The 72 Demons encircled Aphrodite and Frondier.
It was only natural that all the gods would leap in.
To rescue Aphrodite, to dispose of Frondier.
Clang!
Bang! Bkwaang!
The clash between gods and the 72 Demons began.
“Out of the way! You demons!”
“All who hinder us will die!”
The gods’ words were steeped in murderous intent. Their faces went along with demonic visages.
A scene of impatience and frenzy. There are only demons here now.
“Let no one draw near!”
“No one may set foot past this line!”
The 72 Demons, with Bael at their head, answered the charge.
Frondier had entered the Pandemonium. He was currently completely defenseless.
Frondier trusted Bael and dragged Aphrodite into the Pandemonium.
Protect the king here. No matter what!
“Don’t get above yourself!”
Thud─!
“Ugh!”
A heavy blow came down squarely on Bael.
“Ha! This is the King of Hell? Weak, far too weak!”
At the god’s voice Bael ground his teeth.
‘Damn it, as expected, my power......!’
Bael’s power is weakening. The moment he felt that with certainty.
From the time he became Bael his power had already been halved, and since then it has only kept diminishing.
If rank 1 among the 72 Demons is flagging, the rest will not have it easy either.
Not all of the 72 Demons are even here, and their opponents are gods. The human bodies themselves are not a threat, but the weapons in their hands are the problem.
If it were merely a fight of aura and strength, they would be even or superior, but demons, who unlike gods have few particular weapons, feel the gap in the value of names that weapons carry all the more keenly.
Srak─!
At that moment, the sword that had struck Bael was cut in eight.
Cybel joined the fray, wreathed in a sword of flame.
“I’ll help!”
“You will help me? A human?”
Bael asked in surprise. He had wings now and was not hiding being a demon at all.
Cybel tilted her head.
“Aren’t you on Frondier’s side?”
“......Yes.”
“Then that’s enough.”
As if that alone were sufficient, Cybel shifted her gaze straight to the front.
Bael asked again,
“You don’t mind even if I’m a demon?”
“God is fine too.”
Cybel let out a wry little laugh.
“Frondier’s identity is kind of in-between anyway.”
“......No, that guy is human.”
Caw─
In the chaos all around, a crow flew to Selena’s side.
[Ten minutes, Cybel.]
“Ten minutes?”
[A single line Frondier passed to me. It’s without a doubt an extension for the plan.]
At those words, Selena looked to Mei.
Extension of the plan. The plan to move Frondier by shadow transfer.
Begin that in ten minutes?
“......Then we at least have to hold for ten minutes.”
Selena’s eyes lowered.
She drew out needles into both hands, circled wide to the rear while keeping distance from the fighting gods.
Shwish!
Needles fired, and several bodies collapsed feebly.
It would have little effect on the gods themselves, but this would reduce the numbers.
‘Ms. Riri is using Allure and cannot move. She must not expose herself either. Ms. Elodie isn’t suited to a melee like this. And Sir Frondier will be worried she’ll be swept up.’
Among Frondier’s party, those who could move freely were only her and Cybel.
Mei was there too, but Frondier had urged Mei not to fight. In the end it was Mei’s decision, but she said she didn’t want to fight.
It wasn’t especially forced, but Mei would probably not join the battle.
And as for Aster’s side—
‘......It’s best to leave him be.’
Aster stood holding two Excaliburs, the one received from Frondier and his own.
His gaze was fixed on Zeus.
The spear of lightning that had flown to Zeus. However powerful it was, hoping it would bind Zeus for ten minutes was beyond greed; it was foolish.
Only if Aster engaged Zeus could the balance of power be maintained.
Frondier probably knew that and handed over Excalibur.
‘Ten minutes. Can we hold?’
In the midst of a battle raging for some time, ten minutes is not a short span. All the more so if one must guard a particular place.
But Frondier and Aphrodite are important individuals whom each side’s forces must protect. Because of that, neither side can launch an overwhelming attack. Thanks to that, time had been delayed a little.
Shwish!
Needles fired once more, but—
Tak-tang!
“!”
This time every attack was blocked. Even while striking the demons, the gods batted away the needles from behind.
Their murderous eyes turned to Selena for an instant, then they plunged back in to break through the demons’ wall.
‘It’s got to be quite annoying, and yet no one is focusing their gaze this way.’
Selena bit her lip. The gods’ will was stronger than she had expected. She had thought at least a few would come to attack her. As a result, this side’s situation improved.
‘At this rate a breach—’
In that instant.
Someone brushed past at Selena’s side.
‘Ah.’
Selena flinched at him. A speed that outstripped her perception and naked eye.
A man leaping long distances as if they were a single step.
Hermes.
‘I’ll kill you. Insolent wretch.’
Since arriving here, Hermes had been watching for an opening the whole time.
The demon called Frondier—despite that sly look, he was unexpectedly without openings. Especially that black liquid was a problem. Whether it was liquid or solid, it hardly mattered anymore.
But now he had obligingly created an opening. He had gone into the Pandemonium with Aphrodite. Perhaps it was the arrogance of thinking he could kill Aphrodite the moment they went in.
The two were still trapped.
‘He dared throw a spear at our king.’
Hermes had already grasped all of Frondier’s allies. The demons, and the humans who ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) claimed to be the demons’ comrades—tearing them all to pieces would not be enough.
Hermes’s murderous gaze ripped across the ground’s expanse, and in the small gaps amid the mêlée of gods and demons, his blade cut open space and thrust.
“!”
Only when he reached right upon them did the demons realize it.
But they were all too late.
While their eyes were distracted by the melee, Hermes’s divine form slipped through, and for Frondier’s head—
Thud-unk!
“?!”
His body reeled. It was shock rather than pain.
Someone beside him had rammed into him.
Shwik!
And by a hair’s breadth, that blade only brushed past Frondier’s side.
‘Who is it? I confirmed all of Frondier’s allies, so how did anyone match my speed!’
Hermes rose into the air and settled lightly.
But the one who had slammed into him was bracing a hand on the ground as if having lost balance.
“Who are you.”
Hermes let murderous intent boil up. Whoever it was, they had interfered. He had missed his chance to kill the King of Demons. An enemy, clearly.
“Do you want to die? Which demon are you?”
“I—I, I’m human.”
Only then did the man push himself up. A voice that sounded terrified.
“......Human? State your name.”
Hermes is, after all, a high god of Greece. He cannot just kill any human at random.
The man said,
“I’m, I am Ias.”
“......Ias?”
At that, Hermes’s face twisted. Strength gathered in the hand gripping his sword.
“Ias of House Achaia?”
“Y-yes.”
Ias di Achaia.
He had been hiding beside the fallen the whole time; now he stepped forward.
‘This child—could he be the one from the Moirai’s prophecy.......’
Hermes, for the moment, withdrew his killing intent.
With another human, who knows—but killing Ias was distasteful.
“Stand aside. I came to kill a demon.”
“......”
Ias neither answered nor stepped aside.
Hermes asked,
“Why would a human protect a demon?”
“......Teacher isn’t a demon.”
Teacher? He means Frondier? His student?
Hermes looked into Ias’s frightened eyes.
His face, his gaze, his posture still bore the signs of youth. It was not the face of a warrior who had steeled himself.
‘Barehanded.’
And he had no weapon at all. Well, if he had been holding anything, he wouldn’t have tackled with his body.
Completely unarmed. You’d think he could have at least picked up one of the weapons lying around, but he hadn’t made even that much of a judgment.
“He is a man who proclaimed himself King of Demons. What does it matter that he was originally human.”
“E-even so.......”
“Ias. Do you not know what they call a demon’s whisper?”
He who overcomes is a hero, he who is beguiled is a human, and he who lays his sins upon demons—he too is a demon.
Hermes cast a cold glance.
“Do you also wish to die as a demon?”
“Urgh......!”
Ias quailed and faltered, and even so did not retreat.
He was truly defenseless now. He had made no preparations at all.
No weapon, no shield, and his strength could not reach Hermes. He had not even been able to respond to Pielot’s light counter. The possibility he could block Hermes’s strike was almost none.
Why did you step out, Ias.
“It is not too late even now. Stand aside. I intend to spare you.”
“......”
Why won’t you step aside, Ias.
“Haa.”
Hermes let out a sigh.
“I’ll give you three seconds. Decide within that time.”
“!”
Ias’s whole body trembled.
Even now, if he stepped back, he could live. Hermes truly did intend to let him live.
As long as he stepped aside.
“Three.”
Within these three seconds—
“Two.”
Choose.
“One.”
Ias.
Why won’t you make a decision.
—To become a hero. You have to choose that road to become a hero. Instead of putting it off without end.
“......Very well. Die, Ias di Achaia.”
Tat!
Hermes stamped the ground without delay.
His sword reached up to the sky and, with his leap, drew a single line descending.
Ias was watching that sight.
‘......Decide.’
He had wanted to become a hero.
He had thought he would become one.
Everyone thought so. He had certainly stepped onto that natural stage.
So it should have been.
He had been on sturdy, safe rails leading to becoming a hero.
Until Frondier and Pielot appeared, he had been going to become a hero.
How did it come to this?
Why am I standing here trying to protect that hateful Frondier?
I was destined to be a hero!
Frondier trampled that destiny, so why!
‘Idiot.’
Ias reached out his hand.
Something utterly obvious, and yet strangely, something no one had known—he finally realized it.
‘There is no such destiny.’
Chuk.
And into that hand, a spear was placed.
“!”
Kkaang!
Hermes’s sword was blocked once more.
But this time, Hermes’s expression changed.
‘This spear!’
Enkespahlos. Ares’s spear.
Instinctively Hermes shifted his gaze to Aster.
Aster had thrown the spear to Ias.
‘What could he be thinking!’
What judgment had Aster made?
Wasn’t that man Frondier’s enemy?
“So you are a hero after all, is that it? Aster. You cannot just watch a human die, I suppose.”
So you threw a spear you might or might not be able to catch, Aster.
At that, Aster tilted his head and said,
“It isn’t fair. Barehanded.”
Fwiik─
And to go a step further, this time he threw a shield to Ias.
There was no way Hermes would simply watch that; he moved to bat the shield away.
Shiiik!
And then he came to a sudden halt as a spear brushed before his eyes.
‘Tch!’
This spear is Enkespahlos.
If it misses, it returns to Ias.
It would have been better to grab it even if that were a little dangerous.
No—come to think, it felt like Ias had deliberately thrown it slightly off.
‘No, he can’t possibly know this spear’s ability. It’s mere coincidence.’
Chuk.
In the meantime, even the shield, Lynotoros, was in Ias’s hand.
Ias with spear and shield in hand.
He had an entirely different momentum from when he’d been barehanded.
‘This isn’t simply because he’s holding a god’s weapon.’
With a tense face, Hermes asked Ias,
“......Have you ever handled a spear, Ias?”
At that, Ias adjusted his grip on the spear a few times and said,
“No.”
Contrary to that answer, Ias’s bearing put even Hermes on edge.
Ias with spear and shield.
A handful of the gods knew the weight of that single sentence,
‘Tch. So this is what the prophecy meant.’
And Hermes was among them.
“So you intend to become a demon as well, Ias. When you were destined to be a hero.”
Hermes’s sharp words. Ias listened quietly.
He did not ignore them. The voice certainly reached his ears.
Because Ias himself felt it.
The destiny to become a hero, the firm and easy road, the stage.
All those things that had barely managed to keep their shape—he felt them all breaking apart now.
“......So that’s what my destiny was, after all.”
Hearing Hermes’s words, Ias nodded.
Ias had walked an easy road.
His talent, of a different class from those around him; everyone’s envy and expectation; his house whose name would never fall behind.
And the sense that before long, some perfect opportunity to make him a hero would come for no reason and with no basis.
It’s laughable, really.
That the road to becoming a hero was so comfortable, and he hadn’t even felt that something was wrong.
“Even so, I still choose to be a hero rather than a demon.”
“......What?”
—Being a hero isn’t something that happens on its own.
Looking at Hermes, Ias said,
“I just decided.”
