt on his left knee to meet Selene’s eyes. Selene smiled faintly.
“…Yuma, you kept your promise.”
She was referring to the promise to kill the Great Demon King Berzet.
Yuma slowly opened his mouth.
“…Yes.”
It wasn’t difficult to deduce why Selene had ended up like this.
Selene’s silver eyes captured Yuma.
“I’m sorry. I lied… The being I was bound to by the death pact was… Berzet. Not the first son.”
To fully save the 10 members of the clan who had awakened the Imprint bloodline, they had to eliminate the death pact.
To eliminate the death pact, they had to kill the Great Demon King Berzet who had cast it.
In this process, Selene, who was the subject of the Death Pact and would die together if Berzet died, was inevitably bound to die.
The life began to disappear from Selene’s eyes.
A black flower began to bloom in her heart due to the death pact.
A black flower that completely devoured the life of the pact subject.
“The death pact is a power granted to the Great Demon King by the demon realm itself… There is not a single way to escape it. So…”
Selene’s withered right hand caressed Yuma’s cheek.
Yuma felt a terrible coldness.
“This is an inevitable death… One that no one can prevent. So, it’s not your fault. Yuma.”
“Selene.”
Yuma felt his words choke up.
He had doubted Selene’s words.
So he kept asking.
If she was really connected to the first son by the death pact.
But despite repeated questioning, Selene calmly said it was true.
Very calmly, so convincingly that he had to believe it was the truth. So he believed it.
Preparation.
The head of a family that had been oppressed for over a hundred years was always ready to risk her life for her family.
That’s why she was so calm.
“…Just, just one day yesterday. That freedom was so sweet… Yuma. I wonder if it’s because I was with you… If I say it felt like life had meaning, is that too grandiose… I wonder…”
Blood flowed again.
Yuma wiped that blood with a handkerchief.
Then he looked at the Great Demon King Lilith standing behind him with a hardened face.
And tears formed in her eyes as well.
Yuma carefully wiped away those tears.
“Is there no way? Not even one?”
Lilith slowly shook her head with her red hair.
“…A death pact that has been established is absolute. Even the Great Demon King who cast the pact cannot reverse it.”
Selene’s eyes completely lost their light and became dim.
Yuma firmly held Selene’s right hand.
Selene’s dry lips moved again.
“Is this your first time not being able to protect someone…?”
Selene felt trembling in Yuma’s words.
And she also felt the trembling in his hand.
“I’m sorry.”
“…I’m not someone who couldn’t be protected. I had no choice but to die… So, Yuma… From now on, just don’t lose anyone else…”
Selene’s fingers very slowly stroked the back of Yuma’s hand.
As if to comfort him.
Selene felt her eyes slowly closing.
Her heartbeat began to stop.
“It’s too shameless of me… but please tell my younger brother, Uren… to succeed me as the head of the family through the succession ceremony… and to raise the family again… Just please deliver that message.”
“I understand. Don’t worry, the family will continue to exist.”
Yuma wanted to ease Selene’s concerns even a little bit.
“Yes… thank you.”
Selene smiled faintly.
“Leven… Ehendel… Yuma.”
The trembling hand completely stopped.
Her eyes closed completely.
Selene, the head of the Seal Clan Levain, died.
“…”
Yuma stared at Selene for a long time.
He knew the meaning of those words.
In the Seal Clan’s imprint language, it means “I always wish you well.
Yuma slowly rose to his feet.
His head was excessively hot.
It was clear anger.
He needed to vent this anger somewhere.
Yuma began walking back toward the Blood Realm Castle.
In the red sky of the demon realm, a black star was falling.
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