"What are you planning to do now?"
Standing idly under the red sky, with the castle of Demon King Balam in front of their eyes, the lady and Titania prepared to dive in.
Before the lady could reply, a group of purple octopi passing from the side stopped and stared at them.
The lady's eyes narrowed.
"Qua Quack?!"
"Quack..."
They noticed her right away. It seemed her disappearance was only something that worked up in the mortal realm.
With a bright smile, the lady held the bottom of her veil.
"Turn away, little fairy," she said.
Before the demons could notice anything, their eyes turned hazy and all of them stopped in their tracks.
"Perfect," said the lady. "Now, who's the strongest?"
One octopus demon stepped ahead. Its purple limbs danced around as the lady called it closer.
"You guide us, everyone else, please kill yourselves!"
At her kind words, the demons all shoved their tentacles into their heads and yanked their brains out before dropping dead.
The lady turned away from the gruesome scene and smiled at the castle of the demon king.
It was her time to rescue the kidnapped kid.
***
The door of the prison in the demon king's castle broke open.
Two ram-headed demons, standing guard, flinched as the sturdy iron door suddenly fell beside them. Gripping their bone spears, they took a stance and glared at the door.
White hair flickered into their sight.
White hair, stained with the color of blood.
As the being behind stepped out of the darkness of the prison, the red light of hell's skies reflected off his blood-smeared face. His clothes were ragged and a squelching sound spread as his bloodied feet took each step.
The demons trembled.
A sense of fear they hadn't felt before gripped them.
It was a human. The human that their seniors had dragged in ten days back had stepped out. It was an emergency that required them to run to inform others, but they couldn't find the courage to even move.
Cold, uncaring.
His gaze which seemed to be detached from this world made him seem like a wise sage.
Then, the human turned.
He looked at the spear-wielding demon on his left.
His lips spread into a grin and a madder tint filled his eyes.
Cold?
"Qu-QUAAA!"
The demon screamed and drove its spear ahead. The nimble human twisted his body and dodged the spear, his body drove forward as he stretched his hands ahead. Before the demon could react, the human shoved one of his palms and gripped the demon's upper jaw.
In the same swift movement, he pulled on its lower jaw with his other hand and pulled.
A ripping sound spread.
Like a knife cutting through a block of hot butter, he separated the demon's cranium from the rest of its body.
A geyser of blood spread out.
The second demon reached out to attack.
With a light kick, he pivoted off the demon's limp body and twisted back again.
His hands gripped the torn half of the demon's head. In a swift blow, he thundered the skull down on the second demon's head.
A thwack sounded as the demon lost its bearings.
Unceasing.
Unstopping.
The human pummeled the head of the demon with the skull of its partner.
In a few blows, its skin ripped apart, its muscles turned into mush, and eventually, its bones caved in on its brains.
With each successive hit, the human cackled.
"Wh-what! That human escaped!" A demon shouted in a language the human didn't understand. His gaze was stolen, and he tossed the skull away.
He could hear.
Dozens of demons came rushing to his spot. All of them with different weapons and wands in their grasp. Others ran to inform the senior demons while the rest stayed to face him.
His ears trembled from the sounds of violins.
His steps, like the dance of a ballerina, light, and fading.
The demons rushed toward him. One charged right overhead with a sword.
The trill of the vocals boomed in his head.
His hands moved, and a spear of seething flames plunged through the demon.
The others stopped.
He arched, hearing a song no one else could.
"D-don't let him get away!!"
"K-kill him!! Kill the bastard!"
The tune of the cello.
"GAHH!"
With each punch, he tore through the chest of a demon.
With each flick of his wrists, his spells tore through another.
The fill-ins of the flutes.
"I-impossible..."
"GAHHH!"
The walls broke apart.
Corpses lined up everywhere the demons went. A storm that didn't blow, but cut.
Such a storm had set out.
He winced at the plucking of the bass.
Black blood sprayed in all directions, soaking his entire body as he tore apart another demon atop himself.
The intermezzo passed.
"W-who is this bastard!"
"We have 80 dead in just minutes! We can't stop him!"
"N-no!!! AHHH!"
The crescendo approached.
"Someone call the captains! The 40 legions!"
The dance of blood raged.
"AHHH!NOOOO!"
Like the rage of Zeus! The cry of Poseidon!
"Die!"
Lightning of judgment struck the demons. A tsunami of murder they could not contain.
Dozens turned into hundreds as the human kept killing everything in his path. His lips wore an ecstatic grin as his feet twirled, his dance unfazed.
The walls cracked.
An inexplicable pressure filled the second floor of the demon king's castle before it swallowed up the entire castle itself.
The human's eyes widened.
The floor above him disappeared.
Hundreds of black bars spilling with demonic energy stumbled from the sky and tore deep into the stomachs of all the monsters around. In the blink of an eye, the human dodged them all.
His gaze turned up, and he raised his hands.
Shields. Hundreds and hundreds of shields appeared above him.
The wings of a hawk flapped, and a demon came crashing down from the floors above right at the human.
His shields were torn apart. One after the another, all of them turned to dust.
The human's eyes widened as the last of his shields broke apart.
A shockwave spread through the air, blasting away all the walls of the castle.
The music stopped.
The human's palms grasped the fist of a demon. Its hawk-like wings froze in the air as its eyes glared at the human.
"Playtime is over, human."
The demon's voice boomed.
"I, Flauros, the commander of the 37th Legion of Lord Balam, shall put an end to your life. Consider it an honor—"
The human swung his fist, and the demon blocked.
"Tsk, you uncouth beast."
Flauros swung his head ahead, and his enemy answered in kind.
Their heads smacked each other with all their force. Flauros took a slow step back and landed on the ground.
The human was smiling.
With a scowl, Flauros shifted his gaze all over the place. Dead bodies left in such a gnarly state that even vultures wouldn't feed on them were splattered around like confetti. Amidst it all with his pale skin and snowy hair dyed in black blood, the human was smiling happily.
Flauros believed his appearance only made the human happier.
Was he calling him a human?
Such cold, precise movements, all with such a bright, ecstatic grin. Forget humans, even the vilest of demons would not be able to do it.
Flauros could slowly understand why his master wanted this being.
He wasn't a human, nor a demon. He was a killing machine.
"It seems I underestimated you..." Flauros shook his head. He gently loosened the tie of his suit and rolled up his sleeves. "I'll face you with all my strength."
The demon stepped ahead.
Demon energy oozed out of his body.
His feet touched the ground.
"AAAAH!"
"GAHHH!"
The onlookers screamed. Some's veins ruptured while others fell on the ground, some were even blown away from the castle.
His energy spread. Dense, murderous.
From the castle to the castle grounds.
To the districts outside.
And in the blink of an eye.
All of Balam's capital was gripped by Flauros' strength.
"Now, come. Human. Show me what you can do—"
"—Haha..."
He laughed.
He grasped his face...
"HAHAHAHA!"
... and laughed.
"HAHAHA!! HAHAHA! Haaahha..."
He leaned ahead and took a deep breath. Suddenly, his cackles stopped.
Over the last ten days, even if he couldn't use his energy.
He could still cultivate it.
"What did you say, you, take me seriously?"
The human's cold voice reached Flauros.
A chill crept up the demon's spine.
Something was wrong.
With his painstaking efforts, over so, so many days.
After two entire years.
That human had filled his internal energy.
To a 100%
"Flauros, commander of whatever..." he glared at the demon.
His deeply contained energy trembled.
The demon shrunk.
"You're not worth hearing my name."
—BOOOOOM!
The energy of the single human contained deep within the castle of a demon king came bursting forth.
The demons that were left alive flew away while the stronger ones died in their spots.
The shaking walls of the castle were blown away.
Beyond the castle, the walls, the district...
The capital...
All of Balam's Kingdom trembled.