Chapter 107
The boiling rage at the sight before my eyes cooled in an instant.
Park Min-seo with his chest pierced through, and a jet-black jewel filling the empty cavity.
That shape was something I was extremely familiar with.
Berid, wearing a grotesquely torn smile, let out a dry chuckle.
“Just as I thought, you were a traitor. One who even abandoned the organization! In the end, even I—no, Pandemonium itself—was played by the plan back then!”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? Do you even know what the hell you’re doing right now?”
At that, the bastard burst into giggles.
“You couldn’t possibly have carried out the ritual without knowing, could you?”
“No. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
A demon was an existence that was supposed to appear only in the latter half of the game.
If one appeared at this point, there were hardly any beings who could oppose it—not just at the Academy level, but even on a global scale.
Even people like the Sword Empress or Kang Jae-seok who were present here now.
They struggled even against a high-ranking monster like a Drake, so the descent of a demon that could wield authority at will?
This wasn’t simply a matter of strength.
Demons were high-ranking beings that existed in another dimension, and unless special conditions were met, ordinary attacks simply didn’t work on them.
Because of that, demons fundamentally regarded humans as utterly insignificant beings.
Even the Demons of Pandemonium who worshiped them.
I shouted at Berid.
“Do you think you’ll come out of this alive just because you resurrect a demon?”
“I am merely welcoming the rightful master of this land. If His Excellency finds me displeasing, then so be it. Either way, whether I die like this or that, my soul belongs to Him. If that’s the case, isn’t it better to prepare for the afterlife while gaining as much glory as possible!”
“You damn fanatic bastard!”
I pulled out the Reader from the shadows.
A perfect demon resurrection ritual required sufficient sacrifices.
However, every single one of the bastard’s Academy operations had failed.
Even the current situation was being contained thanks to trump cards like Mabel, Kang Jae-seok, and the Sword Empress minimizing the damage.
A demon being resurrected exactly as he wished wouldn’t happen so easily.
So what I had to do was—
I took out the Reader and stabbed it into the ground.
The energy spread out like white paint dripping over black paint, forming a white barrier.
Trap him so he couldn’t pull any other tricks, then deal with him.
At that, his face twisted.
“You’re using such petty tricks again! Do you really think trapping me will stop the demon’s resurrection!”
His body began to squelch and twist grotesquely.
I forged spears from the darkness and hurled them at him.
The spears tore through the air as they rushed toward Berid.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Darkness exploded and devoured the pure white space.
Clicking my tongue lightly, I drew my sword from the shadows and expanded my domain at the same time.
Clang!
An attack came in simultaneously.
Sparks flew along with the cold sound of metal.
Berid, who had transformed from an old man into a young, clean-cut handsome man, pressed in on me while wielding twin swords.
He had swapped bodies using the power of usurpation.
The blades of the twin swords came rushing in.
His swords left countless afterimages, dazzling my eyes.
Among those countless strikes, only a single one was the real attack.
But I had no intention of being toyed with by his tricks.
Activating the authority of Mighty Strength, I felt power flood my body as I transformed the longsword in my hand.
In an instant, the sword changed shape into a greatsword, and in synergy with the authority of Mighty Strength, it whipped up a whirlwind.
The violent outburst of power shattered the countless sword afterimages he had created.
Seeing this, Berid showed a flustered expression before disappearing in an instant, leaving behind an afterimage.
Was that his second body that he had stored away?
I recalled the information about Berid from when I had fought him back in my days as a Player.
During the boss battle, the bastard fought using a total of four forms.
Each of the four forms embodied strength, agility, magic, and vitality, and he would twist his patterns by switching forms as if changing characters, tormenting the Player.
The strategy against him was to give him no room to transform and to relentlessly press the attack.
No matter how strong he was, he couldn’t constantly swap bodies in the middle of combat.
Transforming his body consumed a tremendous amount of stamina.
So when he transformed into a form that had good compatibility against the Player, that was when you had to go all out.
Of course, even that wasn’t easy.
Pshhk.
Berid turned into a single streak of light, creating a sonic boom as he charged through the whirlwind toward me.
I wrapped my hand in the Flames of Gehenna and fired them forward.
Whoosh!
The violently blazing flames engulfed him.
But I knew there was no way he’d go down that easily.
I had fought him countless times in the game—was I going to let my guard down now?
That was why I twisted my waist and swung my sword toward my rear.
Clang!
With a heavy impact, the flame-wrapped afterimage vanished and his real form appeared.
I poured the authority of Mighty Strength into the blow and sent him flying like a home run.
Berid’s patterns were already painfully familiar to me through countless playthroughs.
And I also knew that I couldn’t give him any breathing room.
Maintaining the authority of Mighty Strength, I kicked off the ground and leapt up, grabbing the flying bastard by the head.
There was nothing better than this for keeping someone from getting their bearings.
“Hup.”
With a short shout, I hurled him back to where he had originally been.
The ‘solo handball’ Kang Jae-seok had used on me before.
His body slammed down like a shooting star, collapsing with a bang.
Now was the damage window.
I drew up my magic power and cast the Giant’s Spear.
I had deliberately refrained from using the combined authorities until now, saving them for this very moment.
Magic gathered in my hand, forming a massive spear.
Feeling its immense weight, I drove the Giant’s Spear straight down at him.
Kugugugugugu!
The Giant’s Spear, imbued with enormous mass, rapidly expanded and crushed the spot where Berid had been.
But I didn’t stop there and activated a demon’s authority once more.
Levatein.
The jet-black sword was dyed crimson, radiating overwhelming heat.
I embedded it into the enlarged Giant’s Spear and released its power.
Puuuuuuung!
With a massive explosion, the Giant’s Spear shattered, and the Flames of Gehenna sullied the ground.
The pure white space inside the barrier was overrun with black and red, covered in a chaotic blend of colors.
They were the strongest techniques I could unleash.
I might not be able to kill him completely, but I should be able to inflict serious injuries.
I spread my senses and searched for where he was.
In the brief clash already, he had revealed two bodies.
That meant there were two forms left.
The initial old man was probably magic, and the second young man form was agility.
At that moment, the bright space above my head darkened with shade.
An enormous shadow.
When I turned around, a grotesque monster of tremendous size was glaring down at me.
“That is…… a troll?”
No, not a troll—Berid wearing a troll’s body.
There was no way a troll would just suddenly appear.
Come to think of it, there was no rule saying the authority of usurpation only worked on humans.
Still, stealing even a monster’s abilities.
That was rather fresh.
It meant that among the authorities I possessed, things like the Mask of the Deceiver could be mixed with other races or monsters as well.
I learned something useful.
He looked slightly different from ordinary trolls.
His eyes were blood-red, and black demonic energy streamed down his entire body in thick strands.
It seemed he had gone beyond simple transformation and entered what looked like a second phase.
What made Berid’s abilities troublesome wasn’t just that he attacked with diverse patterns based on the abilities he had usurped.
He could reinforce those stolen abilities with demonic energy.
The troll-transformed Berid raised his massive hand and swung it.
The attack itself was slow and clumsy, but its power was far from negligible.
Still, in that state, I could definitely land a hit.
I dodged his massive hand and simultaneously activated Levatein, stabbing it into his wrist.
At the same time, the Flames of Gehenna erupted and instantly engulfed him.
“Grrrrraaaaaah!”
A shriek that could never be called human filled the pure white space.
My ears rang just from being right in front of it.
As I watched him writhe in agony, I felt that something was off.
Even if I possessed power on par with his, the fight was far too one-sided.
Had I simply become that much stronger?
Or had I once again fallen into his scheme?
Crack.
At that moment, along with the sound of something breaking, cracks formed in the pure white space.
I turned my head and looked at Berid, still wrapped in the Flames of Gehenna.
Even as he writhed in pain, Berid looked at me with smiling eyes.
What the hell was going on?
If the space itself was taking damage, then either a demon had already been resurrected, or there was an external helper on Berid’s level.
But outside, the Sword Empress and Instructor Mabel should have been wiping out every last Demon and ghoul while preventing any casualties.
Don’t tell me they died?
That couldn’t be.
Even Berid or a demon alone was already balance-breaking.
Then was the demon just being summoned outright?
Normally, to summon even a surrounding demon required at least hundreds of souls.
For a high-ranking demon, it took thousands to tens of thousands of offerings.
Breaking through those two and producing thousands of victims made no sense no matter how I thought about it.
Then, through the crumbling barrier, I caught sight of someone’s figure.
Eyes staring straight at me from beyond the barrier.
The moment I met those eyes, all my fighting spirit drained away, and it felt like my heart was about to break.
Those deep eyes felt as if they were going to swallow my very existence.
Berid, writhing in agony within the flames, did not take his eyes off Yoo Sung-woo.
The sight of him collapsing in despair as he looked at the cracked barrier.
That was precisely what this plan had been waiting for.
‘Khhahahahahaha.’
The emptiness of realizing that all his efforts had come to nothing.
The despair felt before an overwhelming existence.
Even as his entire body burned, he knelt toward the being observing him from outside the barrier.
The pain of Gehenna was enough to drive him insane, but that didn’t matter.
As a lowly servant finally meeting his master, he had to pay his respects.
The massive troll engulfed in flames bowed reverently toward the sky.
Everything was proceeding according to plan.
Now all that remained was the judgment delivered by the great being.
The Academy would crumble, and atop the ruins of the ashen Academy, he would sing of victory and reclaim his lost honor.
As a genius strategist who had finally used even himself as a disposable pawn to manifest hell and annihilate the Academy.
From the beginning, Berid had known his operation would fail.
He already knew that the Sword Empress was at the Academy as a part-time instructor, and besides her, formidable figures like Mabel and Kang Jae-seok were guarding it.
Moreover, the Academy was located in Yeouido.
It wasn’t that far from Seoul, where the Association headquarters was located.
In other words, no matter how much chaos he caused by manifesting hell and summoning infernal beasts, once countless heroes were deployed for a full-scale assault, he had no way of holding out.
That was why Berid changed his way of thinking.
There already existed both a vessel for resurrection and a hellish environment suitable for a demon to exert its power.
What was lacking was the offering.
Then what if that offering wasn’t human, but something else?
For example, what if the infernal beasts and Demons of hell became the offerings?
They weren’t pure souls, but they were far more intense and tyrannical than human ones.
Among demons, there would surely be a master who responded to such souls.
From that point on, Berid had driven the Demons who infiltrated the Academy into a frenzy.
‘Sacrifice yourselves nobly for the true master of this land, you trash.’
And this was the result.
To him, the collapsing pure white barrier looked as beautiful as the first snow falling early in the season.
Like celebratory fireworks heralding the future that would unfold before him.
And then, the barrier was completely undone.
A being that had resurrected in this land by borrowing a human body spread its presence in all directions.
Goat horns atop a human head, and bat wings.
It was an existence that would drive anyone without mana insane just by looking at it, or else force them to kneel in worship.
It felt as if it embodied the ‘death’ that all beings faced at the end of life, and yet was an existence so absolute that even that ‘death’ seemed like it might lose its reality.
The gaze of that demon turned toward Yoo Sung-woo.