Chapter 394

Chapter 394
## Chapter 394

The Demon King Descends (3)

The onslaught against Abnormal was executed with blistering speed and absolute certainty.

Deploying Harley, the most exorbitant sellsword in all of Auterica, had truly paid dividends. The entire campaign, spanning from the opening blitz on their central fortress to the ultimate demise of the Strange Duke, had concluded in a mere matter of hours.

‘This is all owed to the temporal acceleration mechanic within “Heavenly Demon’s World”.’

Even with that advantage, it remained a staggering accomplishment.

Because the subjugation unfolded with such staggering velocity, a vast majority of the individuals within Abnormal—a massive and widely distributed syndicate—remained completely oblivious to their shifting reality.

There were those who had merely received initial word of the siege on their central stronghold but had been left entirely in the dark regarding any subsequent developments.

Then there were the vanguard detachments that had scrambled to provide aid, utterly blind to the reality that the conflict had already concluded.

Assimilating these stray remnants was as effortless as taking candy from a baby.

“Remind me, what is your title?”

“…Tabur Pokan.”

“Ah, yes, Tabur. Is the reality of your current predicament clear to you now? Or do you require a more… thorough breakdown? Or is it that… you still harbor a desire for vengeance?”

The colossal, tiger-like fiend found his towering frame trembling violently as he fought against the mesmerizing cadence of the voice, its melodic tones reverberating deep within his consciousness.

He had desperately attempted to hold his ground…

…yet the truth was now undeniable.

Struggling against the supreme entity looming before him was a pointless endeavor, nothing short of a blasphemous act.

He rationally weighed his options.

The Demon World was an environment governed solely by raw power!

And the sovereign standing right before his eyes, the very executioner who had brought down the treacherous Strange Duke…

…was the undisputed ruler, far eclipsing the claims of the Dark Duke or the Dragon Marquis.

This was nothing less than… immutable fate.

Thud—

Yielding to an overwhelming compulsion, he dropped to his knees, lowering his head in absolute submission.

“Grant me clemency for my past disrespect! I, Tabur Pokan of the Taino Tribe, swear my undying fealty to Hella-nim! I will serve as your frontline weapon, your piercing lance, your enduring bulwark!”

He bellowed his allegiance with a thunderous roar, his expression radiating fierce resolve and unyielding commitment.

A subtle grin played on Hella’s lips as she offered a brief nod of acknowledgment.

Yet another Earl-level demon, a warrior of elite standing, had been successfully integrated into her forces.

Not long ago, attempting to ‘convince’ even a single entity of this caliber demanded a grueling amount of time and labor…

‘This shift must be tied to the notification that manifested after I brought down the Strange Duke.’

Even across the mortal realms, self-appointed monarchs required validation from external nations… and a Demon King, presiding over an entire reality, demanded an even higher threshold of legitimacy.

Viewed through that lens, the ‘widening of her dominion as a Demon King’ operated fundamentally as a progression milestone, amplifying every facet of her personal capabilities.

This applied not only to her raw martial strength but also to her magnetic appeal, her commanding presence, and her intrinsic governing attributes.

‘An excellent beginning. Let us maintain this unrelenting pace.’

The process of swallowing Abnormal moved forward without a hitch, largely facilitated by the compliance of its foremost leaders.

Her magnified presence granted her the power to suppress any erratic variables, while the reserve forces she had deployed alongside her moved swiftly to re-establish discipline, systematically untangling the chaotic transit corridors.

As the dust began to settle and stability returned, a growing multitude of independent fiends, recognizing her ascending trajectory, volunteered to enlist under her banner.

“She has already attained this degree of authority? To command such administrative precision… Her capability is undeniable.”

“I had been biding my time to abandon that collapsing stronghold… This could very well represent…”

“…a fresh dawn.”

This transition was far from a disadvantageous arrangement for the constituents of Abnormal, given that their allegiance to the departed Strange Duke had always been superficial at best.

Their syndicate had expanded exponentially with the integration of the Dream Walkers alongside various external factions, and their new matriarch had indisputably validated her supremacy by executing a Duke-level demon.

‘Attempting to join the Dark Nest at this juncture is a lost cause. They will view us as secondary citizens.’

‘If I can manage to secure her approval and position myself within her inner circle…’

‘I held no fondness for the Dragon Marquis to begin with.’

Consequently, ‘Helheim’—a brand-new coalition forged from the fractured pieces of Abnormal and the territories it had swallowed—came into existence,

…metamorphosing overnight into the second most dominant power structure within the Demon World, effectively eclipsing the Dark Duke’s Demoniac, which had previously maintained a partnership with Abnormal.

An abrupt, seismic realignment of the geopolitical landscape occurred, precisely as the endless conflicts of the Demon World crept toward their final hour.

Predictably, the neighboring regimes responded with intense alarm to this unpredicted disruption.

The Dark Duke’s Demoniac found itself completely blindsided by the instantaneous overthrow of leadership, while…

…the Dark Nest, which had been riding high on the certainty of their coming triumph, found their overwhelming momentum suddenly grinding to a halt.

—

Deep within the subterranean recesses beneath the Dark Nest’s primary stronghold,

Miyamoto Ken navigated the absolute gloom, his features tightly drawn with anxiety.

‘Sigh… So this is the place…’

By delivering the condensed core of a Marquis-level demon, he had managed to secure passage into the most restricted vaults of the Dark Nest.

This was no small feat, considering there were a mere four Marquis-level entities anchoring their regime, which stood as the grandest empire in the Demon World.

Furthermore, the ancient weight of the relic, an artifact recovered from the historical incursions into Auterica, vastly multiplied its worth, granting him special recognition from the Dragon Marquis himself.

‘…Granted, this door would have remained shut to me if I hadn’t attained the rank of an Earl-level demon myself. I may cultivate an air of being… detached and indifferent to bureaucratic structures, but I remain a high-tier entity.’

In navigating these circles, he had simultaneously uncovered the underlying motivation behind his assignment, the core rationale for gathering ‘relics originating from the Demon World that lay scattered throughout Auterica’.

This was the hidden engine fueling the Dark Nest’s continuous triumphs in a war that had dragged on for centuries—.

‘…To think their strategy revolved around leveraging these items to pull those… abominations into this world.’

Relics tied to the Demon World, saturated with the historical karma they had soaked up during their time in Auterica.

They functioned as metaphysical anchors, utilized to drag alien and devastating entities across the dimensional divide.

The Marquis-level demon core he had surrendered was intended to serve this identical purpose.

It would undoubtedly be weaponized to call forth even more devastating and numerous monstrosities,

…thereby cementing the Dragon Marquis’s supremacy in the ongoing race for the throne of the Demon King.

‘…I cannot permit that outcome to materialize.’

Ken’s jaw clenched tightly, a freezing, resolute glint overtaking his eyes.

On paper, he was currently embedded as a piece of the Dark Nest, yet his ultimate devotion belonged to an entirely different power.

‘Helheim…’

The freshly risen coalition that had suddenly set every tongue wagging across the realm.

Hella, an enigmatic high-tier fiend who had materialized out of obscurity, had struck down Sipar, the Strange Duke, confiscated his entire empire, and established an entirely new geopolitical force.

It represented a critical threat to the strategies of the Dark Nest.

‘My instinct is to align with them immediately, however…’

The time was not yet right.

He was locked into a far more vital objective, a task tailored uniquely for his position.

‘The Dragon Marquis represents the ultimate hurdle for Hella-nim. And I have yet to unravel the full scope of his hidden agendas.’

He operated as Hella’s undercover operative, a concealed dagger, her primary informant within enemy lines.

He held an unshakeable belief that he alone grasped her true aspirations, standing as the solitary individual she could genuinely lean on.

“…I have arrived.”

Emerging from his internal deliberations, he realized he had traversed the entirety of the subterranean passageway.

At last, he stood before the threshold of his objective.

“Whew…”

Exhaling a long breath to steady his nerves, he pushed open the heavy iron barrier and crossed into the space beyond.

Instantly, the scene unfolded before him.

The chamber was a macabre exhibition of skeletal remains, fractured craniums, ceremonial apparatus, occult trinkets, and intricate arrays traced upon the floor using fresh blood.

“Hmph.”

A quiet murmur escaped him, a cold shiver racing down his spine as he absorbed the suffocating, malevolent pressure permeating the air, a sensation indicating an imminent extra-dimensional manifestation.

Then, recalling his own nature as a fiend, he dryly smacked his lips.

‘My instructions dictate that I hand this asset over to the overseer… yet where are they hiding?’

This chamber served as one of the primary focal points for unlocking the dimensional ‘portal’.

Without question, it was the most critical coordinate within the entirety of the Dark Nest’s central fortress.

A small wave of relief washed over him upon realizing the supervisor was currently missing from the room. This absence provided a golden window to inspect the surroundings and harvest critical intelligence.

‘I was only permitted entry under the pretext of this delivery… meaning I have no guarantee of ever gaining access to this vault a second time.’

The fact that an Earl-level demon of his stature was relegated to a simple courier here underscored the draconian security parameters governing the sector.

His presence was tolerated solely due to the immense worth of the object he transported, which had temporarily elevated his clearance level.

He began to casually cast his eyes across the laboratory, keeping his posture thoroughly relaxed…

…only to freeze entirely in his tracks, his pupils contracting with sheer astonishment as his gaze locked onto an object hidden behind a massive stone column.

“…What in the world is that?”

A colossal entity, its physical form utterly mangled and shattered, clinging to the barest thread of vitality, lay thoroughly bound and immobilized.

Strips of linen and heavy iron links, etched with bizarre protective glyphs, choked its capacity for movement, while metallic spikes, barbs, conduits, and cabling were driven deep into its muscle tissue, tethering it to an array of complex machinery.

The sheer brutality of the spectacle was staggering, yet it wasn’t the most alarming realization.

“An enormous Balrog, twice the proportions of its kin. Bearing four distinct pairs of horns… Is it possible that this is…?”

Karakul, the Fighting Demon Duke.

One of the foundational quartet of sovereigns ruling the Demon World, a titan of immense historical leverage…

…was kept chained here, in this sunken vault, degraded to nothing more than a… biological power source for some esoteric conjuration.

‘…The word on the street was that he had perished. He still draws breath?’

Ken remained transfixed, his thoughts spinning into absolute chaos.

The prospect of stumbling upon the missing sovereign in this degraded state had never even crossed his mind.

‘…Then again, a Duke-level entity possesses astronomical value as an occult fuel source, irrespective of the underlying context.’

It was transparently obvious that the Dragon Marquis was engineering an event of catastrophic proportions.

Ken gave a slow, deliberate nod, his focus drifting away from the prisoner.

There was a secondary anomaly that commanded his focus.

An additional portal framework, situated directly behind the pillar where the Fighting Demon Duke remained bound.

Given that this particular laboratory was designed without ancillary chambers, its presence was… highly irregular.

‘…What purpose does that threshold serve? What is hidden on the other side?’

Swallowing hard against the rising tension, he took tentative, silent steps toward the framework, his pulse quickening with every inch.

This wasn’t merely an impulse of standard inquisitiveness.

He felt an inexplicable… magnetic pull from the structure, as though an invisible force was whispering for him to approach.

His fingers reached out, hovering just inches from the handle, when suddenly—.

“Alert. Your credentials do not permit entry into this sector.”

An icy, mechanical vocalization cut through the silence of the room.

The arrival had completely evaded his finely tuned senses and advanced perceptual awareness.

Startled, he snapped his head around.

A female figure, cloaked in a tattered, nondescript mantle, her eyes entirely vacant and devoid of vitality, her complexion deathly pale and drained, stood motionless, tracking his every movement.

“Apologies. If my presence brought alarm. Protocol initiation. We are unacquainted. My designation is Sodian. Knowledge of your activities has preceded you.”

Her speech patterns were oddly disconnected and rigid, her delivery perfectly formal yet her facial features remained… entirely motionless, resembling a carved effigy.

‘…She behaves precisely like an automated construct.’

Regardless, he knew better than to drop his guard around her.

She functioned as the absolute authority over this entire laboratory network, the primary researcher, holding the rank of a Marquis-level demon.

Furthermore, this entire zone was her personalized domain, a sanctuary where sorcery reigned supreme.

“Directional directive. Maintain proximity behind me.”

Ken withdrew his hand from the handle and fell into step behind her.

An overt confrontation here was an unwinnable scenario, given the current environment.

He stole one final glance toward the shackled Balrog and the mysterious portal positioned behind it, before turning on his heel to accompany Sodian.

There was no utility in acting recklessly.

Time was still on his side.

An opening would inevitably manifest if he remained patient.

—

Fwump—

A brilliant, deep-red plume of fire tore through the air.

It matched the exact nature of the blaze he had witnessed not long ago…

…yet the entity wielding it was entirely different.

“Aha! That is a magnificent display, Davidson.”

Hella, thoroughly pleased, nodded her head in approval and gave the creature’s spine a reassuring pat.

In response, a secondary torrent of deep-red fire spilled forth from its jaws.

The ability 「Hellfire」, unlocked entirely due to the creature consuming the immense physical remains of the Strange Duke.

‘…This represents an uncalculated dividend. I truly did not anticipate inheriting this trait.’

She felt a genuine wave of… appreciation toward the late Sipar.

The man had ultimately surrendered a fortune to her cause.

He was, for all intents and purposes, a… ambulatory goldmine.

“Ahem.”

A sharp cleared throat, a quiet manifestation of anxiety, drifted from the demonic escort guiding her path.

The individual appeared to be… thoroughly unnerved by the destructive plumes radiating from Davidson’s maw.

‘To be fair, it isn’t exactly… accidental. It functions quite nicely as a… showcase of raw authority.’

Hella offered a casual shrug.

She was currently operating outside the boundaries of Helheim’s sovereign lands.

Her current location was—.

“Your Eminence, the anticipated visitor has arrived.”

…the region governed directly by the Dark Duke’s Demoniac,

…and her presence here was explicitly for an audience with its master.

“Permit her entry.”

Screeech—

The heavy barrier swung open on its hinges,

…unveiling a silhouette resting motionless within the deep obscurities of the room.

An entity shrouded entirely in midnight-black garments, its skull obscured by the bleached cranium of a goat, its overall presentation… deeply suspicious.

A pair of azure fires, resembling eerie graveyard lanterns, burned brightly within its hollow ocular cavities.

“Heh, now this promises to be highly entertaining.”

Hella, who had been lazily resting across Davidson’s upper back, slid down to the floor,

…a radiant, confident expression illuminating her face.