Quit The Hero Party

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EP.509 Master of the Demon Lord, Demon Lord Subjugation Battle (2)

*

Whooosh!

The Ashen-Haired Man’s hair swayed in the wind.

A flood of Starlight surged around a single human. The overwhelming light of the stars did not lose its brilliance, even in the shadowed land, darkened under the heavens.

For it was not the Starlight bestowed by the God high above.

It was the light earned through the life lived by that one human.

Thus, the Starlight did not bend at all before the encroaching shadows. It resembled the light of the one who never yielded their convictions before anyone. Pulling the Starlight, the human, the Mage, Raniel van Trias, reached out her hand.

Crack!

She grasped at the air.

With a schrrrtt sound, a sudden appearance of platinum chains wrapped around her hand. The moment she sprang from the ground, waves of platinum surged forth beneath her.

Swoosh!

The chains leapt from the waves.

Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands… it was meaningless to count the bundles of chains as they shot towards the shadows. The flooding Starlight and the raging chains made Raniel accelerate, pushing off from the ground.

Accelerate!

Someone followed Raniel, who was pulling the Starlight. It was Kyle, dragging a single sword, unencumbered by anything else.

“Just look ahead and run,” Kyle smiled as he spoke.

He recalled the words Raniel had thrown at him in the past.

“I’ll keep an eye on the back.”

Swish!

In a gliding spin, Kyle swung his sword backwards. The black hands that were creeping in between the chains fell with a thud and a crunch. As Raniel sprinted ahead, Kyle drew his sword.

Opening the path for the Hero to run, always guarding the Hero from behind, was the role of a comrade.

Thus, Kyle Toven lowered his raised sword. Though he could not wield the Sword of Yeocheon with his body, what did it matter? Even without using Yeocheon, he grasped a sword in his hands. That was enough.

The Knight lifted his sword.

To open the road that the Hero must take.

Dragging his sword, Kyle thought carelessly.

The roles had reversed from the past.

It was Raniel who had always opened the way for him to run. Kyle had once run along the path Raniel had opened, retreating along the escape route she had left. Thus, on the battlefield, Kyle had no need to see to his sides or behind him.

He only needed to run forward.

The realization hit him hard, amusingly enough, after he expelled Raniel from the party. Recalling the past, Kyle swung his sword. Galatrik’s First Technique, Initial Kill.

Slice!

With a slashing sound, the grasping hands that rushed towards Raniel shattered. Raniel charged forward, just as Kyle had done before, gazing only forward.

Swish!

The chains originally meant to bind the Demon Lord were now weapons penetrating it, used by the current Raniel. The racing Raniel and the thousands of chains following her… appeared like a single spear.

With each step she took, her speed accelerated even more. For every second that passed, Kyle had to break a sweat chasing after the ever-quickening Raniel.

So this was how it felt for him back then.

However, chasing after Raniel was not as painful as it used to be. Kyle lightly wielded his sword. He kicked off the ground with ease. The blade he held felt unburdened at this very moment.

The sword in his hand was light.

Yet, the trajectory drawn by the sword was not light at all.

As Kyle exhaled, he lowered his stance.

Lowering his stance, he pushed the acceleration to its limit. With rapid speed, Kyle swept his sword low. Like when he had charged into the Demon Lord’s army alone in the past, he launched into the waves rushing toward Raniel.

Whirlwind, sword net.

Galatrik, Initial Kill.

SWOOOOSH!

The waves shattered. The torn hands burst up in all directions. As Kyle leapt out from carving through the waves, he lightly shook off his sword. He was already someone who had experienced cutting down a Demon Lord once. He understood how the shadows would move and how they would approach him.

Waves crashing endlessly.

Beyond these fierce waves lay the core of the Demon Lord.

The center he had cleaved in two that day.

When compared to that day, the Demon Lord had not weakened at all. Had what the Demon Lord lost that day merely been immortality? Or was it that the balance had collapsed, and all the constraints that had bound the Demon Lord had fallen away?

Seems like it’s even stronger…

But it didn’t matter.

For he had moved further ahead than that day. Moreover, he was not alone here. Swinging his sword, Kyle’s eyes widened.

That day, that moment, then.

To keep the promises he had spoken, the boy who had become an adult swung his sword. He swung his sword to cut down Evil. Gasping between the spurting muck, he smiled. Swinging the sword was not painful at all. Moving forward was not difficult in the slightest.

It was the path toward his dream.

Thus, he spryly took another step toward his dream.

The sharper sword, honed through combat with Ganikalt, cut through the muck. It shattered the fingertips, knuckles, and wrists of the approaching hands. As he sliced, Kyle pursued Raniel.

This time not as a Hero, but as a comrade of the Hero.

*

Wrapped in the overflowing Starlight, Raniel charged ahead.

With each step she took, the landscape transformed. Everywhere her foot fell, fizz, it charred platinum. Even the muck that had once forced her to her knees, or the black rain falling from the sky, could no longer inflict any significant harm upon her.

The muck evaporated. The moment she stepped down, the black river bubbled up. Burning everything it touched, Raniel ran faster than ever.

The strength she had obtained by sacrificing half her lifespan that day.

At the time, she was clumsy with controlling the Starlight and could only use it to bind the Demon Lord. But now, things were different. The experiences she had gained over the years living as a Hero were with her.

How to handle the stars.

How to draw upon the stars.

Knowing this at this moment, the chains became not an instrument to bind the Demon Lord’s feet and to buy time, but rather… a spear that would pierce the Demon Lord.

Swish!

Only the sound of the chains being pulled echoed in her ears.

With narrow eyes, Raniel looked only ahead and ran. The waves crashing endlessly shoved towards her; there was no thought of stopping. For beyond these waves lay the core of the Demon Lord.

As she ran without pause, Raniel recalled.

Before reaching this place, the words left by Ganikalt.

“Please, my Master.”

What he could not protect.

Even if her master’s soul shattered and became one with the shadows… Ganikalt had hoped until the end for her master’s salvation. She hoped that the last Queen of Arcadia would find rest.

Raniel heard the wishes of the Guardian of the Ancient Kingdom.

Having heard it, there was no reason not to fulfill it.

From the outset, this was not far off from what Raniel had originally planned. She had no intention of merely subjugating the Demon Lord at this place. She intended to completely negate the very foundation of the Demon Lord and achieve its absolute demise.

Boom!

Just as Raniel was pushing forth through the muck, the ground shook. The final wave she had to overcome to reach the core surged towards her. It was a wave so high it seemed ready to touch the sky.

A wave formed by hands surged toward her.

Raniel took a moment to catch her breath before the wave of grasping hands. For the first time, she stopped her steps and attempted to swing her chains.

“Bend!”

A voice resonated from behind her.

The moment she heard the voice, Raniel smiled. With the powerful foot she had pushed forward to stop, she instead kicked off the ground and accelerated. She increased her speed another notch.

Not turning back.

There was no need to look.

Lowering her stance, Raniel surged towards the gigantic wave.

Rustle!

And at that moment, a silent slicing sound rang out from behind her. As the slicing sound echoed, a line was drawn against the wave that was rushing toward her. The wave shattered around that line. The breaking wave foamed.

Bubbling muck.

Severed black fingers.

Through those, a human wrapped in Starlight swept by. With a powerful leap, Raniel soared over the final wave and reached the core of the Demon Lord. What filled her opened view was none other than the true body of the shadows.

A mass of curses formed from heads of the dead and hands filled with resentment. A cursed entity possessing a more complete form than a hand made of muck.

【■■, ■■■■, ■■■■■■■■!】

The distorted god shrieked.

Massive hands surged toward Raniel. It was not muck that flowed from the god, but rather the god’s flesh itself charging at her.

A blow significant enough to inflict meaningful damage unless it were a strike that defied the flow of Yeocheon, the source of the shadows.

As she fell toward this source, Raniel swung her arms. The chains that had brought her this far flashed brilliant white in an instant. The enormous amount of Starlight residing within her pulsated suddenly.

Swish!

Chains extending in all directions pierced through the grasping shadows. The hands that couldn’t be pierced were restrained, and those that couldn’t be bound with one strand were held fast by dozens, even hundreds of chains.

Rejecting the incantation, rejecting the Starlight, and rejecting being bound, the god was nonetheless ensnared.

Like a spider caught in its web, the movements of the Demon Lord froze. Clang, clang, the sounds echoed as chains broke… yet more chains replaced the ones that fractured, piercing through the source of the shadows.

This was just the first.

Walking atop the web, Raniel advanced toward the snared prey. Approaching, she lightly tapped near her ear.

“It’s all ready here.”

Raniel lifted her arm, connecting all the chains. What floated in the palm of her fully extended hand was… the unique spell she had prepared for this day.

A spell to transform the flooding Starlight into a lance that would pierce the Demon Lord.

As she watched the circuits flickering with tick, tiddidididik sounds, Raniel continued.

“And you?”

“Everything is ready here too.”

Raniel smiled and exhaled deeply.

“Then, I leave that side to you, Cardi.”

Deep within the ruins of the Ancient Kingdom, Arcadia.

A single Mage was walking there.

Crossing the fragments of the castle floating in mid-air, he entered the core of Arcadia. Opening the tightly shut castle gates and walking through the magical corridor filled with arcana, he stepped into the depths.

The Red Palace. The Madman’s Dwelling.

Toward the altar located deep within the castle, which had lost its master, the Mage approached. He laughed bitterly as he walked. The riddle he had been unable to unravel on that day lay there.

“It’s taken quite a while.”

The Grand Mage of Arcadia, Cardi van Armiel.

“Truly, it’s taken quite a while.”

He had been the Grand Mage of the Kingdom.

A servant to the Queen.

The Elf who had been the master of all the towers in Arcadia had now returned as just a mere Mage. With every step he took, the contracts tried to hold him back… but Cardi waved his hand against the encroaching constraints.

“The contract is over.”

He declared.

“My comrades who were bound that day have all been freed. They have met their deaths not as disasters, but as humans. This is the outcome that I had longed for.”

An outcome once deemed impossible.

“All disasters have been brought down, and humanity no longer requires the cycle of the Starlight.”

Even after another thousand years, it had been thought impossible, a distant dream.

“So, let me put a period on the contract I made that day.”

Cardi scoffed at the Starlight.

“So quit the chitchat and hand it over.”

He gripped the scales appearing before him with a squash, and as the scales shattered, the price he had paid to the stars began to return. While not everything returned, the mana he had sacrificed was making its way back.

The Mage returned as the Grand Mage once more.

The mana worn down over a thousand years was rough, and its quantity had noticeably decreased… but he would not be held down by such trivialities as he was a Grand Mage. Drawing upon the mana, Cardi stepped into the center of the Red Palace.

“This side is also ready.”

The Grand Mage of Arcadia had returned.

Cardi stood right before the altar located deepest within the Red Palace. The swirling mass of resentment, curses, and lingering thoughts all around him. Facing the hell he had failed to ignite that day, Cardi exhaled deeply.

“In the future, when we subdue the Demon Lord… I shall return here and rescue them. It’s not an abandonment, so don’t wear such a tortured expression, Gleria.”

“But…”

“We have no methods available to us right now. It’s impossible for us to find a way to rescue them or even obliterate their existence.”

It was a promise they had exchanged in the past.

“When everything is concluded, we will return.”

“Yes, for sure…”

He had returned.

To put a period on what he had left unfulfilled that day.

“I leave that side to you, junior.”

The Ashen Mage drew upon the mana.