The Demon King of Incarceration didn’t know why Balzac Ludbeth’s face had popped up in his mind at this moment.
Could Balzac truly have been capable of this? If he were, there was no way that the Demon King of Incarceration wouldn’t have noticed.
After all, no matter how clever Balzac might have been, the black wizard was personally contracted to the Demon King of Incarceration. The Demon King was able to read the minds of his contractors at any time he pleased.
Of course, the Demon King of Incarceration had always permitted his subordinates the freedom to plot rebellion. As long as they didn’t put any of their ideas into action, that is. If they did try something and failed, he would always be sure to hold them responsible for their mistakes.
However, the Demon King of Incarceration had never once felt any desire to rebel from the human black wizard known as Balzad Ludbeth. Balzac had always shown loyalty to the Demon King of Incarceration, from the moment that he had arrived in Babel to the moment he died. In his final moments, Balzac expressed his admiration for Sienna’s magic and, at the same time, he died hoping for the victory of the Demon King of Incarceration.
‘Balzac Ludbeth,’ the Demon King of Incarceration mused.
He was certain of it. The Demon King of Incarceration knew that Balzac Ludbeth wasn’t capable enough to be a threat to him. Balzac had also never once shown any thought of betraying the Demon King of Incarceration.
Yet even so, the Demon King of Incarceration couldn’t remove Balzac’s name and face from his mind. Although there was no evidence for it, the Demon King of Incarceration was now sure that Balzac Ludbeth was the source of these uncomfortable and dangerous shifts taking place inside of him.
That was what both his intuition and instincts were telling him, so there wasn’t any need to waste time looking for evidence to support this theory. The Demon King of Incarceration sensed that whatever was currently afflicting him was a poison even deadlier than the Corpse Poison that had been slowly fermenting and accumulating inside of the Demon King throughout the course of his long life.
‘Just what… is this…?’ the Demon King thought with a frown.His senses were becoming skewed. It felt like he had lost control of himself and that time was passing slowly for him, leaving him separated from the world. He was even left uncertain whether he was currently standing up or lying down. Incarceration tried to use his remaining sense of clarity to get a hold of himself somehow, but his body wasn’t responding the way he wanted it to.
Instead, he could feel his poison levels rising. The poison spilling out from the abyss within him had slipped out of the Demon King of Incarceration’s control and was currently eating away at his own dark power.
This was the start of a rampage. The poison was beginning to run out of control. It shouldn’t have been possible for something like this to happen. Still, the power that the Demon King of Incarceration had managed to hold in check for the entirety of his life was gradually freeing itself from his control.
‘This is dangerous,’ Incarceration realized.
Even the Demon King of Incarceration couldn’t help but feel a sense of crisis at this moment. He had been storing up far too much poison within the depths of his internal abyss. And above all, the one thing that the Demon King of Incarceration needed to keep secure at all costs, even in the worst-case scenario, was the chain that connected him to the Demon King of Destruction. If that connection was severed or destroyed, there would be no way for the Demon King of Incarceration to cross over to the next era.
The Demon King of Incarceration was the only one who felt that time seemed to flow slowly. This meant that those attacking him weren’t subjected to any such inconvenience. Eugene and Molon quickly noticed that there was something strange about the Demon King of Incarceration. The Demon King, who had been able to respond to all of their previous attacks without being phased or put off-balance, had suddenly stopped reacting to their attacks.
At first, they thought this might be a part of some kind of trick. They suspected the Demon King might have deliberately left an opening, wanting to draw them in deep before springing the trap.
However, that wasn’t the case. Even after they braved the risk and ventured in deep, the Demon King of Incarceration still hadn’t reacted to them. He didn’t do anything to push them back, block them, or launch a counterattack.
‘What is this bastard up to?’ Eugene thought to himself as he glared into the Demon King’s stiff gaze.
Even though Eugene was examining Incarceration from such a close distance, all that could be seen in the Demon King of Incarceration’s eyes was a dim reflection of Eugene’s figure. It was as if Incarceration's eyes weren’t really looking at him but instead seeing something else.
And that was indeed the case.
The Demon King of Incarceration stood alone in the center of the abyss, his consciousness being pulled out of the normal flow of time. There, he parted his lips and said, “Balzac Ludbeth.”
As he called out that name, the rippling, black sea below him began to bubble over as it boiled.
“What are you doing here?” the Demon King of Incarceration demanded.
This sea was the abyss hidden within the Demon King of Incarceration. All of his madness and the souls he had accumulated over the eons of his life were all dissolved into this sea. But the soul of Balzac, who had just died today, wasn’t meant to be in here. The Demon King of Incarceration hadn’t thrown Balzac’s soul into this abyss.
The Demon King of Incarceration frowned as he asked, “Could you be trying to usurp my power and status? If that’s the case, it will be a waste of your effort, Balzac Ludbeth. I admit that the dagger you have stuck into my back has delivered quite the lethal blow, but as someone who is already deceased, you will never—”
“Usurp?” a voice suddenly flowed out from within the bubbling foam.
Countless souls had been dissolved within this abyss, and right now, Balzac was included as one of their number. If Balzac’s aim was to crawl out of that abyss and turn the tables to devour the Demon King of Incarceration’s soul, thus forcefully seizing the Demon King’s power and status, Balzac would never be able to succeed.
“It seems that you’ve come to a great misunderstanding, Your Majesty. I have no desire to become a Demon King,” Balzac stated.
He no longer had a physical body, and Balzac wasn’t strong enough to pull himself out of this abyss and create a new body for himself, either. Balzac’s soul had already become trapped within this vast sea.
But there was something strange going on. Even though he had become a part of this vast and unfathomable sea, Balzac hadn’t lost his sense of self. He, who had been alive for less than a hundred years, was still able to maintain his independent ego when fused with all of these countless souls.
Balzac reminded the Demon King, “Don’t you already know what my greatest wish is, Your Majesty?”
The bubbling foam was gradually spreading as the sea began to shake.
Of course, the Demon King of Incarceration knew what Balzac’s greatest wish was. Balzac wanted to become a legendary wizard. It was a wish that only a child who greatly admired magic and had just stepped on the path to becoming a wizard would have.
“As a black wizard sworn to the Demon King, if I had managed to defeat Eugene Lionheart and Sienna Merdein… haha, that would certainly be enough to be called a legend, Your Majesty. However…,” Balzac paused for a moment.
Although Balzac had been stripped of his body, and only his voice was left flowing up from the abyssal sea, the Demon King of Incarceration could sense that Balzac’s voice was filled with unconcealable joy and satisfaction.
“I want to become a legend as a wizard, not a black wizard,” Balzac proudly revealed. “If I am to become a legend whose story is passed down for a long time, I want my story to be told by humans, not demonfolk. So you asked me if I wanted to become a Demon King? Haha, don’t you know me better than that, Your Majesty? I would hate that more than anything else.”
The Demon King of Incarceration knew that Balzac was telling the truth. Unlike Edmund Codreth, who had wanted to abandon his humanity to become a Demon King, Balzac had never once felt the desire to lose his humanity. But despite knowing that, the Demon King of Incarceration still couldn’t help but feel lost about the motivations of this human, Balzac Ludbeth. This was because the Demon King had never seen him planning any of this on the occasions when he had read Balzac’s mind.
Balzac smiled proudly as he said, “Just imagine it, Your Majesty. As a black wizard contracted to the Demon King… what would happen if he were to betray the Demon King at a crucial moment? What would happen if the betrayal of that black wizard managed to fatally wound the Demon King at a crucial moment, and if it was thanks to that wound that the Hero, and all of humanity, won the battle?”
The Demon King of Incarceration stared at Balzac silently.
“That has always been my greatest desire. But I never thought… that I would ever get close to fulfilling my wish.” Balzac smiled as he explained, “I still felt that way even up to my final moments. Because, while I may have made plenty of preparations while I was alive, once I was dead, there was no way for me to make any further preparations for what would happen afterward.”
“Is that so?” the Demon King of Incarceration said with a slow nod.
While Balzac continued to speak, the Demon King was examining each of the souls in his possession. This careful examination was being done because he couldn’t understand what Balzac’s soul, which he had never personally sent to the abyss, was doing here.
But now he understood it. He also understood why Balzac had decided to come to Babel just to die here. The man had used his death to trick the Demon King. Balzac had split his soul right at the moment when the Demon King of Incarceration was collecting Balzac’s soul following his death. The split had been pulled off so elegantly that the Demon King of Incarceration hadn’t even noticed it happening, and in the end, just like Balzac had intended, the split-off soul had been drained into the abyss like all of Babel’s discarded souls were.
“To think that you would be able to fool me like this,” the Demon King said, shaking his head and giving a hollow laugh.
“Deception is one of my few specialties,” Balzac admitted humbly.
Although he couldn’t see Balzac’s face, the Demon King of Incarceration could clearly imagine what kind of expression Balzac must be having right now.
“Was your Signature also part of your plans for today?” the Demon King of Incarceration asked suspiciously.
“If I hadn’t had Gluttony, I wouldn’t have been able to orchestrate this very moment,” Balzac confirmed, not feeling the need to hide anything any longer.
If Balzac’s Signature consumed a living creature, Balzac could take that creature’s strength and memories for his own. But in that case, where did the soul go? Instead of disappearing, it would actually become a part of Balzac. That was how Balzac had secretly expanded the size of his soul. After his soul had grown large enough, Balzac had secretly divided himself into two so that the Demon King of Incarceration was only ever able to read one of their memories.
In the end, Balzac’s plan was successful. Until the moment of Balzac’s death, the Demon King of Incarceration hadn’t been able to sense his impending betrayal, nor had the Demon King noticed it when the deceased souls parted ways.
“How impressive,” the Demon King of Incarceration said as he nodded his head. “Balzac Ludbeth, I thought that you had given up on your wish. I even thought that your death was a meaningless one. However, it seems that wasn’t the case. You continued to pursue your dream until the very end, and you also didn’t die in vain. You even used your own death to transform yourself into a dagger that has stabbed me in the back.”
“With just my death alone,” Balzac responded, “I wouldn’t have been able to become a dagger capable of threatening you, Your Majesty.”
Balzac may have been smart, but that didn’t mean he was capable of planning for everything. He had been unaware of the true nature of the Demon King of Incarceration. He had succeeded in secretly dividing his soul, and his split soul had managed to sneak all the way down into the abyss, but that didn’t mean Balzac had the confidence that he would truly become a virulent poison capable of threatening the Demon King of Incarceration.
Even after transforming himself into a deadly poison, if the Demon King of Incarceration had had a moment to spare… Balzac would definitely have been destroyed before he could position himself to be the dagger in the Demon King’s back.
“The fact that I was able to become a dagger like this… it definitely means that you were distracted with something else, Your Majesty. Because of that, you were forced to draw on your deepest reserves of strength,” Balzac surmised.
The Demon King of Incarceration simply smiled warmly without responding.
“Right now, I have turned myself into a poison and am currently spreading throughout your abyss,” Balzac declared proudly. “However, I alone am still not enough to defeat you, Your Majesty. No matter how far I spread, you would still be able to excise me. However, by cutting me out of yourself like that, you would surely suffer a corresponding loss of strength.”
The sea below was churning. Even at this very moment, Balzac’s soul was still growing larger by devouring the souls trapped within the abyss. The larger he grew, the faster the devouring process became.
“That is more than enough for me,” Balzac said with a smile. “In the end, this is all for the sake of ensuring Your Majesty’s defeat, and protecting the current era rather than the next.”
Booom.
A huge vibration seemed to shake the world they were in. The Demon King of Incarceration lifted his head to look upwards. The scene in his eyes suddenly changed. Instead of the abyss, the Demon King of Incarceration was now back to viewing reality.
In reality, the Demon King of Incarceration had collapsed onto the floor. He wasn’t dead yet. However, his regeneration had slowed and his mind was confused. His senses were still skewed. Meanwhile, his degree of poisoning kept escalating.
“Haha…,” the Demon King of Incarceration laughed without trying to get to his feet. “How impressive, Balzac Ludbeth.”
The Demon King of Incarceration felt the need to acknowledge the wizard once more.
Chuckling to himself, he placed a hand on the ground for support as he stood up. “This is certainly a fatal blow. And it’s not just you. Everyone present could currently prove a fatal threat to me.”
Eugene and Sienna had frozen at the sudden mention of Balzac’s name. However, they didn’t get the chance to ask why the Demon King had mentioned that name.
Their eyes were drawn to the Demon King of Incarceration’s shadow, which was visibly swelling up from the floor as the Demon King staggered to his feet. The Demon King of Incarceration proceeded to wrap his arms around his shoulders before slowly crouching down.
“What the hell,” Eugene cursed nervously as he swung his Divine Sword.
The long slash that flew from his blade sliced through the Demon King of Incarceration’s neck.
However, even when the Demon King’s head fell to the ground, the warning from Eugene’s intuition hadn’t disappeared. Molon, who felt the same sense of danger, immediately gripped onto the fabric of space and pulled Eugene backward. Then, while leaping back himself, Molon swung his hand forward once more.
Whoooosh!
As the fabric of space was forcefully pushed forward, the distance between the Demon King of Incarceration and the members of their party was widened.
“Sienna!” Molon roared out.
Sienna also lifted Mary without hesitation as she got ready to defend herself. At the same time, she used her other hand to grab the Demoneye of Fantasy that had been floating nearby.
Noir tried to stop her, [Hold on, I still have to—!]
Sienna scolded her, “You’re just my tool, so don’t go sacrificing yourself as you please!”
Sienna knew that Noir had prepared herself for self-destruction. Earlier, she had respected and understood Noir’s determination, but now that things had changed, Sienna couldn’t allow Noir to go through with her original plan. The rampaging poison had already begun to collapse the dream world. And whatever the Demon King of Incarceration was currently attempting, it didn’t feel like something that could be avoided just by stubbornly maintaining this dream world.
‘Why has he suddenly changed patterns?’ Eugene thought in concern.
Was it because they had managed to push the Demon King to such an extent? Did it have something to do with how the Demon King had uttered the name ‘Balzac Ludbeth’?
Incarceration had said that he had felt a fatal threat. It seemed that it was true that the Demon King of Incarceration had been pushed to the point where he was left with no other choice but to admit that honestly. However, the Demon King of Incarceration wasn’t going to give up just yet. As his shadow continued to swell, all of his sinister dark power began to coalesce around the Demon King of Incarceration.
Kristina and Anise’s prayers conjured a dazzling light as a barrier rose up from the holy ground below, covering Eugene, Molon, and Sienna. A spell was also shot out from Mary as Sienna ripped apart space to create a path of escape.
Cracracrack!
Right at that moment, a river of darkness began to flow from the stump of the Demon King of Incarceration’s severed neck. The poison endlessly pouring out from the abyss began to engulf the world around the Demon King. Since the need to maintain the dream world had ended with Sienna’s withdrawal of the Demoneye of Fantasy, Eugene and Molon could also now sense the effects of this poison. The poison and dark power continuously gushing forth from the Demon King’s neck formed a huge wave that swept toward Eugene and his companions.
Hahaha… hahahahaha!
The sound of laughter rang out from this dark torrent of liquid. It was Balzac’s laughter. The Demon King of Incarceration had managed to completely flush Balzac from his inner sea. This would guarantee Balzac’s complete annihilation, but Balzac didn’t care.
“With this, it should be possible for me to become a part of your legend, don’t you think?” Balzac’s clear voice flowed into Sienna and Eugene’s ears.
At that moment, Eugene and Sienna understood what Balzac had intended to do with his death at their hands. Sienna gaped blankly for a few moments, then she let out a snort and shook her head.
“So much so that I even feel the urge to write a fairy tale just for you,” Sienna said, her voice filled with sincerity.
However, that was the last that would be heard of Balzac’s voice. Balzac had already completely disappeared.
He had left without any regrets. In his final moments, Balzac managed to achieve what he had always dreamed of, and he died satisfied. As the black wizard who had betrayed the Demon King, he was a legendary wizard who had contributed greatly to the Demon King’s defeat.
However, Balzac’s wish hadn’t been fully realized just yet.
Roooooooar!
The poison and dark power erupting from the Demon King of Incarceration was beginning to erode and collapse Babel itself. Before they could get caught up in this senseless destruction, Eugene and the others used the spatial door created by Sienna’s magic to escape from Babel.
After floating through space for a few moments, Eugene and his party arrived at the skies above the battlefield.
Then they watched as Babel collapsed behind them.
Openbookworm & DantheMan's Thoughts
Momo: Kodos, Balzac! What an achievement that was! And what an incredible realization of your dream that was!