by Road Warrior
It was Elijah’s voice. He was crawling along the ground with bloodshot eyes searching the battlefield.
Sungchul looked at the book bound with human skin in his hand.
***
THWOP.
Sungchul dropped the book where it could easily be seen.
Bertelgia saw the book left on the ground and asked in surprise, “Huh? What are you planning?”
“I think it’ll be good to see how this plays out.” Sungchul left the book on the ground and hid once again in the fog hanging over the battlefield. Elijah soon arrived.
Elijah had been stumbling around the ground of the battlefield like a blind man when he suddenly broke out into a cheer. “It’s here! It’s here!”
Only after he had hidden the Tome of High the Devil beneath his cloak and fastened it to a clasp on his belt did Elijah sigh in relief.
“I had thought that it was all over. Really. It would all have been for nothing without this.”
Sophia just silently guarded her brother as she followed. The siblings immediately headed back after recovering the book. The Crusaders of Salvation were situated on a hill not too far from the battle site; their lifeless eyes looked towards the Breggas siblings. Lacking the strength to even raise their arms, they simply stared at the siblings without saying a word. It was fine as long as the intruders were human; this was the thought shared between every member.
Sungchul roughly counted the remaining members of the Crusaders of Salvation as he gazed at them. None of the non-combatants remained and not even half of the original hundred members had survived. Most importantly, they had abandoned all of their supplies when they had faced the Deep Sea Demon. Their current state was dire and anyone could easily see that further progress was impossible. Despite all of this, Elijah ordered them to continue once again.
When people began to complain, Elijah yelled for those wanting to leave to leave. This led to deserters and the Crusaders of Salvation were degraded to a pitiful party that didn’t even have ten members. However, Elijah’s will wasn’t broken. He stroked the Tome of the High Devil hidden beneath his cloak and walked deeper into the Demon Realm with the few that still followed him.
And, of course, there were many difficult-to-overcome obstacles scattered before them. To begin with, they needed to first pass through the Deep Sea Demon that guarded the entrance to the Demon Realm.
The small group gathered their heads and formulated a plan to sneak past the gatekeeper before he woke. It was a plan that had not even a semblance of a chance of success. The area surrounding the Deep Sea Demon was teeming with imps. The imps themselves were no stronger than a rabid dog, but they would charge towards anything that wasn’t a Demon and die with an earsplitting scream. In other words, they were like literal living alarms. And trying to stealthily pass through terrain that was overflowing with those things was close to impossible for the Crusaders of Salvation.
Sungchul went ahead of the Crusaders to where the Deep Sea Demon could be found. In order to call out the Sea Demon, he killed several of the imps that charged towards him.
“Gwuuuuuh!!!” With a loud bellow, the Deep Sea Demon shot up towards the surface and found itself recoiling in fear at the sight of his guest. It was the bastard that had savagely pummeled it every week. However, Sungchul didn’t use magic this time. He pulled out Fal Garaz and struck the creature with just enough force to keep it alive. A one-sided and terrifying beating began. Only after its skull was cracked and both of its arms were broken, did the Sea Demon fall back below the surface.
Bertelgia carefully asked after witnessing Sungchul’s intense beating, “You sure it’s not dead?”
“Deep Sea Demons are dim-witted, but they have extremely strong vitality. Their regeneration is second to none.” Sungchul turned to look towards the south. He could see the Crusaders of Salvation bumbling about in the distance trying to walk silently like assassins. Sungchul left the area.
“Kiiiii!!”
One of the imps discovered the Crusaders and rushed towards them.
“Shit!” Elijah quickly drew his blade and cut off the creature’s head. His swordplay was precise and accurate, as expected of Martin Breggas’s son, but it wasn’t quick enough to stop the imp’s death throes.
“Kii…? Techaaaaaaaaa!”
Surprise filled Elijah’s eyes. “I cut through his neck directly. Where is this cry coming from?!”
The stealth mission was thwarted before it even began.
“Brother. Let’s retreat,” Sophia said with a low tone of voice, but a small miracle appeared before them. Despite the imp’s terrible scream, the Deep Sea Demon did not reveal himself. Elijah was skeptical, but he pushed forward cautiously once again. Another group of imps discovered them, attacked, and got annihilated. This time not just one, but several of them released their death throes as they fell to the ground and died. However, no Deep Sea Demon appeared. In the face of such unexpected good luck, Elijah decided to act boldly.
“Let’s break through quickly.”
His decision was ultimately the correct one. They were able to safely pass through the territory guarded by the Deep Sea Demon. The land of fire and ice where lava flowed beyond frozen glaciers entered their sights.
“It’s the Demon Realm. We finally made it into the Demon Realm.”
Elijah was overcome with emotions as he took in the view of the land of the Demon Realm. The roars of demons could be heard from all directions, but he wasn’t discouraged. He stroked the book hidden beneath his cloak and pressed forward once again.
An army of Devils could be seen approaching in the distance; their marching emitted a cloud of dust behind them. Elijah and his unit hid themselves behind rocks which were as sharp as knife blades. Thankfully, the Devils did not discover them.
They continued their march in this fashion. Their progress was slow, and the sun that shone in the hazy skies of the Demon Realm had begun to set. Night was approaching. Once the night fell, all sorts of demons that were hiding underground or in clouds came out and roamed above the surface of the Demon Realm. They sniffed in search of prey or weaker demons.
The time for the Devils of the Demon Realm, governed only by the rule “survival of the fittest,” had begun in earnest. The weak only existed to feed the strong or die to amuse them. Elijah and his group were quite strong among the humans, but they were nothing compared to the swarms of Devils. Human flesh and souls were popular among the Devils. There would be nothing left of them; their body and soul would be plundered by the Devils upon discovery. However, fortune smiled upon them that day.
“…”
The divine armament forged from a fragment of the sky, Fal Garaz. A man watched over them with such a fearsome weapon. A gigantic demon wearing a vicious smile emerged from the clouds as it discovered the Crusaders of Salvation below and was diving down when it noticed Sungchul. The Devil didn’t recognize Sungchul’s face, but it recognized the weapon in his hand. It immediately turned its gaze elsewhere and flew toward the sky once again.
Similar scenes continued to occur within the pitch-black darkness of the night, and the Crusaders of Salvation were able to survive through their first night in the Demon Realm. But the problem occurred after the sun had risen.
It was when Sungchul had chased away the last devil with his stare before taking a sigh of relief when he heard a short cry of pain ring out from the direction of the camp of the Crusaders.
“Uwaaak!”
It was Elijah.
Was there a hidden Devil? It can’t be. No Devil should have been able to sneak past by me. Sungchul immediately headed toward the camp. The guilty party wasn’t a Devil, but a fellow human. Seven of the Crusaders were fleeing toward the south. Sungchul looked and confirmed that one of them was holding the Tome of the High Devils.
“Kuuh…”
Elijah’s laborious breathing could be heard coming from the back, as if he was on the brink of death. Sungchul immediately headed toward the noise. Elijah had a l
arge sword wound to his abdomen and was lying on the floor.
“Brother! Stay awake! Brother!”
Sophia performed emergency aid beside him, but she herself wasn’t faring that well. There were several cuts of various sizes along her body, and her white outfit was damp with blood.
Sungchul checked his surroundings. There was no one left but the siblings. They were thoroughly betrayed and abandoned. Sungchul revealed himself and Elijah’s eyes turned towards him.
“You are…?”
When Sophia heard her brother’s words, she turned her head and harshly glared at Sungchul. Sungchul took a look at Elijah’s injuries. The affected area was starting to turn black. The poison in his body was weakening him faster than the cut of his wound.
“Move.”
Sungchul commanded. His voice contained an irrefutable authoritative quality to it, and Sophia moved out of the way as if she was possessed.
Sungchul grabbed a sharp dagger from his Soul Storage and cut open the affected area.
“Krrrk!”
Blood as black as ink poured out of the wound. It was blood tainted by the poison. When Sungchul drained enough of the blood, he applied the antidote to the injury before applying some healing salve on the affected area. It was a very beneficial medicine for the body but was extremely bitter, making Elijah scream out in horrible pain. But proving his worth as the heir of an important family, he was able to endure it all. Elijah was soon able to overcome the critical juncture.
When the situation had resolved itself to a degree, Sophia opened her mouth first. “Why are you here?”
“…”
Sungchul didn’t answer her. His gaze was fixed on Elijah as he asked, “What do you seek in the Demon Realm?”
“How did you…?” Elijah asked, but Sungchul spoke again with a bit more force.
“I ask again, what are you looking for here?”
His question contained that undefiable authority once again. It was at this moment that a sharp blade was held at Sungchul’s neck. It was Sophia’s blade.
“Put it away.”
Sungchul simply spoke, and Sophia found her body freezing in fear. However, she was also the offspring of the Sixth Champion. Despite the overwhelming fear, she held on. In the midst of this tension, an earsplitting cry of a monster rang out from the sky.
“KREWAAAAAAA!!”
A gigantic bird roaming the skies had discovered a prey on the ground. Sophia saw the massive wingspan that covered the sky in darkness and was frozen in shock.
Could that be an Omen of Calamity?
An Omen of Calamity was one of the most infamous creatures residing in the Demon Realm. They were known to be the most terrifying life-form and didn’t quite belong to the realm of humanity or the Devils, and they followed above the army of Devils so that they could devour the human and Devil corpses alike at the end of every battle. They were a scavenger of sorts, but they were carved into the minds of every human as a terrifying symbol of the Calamity due to their incredible size and strength. That Omen of Calamity was flapping its wings as it rapidly dove toward Sungchul’s group. Sophia’s face paled in fear.
I can’t stop it! She had already lost a majority of her strength fending off the deserters. Her injuries of varying sizes were a drain on her recovery. She might be able to move out of the way to save her own neck, but she wouldn’t be able to save Elijah.
The mysterious man known as Number 34 pulled out a whip that seemed as black and red as a burning coal from his Soul Storage. It was a long whip that seemed to extend ten meters from a quick glance. He swung it toward the rapidly descending Omen without a moment of hesitation.
Idiot. How can you stop that thing with just a whip? All of her rationality argued that his actions were meaningless, but Sungchul’s strength defied all logic. Cassandra, the Demonic Weapon, accurately wrapped around the Omen’s neck whose talons were bared toward the ground.
“Kweh?”
The moment when the Omen tilted its head, the whip pulled it with overwhelming force, slamming it into the ground.
WHAM!
The Omen’s head struck the solid piece of bedrock and shattered the ground while its wings were crippled to the point where pieces of broken bone were piercing through its flesh.
Sungchul’s hand that was gripping the whip moved again. The Omen was flung towards the opposite side and it struck the ground once again.
BOOM!
“Krweh…” The Omen convulsed in pain, but Sungchul was a man that knew no mercy.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
With each of Sungchul’s movements, the Omen was continuously smashed onto the ground like a dog, killing it by causing its entire body to be broken.
“Hiiii…” Sophia’s face grew paler. She had lost all ability to form words in the face of this unbelievable sight.
This human… who is he? Countless ideas ran through her mind, but there was only one name that felt possible. Horror filled Sophia’s eyes. Could this man be…?
The blade held in her delicate hand clattered to the floor. Finally, she managed to speak with a trembling voice. “You… are the Enemy of the World?”
Sungchul looked directly into her eyes as he nodded. “Yes, I am.”
***
The Demons were the first race that awakened their magical potential. The Demons had an affinity towards magic that allowed them to understand it better, and they possessed greater talent toward it. Obsession over magic had eventually led to their fall, but magical knowledge and powerful spells had been the target of admiration and worship among the Demons. They had all but disappeared now, but there was a time when there were many Devil worshippers. The goal of the Devil worshippers was to escape the lowly and servile destiny as a human and turn into a Devil themselves. The Tome of the High Devils recorded the secrets of such Devil worshippers.
“…It contains a Devil’s quest.”
They could hide it no longer, and there was no point in doing so. Elijah revealed everything he knew to the Enemy of the World.
“The book acts as a guide to the city of the Devil worshippers hidden within the entrance of the Demon Realm, and if the book is opened on the Altar of Ten Thousand Demons that is said to exist in the city, then he who was once human could receive the quest of the High Devil.”
“It is not a wholesome quest. Must you really do such a thing?” Sungchul asked in a calm voice.
“I want my revenge even if I have to use the power of the Devils. That man drove Mother to her death and tried to have us killed as well.” A cold fire of vengeance burned in Elijah’s eyes. Sungchul could feel truth within it.
“…Follow me.” Sungchul led the way. He followed the footsteps of those that fled towards the south. The siblings, who were confused by the unexpected actions of the Enemy of the World, simply followed suit. They soon found a single human corpse torn to shreds. It was one of the Crusaders of Salvation. Those who had left Sungchul’s protection were immediately subjected to the ambush of Devils and had met pitiful ends as prey.
“Lucas…” Sophia recognized the corpse and trembled lightly.
Sungchul looked at the mass of bloody hair and flesh on the ground and asked, “Do you know him?”
“…He was a childhood friend. Even though he did betray us in the end,” answered Sophia.
Sungchul continued forward. They soon found another corpse. Not just one, but two of them. The corpses had been caught by an insidious-looking devil with a hundred teeth, and had become its plaything. Sungchul looked callously toward the demon who had cut up the corpses and was now trying to piece them together in different combinations.
The siblings grimaced at the sight.
“Gil, Jinte…”
These members were also long-time friends of theirs. They had also betrayed the siblings, but their pitiful deaths still left a great shock in the hearts of the Breggas siblings. When the hundred-toothed devil saw new humans, it tossed aside the corpses it was playing with and revealed its hideous
teeth. “Kiii! Kiii! Kiii!”
However, things did not go as the devil had planned.
WHAM!
Sungchul’s fist met the devil’s face and all one hundred of its teeth shattered as they poured out of its mouth, carried out by a stream of blood. Sungchul grabbed a fist full of razor sharp teeth that littered the ground and rubbed them into the devil's eyes.
“Kiiiiii!”
He then pulled out the devil’s arms in its entirety and threw the crying devil off into a random direction. The Omens of Calamity began to circle around the devil that was squirming while stuck in the ground.
“…”
Sungchul, who had taken care of the devil, began to walk forward once again without any words. The Breggas siblings could only watch the back of this man with god-like strength with wide eyes and follow along. As they walked, a sudden thought crossed by Elijah’s mind.
Could it be that we only managed to get this far… because this man was nearby?
His guess was right on point. This was why Sungchul didn’t chase after the deserters right away. Leaving the veil of protection Sungchul provided in the Demon Realm, which equated to hell in this world, meant that these deserters would simply return to the bottom rung of the food pyramid becoming just food.
Sungchul and the Breggas siblings continued to discover more corpses. They had all met pitiful and gruesome deaths. They had found a single survivor, but he was in a state worse than death
“K-kill me…” The man begged for death as he had been injected with the eggs of a giant insect, and the larvae of the insect were now eating him from inside out.
WHAM!
Sungchul’s hammer immediately shattered the man’s skull. A parasite about as large as a finger bared its fangs as it wriggled about within the skull.
“Uwek…” Bertelgia who was within Sungchul’s pocket began to wriggle.
“…”
Sungchul left behind the corpse and pressed on. There are two left.
It didn’t take long to find the final two: one male and one female. They were alive, but barely. A pale-skinned devil wearing a necklace made of limbs hovered near them as if he were a cloud. The devil laughed mechanically as he descended, creating thunder and lightning around him. A terrifying electric shock struck them. Sungchul immediately smashed the devil’s skull with his hammer, but it was only after the pair had already been critically wounded.