‘How many have I used up?’
Kim Jonghyun thought as he glanced at the Grimoire.
The once three thousand souls he had, were now down to half.
However, that was more than enough for what he needed. Kim Jonghyun smiled brightly.
There was a valid reason for dispersing half of the three thousand souls he had gathered. It was to create the horrific atmosphere that was collecting the fear of the individuals within the forest.
The fear was being collected, in order to ‘open’ something… It was to open the door. And now…. He had enough fear accumulated to do so.
‘Let’s test it out.’
Kim Jonghyun extended his hand toward the Grimoire. The floating Grimore moved towards his reach.
As Kim Jonghyun clapped his hands together, the pages of the Grimoire spread wide and started to turn. Kim Jonghyun started to move his lips and recite the incantation he had prepared beforehand.
Sufficient fear must be gathered to open the door.
He had massacred seven villages and gathered human hearts to open the door. But it was not enough.
Rather than the fear of those who had nothing and had no power, the fear and souls of those who were somewhat qualified were of decent enough quality.
Therefore, Kim Jonghyun did not try to escape, and rather set the forest up to use as a trap and base to lure those ‘somewhat qualified’ into entering.
It was an even better treasure for Kim Jonghyun that the foolish Holy Church had come as well.
They came here to capture and kill Kim Jonghyun, who had slaughtered the people and practiced dark magic, the exact opposite type of magic, to their holy powers. However, they were nothing but the perfect fuel for him, because the souls of those who had strong faith in a god, were rich and pure.
The fear created from those who abandon their faith at the sight of their own deaths, was a type of fear that exceedingly few could produce.
There was nothing they could do. Even those with strong faith and will, in their gods or religions, would become frightened at the realizations of their own death.
Primitive fear was one of the easier means to destroy one’s mind.
It’s not just the undead and beasts in the forest that were being strengthened by the fear being collected. The beings beyond the door that Kim Jonghyun was seeking to bring over to this dimension would also relish such copious amounts of fear.
Fear of such quality was essential to bring over the demon that was from the other dimension. The Demon would rob humans of their souls, swallow them whole, and mock them. It was in their precise nature to do so.
At the same time as Kim Jonghyun was smiling rather brightly, the Grimoire was being wrapped in a black light. The space surrounding him started to shake and tremor, and the hearts piled up in the pit began to tremble.
The hearts that had long been cold since they were extracted, began beating again. Dark, red blood began to fill the pit.
The palpitating beats started to become one. Inside Kim Jonghyun’s body, the mana that was created from the fear of the people who had died and the souls from the collection started to tremble.
The mana that had coalesced into the air created a huge door in front of Kim Jonghyun. The black and ominous door, without any decoration, slowly opened when Kim Jonghyun reached out his hand.
Five figures started to emerge from the door. The figures became clearer as they were colored in black and red blood dripping from their horns on their heads. They looked similar to humans in figure, but were drastically different in the same case.
What Kim Jonghyun brought in were the descendants of the already extinct Demon King, Caladra.
Caladra, the former Demon King, had already perished long ago and most of his spawn had as well. However, these were the only descendants that had survived and were naturally filled with dread and monstrous power within them.
They didn’t possess his power that was unique to a Demon King, but they were powerful in their own right.
“.”
Kim Jonghyun spoke in the arcane language of the demons. The irrational monsters slowly lowered their posture and kneeled down in front of Kim Jonghyun.
He was not just some mere summoner of demons. Kim Jonghyun, who took the required sacrifices of the Grimoire, replicated the mana unique to Caladra. This made him appear as the Demon King Caladra to these demons.
He opened the door using the Grimoire’s magic and by using thousands of souls.
This was the best Kim Jonghyun could do for now. It would be difficult if he called over a greater level of demon that could potentially recognize that his mana wasn’t quite the same as Caladra. However, these demons were not high enough level to notice the difference.
“Kill them all. Painfully and with fear. Do not leave any alive.”
Kim Jonghyun whispered to the Demons in a cruel whisper. The demons nodded their heads and turned around to faithfully carry out their new master’s will.
Kim Jonghyun did not bother to look any further at the other Demons beyond the door. The door was still left somewhat ajar, but was not open enough to bring over the more dangerous Demons.
However, this was enough proof that the ritual had worked.
‘The Devil of the North’
Kim Jonghyun liked the nickname he had received from the public.
He was truly going to become a devil.
* * *
The Demons summoned by Kim Jonghyun integrated into the darkness of the forest. They were not enough to be called Demons on the same caliber of Gods by any means, but were lower rank demons that were even further weakened by the sudden crossing of dimensions.
However, even with Caladra, the Demon King gone and their powers reduced, they were more than enough to take care of the forces within the forest, as they would be further strengthened the more they slaughtered the humans.
The fact they had even survived as the direct descendants of a Demon King that had perished was impressive.
Now, though, they were nothing but intelligent creatures that had to obey Kim Jonghyun’s every order.
Moreover, they were stronger than mere high ranking monsters. Demons had a natural affinity with dark mana and death energy, along with robust bodies that had incredible toughness and regeneration.
And due to the Grimoire’s magic, they had become acutely aware of their surroundings and movements, having some semblance of the demonic warriors they once were.
The forest had been muddling with the subjugation forces’ senses. However, the demons were unaffected by it.
Rather, they felt comfortable in this darkness, and their senses became even sharper, making it easier to navigate towards their prey.
In fact the 5 of them had scattered and started to move individually to cover more ground, and the first one had finally found its prey. It was a group of priests and High Priests kneeling on the ground and praying, along with some wizards from the magic corps unit.
The prayers of the priests were not meaningless. Had they had enough time, they could have cleared the darkness around the forest and recovered the senses of everyone in it.
But… that was only if they had had enough time.
What was unfortunate, was that they didn’t have any more forces to protect them while they prayed, and still had more time needed while they lay defenseless.
In this present situation, where dark magic lay abundant and death energy was clouding the surroundings through the influence of the demons beyond the door Kim Jonghyun had opened, it was a domain that was inaccessible to their gods they believed in, and their gods could not protect them.
The Demon emerged from the dark and approached the ranks of priests, recalling the orders that were given to him from his master.
Painfully, and inducing as much fear as possible. The Demon’s bloody hand gripped the shoulder of the priest nearest to it.
The priest shuddered as he felt the wet and chill touch of something grasp his shoulder and turned around. When he turned around he saw the Demon with its empty eye sockets and sewn mouth smiling creepily at him.
Crrik!
The Demon’s hand, then, crushed the shoulder of the priest as bone and blood spurted out.
The priest screamed with his mouth wide open and his face pale white. The Demon then shook its hand like it was swatting a fly and threw the body of a priest with tremendous force, although it was merely a simple movement.
Kwa-dang!
The body was flung like a rag doll and crashed against a tree, shattering it on contact. The Demon ignored the body that was crushed, and moved onto the next priest.
Without hearing a single thing that had just happened, the other priests kneeling did not hear the screams of their comrades or see them get flung around and crushed like toys.
“Huh?”
The next priest also screamed at the face of the Demon as it saw it approaching. The Demon then rushed forwards as the other magicians and priests finally saw what was approaching. The Demon then approached the priest and grabbed both of its hands and ripped them off, brutally letting the blood spurt all over the priest’s white linen as it then stuck one of the arms it had ripped off, into the stomach of the priest, creating a gory scene.
One by one as the Demon approached them in that way, the wizards fired off their spells at the demon as the priests were hurriedly reciting their prayers with eyes widened at the Demon approaching them.
Even if the benefits of their teamwork were lost, the firepower of the spells they poured out was threatening enough.
But the Demon was nimble and agile. It glided like a deep-sea fish roaming deep in the ocean as it moved through the dark, breaking through the magical bombardment.
The faces of the priests that saw this, were frightened even further, realizing that their only remaining hopes in the magicians around them, were getting mercilessly and brutally murdered.
“God, Ohhh God…!”
One of the priests cried out for God in his trembling voice, but the Demon’s movements did not stop one bit.
The believers went crazy with despair and fear when there was no answer from their Gods to their calls.
The younger believers with low faith were the first to break as they cried and started to laugh crazily at their demise approaching them.
The High Priest with their group closed his eyes tightly and cast his divine magic, but his magic did not even scratch the Demon that was summoned through the door.
The situation was a little different for Sung Ki-Jang. At least that was the case at first. He, as the Leader of the Holy Churches’ forces and the Elite Holy Knights with him, were not shredded apart brutally from the Demon.
They shouted at the moment they faced the Demon. The nearest Holy Knight swung his steel sword filled with divine power at the body of the Demon.
The Demon casually avoided the strike and blended into the darkness, watching them carefully and observing their movements.
As the monster disappeared into the darkness, the brutal slaughter ensued further as Sung Ki-Jang and his band of Holy Knights around him could not see or hear the Demon murdering the other priests and young believers.* * *
Lee Sungmin did not know that the Demons had been released already inside the forest.
After letting Tang Ah-Hui walk beside him as he protected her, he casually slaughtered the beasts, undead and chimeras that dared to approach him.
It was not a massive forest, but he hadn’t met any of the other members of the subjugation force yet. The only ones he found were cold and bloodied corpses. And… luckily none of them were Scarlett or Lloyd’s.
He didn’t believe Scarlett would be dead by now. She was given the title of the Red Tower Master for a reason after all.
Scarlett’s combat magic, in particular, was known to be leagues above even the other Tower Masters.
Although Lee Sungmin did not blindly trust such rumors, he eagerly did hope that her magic would be enough to keep her alive long enough for him to reach her.
Tang Ah-Hui felt like she was going crazy because she wanted to change her wet, dry underwear, but she didn’t dare to ask Lee Sungmin for time or space to do so. Rather, she was thinking differently in her mind.
‘When I meet my grandfather, I’ll ask him to kill this bastard.’
It was not a lie that Tang Ah-Hui had a way to contact An Zun.
Her great-great-grandfather was a magnanimous man who was very nice to her ever since she was young, and even influenced her terrible personality. An Zun was a young looking man, though he was nearing a hundred years of age.
Although she had told Lee Sungmin that she would let him meet her great-great-grandfather, Tang Ah-Hui had secretly started plotting for An Zun, to kill him after this.
In that sense, Lee Sungmin and Tang Ah-ui had the same thoughts of having the other killed, though they didn’t even know it yet.
Lee Sungmin was also going to kill An Zun without hesitation if he met him.
Wandering in the dark was more boring than nervous for him. From the moment he realized none of the chimeras, undeads or beasts were a threat to him, Lee Sungmin felt it was no different from a night stroll.
However, that was also why Lee Sungmin was even more nervous. Even though he walked through the forest to the point where I felt bored, he had still not had a glimpse of Scarlett yet.
There were only more bodies and corpses as he continued to walk with Tang Ah-Hui.
Among the corpses, he saw some familiar faces. They were people that he had not spoken more than a few words with, and he was not very impressed by their miserable death.
Rather, the face of Tang Ah-Hui, who was following by his side, had become mortified as she saw the faces of the bodies that Lee Sungmin was staring at. It was because it was the trail of corpses from the Holy Churches, priests and young believers.
Sung Ki-Jang was lucky. His band of Holy Knights were brutally murdered along with the wizards he was with. As much as Sung Ki-Jang was strong, he was still out of breath now that he was the only one standing.
He held the side of his bleeding gut and covered his hand that was holding it, with Divine Magic.
It would not be strange for him to fall down right now, but he had not given up yet.
He shouted his God’s name with all his strength that he could muster, but the God, he believed in, did not answer a single one of his calls.
The Demon sneaked away from Sung Ki-Jang as it toyed with him, taking shots at him from the dark and dwindling down his resolve and will.
It was because it knew that if it could incite Sung Ki-Jang to tremble in fear and collapse his mentality, it would become a huge source of power for his master and itself.
The Demon was fooling around for too long as someone had finally entered the vicinity of its location.
Lee Sungmin, who appeared in the dark, briefly agonized over the situation he had found by following the trail of corpses from the Wizard Guild and Holy Churches forces.
There was a man stumbling and bleeding profusely with a determined expression to survive. And then, there was also a monster that looked fundamentally different from any of the beasts, chimera and undead he had encountered up till this point.
Should he help him? Did Lee Sungmin have the moral values to go save someone who wanted him dead? No. If he thought about it, Sung Ki-Jang had been more than just suspicious of Lee Sungmin. Even afterwards, when Lee Sungmin left the party, Sung Ki-Jang wanted to question and torture his friend Scarlett
Lee Sungmin knew that there were no truly innocent people in this world. Even Sung Ki-Jang would likely have his own questionable deeds hidden beyond the scope of what Lee Sungmin had seen.
At that very moment, the Demon changed its prey. This was because it judged the leader of the Holy Knights, Sung Ki-Jang, to be worthless and could kill him at any time it wanted. It had found something new with a much stronger soul in the vicinity. Lee Sungmin was the target now.
[That’s one weird looking creature.]
The moment Heoju murmured in a sarcastic voice, The Demon suddenly jerked its body away from Sung Ki-Jang and attacked Lee Sungmin.