Chapter 108
The barrier shattered, revealing the form of the demon.
An incomprehensible existence wearing the skin of Park Min-seo.
Just looking at it made my heart crumble and my hostility fade away.
A horror completely different from the spectacle the illustration showed when I saw it in-game.
That was…… a demon.
The true enemy of this world, my end, the end of the world itself.
Its gaze turned toward me.
A deep darkness, like staring into a bottomless abyss, swallowed my very existence.
I clenched my teeth to steady my collapsing mind.
This was just like the Dragon Fear Helena emitted.
The immense pressure exuded by a high-ranking being.
It merely displayed an exaggerated sense of presence compared to real-world existence.
Get a grip.
The being before me was not some absolute incomprehensible thing.
It was nothing more than a boss that had descended a little earlier than expected.
I kept repeating that fact in my head.
But…….
Just how was I supposed to kill the thing in front of me?
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with any way to kill that demon right now.
The Sword Empress, Kang Jae-seok, Mabel.
Even the combined assault of those three would be insufficient to defeat a demon.
It wasn’t that there was no way to kill a demon.
According to the setting, if their Heart of the Demon was destroyed, they would shed the shackle of immortality and be completely annihilated.
Otherwise, like when the Swordmaster killed a demon in the past, it was possible to completely destroy the body and seal only the heart.
But that was only possible because the Swordmaster was the strongest being in the setting, a monster that transcended humanity.
In the first place, even the Swordmaster couldn’t completely kill a demon and only managed to seal it by destroying its body.
That was because they possessed recovery abilities close to immortality.
Just dealing with a Demon that regenerated infinitely was already difficult enough.
To inflict proper wounds on a demon’s body, one needed the power of Karma, or the sacred power once used by Guardians, or to awaken a special power like Park Siwoo.
However, Park Siwoo, who could deal meaningful damage to a demon, was far too weak.
At least my Asura Divine Art fell into the category of unique powers and did possess the power of Karma, but even that had no guarantee of working on a demon.
At that moment, its gaze shifted toward me.
It looked at me with an unreadable expression.
“너.”
Just hearing that voice made my heart feel like it was shrinking.
The fragile thread of thought I had been clinging to snapped uselessly the moment I heard its voice.
Damn it.
I couldn’t understand how, in the game, the Player didn’t just resist demons but actually beat them to death.
Even though my brain knew that the fear I felt was nothing more than an illusion, the instincts carved into my body believed it was real.
If I were stronger than I was now, would the situation have been any better?
I had worked nonstop to strengthen my abilities, yet in front of the being before me, my power was utterly insignificant.
Then it reached out a hand toward me.
“I am pleased to have reclaimed my body. But your existence is deeply unpleasant. Did you truly think you could covet what belongs to this body and remain unharmed?”
As it spoke, its hand was stained black by demonic energy.
I had to dodge.
Please, damn it, body, move.
If that touched me, it would be death!
Clenching my teeth until my gums bled, I struggled desperately to move my entire body.
But my body only twitched weakly and refused to move an inch.
Seeing this, it sneered as if mocking something trivial.
“Truly a pitiful struggle.”
Just before its black hand could reach me, the outer wall of the dormitory began to collapse with a violent explosion.
The demon that had been reaching for me swung its hand and lashed out toward the collapsing wall.
Kugagagaga!
Along with a violent roar, flying sword energy ceaselessly battered the black curtain spread by the demon.
I turned my head and looked toward where the attack had come from.
There stood Instructor Kang Jae-seok, his entire body dyed crimson like blood, staring at us.
Thirty minutes earlier.
A red Yaksha fell to the ground.
With a boom, the earth split apart, and the gazes of the ghouls roaming the Academy turned toward him.
“Guaaaah!”
“Gueeeeeh!”
Wrapped in red blood energy, he tightly gripped his greatsword.
Puhwak!
As he swung a single strike, the air burst apart with a massive explosion.
The ghouls that rushed at him were split in half in an instant and fell to the ground.
The halved ghouls did not die and continued to writhe, crawling to find their other halves.
Seeing this, Kang Jae-seok frowned.
‘So this is why even with the Sword Empress and Mabel, dealing with them is slow.’
The ghouls’ offensive power wasn’t particularly impressive, but their regeneration was extraordinary.
To the point that even trolls, known as monsters with the greatest regeneration, looked cute by comparison.
He raised his head and looked up at the sky.
In the air, the Sword Empress and Mabel were dealing with the ghouls and Demons, but the two of them alone lacked the leeway.
Kang Jae-seok lightly inhaled, his chest swelling.
“Uwooooo!”
His roar turned into a red energy wave that swept across the area.
The so-called War Cry.
It was a skill of Instructor Kang Jae-seok that powerfully provoked enemies.
Kugugugugu……!
With a faint vibration, the ground trembled.
Countless enemies were detected by Kang Jae-seok’s senses, and soon innumerable ghouls filled his vision.
Creatures of all shapes tangled together, forming a massive horde.
It seemed that all the ghouls in the area had gathered due to his roar.
‘I’ll wipe them out in one go.’
Powerful blood energy condensed around his greatsword, emitting a brilliant light.
It was Instructor Kang Jae-seok’s sword energy.
Like his unbreakable body, his sword energy radiated an intense momentum.
‘I’ll grind them to dust in one strike so they can’t even regenerate.’
His single strike flew out, drawing the shape of a crescent moon.
Kugagagagaga!
With a rough thunderous roar, the ghouls were annihilated in an instant.
However, Instructor Kang Jae-seok’s anger did not subside.
What he had dealt with were only the Demons and ghouls in this immediate area.
If he expanded his perception even slightly, he could still feel countless cries for help and the presence of ghouls and Demons rampaging everywhere.
He moved to save the cadets.
Even as he dealt with the Demons at an incredible speed, he felt an inexplicable sense of unease.
Why had something like this suddenly happened at the Academy?
The Academy had turned into hell, and countless Demons revealed the true identities they had hidden so carefully until now.
Yet after facing them directly, their strength was all roughly the same.
The current situation was merely the result of panicked cadets failing to display their true abilities; if they regained their composure, there were plenty of enemies that the upperclassmen could handle by joining forces.
There was clearly something being targeted.
At that moment, Kang Jae-seok witnessed something strange.
The Demon whose neck was caught in his hand suddenly began to scream as if it were being torn apart.
“Guaaaaa! No! No! Beriiid!”
At the same time, the Demon’s body began to turn to ash and scatter.
Feeling momentarily bewildered, he loosened his grip.
The thing had not died from his attack.
More than anything, the name it had shouted before dying—‘Berid’.
No matter how many times he replayed it in his mind, it sounded like the name of a specific being.
Kang Jae-seok looked around.
It was not only the Demon in his grasp that had begun to disappear.
Other Demons, as well as the hellish beasts wandering the Academy, were also turning into handfuls of ash and vanishing.
He barely had time to feel doubt at the incomprehensible sight.
He soon learned the answer.
Boom!
A massive vibration shook the air.
As if the world had entered a vacuum, all surrounding sounds vanished.
An unknown anxiety made Kang Jae-seok feel his body tremble.
Without realizing it, he raised a hand to the back of his neck.
Cold sweat soaked his palm.
‘Just what is this…….’
Before he could grasp the situation, black energy blasted out from somewhere and swept across the heavens and earth.
Thud, thud, thud.
Cadets caught in the wave collapsed on the spot like dolls with their strings cut.
The same happened to the instructors.
In an instant, their legs gave out, and they dropped to their knees.
Only Kang Jae-seok barely managed to brace his legs, which were on the verge of giving way, and look around.
His heart pounded violently, as if it were about to sink.
Only then did he realize that the emotion he was feeling was fear.
An emotion he had not felt in a very long time.
It felt as though he had returned to the moment of his youth when he had first faced a Monster.
He turned his head toward where the black energy was being released.
‘That direction is……,’
That way lay the Cadet Dormitory.
Just what in the world was happening over there?
One thing was certain—something had appeared that even he might not be able to handle.
Instructor Kang Jae-seok struck his unresponsive legs to force them to move.
His violently trembling legs only began to obey his will after several heavy impacts that produced loud bangs.
Kang Jae-seok immediately kicked off the ground.
He could not lose to fear.
A Hero was, by nature, someone who stepped forward to fight the fears that people dreaded.
If he stopped moving because of fear, who would protect the cadets here?
At times like this, he had to move even more.
With just a few leaps, he arrived at the Cadet Dormitory in an instant.
The dormitory radiated an overwhelming presence that could not be compared to any other building in the Academy.
Confirming this, Kang Jae-seok ignited blood-red Sword Aura along his blade.
It was power poured out with his full strength.
A massive bundle of Sword Aura, incomparable to before, poured toward the dormitory like a storm.
Kugagagagagagaga!
In an instant, the outer wall of the dormitory collapsed, exposing its interior.
And Kang Jae-seok locked eyes with it.
A familiar face bearing the horns of a mountain goat and the wings of a bat.
At that sight, Instructor Kang Jae-seok’s face twisted.
“Park Min-seo……?”
No, the being before his eyes could no longer be called Park Min-seo.
Just because the outer shell bore Park Min-seo’s appearance did not mean Kang Jae-seok would miss the abyss contained within.
His gaze shifted to the Devil Knight kneeling before the Demon.
‘Is that one the mastermind behind all of this?’
The Devil Knight.
A being that had caused multiple disturbances at the Academy.
A Demon he had once thought was Yoo Sung-woo.
What did it mean that he had appeared here again?
Though his mind was in turmoil, he knew exactly what he had to do.
From his body, a bloodlust fiercer than before began to pour out.
Crunch.
Clenching his teeth, he began to squeeze his mana out to its very limits.
Instructor Kang Jae-seok instinctively realized that the being before him was a Demon.
He had lived as a Hero for decades, but this was the first time he had ever seen a Demon.
And he realized that, even if he offered up his own life, he would not be able to do anything about the being before him.
Even so, he poured everything he had into facing the Demon.
In this situation, there was no one else who could stop him.
Kang Jae-seok hurled his body toward the death before his eyes,