Quit The Hero Party

EP.510 Master of the Demon Lord, Demon Lord Subjugation Battle (3)

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Dramatic music swells

The Ashen Mage has returned.

He returned to the depths of Arcadia, the place where everything had ended and everything had begun again. With each step the Ashen Mage took, the Mana he had lost flared back to life.

A whole millennium had passed.

Now, it was longer since he had been called the Great Mage than it was since he had lived as a street vendor in the alleys. But he had never forgotten his past for even a moment. Thus, he had always been a servant of the Queen, a comrade of Heroes, and a Grand Magus who had traveled far in search of answers.

Thud!

Cardi van Armiel stepped onto the Altar.

The stench vibrating from all around welcomed him with a festering curse. Letting out a long breath, Cardi lifted his head and stared ahead.

“I will go.”

Cardi said.

To Raniel, and to himself.

Drawing in Mana, Cardi walked toward the depths of the Altar. To put an end to the long, long millennium. To fulfill his duties as the Queen’s servant, as an ancient Hero, and as the Ashen Mage.

The first Ashen took a step forward.

“I will go.”

Cardi’s voice echoed in the ears.

Raniel looked down at the chained Demon Lord. The twitching claws, the heads of the dead screaming, and the vibrating grievances.

Before the true body of the Shadow, Raniel couldn’t help but smile. She had discovered the mark of the blade etched into that body. The trace of the strike that Kyle Toven had inscribed that day.

Ganikalt van Galatrick had demoted the complete God to an incomplete existence. Kyle Toven had stripped immortality away from the God. Thus, she, too, must achieve an equally worthy feat.

Thud!

Raniel stepped forward, stepping on the chains. With each step, she began to increase her speed. Finally, she started running over the chains, grabbing the air.

Whoosh!

Raniel pulled on the chain wrapped around her right hand.

The single strand of chain wrapped around her right hand is the starting point of all chains. It had shot up from the waves, rising from thin air… and that starting point was bound to Raniel’s hand.

The moment she pulled on it, the chains tightened.

The platinum chains tightened around the Demon Lord even more, beginning to embed into his flesh. Standing on the taut chains, Raniel jumped high. Twisting her body in mid-air, she clenched her fist tightly.

Creak, crack…

With the noise resembling clock hands turning, the circuits etched on Raniel’s palm began to rotate. The rotating circuits were the most familiar thing to her. Though she hadn’t needed them since becoming a Hero, there had once been a time when she had depended on this circuit to survive.

The circuit carved into her heart in the past.

The circuit that suppressed the shadows devouring her soul and burned them away. It was because of this circuit that she had made it this far. Thanks to the answer she had found that day, she survived…

“Return, Kelharlem.”

She could save Kelharlem, who had been consumed by the shadows.

“The way to save Kyle, you see, we might have already known it. All we needed was to take one more step from the answer you and I had found that day.”

She could save Kyle, who had become a vessel for shadows.

“You’re a daring junior, indeed.”

“Indeed, were you aiming for this from the start?”

The ancient Heroes had allowed the calamity to meet an end not as disasters, but merely as humans. In the end, whether it was reverse thunder or anything else, it all started from this single circuit.

Raniel van Trias had always sought answers.

She had always seized the answers leading to the best conclusion by her own hands. And at this moment, it was no different. The circuit she grasped in her hand spun ferociously. It began to blaze.

Curses to Ashes.

Ashen flames burst forth.

The flames began to rise using the chains as a fuse. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of chains became flames that burned the Demon Lord’s flesh. As the chains burned away, the Demon Lord screamed. He began to thrash about, trying to break free of the chains.

Indeed, this was insufficient.

But that was something she already knew.

The Ashen flames burned the shadows, but Raniel understood that merely using flames wouldn’t be powerful enough. It was a lesson learned when she faced Kyle that day.

She did not let the wisdom gained that day flow away. She held onto it and made it hers. This is how reverse thunder was born, and this is how this single spell came to be.

Fwoosh.

The raging flames wavered for a moment.

The Ashen flames began to transform into another form. From flames to crimson lightning, from lightning to something else…

The flames endlessly morph into other forms.

Flames that had stubbornly clung to one shape accepted that, just as the life of their master, other forms could also be answers. Thus, as the flames transformed endlessly, they never forgot their essence.

And thus, the flames reached their destination.

Having been consumed by shadows, carrying the shadows in her body, she could create this spell. The unique spell created by Raniel van Trias shone. It was reminiscent of the life she had lived.

The one.

A path created through utmost effort, stacking the best.

The way of a daydreamer, who only insisted on the best conclusion.

However, because she realized her dreams in reality, it became the road of a Hero.

A road traced by unyielding conviction.

Fwoosh.

The burning flames, the leaping crimson lightning, and the swirling ash enveloped into one chain, culminating into the singular path leading to the end. The path completed before Raniel shined.

A path completed as her life.

The blazing path led towards the heart of the Demon Lord. Following that path, Raniel ran. The path she passed turned into flames entwined around her hands. They engulfed her body.

BOOM!

The Demon Lord roared as he reached out towards Raniel. With his gigantic hand, he attempted to shatter the path leading to his core… but the path would not break. Just as its master had never yielded, this one path cannot be bent by anything.

Accelerate!

Following the path, Raniel sprinted.

Numerous claws surged forward to stop Raniel, but she broke through them all unscathed. Nothing remained on the path she traveled.

Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of claws.

No matter what obstacles came her way, Raniel would not yield. She did not stop. Instead, she accelerated forward. Because that was the way she lived. Because that was her life.

And.

She wasn’t the only one running.

Far away from here, yet ultimately connected to the shadows. There, Cardi was also running. Cardi’s ashen hair flowed in the wind. The robe of the Grand Magus he wore billowed fiercely.

Cardi van Armiel was running as a Grand Magus.

As he had done before. With all his might, just like the old days when he had raced through the Phantom Territory with his comrades. With each step he took, the Mana he summoned tore at the surroundings. It incinerated the guck that tried to impede his sprint toward the Altar.

Ashen flames surged high!

This was a spell learned from Raniel’s wisdom. An Ashen flame darker than Raniel’s burned the guck. By burning it, Cardi advanced. In his eyes, he saw a singular path.

The path he had dreamed of with his comrades.

However, it was a path they had ultimately failed to complete.

Now, as he ran as a Grand Magus, Cardi recalled the distant past. He smiled while thinking of his comrades. Running alone, but feeling as if he were not alone.

“Ah…”

Cardi smiled.

Indeed, there were those who had formed to subdue the Demon Lord. They had been far in the past.

The Shadow Dragon Mage, Belial van Dragonik.

The First Saint, Gleria Bel Armias.

The Hero, Ganikalt van Galatrick.

And he himself.

The Grand Magus, Cardi van Armiel.

The Heroes who had dashed across the shadow-covered continent had all fallen. They had ultimately failed to reach their conclusion. But at this moment, Cardi declared with certainty that their journey was not over yet.

I.

I am still running.

If I reach the end and burn the heart of the Demon Lord, if our descendants at the continent’s end shatter the source of the shadows… our journey will be deemed successful.

“Isn’t that right, Gleria?”

Ganikalt. Belial.

Muttering the names of his comrades, Cardi chuckled. Though blood trickled from scratches made by the claws breaking through the flames, it didn’t hurt. Before long, Cardi was nearing the end of the path.

At that end lies the heart.

The heart of the shadows he could not burn, the core of the curse that had created the shadows. If he crushed that, Raniel at the end of the continent would be able to reach the “soul that became the source of shadows.”

Reflecting on the plan he and Raniel had made, Cardi flicked his finger towards the heart placed on the Altar. The flames he had conjured surged wildly in an instant. Despite a thousand years passing, Cardi never forgot this spell.

It was akin to his very symbol.

Suddenly, the sun rose in the depths of the Red Palace.

The sun engulfed in Ashen flames burned away the curses stuck to the walls. It incinerated the grievances that filled the hallway. But still, the power was insufficient.

“Take it all.”

Thus, Cardi offered.

The Mana he had reclaimed, he pulled out every last bit of it from himself once again. This would be the final spell he cast as a Grand Magus. He would gladly become a body that could never wield magic again.

Whooooosh!

The elven tenacity that had withstood a millennium flared up. The sun grew even larger. The sun, now double in size, devoured the heart of the shadows placed on the Altar. Sizzle, the sound rang as the heart began to burn.

The fiercely burning sun began to flash brightly.

At that exact moment… Raniel also reached the end of her path. Raniel, who had arrived at the center of the Demon Lord, swung her clenched fist.

Both Ashen Mages reached their destinations at the same time.

In the depths of Arcadia, an Ashen sun rose. The risen sun swallowed the entire Red Palace and incinerated all traces of magic that remained in Arcadia. The cleansing flames engulfed Arcadia.

At the edge of the continent, a deafening roar shook the heaven and earth. Flames surged up to the sky, and the explosion’s shockwave rattled the ground and heavens. A storm whirled, spewing guck everywhere.

With a thunderous noise shaking the world, the true form of the Demon Lord ignited. The shadowy claws caught in the explosion, the heads of the dead all tumbled away. Every element making up the Demon Lord turned to ashes.

Crack!

A massive hole was drilled into the body of the Demon Lord.

What pooled in that hole was black water. In that well-like place, what was seen was… the tainted soul that was to become the essence of the Demon Lord. The soul locked in the depths met Raniel’s gaze.

At the moment their eyes met, Raniel realized.

That was the soul of the last Queen of Arcadia.

“…!”

Kyle, whose eyes were clenched tight against the raging heat and storm, widened his gaze. Kyle also saw the same thing as Raniel. The black soul existing at the center of the Demon Lord with the hole drilled through it.

Kyle had seen this soul once before, long ago.

“Raniel!”

Kyle shouted urgently.

“Get back! That’s…!”

That soul had burst forth from the remnants of the Demon Lord on the day he had slain it. The owner of the voice that had swallowed him, whispering in his ear. That was something he could not cut down with his sword, a being beyond their world.

Just as Kyle rushed toward Raniel, his voice still ringing in her ears…

Ignoring Kyle’s warning, Raniel lunged toward the soul of the Queen looking at her. Reaching for that pitch-black soul, she…

Wham!

Contrary to Kyle’s expectations, Raniel grabbed hold of that soul. How could something beyond their influence possibly be touched?

…Logically, Raniel shouldn’t have been able to intervene with that soul either. She should have burned the black water pooling without heed to the soul and fought against the Demon Lord. However, that wasn’t the conclusion Raniel sought.

‘I wish to deny the source of the Demon Lord.’

To grant rest to the soul of the Queen trapped there.

For that reason, Cardi had burned the heart of the Demon Lord laid on the Altar, allowing Raniel to intervene with that soul.

“Let’s go together.”

It seemed there were many things they needed to say to each other.

Muttering while holding the head of the black soul, Raniel leaped into the well. Splash, the well engulfed both Raniel and the Queen’s soul.