Chapter 289: The Successors (1)

Chapter 289: The Successors (1)

...Thud!

The 6th Demon King. Belial, the 'Worthless One'.

The sight of his massive head falling was something that the entirety of humanity in the past, countless great heroes, would have given their lives to see.

Vikir leaned back against the wall as he watched the demon's body die.

He narrowly avoided collapsing.

And as a result, he was able to watch Belial's final moments.

'...And with that, the brains of the Demon Coalition are gone.'

A long war between the demonic army and the human alliance.

Ages of destruction, when corpses formed mountains and blood formed oceans, before humans won a hollow victory.

Throughout these eons, the most tactically damaging being to the Alliance, and the one responsible for the most civilian casualties, has been eliminated: Belial.

With both Dantalian and Belial gone, the cunning minds that had sabotaged the Alliance, a weight was lifted from Vikir's shoulders.

"Hey, are you okay!"

Dolores exclaimed, rushing to Vikir's aid.

Vikir gave her a short look.

"Better than that. It's almost time."

"What? Time? What time... ah!"

Dolores suddenly realized.

She realized that she was in a huge vault and there was a limit to how long she could stay.

Pulling out a pocket watch buried under a pile of gold coins, Dolores sucked in a breath.

"The vault doors are about to open!"

The vault doors would open and the Bourgeois family's vassals and private soldiers who had been waiting outside would enter.

"As soon as the door opens, we're out. Be ready."

Dolores nodded at Vikir's words.

With the arrangements Demian had made, the troop deployment shouldn't be much.

But even so, they couldn't let their guard down.

After all, they were going to get inside the house, assassinate the patriarch, and get away with it.

"We'll have to make it a picture of me kidnapping you."

"Okay. It'll be easier for you to get away if you take me hostage."

As soon as the door to the vault opens, Dolores will have to run at full speed and not look back.

But there was one thing holding Dolores back.

"...."

She turned her head and looked beyond the pile of gold coins.

Where her gaze landed, she saw a white-haired girl standing still in the corner.

Sinclair.

She was staring into space with a blank expression.

Tsutsutsutsuts...

Belial's corpse melts away, emitting a terrible stench.

It disappears in an instant, as if it had never been here.

On the floor, where all the demonic corpses have spread out and disappeared, Bartolomeo's body lies dead, his whole body grotesquely contorted.

Bartolomeo's face is contorted in horror and pain.

Sinclair's hands continue to shake as she stares at him.

Then.

"Sinclair, wake up!"

Dolores grabbed Sinclair by the shoulders and shook her once, hard.

"That wasn't a Bourgeois patriarch, you saw it, it was a puppet for the demon to incarnate!"

"...!"

Then the light returned to Sinclair's eyes.

tagg!

She swatted away Dolores's arm around her shoulder.

"Stay away from me!"

"Sinclair, believe me, I swear to God, he's not human, he's a demon!"

Dolores said urgently.

"The doors to the vault are about to open. There are going to be tons of people coming in here."

"...."

"Come with me. I'll explain everything."

But Sinclair remained silent, her mouth clamped shut.

Dolores felt something strange in Sinclair's attitude.

"Grab them! All troops to the outer wall! We have to save the saintess!"

"No touching! Anyone who touches the riches on the floor in the meantime will be severely punished later!"

The people of Bourgeois Family are quick to respond to the situation.

Among them is Demian, who has just returned to his family home from the Money Manufacturing Bureau.

Dolores opens her eyes slightly at the shouting behind her.

"Do you think we should leave Sinclair like that?"

Vikir only shrugs.

"She seems like a smart girl, I'm sure she can find a way to save herself, and if she does, we can just say she was out of it from the sleeping pills."

"If she even tells anyone about us...."

"No one would believe her."

Sinclair may be a brilliant genius, but she's just a newcomer to the Academy, a commoner with no backbone.

If Sinclair were to tell the truth about what she saw in the vault, she'd be labeled a madwoman, and she'd know that there would be nothing in it for her.

Just then, Vikir heard Decarabia whispering softly in his ear.

[Hohoho. I didn't think she was going to open her mouth, that white-haired girl].

"She's the kind of girl who would rather solve her own problems than rely on the adults."

[Did you ever think that such a personality would cause more trouble in the future?]

"I have a mind of my own."

Vikir rushed forward, gathering information about Sinclair.

"She still has a lot of use left in her.

A dry judgment. Understandably, it's for the best.

Vikir glanced down at the wall.

Truly strict vigilance befitting a tycoon.

It would be difficult to break through the crowds coming from all directions.

"This is goodbye."

Vikir lowered Dolores to the ground by the young madame's thread.

"Night Hunt ... No, 'Van', what are you going to do?"

"Just call it what you used to call it. And I also have a way out."

Vikir leapt down the wall, leaving Dolores with a worried glance.

Escape would be easy with the Ring of Andromalius, which could create subspace at any moment, but the cooldown has not returned yet.

So Vikir did the next best thing and put on a Picaresque mask.

Hack, hack, hack-

In the midst of their busy schedule, not many people paid attention to the black puppy carefully crawling around the corner under the outer wall.

* * *

Inside the vault.

Demian was the only one left at the scene where everyone else had fled.

He turned to Bartolomeo, who lay dead on the floor, and bowed his head in silence.

"... brother. What a mess."

The demon's body had already melted away.

Only Bartolomeo's body lay in a ragged heap.

For a man of so much wealth and power to be so miserable.

Now that things are like this, what good is all the money and treasures that form the mountains around us?

Demian sighed heavily.

He hadn't thought he could be surprised anymore after his daughter's soul wedding, but this was just too much.

"What's a demon and what's a gate. What the hell happened...."

Right then.

"It was you."

A sharp and cold voice came from behind.

It was sharpened like a dagger, stabbing Demian in the back of the head.

"The one who brought Night Hound and Saintess into the Vault."

At the words, Demian slowly turned his head.

Blue veins appeared on the hand holding the stilettos around his waist.

Then.

"...!"

Demian's eyes widened for a moment.

The hand that gripped the stiletto momentarily loosened its grip, and a voice trembled.

"...Juliet?"

His daughter, the one he'd sent off in tears, was somehow standing here with a cold expression on her face.