Demon Lord: Erotic Adventure in Another World

Chapter 880: Return to Oblivion

"Ha....Haa.....Haaa...."

Asmodeus exhaled through his clenched teeth, forcing his body to obey him as his blood wings flickered faintly in the air.

Their edges remained sharp, but the liquid crimson forming them had begun to drip into the ocean below. Each droplet vanished beneath the churning waves, swallowed by Leviathan’s corruption before he could reclaim it.

’This form is consuming too damn much.’

He had used Sanguine Devastation twice, then transformed into the Abyssal Sovereign. After that, he’d split a tsunami large enough to bury the coast and fought Leviathan directly while protecting the Valkyries.

Even his body had limits, and it almost felt as though the millions of eyes watching him could sense it too as Leviathan stared at him silently.

The black plates covering its body opened one after another, exposing narrow slits filled with dark purple light. The glow intensified, spreading across the Behemoth like windows opening across an endless city.

"Asmodeus!" Velvet shouted.

"I can see it."

He lifted Axiom.

’Fuck this...’

His arms felt heavier than before.

Leviathan’s severed limb thrashed beneath him, while the remaining claws ripped through the ocean and rose from below. Water poured from their crooked joints as they closed around Asmodeus from three directions.

He twisted his body.

One claw passed over his head.

The second scraped against his blood wings, tearing through several sharpened feathers.

The third came from beneath.

Asmodeus drove Axiom downward.

CLANG!

The halberd met the claw’s centre, but the force still launched him into the sky. His muscles tightened painfully as he spun through the storm, regaining control only after he had crossed several hundred metres.

[Have you not caused enough damage, Demon Emperor?]

Velvet rushed after him.

Before she could reach his side, the sky changed.

The clouds and rain vanished as if by magic, and a strange light spread through the air.

Thousands of droplets froze in the air, suspended between the clouds and ocean. Broken stone, black blood, fragments of armour and pieces of abyssal flesh halted beside them as though the world had become a painting.

Even Leviathan’s tracking beams curved downward.

Asmodeus narrowed his eyes.

’Gravity...?’

A white figure descended through the storm.

She didn’t have huge wings or fly like him or the Valkyries; it was rather as if gravity itself gently lowered her from the clouds above, while she stood upright, as though an invisible platform carried her toward the battlefield.

Pure white exoskeletal armour covered her body. Its smooth plates overlapped across her arms, chest and legs, fitted closely enough to resemble the shell of an immaculate creature rather than something forged by mortal hands.

Her hair had been cut into a short bob.

White lashes framed irises of the same colour, leaving almost no distinction between pupil and eye. Her face appeared porcelain-smooth and doll-like, without fear, disgust or excitement.

The storm bent around her.

Velvet slowed.

"Who...?"

Asmodeus’s lips parted.

He couldn’t forget her face, the eerie beauty of her perfectly sculpted face and body, those slightly drooping breasts, and her arrogant expression.

"Ein."

The woman’s white gaze moved toward him for only a second.

Then she looked at Leviathan.

The Behemoth roared as it faced its nemesis. Its countless voices shook the sea, and the exposed slits along its body released another barrage. Over ten thousand beams crossed the sky, and yet Ein merely lifted one hand.

[Insect]

The space above the ocean collapsed, and every beam curved around Ein in a beautiful array of light.

Dark purple light struck the sea several miles before reaching the Valkyries, carving boiling pits across the water. Steam erupted in enormous pillars, but not a single attack passed beyond Ein’s outstretched fingers.

The smaller eye-beasts screamed and rushed toward her.

Several thousand approached from every direction, their claws spread and wet wings slicing through the suspended rain.

Ein lowered one finger.

The creatures dropped.

There was no explosion or flashy imagery.

Their bodies plunged from the sky, half-crushed as if mountains had been chained around their necks. Wings snapped, bones folded and burst before sinking beneath the ocean’s surface.

The pressure continued.

The sea beneath Ein formed a perfect circular depression.

Water fled outward from her position, creating walls around a vast crater that exposed the seabed below. Hundreds of abyssal beasts were crushed into the mud, their bodies reduced to white and black stains beneath the invisible weight.

Asmodeus watched silently.

’I didn’t expect them to appear now... why not wait until we are at our limit?!’

Ein continued descending before touching the empty air in front of Asmodues; only then did he realise she was shorter than him. Her petite yet alluring figure hovered just inches from him as she glanced up at his face, expressionlessly.

"You have caused irreparable damage to this planet through your foolish conduct, Demon Emperor. If not for the Creator’s mercy, I would smite you down right this moment."

Her voice matched her appearance.

Quiet, like smooth silk.

Almost without emotion and yet, alluringly seductive.

Asmodeus rolled his shoulder, ignoring the painful twitch running through his arm.

"You speak as if I created that thing—was it not your beloved Creator’s fault for leaving it here for so long in the first place?"

[BLASPHEMY!]

Her shout echoed through Asmodeus’s head.

It erupted inside Asmodeus’s skull.

His vision shook as an invisible force pressed against his shoulders, forcing his body downward. The ocean beneath him caved in further, and the blood forming his wings trembled beneath the sudden increase in weight.

Velvet snarled.

"Release him."

Ein’s white gaze shifted toward her.

For the first time, the porcelain calm covering her face cracked slightly.

[You would defend such insolence?]

Velvet tightened her grip around her halberd.

"He’s my husband. Of course I would."

Asmodeus gritted his teeth and pushed against the pressure. The muscles along his arms and back bulged as his six blood wings spread wider, cutting through the distorted air around him.

Ein’s gaze shifted back to Asmodues, but her cheeks looked a little pink.

That’s when Velvet’s eyes flashed, and she smirked. "Hah, I knew it! You’ve been spying on us, haven’t you?

To which Ein’s voice countered shakily.

[I am ordained to observe any threat to the Creator’s world.]

"So you have been spying."

Ein’s white lashes lowered, and instead of speaking, as her cheeks became darker pink, the pressure of her gravity doubled, almost tearing Asmodeus’s shoulders apart as he dropped several metres towards the ocean before catching himself.

’Petty little bitch.’

His golden eyes burned brighter as he forced Axiom upward.

The halberd’s blade split the invisible force pressing against him, creating a narrow path through the gravity surrounding his body.

Ein’s expression changed again.

Only slightly.

Yet Asmodeus saw the surprise in her eyes the moment the energy from Axiom shot between them; something changed. He couldn’t sense the strange aura from Ein anymore, and the proof was when she next spoke; it was with her voice, not her mind.

"H-How can you resist the Creator’s power!?"

Asmodeus snorted back.

"You’re not the first arrogant woman who’s tried to put me on my knees to serve her!"

Velvet covered her mouth, her purple scales flashing brighter as she tried to hide her pink cheeks from Asmodeus. "...Idiot..."

Ein stared at him in silence.

It was eerie; she didn’t hold the same divine atmosphere, though he could feel the tingling of her aura brushing against his flesh. Asmodeus didn’t feel he would lose to her.

’What did Axiom do...?’ He glanced at the black and white halberd, shocked at the greedy weapon currently digesting the ’creators’ aura.

"Look, this isn’t the time—!"

Then the ocean exploded.

Leviathan’s armoured body surged upward, breaking through the depression created by Ein’s gravity. Black flesh stretched between its plates as thousands of eyes twisted beneath the narrow slits.

Its attention had shifted completely.

Not toward the fortress.

Not toward the Kraken Slayers.

Toward Ein.

"GURAAAAAAAA!"

The Behemoth’s roar tore through the artificial stillness around them. The suspended rain shattered into steam while the ocean walls collapsed, sending millions of tonnes of water rushing back toward the centre.

Ein’s aura exploded, creating a dense gravity field that warped the air around her as she faced the beast.

[Remain silent, abomination! Return to the Abyss where you belong!]

She raised her hand, about to clench it like before.

Leviathan’s enormous body slammed downward.

The ocean beneath it flattened as though struck by an invisible continent. Its armour cracked, and several crooked limbs bent under the pressure, yet the ancient beast refused to sink.

Instead, its flesh began to change.

The black plates along its back twisted and layered atop one another, reinforcing the sections bearing Ein’s gravity. Hundreds of eyes burst from the softer tissue around its sides, their white sclerae stretching as dark purple light gathered inside them.

Asmodeus clicked his tongue.

"It’s adapting again."

Ein didn’t look at him.

[I am aware.]

"Then stop looking so calm."

[I do not panic.]

"Maybe you should try it. Adds flavour."

Velvet’s shoulders trembled again as she glanced between the mysterious, tall, white beauty and her husband, who seemed to be in a great mood.

Ein glanced at her.

[Why are you laughing?]

The Dragoness shrugged, both hands in the air, with a wide grin. "I’m not."

The Abyssal beast didn’t care for their conversation and so Leviathan fired thousands of beams erupted from the armoured slits.

Ein closed her fingers.

The beams bent.

Most curved into the ocean, drilling through the water and seabed beneath. Others twisted around her body, creating a vast spiral of dark purple light before disappearing into the clouds.

But Leviathan had learned.

Several beams struck the ocean first.

They ricocheted.

Asmodeus’s eyes widened.

"Below!"

Ein shifted her palm.

The reflected beams changed direction moments before reaching her, but one slipped through the distorted field and sliced across the edge of her exoskeletal armour.

A thin white plate cracked near her waist.

Ein looked down, then coughed.

’Eh?’

The damaged armour repaired itself almost immediately, smooth layers crawling over the fracture until it vanished.

Asmodeus couldn’t believe the sight; a glossy silver blood leaked from Ein’s mouth as she staggered in the air. Or the fact that his hand extended around her waist the moment the beams almost struck her.

’What the hell am I doing?!’

His right shoulder and half his wings vaporised and melted due to the beams, which should have hit Ein in the chest, face and stomach.

Ein herself didn’t react at first; she glanced down at her wounds, then towards the hand grasping her waist before back to Asmodeus’s face.

The air grew heavier as she glared at him and pulled away, facing the beast.

[Filthy.... Dirty... Foul.... GARBAGE!]

’It actually pissed her off.’

Leviathan’s eyes widened.

Ein raised both hands.

The sky darkened.

Not from clouds.

From pressure.

The ocean beneath the Behemoth sank so violently that its island-sized body dropped hundreds of metres. Water exploded away from it, exposing black reefs and shattered seabed beneath its limbs.

The force continued to increase.

Leviathan’s armour creaked.

Its countless mouths opened in silent screams as their jaws collapsed beneath the weight. Fins snapped. Eyes burst inside their slits, leaking black blood across the reinforced plates.

Even Asmodeus felt his bones tighten from the pressure despite being outside the centre.

Velvet flew closer to him.

"She’s terrifying."

"Yes."

"Don’t flirt with her."

"I wasn’t planning to...." He hesitated for a moment, still able to feel the warmth of her soft body in his palm and the lingering scent of vanilla that wafted from her.

Asmodeus glanced at her.

Velvet narrowed her eyes before shaking her head.

"I’ll punish you later."

A huge crack spread across Leviathan’s back.

Ein’s hands closed further.

[RETURN TO OBLIVION!]