episode_0024

-Kuung.

Lucifer’s body tilted backwards sharply.

“Coolook, ugh.”

His entire body was embedded with divine spears, his gorgeous angel wings and halo were shattered and scattered on the floor, and his body was floating in the air, dripping blood and gradually losing its color.

It was seven days and nights after the heavens and earth were shaken by the aftermath of the battle.

“You are a false god. Goddess of Libra.”

Lucifer moved his dry lips and spat out venomous words.

My head felt like it was going to burst. My mind was so hazy, my stomach was rumbling, and I wanted to lose consciousness at any moment.

No matter how you package it, the conclusion is always the same.

Lucifer was defeated by the Goddess of Libra.

Of course, it wasn’t a terrible defeat. The appearance of the Goddess of Libra was no different from Lucifer’s. She really did survive by a hair’s breadth. But at least she was able to stand.

“The loser… has a lot to say! Ugh…”

The goddess continued speaking, barely able to stop the bleeding from flowing out.

Somehow, Leah could read in his eyes that it was not planned for it to turn out like this.

“But in the end, I’m the winner. You idiot. If you had listened to me, you could have saved my life.”

-Saaaa …

A halo of light gathered in the air, fluttering in the wind and forming a gigantic hammer of judgment in the hand of the goddess.

Ah, so this is the end. Lucifer fell to the floor and shut his eyes tightly.

And then the change happened.

-puck!

Red and yellow swirled across Lucifer’s vision.

Crimson blood spurted into my eyes, obscuring my vision.

And then two blue eyes met.

“Lucy…Pur…”

“Noah…? Noah…?! Why are you here!!”

Hehe, Noah laughed like an idiot. No, maybe the air in his mouth escaped through his teeth in pain.

Lucifer crawled across the floor and approached Noah. Why on earth, just tell me it was a dream… a nightmare created by the brain right before death.

“Lucifer… saved me in the past, so now… it’s my turn, right…? Hehe…”

Noah’s hand slowly wiped Lucifer’s cheek with his delicate hands as he sobbed, spitting out words that couldn’t even be expressed, such as “Ah, ahh.”

“There were things I couldn’t say… …If I say it now… Is it too… late… …I love you… Lucy…ㅍ…”

Toouk.

Unfortunately, the time given to Noah was really fleeting. How could a girl with only a little spirit blood be able to withstand the full force of a god?

The girl’s hand fell to the floor.

Blood flowed out of Noah’s body.

Blood, blood, blood.

There was not a single place where blood did not flow.

Blood soaked Lucifer’s body. Ironically, the blood was warm.

A puddle of blood formed on the floor.

Lucifer, Lucifer’s world.

It started to turn gray again.

The color of ash-gray regret, cracking as it goes on.

The fact that there was a goddess in front of me no longer had any meaning or feeling.

“Eeee!!!!!”

Lucifer screamed. He screamed that the heavens would break, that the earth would split apart.

Why, Noah.

I… did that to save you.

Noah’s eyes, which had always shined like jewels, were as black and dead as Lucifer’s.

For some reason, my body felt lighter as if the wounds had healed, but a wound so deep that it could not be measured was engraved in my heart, and the pain only grew bigger.

“Ha.”

The goddess’s taunt pierced my lungs.

“I got a good idea.”

The goddess who spoke like that had the eyes of someone who put her thoughts into action rather than someone who had thought of something.

“No, no…!”

At the touch of the Goddess’ hand, Noah’s soul escaped from his body. Lucifer tried to hold on and block it, but it just slipped through his hands like sand.

“The role of the Demon King who will sort out the old Pangea… There was no one suitable for the job. But this is who he ends up being?”

You are a good idea, the goddess pointed her finger at me.

Hostility grew in Lucifer’s eyes.

“Do you think I’ll let you do as you wish? …Don’t make me laugh. The moment I become the Demon King… The Imperials, the Holy Nation! The Easterners. I’ll kill them all before you can do anything!”

It was a voice possessed by evil, but there was resignation in it.

“Well, is that so?”

The goddess called Gabriel because her physical condition was too serious to use her divinity.

“Gabriel, I bet this soul on what I said last time.”

“Yes, Goddess.”

On Noah’s soul, golden chains were added one by one, two by two. They gradually increased. No matter how you looked at the chains that wrapped around the soul, they could not have a good meaning.

“What are you trying to do to Noah’s soul…”

“Oh, right, you should listen too. I’m talking about what happened to the person you were trying so hard to protect.”

To the voice that pierces my ears and gets stuck in my mind,

“First, I erased your memories. So that you don’t remember me. This is part of the reincarnation process, but I have work to do in the future, so it’ll be annoying if you keep on clinging to me. And, the plan I mentioned last time… Lucifer for the Demon King position! And I’m going to cast Noah for the Warrior position. ”

The plan of the Libra Goddess was systematically revealed to the point where it felt like she was reciting a script that had been prepared in advance.

No, it was only later that I realized that Abel must have actually planned it from the moment he first saw me.

“Ah, what I did to the soul. I didn’t do much. First, I cursed the heart so that it would stop immediately unless I touched it myself, and I also granted it the strength of a warrior. After all, it seems that ‘inherently good people’ who use the strength of a warrior are more likely to be amplified. ”

Lucifer first thought of digging out his own ear.

“Um, um. And… Ah! He absolutely cannot hold any hostility toward his colleagues, and somehow he corrects his memories to love them. Is that it? Gabriel will be right next to him and manipulate his colleagues to hate Noah a little. He will pay the price for daring to go against my plan in the ‘next life’. ”

“Kill me, I’ll throw you away… Goddess. I’ll kill you!”

-Shh.

The goddess began to giggle and laugh openly.

“How? On the topic of losers.”

-Snap!

With one gesture from the Goddess, Noah’s soul cracked. Lucifer was shocked when he saw the sight.

“I’m holding the life of the woman you loved by a leash right now. So, if you want the woman you loved so much that you killed her to live well in the last ten years of her life, then follow me.”

It was checkmate. Lucifer had neither the means nor the will to fight back any longer.

“So― Tell me from your own experience. What does it feel like to die to someone you love who doesn’t even remember you? I’m personally really curious.”

The Libra Goddess, who was laughing so viciously, smiled with pure malice more than anything else.

“Ah, but if by any chance, she succeeds in gaining the power of a warrior and becomes a woman, I will personally change her name through Gabriel, even if it’s not to Noah, I will change it to something like ‘Leah’. Hmm, that was a long story, wasn’t it?”

It’s all over now.

-Knock knock, knock knock!

The wings that symbolized the divinity of angels were transformed into the bat-like wings of demons, with their veins and flesh twisted and discolored.

The halo was shattered and horns grew in its place.

A single black drop of water fell into the pure white sea,

The fallen water droplets spread out in an instant, and the sacred sea became a slimy, pitch-black sea of magic.

Falling endlessly to the floor, where black and red maggot-like flesh squirmed, Lucifer heard one last voice before passing out.

‘From now on, your name is not Lucifer, but Abel. How wonderful that the arrogant angel who dared to rebel against God has become a true believer devoted to God! ”

Lucifer.

no,

Abel is…

I was unconscious for a really long time.

No, maybe it wasn’t that long. It didn’t really matter.

Instead, Abel was able to know a lot as soon as he opened his eyes.

And the more I realized these facts, the more horrifying they became, and I wanted to stop breathing right now.

The first and most terrifying thing was that his body was clean, without a single scratch.

Perhaps, this is just a guess… but water spirits mainly have the ability to ‘heal’. And, since Noah was a water spirit hybrid… he may have been born with the ability related to healing engraved in his soul.

And at the last moment, even though it was a power strong enough to revive him if used on his dying self, Noah used it to save me and died.

What’s more terrifying?

In the first place, I don’t know which is more horrible: the fact that I’ve been manipulated by the plan from the beginning until now, or the fact that even though I keep stabbing and pulling out the sword to my neck like crazy because I want to die, I can’t even die unless I’m killed by the hero since I’ve become the Demon King.

Abel, Abel…

He quietly recited his new name. The feeling of the knife stuck in his neck was particularly cool.

“The leash is in my hand, so are you telling me not to think of anything unnecessary?”

Abel seemed to be sinking into a terrible despair.

So that I can’t even breathe.

Suddenly, I understood.

Only after becoming the last Demon King can you defeat the first Demon King.

This is what it means to be in so much pain that you want to die, but can’t…

I’m sorry, Master. I guess I couldn’t keep my promise after all.

I’m sorry, Noah… If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have had to die so meaninglessly. To begin with, the talk of overthrowing Pangea was just a joke from the goddess, so if it weren’t for me, you might have enjoyed a long life.

In the first place, if I hadn’t met you in that flower garden.

I was involved in every misfortune that happened to you.

ah.

Now I’m going crazy and I even have visions of Noah hugging me and crying.

Abel understood the first demon king once again.

That’s why the demon lords lived in alcoholism.

Noah died today.

no.

I killed Noah.

A mixture of emotions, so mixed that it was impossible to tell what was what, flowed down Abel’s dark, dead cheek.

*****

That’s why it was like this.

Abel was sincere to me from the beginning, but I used that feeling to comfort myself.

I hugged Abel, who was lying down, and cried as if I had given up everything, even though I knew that I would never be able to control him. For some reason, I felt like I was Noah, and my emotions were boiling over, even if vaguely. Maybe it was because I was the reincarnation of Noah.

“I’m sorry, Abel… I’m sorry… Don’t cry. It’s not your fault… You didn’t do anything wrong-”

“Leah?”

-Tuk, tuk.

I felt goosebumps as something like fingers tapped my back, and when I turned around, there was Abel, who looked completely different from the worn-out man in front of me, who looked like he was going to die at any moment.

While Abel and I were looking back and forth between me and Abel in front of me, I had enough time to come out of my immersion, so I couldn’t help but blush.

This was Abel’s subconscious, which meant that there was a good chance that Abel would come looking for me.

“Ah, ah, Abel?”

“My name is Abel, not Aaaaabel.”

Abel easily pushed away memories of the past as if pulling back a curtain.

“I didn’t mean to offend you by looking at the past. I just…”

“I heard the whole story. And it doesn’t really matter. Well, if there’s a problem, it’s that I’m a little embarrassed. It’s already been hundreds of years, and I don’t live my life saying, “I killed Noah~” and harming myself.”

“…ummm.”

There was a lot I wanted to say. But, before I could ask, Abel answered ahead of time.

“Whether you think of yourself as Noah or not. Or the difference in emotional depth. It doesn’t matter. I am me, and you are you. Do you need something more?”

“But, even if you didn’t know, I knew too much. Your past, the goddess, and- and―”

Actually, I knew what I wanted to say. I secretly hated that the relationship would become awkward because I found out, but I also thought it was unconscionable to say something, so I worried about how to say it.

“There was a time when I thought of you and Noah as separate entities. So when I saw you being pushed to the edge and ruined, I gave up and thought that it would be better to kill you as the last courtesy to Noah.”

You too…

“But, I stopped doing that kind of stupid shit after about 3 minutes. No matter what, nothing changed.”

“No matter what state you are in. Whether you remember me or not, how many years you have left to live, how your name has changed, how your personality has changed, you are you.”

Sigh, Abel laughed.

“And I’ve liked you since I was a 5 year old kid. I don’t think anything has really changed.”

Nothing will change, why was that statement so reassuring?

“Why are you so scared? Are you afraid that I’ll say something like, ‘How dare you peek into my past without my permission! You’re going to be exiled!’? ”

“That’s true. Now that I think about it, there was no reason to be scared that something would change so suddenly.”

I wanted to go back. Home.

“Abel, can I ask you a few questions?”

“Of course.”

“Do you still have the sunflower crown?”

“…You remembered that again. Of course you did.”

“Then let’s go to the flower garden again after a long time. Of course… if I can get out of here? Come to think of it, I don’t know how to get out.”

Did I say that I would never know what kind of flowers bloomed in Abel’s memory garden? When I tried to remember again, it didn’t seem to be the case.

Because the memory of the flower field I saw among the fragments of my vague memories was not of yellow daffodils, but of a field of sunflowers.

“I came to pick you up anyway. Come on, hold my hand.”

I took Abel’s hand without hesitation.

I don’t know if my memories from when I was Noah will come back or not. However, I returned to reality, expecting that they will come back naturally as time passes.

*****

-Pfft!

When I opened my eyes, I was in the exact same place where I had asked Mino to take me into Abel’s subconscious.

“I’m back!”

Leah raised both her hands in joy, as if she was secretly happy about that fact.

“Ah, Le, Leah… Oh, oh, you’re here…? You’re a little… early…!”

“I feel like you two have become closer.”

“Hey Mino, stop talking nonsense and just drive a stake in.”

We were greeted by Hira, holding a hammer and a stake in his hands, Mino, who was hanging on the wall and was currently being driven into the stake (except for his heart), and Galvein, who was pinning Mino to the wall.

“…What are you guys doing?”

Has the internal purge finally taken place?

“Ah, this is it. It seemed like the Demon King would do it, so we’re just putting it in advance.”

“That’s right!”

Hira, with her snow-white skin and blood-covered face, responded brightly.

“…Are you guys not on good terms?”

“Ah, that… That’s not it.”

The two seemed to be looking at Abel’s expression, and then Abel nodded and continued speaking.

“Since the Demon King won’t tell us how to leave the conscious world anyway, we’re going to hang him up so it’ll be less painful if we hang him up.”

“Ah… right, me?”

I nodded roughly, then looked up at Mino, feeling something was off.

Something feels familiar? I feel like I saw it a few days ago…

What Mino is going through right now is exactly the same as when I first met him – when I was found outside the room, impaled on a stake, trying to drink my blood.

“Abel, was that you who did that last time?”

“That last time? Oh, the stake. Right.”

…

What is he doing to his subordinates! What if a coup happens like this! By the way, what Mino said back then wasn’t a lie?!

Leah immediately slapped Abel on the back because she was so shocked.

“Ah, ah, oh, Leah. Bone, bone hit- But wait! This time, you weren’t planning on telling Leah?! I figured I’d have to tell Leah someday anyway, and even though that wasn’t my intention, it worked out well in the end…”

“…Huh?”

Movement within the space completely stopped, as if someone had stopped time.

-Tangle! Roll, roll…

The stake that fell from Hira’s hand rolled along the ground. It was the stake used when setting up camp.

“…Leah?”

“Huh?”

“Let’s go out first.”

As soon as Abel, sensing that things were going to get noisy, took Leah’s hand and left the room, a tremendous noise was heard coming from inside, piercing through the walls.

This is why you have to be careful with your mouth.

*****

“So Mino, is the place where the stake was driven in okay?”

Leah asked while peeling an apple in Abel’s arms. Mino was also one of the Four Heavenly Kings, and since the last commotion, he had been out of town for a few days and had not seen her face, so this was the first time they had met since that day.

“Everything is fine, my noble one. It was also a big influence that it wasn’t even a silver stake to begin with.”

Crunch, crunch. On Leah’s head, as she chewed the apple, was a sunflower wreath that looked quite old and worn, but was well preserved by magic.

“Thank goodness, I thought you fought because of me.”

“That’s not it. It’s just… a lot of accumulated dissatisfaction from doing this and that.”

“They just act like that all the time. All three of them are in a state where they can’t die easily. It’s a bit misleading to say that they actually got so emotional that they fought.”

Abel added as he ate the apples Leah had peeled for him.

“It’s not even the season, but it’s delicious… Anyway, then there’s nothing for both of you to do?”

“That’s right. Until the goddess calls me and tells me to invade somewhere…”

“…”

It was only a matter of time before the atmosphere suddenly became tense. At least, was it because the word goddess was almost a taboo here?

The one good thing is that it didn’t last too long.

-Bang!

With a sound of the door almost breaking open, someone with purple hair and a red face came stumbling into the audience room.

“Krrr… Demon King!! This is betrayal, this is betrayal!”

“King? Did you finally get rabies? Explain to me what kind of rudeness and nonsense this is. Don’t barge in while I’m having a good time and call me a betrayer.”

No, looking back, fortunately that wasn’t the case at all.

The woman called the King of Dogs was so angry that she looked like she was going to bite Abel’s neck off at any moment, and Abel also seemed to be upset with the King of Dogs.

“King of Dogs? Now that I think about it, wasn’t the King of Dogs on the side of the Demons? I clearly learned that he went under the Demons with the wolves and was incorporated into the Kianwol Tribe…”

“That’s right, but… Even as a person, I can’t understand what that means.”

Mino also didn’t seem to know the answer, and a look of confusion was clearly visible on his face. However, we didn’t have to worry about it. The King of Dogs soon provided the answer.

“Demon King, don’t act like a fool! Woof! The position of the Four Heavenly Kings that should have gone to me went to a strange woman, and not only that, but you killed most of my fellow Kyeon people, so where are you reporting such outrageous lies, Woof!”

…The Demon King? So… Abel?