“An unexpected reaction. Are you surprised that the wall of divine power protecting your body was pierced so easily?”
“......Right. I forgot you were here.”
Salesin had momentarily forgotten Suruna’s existence.
That meant even Suruna—who was called a Great Demon—had not been worthy of Salesin’s attention.
Of course, the price for that distraction was not small.
It was happening right now.
Suruna thrust an attack—one wrung out from every ounce of his strength—straight into Salesin’s heart.
That was an attack that would kill absolutely anyone.
And Suruna had not merely stabbed with a sword. He had used all of his techniques blended together, a composite strike, an <integrated technique> so potent that its real power far exceeded what the eye could see.
Even so, Salesin’s expression barely changed.
“You seem to think I got hit like this because I let my guard down, but that’s a huge misunderstanding.”
Salesin gently grasped the blade protruding from his own chest.
The moment his fingers touched it, the blade dissolved in midair like melting smoke.
“I didn’t bother paying attention to you because there was never any need to. No matter what you do, you cannot kill me.”
Suruna’s face stiffened.
He had carried out the attack fully convinced he had seized the advantage—yet Salesin was unharmed.
“You... are you even human?”
“You shouldn’t be able to pretend you don’t know who I am.”
The blade vanished, and the wound in his chest healed in an instant.
Even the torn hole in his clothing returned to its original form.
It surpassed mere regeneration. His body rewound itself as though time itself had reversed.
“I’m the one destined to become the god of this cage. To be beaten by a mere demon? My place isn’t that cheap.”
“Is that so?”
The reply did not come from Suruna.
At the sound of a lively woman’s voice, Salesin’s eyes shifted toward its source.
Directly beside him—so close it felt impossible he hadn’t noticed sooner.
A captivating woman with half-white, half-black hair was smiling at him.
A smile that looked carefree, unfettered by anything.
“Then how about the two of us?”
At Helia’s greeting, an illusion surged out from behind her and swung at Salesin.
It was a giant man with no eyes, no nose, no ears—only a massive mouth.
KWHAAAAM!
The giant’s fist smashed into Salesin, knocking him across the spire’s railing and flinging him far into the distance.
Salesin halted sharply in midair, attempting to stabilize his posture.
At almost the exact same moment, a shadow fell over his head.
“Oh dear.”
A massive dragon—well over 100 meters tall—was inhaling deeply, targeting him.
FWOOOOSH!
Then came the exhalation.
A torrent of scorching breath, blazing flames mixed into the dragon’s exhale, blasted Salesin downward and slammed him through the inner part of the citadel.
But it didn’t stop there—the red flames spread through the citadel like sweeping waves.
* * *
Suruna’s sudden appearance left everyone around frozen in shock as they stared at him.
Blood flowed from countless wounds, and his face bore cracks like shattered glass, yet—
He was still a demon possessing overwhelming presence.
The Great Demon Suruna had stepped in to assist them.
“Did you handle your task well?”
Ludger spoke to Suruna.
The others held their breath watching the two converse.
“Yeah. More or less wrapped it up.”
“And you still managed to come back alive?”
“There’s still something I need to do.”
Suruna was surely experiencing excruciating pain simply by breathing.
At least, that was how it looked to Ludger. And in truth, Suruna was.
But even so, Suruna smiled brightly—like a boy who had finally achieved his dream.
Yet behind that smile lay a kind of resignation.
“Forgot already? I’m a demon. And not just any demon—one who committed every imaginable atrocity across the continent for ages.”
Suruna discarded the sword whose blade was now gone, then drew a new one from empty air.
“So a demon’s end should be fitting for what he is.”
“.......”
“I know my actions were atrocities. I know they were wrong. I say I don’t regret them, but it’s hard to claim I don’t regret anything at all.”
Suruna took a moment, catching his breath.
“Sometimes I wondered... just as Arkenis said... wasn’t there a better way? Couldn’t I have reduced the amount of blood spilled? Even by one person—couldn’t I have killed fewer? Ridiculous, stupid regrets, right?”
But such regrets were likely only possible because he had already accomplished what he wanted in the end.
If he had failed, he might have regretted not being even more ruthless.
So Suruna chose to view reality as it was.
“In the end, they’re all meaningless hypotheticals. That’s why I’m making one last decision. I’m going to erase that bastard from this world completely.”
For those who remained.
To erase Salesin von Bretus from this cage forever.
To sever the lineage of the cursed Lumenis Church that had persisted for ages.
That was Suruna’s final goal—and the period that would close out his life.
“I might not be able to kill him. After fighting him just now, I get it. I’m definitely going to die. I barely got to see her again, and this is going to be the end.”
“Why are you choosing that?”
“A wicked demon who committed every evil in the world cannot have a happy ending.”
Suruna spoke with an unwavering voice.
“No matter how pitiful the circumstances... no matter how tragic the reason... the sins I committed do not vanish.”
That was why Suruna chose this place as his final battlefield.
If he died fighting that monstrous being, that would be enough.
He did not believe his sins would be absolved.
But at the very least—
This was the ending the Great Demon Suruna had chosen after long deliberation.
“I can’t kill the Holy Sovereign. But you can.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because you’re not the kind of man who would fall so easily before fulfilling his goal. Isn’t that right?”
Ludger did not answer.
Instead, he intensified the shadow reinforcing his body and said:
“Then buy me time.”
“Yeah. That’s what I wanted to hear.”
* * *
KWAAAAAAAAH!!!
One section of the Galaharad citadel turned crimson and began to melt.
The structure—carved from pure white Holystone, shaped to embody the extreme limits of artistry and aesthetics—slumped and dripped like molten wax.
Lava pooled at the center where the breath struck, forming a massive smelting pit.
From within that furnace, Salesin rose to his feet unharmed.
The air had combusted, the divinely enchanted walls of the fortress had melted, and beneath his feet was a lake of glowing red liquefied stone.
Salesin muttered in a calm voice that seemed impossible for the man standing at the center of such devastation.
“Hm. A bit hot.”
He lifted his head and looked upward.
Through the ceiling—melted open by the dragon’s breath—he saw the massive dragon beating its wings, charging straight toward him.
“How insolent.”
Salesin reached out toward the dragon.
The dragon, with its jaws opened wide to swallow him whole, was instantly split from maw to tail, cleaved cleanly in two.
Through the scattering illusion of the dragon, blue mana fell like a meteor shower.
“Is that all you’ve got?”
Even as he watched the mana meteor shower descend, Salesin made no move to block it.
He even spread his arms open, as if inviting them to try.
The blue meteors poured down, looking as though they would swallow him whole—
“Hm?”
Salesin let out a puzzled sound.
The blue mana meteors struck around him with little pops, marking blue points on the ground.
It was not the manifestation of destructive magic meant to kill him?
The moment Salesin felt that doubt, the mana marks on the ground connected in lines, resonating into a single formation.
“This is...”
The meteor shower that had fallen earlier had not been meant as an attack.
It was magic used to activate another magic.
“This might be dangerous.”
Just as Salesin tried to disrupt the spell’s construction, Suruna leapt in.
“You think I’m going to just stand here?”
His ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ body was already destroyed beyond ruin, yet Suruna didn’t care as he hurled himself at Salesin.
Even if he couldn’t die, Salesin had no desire to have his heart pierced again. He drew a sword of light and clashed against Suruna’s blade.
KAANG!
“Persistent, aren’t you, demon. Moving with that body will only bring your death faster.”
“If that scared me, I wouldn’t be standing in front of you.”
“Is that so.”
Salesin smiled brightly.
“Then die.”
The sword of light intensified, melting Suruna’s blade as it aimed straight for his neck.
But Suruna propelled himself backward and drew a door in midair.
The instant he smashed through the door and disappeared inside, the sword of light devoured the space.
As if erasing a pencil drawing with an eraser, every trace of where the sword passed vanished cleanly.
Suruna survived only because he slipped away at the last possible moment.
“Space movement? Is that what that was?”
However, the power of the sword of light had been too great. When Suruna appeared again from another door, one of his arms was entirely gone.
“How amusing. Space magic that should be suppressed within this cage, preventing anyone from leaving... and a demon is using it freely in his own way.”
“You sure you have time to talk? The magic is already complete.”
Suruna’s efforts to buy time had not been in vain.
The blue points marked around the melted lava all connected, drawing a geometric diagram across the ground before activating in a burst of light.
Even before it had fully manifested, Salesin had sensed it would be troublesome.
Of course—because what was about to activate was a 7th-Circle spell.
CRACKLE, CRACK.
The pooled magma froze in an instant—no, it didn’t just cool, it turned solid ice.
The surrounding heat vanished, and everything that had been melting slowed, then stopped, as though time had frozen.
The molten red liquid solidified gray and frost bloomed over its surface.
All the heat from the dragon’s breath had disappeared.
And all that heat was absorbed at once by the blue flame that shot toward Suruna.
A 7th-Circle spell.
[Blue Serenity]
The Cheonghwa that had absorbed all surrounding heat possessed a completely different scale of power than the one Ludger had first used.
Naturally so.
The Cheonghwa that had devoured the body heat and divine power of Paladins and high priests could not be compared to a Cheonghwa that had swallowed an entire dragon’s breath.
The flame approaching Salesin now was the ultimate condensed fire—the dragon’s breath and all its aftermath compressed into a single point.
Even Salesin did not intend to take that flame head-on.
“In that case, I can just erase it.”
Salesin swung the sword of light again.
The sword of light and Cheonghwa collided, unleashing a massive shockwave.
Scattered frost was swept up in the blast, breaking apart into glittering fragments.
Amid that shimmering, reflected light, the sword of light and Cheonghwa struggled for dominance.
It was impressive enough that Cheonghwa wasn’t erased by the sword of light—but equally astonishing that Cheonghwa, which should have absorbed even the sword’s heat, could be halted at all.
The clash did not end in one strike.
Salesin steadied his stance, preparing to swing the sword of light a second time.
But Suruna was never going to let that happen.
From the air, Suruna drew countless swords and hurled them at Salesin.
Blades surrounded him from every direction, aiming for his vital points.
Even Salesin could not simply ignore every blade.
Some wouldn’t pierce his skin, but among them were swords hidden with the same lethal force that had stabbed his heart earlier.
“Petty illusions.”
A simple feint that Salesin could see through instantly under normal circumstances, but in a moment like this, it was enough to create a tiny opening.
And Suruna wasn’t the only one trying to stop him.
RUMBLE!
The ground beneath Salesin split open, and a monster made of twisted masses of flesh burst out, grabbing his ankle.
A creature summoned by Helia.
It shoved Salesin’s ankle into its mouth, attempting to gnaw and devour his lower body with countless teeth.
In front of him was Cheonghwa.
Below him was the monster.
Around him were deadly blades.
Salesin curled his lips into a smirk, then gripped the sword of light in a reverse hold and struck the ground.
FWAAAAASH!!!
A blinding burst of radiance tore apart Suruna’s swords and Helia’s summoned monster.
In that brief opening, Cheonghwa shot toward him—but Salesin simply caught the fist-sized flame in his bare, unsheathed hand.
SSSSSSS—
It burned against his palm, emitting white smoke even through his divine protection, but Salesin didn’t even blink.
Cheonghwa tried to consume his arm, but he crushed it in his grip, shattering it completely.
His eyes darted around—then lifted upward.
“So the real one is up there.”
In midair, Ludger was preparing another spell.
A layered setup, creating openings, and then delivering a single decisive blow.
But that only worked if everything proceeded perfectly.
Once Salesin sensed it, Ludger’s entire plan was effectively ruined.
If there had been no interference, that is.
CRACKLE.
Salesin narrowed his eyes.
The frost fragments suspended around him were not settling.
Instead, they grew colder, adhering to his skin and attempting to freeze the surrounding space altogether.
Who was doing this?
“Hello, Holy Sovereign.”
Then the curtain of water in the air vanished—revealing Casey Selmore.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Ah, Miss Casey Selmore. I’ve heard much about you. The world-famous detective who has never failed to resolve a case, yes?”
“Oh my. Thank you for recognizing me. In that case, I’m sure you also know why I’ve come here?”
“It is quite unfortunate that we meet like this.”
Casey’s expression toward Salesin turned icy.
“If you felt that way, you shouldn’t have touched my family.”