"Oh well, before you could even freeze, the pressure of the ambient energies in space would bear down on your body and soul and crush them to bits."
He casually spoke about such a grim possibility, causing Pride to unconsciously try to move herself closer to him, resulting in making the Demon King chuckle in amusement.
"I didn't bring you here to admire the scenery, I brought you here to tell you something important."
Alvey's smile vanished from his face as he continued speaking, taking great care to keep up the barrier around Pride that allowed her to survive in space.
"The 'Series Skills' you and I possess, are fragments of something greater.
They are the fragments of something called the 'Ultimate Seed'."
"Ultimate seed?"
"Yes. Each 'Series Skill' is one-third of an ultimate seed, hence acquiring three 'Series Skills' of any kind allows one to form an Ultimate Seed.
The series skills to be acquired don't necessarily have to be from the same series, nor do they all have to be offensive in nature.
Nevertheless, the acquired ultimate skill would possess characteristics of all three series skills that the user possesses."
Pride was following his words until he suddenly started speaking about 'Ultimate Skills', a different concept she had not heard of before.
"Wait a moment! What are Ultimate Skills?"
"Hmm...I didn't say?
When an Ultimate seed germinates, the thing that pops out is an ultimate skill. And like I said earlier, the nature of the ultimate skill depends on the three series skills used to form its seed."
Alvey stretched out his palm and a small pale blue flame appeared in front of it. He touched this flame with his other finger and continued his explanation to Pride.
"If one has an Ultimate Skill, it is pretty much impossible to defeat them with anything less than that. The reason is simple, the wielder of the Ultimate skill possesses a 90% damage negation from any existence without one.
Regardless of how strong they are, if their opponent possesses an Ultimate skill, or just Ultimate for short, their attacks would only be 10% effective.
And that is if their opponent doesn't attempt to defend and just stands there to take the hit."
Pride's eyes widened in surprise as she learned this frightening fact about ultimate skill wielders, the next moment, a more frightening thought crossed her mind as she looked at Alvey.
"Perhaps, you also..."
"It is exactly as you think. I am also an ultimate wielder myself.
I have lived for at least twice the combined ages of you and the rest of the seven deadly sins, it'd be a shame if I didn't have a few ultimates to show for it."
His words finally gave Pride an answer to a question that had plagued her mind for years. The question of where the Demon King's confidence that if the seven deadly sins were to start a rebellion, it would be futile.
If 90% of their attacks on him simply didn't work, then what was there for him to fear? Be they Seven or Seventy, it would not make a difference.
'Such Powerful skills...'
"What? Do you respect me more now? How about getting together with my son? Ginaroad is quite the catch."
Pride was snapped out of her thoughts by the Demon king's teasing voice, causing her to end up rolling her eyes at him and ignoring his words.
"As I said, that's not gonna happen."
"I know it isn't. My son is actually a control freak, his skill is most likely a manifestation of that desire.
When he realises, that he cannot control you as you are two-thirds of the way towards gaining an ultimate seed, he'd try to get rid of you in any way he can."
Alvey smiled depreciatingly as he analysed his son's nature, while also disclosing the fact that he knew of Pride's second 'Series Skill', something she hadn't even told the other Seven Deadly Sins.
'Perhaps, he could tell because he has an ultimate?'
Pride once against descended into her sea of thoughts, choosing to ignore his words about his son's nature, and began formulating plans to acquire another Series Skill.
"Well, on to more important things.
Ultimate skills are much more powerful than unique skills as with an Ultimate skill, turning a planet like the ones you see around you into a dead rock is within the realm of possibility."
Once again, Alvey casually dropped frightening information like it was a walk in the park, startling Pride in the process and getting a kick out of her reaction.
"Oh, and I am capable of such a feat too. I also think that the father of the celestial who you recently killed is too."
This time, he dropped two dangerous pieces of information as his gaze locked on the planet right beside the one they were just on.
"That is the reason why I believe our conquest in that world wasn't done yet. Because like our home world, theirs has a supreme ruler who controls everything in it.
An Equivalent of a Demon King, one who just happens to be a member of the Celestial Race.
He probably did not take any action since the beginning because he was wary of what actions I'd take in response.
However, now his son is dead, he isn't so patient anymore."
Alvey grabbed Pride's arm and began descending, his acceleration speed being fast enough to achieve the necessary velocity required to re-enter the planet's atmosphere in seconds.
**BOOMMM!!
The duo landed on the ground with enough force to create a crater hundreds of metres wide, Alvey having negated most of the damage as they only had a few scratches on them.
He then placed his second hand on Pride's shoulder as he looked into her eyes and spoke.
"Pride, right now I am going to battle someone with the same level of power as I have, and honestly, I don't have 100% confidence in defeating him.
If after 24 hours, you hear nothing from me, order a full retreat on all our forces and shut down the rift to this world.
After this, you are to immediately crown my son, Ginaroad, as the next Demon king and eliminate all dissent against him.
This, is my first order to you as the 'Demon King'...and also, the last."
His words were so sudden and Pride was momentarily dumbstruck by them, the most powerful man she knew just told her he wasn't sure about his survival in battle, it would be weirder if she wasn't.
"Alvey, what do you mean by-!"
Pride's words were cut off when she suddenly felt a bone-chilling aura that shook her to her core.
The skies turned dark and golden lightning flashed from within the clouds. She sensed a mass of magic power that Pride was sure was easily triple her maximum rapidly approaching their location at a speed that should not be humanly possible.
**SHATTERR!!
Alvey's face contorted as his gaze turned sharp, a terrifying pressure escaped from his body as he took his hand off Pride's shoulder and punched the space behind her, shattering it like glass.
"Go, I hope we meet again."
With that, he pushed her into the hole in space that he just created behind her and turned around to face the source of the magic power Pride sensed.
The space began closing up as Pride reflexively stretched her arm out towards Alvey but was unable to reach him as he had moved away.
Before the space closed up completely, she caught the figure of a being adorned in an armour of light with golden tendrils of lightning crackling around his body, descending from the sky.
She could see the back of Demon King Alvey Sargon, exuding an aura of authority and power as he flew into the air to clash with this light armoured celestial.
That was the last time, Pride saw Demon King Alvey Sargon.
◇ ◇ ◇
"...ide. Pride!"
"huh?"
"Finally, you answered me. What happened, you just zoned out right after Evan started getting scolded."
Eliza's voice brought Pride back from her sea of memories as she shook her head while saying nothing was wrong.
"You sure as hell don't look like it."
The priestess narrowed her eyes as she locked gazes with the high demon for a moment, before shrugging her shoulders in the next moment.
"Oh well, if you say so."
Eliza turned her gaze to Artemisia who was concluding her list of why Evan's actions were the height of stupidity.
[Why were you the one to rank first in the game? The 1%1||￡ of destiny said you were the right choice too.]
Artemisia heaved a sigh of exasperation as she spoke of something Evan and Eliza did not fully understand.
[Maybe it was for the best.]
She shook her head and checked how long she had in this body before turning to Evan and continuing.
[I'd be going somewhere now, I'd contact you when I'm done with the tower of trials, till then, I doubt you'd hear from me.]
As soon as she was done speaking, she disappeared in a flash of light.
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶