On an ancient battlefield where millions of demons had perished...
A demonic child crawled forward, his eyes crimson red, his skin deathly pale, and his hair pure white.
The young demon crawled through a battlefield drowned in corpses, soaked in blood and the stench of death.
Yet the child showed no fear.
He continued onward until he finally reached the culprit behind the massacre.
The monster who had slaughtered unimaginable numbers of demons in a single night.
He stood at the bloodiest point of the battlefield, his body engulfed in blazing black Aura while his dark hair drifted around him as though alive.
The shadows beneath his feet moved on their own, nearly attacking the child before stopping at the final moment.
Then the monster turned toward him.
He stared at the child with interest, crimson eyes meeting crimson eyes.
Both possessed glowing red eyes overflowing with tremendous power...
Yet they were different.
One pair belonged to a savage monster radiating overwhelming dominance.
The other was calm.
Beautiful, even.
The monster approached him and slightly lowered himself before the child.
"You... you are different."
Agaroth smiled faintly at the boy before him.
No horns.
No monstrous features.
Agaroth immediately realized what stood before him.
The noblest being the demon race had ever produced.
And he had encountered him during the very first assault Agaroth launched long ago, before he became the Demon King feared by the world today.
"Interesting... those eyes."
"You are not afraid of me."
Agaroth spoke while the corpses around them burned.
He had likely slaughtered everyone the child had ever known.
Yet the boy before him neither feared nor trembled.
His eyes remained fixed upon Agaroth the entire time.
Agaroth possessed a terrifying ability.
Creatures vastly weaker than him could not perceive his true appearance.
Instead, they saw a living nightmare.
A monstrous abomination embodying their deepest fears.
Yet Crimson’s eyes saw through it.
And Agaroth instantly understood what Crimson represented.
The noblest and purest being ever born from the demon race.
The absolute peak of their evolution.
The summit of the bloodline itself...
A perfection that would never appear again.
At first, Agaroth had come intending to slaughter beings like him.
But after seeing Crimson that day...
He changed his mind.
No one ever learned what the two spoke about on that battlefield.
The roar of the flames and the howls of mutilated monsters drowned their voices completely.
But one thing was certain.
Agaroth did not kill Crimson.
Instead, he left that battlefield carrying the child away with him.
Years after that strange encounter, the Demon King returned.
And Crimson stood at his right hand, helping him forge the great empire that terrified the entire world.
That was when the system of the Upper Demons began.
Crimson’s loyalty toward Agaroth was absolute.
So absolute that hearing the Demon King insulted was enough to drive him into madness.
The crimson eyes of that child...
Were reflected once more through Crimson today, as he waged a deafening battle within the unknown continent.
Releasing his full power, his Red World expanded across an enormous portion of the labyrinth itself.
He won the war between domains against the Great One of Krat and obliterated him with a single devastating attack.
The moment the Great One was cast aside...
Crimson charged immediately toward Zahara and Gael.
The Upper First was a true monster.
If anyone present attempted to challenge him alone...
Death was the only outcome awaiting them.
The Kingslayer Spear had pinned the golem Zahara far away.
The creature struggled desperately to free himself and pull the spear from his chest.
Yet every slight movement caused Kingslayer to unleash waves of Aura that ravaged him from within.
Zahara screamed and cried loudly while writhing in the distance.
As for Gael...
He suffered something far worse.
Crimson no longer held his spear, forcing him to fight barehanded.
Yet that did not weaken him in the slightest.
The Upper First tore through the Duke of Hell’s mutated flesh and destroyed him at terrifying speed.
He even dragged out Gael’s true body before smashing him across the ground with overwhelming brutality.
Gael’s back scraped violently against the earth while Crimson held him down with one hand and pummeled him repeatedly with the other.
The Duke of Hell attempted to retaliate.
Tendrils covered in jagged mouths extended behind Crimson’s back—
Yet the Upper First destroyed them without even bothering to look behind himself.
His fist erupted with dazzling crimson light before plunging deep into the Duke’s body, forcing a painful groan out of him.
"Even if every Upper Seat dies..."
Explosions echoed with every punch thrown by the Upper First.
"As long as I still live..."
"No one in this world will ever reach the King!"
Gael continuously altered his body, transforming into a living plague.
Deafening Aura bombs burst from his countless filthy mouths, overflowing with Abyss Aura—an existence that itself qualified as a World-breaking ability.
Hundreds of blades, tendrils, and fists formed from Gael’s bloated flesh and launched themselves toward Crimson all at once.
The Upper First blocked every single attack with his bare hands.
One casual swing was all it took to erase entire waves of tendrils, reducing them to dust while he slowly advanced toward Gael.
And with every passing second...
The Duke of Hell retreated further.
Those deadly Aura bombs accomplished nothing.
The Red World blocked them completely before they could ever touch Crimson.
And Gael understood perfectly why that ability was considered the strongest defensive technique in existence.
He already knew of the Red World by nature.
But what truly shocked him...
Was the strange form the Upper First had suddenly unleashed.
Absolute Hell Demon Form.
Far away from them...
Aura slowly gathered together while countless snakes crawled across the ground before merging into the body of the Great One of Krat.
He collapsed onto the earth, gasping heavily while desperately attempting to regenerate himself.
The Great One no longer resembled the dignified and noble figure he had appeared to be at the start of the battle.
He looked shattered.
Unstable.
Even his composure had disappeared, twisted expressions spreading across his face and perfectly revealing the state of his mind.
Despite unleashing multiple World-breaking abilities against Crimson’s last attack, he had failed to stop it.
Even his defensive abilities accomplished nothing before that strike, and he barely survived by dismantling his own body apart.
The attack left a horrifying scar across the Great One’s chest as he stood there cursing while struggling to remain upright.
"Absolute Hell Demon Form..."
"The Upper First was hiding something like this the entire time..."
The Great One of Krat turned his gaze toward the ongoing battle between Crimson and Gael, Duke of Hell.
Gael was powerful.
He could manipulate his body however he wished and possessed one of the strongest forms of Aura in existence—
The Aura of the Abyss itself, a force surpassing even Nameless’ Black Hole Aura in destructive nature.
Yet after Crimson entered that form...
Gael could do absolutely nothing against him.
The Great One of Krat still did not fully understand the form, but he concluded it was likely the fusion of multiple World-breaking abilities at once.
Very powerful abilities.
The mere fact Crimson possessed something like that forced the Great One to reevaluate him completely.
He now understood that the Upper First was stronger than himself.
"This battle ended the moment his Red World overwhelmed my Fog Domain..."
The Great One looked toward the crimson sky now covering the labyrinth.
A defensive ability said to be the strongest in existence.
And a monstrous offensive form that had appeared from nowhere, one capable of crushing even Gael, Duke of Hell, in a one-sided battle.
Crimson now seemed invincible.
"He must die here..."
"No matter the cost."
The Great One of Krat spoke with absolute determination, finally realizing the Upper First was far more dangerous than he had originally believed.
A living weapon too deadly to be allowed to survive.
Fortunately...
The plan had not ended yet.
Although Crimson had surprised him, the Great One of Krat had already considered the possibility of losing from the very beginning.
That...
Was the reason he had chosen this place as the battlefield.
"I am not your only enemy, Upper First..."
"You will soon understand that demons are the absolute enemy of every living creature within the Material World."
Meanwhile...
The battle itself had reached a decisive turning point.
And the Duke of Hell had begun to see death approaching him.
Inside the Red World, the only ways to injure Crimson were either to oppose him with another domain...
Or inflict overwhelming physical damage directly upon him.
The Red World could block every Aura-based attack regardless of its power.
As a result, Gael abandoned long-range combat entirely and focused solely on close-quarters battle.
His mutated body unleashed horrifying levels of raw power as he charged Crimson with everything he possessed.
But it only took a few short minutes...
For him to realize he had already lost in physical combat as well.
He simply could not keep up with the Absolute Hell Demon Form.
Seeing that form only made Gael even angrier.
"You possess power like this..."
"And yet you still bow your head to him?! Why?!"
Explosions echoed endlessly as the Duke of Hell descended into fury, desperately trying to overturn the miserable situation he found himself trapped within.
"I refuse to bow before him!"
"I was not born to become someone’s subordinate!"
"And I will never obey a creature calling itself the Demon King despite not even being a demon to begin with!!"
Gael’s savage screams echoed everywhere while the two monsters clashed violently.
Yet before long...
The Duke was completely suppressed.
Crimson’s fists sank deep into his flesh over and over again, tearing him apart.
"You were not born to become a subordinate?"
"How arrogant."
"That way of thinking does not suit you."
"Only victors are allowed to think that way."
"ONLY THE STRONG THINK THAT WAY!!!!"
Crimson roared while destroying the Duke mercilessly.
"You are weak, Gael!"
"Weak!!"
"If you cannot even defeat me—a man who embraced the mentality of a subordinate that you despise—"
"Then how dare you dream of fighting the King?!"
"You never will!!"
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
Crimson’s Aura exploded even more violently.
Gael’s flesh and blood scattered everywhere around the battlefield.
Every time the Duke attempted to alter his body and create something stronger...
Crimson instantly destroyed it with his bare fists.
"You will die here..."
"A king who never ruled anyone."
"A king incapable of controlling the fate of others..."
"Not even his own fate !"
The Duke of Hell had been cornered.
Closer to death than ever before.