As the tumultuous magic power settled and the golden glow of 'Sanctuary' faintly illuminated the night, a man cloaked in black descended quietly.
Jillzack Luiid, the demon who had lost all of his subordinates. The white-haired demon (mazoku) contorted his face in anger, his artificial eye glaring at me.
It had been a while since I used 'Storm Sword,' and it was duller than I had imagined, but I managed to annihilate the Crimson Army. And now, Luiid, who had poured most of his magic power into the Aspita Heirain, was practically stripped of his powers.
Nevertheless, one could hardly call Luiid, in his current state, a defeated leader. Blood oozed from various parts of his body, and his magic power was on the verge of drying up, yet Luiid's fighting spirit not only remained unbroken but burned even brighter.
While still glaring at me, Luiid spoke with resentment,
"I... remember now. The silver armor and the emerald magic power."
I seemed to have revealed my true identity to him.
Luiid was a demon who had never crossed paths with me. Despite participating in the God-Demon War, he had never faced a Hero and had achieved little recognition as an unsung hero.
However, it seemed that even Luiid, who had been buried in obscurity, was not entirely unfamiliar with the distinctive features of his archenemy.
"Why are you here, Hero?"
"'Silence.'"
"Ugh!"
With a loud clank, Luiid's mouth was sealed shut.
It wouldn't change anything for him to realize that I was the Hero, but I didn't want Lisha, who continued to dance, to know. There wasn't a clear reason for it. I simply wanted to interact with her as I was, without her knowing that I was the Hero. That was all.
When I glanced at Lisha, it seemed that the distance between us had spared her from noticing. When I returned my gaze, Luiid, who had fallen silent, was bowing his head and trembling.
What was going on?
"Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe!"
Luiid burst into laughter as he gazed up at the sky.
Raindrops began to fall on his body, perhaps due to the original weather or Luiid's magic.
However, Luiid didn't stop laughing.
"'What's so funny?'"
He turned his artificial eye towards me and replied.
"What's funny, you ask? It's the fact that I have been blessed with the opportunity to kill you, the one who killed our king. This is truly God's will. I can't help but laugh."
"You think you can kill me?"
Luiid's magic power was now no more than a drop in the bucket. Even without me, any skilled magician could defeat him. But Luiid, too, should know that. He knew that and yet displayed this attitude.
Did he have something up his sleeve? A joker that could turn the situation around to this extent?
"Indeed, it may be impossible for me to kill you with my power alone. I've confirmed that in this battle. You didn't defeat our king with a despicable trick. And I don't have the power to surpass our king."
With that, Luiid placed his left hand on his artificial eye and gripped it with his fingers.
"Which is why I say it's God's will that I've been granted this opportunity to face you as mortal enemies."
"..."
As he finished speaking, Luiid exerted force on his fingers, pulling out the artificial eye from its socket.
The enormous eye that had been fitted into the frame was now held in Luiid's fingers.
Wasn't that... just a tool for observation?
Luiid's own skills were tremendous, and there was little need for him to rely on such a tool. That's why I had believed until now that it was nothing more than a replacement for his lost eye.
But what was that eye really? Why did it feel strangely familiar?
"Now, Sissy, open up. Let's continue the God-Demon War."
Those words were the trigger.
Luiid's artificial eye in his left hand transformed, as if solving a puzzle, revealing its hidden contents within.
A storage magic tool. It wasn't particularly rare, but what emerged from it was more than enough to astonish me.
A crystalline mass, emitting an ethereal glow under the moonlight, floated above Luiid's left hand.
It exuded a serene quality, as if rejecting the flow of time. However, what was most eye-catching was not that.
Enclosed within the crystal was something white, defying its pale beauty. That was Luiid's ace in the hole.
"'...You that's.'"
"Indeed, one glance, and you recognize whose it is."
Whose it is.
Luiid said that. Not what it was, but whose it was.
And it made sense, for the white object floating within the crystal was unmistakably someone's left hand.
So, whose left hand was it?
I knew. No, because it was me, I couldn't mistake the owner of that left hand.
'You and I are quite alike. Perhaps it's because we're so far apart that, like a reflection in a mirror, we end up resembling each other. Don't you think so, Yuusuke?'
Flashes of the past crossed my mind. Like fragmented pieces of shattered glass, images flickered and disappeared.
We had fought countless times, screamed our thoughts within the unrelenting fate of our incompatibility, yet we had continued to battle. He was my arch-nemesis, the one both farthest and closest to me.
The Demon Lord—Julius Roderest.
The man who had claimed the title of the strongest in Asteris, the man I had killed, his left hand now stood before me, transcending time.
"Yes, this is the remains of my beloved Demon Lord. It's a vessel for his unfading magic power."
Using some form of remains as a medium for magic was not an unusual concept. In Asteris, it was commonplace to use materials from magical creatures as weapons.
However, when it belonged to the world's strongest magician, the power was beyond imagination.
"Behold, Hero. This power is the supreme light bestowed upon us by our God!"
Luiid called out to his magic power, and the left hand trapped within the crystal responded.
Dazzling light illuminated the night, his coat billowing as magic power overflowed.
With the nostalgia came trembling. The fear of death etched into my memory in Asteris was stirred by this magic power.
I couldn't forget something like that in just a few years. This was undeniably the Demon Lord's magic power.
"I speak of the oldest calamity. It consumes all creation, savors blood, and laughs at death. It weaves a verse of cruelty with no shred of mercy, tyranny boiling in its veins."
Luiid was enveloped by the Demon Lord's magic power from head to toe.
Flames rose from his feet, swirling and scorching the atmosphere. Even though it was fire born of the same magic power, it was undeniably different from Luiid's previous flames.
"The step forward shook the earth, and its breath dried up rivers. Its name was a symbol of universal terror and despair."
The flames seized Luiid, ascending toward the heavens.
As if possessing its own will, it undulated and took on a new form. With armor surpassing that of giants, teeth mightier than the Swallowing Dragon's, and four arms wielding swords that could cleave even skyscrapers in half.
"Manifest yourself—'Crimson Incarnation (Aspita Silguera)'."
What materialized was a monstrous being with the head of a goat, dragon scales, and four arms thicker than tree trunks.
Even for me, a Hero who had battled many magic creatures, it was an unfamiliar, grotesque sight. However, I recognized the name and distinctive appearance: it was 'Akki Rasetsu,' a legendary creature from Asteris mythology. A demon known for toying with lives and perpetrating boundless cruelty.
While I understood that magic could imbue living beings with the traits of another species, I never imagined it could recreate a mythical creature that only existed in legends, stories, relics, and traces left on the land.
If this were the case, it was truly a transcendent skill beyond top-tier.
As Luiid, now transformed into the embodiment of flames, spoke, shaking the air...
"Silguera... You must know the name, don't you? The unsullied embodiment of evil that even slew numerous heroes and Heroes."
"'Is this your trump card?'"
"That's right. To accomplish this feat, I borrowed the power of the Demon Lord and Shishi. However, even if you are a Hero, you won't lose to me."
Saying this, Luiid laughed.
It was evident that Lisha's 'Sanctuary' was wavering.
Perhaps it was the manifestation of anxiety within her spell, but purely due to the rampage of this massive concentration of magic power, maintaining the 'Sanctuary' seemed difficult.
Time was running out. If this creature were unleashed upon the world, this city would turn into a sea of flames in an instant.
It didn't matter who the opponent was—god or demon—anything would do. If it threatened our peace,
"'Whatever it may be, I'll just have to cut it down.'"
"Feel free to try. You'll be defeated by our demon power right here. You shall become an offering to our king."
The battle began with a single strike from Luiid.
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