Ch.215Final Battle (2)

The Demon King, marked by a deep black dot, was like the eye of a typhoon. Around him, the otherworldly magical power still maintained its existence. Ortes unconsciously gripped his sword hilt tightly.

“Wait, Director Kaicle. Isn’t the Demon King located within the anti-magic field? How is the magical emission still being maintained?”

Magic power remaining intact even inside an anti-magic field? Ortes was on the verge of laughing bitterly. Isn’t this too much?

“Originally, the Demon King’s otherworldly magic emission was immeasurable. The fact that it has decreased to measurable levels itself proves the effectiveness of the anti-magic field. The emission rate is continuing to decrease in real-time as it remains under the field’s influence.”

Kaicle displayed a graph showing the change in magic emission per second. What initially couldn’t even be measured numerically and didn’t register on the graph had been gradually declining since the anti-magic field was activated.

Clear proof of effectiveness. Yet Ortes couldn’t smile.

“The rate of decrease is gradually slowing down. At some point, the magic level will stop decreasing and plateau.”

“That’s correct. We believe he’s receiving an endless supply of magic from another dimension. Of course, even in this situation, magic is effectively sealed.”

Kaicle added further explanation. The magical structure would remain intact within the Demon King’s sphere of influence, but the moment it moved beyond a certain range and fully entered the anti-magic field, the magic would disintegrate.

“…But it’s dangerous.”

It was the Pope who spoke with difficulty.

“Even from another dimension, he was able to project his will and twist my holy spirit. The Demon King, though his powers are greatly diminished, has driven a wedge into reality with his avatar. We cannot predict what he might do.”

“So someone needs to go and face the Demon King.”

Ortes, understanding the situation, picked up Hector’s sword. With the battlefield under the influence of the anti-magic field, the number of people who could participate in the final battle was extremely limited.

The Divine Order, which should have been a major force in the final battle, was mostly exhausted after breaking through the Demon King’s barrier and receiving the spatial coordinates of the other dimension. The personnel available to fight now were…

“Pope. Can you fight?”

“My fate is not long. I will collapse after using my power just once more. …I have something in mind. Brother, if you permit, may I decide when to conclude my destiny?”

Ortes glanced at Carisia, asking with his eyes if the Pope could be trusted. Carisia closed her eyes firmly, then nodded.

The reason the ancient god’s holy spirit possessed by the Pope was feared was because it could freely wield powers that manipulated time. Normally, the power of time would be a dramatic force capable of turning the tide with just a single use, but the opponent now was the Demon King.

Specifically, the two types of time-stop the Pope used at the peak of Greenwood—both time freezing and time suppression—had a high possibility of not working against the Demon King. They would need to find the right power to confront the Demon King through multiple attempts, but the Pope was now in a situation where such “attempts” were impossible.

In that case, it was better to entrust the most efficient use of his life to himself.

With Carisia’s permission granted, Ortes also nodded. The Pope saw this and smiled wryly.

“Is there a problem?”

“It’s just so unexpected. Brother, remember this. Even I couldn’t have predicted this relationship between you two. The Demon King likely couldn’t either.”

“This relationship? You mean employer and employee?”

The Pope merely smiled, thinking that perhaps Ortes had deceived even himself.

“What about the Priestess?”

“That kid’s not going.”

It was Kine who spoke with bravado.

“Um, Miss Kine. For you to call someone else a kid—”

“Ah, whatever! Anyway! The Priestess’s assistance is needed for the Holy Necromancy that combines Bacchus’s sacred path and dark necromancy… to control the souls of the dead. That priestess doesn’t have much direct combat ability anyway, right?”

Ortes tilted his head.

“I see. So Miss Core is needed as a coordinator for the sacred path or magic that you’ve newly developed?”

“Yes. In a sense, you could say both of them are deploying together.”

Ortes scratched his head. He noticed the empty seats around. Everyone must be doing something in their respective positions to maintain the anti-magic field.

It would have been good to have Carisia with him. She was the most skilled among the remaining mages.

Lampades and Cnemon, especially Cnemon who had participated in the Amimone Magic Tower succession battle with Kine, wore uncomfortable expressions. They seemed to blame themselves for being unable to help in this final battle that would determine the fate of the world.

“Understood. Two people then.”

“…Theoretically, if we could just cut off the magic supply line from the other dimension, the Demon King’s avatar would collapse.”

It was Arabel who spoke with fear and even deeper fatigue. Noiro quickly raised his hand.

“My only talent is archery, but that’s better than nothing, isn’t it?”

“Please wait a moment.”

It was Carisia who stopped Noiro.

“Boss?”

“Director Noiro, and Miss Core, I have a separate task for you. You’ll depart as the second team.”

Second team. It was a rather grandiose name for a battlefield with a total of three allies, or four including the enemy.

Noiro looked at Carisia with a puzzled expression. Most of the people remaining in the room did the same.

“Boss. Do you have a plan?”

“Yes.”

“The first step?”

“You go and face the Demon King. In the time you buy us, I’ll try to do something.”

“If those are your orders, Boss.”

The mages’ expressions froze in disbelief. It was an order to walk alone into the line of fire. Though Ortes had proven himself to be the pinnacle of anti-mage combat through his past achievements, how could a boss give such an order to her loyal subordinate?

Conversely, Ortes was calm.

“Then, Boss. Please hurry.”

***

Ortes walked alone to face the Demon King. The Demon King looked the same as before, but the environment around him was not.

Around him swirled an even denser vortex of otherworldly energy than before. Perhaps it was an otherworldly field protecting himself from the anti-magic field.

The Demon King seemed to recognize Ortes. Since successfully observing Ortes through Earth as a medium, the Demon King never completely lost track of Ortes’s presence, even if his reactions were a breath slower.

You have come.

“Yes, I have. Damn it. Isn’t this too much? You’ve already taken so much, can’t you just back down?”

Greed is human instinct, domination is a king’s duty, and ruling is a god’s nature. How could I retreat from claiming a world that is to be mine?

The Demon King asked in return. Don’t you feel that you should be the one to retreat now?

Ortes thought. No matter how he looked at it, the Ten Commandments bomb was not something even the Demon King could withstand.

If it were the true form of the Demon King who exists beyond dimensions, on the same level as gods, that would be different. But this avatar was different. This avatar and the Ten Commandments were equal in that they were creations in which the Demon King had divided and placed parts of his wisdom and power.

Four of the Ten Commandments had been detonated in succession against the avatar. Each Commandment contained infinite magical power converted entirely into destructive force—an unspeakable bomb.

If the epicenter hadn’t been in another dimension, it wouldn’t have been strange if the world itself had collapsed. Even assuming the weakening effect of the Yellow Thunder was less than expected, it wasn’t an explosion that should have just reduced some magical power and ended there.

To take a direct hit from such an explosion and remain intact…

Ortes’s question was soon answered, thanks to his carefully reactivated “eye.”

“Haha…”

The incomprehensible survival was due to protagonist protection. The Demon King had already demonstrated his ability to interfere with fate through magic. The magic the Demon King was using now was the very act of being “the Demon King of 2077” that Ortes himself had read and recognized in novel form.

The fate that the protagonist always wins.

Do you see? Then you understand what it means to challenge me.

The predetermined impossibility.

The Demon King did not hide from Ortes’s observing eyes.

Ortes considered two possibilities.

Either the anti-magic field made it impossible for the Demon King to use magic against Ortes, or he deliberately showed it to flaunt his promised victory.

But either way, it didn’t matter. Ortes knew that even the Demon King in the novel didn’t always win.

There was Baekmuming, the only opponent who had effectively handed the Demon King a technical defeat.

And this world’s Baekmuming, Carisia, was preparing a strategy to face the Demon King.

When Baekmuming fought the Demon King alone, she could only achieve the Demon King’s technical defeat at the cost of her own life. But now, in addition to Baekmuming, there was Ortes himself.

If the Demon King had fixed fate, then Ortes was the chaos that would shake that fixed destiny.