〈 Chapter 56 〉 Libero (2)
*
After a tumultuous commotion, the Black Tortoise Gang’s building fell silent.
A man emerged slowly from it.
His face was covered by a mask, and he was drenched in blood as if he had just swam through a pool of it.
He thought,
“Will taking out these guys solve the problem?”
Absolutely not.
These guys are just disposable tools.
The root of their existence needs to be severed completely.
“Then I just need to kill Gineus.”
Of course, his mind screamed that this was a bad idea.
Killing a Demon King meant turning the entire Demon King’s Meeting against him.
Up until now, he’d been allowed to slide due to his usefulness, but killing a Demon King was on a whole different level.
“All the Demon Kings will start opposing me.”
If that happened, survival would be practically impossible.
But… did his existence until now even have meaning?
Was there ever a meaning as intense as this heat boiling in his head?
“I will kill Gineus.”
He didn’t know why he had made this decision.
His head was simply screaming this in a feverish rage.
Just as Libero firmly resolved this, he stepped toward the Company’s direction.
“I finally found you, Masked Figure!”
“What’s your identity?!”
A few armed individuals began to gather around him.
They were Heroes and Hero Candidates who happened to be nearby.
Libero glanced at them.
“None of them seem particularly strong.”
Normally, he would have ignored them.
But in his current state, drenched in blood, there was no way they would let him pass.
“If so…”
There was no choice but to slice through.
Swish
They couldn’t even react to his speed.
It felt as if only Libero was moving while time had stopped.
Moreover, even the Hero, who was at a distance, was cut down by his sword.
“How…?”
“I got it! That guy is a Demon King!”
Having sheathed his sword, Libero stepped forward, leaving the incapacitated Heroes behind.
What he just displayed in swordsmanship was something he could do even before becoming a Demon King. Yet, they were convinced he was a Demon King.
Suddenly, a question popped into his mind.
“Now that I think about it, why… did I become a Demon King?”
He became a Demon King during the Age of Chaos.
The numbers assigned to Demon Kings reflect their order of ascension, not their strength, hence he was the 13th Demon King.
But that wasn’t important.
It had been 500 years since he became a Demon King.
Maybe that was why, at times, he couldn’t remember why he’d become one.
However, he managed to recall at least one reason.
“I became a Demon King for infinite lifespan.”
So, why did he need an infinite lifespan?
“That’s…”
At that moment, a Hero blocked his path.
It was the same Hero he had seen earlier in the tavern.
Moreover, he was strong enough to be acknowledged to a certain extent.
Only then did he manage to remember why he had become a Demon King again.
“Was it because I needed power?”
That must be it.
After becoming a Demon King, he had been facing strong Heroes.
All to reach the End of Swordsmanship and gain power.
“But why won’t this heat settle down?”
He also recalled the purpose of becoming a Demon King.
Yet, his mind was occupied only with the thought of killing Gineus.
He first created a sword.
Whether to take down Gineus or to become stronger.
One thing was certain.
He had to defeat the Hero in front of him.
*
“Is this guy really a Demon King?”
He stared at the man in front of him.
His body was dripping with blood, making him look undeniably menacing.
However, beyond that, he didn’t give off a strong vibe.
“A masked figure. No doubt about it, but…”
His Hero Ranking was 157.
Around him, people considered him good enough to become a High-ranking Hero. But the reason he had never made it was simple.
“Lack of achievements.”
To become a High-ranking Hero, one needed not just skill but to achieve feats that overwhelmingly surpassed those of other ordinary Heroes.
Slaying numerous Chaos Beasts single-handedly, or defeating strong Chaos Beasts in succession.
But among those, the highest praised achievement was undoubtedly catching a Demon King.
Of course, capturing a Demon King was nearly impossible for an ordinary Hero.
Demon Kings fundamentally possess power equivalent to High-level Heroes, and their regenerative abilities are exceptionally swift.
However, that doesn’t mean there were no recorded instances of humanity capturing a Demon King.
From 1st to 70th.
The numbers assigned to Demon Kings reflect their order of birth, not their strength; in fact, the strength tends to diminish with higher numbers attached.
Thanks to this, among the 13 original Demon Kings born during the Age of Chaos, only 3 were thought to have survived.
One of them was the notorious 13th Demon King, known as the Hero Killer.
He was said to roam freely within the barrier, so strong that even High-level Heroes were helpless against him.
The Church had put in significant effort to catch the 13th Demon King, but he was notorious for being elusive.
However, enticing information had recently come in. It was said that the Masked Figure being referred to in Sakh was that same individual.
He was different from all the other useless Demon Kings.
If he could capture an acknowledged Demon King like the 13th, he could instantly become a High-ranking Hero.
This was a chance sent from the sky.
“I absolutely cannot miss this.”
He recalled the days he spent training his fist.
He felt the power flowing from the relic in his fist.
And he believed in himself.
“Let’s see what you’ve got.”
The masked man created a sword out of thin air.
It was a nasty-looking sword of a grim color.
The man swung the sword and approached.
“If I just smash that sword head-on, it’s game over.”
His fist, bolstered by the relic, was harder than steel.
He punched right at the sword head-on.
However, at that moment, an anomaly occurred.
Time began to slow.
No, to be precise, only his time felt slow.
The man in front of him continued to move quickly.
“This is…”
He had heard something like this during his days at Hero Academy.
Before the Age of Chaos, there was a swordsman rumored to bend space and stop time with just his sword.
At that time, he thought such stories were merely distortions due to the passage of time. If the stories were true, he could never have imagined he’d encounter someone from 500 years ago.
“You can’t be…!”
But he could not complete his sentence.
The man’s sword had already severed his neck.
“Against an opponent like this, I’m not strong enough.”
To reach the End of Swordsmanship, he needed someone stronger.
The man’s gaze bypassed the other Heroes gathering around him and turned toward the Company building.
*
“What the hell is that…”
The massacre unfolding beneath the Company building.
The problem was that most of those dying there were Heroes.
While there may not have been any High-ranking Heroes among them, even so, it was pitiful how helpless they were.
“Damn it!”
She had thought Libero would keep things in check, even if he did go wild.
She had assumed he would just wreck a single organization and call it a day. But that wasn’t the case.
“Was he always like this?”
He had always been gloomy and inactive, following the orders of the Demon King’s Meeting without complaint.
Yet now, he was charging toward her with fire in his eyes.
“Why?”
Had something motivated this change in him?
She had no clues.
Only fear engulfed her.
“Is he insane?”
Right now, she was more afraid of him than any other Hero.
Even though he was a Demon King.
Just then, the noise of the street abruptly ceased.
Only occasional screams echoed.
“Could it be…”
Then, sounds began to echo up the stairs.
Sounds of clashes and screams.
He was coming up.
“Stay calm, Gineus.”
The opponent must have taken at least some damage from the previous fight.
And who was she? The 67th Demon King.
If it came down to just their forms, she wouldn’t lose to an old-school Demon King like the 13th.
“But if I unleash my Demon King form, my identity will be exposed…”
She hurriedly opened a box in the corner of the room.
Inside was a weapon she had prepared just in case.
A weapon called the File Bunker, which shot stakes using compressed gas.
“I can only use it once since I need to pre-compress the gas…”
Still, none of her other weapons would match the power of this one.
She readied it and aimed at the stairs.
If she hit properly, she might be able to kill him in one shot.
And at that moment, he finally appeared at the top of the stairs.
His blood-soaked figure resembled that of a malevolent spirit.
She couldn’t help feeling a shudder, but there was no retreat.
“This is a perfect chance to kill him.”
After all, he had come to kill her, so her justification was solid.
Moreover, if it got out that she killed a Demon King, the value of her still-in-development File Bunker would rise significantly.
A smile appeared on her face.
“Die for me, Libero!”
Bang
Steam spewed from the File Bunker.
With a heavy impact, the stake was launched.
It shot straight at Libero.
There was no way to dodge at that speed.
The moment the stake approached Libero, his sword made contact.
However, even with his strength, he couldn’t deflect the stake.
“Guh…”
The stake hit Libero.
However, it didn’t strike dead center in his chest as she had aimed.
At the final moment, Libero succeeded in bending the stake’s trajectory, ultimately just smashing his right arm instead.
“Damn it.”
She had failed to kill him in one blow.
That left no room for hesitation.
To prove that fact, Libero created a sword in his left hand and charged at her.
“Demon King form!”
Her body began to change rapidly.
Wings sprouted from her back, and horns began to grow from her head.
While it wasn’t visible from the outside, her limbs were also undergoing changes internally.
“Faster, quicker…!”
More than anything, she needed to transform into her Demon King form to use her skills fully.
Whether that technique would work against a fellow Demon King like Libero was questionable, but it was worth a shot.
However, Libero didn’t give her that time.
“Gyaaaah!”
Libero’s sword swung and severed her left arm.
From her perspective, her agility in Demon King form had allowed her to avoid a fatal blow.
“Stop! Hold it, Libero!”
Libero didn’t care.
His eyes were void of focus.
He was merely hacking at her by instinct.
“That guy isn’t in a normal state!”
If he were functioning normally, he wouldn’t be thinking of killing a Demon King while slaughtering Heroes.
That would be a suicidal act, turning his back on both humanity and the Demon Kings alike.
“If he has a psychological weakness…”
The clash of Libero’s sword and her body regenerating each time continued.
That regeneration was now reaching its limits.
Yet, at the same time, her transformation into a Demon King was complete.
“So then…”
“Hey, Libero. How about we have a talk?”
The Demon King Gineus, reflected in Libero’s pupils, smiled.
*
