"Cool, yes, you were very cool." The lady held Eugene tight in her embrace. She could see the frustrated fairy glaring at her from the sides, but her focus was somewhere else. "Don't say anything. You were the coolest, ok? Just-just keep—"
"Shush..." Eugene muttered. Blood spilled out of his mouth.The many wounds Balam left combined with the side effects of taking his new form of energy inside his body and sent a pain through his nerves that made him feel himself being grated alive. Like fine cheese, he thought his entire body will fall into tiny shreds.
Yet, he couldn't afford to close his eyes.
The strongest never went back on his word.
But even before that. There was another thing that took priority.
"Right, right," the lady shifted her gaze from left to right. She held Eugene's limp body up while searching for a place to rest him at. "Just hold on for a bit. I memorized the entire spell. I'll open the doors of Hell again right away."
"I... I couldn't kill him..."
Eugene spoke out. His hoarse voice not hiding the pain he must be experiencing.
"What? T-that doesn't matter. We just have to get out alive—"
"So I'll get him killed."
The lady stopped.
She understood that her knight was currently thinking of things much farther than herself.
And, who was she to stop him?
If he had goals he wanted to accomplish regardless of the suffering, then she had no rights to stop him. It would be insulting to make him give up to avoid suffering, just like it would have been deeply insulting for her if her knight had spouted bullshit like wanting to save her instead of how he had approached her with the intention of finding out whether she was worth remembering.
"What do you want to do?" the lady asked.
"Open... the doors later... in some time..."
The lady's mind rapidly raced around. She was aware that Balam was a demon in possession of forty legions. The ones they had killed were barely worth two.
She gazed over the landscape with her knight in her arms. The destruction he had brought about could be described as 'kingdom ending' with class and 'holy fucking shit what in the dinosaur-ending mountain-breaking sky-falling fuck happened here!?' if one were to ignore the vices of vanity.
It was natural that the demon kings' legions would notice soon.
He wanted them to come around.
"You... you want to unleash the demons on the empire? So that those guys have no choice but to kill them?"
She could feel Eugene trying to nod through her rustling clothes.
"Knight... you..."
Eugene had no intentions of leaving something that could have killed him alive. He desperately wanted to take Balam down with his own hands. If it were the same him from two years ago, he would have tried to escape without doing anything.
But he had learned something new with his passing adventurer days.
If one couldn't make the tallest building around, one just had to knock over the taller ones.
If he couldn't be the strongest, he would rather there be no one stronger than him. Strength had many forms after all, if his plans could kill another, he would see it as a victory. Maybe even if Yujin wouldn't, he was sure that with his rising experiences of this another world, at least, he, Eugene, would see it as a victory.
"Knight..." the lady said.
He wondered if she was uncomfortable with such a thing. Maybe with some convincing—
"I love it. You're a genius."
Eugene held in his smile.
It seemed this lady of his had a few screws loose. He couldn't say he disliked that.
***
Alkilith, the first legion commander of Demon King Balam's army, had felt a strange sensation coming from a distance.
With the rest of the legions, since the founding of the kingdom, he had always been engaged in fights to expand their territory. Fights that seem to end, but also fights that he didn't mind.
A strange sense of puzzlement overtook him as deep fluctuations of energy emerged from the side of the kingdom.
He could feel his subordinate's demonic energy flowing out, being enshrouded by something even greater, and then fizzling away like a damped wick of flames. After that, an asphyxiating sensation overtook the entire battlefield as his master released his own strength.
And then even after that, something so ominous that the war had been called to a ceasefire filled their backs. Eventually, his master's energy started dissipating.
Puzzling was underplaying it.
"Alkilith, what do you think?"
"I'll rush first," the demon replied to the commander of the third and fifth legions. "I'll leave a teleportation circle here for you, so bring the army over to the castle. I'll go find the lord."
Using his extreme spatial manipulation abilities. Alkilith created a teleportation circle big enough to fit an entire legion while he rushed away. his every step made him travel hundreds of kilometers over to the place he could still faintly feel his master's energy.
The deeper into the kingdom he reached, the more his heart trembled.
Blood lust and fear rose side by side. He wanted to see what was strong enough to make his master fall, and also was afraid of it.
And then, when he came across the limp body of his master, the first of the two feelings completely disappeared.
"Oh, my god..." blasphemous words left the demon. He rushed over to his master and lifted his body.
Balam coughed out a mouthful of blood as Alkilith raised him gently.
"Holy fucking shit what in the dinosaur-ending mountain-breaking sky-falling fuck happened here!?!" Alkilith exclaimed. His master had lost a horn. The authority of the demon king must've fallen beyond half its original capacity as his lord lay limp on the ground.
"Alkilith..." Balam screamed. "The castle..."
"What? What my lord? What?"
"Go to the castle..." Balam's words were like painful moans. The demon commander was stunned but kept his attitude straight. He knew better than to be shocked at the face of something unexpected. "The human, injured human... kill him..."
"Oh?" Alkilith understood right away. As expected, his master was not an easy opponent. It would probably be easier than hunting a fly.
"No...! Kill the humans! The entire of Tantalus' descendants! Kill that entire fucking empire!"
"We can't do that, you need a human to open the doors."
"Go and get that human!"
"Okay, my lord!"
With that, Alkilith tossed his master away and rushed off toward the castle.
"Alkilith! Take me alooong!!! Alkilith!!!!"
HThe demon commander thought he heard something, but it was probably his imagination. Satisfied, he left away from the place and reached closer to the castle.
Eventually, the sight of his army gathering appeared from the distance. With a few more steps, he traveled hundreds of more kilometers and entered the plains that used to be called the demon king's castle.
A sigh left the demon.
In the distance, right in front of a magic circle, a pair of humans were scuttling away.
Like rats running after being caught. The female human had opened the doors of hell and was dragging the human along!
"Perfect!" Alkilith screamed. "JUST PERFECT!"
His mouth turned up in sadistic grin.
A rain of blood.
A rain of human blood. In the human's realm! He wanted to see it.
He was desperately craving such a sight.
The two humans passed by the doors of hell, and Alkilith snapped his fingers.
First the legions commanders.
All of them were teleported from their spots and sent through the door behind the humans.
Then, his army.
"EVERYONE!!! CHARGE INTO THE LAND OF THE HUMANS!!!"
With that scream, the demon commander shot off the skies and rushed toward the door of hell.
The demons screamed at their commanders voice and followed behind.
Demonic energy surged from hell and seeped into the doors as the demons passed it through.
A rain of blood.
The rain of night was to be answered by a rain of blood.
****
Adventurers all over the capital city of Atreus looked into the skies.
A strange feeling filled the chests of Temporal Sword and the Sorceror of the Swamps as a familiar energy filled the winds.
Then, they noticed.
The skies turning red.
The people screamed slightly at the strange phenomenon.
Everyone felt fear at the omninousness that crept up their backs.
"Tempo..." Sorceror mouthed.
"Do you feel it?" He asked. The two of them recognized the feeling well.
Then, it happened.
From the skies.
A crack emerged, and a purple being with the legs of an octopus fell down.
It was a feeling they knew well.
"D-DEMONSSS!!!"
A feeling that sent fear through the people of the capital.
"HOLY FUCK! IT'S A FREE FOR ALL FEAST!!"
"COME OUT ADVENTURERS!!"
"PREY WALKED IN!!!"
And sent shouts of cheers through the rows of adventurers.
Crazy.
Wild.
Adventurers.