Chapter 213
- Should we start?
Joshua nodded lightly at Lugia's voice in his head.
Castle Peril sat at the end of an enormous plain. It was empty, despite the lazily rising sun. A small hill of corpses still littered the grass, slowly staining the ground with dark crimson blood like morbid morning dew.
The battle had ended, but the ghosts of the dead were still there.
‘Wait… ghost?’
Joshua flinched and shivered.
- Focus!
‘...!’
Lugia floated in the air. It hummed ominously and started spinning. It drew a circle over and over again, and when it stopped, it flew toward the small hill of corpses in front of them.
- King of the defeated mercenaries…
Lugia started spinning again. It started slow, but it spun faster as the seconds went on.
- A Spirit of the Nine Realms with a grudge deeper than the darkness.
“Ugh…” Joshua groaned as a certain energy spilled out of his body like a deluge. It was the most difficult energy to handle—demonic power.
“Demonic power…”
- I, Lugia, the spear, command thee to unleash the bitterness and torment of thy loss!
There was a light sound as Lugia abruptly stopped spinning. The spear floated over the small hill of corpses. The area was bathed in a grim, threatening crimson light.
Soon afterward, Joshua stared agape as something clawed its way out of the holes Lugia had created on the small hill of corpses.
.
“Dullahan…”
It looked exactly like the dullahans Joshua had seen before. It was a horrific headless creature clad in dark armor. The only difference was that this one was twice the size of the dullahans Joshua was familiar with.
It was supposed to be the same death contract…
Joshua kept his eyes on the unmoving dullahan as Lugia spoke.
- Didn’t I say that I need a few more of them to summon the spirit of the Dullahan Lord?
‘A death contract…’?Joshua muttered to himself. The other day, Lugia had told him that a death contract with dullahans didn’t require consent from the dullahans, unlike a death contract with a death knight.
However, the catch was that if one wanted to tame a dullahan, one would have to defeat it first.
This was the issue…
Joshua wasn’t sure if defeating the Dullahan Lord would be enough for it to submit.
“Ummm…”
- Give him the highest and purest demonic power—like that of one of the twenty strongest demons, at the bare minimum…
- Some have tried to tame it before, but they all failed. I told you I’m here to help you with anything to do with demonic power. I’m a demonic artifact, after all. However, I’m a little concerned about that damned holy power in your body.
“...”
- We can’t worry about it now, though. Just go for it—but you know what happens if you lose, right?
Joshua's eyebrows twitched.
- You’re going to die if you lose. Once it realizes that some idiot woke it up again, it will try to cut your head off and dangle it from its pauldron.
Lugia sounded a bit too casual while talking about the horrible consequences.
- Begin…
The atmosphere abruptly shifted. Joshua could almost feel the weight of the air pressing down on his shoulders. It was as if he had been transported to an entirely different world where gravity was stronger.
“This…”
- 8th Lesser Demon Realm, Infinite Hell.
“...!”
Their surroundings slowly shifted. The early morning light was wiped away, replaced by heavy darkness. Everything around Joshua was stained dark red, as if a bloody curtain had been drawn around them.
Everything within a hundred meters was flipped upside down.
Joshua unknowingly took a step back, but he stumbled backward in horror.
“What…?”
There was no ground. He thought that he was simply transported to a pitch-black space with no light, but it turned out that he was standing in front of a bottomless pit.
And he could hear bloodcurdling screams from the pit…
- The Demon God gave his eight servants their own realm. Of course, those servants were nothing more than henchmen. However, one of the realms they received from the Demon God is this Infinite Hell.
While Joshua was staring at the bottomless pit, he could hear that the screams were getting closer to him as time went on. All of a sudden, something round emerged from the bottom of the pit.
It was a ceremonial helmet decorated with an ugly, rusted crown. It emerged from the bottomless pit and floated right in front of Joshua.
- The Dullahan Lord is here, and it used to be a Dullahan King.
The ominous magical force gathered at the helmet, and when the Dullahan Lord finally recovered his head, red lights ignited in his hollow eye sockets.
- To be honest, I’m excited. The Dullahan Lord has feasted on the souls of countless, so imagine its strength!
Thump!
While Lugia was talking, The Dullahan Lord moved for the first time. The Dullahan Lord was a three-meter-tall creature clad in what seemed like darkness itself. As it moved, it shrugged the falling metal debris from its armor with ease.
- What are you trying to do?
“...!”
Joshua’s eyes widened as the alien voice washed over him.
“It has its own consciousness?”
- He’s one of the Demon God’s henchmen. Are you seriously asking me such a dumb question?
“Uhm...”
- Use that dirty?energy in front of him. Just like how you dealt with the death knight, you should tame him with your pure demonic power.
“...” Joshua stared forward with confused eyes at Lugia’s statement.
- No… It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter because this body of mine is itching to tear him apart.
The Dullahan Lord’s comment seemed to be directed at Joshua. Afterward, the Dullahan Lord leaped into the air while holding its weapon in one hand and its head in the other.
“...!” Joshua was stupefied.
The undead was even faster than the Mercenary King. The Dullahan Lord sent a mixture of Aura and demonic power crashing down fast enough to tear Joshua apart limb from limb.
Joshua grinned and adjusted his grip on Lugia. It was too late to get away, so he’d take the first attack and seize the chance to counterattack while maintaining his defense.
That was Joshua’s plan, but…
The first attack landed with an explosive bang. Joshua’s holy power wasn’t as strong as it could have been, but when combined with the power of his spear, it couldn’t be underestimated.
However, Dullahan Lord’s attack made him bend his knees.
Joshua heard strange noises coming from their interlocked weapons.
The Mercenary King’s beloved weapon, Taorin, was rejoining its broken halves together. Joshua knew that it was the same weapon because the double-bladed axe was unique to the Mercenary King.
The Dullahan Lord started moving once again using the body of the Mercenary King, and it repeatedly spun in the air until it turned into a veritable whirlwind.
The Dullahan Lord’s movements weren’t that different from what the Mercenary King had done while he was still alive, but… the Dullahan Lord’s movements suddenly changed.
The whirlwind flew straight at Joshua and crashed into the ground with a bang. The hole it left was scorched with hellfire, and Taorin burned with Aura Overlay—Aura on top of Aura.
It was a technique that was guaranteed to be fatal. In fact, it was the technique that earned the Mercenary King his reputation during his one-sided massacre in the Hart Kingdom.
The Mercenary King had just displayed the wrath of a slaughterer.
- Hey, what are you doing?!
Joshua blankly stared at the aftermath of the attack, prompting Lugia to scream at him.
- Do you have a death wish?! Are you that excited to go to hell?!
“...”
The situation was rapidly changing, but Joshua remained still.
Joshua’s heart started racing as soon as he realized that the Dullahan Lord had a consciousness of its own. Other people would have been scared at the realization, but Joshua felt… right at home.
His body swelled with energy that roiled like lava. And when he finally let it out, he underwent a massive change. His skin darkened, and it started exuding black smoke as something emerged from his forehead.
- Horns?
The power of an angel could be determined by the size of its wings, and the same could be applied to demons. One could measure a demon’s power based on the size and shape of a demon’s horns. An angel’s symbol of power was its wings, and a demon’s symbol of power was its horns.
Joshua stared at the Dullahan Lord with his black eyes that seemed eerily similar to the abyss. He stretched his empty hand out. Lugia was dumbfounded to see the symbol on the back of Joshua’s hand.
- Are you kidding me? This is impossible. It has been a thousand years since he disappeared. How is it….
The symbol depicted the image of the Demon Realm’s blood moon. It was a unique symbol, with a spear piercing through the red moon. It was a symbol that only evil beings stronger than the Demon King could wield.
It was also known as the ‘Overlord Symbol.’
The Demon Realm had existed since time immemorial, but only one demon had ever wielded the Blood Moon.
The Dullahan Lord abruptly stopped moving upon recognizing it.
It lowered its head and immediately knelt in adulation for its new master.
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