Chapter 58: 058. Vs The Demon King [I]
She unleashed a relentless, devastating barrage of Twilight Beams into the heart of the horde, leading the charge as the true battle for Astelvern Town erupted into its final catastrophic phase.
The Twilight Guild and other Guilds pushed the frontline forward like a massive, impenetrable wall of steel and magic but it was mainly them.
Marcus swung his heavy broadsword, generating waves of compressed air that cleanly bisected rows of Armored Orcs with every sweeping strike.
Seile chanted continuously from the center of the formation, casting wide-area healing spells that washed over the wounded vanguard, instantly sealing gashes, mending broken bones and restoring depleted stamina.
Astrid operated as the absolute spearhead of the assault.
She utilized her twilight mana flawlessly, switching seamlessly between dense gravity manipulation and devastating light beams.
She pointed her staff at a dense cluster of charging Shadow Beasts attempting to flank the vanguard as the gravity in the targeted zone spiked exponentially, crushing the ethereal monsters flat against the mud before a sweeping Twilight Beam eradicated them completely.
The abyssal horde, previously organized and driven by Malakor’s terrifying, overbearing will began to fracture.
The loss of the Dread-Minotaur and the Void-Stalker severely damaged the chain of command among the vanguard beasts.
The lesser monsters relied entirely on the overwhelming presence of the elite lieutenants to maintain their fearless charge.
Without their commanders, the sheer overwhelming firepower of the fully mobilized Guilds shattered their momentum.
A massive Corrupted Wyvern, surviving the initial aerial bombardment, dove toward the human lines.
Its throat sack glowed brightly with highly volatile corrosive green fire, preparing to carpet-bomb the tightly packed guild formations.
"Take the sky!" Marcus roared, pointing his glowing blade upward to mark the target.
Astrid reacted instantly. She slammed the butt of her staff into the mud, generating a massive reverse-gravity field directly beneath the diving Wyvern.
The sudden violent upward push completely stalled the beast’s descent, flipping it helplessly onto its back in mid-air and exposing its vulnerable underbelly.
A dozen guild archers, positioned in the rearguard, released a synchronized volley of enchanted armor-piercing arrows.
The glowing projectiles tore through the sky, striking the Wyvern’s exposed glowing throat sack with flawless precision.
The highly volatile necrotic fire detonated prematurely as the massive beast exploded into a spectacular shower of green fire and ash, raining harmlessly over the battlefield and failing entirely to breach the human lines.
Astrid pushed deeper into the horde.
Her golden hair whipped wildly as she spun her heavy staff, physically crushing the skull of a leaping Shadow Beast that managed to slip past the vanguard shields.
She flowed seamlessly into a casting stance, firing a pair of concentrated Twilight Beams that punched cleanly through the thick iron shields of two advancing Armored Orcs, dropping them instantly.
Every time a stray monster slipped past her guard or attempted to strike her from behind, the radiant silver pendant flared warmly against her throat repelling the dark magic and keeping her completely safe.
Ren’s protection or rather his love... allowed her to abandon all defensive reservations and focus entirely on maximizing her destructive output.
She became a walking engine of purple twilight destruction.
"Push them back to the ridge!" Astrid commanded, her voice amplifying across the blood-soaked battlefield.
The human defenders rallied behind her with their morale peaking to unprecedented levels.
They carved a massive, bloody wedge directly through the center of the abyssal horde.
The combined might of the Twilight Guild and other Guilds forced the surviving monsters backward, driving them step by agonizing step toward the dark stormy plains from which they emerged.
...
The dense suffocating canopy of the Whispering Pines provided the perfect vantage point.
Located three miles away from the crumbling outer walls of Astelvern Town, this elevated heavily forested hill overlooked the main commercial valley.
Torrential rain lashed against the thick pine needles, turning the forest floor into a slick treacherous slide of freezing mud.
The deafening roars of the abyssal monster tide echoed through the tree trunks which was a constant terrifying reminder of the apocalypse marching just a few miles away.
Crouched near the edge of the cliff, completely hidden by the dense underbrush and a cloaking spell were two figures.
Elara, a Half-noble disgraced from her minor house in the capital, knelt in the mud.
She held a massive heavily enchanted slab of polished silver glass with both hands.
This was a high-tier Broadcasting Mirror, an incredibly expensive artifact capable of transmitting real-time audiovisual feeds directly into the Kingdom’s Arcane Network.
Kal, a Commoner with a brilliant mind for arcane engineering, frantically swapped out glowing mana crystals from the mirror’s heavy brass frame.
He kept the connection stable, funneling massive amounts of raw energy into the transmission matrix to ensure the feed remained uninterrupted.
They were professional streamers.
They made their living broadcasting dungeon raids, high-society scandals, and Guild tournaments to the masses and tonight, they were broadcasting the end of an Adventuring Town.
’I’m going to make so much from the Princess for this...’
The glowing arcane counter located in the top right corner of the silver glass ticked upward with terrifying speed.
One million viewers!
One million and two hundred thousand viewers!
Across the entire continent, the Arcane Network hummed with unprecedented traffic.
In the sprawling, opulent manors of the capital... wealthy nobles stared in absolute horror at their vanity mirrors.
In the crowded, smoke-filled taverns of the border towns, hardened adventurers gathered around massive projection crystals with their drinks entirely forgotten.
They watched the black tsunami of Corrupted Wyverns and Armored Orcs crashing against the golden-blue Aegis barrier of Astelvern Town.
"The structural integrity of the town’s primary barrier is failing rapidly..." Elara spoke into the mirror’s audio receiver.
Her voice trembled, cracking under the terror of the situation as she forced herself to maintain her professional voice.
"The Twilight Guild and several other Guilds have engaged the vanguard on the eastern flank... Vice Guild Leader Astrid is currently holding the line, but the sheer volume of abyssal variants is staggering. This is a Class-S Calamity and we are witnessing an extinction event."
The chat interface scrolling down the left side of the mirror moved so fast it blurred into a continuous streak of white light.
[Arcane_Scholar_99: Goddess preserve them... The Aegis dome just cracked and the town is lost.]
[Vanguard_Captain_Tars: Look at the size of those Dire-Trolls! The garrison forces are being slaughtered like cattle!]
[Noble_House_Vane: Where is the Royal Army?! Why are the border beacons silent?!]
"I am adjusting the focal length," Elara announced, tapping a complex sequence of runes etched into the silver frame. "I am also utilizing the Maximum Zoom Function... We need to identify the anomaly commanding this horde as this level of coordination is impossible for mindless abyssal variants."
The image on the Broadcasting Mirror warped, zooming past the burning town, past the chaotic melee of the eastern flank and shooting miles across the dark plains directly toward the towering peaks of Razorback Ridge.
The enchanted glass instantly auto-focused as a collective continent-wide gasp echoed through the Arcane Network.
Hovering fifty feet above the jagged, spatial fractures tearing the sky apart completely illuminated by the necrotic fire of the Wyverns pouring from the gates, was Malakor.
The Eighth Demon King looked exactly like a creature of nightmares pulled from ancient historical texts.
His gaunt skeletal frame floated effortlessly in the freezing rain, draped in immaculate dark velvet robes.
His long silver hair whipped in the violent wind, and his abyssal black eyes stared down at the destruction of the human town with an expression of profound boredom.
"By the Light," Elara choked out with her hands shaking so violently the mirror rattled against the brass frame. "That is... that is a Demon King and he bypassed the entire border defense grid. He summoned the gates directly into the valley."
The live chat froze for a singular terrifying second before exploding into sheer panic.
The realization that a Demon King had personally taken the field sent waves of absolute despair rippling through the now two-million- lus viewers.
Suddenly, a massive, blinding flash of pure blue electricity illuminated the dark sky directly above the Demon King.
KRA-KOOM!
A deafening sonic boom ruptured the air, easily reaching the microphone of the Broadcasting Mirror miles away.
The displacement of the soundwave visibly flattened the rain across the mountain peak.
Elara gasped, instinctively adjusting the tracking runes on the mirror to follow the sudden burst of energy.
The millions of viewers watched in breathless silence as a terrifying blur of motion rocketed out of the storm clouds.
It moved with the devastating velocity of a falling meteor, completely ignoring the chaotic swarm of monsters pouring out of the spatial gates below.
The figure slammed feet-first onto a massive flat chunk of obsidian rock suspended in the air by the chaotic spatial distortions surrounding the Demon King.
The impact sent a web of deep cracks through the floating stone as the residual blue lightning arced wildly off the figure’s body, hissing aggressively against the torrential rain.
Elara zoomed the mirror in, bringing the newcomer’s face into sharp high-definition focus.
He was a tall, incredibly imposing man. His hair was pitch black, slicked back by the rain.
His eyes burned with a fierce piercing crimson light and he wore a tailored charcoal-grey coat that whipped violently in the mountain gale.
In his right hand, resting casually against his shoulder, he held a pristine longsword that looked strange.
Ren had purchased the weapon directly from his System interface mere moments before launching himself into the sky.
It possessed an S-rank durability rating, specifically designed to withstand the catastrophic output of his elemental abilities.
’Haah... I still don’t know if this will be enough for a Demon King.’
He stood alone on the floating debris, directly facing the Eighth Demon King and the live chat on the Broadcasting Mirror erupted into a frenzy of confusion.
[Guild_Scout_Rele: Who is that?! A hidden ranker?!]
[Capital_Mage_01: Look at the density of that lightning aura! He just crossed miles in minutes!]
[NC: Is he suicidal?! He is facing a Demon King alone!]
Malakor slowly turned his head, fixing his solid black eyes on the human standing on the floating rock.
The Demon King’s pale face twisted into a mask of pure disgust.
"A stray insect leaps into the fire," Malakor rasped.
His voice vibrated with dense suffocating dark mana, sounding effortlessly over the roaring storm. "You possess a strong aura, human but you lack the intelligence to understand your place in the universe. Kneel, and I shall grant you a swift death before I consume your soul."
Ren stood perfectly relaxed. He rolled his shoulders, stretching his neck until a loud satisfying pop echoed from his vertebrae.
He looked at the frail hovering Demon King and then he looked at the massive spatial tears ripping the sky open behind the monster.
Ren saw the horrific destruction being wrought upon the town miles below and then his lips curled into a slow incredibly arrogant smirk.
"You interrupted my sleep," Ren said as he pointed the tip of his durable steel sword directly at Malakor’s chest. "And you have terrible taste in architecture... Those spatial gates look incredibly sloppy."
Malakor’s eyes narrowed.
The sheer disrespect of the comment caused the veins on his pale neck to bulge with sudden fury.
He raised his frail skeletal hand, preparing to summon a swarm of abyssal jaws to instantly bisect the arrogant human but Ren completely vanished.
He triggered Thunderclap Step as he converted his mana into pure highly condensed electrical energy.
BOOM!
He crossed the fifty-foot gap between the floating rock and the Demon King instantaneously.
The air literally shattered behind him, leaving a superheated trail of blue plasma.
Ren appeared directly in front of Malakor while being suspended in mid-air.
He swung his heavy steel longsword in a devastating, horizontal arc aimed perfectly at the Demon King’s pale neck.
Malakor’s survival instincts flared as he utilized his absolute mastery of spatial magic, instantly materializing a dense shield of warped space between himself and the incoming blade.
The longsword slammed into the spatial shield.
The collision produced a blinding spark of friction.
The S-rank durability of the steel held firm against the reality-warping defense; however Ren poured massive amounts of physical strength into his arms, violently forcing the blade forward.
The edge of the sword slipped perfectly through a microscopic gap in the spatial matrix.
It missed Malakor’s neck by a fraction of an inch.
Instead, the razor-sharp steel cleanly sliced through a thick, flowing lock of the Demon King’s pristine silver hair.
The severed silver strands scattered into the wind.
Ren landed gracefully on another floating chunk of debris behind Malakor with his boots gripping the wet stone securely.
He smoothly spun the longsword in his hand, shaking the residual dark mana off the blade.
Malakor hovered in stunned silence. He reached up with his trembling, pale fingers, touching the uneven violently severed edge of his hair.
He had been touched.
A human had bypassed his absolute spatial defenses and physically altered his perfect form...
The aristocratic, bored facade completely vanished, replaced by an explosive world-ending rage.
"You filthy wretched mortal!" Malakor roared, his voice cracking with pure fury.
The Eighth Demon King spun around, thrusting both of his hands toward Ren.
He completely bypassed standard elemental magic, diving straight into the absolute apex of his destructive arsenal as he unleashed a massive roaring torrent of Void Magic.
It was a localized manifestation of pure nothingness.
A deep, consuming blackness that aggressively erased matter, light, and sound from existence.
The void blast shot across the gap, devouring the falling rain and the ambient mana in the air, creating a terrifying vacuum aimed directly at Ren’s chest.
Ren recognized the apocalyptic threat of the attack instantly.
He channeled his lightning into his legs, violently kicking off the floating debris.
The stone rock he had been standing on was entirely engulfed by the void blast, silently erasing from reality without leaving a single trace of dust behind.
Ren backflipped through the air, narrowly avoiding the main column of the void attack.
However, the peripheral edge of the pure nothingness expanded rapidly. A tiny razor-thin sliver of the void energy lashed out, grazing the right side of Ren’s face.
It did not cut his skin... instead it violently collided with the dense complex illusion spell of the high-tier artifact ring resting on his finger.
The void energy aggressively unraveled the enchantment and the ring glowed a blinding furious red... entirely overloaded by the clash of laws before shattering into a dozen useless smoking fragments of metal.
Ren landed heavily on the edge of the mountain peak with his boots sliding through the slick mud.
He raised a hand to his face, feeling the sudden, dramatic shift in his own mana signature as the heavy illusion spell completely dissolved.
Miles away, on the forested hill, Elara stared at the Broadcasting Mirror in paralyzed shock.
The image on the silver glass displayed the transformation with flawless clarity.
The deep pitch-black hair framing the man’s face instantly washed away, replaced by a brilliant unmistakably regal shade of deep azure blue.
The fierce, piercing crimson eyes bled out, shifting rapidly into a vibrant gold.
The harsh rough edges of his disguised face smoothed over, revealing the striking flawlessly handsome aristocratic features known to every single citizen of the Empire.
The now five million-plus viewers watching the stream simultaneously stopped breathing.
Elara dropped to her knees in the mud.
Her hands clamped over her mouth, completely forgetting her professional composure as a scream of pure disbelief ripped from her throat.
"Ren Crowhurst!" Elara shrieked into the audio receiver, her voice broadcasting directly to every mirror in the Kingdom. "By the Light of the Goddess, it is Ren Crowhurst! The Second Star of the Empire!"
The live chat on the Arcane Network absolutely detonated.
The scrolling text moved so fast the magical interface began to overheat, spitting sparks of erratic mana from the brass frame.
[Imperial_Academy_Dean: IMPOSSIBLE! The Crowhurst heir is supposed to be in the capital!]
[Noble_House_Vane: He won against the Hero weeks ago and now he fights the Demon King?!]
[Guild_Master_Iron: Look at his stance! Look at his eyes! He’s truy amazing]
[Mark: THE SECOND STAR IS FIGHTING THE DEMON KING! LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!]
On the rainy peak of Razorback Ridge, Ren lowered his hand from his face.
He felt the cold rain hitting his true features.
He knew the disguise was gone so Ren embraced it completely.
’Will Mom be pissed...? There’s nothing I can do about it...’
He stood up straight as his brilliant golden eyes locked onto the furious Demon King.
A slow arrogant smile spread across his aristocratic face.
"Well..." Ren said. "I suppose introductions are in order."
Ren gripped the hilt of his durable steel longsword with both hands.
He completely bypassed his lightning skills as he reached deep into the very core of his soul, calling upon the most terrifying power he possessed.
He summoned Starfire.
FWOOSH!
A massive, roaring pillar of blinding, white-hot Starfire erupted from his palms, aggressively spiraling down the length of the longsword.
The S-rank durability of the steel instantly glowed a furious, cherry-red, completely enveloped in the divine heat.
The temperature on the freezing mountain peak spiked to apocalyptic levels in a single millisecond as the torrential rain falling within a fifty-foot radius of Ren instantly flashed into steam, creating a dense hissing cloud of white vapor around him.
The frozen mud beneath his boots rapidly baked into cracked, hardened clay.
’Nah... Jace has really been training hard, I’m really this strong, huh?’ Ren thought.
Malakor hovered in the air with his abyssal black eyes widening in genuine shock.
The Demon King felt the heat.
He felt the terrifying purity of the Starfire... It was the antithesis of the abyss... It was the physical manifestation of judgment...
"What are you?!" Malakor roared, throwing his hands forward to summon another massive spatial shield.
"Your executioner," Ren replied.
Ren launched himself forward, stepping off the hardened clay with explosive force.
He rocketed through the steam cloud, the blazing white Starfire leaving a brilliant scorching trail in the dark sky.
Malakor fired a rapid volley of condensed void spheres, attempting to erase the incoming human but Ren didn’t dodge.
He swung his blazing longsword, meeting the void spheres head-on.
The Starfire clashed violently with the Void Magic.
The two laws of magic fought for dominance as the void attempted to erase the flame, but the Starfire completely overwhelmed it.
The white-hot fire aggressively devoured the dark nothingness, using the abyssal magic as pure fuel, flaring even brighter with every strike.
Ren carved a brutal blazing path directly through the Demon King’s ultimate barrage and he breached Malakor’s spatial shield.
The reality-warping barrier simply melted away under the extreme heat of the Starfire.
Ren appeared directly in front of the frail Demon King as he brought the heavy, blazing longsword up in a vicious horizontal slash aimed squarely at Malakor’s chest.
Malakor frantically threw his left arm up, summoning a hyper-dense gauntlet of void armor to block the strike.
SHINNG!
The S-rank steel, superheated by the Starfire, sliced cleanly through the dense void armor.
It bit deeply into Malakor’s pale, translucent flesh.
Ren carved a massive, agonizing gash straight across the back of the Demon King’s left hand... cleanly severing several tendons and scraping against the bone.
Malakor let out a shrill, piercing scream of pure agony.
It was the first time in centuries the Eighth Demon King had experienced physical pain.
