Ch.164Chapter 164 – Demon King (1)

On the day the Second Hunter Association was launched, the gates of hell opened. Every broadcasting station around the world transmitted the same image: countless gates filling the sky above Pyongyang.

“So many gates at once…?! Impossible!”

A veteran hunter screamed at the sight of gates numbering in the triple digits. Despite participating in over fifty gate subjugations, he had never seen so many gates open simultaneously. It was a record-breaking number.

Generally, the size and number of gates are proportional to the boss’s power. And this many gates meant that the boss about to appear was no ordinary one.

“Could it be one of the Four Heavenly Kings already?”

“That’s impossible… It hasn’t even been two weeks since Lucifer was defeated!”

The awakened checked their status windows to confirm the civilization level. The experience bar was filled to 62%—far too low for a Heavenly King to descend.

“What? Only 60 percent? That’s not even 90 percent!”

“Then what are those? Is someone playing tricks with an illusion skill?”

People looked up at the sky in confusion. But only Kwak Tae-woo knew the flaw in those numbers.

“No! Their plan is…!”

Demons poured out like a flood from the gates above Pyongyang. The gates had opened at an altitude of 300 meters—high enough for anything falling to gain sufficient gravitational acceleration to shatter its skull upon impact with the concrete below.

Demons falling like a waterfall died instantly upon hitting the ground. The status window interpreted this as demon subjugation, thus contributing to humanity’s civilization growth. The experience bar began to rise rapidly.

“Wh-what…?! 65, 70…! Hey, stop them!”

“How?!”

Demons who survived by using their comrades’ corpses as cushions attacked the humans. Eventually, hunters had to kill the demons. The experience bar continued to rise without slowing.

It rained demons. Hundreds of demons were slaughtered every second, spreading black and bright red blood across the paved roads. The demons accepted death willingly, smiling. Their spilled blood covered the ground, forming a red carpet.

“100%… It’s coming.”

At last, the experience bar filled completely. A black dot expanded—unlike before, not from the sky, but from the ground.

Deep darkness swirled in a spiral. The sky, wind, stars, and world focused on that vortex. From the center of a gate just large enough for a person to pass through, a pair of skinny bare feet emerged. Wherever the feet touched the ground, gentle ripples spread across the lake of demon blood, and black lotus flowers bloomed from the center of the waves.

Wherever the fully bloomed black lotuses touched, vegetation withered and twisted, and small insects took their own lives to offer their vitality to the passing owner of those feet. The darkness trailing like a cloak accepted those souls. People’s gazes focused on the master of darkness.

“Huh… a human?”

It was an emaciated man, thin as a mummy. His face simultaneously bore the weariness of an old monk carrying all the world’s sorrows and the enlightenment of a Buddha who had cast everything away.

“…Isn’t that a monk? Why is he coming from a gate…”

As he took a step, his worn and tattered lower monk’s robe revealed unsightly legs. His bare upper body was so thin that his ribs were clearly visible, his stomach clinging to his back, pitiful to behold. Dense tattoos glowed red like bloodstains across his frail body. The ominously glowing tattoos resembled magic circles or scripture verses.

Behind his back floated a mandorla larger than his body, and above his head hovered a black crown of thorns like an angel’s halo—these elements made the high monk appear more mysterious and ominous.

“Something, something’s wrong…”

A soldier stepped back, feeling uneasy. The monk’s gaze turned toward the sound of footsteps. Their eyes met.

The ascetic’s eyes were inverted in color—pupils cloudy white, surrounded by turbid darkness swirling like ink. The soldier looked into those eyes. As he gazed into the abyss, the abyss gazed back at him.

The soldier’s fragile mind shattered under that gaze. Thud. The sound of bodies collapsing echoed from various places. But no one could turn to look at the source of the sound. The monk’s presence was overwhelmingly dominant.

Suddenly, the monk began to weep.

“Ah, how sorrowful it is to exist. Can you not hear these voices of suffering? The screams of tormented souls.”

A system message rang out.

『

“Father, can you not see that Demon King?

The Demon King wearing a crown and cloak, can you not see him?

Father, Father, can you not hear?

That voice of the Demon King whispering to me!

Father, oh Father, the Demon King is trying to take me away!

The Demon King is hurting me!”

』

“De…mon King?”

Someone muttered unconsciously. That voice was soon drowned out by clamorous sounds—the cheers of demons.

“‘Joy to the world, the Lord has come! Let earth receive her King! Let heaven and nature sing! The Lord has come!'”

The demons sang in unison, blessing the Demon King’s advent. Demons lined up on both sides of the Demon King’s path, bowing and tearing open their own bellies, pulling out their organs as they died, trying to catch even a single glance from him. Even as they died, they smiled joyfully.

The Demon King spoke.

“Fear not. I am the savior, the messiah who will deliver you from this world of sorrow.”

Mysteriously, his voice could be interpreted in any language. Everyone heard his voice clearly in their ears regardless of distance. A soldier standing directly before the Demon King asked with a trembling voice.

“Who… are you…?”

“You shall call the Messiah by this name.”

The Demon King placed his hand on the soldier’s head.

“Mara Papiyas.”

At the Demon King’s touch, the soldier’s soul was forcibly extracted from his body. The soldier collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. His soul seeped into the darkness draped like a cloak.

Someone shouted convulsively.

“Ch-charge!!!”

The military units gathered for the parade aimed their guns at the Demon King as one. Their bodies moved automatically without orders from their commanders. Primal fear had taken control of them.

Self-propelled artillery spewed fire. Demons threw themselves forward, creating a wall of flesh before the Demon King.

“Ah, humans. Do you still resist fate? That is the path of suffering, with only suffering at its end.”

The Demon King wept sorrowfully. Black tears flowed from his eyes. As the Demon King cried, the world sympathized with his tears. Dark raindrops began to fall from the blackened sky.

Each drop was a shower made of the Demon King’s demonic energy. The thin, needle-like raindrops pierced through people’s bodies. Ordinary citizens and regular soldiers who couldn’t protect themselves with magical power were slaughtered without even a chance to resist.

Amid screams of despair and terror, hunters charged toward the Demon King. Thanks to the event, the Holy Knight Order carefully nurtured by Paradise Church and elite units from prominent hunter guilds were all gathered here.

Ability is proportional to confidence, and these were the elite of the top 0.1%. While everyone else was engulfed in panic, they maintained their composure and moved according to their practiced formations—an exemplary formation worthy of being included in hunter textbooks under the boss raid section.

But as the Demon King’s gaze swept across that formation, most died instantly. The hunters who had been charging vigorously collapsed like robots with their power cut off. Even the survivors were impaled by black thorns rising from the blood covering the ground.

Someone leaped over those corpses. It was Takehashi the Sword Demon.

“You, our guild members…!”

“So one survived. You are exceptional among them.”

His katana, drawing out a long blade aura, sliced through the air in a crescent shape.

“But with such false power, you can achieve nothing.”

“What!”

The Sword Demon’s blade suddenly stopped in mid-air. The blade aura, which should have been physically impossible to interfere with, was caught between the Demon King’s thumb and index finger.

“Know your powerlessness.”

A status window appeared before the Sword Demon’s eyes. He flinched in surprise, not just because an uncalled status window had appeared, but because the level was changing.

“My level… is decreasing?”

Since the status window was a rule created by Elohim manipulating the system, Mara Papiyas, who had the same divine status as Elohim, could also interfere with it.

The numbers rapidly decreased every second. The Sword Demon swung his sword repeatedly in panic. The strength in his sword arm kept draining away.

“This can’t… be…”

His level, which had been three digits, fell to two digits, and finally to a single digit. With strength now barely sufficient to hold his sword, the Sword Demon laughed hollowly. The power he had built up over years of blood and sweat, so easily…

That moment of despair was his end. Taking advantage of his weakened mental barrier, the Demon King’s gaze pierced through the Sword Demon. The sword fell from hands that had become like those of a powerless old man. And he would never grasp a sword again.

The Sword Demon’s death accelerated the panic. With most of humanity’s forces neutralized, demons rampaged, hunting down humans who were fleeing in all directions. The souls of the dead humans, unable to journey to the afterlife, were absorbed into the Demon King’s darkness as if drawn by a magnet.

“Now… Leonardo. When do you plan to make your move? I’ve been waiting for you.”

Feeling the power rising with each absorbed soul, the Demon King looked up at the sky.

“Before settling our old connection… I should first veil the eyes of heaven.”

With the Demon King’s authority, a massive gate opened in the heavens. From within the gate, some enormous structure fell upside down. The building that demons call the Inverted Tower, the Underground Castle, the Demon War Palace, Pandemonium.

The Demon King’s castle was summoned, blocking out the sky.

***

“Impossible. Even the Sword Demon…”

Kwak Tae-woo, watching the Demon King’s advent from afar, trembled with shock. Even the Sword Demon, who had become significantly stronger than in the first cycle, couldn’t hold back the Demon King for even a minute.

He didn’t think he could achieve a different result if he went himself. There was only one action Kwak Tae-woo could take now. He needed to summon someone who could stop the Demon King.

“Shin Jae-hyuk.”

***

In the flower garden, Shin Jae-hyuk blankly looked up at the darkened sky. It was clearly abnormal. He could feel the demonic energy rumbling among the dark clouds.

‘This is no ordinary level. With this much energy, it must be the Demon King himself…’

Normally, he would have rushed to the scene in terror, but today he couldn’t summon the will to do so.

‘No… I must keep moving. How could I stop after coming this far?’

As he forced himself to gather his resolve and stood up, gripping his knees, after gently laying Yoo Seong-ha’s body in the flower garden, a gate opened and Satan appeared.

“Shin Jae-hyuk. Remember what I told you? That you had a job to do. This is that moment.”

Satan interfered with Kim Jae-min’s status window, who had collapsed nearby. He combined the Goetia Code that Kim Jae-min had acquired after defeating Mammon and Lucifer with the one he originally possessed and the one he had taken from Belphegor.

“…Here, this is the key to unlock the seal of the Holy Grail.”

Satan handed the completed Goetia Code to Shin Jae-hyuk, who instinctively understood how to use it.

“So this is the key to obtain the Holy Grail hidden in the throne of the Demon King’s castle. Why give this to me?”

“That’s your job. To retrieve the Holy Grail from the Demon King’s castle. To lure out Elohim, the Holy Grail is perfect.”

Elohim doesn’t know that the Holy Grail has been used. So if it falls into enemy hands, he will surely come out personally to retrieve it.

“…Then what about the Demon King? Who will stop the Demon King?”

Shin Jae-hyuk shifted his gaze toward the center of the demonic energy. Even from this distance, he could feel the terrifying aura and overwhelming presence. He couldn’t imagine any S-rank hunter being able to stop that.

Satan smiled.

“Who else? It’s finally time for the Sage and me to get to work.”