Chapter 376: The Demon King of Fury (10)
The Demon King tried to escape out of range, but she failed. She then poured all of her remaining dark power into activating her Demoneye’s ability. Finally, she tried to block the blow by directly holding out both her hands.
But it was impossible. The moment the blood-red slash touched her, the Demon King was left with no choice but to recognize this fact. Just like in the distant past, that ‘sword’ made the Demon King realize the meaning of defeat.
Her father, the previous Demon King of Fury, had managed to escape from his defeat, but…. Iris, the current Demon King of Fury, wasn’t even able to escape.
Red light scattered everywhere.
“Haha…,” the Demon King laughed as she slowly stepped back.
She didn’t want to lower her head. She had no desire to directly see what had become of her body. However, her Intuition led the Demon King to realize many things. She had already been defeated, and death was coming for her soon.
A death that was impossible for her to avoid.
“Haha, hahaha… ha…,” the Demon King couldn’t help but laugh out of frustration.
How about a final struggle? But she couldn’t even do that. When she had stretched out her hands towards the approaching slash, that was the last futile struggle that the Demon King could have made.
“Have you…,” the Demon King spoke up after standing there in silence. “...also seen it? Or perhaps, could you have remembered it?”
Was there even a need to reply to that sort of question? Eugene stared at the Demon King with cold eyes.
There weren’t any visible wounds on Iris’ body. However, the Holy Sword had sliced deep into the Demon King. It was impossible for the current Demon King to resurrect from those wounds.
In other words, the words that the Demon King was spouting now were the last words that she would ever leave in this world.
“Get lost,” Eugene snorted.
Just because those were her last words didn’t mean Eugene had to respect them. For Eugene, something like a Demon King was an existence that should never be respected or accommodated. No, even setting aside the fact that she was a Demon King, Iris herself wasn’t someone that he could respect.
In Eugene’s perspective, Iris was a fucking bitch.
As the first dark elf, she had corrupted many of the elven rangers who had once followed her command and brutally killed those who had resisted. Even after that, while leading the Armies of Fury, she had committed countless acts that an elf should never do when facing another elf while slaughtering and trampling all those who had been her comrades in the past. Following this, she had continued to act as a scout for the Armies of Fury and killed countless people.
He didn’t know what Iris had gotten to after the war ended. He didn’t know what kind of shit she had been involved in in Helmuth. But that honestly didn’t matter to Eugene.
However, he did know the things she had done in this sea. Eugene had been left with a specific opinion of her based on what she had gotten up to after reaching this sea.
Many people had died because of her. This battlefield was only one of the many battlefields that Eugene had chosen to take part in. However, Eugene had experienced far worse battlefields than this one.
If he felt responsible for each death that happened on the battlefield and allowed himself to be burdened by that guilt, Eugene would never be able to maintain his sanity. Even if he hadn’t chosen to take part in this battle, many more people would have ultimately died than the ones who died here today.
However, rather than feeling guilt, it was acceptable for him to feel rage instead. It was healthy for him to hate his opponents. Eugene was just that kind of person, and even at this very moment, he was adhering to such behavior.
Eugene had no intention of listening to the Demon King’s last words. He had no intention of speaking to the Demon King either. At first, he had felt some doubts about this general situation. However, he currently didn’t feel like there was any need to question the Demon King about these doubts.
Eugene definitely had noticed something from the Demon King’s questions. She had asked him if he remembered it. But in the first place, that was something that had originated from inside of Eugene.
Also, there wasn’t even enough time left to hold such a conversation with the Demon King, either.
As Eugene was standing there in silence, someone approached his side.
It was Sienna Merdein. Her lips were red from the blood she had coughed up. Sienna glared at the Demon King, and the Demon King looked back at Sienna, her face stoic and empty.
“Ha!” the Demon King’s lips twitched as she laughed.
The Demon King also didn’t want to leave behind any last words of regret in this situation, deeming such an act to be dirty and shameful. Because, from the Demon King’s or Iris’ own perspective, she hadn’t done anything wrong.
As for her regrets about her death and her fears, she absolutely refused to reveal such things in front of these hateful enemies.
So instead, Iris pronounced a curse, “You will fail.”
She poured all her remaining regrets, rage, hatred, murderous intent, fury, and the other emotions surrounding her own oncoming death into the curse that she spat out.
“You, all of you humans, will definitely fail. You will never achieve anything.” With each word she uttered, Iris’ body was disintegrating. As her red eyes shone angrily, she continued speaking, “You will never, ever comprehend how much of a monster the Demon King of Incarceration truly is. Even if you sacrifice everything, you will still be unable to defeat the Demon King of Incarceration.”
Her death curse flew at them like an ominous ghost. The curse that fell from Iris’ lips made the space around them tremble as it shadowed Eugene’s mind. Eugene smelled the scent of blood and heard the sounds of screaming, laughter, and chains rattling.
“Your future will be filled with an inevitable and irresistible despair. Your fate…,” Iris paused before bursting into frenzied laughter, “ha… hahaha! That’s right. It seems that fate really does repeat itself. Just like how, three hundred years ago, Vermouth managed to overcome Fury only to kneel before Incarceration, it will be the same this time as well. Because it has always… always been that way.”
Iris’ shoulders were shaking with her laughter. As the curse continued to flow from her lips, her body’s disintegration accelerated. Iris raised her disintegrating finger to point at Eugene and Sienna.
“You… will definitely… die,” Iris vowed. “You will never, ever, be allowed to surv—”
“You crazy bitch,” Sienna, who had been listening silently, suddenly blurted out.
Narrowing cold, remorseless eyes, she flew through the sky towards Iris.
“I don’t know anything about our failure or whatever else you said, but first of all, you’re definitely dying before us, right?” Sienna taunted.
Bam!
Her open palm slammed into Iris’ cheek.
Sienna continued, “Ultimately, your curse is just the sour parting words of a loser, Iris. In the end, what exactly have you left behind as a legacy? You even killed all of the dark elves who followed you here. Even after going so far, you still weren’t able to achieve anything, absolutely nothing.”
Bam!
Sienna’s hand slapped Iris once more.
“Even after becoming a Demon King, what did you do?” Sienna asked mockingly. “Iris, even though you became a Demon King, you couldn’t even leave this sea. The world will never know your name or the name of the new Demon King of Fury. Ah, it seems that I’ve made a mistake. By tomorrow, the whole world will know of the Demon King of Fury, though they’ll know it as the name of an idiot who died three hundred years ago and perished in this era as well.”
Sienna didn’t continue to slap Iris.
While shaking her wrist, she ridiculed Iris, “Do you see what you’ve done, Iris? Even after abandoning your family, you still failed. And you’ve even smeared mud on the name of the one you so loved and cherished, the one you so mourned, ‘the Demon King of Fury.’ You’ve failed in everything, but you… do you still think you have the right to tell us that we will fail?”
Iris’ eyes trembled. She opened her mouth to say something, but Sienna’s hand wrapped around Iris’ throat.
“Your life, your very existence, holds no meaning or value,” Sienna coldly stated. “However, to us… for me, there is something. Because at least I will enjoy watching you die. I am overjoyed to see you, the person I so wanted to kill, die without accomplishing anything.”
She could still clearly remember the corpses of the elves who had died after being burned alive. Still glaring into Iris’ eyes, Sienna let go of her neck.
“Three hundred years ago, when we defeated the Demon King of Fury, there were still people left to mourn the death of Fury. You, Oberon, and your subordinates,” Eugene finally addressed Iris. “But now, there is no one who will mourn your loss. Instead, they will only ridicule you.”
Iris’ body had almost completely disappeared. There was barely anything left of her, not her hair, nose, or lips. However, Iris’ emotions could still be guessed from the way that her wide-open eyes were trembling.
“So you, who are dying here and now, how would you know whether or not we will fail?” Eugene demanded.
Even if she still had lips, Iris didn’t have the will to keep cursing them. The reality that she had refused to admit until the very end tore all of her last remaining emotions into pieces. She had cursed them to feel despair, but it was now Iris who was feeling utter despair.
‘Aah, aaaaah.’
Though her voice couldn’t be heard, Iris was sobbing. Her eyes, which were the last to disappear, were trembling with unshed tears.
Finally, Iris, the Demon King of Fury, completely disappeared. She had dissipated into a black ash that floated in the air for a moment before vanishing. The dark skies instantly became brighter in the blink of an eye, while the dark red sea also returned to its original blue color simultaneously.
Eugene looked at the Divine Sword he was holding in his left hand.
His ring had completely shattered. The Divine Sword was also gradually breaking into pieces and disappearing. Eugene stared down at the Divine Sword with bitter and complex feelings.
“Why are you crying?” Eugene raised his head and asked.
He had spotted Sienna, who was standing next to him, silently shedding tears.
Wiping away her tears with her fingers, Sienna explained, “Because I’m happy.”
She didn’t have even the slightest sympathy for Iris. The tears that Sienna was currently shedding were tears of satisfaction at having seen the death of her most hated enemy of these past three hundred years.
So, would Sienna become depressed because of the loss of her goal? There was no way that would happen. Her revenge only had meaning because it had been achieved.
“What exactly is that sword?” Sienna turned her head and asked, wiping away a few small tears.
The sword in Eugene’s left hand… didn’t have any substance to it. It wasn’t made of mana, either. Naturally, that meant it couldn’t be a spell.
The sword seemed to be made of… a red light. Although it was now faint and fading away when Eugene had first pulled the sword out of his chest, it had emitted a red light so intense that it had even erased the darkness of the Devildom and the Light of the Holy Sword.
“It’s a secret,” Eugene grunted.
The light in Sienna’s eyes grew sharp at this reply.
Leaning over towards Eugene, she probed, “A secret? At this point, what secrets could there be between us?”
“I’ll tell you about it in a bit,” Eugene prevaricated.
The Divine Sword had now completely disappeared. Sienna was stubbornly sticking to his side, but Eugene didn’t pay any attention to Sienna. However, Sienna didn’t find fault with him over this.
Because she knew exactly where Eugene was looking.
* * *
When the sea had been split apart, Scalia — secretly Noir Giabella — wasn’t all that surprised by the phenomenon.
The sea had split apart? What was so impressive about that?
A strange phenomenon that had parted the sea down to the seabed while leaving the sea walls standing separated without flowing back down might seem impressive to humans, but it wasn’t anything amazing to Noir. Although she didn’t see the point in doing so, if she had to, Noir could also split the sea dozens of times over if she wanted to.
As for slaying the Demon King?
That also didn’t come as a huge surprise to Noir. She had trusted that if Hamel was the one fighting her, he would be able to kill the Demon King. After all, he couldn’t move on to the next stage without first killing the Demon King of Fury.
More surprising than him splitting apart the sea or slaying the Demon King was the sword and the strength that Hamel had drawn out at the end.
Another surprising thing was what had just happened with Ciel.
‘How absurd,’ Noir shook her head.
Usually, Noir would never have such a thought. This was because, as the possessor of the Demoneye of Fantasy, almost nothing existed that could truly seem “absurd” to her. The only things Noir could think of as absurd and impossible for her to even imagine were things like her own death.
However, what she was seeing now was something truly ‘absurd.’ At the very least, in all of the years that she had lived until now, Noir had never once seen anything like this, nor had she heard the slightest rumor of this happening. And despite everything else she had meddled in, Noir hadn’t done anything to cause this result.
All she had done was feel sympathy for this young, beautiful girl who had had one of her eyes destroyed. Also, because she had wanted to hear a grudging thanks from Hamel, she had just added her own bit of help to the first aid applied to Ciel’s wounds.
It wasn’t like she had applied anything suspicious on top of that first aid. She had simply poured the Shimuin Royal Family’s Panacea in Scalia’s possession into Ciel’s empty left eye socket.
‘Could a medicine made from a blue dragon’s horn really have this effect?’ Noir wondered.
But that was a ridiculous idea. Noir didn’t even spare a second thought to consider that possibility. Even if she accepted that the royal family’s Panacea could regenerate a completely destroyed eye, and let’s just say that there might indeed be something special about that regenerated eye….
However, it was impossible for the result to be a Demoneye. Yet Noir clearly recalled what she had just seen. The moment that she poured out the Panacea, no, before the Panacea had even touched her, Ciel’s missing eye had already regenerated.
But that… could it really have been called regeneration? Would it be better to call it rebirth? In Noir’s opinion, what had happened just now was the Demoneye somehow choosing to be reborn in that place. In the first place, Demoneyes were something that only demonfolk could be born with or receive; even if they wanted to, there was no way for humans to possess them.
Those blood-red air currents, which had suddenly swirled up from the eye socket that had been treated with an elixir and holy water, had swallowed up all of the Shimuin Royalty’s Panacea without spilling a single particle. Following this, both of Ciel’s eyes had reopened as if they had both been there from the very beginning.
Her eyes still held the golden hue of the Lionheart clan. However, the newly born left eye possessed a slightly different shade from the original right eye….
Ciel had been struck dumb with shock upon reawakening.
Just like Noir, she was also unable to control her surprise. With a trembling hand, she carefully touched her face.
She recalled her left eye disappearing with a popping sound. Her vision had turned red and then darkened. That was where her memories of the event ended.
However, what she recalled was enough for her to know what had happened to her. Her eye had been completely destroyed. Or at least, that was how it should have been before she lost consciousness.
‘So what happened?’ Ciel wondered.
The moment she regained consciousness, a light had suddenly seeped into the eye that should have been unable to see anything. The very first thing that Ciel saw as she came to her senses was Scalia’s extremely flustered expression.
But all of Ciel’s thoughts were focused on something different. Even though Scalia was right in front of her, Ciel’s only thoughts were of Eugene.
She had pushed him away and then fallen forward to take his place… but she couldn’t recall anything after that. Had she… had she been able to save Eugene like she had hoped? What about the battle against the Demon King?
Looking past Scalia’s head, Ciel saw Eugene standing high in the still-darkened skies. She saw Eugene simply standing there as the Demon King approached him. The moment she thought she couldn’t let Iris get any closer to him, her left eye heated up and began to throb as if it had been pricked with a soldering iron.
“It really is a Demoneye,” Noir whispered as she examined Ciel’s left eye closely.
Ciel’s eye didn’t shine with a bright light. Instead, it was cloudy. The iris around her pitch-black pupil appeared to have a dark, murky yellow shade rather than the original golden hue.
“What you used just now was your Demoneye. But it seems you used it without even being aware you were doing so?” Noir questioned.
Ciel stammered, “A Demon… Demoneye…?”
Noir smiled, “This… this is truly fascinating. The darkness that just blocked Iris from going forward. That was the power of the Demoneye of Darkness.”
Noir’s eyes sparkled brightly with curiosity. Holding Ciel’s cheeks firmly with both hands, she pressed her face close to Ciel’s.
Noir asked her, “Why have you, a descendant of Vermouth, who bears the blood of the Lionheart clan, been bestowed with a Demoneye? And not just any Demoneye, but Iris’ Demoneye of Darkness at that.”
Had Iris given her this Demoneye? But that was completely absurd. What reason would Iris have for doing so? Or perhaps… was it the Demoneye of Darkness? Was it the lingering traces of power left over from the moment that Ciel had lost that eye?
‘That doesn’t make any sense either,’ Noir decided. ‘There’s no way that a Demoneye would appear here just because of something like that.’
If getting your eye destroyed by a Demoneye was the trigger for a new Demoneye to be born in its place, then Noir would have already implanted countless humans and demons with Demoneyes over the past three hundred years.
Noir paused, “Hold on… what caused Iris to freeze in place like that? The Demoneye of Darkness shouldn’t have that sort of ability?”
Noir’s face gradually drew even closer to Ciel’s.
Iris’ actions had been halted by some outside force. That wasn’t an ability that the Demoneye of Darkness should possess. It hadn’t been because of Sienna’s magic or the Saint’s Miracles either. It had taken a power that went against all reason: the power of a Demoneye.
“There’s no way… could it be that your eyes possess two abilities?” Noir marveled.
She was curious.
If she could have her way, Noir really felt like plucking Ciel’s eyes out right now to examine them. But if that was considered as going too far, Noir at least wanted to take the whole person away with her.
However, she wouldn’t be able to satisfy such urges. A murderous intent sending shivers down her spine drove Noir to stand up.
“How wonderful!” Noir exclaimed with a mischievous smile as she spread her arms wide.
She had spotted Eugene and Sienna descending in her direction. The Saint, Carmen, and the others were also flying over from the vessels at the front.
“The Hero, oh gallant Eugene Lionheart! You have truly managed to subjugate the Demon King of Fury! On behalf of the Shimuin Royal Family, We, the princess, Scalia Animus, commend you for your utmost efforts!” Noir declared.
She was putting on quite the performance. From Noir’s perspective, her current actions were just a casual joke between friends.
However, Eugene didn’t feel the same way. He knew the identity of the one currently possessing Scalia, and he could see Ciel lying down right at her feet. As Ciel attempted to stagger to her feet, Eugene also noticed there was something different about Ciel’s left eye.
‘Oh my,’ Noir suddenly realized.
This might just cause a misunderstanding. Noir quickly grasped the situation and took a step away from Ciel.
“Dear Eugene,” Noir began, no longer playing the part of Princess Scalia.
In truth, she wanted to call him her ‘Dear Hamel,’ but Noir didn’t want to share the sweet secret that was being kept between them with the rest of the trash gathered here.
Noir smiled charmingly, “It seems that you’ve come to a huge misunderstanding—”
Eugene didn’t respond to those words. His body might be screaming in agony now that Ignition had ended, but Eugene ignored those cries and forced his body to accelerate.
Stab!
A dagger drawn from between the folds of his cloak was thrust into Scalia’s chest.