Demon King

[If it is Satan’s most trusted subordinate, no doubt that is who you are talking about. Shall I speak his name now?]

I shook my head, no.

“If his name were to suddenly return, it would be embarrassing. Especially for them…no, not yet.” I felt a new sense of appreciation as I looked at the watch for a while. Looking up from it, I reached out to Batsago.

“Go underground with the Black Palace. You will be needed there.”

[I shall be waiting, my king.]

I activated the chain of Domination, extending dozens of mana chains from my heart to Batsago. The relationship that existed between us from before was reestablished. I could feel the strength returning to him as the Black Palace began to turn back into mana.

[Satan.]

Before stepping through the gate I made, Batsago turned to me.

[You must recover all seven parts of the Black Palace before the decisive battle against Heaven.]

“I know.” I had to go back to the Black palace in the mountains near Seongbuk-gu, but it still felt too soon for that. In the end, my sister and I remained outside the dungeon as the Black Palace disappeared without a trace. There were humans wielding swords and magic around us, but we weren’t concerned with them.

“Who are they?!”

“They popped out of that dungeon no one could touch. They’re monsters!”

“Kill them!”

The humans on the battlefield found it enough to call us monsters with just a single line of poor logic. Until recently, I would’ve killed them without hesitation, but now I didn’t want to see more deaths. I didn’t want to kill humans anymore. It wasn’t very pleasant to wield my power against them.

“Yeah!”

“Why…!” Even standing still, the humans couldn’t attack us. Those who hadn’t reached the higher system couldn’t surpass the power of Causal Control.

“We can’t win!” The humans quickly realized the difference between us and retreated despite being drunk on blood and death. The other humans quickly cut them down as they were distracted.

“Let’s go.”

“Huh…brother.” My sister’s mood didn’t look so good. No doubt because she felt I had an important secret I was keeping from her. ‘Can I tell her?’ The fact was that I wasn’t her real brother or even human. I even hurt countless humans in causing the Great Fusion and only thought of myself. At the very least, I couldn’t tell her now. I felt bitter as I stopped opening the gate. The muffler around my neck, the Echo, vibrated violently as if it were complaining about me.

‘Why?’ The moment I turned my head to think, I understood why. It was reacting to the humans dying on the battlefield. The remaining souls couldn’t return to where they were supposed to, but they had to head somewhere. At a ridiculous pace and in absurd amounts.

“Ah.” My jaw dropped as I saw it. The Elakatra were still hiding? They weren’t involved in the human war? That was a foolish idea. Maybe this had been their ultimate goal. They wanted to create a war that would engulf all of humanity from the start. Lucifer was now gathering human souls. Not just thousands of them, but millions. Perhaps he already had over a billion at this stage. He was attracting more souls to restore his strength. So he could defeat me and pursue Heaven.

“…How annoying.” I muttered quietly. It frustrated me to see the similarity between our actions. My sister, who could’ve seen the great movement of souls, was looking at me as if something was wrong, but I wasn’t worried about her gaze. I injected my power into the Echo and threw it into the air. Thousands of strands split out in an instant, swimming rapidly through the air.

“It’s awesome.” She was able to see the Echo, at least, exclaiming out loud at the sight of it. The long black threads emitted light as they swam through the air. But to my eyes, I saw something a little different. The souls of humans were swallowed by a huge torrent, the threads greedily consuming all nearby souls. It was too cruel to say it was beautiful.

“Brother, what are you doing?”

“I’m preventing the enemy from increasing their power?”

“Increasing their power…?”

“Yeah.” I smiled bitterly.

“We still have a lot of work to do.” After devouring the souls, I opened a gate to the underground instead of the next dungeon. Batsago made my heart rush with the time frame of three weeks, but dealing with just the dungeons would make my adversary stronger.

“You’re back, Fate.”

“Gather all of the troops.” Rain’s eyes shone intensely for a moment, but I shook my head.

“It’s not the decisive battle yet. I have something to do on Earth.”

“What to do…” Rain chewed on my words before nodding and stepping away. Soon, all the beings in my realm were gathered in front of the castle. Not only the countless monsters but also the new demons and the members of Rebellion. L, A, G, O, and R were watching Batsago carefully. He appeared to be showing off since he knew more than they did.

“Batsago, I have something to check first.”

“As you say, Satan.” He had been a massive older man in the dungeon, but now he was roughly my size and looked like a young man wearing gold bracelets. Perhaps it was because he had regained his strength through our connection.

“Is your prophecy correct? The three-week deadline.”

“Of course. It takes a lot of effort and time for a huge will like that to move, it isn’t as simple as moving a body like it is for us. It will take three weeks at least for their movements to come to fruition and appear on Earth. You can trust this.”

“If so, it will be no problem to move as I want.”

“Wait a minute, Fate!” G shouted in surprise.

“How did he get his name back? Have you regained your strength?”

“We will discuss it now.” Among my members were those who were human in the past. Once they knew I regained my identity as king among the demons, however, they would know I wasn’t a normal human being. I felt a need to cover it up to some extent.

“Your strength seems to have been used to build the Rookie’s Battlefield. You can get your name back right now, but that doesn’t mean your strength will return. The power itself is bound to the battlefield. Unless we destroy it and fuse it with the underground, it can’t be recovered.”

“The Rookie’s Battlefield…? No…fusion? Indeed…”

“Oh my…it was like that.” Even though I didn’t explain it well, Rain and G understood everything and gave me a warm smile. The other demons were similar. A just ground his teeth, and L let out a sigh.

“So that was it. Fate, you are cool. All misunderstandings have been cleared.”

“I thought your existence was hidden from them, but that was my arrogance. You have already been revealed to the heavens and been recognized as their enemy. As you know from my conversation with Batsago, the heavens have already begun to take action against us. We will have to fight them in three weeks.”

“If Fate was perfect, he would’ve predicted victory. So what do we do? Should I run away?”

“G, shut up.” L growled fiercely, and G laughed brilliantly. Her words didn’t match with her intentions, however.

Only

“Let’s set aside that for now. What is important now is one thing. I haven’t been letting you go to Earth to hide you.”

“…That means…” L’s eyes flashed as she understood my meaning immediately.

“There is no more reason to stop you from going out now.”

“I see…” A special relationship bound A, L, and Rain to me so they could preserve their strength. Because of that, however, they couldn’t exert their power outside of my realm. But, ultimately, that was to hide them underground. Now that I knew that I hadn’t been able to keep them secret, no one could stop them from going to Earth.

“I’ve been focused on reclaiming the dungeons on Earth. I also have to recover the Black Palace, but right now we have a greater purpose.”

“To fuse the Rookie’s Battlefield with the underground!” G exclaimed confidently, and I nodded.

“Yes. I want to restore your names and your strength at the same time. I want to rise up and finally defeat Heaven. So for that to happen…” I glanced at the members of Rebellion. I could feel the gratitude of Lee Chan-yu, who always believed in me even.

“From now on, we will stop humanity’s war.”