Ch.165Chapter 165 – Demon Lord (2)

“I sent Shin Jaehyuk to the Demon King’s castle. With Shin Jaehyuk as a hostage and the Holy Grail in our possession, even Elohim won’t be able to destroy the world in desperation.”

Satan appeared at the temple and spoke to the sage who was meditating. Elohim is the oldest deity in this world and the one who best utilizes the system. Having destroyed and recreated the universe multiple times, he could reset the world itself if things went wrong.

The Holy Grail and Shin Jaehyuk were wedges and hostages to prevent such worst-case scenarios. Shin Jaehyuk, who could restore Elohim’s power, was most appetizing to Elohim, while the Holy Grail was an artifact that could undo Elohim’s destruction of the world.

The sage asked, “…Have you confirmed Mara Papias’s descent?”

“Yes. As you predicted, he skipped Beelzebub’s order and revealed himself directly. He even summoned the Demon King’s castle to shield himself from heaven’s gaze, not wanting Elohim’s interference. Now it’s your turn to act, Leonardo.”

“…Indeed. It’s time to face my shame.”

The sage half-opened his eyes and rose from his seat, walking toward the gate. Satan stared intently at his back.

“Ah, before that, I almost forgot. We need to balance things, right?”

“What?”

With a ripping sound, Satan’s hand blade emerged from the sage’s chest, holding his beating heart.

“Ugh-“

The sage groaned, not immediately comprehending the situation. Blood spewed from his mouth with a sharp sound. Satan, who had stabbed his comrade in the back, calmly muttered:

“With Shin Jaehyuk awakening as a deity, our side is too powerful no matter how I look at it. This doesn’t match the picture I had in mind…”

Satan’s power of deception had completely fooled the sage, preventing him from noticing any signs of betrayal. The sage tried to counterattack belatedly, but Satan had already disappeared with a vile laugh.

“Cough! Satan… betrayal at last. I should never have let my guard down.”

He had relaxed his vigilance because Satan hadn’t betrayed him in the first cycle. This was a clever, calculated betrayal, knowing that the Holy Grail had already been used and time couldn’t be rewound again.

‘This is a critical moment. If the plan stops here, all our efforts will be for nothing…’

Whatever Satan had done prevented regeneration. With no choice, he created an artificial heart as a temporary measure and inserted it into his pierced chest. Though fatally wounded, he could still face the Demon King for a short while.

‘Even knowing it’s Satan’s trap, I have no choice but to fall for it. At least until Shin Jaehyuk arrives, I must…’

The sage staggered toward the gate.

***

Emperor Hermes Leonhardt, hailed as the Sage King by all people, had one peculiar fear: thanatophobia, the fear of death.

The fear of death often torments humans more than death itself. The Sage King, exceptional in all aspects, felt extreme terror at the thought that everything he had accomplished would disappear after his death.

So he sought ways to overcome this fear, researching methods to conquer death.

While there were many ways to extend lifespan, ultimately one could not completely avoid death. To escape the fate of mortality, one needed to transcend humanity—to become something beyond even the greatest archmages.

Afterward, Hermes abdicated the throne to his son and secluded himself in a remote area where no one visited. He devoted himself to training for spiritual ascension.

To merge with the world, one must master all principles and let go of everything.

As years passed, he largely fulfilled the former condition but made no progress with the latter. The fear of death and attachment to life—human anxieties that wouldn’t leave his mind—continued to torment him.

At this rate, he would die of old age before reaching enlightenment. Pondering solutions, the Sage King conceived an idea.

What if he cut away all his anxieties, leaving only the pure part to ascend?

He had the ability to do this and immediately put it into action.

He concentrated all his anxieties, desires, and human residue into a part of his soul and cut it away. This drastic measure of dividing his soul in two proved effective. As soon as he removed the corrupted soul, he immediately felt his spiritual rank rising.

In the midst of immense joy, he felt himself transcending the limits of mortality.

While savoring the bliss of immortality, one task remained: dealing with the other half of his soul containing all negativity. Hermes sealed his shame in a deep temple, placing golems of his own invention to guard it.

Focused solely on spiritual ascension, the sage didn’t think deeply about the remaining half of his soul. Thus, he didn’t realize that the sealed soul had the same abilities as himself, and therefore could also achieve spiritual ascension.

Within the seal, the soul fragment meditated. All the world’s malice and anxiety became its strength. Just as enlightenment birthed the sage, anxiety birthed Mara Papias.

***

To Mara Papias, Hermes Leonhardt was like a twin brother. Twins naturally desire to surpass each other, and this was especially true for Mara Papias, born from Hermes’s abandonment.

Taking his name from the Buddhist demon who interfered with Buddha’s enlightenment, Mara Papias wished to prove his superiority over Hermes. Thus, he made a pact with Elohim.

In exchange for cooperating with Elohim’s plans, he would have the chance to settle the score with the sage.

For Elohim, who resented other deities, the proposal that two deities would destroy each other was irresistible. It also served his purposes well.

At the time, Elohim had two problems: first, Satan’s unexpected ascension to godhood, and second, the severely reduced population of Eden.

He created Earth to solve the latter issue, but if Earth’s humans were massacred by demons when connected to Eden, the same problem would recur. So to regulate population and faith supply, he decided to grant Earth’s humans the power of status windows.

To test the status window’s capabilities, Elohim selected one human as a prototype. People called this human the “Hero.”

The Hero experiment eventually eliminated Satan. Elohim placed Mara Papias on the vacant throne. The second Demon King willingly became Elohim’s tool, driving the human realm into terror.

In the process, Mara Papias witnessed countless instances of despair, anxiety, pain, and sorrow. The world overflowed with sadness.

“Can you not hear it? The sound of sorrow echoing to the ends of the earth.”

Mara Papias, possessing qualities opposite to the sage who pursued immortality, thought: life is sin, and existence is a curse.

The world Elohim created was ultimately one where everyone writhed in pain before crumbling into nothingness.

The Demon King of Sorrow vowed: Let me take their lives by my hand, so they need never experience sorrow again.

“…As the first step, I shall take your life to prove my righteousness, Hermes.”

Mara Papias captured the sage’s image in his dark eyes—his other half, identical like a twin.

The sage also gazed at his long-standing shame.

“My disgrace, my shame. Evil born from me shall rightfully be concluded by my hand.”

“Come to me. The time has come to determine right from wrong.”

No further dialogue was necessary. Both opened their divine powers as if by agreement.

The battle between transcendents didn’t involve spears and swords like mortal combat. Instead, between the two absolute beings, laws clashed against laws, principles against principles. Two different worldviews collided, neither yielding.

The Demon King’s darkness surged. In the world of sorrowful people, rain always falls steadily. The pouring rain of demonic energy strengthened the Demon King’s darkness.

With a single gesture, darkness rose like a tsunami. All manner of malicious energy and impure power swirled violently within. It contained poison that would rot and melt bodies with just a touch, filled with vengeful spirits and curses.

The sage raised his hand against the approaching darkness. With an incantation, pure dharmic power pushed back the darkness. Like waves hitting a breakwater, the darkness shattered.

Having blocked the light attack, the Demon King acted again. Gates opened from all directions, and streams of evil spirits emerged. The ghosts flew toward the sage, craving living flesh.

“HA!”

With a lion’s roar, a shockwave erupted. Dharmic power carrying majestic strength shook the ghosts’ spiritual bodies, causing them to dissipate, unable to withstand the impact.

A magic circle shaped like a wheel unfolded from the sage’s hand. Mountains, rivers, and vegetation responded to assist the sage’s will. The sky descended to press down on the Demon King.

“Hmm.”

The Demon King grunted briefly and struck the sky with his fist. With that simple gesture, the sky cracked at the point of contact and shattered into pieces. Fragments of space rained down like glass shards. Being fragments of space itself, they were extremely unstable and, above all, sharp weapons.

The Demon King moved the darkness like a curtain, striking the fragments and shooting them forward. Watching the approaching mass of fragments, the sage recited a dharma text:

“Matter is no different from emptiness, and emptiness is no different from matter. Matter is emptiness, and emptiness is matter. Sensation, thought, action, and consciousness are all likewise.”

The sage’s will twisted the world’s laws. The flying fragments turned to dust. The sage blew the dust from his mouth toward the Demon King. The dust became sand, the sand became gravel, the gravel became falling rocks, and eventually grew to the size of a great mountain.

“The empty form of all dharmas neither arises nor ceases, is neither defiled nor pure, neither increases nor decreases.”

A meteor the size of a great mountain, distorting perspective, fell upon the Demon King. When a blade forged of darkness cut the meteor, each half grew back to its original size, only multiplying in number.

“Troublesome trivial techniques.”

The Demon King gathered flesh from around him. Both dead human corpses and living demons were helplessly drawn to the Demon King, merging into a single mass of flesh. The enormous flesh covered the meteor’s surface, and mouths sprouted all over. Sharp teeth gnawed at the meteor.

“You-!”

Outraged at this mockery of life, the sage forgot his injury and summoned his power. Space distorted and burst the Demon King’s chimera. The Demon King responded in kind. The space between the sage and the Demon King screamed and twisted.

Just as an ordinary person watching master swordsmen fight might only see the blade work without understanding the subtle principles hidden beneath, the battle of deities might appear as simple clashes but was far from simple. High-dimensional moves were exchanged, twisting and deceiving each other’s laws.

Each time their attempts to manipulate and distort the system failed, space warped as a byproduct and shockwaves erupted. The world caught between the two absolute beings groaned and staggered, unsure whose will to follow. The wills of both men filled the space, wrestling to invade each other’s domain.

Techniques poured forth, each carrying enough divine power to destroy the opponent with a single successful attack. It was like a territorial game where the moment one side’s domain touched the other, it would lead to victory.

Being each other’s half and alter ego, they knew each other’s thinking patterns better than anyone, and the battle remained evenly matched with neither side gaining advantage.

The deadlock continued for a long time. From an ordinary person’s perspective, it might have been just a few hours, but from the combatants’ viewpoint, it was a years-long confrontation.

What seemed like a meaningless passage of time gradually began to tip the scales in one direction.

‘My heart…’

The wound inflicted by Satan was fatal. The hastily conjured magical heart was reaching the end of its life.

Finally, the sage fell to his knees. Blood foam poured out with his cough.

Though neither had landed an effective blow, Mara Papias muttered:

“…You suffered a fatal wound just before coming here.”

The sage staggered, barely able to stand. Despite this perfect opportunity to take the sage’s life, Mara Papias ground his teeth:

“I cannot accept victory in this manner.”

Mara Papias wanted a rightful victory over his arch-nemesis. For a battle so significant to his sense of existence and self-establishment, he wished to prove his righteousness by defeating Hermes head-on.

He had endured a long wait for this moment. It couldn’t end so emptily. Mara proposed a wager:

“I shall impose one ascetic practice to deny your enlightenment. Thus I will break your will and make you kneel before me. At the final moment, if you kneel, it’s my victory; if you endure, it’s my defeat. The winner shall quietly be devoured by the loser to become a sacrifice for rebirth as a complete being.”

Leonardo could sense the Demon King’s sincerity. Mara Papias truly believed his way was right and was confident he would win the wager. But Leonardo felt the same.

“…I have no choice. Very well, I accept.”

The evil monk’s face was filled with delight. His attitude showed absolute confidence in his victory. The countless demon armies surrounding them burst into laughter, mocking the sage’s foolish choice. With a smile that nearly split his face, the Demon King asked:

“Sage, do you think life has value?”

“Then would the world after life have value?”

“Is there meaning in being alive?”

“Isn’t this world better than hell?”

“Hell is an optimistic concept. Life itself is the most pessimistic notion.”

The Demon King’s gaze met the sage’s. The sage looked into the swirling darkness of his pupils. Hundreds of millions of souls collected by the Demon King were screaming within him.

“All humans carry their own hell within their hearts. Do you know that weight? Go. See. Feel the two billion hells that have existed in this universe.”

The long finger pointed at Leonardo. The moment the finger aimed precisely at his brow, Leonardo’s consciousness sank and was sucked into the Demon King’s mental space.