Episode 657. Final Battle (2)

Eye Opening. Heart

Golden eyes emitted light in the middle of the darkness.

All creation is imbued with magic, and Lee Hoyeon’s Eye Opening pierces through it.

‘What is the identity of this darkness?’

However, the Demon King before his eyes doesn’t seem to be a being of all creation.

Lee Hoyeon’s Eye Opening couldn’t read the Demon King’s magic at all.

Thump- Thump- Thump-

His rapidly beating heart and sharpening senses alone told him of the opponent’s danger.

Since he couldn’t know what abilities the Demon King was using, Lee Hoyeon moving first was a burden.

Creak-

Just then, making a chilling sound, the darkness moved.

The darkness that filled the air, wriggling, condensed around the Demon King, turning into mist and beginning to take over the space.

‘My Sky-Piercing Palace is being pushed back… No, is it being consumed?’

Lee Hoyeon flinched in surprise and narrowed the range of Sky-Piercing Palace.

By increasing the magic concentration inside Sky-Piercing Palace, he could prevent it from being consumed by the darkness, but naturally, it was impossible to establish a wide area.

‘Blood Beat.’

The magic circuits throughout his body expanded, and a rune barrier unfolded.

The rune barrier, which pushed back the darkness, complemented Sky-Piercing Palace, enveloping Lee Hoyeon.

Seeing his own darkness pushed back, the Demon King’s eyes narrowed.

As if influenced by his anger, the darkness too trembled ominously.

Whoosh-

Above the Demon King’s hand, darkness condensed.

Seeing a somewhat familiar magic pattern, Lee Hoyeon’s eyes narrowed.

‘…Spiral?’

Seeing the spiraling darkness, Lee Hoyeon clicked his tongue and deciphered the magic before him.

A magic he himself had created.

It was the exact same format as Spiral.

“You remember what I said, right? The magic you created in this world. I’ll show you that it’s all just trivial tricks. In this world, there is no being that can defeat me…!!”

Malice and madness swirled in the Demon King’s eyes.

The god of this world unleashed killing intent to eliminate the human who was ruining his world.

“What a crazy bastard….”

Lee Hoyeon couldn’t finish his sentence and summoned an Arc behind his back.

The magic before him was identical to the Spiral he knew, but the destructive power it created by combining with darkness was worlds apart.

“Kuhaha! Eighth human! How insolent. Insolent! To dare challenge a god without knowing your place!”

The Demon King, bursting into maniacal laughter, stirred up magic from his entire body.

Seeing the increasingly massive magic, Lee Hoyeon drew a magic circle with the Arc and began multi-calculations.

“So you were pretending to be dignified, and now you’re showing your true colors. What a psycho bastard.”

The same Spiral couldn’t block it.

Because he would just be consumed by that darkness.

‘Eclipse.’

Along with the movement of magic, a black sun revealed itself in reality.

Lee Hoyeon, even amidst that, did not stop the orbital calculations of the darkness.

His combat sense, displaying innate sense in all actions related to combat, honed sharper than ever, found a way to overcome the formidable opponent before him.

‘With Eclipse, I can neutralize Spiral and approach with acceleration. But since there’s no information about that darkness, jumping in is dangerous.’

In the original work, there is no information about the Demon King before him. Even if there were information, he couldn’t rashly approach.

Now that the god of this world had entered that body, it was better to forget the information from the original work.

‘…It’s something I have to face someday. Rather, feeling it now might be the safest.’

As always, the first time is the biggest opportunity.

The Demon King before him was not yet unleashing his full power.

He had to aim for that opening.

BOOOOM-!

The darkness condensed in the Demon King’s hand left its master and floated into the air.

Instantly splitting into dozens of streams, the dark Spirals, seeming intent on grinding the entire space, surged towards Lee Hoyeon.

‘Accelerate.’

Lee Hoyeon’s reaction was swift.

He pulled Sky-Piercing Palace and the rune barrier back into his body, accelerated through space, and charged at the Demon King.

Future Sight.

Blood flowed from Lee Hoyeon’s eyes.

The backlash from forcibly manifesting Future Sight washed over his body, but this wasn’t the time to care about such things.

In this moment, he had to pour everything he had.

‘One. Two. Three… I can block up to five.’

The Eclipses created from the three Arcs devoured the darkness blocking Lee Hoyeon’s path.

In the process, the darkness that washed over his body was blocked by the rune barrier.

Fwoosh-!

A Spiral created through multi-casting appeared above his hand.

Entrusting his body to the accelerated space, Lee Hoyeon concentrated magic throughout his entire body.

‘Here.’

The place where he could inflict the most damage was head-on.

Leaving a blurry afterimage, Lee Hoyeon pierced through the darkness and drove the Spiral into the Demon King.

KABOOOM-!

Lee Hoyeon’s Future Sight was correct again.

The Spiral he had created struck the Demon King properly.

“Accelerating inside the surrounding barrier. It’s certainly an interesting magic.”

However, the result was not good.

The Demon King’s armor, shrouded in darkness, easily blocked the Spiral.

His body had unnecessarily high defense as well.

“You know about the magic of the Demon King’s Castle, right? The reason Lucifer wasn’t chosen, but I was, is precisely this. If I can use this magic properly, no enemy can defeat the Demon King.”

The Demon King brushed the dust off his body and let out an ominous laugh.

He had thought it several times, but indeed, fighting while exchanging magic made him feel it even more certainly.

That bastard is definitely a personality disorder case.

‘Until I figure out how to counter that darkness, I need to fight while keeping my distance.’

Unfortunately, there was no time to answer.

In that time, he had to think of at least one more attack that would work on him.

Lee Hoyeon looked down at his own hand.

The unknown darkness used Lee Hoyeon’s Spiral as a medium and clung to his hand.

Since it was a small amount, he could shake it off by concentrating his magic, but in the process, he used more magic than expected.

If a larger amount of darkness had clung to him, moving his body might have become problematic.

Grrr-

He clenched his molars tightly.

He had met countless formidable opponents, but none were as annoying as the Demon King before him.

The enemies he had encountered so far, at least, allowed him to grasp how they fought.

But the Demon King’s darkness couldn’t be read by Eye Opening.

That fact made Lee Hoyeon even more irritated.

‘…For now, I have no choice but to buy time.’

Lee Hoyeon’s [Eye Opening, Heart] transcends magic to analyze and interpret phenomena themselves.

He couldn’t read the Demon King’s darkness yet, but if he had time, he was sure he could.

That was Lee Hoyeon’s intuition as a mage.

“Certainly, your power is abnormal. Eighth human. Your strength has never been observed in my world until now. You’ve far surpassed the human species! What is your identity that causes this?”

“…Is that a common phrase among bastards from the Underworld? Still, thank you for saying that.”

Chiron, Albedo, and Lucifer too.

They all said similar things.

However, hearing those words somehow calmed my heart.

“Thank you? What do you mean by that?”

“Because all the bastards who said that lost to me.”

When I first faced them, I felt the same emotion as now.

I thought I could never win.

Death was right before my eyes.

But in the end, Lee Hoyeon overcame them all and came this far.

If I were going to fall in the final battle, I wouldn’t have gone through all that damn hardship until now.

“Khuhuhu, I wonder how long you’ll maintain that attitude.”

The Demon King smiled and moved his hands.

The darkness that had taken over the surroundings vibrated in unison, beginning to pressure Lee Hoyeon.

BOOOOM-!

The darkness, as if alive, began to assault Lee Hoyeon.

To defeat the Demon King, first, he needed to decipher the concept of that darkness.

‘When attacking, it exerts physical force as if it has mass, but it isn’t repelled by my magic.’

It was truly a selfish ability.

Could that be the so-called magic of the Demon King’s Castle?

KRAANG-! KRAANG-!

Every time the darkness moved, the space shattered.

Lee Hoyeon evaded the darkness and slowly retreated.

The only fortunate thing was that every time the darkness moved violently, Lee Hoyeon received more information.

‘This movement is similar to Sky-Piercing Palace.’

The difference is that the darkness controlling the space, instead of exerting dominance, explodes.

He was using Lee Hoyeon’s magic in reverse, as if mocking it.

Lee Hoyeon maintained Sky-Piercing Palace firmly and expanded his domain.

The darkness approached as if to devour Lee Hoyeon’s magic, but by overlapping Sky-Piercing Palace and the rune barrier, he could somehow endure.

The immense power of the darkness gradually pushed Lee Hoyeon into a corner.

At the same time, he felt the flow of darkness behind him.

It was an obvious trick.

“Kuhh…!”

As soon as he read the gap in the space-shattering darkness, instead of retreating further, he broke through head-on.

The Demon King before him maintained a relaxed attitude even as Lee Hoyeon charged straight at him.

Attacking head-on wouldn’t work.

However, maintaining distance was not a good situation either.

‘A chaotic battle using Arcs and multi-casting. I don’t know if I can pull it off… but it’s the best option.’

The magic of the Demon King’s Castle is nearly infinite.

Fighting a war of attrition against someone like that is practically suicide.

But rather than choosing the worst option, he had to choose the lesser evil.

The Demon King can counter all of Lee Hoyeon’s magic, and is indeed doing so.

He had to force an opening in a disadvantageous situation.

The only thing Lee Hoyeon had over the Demon King was one thing.

Multi-calculation.

It wasn’t baseless speculation.

Future Sight.

The Demon King mimicked all of Lee Hoyeon’s magic, but he couldn’t perfectly replicate this one.

Lee Hoyeon’s attack hitting the Demon King was proof of that.

Of course, it didn’t work, but the Spiral reached him.

That was important.

Perhaps among his magic, Future Sight was closest to the ‘divine realm’.

Even if the opponent was the god of this world, ultimately, the body belonged to the Demon King, bound to the world.

He couldn’t invade the divine realm either.

That was the fair rule of the bet set by the God of Betting.

BOOOOM-!

Reverse Gravity.

Lee Hoyeon’s magic moved, and the dirt and sand of the field floated into the air at regular intervals.

In a place surrounded by darkness, seeing the movement of the darkness was not easy.

Until he could fully read the darkness with Eye Opening, he had to use a workaround.

“Playing tricks again.”

The Demon King, finding something so amusing, kept smiling as he moved the darkness.

The darkness that had been exploding moments ago as if to shatter space now quietly took control of the space.

Lee Hoyeon immediately retracted his magic, causing the sand to fall back to the ground.

Rumble-

Along with the quieted darkness, the Demon King’s magic began to vibrate.

Different magic from the darkness he had been using until now.

No, numerous magics erupted.

“This is… Amon? No, Malphas and Mephisto?”

One by one.

Familiar magics swallowed the space.

Ghost ships and countless spirits.

Various chunks of ore.

Just brushing against them caused skin to rot, these blobs of blood.

From the world outside the darkness, the stagnant magic of the 72 demons filled the space.

“…What a fucking bastard.”

• Hu, Human…

• Krrrk. Krrrrrk!

The demons’ magic soon manifested into reality.

It looked like mud monsters made of darkness.

To be precise, it wasn’t the demons themselves, but their magic materialized.

Each one wasn’t as strong as a real demon, but they possessed all the tricky characteristics of demons.

‘…I can definitely win.’

Materialized magic is weaker than real demons.

One strike from Lee Hoyeon’s magic blade could eliminate them.

He couldn’t afford to take a single hit from the 72 demons, but with Future Sight, he could somehow manage.

The problem was that the Demon King would also move in the meantime.

WOOOOOM-!

The pressure from the darkness controlling the space intensified.

Around Lee Hoyeon, points of condensed darkness appeared.

Tang!

At that moment, an impossibly fast point of darkness struck the rune barrier.

The impact was enough to make the sturdy rune barrier tremble violently.

The magic of the 72 demons and hundreds of darkness points were targeting Lee Hoyeon.

“Eighth human. Can you overcome even my full power?”

“…”

Glaring at the Demon King with a sinister smile, he raised his magic.

Tang-!

The darkness that approached in an instant struck the barrier hard once more.

He couldn’t get close, nor could he keep his distance, in this frustrating situation.

Lee Hoyeon suddenly looked beyond the darkness.

“Haa…”

The sphere of darkness covering this space created by the Demon King.

And beyond it, the Hunters.

Countless pairs of eyes looking this way could be seen.

He was truly grateful to those who fought alongside him, but now, he needed to find others.

Fortunately, Lee Hoyeon’s Eye Opening could instantly locate the people he was looking for.

Professor Im Sol, Lucy, and Lumi, still striking the barrier. Beside them, Nam Daeun was casting spatial slashes.

Alice and Irene, biting their lips, were giving instructions to the Iris Guild members.

On the other side, Rebecca was deploying a rune barrier, and Scarlet was nervously looking around.

It was strange that Liliana wasn’t visible, but he couldn’t worry about her right now.

“…I told you so many times not to come, but you ended up coming.”

Baek Ahyoung, shedding tears profusely, and Moon Surin, holding her back while managing the people.

He had clearly told Baek Ahyoung it was dangerous, yet she seemed to have come anyway.

“Haa. Fuck. Fuck…”

Muttering to himself, he forced his heavy arms to lift.

With Blood Beat, he expanded his magic circuits to their limit.

Sky-Piercing Palace and Blood Beat had been used to kill demons even before meeting the Demon King, so his body was already near its limit.

What kept Lee Hoyeon standing were his combat sense and willpower.

And the people visible beyond the darkness.

Tang-!

Trusting his sharply honed combat sense, he sliced through the approaching darkness.

Instinctively creating a magic blade, he gripped it with both hands.

This fucking darkness, what kind of property did it have that Lee Hoyeon’s magic couldn’t push it away?

Instead, every time it touched him, it gnawed away at his magic, possessing a troublesome nature.

However, he had grown accustomed to it compared to the beginning.

Eye Opening was reading the darkness bit by bit, and Future Sight was showing the path to counter the darkness before him.

The future where Lee Hoyeon died was still not visible.

Relying on that small possibility, Lee Hoyeon squeezed out more magic.