Zero Order of the Black Dawn Society.
The Great Demon Suruna looked around, his eyes wandering over the surroundings as if reliving old memories.
“To think I’d end up coming back here. Not exactly a place that holds fond memories.”
“Because this is where you were defeated?”
“I was defeated, yes. But that’s not what matters. Something far worse happened back then.”
“The reason this crater and the land around it became a place where no life can grow, I suppose.”
“Exactly. And even back then, dogs of Lumenis just like those were crawling all over the place.”
Suruna’s gaze shifted toward the paladins and priests of the Lumenis Church.
Patricio narrowed his eyes, having sensed the faint, abnormal energy flowing from Suruna’s body.
“A demon.”
Along with Patricio, the other archbishops felt it too—
the strange, invasive force that seeped from Suruna, one that irritated their divine power like an allergic reaction.
In this entire continent, there was only one kind of being that radiated such power.
A demon who served a heretical god.
“A demon in this world...”
“The bloodline of the Holy Sovereign has joined hands with a demon?”
“O Lumenis, what should we do with such blasphemy!”
The priests, seeing Ludger and Suruna standing side by side, clenched their eyes shut and began to pray fervently.
Suruna let out a quiet chuckle, clearly amused.
“Well, would you look at that. Seems like they’re treating you as my superior. In truth, it’s quite the opposite.”
“Let them think what they want. More importantly—what do you intend to do now?”
“What do I intend to do?”
“The First Orders are all dead. Only a few remnants of the organization are left. Yet it seems you expected this outcome all along.”
“Oh my. Don’t misunderstand. I merely let them do as they pleased.”
“You knew the cost of that. Coming all this way, you must have your own desire.”
“Of course. I am a demon. I don’t help anyone without wanting something in return.”
“Then show me here and now.”
“You won’t even ask what I want? You think you already know what I’ll demand?”
“......”
Ludger silently stared at him.
From that wordless gaze, Suruna seemed to understand something. He shrugged.
“Well, well. I was planning to watch for a bit and step in when I could profit—but this turned messy.”
He stretched out a hand toward the empty air.
A longsword materialized in his grasp.
Then, stepping forward at an unhurried pace, Suruna raised his eyes to the Fire Elemental Lord towering before him.
“I understand that you’re angry—unusually so—but won’t you stand down? Otherwise, I’ll have to fight you.”
Fwoooosh!
The Fire Elemental Lord’s body burned hotter, radiating heat like molten suns.
Since its entire being was made of flame, that rising heat was proof of its deepening rage.
Suruna clicked his tongue in mock regret, though his eyes betrayed no such feeling.
“Fine then. Since we’ve met again, I suppose I’ll show you a little something.”
The moment he murmured that, his figure sank from sight as if the ground itself swallowed him whole.
Where had he gone?
The subjugation force from the Theocracy of Bretus looked around in confusion, unable to track Suruna’s movements.
Then came a sharp, tearing sound that echoed all around them.
When they turned toward its source, they all saw it—
the Fire Elemental Lord’s colossal head, severed cleanly from its neck, falling to the ground.
Boom!
The lizardlike head struck the earth and melted into bubbling magma.
Suruna, who had instantly returned to his previous spot, examined the sword in his hand.
“Hm. No good.”
The blade he had wielded was now glowing red-hot, its tip melting into dripping molten metal.
“It was a sturdy sword, but perhaps cutting through fire itself was too much.”
The Fire Elemental Lord was a being whose very presence vaporized all things around it.
Any weapon that touched its body would melt or evaporate before making contact.
Considering that, the fact that Suruna had decapitated such a creature with a single sword stroke was almost beyond belief.
At the same time—
uneasy speculation spread among the subjugation troops.
Perhaps that man truly was the legendary Great Demon spoken of in myths.
“Get a hold of yourselves!”
The sharp shout of high-ranking paladins and priests snapped them out of their daze.
Just then, the Fire Elemental Lord, now headless, raised its right hand.
A sword of blazing fire formed in its palm.
The enormous blade, easily over two hundred meters long, descended vertically toward Suruna.
Suruna glanced at it, then grasped a new sword and lightly thrust it forward.
Given the difference in scale, anyone would have expected Suruna to be crushed.
The mere heat of that flaming sword distorted the air, melting the ground into liquid before even touching it—
it should have vaporized him entirely.
But the result was the opposite.
Thunk!
At the tip of Suruna’s sword, the Fire Elemental Lord’s fiery blade split cleanly in two, like chopped firewood.
Kraagagagagak!
The divided flame sword scraped the ground, stretching far beyond the horizon, leaving molten trails in its wake.
The earth along its path liquefied completely, yet Suruna remained unharmed.
He stood calm, unbothered even as sparks danced all around him.
By now, the Fire Elemental Lord had regenerated its head and glared at Suruna with eyes burning with fury.
The surrounding temperature spiked several degrees in an instant.
Even the priests and paladins protected by Lumenis’s divine power flinched and stepped back.
“Why are you looking away?”
A voice came from above. Ludger’s voice.
Holding a golden trident, Ludger floated in the air, a radiant halo circling above his head like that of a judge.
“You came here to fight me, did you not? Then focus on our battle.”
Gripping the golden trident, Ludger hurled it lightly toward the ground.
“Trishula.”
The spear of destruction said to have annihilated the golden, silver, and iron cities of demons in a single strike.
It fell upon the earth like a meteor, as though punishing humanity itself.
The priests joined their strength, raising a wall of divine power.
When that proved insufficient, they invoked the highest sacred spells—
forming a massive golden shield and summoning countless angelic projections to hold it aloft.
A cascade of supreme divine arts—defensive miracles of the highest order, equivalent to the continuous bombardment of grand magic.
Yet all of that effort proved meaningless.
The trident pierced through every layer of defense as though they were paper and struck the center of the priests’ ranks.
A blinding white explosion spread outward in a hemispherical wave.
Within its radius, all life vanished—leaving not even corpses behind.
Hundreds died in an instant, yet Ludger frowned, sensing the attack’s power had been weaker than intended.
It had been a supreme divine weapon meant to wipe out all enemies in one strike—
yet it had destroyed far fewer than expected.
“This is your doing, Lumenis.”
Through the gate Ludger had opened, Lumenis’s pure white divine light now blanketed the crater and the land around it.
That power was suppressing the force of Ludger’s attacks while endlessly feeding strength to the living.
Through the Celestial Gate, the one exerting the greatest influence was ultimately Lumenis himself.
Though his intervention was indirect—merely through divine energy—the effect was immense.
Those who had lost arms or legs, or who had suffered fatal wounds in the explosion’s aftermath, were now standing again, completely healed.
Even those whose lower bodies had been blown off regenerated instantly and rose to their feet.
The divine power granted directly by Lumenis endowed them with incredible regenerative ability—
a near-immortality where one would not die as long as even a fragment of their body remained.
“At this point, it’s impossible to tell who are the monsters and who are the humans.”
Those who had gathered to kill an immortal monster—
had themselves become something close to immortal.
What greater irony could there be?
‘Still, looks like that side is doing well enough.’
The battle between the Fire Elemental Lord and Suruna had reached its climax.
The Fire Elemental Lord was strong by nature, but Suruna was not falling behind.
In fact, Suruna was gradually pushing the Fire Elemental Lord back.
Compared to its earlier fury, the Fire Elemental Lord’s strength had diminished sharply.
‘Because of the Earth Elemental Lord, perhaps.’
The Fire Elemental Lord had been able to reach this place only because of the magma flowing beneath the ground.
By forcing that magma upward, it had split the land open and turned the area into a pseudo-volcanic zone—
that was how it had manifested here.
But the Earth Elemental Lord had sealed those fissures again, cutting off the flow of magma.
Because of that, the Fire Elemental Lord’s output had dropped by more than half.
The Fire Elemental Lord glared at the Earth Elemental Lord as if demanding an explanation,
but the latter ignored the look and feigned ignorance.
‘Efficiently done.’
It had an excellent sense for reading the situation.
Unlike the hot-tempered Fire Elemental Lord, the Earth Elemental Lord understood what truly mattered—
preventing this battle from spreading any further.
“In light of that effort, I suppose it’s time to bring this to an end.”
Ludger raised a bow in his hand.
True to its mythic nature, it was a wondrous weapon, lavishly adorned with divine ornamentation.
As he drew the string, an arrow of light formed on its own, though none had been nocked.
“Brahmastra.”
The arrow that flew forth was small—
almost modest compared to the divine armaments he had previously shown.
Its speed, too, was far slower—hardly different from an ordinary arrow.
But when Patricio saw it, he shouted to the archbishops,
“Raise every defense to the maximum!”
The archbishops were indeed archbishops.
Though they may have questioned his order, none showed hesitation or panic.
Their bodies shone pure white, halos forming above their heads.
As high priests imbued with greater divine essence, they bore far more of the power that Lumenis had granted.
The archbishops united their strength, joined by Bentham, captain of the Paladins,
who gripped two golden shields and poured his full power into them.
His entire body turned golden, like a living statue cast in holy light.
The surrounding priests and paladins did not remain idle either.
The priests prayed and invoked sacred arts—
arrows of light, spears of light, °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° pillars of light were fired toward the descending arrow.
The paladins unleashed their golden weapons—
blades, banners, and strikes—all rising to intercept the arrow’s path.
Yet the arrow did not stop.
Its speed did not falter; it simply ignored every attack,
grazing through them as if they did not exist, tracing a calm parabola toward its target.
Had it missed?
No. Every strike had indeed hit the arrow.
Only—
everything that touched its power simply ceased to exist.
“T-This makes no sense...”
How immense must the power within that tiny arrow be,
that the combined attacks of thousands blessed by the divine could not even scratch it?
The shining white arrow finally reached the massive barrier.
A colossal fortress of white light soared into the heavens, as though dividing the world in half.
The highest-class sacred art—
[Fortress of God]
It was said that in the heavenly realm of those who serve Lumenis,
there stands a golden fortress of light—
impervious to any demonic invasion, eternally radiant and warm.
Its size, they claimed, could encircle the entire continent three times over and still have half remaining.
This spell reproduced that same fortress—
or rather, summoned a fragment of the true golden citadel of Lumenis directly into reality.
In this world, upon this earth,
there existed no being capable of surpassing that holy bastion.
Above the immense walls that filled the sky,
the arrow—tiny as a toothpick in comparison—struck.
And then—
a vast explosion erupted.
“Tch.”
Suruna immediately drove his sword into the ground and lowered his body.
The Earth Elemental Lord sank deep into the ground in the same instant.
Only the Fire Elemental Lord reacted too slowly.
The blast’s edge brushed against it,
and the fiery being, towering over eight hundred meters tall, scattered like dying embers.
Light flickered.
Thunderous explosions, like tens of thousands of lightning bolts, crashed without pause.
When at last all fell silent—
the wall was gone.
The army of thousands had vanished completely.
The number of survivors could be counted on one’s fingers.
Only the archbishops, including Patricio, remained.
“Unexpected. I meant to kill them all.”
Ludger landed lightly on the ground.
Before him stood Bentham, captain of the Holy Knights,
his body still faintly glowing with a golden hue.
Ludger walked past him without a glance.
At once, Bentham’s body cracked apart with a dry crumble—
shattering like weathered marble into dust.
“Wh-What!”
As the remaining archbishops raised their hands to invoke sacred law,
a metallic arm tore through the air above Ludger’s head.
That mechanical arm pointed its forefinger toward one of the archbishops—
and lightly swept it from left to right.
The archbishop’s body trembled,
then turned to salt and collapsed into a white heap upon the ground.
Another archbishop widened his eyes just as, from the rift in the sky,
a tentacle composed of human bones, flesh, and muscle extended downward and touched him.
“W-What is th—gk-k-kghhhh!!!”
His body twisted grotesquely,
then was sucked upward into the tentacle like water down a drain.
One archbishop saw a mirror appear before him—
his eyes and optic nerves ignited and burned to ash.
Another’s gaze went blank; he sank to his knees in prayer, muttering incoherently—
and turned into a tree.
Each of the archbishops died in a different, horrifying manner.
Those who did not die outright were left in states where death would have been mercy.
To Patricio, it felt like divine punishment.
But that raised a question—
who could possibly punish the archbishops of the great Lumenis Church?
“At last.”
Ludger stood before Patricio.
“You’re the only one left.”