Ch.199The Final Moment (1)

*

From the outside, the battle appeared to be overwhelmingly in Sylvia’s favor.

Her sword, wielded with sharply honed breaths, roughly pierced through the monstrous body of the creature, cutting down most of its disgusting tentacles.

Without blades clashing against each other, there wasn’t even the sharp metallic sound of rupturing steel.

Only the sound of something being sliced and the squelching noise of tentacles that she failed to block grazing against Sylvia echoed countless times.

Despite the pain seeping into her body, Sylvia’s arm muscles, trained over a very long time, moved even faster, radiating explosive heat.

Her longsword, mercilessly stabbing the Demon Lord’s body, created afterimages that made it appear as if there were dozens of blades.

The Demon Lord tried to resist with tentacles and sharp claws at the end of its hideous arms, but some attacks didn’t even warrant a response.

Sylvia’s belief that the Demon Lord, who had been a powerful spell-casting mage in the past, would be no match in close combat seemed to be proving correct.

Yet even in the midst of this, Sylvia felt a strange sense of unease.

“…Damn it,”

It wasn’t just because the Demon Lord refused to die.

She had expected that killing him wouldn’t be easy, given his history of surviving even with his head completely severed.

But what was truly strange was that he wasn’t properly counterattacking.

He wasn’t using spells or commanding spirits.

The basics of combat involve escaping your opponent’s attack range and bringing them into your own.

Naturally, the Demon Lord, with his evil tricks, should have had an overwhelmingly longer range than sword-wielding Sylvia, so his basic approach should have been to push her away or retreat to create distance.

But the Demon Lord was slowly approaching Sylvia, dripping those revolting waste fluids.

The way he wildly swung with predictable movements and scattered annoying tentacles almost seemed like he was provoking her to cut him down.

“Fine, let’s see how long you can endure.”

Sylvia willingly decided to fall for his provocation.

She hadn’t lost her composure.

The distinct feeling in her hands with each sword swing was clear evidence that the Demon Lord’s body was being cut, and Sylvia’s sword had enough power to take a life with each strike.

No matter how endlessly the Demon Lord seemed to recover, seemingly resurrecting no matter how many times she killed him, there had to be a limit to that ability.

Having even subdued Alice with her terrifying holy power before, Sylvia gritted her teeth and continued to subdue the Demon Lord more violently.

But what was this sense of unease?

She was clearly the one on the offensive, yet why did she feel increasingly cornered?

As if mirroring her wavering inner state, a chilling sound similar to the fluttering of cockroach wings buzzed in Sylvia’s ears.

Sylvia gripped her sword more firmly, trying to shake off her anxiety.

‘Focus. Don’t think unnecessary thoughts.’

Sylvia forcibly turned her attention away from the unease and anxiety, opening her fingers wide around the sword hilt before gripping it again.

If she were to drop her sword because of sweat on her hands and be defeated by the Demon Lord because of it, nothing would be more ridiculous.

Trampling on the pile of severed tentacles and limbs at her feet, Sylvia struck the Demon Lord’s face with her elbow.

As the Demon Lord staggered, she quickly thrust her sword under his armpit and lifted it forcefully, sending one of his arms soaring into the sky.

The Demon Lord screamed, clutching his severed shoulder, but still opened his mouth with a reptilian grin on his face.

“You seem to enjoy cutting here? You also cut that little one’s shoulder—Ash, was it?”

“Shut up.”

Sylvia struck the Demon Lord’s jaw with the back of her gauntlet as if to shatter it.

“Are you hoping I’ll be mentally shaken by anger? That won’t happen.”

“Ha,”

Sylvia’s sword pierced through the Demon Lord’s long snout from below.

As Sylvia lifted her arm, the Demon Lord was raised into the air, impaled on the sharp blade.

Was the pain of having his entire body weight on a sharp sword too much even for a monster?

The Demon Lord writhed his pale, skeletal legs and groaned.

“I already hate you more than enough.”

With just a simple twist of her wrist, Sylvia rotated the sword that had pierced the Demon Lord’s snout a full circle.

As the Demon Lord fell to the ground with a large cross-section of his face cut off, Sylvia stomped on his back and thrust her sword between the bumpy protrusions of his disgusting spine.

The Demon Lord squirmed on the ground.

Sylvia pressed her foot firmly on the Demon Lord’s body and tapped her ear, which was tickling from the strange sound, as she spoke.

“Go ahead, try more. Keep talking. Hurry up.”

“Keeeck!”

“This dog-like noise is also your doing, isn’t it?”

“Keck-keke-ke!”

The Demon Lord made sounds while spewing disgusting fluid from his throat.

Hearing those sounds as if they were mocking her, Sylvia took a slow, deep breath and twisted the sword that had pierced his spine.

With a sound of swallowing breath, the skeletal legs that had been squirming went limp like a puppet with cut strings.

“I told you it won’t work. The provocation, the annoying sounds, all your attempts to grate on my nerves with your shitty words—none of it works, you bastard.”

“Khihiheehee.”

“What’s so funny when you’ve failed and been trampled?”

The Demon Lord slowly turned his trembling face.

Due to his lizard-man-like face with eyes on either side, he could easily make eye contact with Sylvia standing behind him.

Sylvia gritted her teeth as she looked into those red eyes that were identical to her own.

The Demon Lord mocked her and began to speak with a slurred pronunciation.

“It seems… to have worked quite well?”

“What?”

“Yes, that sound is the wing-fluttering of my spirits. My faithful servants that always fly around me.”

Sylvia snorted and said,

“Well, I suppose so. Your so-called intimidating presence that supposedly frightens people just by looking at you is nothing more than tricks like this that mess with people’s nerves. Crawling on the ground suits you perfectly, you damn lizard.”

“But… do you know something?”

“Know what, fuck off.”

The Demon Lord chuckled as he spoke.

Despite being trampled under her feet, Sylvia could feel goosebumps rising on her skin.

“Why do you think I ordered my spirits to just fly around me? I could have easily counterattacked with spirit magic.”

“Don’t care.”

“You, who arrived before me with that mage previously, wouldn’t have heard sounds like these.”

“I said I don’t care, you idiot.”

Sylvia stomped on his neck as if to break it.

But the Demon Lord continued speaking, undeterred.

“Being able to see spirits has become your weakness instead.”

“What are you saying,”

“Your ability to observe your surroundings has decreased, and your mental strength has worn down. You’ve weakened. Just as much as I have.”

“That’s not for a loser to say.”

The Demon Lord giggled.

“Loser?”

Then slowly pushing away Sylvia’s foot that had been stomping on him, the Demon Lord rose to his feet.

Surprised by the Demon Lord suddenly overcoming her strength and standing up, Sylvia hastily pulled out the sword embedded in his body sideways.

The Demon Lord roughly swept aside the yellowish fluid and entrails pouring out from between his split abdomen with his hand, and slowly twisted his disgusting face into a smirk.

“I was buying time, of course.”

Something’s different.

Strange.

The Demon Lord is revealing his intentions.

That monster isn’t a fool; he wouldn’t casually recite his strategy to an enemy.

Whatever it is, it must mean the situation has already progressed as he wanted.

Sylvia ignored the cold sweat flowing down her forehead and forcibly raised the corners of her mouth.

“Buying time? For what? Was your plan to suffer pain? You should have said so. I would have cut you as much as you wanted.”

The Demon Lord silently smiled and snapped his fingers.

The buzzing wing sound in Sylvia’s ears stopped abruptly.

“…?”

And simultaneously, Maria’s sharp scream was heard.

“Sylvia!”

Sylvia instinctively turned around to look behind her.

“…Ash?”

Ash was kneeling on the floor with a confused expression, his head buried in the ground.

Maria was kneeling on one knee, supporting Ash’s collapsed body.

Dark blood was gurgling and spewing from Ash’s mouth.

“What is this…”

“No time to explain… so,”

“Come over here now!”

As if continuing Maria’s words, Pia shouted.

At that moment, Sylvia could understand.

What the Demon Lord’s time-buying was for.

“Demonic energy…”

The concentration is thick.

Demonic energy far thicker and murkier than in the forest.

Sylvia, who carried a decent amount of holy power in her body—though less compared to Alice—was fine.

The spirits Pia and Maria weren’t greatly affected by the demonic energy either.

That’s why she had overlooked it.

She thought it didn’t matter much what the Demon Lord was aiming for by buying time.

But she was wrong.

There was exactly one human here who was susceptible to demonic energy.

“No!”

Alice had certainly shared holy power with Ash’s body.

Even to Sylvia’s eyes, it was quite a substantial amount of holy power.

But unlike Sylvia or Alice, the holy power residing in Ash’s body doesn’t recover once consumed.

And this place was filled with demonic energy incomparably thicker than the forest Alice had seen.

This thick demonic energy must have rapidly burned away the holy power dwelling in Ash’s body.

“A-Ash!”

Sylvia concentrated all her strength and consciousness on her toes as they pressed against the ground.

To reach Ash with just one leap, she focused all her power and awareness on her feet.

But in that brief moment.

In that very short moment when her awareness of the Demon Lord was broken.

Sylvia discovered a large tentacle piercing through her chest from behind.

“Guhk!”

Even Sylvia herself thought it was a foolish mistake.

To lose focus with an enemy at her back,

“Damn… it,”

Had she underestimated the Demon Lord who had been helplessly overwhelmed throughout?

If so, then the Demon Lord’s strategy, who had been mercilessly cut by Sylvia’s sword all this time, had worked.

Was she confused by seeing Ash collapsed?

If so, it meant he was her weakness, just as the Demon Lord had said.

Had she become careless because all threats that could kill her had been blocked for the past few years?

Idiot, that’s the curse left by the Demon Lord. She should have abandoned the thought that it would protect her even from the Demon Lord’s attacks long ago.

“Ugh, huhk,”

She couldn’t breathe due to the tentacle that had torn through her lung.

Death.

That death she had once so desperately searched for now rippled before Sylvia’s eyes at this moment.

No, why now of all times? It wasn’t there when she was desperately searching for it, so why now!

“Kuk!”

Sylvia grabbed the tentacle that had pierced through her chest with both hands.

But the tentacle, maliciously, began to writhe disgustingly inside her body while impaling her.

With just that movement, the tentacle, soaked in Sylvia’s blood, slipped in her hands and couldn’t be grasped.

“That family has always been your greatest weakness, then and now.”

The Demon Lord mocked Sylvia from behind.

Just as she had done to him moments ago.

.