Beyond the horizon, waves repeatedly crashed, while ominous castles hung upside down.
Beneath the edges of those castles, dark voids swirled with black clouds, and jagged mountains pierced through the gaps in the stormy mist.
And that wasn’t all.
Mysterious geometric spheres and cubic objects floated aimlessly throughout the void.
Truly, the Dimensional Domain was a chaotic space, an amalgamation of elements that defied all definition.
Lagos Damascus once again tore through the void, transporting himself elsewhere.
The place he now stood was the Castle of Dimensions, a structure unseen in the Dimensional Domain yet undeniably present within it.
As he strolled through the castle’s interior, Lagos extended a hand and gazed upward.
Through a small fissure above, a blonde-haired woman came into view.
This human was the thorn in the Demon King’s side.
“Crescent Delight... Even her name is irritating. It feels like a needle stabbing my eyes. But... she does look familiar, somehow.”
Lagos’s brow furrowed slightly.
For a human girl, she was strikingly beautiful. Could it be that she resembled him in some way?
Regardless, she was a doomed human.
“Today will be the last day of your life. Enjoy it while you can, for now that you’ve become my target, escape is impossible.”
“What is it she won’t escape from?”
“?”
A sudden, unfamiliar voice caused Lagos’s ears to perk up.
The voice was deep, youthful, and utterly unfamiliar.
It was the first time he’d heard such a tone, and what surprised him even more was how remarkably handsome it sounded—possibly the most handsome voice he had encountered in over a millennium.
The speaker sounded like he could be a young man around nineteen.
No, wait.
As much as Lagos obsessed over beauty and elegance, this wasn’t the time to dwell on such trivialities.
This was, after all, the Castle of Dimensions, within the Dimensional Domain. No one could enter without permission, as access required traversing dimensions themselves.
For an unknown voice to echo here? That was unprecedented.
If it wasn’t a hallucination, then a significant problem had arisen.
Lagos turned toward the source of the voice—a space dominated by his imposing throne.
There, someone stood, gazing down at him as if this realm were their own.
From atop his throne.
“Who are you?”
Lagos’s tone carried his displeasure as he asked, his golden eyes narrowing.
The man’s lips curved into a faint, mocking smile.
Lagos scrutinized the intruder.
As he had suspected from the voice, the figure appeared to be a young man around nineteen.
Yet, it wasn’t just the voice that drew Lagos’s attention—it was the man’s appearance.
His hair shimmered like scattered silver dust, radiant and otherworldly. His blue eyes glowed with an overwhelming, luminous energy.
This was no ordinary being.
For someone to infiltrate the Castle of Dimensions, they had to be far from ordinary.
Then, with a provocative glint in his eyes, the intruder spoke.
“Duke of Dimensions, I’ve come to challenge you.”
“A challenge?”
The word itself was so foreign to Lagos that he could scarcely believe he’d heard it.
Who would dare utter such a word to the Duke of Dimensions?
“Are you prepared to pay the price for such audacity?”
The implication was clear—this was a challenge of life and death.
For the first time in ages, Lagos felt an exhilarating thrill course through him.
But why challenge him, of all beings? Did this man have multiple lives to spare?
The silver-haired man rose from the throne, his serene gaze now alight with ferocity.
“Your authority, your power, your abilities—I will kill you and inherit them all.”
“?”
Lagos almost bit his tongue in disbelief.
Inherit? Did this audacious fool truly intend to claim all that was his?
Then, the memory of his own ascension struck him. A thousand years ago, Lagos had killed the previous Duke of Dimensions and inherited his title and powers.
The event had been so long ago that Lagos had nearly forgotten that the position of Duke could be claimed through combat.
Such events were rare. In the countless millennia of the Demon Realm, there had only ever been three Dukes of Dimensions.
“Who are you to dream of such nonsense?”
Now, Lagos’s curiosity about the man’s identity grew.
To his knowledge, no demon in the current Demon Realm was powerful enough to rival him, let alone challenge him.
And yet, this intruder—someone Lagos had never seen in all his thousand years—stood before him, issuing a direct challenge.
Lagos couldn’t fathom the intruder’s origins.
Then, stepping down one step from the throne, the man spoke.
“I am the Duke of Dimensions from another realm.”
“....”
Lagos’s golden eyes widened.
With that single sentence, everything fell into place.
The question of how this man had accessed the forbidden Castle of Dimensions, and how he dared challenge the first-ranked demon of the realm, was answered.
There existed countless dimensions across reality.
Each dimension had its own Demon Realm, complete with its own Demon King and Duke of Dimensions.
The dimensions were both identical and distinct—a paradox of parallel worlds.
The man descended another step, his smile widening.
“You are Lagos Damascus, are you not? I am Prima Damascus.”
Lagos’s anger began to boil.
“This is an outrage. Never in history has a Duke of Dimensions stooped to such unethical behavior. If you take my position here, what will happen to your own dimension?”
“I have business in this world. My original realm doesn’t matter.”
Prima’s tone softened slightly as he spoke.
“Hah!”
Lagos let out a scornful laugh, his fighting spirit ignited.
He didn’t care to know what “business” Prima had in this dimension.
What mattered was protecting his throne.
In his hand, a massive pollaxe materialized—a weapon adorned with resplendent jewels, almost more treasure than tool.
Yet its menacing aura of dark demonic energy left no doubt about its lethality.
As black lightning crackled around the weapon, Lagos’s golden eyes burned like flames.
“As the representative of this dimension’s Demon Realm, I will make you regret your arrogance.”
At the same time, Prima reached into the void and summoned his own weapon.
A holy sword.
Lagos immediately recognized it for what it was.
“A holy sword? Why would a demon wield a holy sword?”
“Have you never seen a holy knight who became a demon?”
“A holy knight—?”
Lagos’s words faltered.
Simultaneously, the two leapt at each other, and an earth-shattering collision of power engulfed the Dukes of Dimensions.
***
The holy knights who arrived at the Grand Temple completed a brief report and then began their healing and rest.
The temple had been awaiting their return, especially since the knights hadn’t come back the previous night.
“Ammas has saved us once again,” someone remarked reverently.
The knights regrouped later that evening, gathering to offer a brief prayer.
Thanks to the healing priests, the frostbite and wounds they had suffered in the Demon Realm were completely gone.
“Ammas saved us, and Sir Meteor saved us as well,” Lucas blurted out, causing the other knights to nod in agreement, murmuring their assent.
Meteor, however, felt a twinge of discomfort.
It seemed like the right moment to say what had been on his mind since earlier.
“There’s something I need to tell you all.”
“?”
All eyes turned to him, including Crescent’s, who focused her gaze intently on him.
This content is taken from freёwebnovel.com.
Meteor waited for a moment before continuing.
“As I mentioned before, I did find the Aurora Orb with Eyes in the Demon Realm. However, I’m not sure if it was because of me that the exit opened. It was by the narrowest margin, but the exit opened first, and only after that did I locate the orb.”
“What?”
“What does that mean...?”
The knights looked puzzled by Meteor’s statement.
If Meteor hadn’t opened the exit by finding the Aurora Orb with Eyes, then how exactly had the exit come to exist?