Chapter 252
“Haa…”
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and concentrated.
‘Authority of Flames.’
FWOOSH-!
Yellow flames rose. He’d gotten used to Mamon’s Authority.
Flames poured out from the tips of his fingers and devoured the surroundings.
The earth and the rocks melted down, and a river of magma began to flow.
‘Authority of Blades.’
An Authority was added on top of the Authority of an archduke.
He could normally fuse six Authorities. With some effort, he could fuse up to seven, but he could only fuse one Authority to the Authority of an archduke.
“Ugh.”
His vision blurred, and his head heated up.
The problem wasn’t the amount of demonic energy required—it was an issue of control.
‘And…’
It couldn’t be compared to the first time he’d tried to fuse the two Authorities.
Back then, he struggled to maintain ‘Inferno’ for even three seconds. His efforts over time had allowed him to maintain it for 30 seconds.
‘As long as possible…’
He slowly opened his eyes and concentrated.
He couldn’t breathe properly, his legs were trembling, and he felt an intense pain in his chest.
‘A little bit more…’
It was an amount of demonic energy that threatened to explode at any moment.
He was used to controlling that much demonic energy.
‘I can do more.’
He was dripping cold sweat.
His body swelled from the demonic energy fluctuating through it, and an intense pain shot through him.
He felt he would faint the moment he even relaxed a little bit, but still…
Despite that…
‘More.’
He didn’t stop.
He’d never once stopped.
He didn’t compromise. He didn’t yield. He didn’t hesitate.
His goal was a higher place, a much higher place.
He had to keep going forward and forward.
FWOOSH-!!!
TSSS.
A sword emitting yellow flames appeared.
The unstable flames had formed a solid shape.
[The usage of the skill ‘Inferno’ has improved!]
[The damage output of ‘Inferno’ has increased, and the demonic energy control difficulty has decreased.]
“Haa.”
He relaxed after reading the message window that appeared in front of him.
The flaming sword melted down and disappeared into the air.
Ting-
[You’ve obtained the ‘???’ hint in the higher quest of the ‘Road to Becoming a Demon God.’]
“Again?” KangWoo mumbled while making a bored expression.
It’d been a month since he started training his demonic energy control.
He was finally starting to obtain some results, and he kept receiving some kind of hint.
‘You should at least eliminate an ‘?’ every time I obtain a hint.’
He cast the message window aside as if it were annoying him.
“Okay, then…”
Since training with Mamon’s Authority was over, it was Satan’s turn.
KangWoo used the Authority of Extinction.
“Ugh…”
His head began to hurt again.
Although he’d only used one Authority, he still wasn’t used to Satan’s Authority.
“A bit more…”
“Mr. KangWoo.”
“Huff!”
KangWoo’s expression paled when he heard a voice behind him.
He turned around, trembling.
He saw a beautiful girl with black hair and a clean look standing there.
“Wh-what happened?” he asked while trying to calm down.
Lilith lowered her head and kept talking.
“I came here because there’s something I needed to report.”
“Is it about Kalgia?”
The last remaining Phase of Evil, Kalgia…
Guardian and Lilith had been looking for him for the past month, yet they hadn’t been able to find him.
Lilith shook her head.
“No. I… It’s not about Kalga.”
“Really?”
KangWoo felt the conversation would get long, so he stepped on the ground lightly.
The earth split, and rocks rose from the ground.
Lilith offered a beverage to KangWoo after he took a seat on one of the rocks.
It was the blue beverage they sold in the market.
“…”
KangWoo narrowed his eyes and looked at Lilith.
“You didn’t put anything weird in here, right?”
“Fufufu, no.”
Lilith shook her head while covering her mouth.
“After what happened last time, I learned my lesson. I won’t do anything like that again.”
“Well, as long as you understand…”
KangWoo trembled after remembering what had happened last time.
Just thinking about it made his insides churn.
“So… what happened?”
“Demonic monsters have been appearing in the gates, right?”
“Yes…”
KangWoo nodded while making a heavy expression.
The Demon of Prophecy, Satan…
After he forcibly crossed dimensions to Earth, the Gaia System, the protective wall that defended Earth, had gone awry.
The dimensional wall had weakened a lot.
Thanks to that, aside from the summoning done by Demon Cult members, demonic monsters or demons were starting to appear inside the gates.
‘That piece of trash.’
* * *
Just thinking about it made him clench his fists in anger.
How many people had shed tears of blood because of his evil plan to take control of Earth?
Even though he’d gone into hiding, the Gaia system hadn’t been able to recover.
There’s no way that a wound done by a sword would go away after the sword was broken, after all.
It was the same for the Gaia System.
Although he’d stopped the Demon Cult from messing up Earth any further, it wasn’t that the wounds they had caused instantly healed.
“Did a strong one appear this time?”
If she was reporting it to him, it seemed like a strong one had appeared.
“I don’t have the exact details yet… but it seems like an ancient demonic monster appeared in the gate that’s located in the USA state of Florida.”
“An ancient demonic monster…?”
KangWoo frowned.
Ancient demonic monsters…
Although most demonic monsters didn’t have any intelligence, there were extremely few of them that could think on their own.
Although they could think, that didn’t mean they didn’t have the characteristics of a demonic monster, so they rarely moved from their base.
‘I’ve only heard about demonic monsters.’
Still, he’d never seen one.
There were two main reasons for that: the first reason was that he didn’t need to fight them; the second one was that the risk factor was too high.
The physical specs of a demonic monster were higher than a demon’s.
It was just like a human’s physical abilities were lower than a lion or a tiger’s.
Ancient demonic monsters were so strong that they could easily fight against an archduke.
‘Now that I think about it, I heard that ancient demonic monsters were showing strange movements.’
He remembered what Doomguard and Balrog had told him, but still, he never imagined that an ancient demonic monster would appear in a gate.
He was again reminded of how weak the Gaia System had become.
“What appeared?”
“It seems like… It’s Halcyon.”
“Halcyon?”
He had heard about it before; he had also tried to summon it before.
‘Ah, now that I think about it…’
He’d completely forgotten about summoning demonic monsters.
“Hmm…”
He fell into thought.
‘I wonder what would appear if I tried to summon one now.’
The amount of demonic energy he had was higher than when he used to rule over the Hell of Nine Skies.
“…”
He remained silent.
He couldn’t think what would be summoned, and he recalled what Goddess Benigore had told him.
– Gods from other worlds receive less restriction from the system.
Gods from outside—outer gods.
Gods that weren’t from close worlds like Hwan or Ernor but were from distant alien worlds.
‘Fuck, it’s not like I’m really going to summon one, right?’
He couldn’t completely brush off the possibility.
It was something that Goddess Benigore had warned him about. Not only that, but the Gaia System had become so weak that even ancient demonic monsters were crossing dimensions.
‘If I summon a god…’
It was the end.
There was no need to think about it.
Even if he was strong enough to beat a god…
If that happened, the Gaia System would get completely destroyed, and a catastrophe would happen.
‘Let’s not use that for the moment.’
If he controlled the amount of demonic energy, it probably wouldn’t be a problem, but there was no need to take the risk on purpose.
After all, he didn’t need any weak forces anymore.
“What about the damage?”
“For the moment, other than the party of six that first discovered it, there have been no casualties. One of them has been fatally wounded, but for some miraculous reason, he was able to survive.”
“First, take control of the gate.”
“Fufu. Already done. I also stopped the news from being leaked to the news outlets.”
As expected of Lilith, she dealt with that sort of thing quickly.
KangWoo nodded.
‘An ancient demonic monster…’
To be honest, he had nothing to gain by hunting an ancient demonic monster at the moment.
The amount of demonic energy he could control had reached a peak, so he couldn’t use the Authority of Predation anymore.
‘Let’s think of this as an investment for later on.’
He couldn’t devour the ancient demonic monster, but he could compress it like Belphegor to use it later on.
‘And…’
Even if he had nothing to gain, he couldn’t let the ancient demonic monster run amok inside a gate.
If it went out of the gate, it was obvious that a catastrophe would happen.
“Let’s go tomorrow.”
“How should I form the group?”
“Just me and Balrog are more than enough.”
If the ancient demonic monster were as strong as an archduke, having more members would be worse.
He’d considered Kim ShiHoon, but Balrog was more suited to it than him.
‘Hiding how I turn the corpse into a jewel would be quite bothersome, after all.’
Kim ShiHoon didn’t know he had the strength to get stronger by eating demons.
Usually, he could use the Authority of Predation secretly to make the corpse scatter away into dust, but he couldn’t do that at the moment.
“Understood. Then I will make a hate that leads there through the Hall of Protection.”
“Ah, have you heard anything about Halcyon?”
It was the first time he would be fighting against an ancient demonic monster, so it would be better to get as much information as he could.
“Hmm.”
Lilith put her finger on her lips and fell into thought.
“I’ve never seen it before… but from what I heard, it’s a demonic monster that looks quite horrible.”
“It looks horrible?”
“Yes. I heard that, even in Hell, it looks quite disgusting.”
“Ha.”
He laughed in disbelief.
‘Fuck, just how ugly does it look?’
How did a demon have to look to be called the most disgusting in Hell?
‘I’m not sure about the beauty standard of demons.’
For example, Lilith was considered the prettiest in Hell.
‘What if it looks like a human?’
“Lilith, when you look at humans, d you find them disgusting?” he asked just in case.
“What? No. No way.”
Lilith shook her head.
“It isn’t that I can tell who’s considered pretty or ugly, but I don’t find them disgusting.”
“Hmm.”
He nodded.
‘I guess it’s probably the same way a person looks at an animal.’
One couldn’t tell who was a good-looking or an ugly lion.
It was probably that kind of thing.
“Well, it really doesn’t matter how it looks.”
He smirked.
“Are you really okay? From what I heard, there are a few demons that have lost their minds after seeing Halcyon…”
“Don’t worry,” KangWoo said while holding Lilith’s shoulders.
It didn’t matter if Halcyon looked disgusting and horrible.
“I’ve had pretty thorough training in that area,” he said confidently.
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