Ch.128Demon Lord Maker – 3

Jumping from the top of the castle toward the entrance teeming with demons, I spotted wolf-like creatures confronting the succubi. They were called werewolves, just as they appeared.

I checked the sky. The red moon had only risen halfway. Fortunately, this wouldn’t escalate into something troublesome.

As I approached, the succubi flinched and stepped aside without even looking at me. This place wouldn’t be suitable for a long stay either. At first it seemed decent, but it was getting more ridiculous by the minute.

“What’s this? A human?”

The werewolf standing at the front stomped his foot with a thud. They must have sent somewhat skilled ones, as they were all half-heartedly wearing armor.

“I clearly ordered you to bring the Queen. Are you presenting a sex slave as a representative? Have you bitches gone into heat for a mere human? Ha, this is absurd.”

“Did you just call me a sex slave?”

“What else would you be? Why else would these bitches keep a human male around?”

“…That’s none of your concern. I suggest you shut your mouth.”

The succubi kept glancing at me nervously, worried about how I might react to this insult. It didn’t matter. I was well aware of how demons treated humans.

“Not only does a mere human strut around so arrogantly, but you bitches are panting with lust for him and tell me not to care? Hey, little boy, you must be quite skilled with your cock, seeing how these sluts are dying for you?”

A werewolf with a height of at least 3 meters, wearing only a gauntlet on his left hand, pushed aside the succubi between us and approached me. He bared his fangs, thrust his face close to mine, and sneered.

“I’d like to see how good you are. If you don’t want to get cut up, you’d better obey quietly.”

“Never mind that. Who’s the leader here?”

At my words, the werewolves stared blankly at each other. Then, as if on cue, they all burst into laughter.

“What did you just say? Who’s the leader? Kahahaha! This is ridiculous! Living between breasts must have made you lose your mind!”

“If you don’t want to answer, fine. I’ll just beat up everyone except one and ask him instead.”

“…Well, aren’t you being quite insolent.”

The werewolf at the front bared his teeth and growled.

“Act like a proper sex slave, human male. You should be grateful I’m in such a good mood right now. Otherwise, I’d rip off that precious cock of yours and shove it in your mouth—”

I grabbed and twisted the hand that was reaching for my head. As the arm rotated, the werewolf’s upper body twisted halfway with it. Despite his wrist being turned 180 degrees, his expression remained unfazed.

“You’re quite strong? Impressive for a human. Well, I suppose you need to be strong to pound away all day long!”

Another round of raucous laughter erupted. With a feeling of “let’s see how long you can keep this up,” I twisted his arm further. When the joint reached its limit, he leisurely applied force.

“…?”

And then, he looked bewildered at his wrist that wouldn’t budge at all.

His outstretched fingers curled inward, and he even made a fist, trying to free his arm, but to no avail. My hand still didn’t move an inch.

“Not letting go? If we stay like this, it’ll break.”

“You…!”

“What are you doing! Why waste time playing with a mere human!”

“Yeah! Kill him quickly and bring the succubi!”

“Shut up, you fools! Let me play with him a bit more!”

He was still putting on airs. Apparently, wounding his pride was worse than death to him. Despite his face showing complete panic. If I twisted his neck backward now, his reaction would be quite entertaining.

I used Body Enhancement and applied more force. Even while trying to maintain his pride by resisting with just one arm, he finally screamed and fell to his knees after the sound of breaking bones.

“Arggghhhh!”

Whether the pain of his twisted arm outweighed his pride, he genuinely writhed in agony, desperately using both hands to try to free his arm, but it was futile.

Gradually noticing that something was off, the werewolves in the back wiped the smiles off their faces. Well, how could they not notice when he was rolling on the ground, abandoning all pride?

“Is there any wolf who thinks they’re the best guide? If so, raise your hand. I’ll spare you.”

“Shut up and die!”

A palm much larger than my face with sharply raised claws flew toward my face. It seemed he had changed his strategy to killing me.

—Slash.

Of course, I was much faster. What was once an arm, now in three pieces, and what was once a head rolled on the ground. The body that had been struggling to free its broken arm went limp.

A beat later, blood gushed forth.

“Wh-what!”

“The chief has fallen!”

So he was the tribal chief, being slightly taller than the others. I swung the Dragon Fang Sword to shake off the blood and looked around at the remaining ones. There were twenty-two in total. None had prepared to fight yet.

‘I’ll just need to spare the one at the end.’

I lunged toward the last werewolf at the edge of the formation, using Body Enhancement and Body Acceleration simultaneously. Momentarily, the world seemed to move incredibly slowly.

“Block—”

“Combat—”

Seeing the three werewolves at the front raising their claws in slow motion, I swung my Dragon Fang Sword. The blade made from a dragon’s fang instantly cut through spine, muscle, and fur.

After dealing with the other two in the same way, I turned my head. The next row of three had their claws half-extended.

I kicked off the ground. I thrust my sword into the mouth of the frontmost one and pulled it out through the crown of his head, then twisted my body to bisect the other two. The third row had just fully extended their claws.

It didn’t take much time to process all seven rows of werewolves, with three in each row, and reach the very last one.

“Wh-what are you…! Are you really human?”

After the werewolf right in front of him was cut into three pieces mid-battle cry, a voice filled with shock came back. Terror-stricken eyes frantically alternated between the dismembered corpses and me.

“I am human. What else would I be?”

I forcibly swallowed the blood rising in my throat and used healing magic. As a soft green light enveloped my body, the churning in my stomach subsided somewhat.

Using Body Enhancement and Sword Saint’s Acceleration simultaneously had quite a severe backlash. Still, given its effectiveness, I needed to get more accustomed to it.

“Then Astaroth truly was a traitor! Not only did she flee to a human, but she offered up her entire clan! What a shameless whore!”

“What’s this about Astaroth? The new Queen was born ages ago.”

I cut off his legs below the knees to prevent him from escaping. He collapsed to the ground with a scream. Thinking he might still escape using just his arms, given that these creatures were dozens of times sturdier than humans, I also cut off his arms below the elbows.

“Arggghhhh! Wh-what do you want!”

“I said I wanted a guide. What did you think I said?”

While poking his nose with the tip of my sword, I used healing magic on his severed left arm. As the limb was restored as if nothing had happened, the astonished werewolf wiggled his reattached left arm, momentarily forgetting his pain.

“If you promise to do it properly, I’ll reattach your hands and feet too. How about it?”

“We won’t have any challengers for a while.”

Looking down at his subordinates celebrating their victory with the captured prisoners, Wulbram calculated the next place to invade. Only traces of his feast remained at his feet and around his mouth.

“Now is the perfect opportunity to expand our territory.”

“Yes, I think so too.”

The Demon Lord’s army commanders were busy managing the fractured areas around the Demon Lord’s castle, and the remaining number of commanders was too small to turn their attention here, given how vast the demon realm was.

“What about the ones who went to the succubi?”

“They’ll be back in about two days. It’s always been that way.”

“They’re definitely watching for an opportunity. If not, they would have either joined the Demon Lord’s army or attempted to install their Queen as the Demon Lord by now. Why else would they hide in their territory?”

Cunning bitches. Wulbram licked his lips, recalling a succubus he had recently bedded. If only he could subjugate those women, he could gain a significant advantage in future battles.

“Even though a new Succubus Queen has been born, they’re still holed up in their territory, which suggests there might be an issue with the Queen’s whereabouts—”

The subordinate stopped speaking. Wulbram was already scanning somewhere. The werewolves’ extraordinary hearing and sense of smell, piercing through the scent of blood overflowing from the feast, told him someone was nearby.

“It’s a human. One, or at most two.”

“Are you saying there’s a human here, sir?”

“I’m certain.”

Wulbram growled, baring his teeth. This was the heart of the demon realm, located on the opposite side of human territory. As far as Wulbram knew, there was only one human who would come to such a place alone.

“Prepare for battle!”

At his booming voice, the subordinate werewolves discarded the prisoners they were eating and assumed combat positions. If Wulbram’s thoughts were correct, victory couldn’t be guaranteed even if everyone here attacked together.

The curiosity was soon resolved. A human appeared from the forest, wearing human clothing pulled down to the top of their head and a strange mask to conceal their identity.

In the human’s right hand was a sky-blue sword with blood droplets forming like a blade, and in the left hand was a gray-tinged sword.

‘Not the Sword Saint.’

Wulbram was genuinely relieved. The Sword Saint doesn’t use such weapons. The aura emanating was also much weaker than the Sword Saint’s.

“Have you lost your way, human?”

His lowered voice echoed all the way to the other side.

Despite knowing it wasn’t the Sword Saint, Wulbram remained vigilant. It could be an illusion used by another demon, or even if it was a real human, being here alone meant they were considerably skilled.

A human couldn’t possibly be that strong? Well, there was already one such person, wasn’t there?

“No. I came looking for you.”

A voice infused with mana came back immediately. Wulbram stopped a subordinate who was about to charge forward in anger at the insolence, and asked again.

“What business do you have?”

“Huh, you’re more composed than I expected. I thought you’d attack right away just because I’m human.”

“I am destined to become the Demon Lord, and a Demon Lord must always maintain cold reason.”

“Oh, really? That’s unfortunate. I have a similar goal.”

Mana swirled around the gray sword blade untainted by blood. Wulbram also prepared to unleash a battle roar, raising his claws. His subordinate was bewildered at taking such precautions against a mere human, but Wulbram didn’t care.

“I also wanted to practice with dual swords for a while.”

“Is it truly… that they have passed away…”

The Elder Lich sat on a bone throne, teeth chattering as he was lost in thought. Quite some time had passed since the Demon Lord had disappeared. By now, it was impossible to think anything other than that they were dead.

The 1st Legion Commander might still be beheading those who said such things, but that couldn’t continue forever. In a few years, even he would have to accept reality.

“Then…”

The eye sockets with only bones remaining surveyed the undead legion contained in the orb. An undead army that had surpassed ten million and now approached twenty million. Even the Sword Saint couldn’t handle this wave of rotting flesh and bone.

A long-suppressed desire ignited. The desire to rule both the dead and the living began to overflow. Fingers with nothing but bone remaining gripped the armrest tightly.

“5th Legion Commander.”

At that moment, someone appeared as if a shadow was spreading in the void. All-black armor, an empty neck, and a helmet tucked under the left side. It was the 1st Legion Commander.

Still a troublesome opponent. The Elder Lich concealed his inner thoughts and calmly clattered his teeth.

“What brings you here…”

“Have you been suppressing blasphemous ones in the eastern plains?”

“Eastern plains… no, I haven’t…”

“I see.”

How insolent to someone who will soon be the Demon Lord, the Elder Lich thought inwardly before asking again.

“Tell me why you asked such a question…”

“Reports indicate that blasphemers in the eastern plains are being rapidly suppressed. There are only two demons who would do such a thing now.”

“Suppressed, you say… at what speed…?”

“Thirteen tribes have been annihilated in three days.”

Given the use of the term “annihilation,” it was truly an astonishing speed. The Elder Lich pondered if there was any being among the demons in his memory with such power.

“And yet they’re not forming a new faction, which means they must have taken up the sword, unable to tolerate those rebels who blasphemously claim to be the Demon Lord.”

Durahann straightened his back and raised his sword vertically in front of his chest.

“I will go and bestow commendation and a token of loyalty to that honorable one who hasn’t forgotten their allegiance. Can I entrust the Demon Lord’s castle to you in the meantime?”