Chapter 193

Chapter 193
## Chapter: 193
Chapter Title: Victory!

Victory!

It was a lost cause.

Miron’s ‘Silence’ was ineffective; it couldn’t stop the demonbloods from detonating themselves.

The demonic subordinates he commanded were completely powerless as well.

Isera’s battalion was unable to break free from its ‘vulnerability’ either.

The demons served as nothing more than sacrificial shields to shield Isera.

“Agnis! Is it your goal to violate our pact and refuse to be my weapon?!”

-……

Ultimately, only the Spirit King Agnis was left.

Even so, the Spirit King Agnis remained fixated on that cursed ‘reaper’.

However, even for a Spirit King, the consequences of breaking a contract were dire.

-I understand.

Agnis finally gave a nod and lifted his right hand.

Roooar!

In that moment, a colossal spear of fire erupted into being.

Whoooosh!

When Agnis launched the fiery projectile, it incinerated every demonblood in the area without even making physical contact, blazing infinitely forward.

The event that took place was beyond belief.

A single strike caused nearly a thousand demonbloods to vanish.

As if they had never been there to begin with.

‘If Agnis acts correctly, we can achieve victory.’

Watching the destruction, Isera nodded.

Regardless of how invincible the battalion appeared, it wasn’t truly without a flaw.

If Agnis’s strikes were effective, there was a chance in this conflict.

Once the entire battalion was eliminated, the protection would fail!

“Why have you stopped? Keep attacking!”

However, after that one strike, Agnis halted once more.

Isera barked in frustration, and Agnis gave a brief response.

-My energy is depleted.

……What? Energy depleted?

For the Spirit King Agnis to manifest his strength in this world, he required the energy of his summoner.

And Isera’s energy reserves were comparable to a limitless sea.

Had she already burned through that massive supply?

‘……She squandered it pointlessly.’

Ah.

The issue was extravagance.

She had burned too much energy opening the gateway for the massive teleportation.

That wasn’t all.

She had also battled the Dragon God Lucaria for four straight days.

Furthermore, she had bled energy while trapped in the illusions of the Blade Dragon God.

Even a sea of energy has no choice but to go dry eventually.

‘The vulnerability is revealed, the troops are gone, and now the energy is spent.’

How did things reach this point?

Every factor had aligned perfectly to bring her down.

This was the most disorganized conflict she had ever engaged in.

But it didn’t seem plausible that a newly emerged Dragon God had planned all of this.

‘How did she discover my flaw? If she knew the vulnerability and planned ahead…… only the masters of the same underworld would be aware of that.’

The Demon King and the underworld masters were aware of Isera’s flaw.

They would inherently understand it upon the correction.

That was the singular requirement that permitted the deserter Isera to reside in the demon territory.

‘Is there a mole among us?’

There was only a single method to identify and exploit a requirement no one had ever witnessed.

One of the masters had turned traitor and shared the secret.

Any other explanation was impossible.

The Dragon God’s wishing relic couldn’t expose the flaw unless it was utilized directly in her presence.

But who would do it?

Even if a traitor existed, it was peculiar.

Was it truly feasible to inform a freshly born Dragon God beforehand?

……How did she find out?

Boom! Boom! Baaaam!

A chaotic display erupted in the heavens.

The blood of demonbloods fell like a deluge.

The strategy of using demons as shields had reached its breaking point.

‘There is…… a path.’

Isera shifted her attention to the Dragon God Lucaria.

Escaping this peril was impossible through standard means.

However, using a forbidden method, it might be achievable.

That method was consumption.

Naturally, simply biting off a piece of skin wouldn’t be enough.

‘I will consume her heart entirely.’

But if she ate the heart itself, it could function.

To survive this disaster and slay that cursed woman.

Isera’s eyes shone.

The heart of a Dragon God was meant to be a tribute for the Demon King.

Consuming it was equivalent to turning against the Demon King.

But for her own continued existence, Isera was willing to do anything.

I sat down and slowly lowered my eyelids.

The struggle against Isera wasn’t finished, but I was indifferent.

‘Insight. Insight.’

A much more vital matter had surfaced.

When Blade Queen Hana stepped into the ‘Shattered Heavenly Egg’ and claimed the Dragon God’s karma, I too had linked to a vision and achieved insight.

It was a faint hint, not something quantifiable by statistics.

A delicate reality that was impossible to grasp if one saw this realm as just a simulation.

‘The Gateway of Truth……’

I had witnessed it clearly.

The instant the Dragon God’s karma was granted to Hana.

The ‘Gateway of Truth’ that unsealed for a heartbeat.

The portal that held and bestowed all rights in the universe had definitely materialized before both Hana and myself.

‘There is something comparable within me as well.’

And that portal, after giving the Dragon God’s karma to Hana, had fixed its gaze on ‘me’.

Specifically, it had locked onto ‘something’ residing inside me.

I remained unaware of its identity, but that ‘something’ had displayed obvious irritation when the Gateway of Truth unsealed.

A parallel yet foreign disharmony.

‘Who are you?’

Thud.

I lightly tapped my chest with my hand.

Something was dwelling inside me.

A separate entity standing on equal footing with the Gateway of Truth.

If I hadn’t merged with Hana’s mind and brushed against the Gateway of Truth, I would never have realized it.

‘The reason the Blood Demon King was unable to take me over is due to this entity.’

When my concealed ability ‘King of the Demonbloods’ transformed into ‘God of the Demonbloods’, I attained the power to sense the ‘stream of consciousness’ of every demonblood.

Including the fading mental echoes of the deceased Blood Demon King within my soul.

The Blood Demon King was much more formidable than I had assumed.

It was enough to explain why Yormungand had reacted in that manner.

‘If we evaluate raw combat skill, the Blood Demon King is equal to Wilhelm.’

In certain aspects, he might even be superior to Wilhelm.

After all, he was the ultimate entity who governed the world through sheer strength.

Yet even that terrifying being had submitted to the ‘something’ inside me.

‘Quit lurking and reveal yourself.’

If I had stayed ignorant, I would have overlooked it.

But now that I was aware, I couldn’t ignore it.

With my eyes shut, I began a slow internal search.

I plunged deep beneath the surface, reaching the final boundary of the Blood Demon King’s remaining consciousness.

-You have already discovered this realm. Noteworthy.

……At the boundary was a massive ‘eye’ and ‘mouth’.

……Strength increases.

The feeling of every single cell returning to life.

A delight far beyond eating simple flesh washed over her.

“Aaahhh!”

Isera’s frame shook violently.

Because she had consumed the Dragon God Lucaria in her entirety.

The body and the heart, every bit of it.

Groooar!

As Agnis lifted his arm, a fiery spear vastly larger than the previous one formed.

The mere sight of it felt as though it could melt anything.

Kaaaaboom!

The spear surged forward, wiping out half of the firmament.

Without hyperbole, it erased it.

As Isera’s rank increased, the Spirit King Agnis’s strength had intensified as well.

“Look! Your vaunted battalion is nothing special, after all!”

Isera, finding her composure again, gave a haughty grin.

The ‘self-destructions’ of that woman could no longer touch her.

They turned to vapor before they could even get close—what point was a vulnerability then?

In that heartbeat, the Blade Dragon God’s eyes gave a slight twitch.

“Agnis. Reduce them all to cinders.”

Kaaaaboom!

Fiery spears showered down incessantly from the heavens.

The Dragon God attempted to intercept them, but one person couldn’t manage the span of the area-of-effect spears.

Resistance only worked on the spots that were hit; it didn’t cancel out every strike.

Even manifesting blades yielded the same result.

In the end, the demonbloods were completely wiped out by Agnis’s relentless fire.

“The battalion you took pride in has burned to death without a single survivor. Now it is your turn to perish.”

She slaughtered every last one.

The Blade Dragon God’s battalion was gone.

As she had anticipated, the protection should have shattered by now.

“……Ah.”

Soon, the Dragon God Hana began to shiver uncontrollably.

Her features twisted slowly.

Hana lowered her head significantly.

Observing this, Isera let out a burst of laughter.

“Hahaha! What’s this? Are you so miserable you’re going to weep?”

“Aaah……”

“Regardless of invincibility, if the skill itself is mediocre, it is pointless. Just accept your fate……”

“Aaaah……!!!”

《The pack has been decimated.》

《The queen carrying the ‘Madness’ attribute enters a frenzy when her pack is eliminated.》

《The frenzied queen rages until her own demise.》

As the Dragon God Hana lifted her head once more.

Crimson tears poured from eyes that had turned blood-red like her pupils.

Stab! Stab! Staaaab!

Blade wings then drove directly into her own torso.

Blood sprayed from her chest like a fountain.

‘Has she lost her mind and started self-mutilating?’

Was the requirement that she dies along with the destruction of her battalion?

It was an overly ridiculous requirement, after all.

No Dragon God would possess a flaw that linked their life to the death of their entire battalion.

“Hm?”

But it didn’t look like simple self-harm.

The blade wings that sank into her body covered the Dragon God like a suit of armor.

The leaking blood traced numerous patterns across her skin like markings.

‘A final act of desperation.’

Isera categorized the condition in a single thought.

Groooar!

Then Agnis launched another fiery spear.

It tore through the sky, hitting the Blade Dragon God directly.

With the flaw revealed, she would either be skewered or turn to vapor like the rest of the demonblood trash.

“…What?”

However, Isera’s prediction was wrong.

“……The destruction of the battalion wasn’t the vulnerability?”

……The fiery spear still caused no harm to the Blade Dragon God.

The requirement she thought was certain was incorrect.

Her thoughts spiraled into confusion.

Then what requirement did she have?

Flash!

In that heartbeat.

In the blink of an eye, the Blade Dragon God lunged at Agnis.

Slaaaash!

As the Blade Dragon God moved both hands, blades of blood stretched out like elongated talons, tearing into Agnis savagely.

Hah.

Had she truly become deranged?

What sort of animalistic behavior was this?

Agnis was the embodiment of fire.

Talons wouldn’t be able to rip him.

But once again, Isera’s assumption was completely mistaken.

After being slashed dozens of times by blood talons, Agnis finally faded into a forced un-summoning, like he was being dismantled.

‘Forcing a spirit to un-summon?’

Isera’s pupils contracted sharply.

An impossible event had taken place.

As long as the summoner’s energy was present, spirits couldn’t be un-summoned against their will.

Their physical forms were composed of the summoner’s energy, not their true essence.

And the energy held in Isera’s heart was more than enough—it was overflowing.

Yet the Fire Spirit King himself had been shredded by those blood talons and forced away.

Did any of this make sense?

“Agnis!”

She screamed his name again, but there was only silence.

Agnis ignored the call to return.

As if he were terrified.

Swoosh.

The eyes of the frenzied Hana and Isera met.

“……”

“Stop.”

Dragon God Word.

The most potent authority of Lucaria.

The unique power of speech among Dragon Gods!

‘……Even the Word is completely ineffective.’

But the creature still wouldn’t halt.

Clang!

Even Miron’s ‘Silence’ was of no use.

Nothing was working.

Absolute resistance.

Eliminating the battalion wasn’t the Blade Dragon God’s requirement.

Isera’s eyes trembled uncontrollably.

Because she couldn’t understand the weakness.

On the contrary, destroying the battalion had only triggered its latent primal hunger for destruction.

It was no different from breaking the restraints.

What was the use of massive energy?

She couldn’t apply it.

Even if she tried, it wouldn’t have an effect.

Facing the red-eyed creature now closing in on her, Isera released a scream of terror.

“You wretch, what are you……!”

Slaaaash!

《Victory!》

《Congratulations!》

《Battalion Commander ‘Isera’ has perished.》

《Successfully repelled the second assault.》

《Important! A new bulletin has been posted.》

《Calculation based on participation starts.》