Chapter 241: Episode 77. The Last Battle.

The Hell Lord constantly vomited blood. His body shook like a tree in a storm and he kept grinding his teeth. His eyes were also bleeding. Something must have gone wrong.

“Randalf… Bruciel…!”

The Hell Lord’s voice boomed throughout the battlefield. His voice sounded so eerie that whoever heard him got the chills. The stronger demons realized that he was the Hell Lord at once and that he was in a different league than them. The Hell Lord was the last challenge. His appearance implied that the battle was coming to an end, but at the same time, his tremendous power made the defenders despair.

The Hell Lord then raised his hand.

The force of destruction started to concentrate in his hand.

So much mana was accumulated. Such a cluster of mana seemed very dangerous, but the defenders could not do anything about it.

When the Hell Lord stretched out his hand, a violet sphere as large as a person’s face hit the ground.

Booom!

The explosion did not differentiate friends from foes. The storm erased everything. It was one of the Hell Lord’s skills, Guidance of Doom (God). It was the power for the sole purpose of destruction. Not even high monsters and demons could stand against this power. In the blink of an eye, thirty thousand demons and monsters evaporated.

Death Bringer seemed unsatisfied with the attack, thinking that his skill was weaker than usual. The divine power which he concentrated inside of the system was released, so his strength had weakened. Clenching his fists as hard as he could, the Hell Lord looked at the castle. Even though his power was reduced, he was Death Bringer, a Demon God, after all.

Erasing a castle was a piece of cake for him.

“No mortal can defeat immortals. I am Death Bringer! How dare you stand against a god?”

He stretched out his hands once again. Then many hands also stretched out from the ground. The hands took the dead bodies of thirty thousand monsters and demons underground. Soon, the hands created a giant puppet.

The thirty thousand dead bodies were transformed into a monster, whose height was higher than a hundred meters. It was a result of a combination of Death Bringer’s powers and skills.

The monster was dumb but extremely powerful.

It swept the battlefield, leaving torn dead bodies.

It seemed that Death Bringer did not care about foes or friends.

“I will kill you last. And before your doom… I will take everything away from you.”

Death Bringer declared with a god’s authority. He emphasized every single word.

Although both Roguzan, the Balrog, and Adonis, the Spirit King of Darkness, had entered the realm of transcendence, they were far weaker than me. In other words, there was nothing I could gain by absorbing them. Had they had some sort of power like Karmiel, it would have been worth engulfing them, but none of them had any power.

Adonis went inside the system and got the Elemental Shield. The system must have told him how, and the spirit followed the instruction exactly. However, such a skill was too weak to be called power. Moreover, the spirit did not even master the skill very well. Adonis was so proud of himself for getting that skill that he stopped thinking.

I decided not to absorb any of them. In addition, it seemed that there was a limit as to how many beings I could engulf.

“Maybe I could take another five,” I thought.

I had first thought that there was a limit for the total amount of mana. However, after absorbing a couple of others, I found out that there was a maximum number of beings that I could engulf. Of course, that number varied with my strength, and currently, the limit seemed to be five.

In any case, I was quite excited.

“I wonder what would happen if I absorb Death Bringer,” I thought.

Although his power was greatly reduced, Death Bringer was a Demon God. He wasn’t just a god, but one of the most powerful gods.

Should I absorb him, I believed that I would get as strong as or even stronger than him.

Even as of now, I was as powerful as a god. I could not imagine how powerful I could get if I could engulf Death Bringer.

Getting stronger was always fun.

Then Lyhee informed me that Death Bringer had launched an attack.

“If he started, I must respond,” I thought.

I always had to intervene.

As soon as I came back through the crack, I release all of the weapons that I brought. There were hundreds of weapons and armors, which were of epic grades or above. At least a thousand of them were of unique grade.

“Give these to whomever that need them.”

“Yes, master.”

Lyhee followed my order immediately.

The castle was in a terrible condition. After multiple retreats, the defenders’ weapons were worn out. If one was a pro, one would not have to depend on tools. However, it was a different story in battlefields. When two soldiers were equally good, the one who had better tools would always win. In combats, a small difference could lead to dramatically different results.

I could see that some of my demons would improve dramatically if their armors and weapons were better than what they had. Thanks to Ariel Diablo’s training programs, the demons in the castle were skilled at using weapons.

I let Lyhee take charge of distributing new weapons and armors to my subordinates. After assigning the job to the fairy, I went to the top of the castle to analyze the status of the battle. I could not help but click my tongue.

“It can’t be worse,” I thought.

The battle had started not long ago, but our forces had received heavy damages. Dead bodies of friendlies and enemies were piled up in various locations of the battlefield. Despite the large casualties, there were still a large number of enemies, while our forces were noticeably reduced in their number.

“That’s not even twenty thousand,” I thought.

I coldly analyzed the battle. The number of enemies reduced, but there were still around three million left. Thanks to the geography of the battlefield, we were not surrounded, even though we were greatly outnumbered. We were fighting a large number of enemies in multiple narrow pathways. However, such an advantage would not last long.

Should the enemy break through one of the paths, they would come in like the flood and surround us. That would be the end of us.

I looked up and saw the highest place in the air that I could see. There was Death Bringer, in the body of the Hell Lord, saving energy to use his power. The Hell Lord was only as tall as a male human, but the amount of mana that he contained in his body was so large that I could feel it from a distance.

“He’s trying to wipe out everything,” I thought.

I could see that Death Bringer was using the Power of God, the most destructive power that he had, as soon as I found him in the sky.

I doubted if I or anyone in this world could stop him.

One might try to distract him, but no one would be able to prevent the power from reaching the ground. If I wanted to strike back, I also had to use my power, which was either Reverse World or Kotodama. Unfortunately, none of them were offensive powers.

“What should I do?” I thought.

Should Death Bringer end up releasing that accumulated power to the ground, the castle would collapse. Moreover, all of the monsters near the castle would evaporate.

The Power of God was extremely dangerous, but I doubted that Death Bringer would have another one like that.

It did not take long for me to decide.

I took out my earrings. Holding them in my hands, I spoke.

“Destruction of Power.”

Slash!

A beam of white light came out from the earrings. Then, the beam engulfed my target – Death Bringer. The Demon God became serious.

“I don’t see any messages. Perhaps that is because the system is broken,” I thought.

The system always gave me options to choose from. All I had to do was choose one of them and follow the instruction. Now that the system was down, I needed to find options and execute the plans by myself.

Five different beams, each a different color, came out from the earrings.

The colors were black, purple, orange, red, and blue.

It seemed that I could eliminate one of them.

I chose the purple beam and destroyed it with my hands.

At that moment, the power that Death Bringer had been accumulating disappeared with the earrings.

“Now he has four powers left,” I thought.

I nodded. Not only did the Destruction of Power allow me to eliminate one of the powers that my opponent had, but it also showed how many powers that my opponent possessed.

I saw five different colors, and I destroyed one of them.

The Demon God now had four left.

“The Hell Lord left this amazing tool for me.”

Shrugging my shoulders, I looked at Death Bringer. The Demon God was now caged inside the Hell Lord’s physical body. Until he was fully recovered, the Demon God could not escape the Hell Lord’s body. And if I could kill the Hell Lord, I could also destroy Death Bringer permanently.

Once a being who had been in Nothingness died, it permanently vanished.

“Randalf Bruciel…!”

Death Bringer also realized that he had just lost one of his powers.

The Demon God trembled in anger. I did not expect him to reveal his emotions so honestly. Perhaps that could also be a side effect of losing a lot of divine power. In fact, I wondered if he was a god after all. Death Bringer had changed a lot since I had first seen him in Devildom.

“I might have some chance,” I thought.

I started to smile. The Demon God may be infuriated, but I could not be happier.

I successfully eliminated Death Bringer’s most dangerous power, and I wanted to fight at a different place. Should the fight continue here, it would lead to many casualties on my side.

Death Bringer had planned to ignore me and kill all of my soldiers before our duel. When such a plan failed, the Demon God became infuriated with me. It was the right time to move.

Whoosh!

I held my two swords, Rage and the Sword of the Emperor, and I activated Chaotic Blade.

Boom!

Then I folded my wings and flew towards Death Bringer as fast as I could.

Bang!

My swords were blocked by a blue shield. It was not a shield made of mana.

“This is also one of his powers,” I thought.

Such a power, which created a protection layer, reminded me of Karmiel. The angel’s power was extremely annoying, and I hated it.

However, I doubted that Death Bringer had protective power like Karmiel did. Gustarte and Diablo both agreed with me and scoffed at the Demon God.

“It must be the power that originally belongs to the Hell Lord,” I thought.

I thought about the Power of Protection, which was one of the Hell Lord’s powers. He gained this power after he was appointed as a guardian. As long as the user of this power had to protect something, the power turned the user almost invincible. On the other hand, if the offender had more to protect than the user of this power, it would become ineffective.

Crack! Crack!

The protection layer started to crack.

Death Bringer had no one to protect. He existed alone and wanted to stay alone.

On the other hand, I had a lot of soldiers, who had followed me thus far, to protect. It was a duty as the Dark Lord.

The Power of Protection was useless to me. I had many more to fight for than Death Bringer did.

“Now he has three more powers,” I thought.

Bang! Bang!

I continued to swing my swords, and Death Bringer blocked them with his hands. The collisions created shock waves, and I was being pushed to the side little by little.

We finally reached a large valley.

Grinding his teeth, Death Bringer opened his arms. Soon, a reddish force surrounded the entire valley.

It was also one of his powers, which controlled the space around him.

I frowned, because I could sense that my statistics reduced as soon as I entered this valley, even though no message window popped up.

–This is Complete Dominance, so I can strike back with my power.

Diablo’s voice ringed like a hallucination. It meant that I could easily defend myself with Kotodama against the Demon God’s Complete Dominance that had just emitted the reddish force.

From a different point of view, Kotodama was related to dominating a space. When I used it, I could control those who were within earshot of my words. Since it was possible to superpose powers, I thought that I could even cancel one with another.

“Death Bringer, none of your powers work on me.”

I said with confidence and will.

Clang!

Soon, the reddish force broke like a mirror.

“I was right… Death Bringer is not in his prime,” I thought.

Had Death Bringer been as powerful as he once was with his full divine power, fighting him would have been much more difficult. Even though he could use the same powers, their impacts would have been much stronger.

Luckily, the system was destroyed, and Death Bringer’s divine power was reduced in half. This helped me defend myself more easily against the Demon God.

Death Bringer became serious.

He was born as a god, and he must have never experienced such a defeat. It would have been even more humiliating since the one who made him feel helpless for the first time was a demon, a mortal destined to die eventually.

However, I was not a regular demon.

I, too, had some divine power, and I gained even more by absorbing Gustarte and Diablo. No mortal surpassed me.

“You are merely a mortal…! How dare a creation challenge his creator!”

Death Bringer became more emotional. Gods were perfect, and they hardly revealed their emotions.

The Demon God’s emotions convinced me even more that he was a fallen god. Death Bringer was no longer an immortal, but he was somewhere in between an immortal and a mortal. The Demon God did not just control the Hell Lord. He and the Hell Lord had almost united as one, and perhaps that was the reason why he was half demoted.

The Hell Lord was mad at me, but I could feel the same emotion from Death Bringer.

“What a miserable end,” I thought.

I did not mind the Hell Lord’s attempt to kill a god with the system. In fact, I could not care less. However, he should not have messed up the game. The Hell Lord made a terrible mistake of choosing me as his target.

Now Death Bringer had only two powers remaining, and they did not worry me.

“Death Bringer, let’s finish it.”

I used all of my offensive skills at once, which included the Flame of Pride, Lightning God, and Chaotic Blade. Only if I kill the Demon God would his army fall apart. It was heavily protected by the Demon God’s skills.

Death Bringer’s face changed. He was grinding his teeth but he suddenly smiled.

“End? …fine, but you can’t do anything about this.”

The Demon God raised his hand and pointed at me.

“What you have canceled and erased is not the true power of a god. I am the creator, and I have the authority to change my creations as I wish. I will erase you with this authority.”

Death Bringer was a Demon God, the god of demons. And I was his creation.

Then Death Bringer spoke.

“Death.”

He only spat out a word and activated one of the two remaining powers. However, this one felt different from what he had previously used.

It was his final and most powerful skill, which declared the death of his opponent.

As soon as Death Bringer spoke the word “death,” the world around me changed. It turned black and I could not see anything. However, his power failed to kill me immediately.

“Ugh..!”

I could not control my body. My hands moved to choke myself. Thanks to my high intelligence, I was able to resist.

Bang!

I fell from the sky to the ground.

And my body shook and twisted.

“Remaining statistics,” I thought.

I bit my teeth hard. I had to endure.

I realized that my intelligence was the only way to resist this power.

Therefore, I decided to use my remaining statistics.

But I did not know how to use them. The system broke down, and I did not know the method.

“Master!”

Suddenly, I could hear Lyhee’s voice from nearby.

At first, I thought I was hallucinating.

One of Death Bringer’s powers, which controlled the space around him, failed to do any damage to me, but it was still effective in the nearby areas. I could feel that Lyhee, whose soul was connected to mine, was being forcibly disconnected.

“The Dungeon Core is alive. The core is part of the system! Grab Lyhee’s hand!”

Darkness fell on my sight. I could not see anything, and I could only feel death, which was slowly strangling me.

However, I stretched my hands, and someone held them.

[System recovery 0.001%]

[Unable to recover.]

[Status windows… recovery completed.]

Name: Randalf Bruciel

Occupation: The Dark Lord (Dungeon Master)

Title:

*Dungeon Hunter (In case of conquering a dungeon or hunting demons, remaining statistics increase by one point.)

*Unbreakable Warrior (Ex U. All statistics increase by two points.)

*The first one to be blessed by a fairy (U, Mana increases by six points.)

*Owner of the Origin (Epic, All statistics increase by three points.)

*Undead (Ex U, Intelligence and health point increase by five points.)

*The master of the Underworld (Legend, all statistics increase by five points. All skills below the epic grade increase by 0.5 point.)

*The Original Dark Lord (God, all statistics increase by ten points. Kotodama, which is equivalent to the grade of transcendence is given.)

Statistics:

Strength 130 (+30) Intelligence 149 (+25) Agility 125 (+30) Health point 145 (+32) Mana 142 (+26) Potential (689+143/???)

Remaining statistics: 47

Electric power: 742GW

Comments: Randalf is the owner of the Underworld. The heart of Hell Lord has fully awakened. Due to several reasons, Randalf has gained divine power. In addition, Randalf inherited the power of Diablo, the original Dark Lord.

Skills: Combination of All Things (Ex U), Mind’s Eye (Demigod), Dark Sword (Epic), Sentiment du Fer (Epic, Passive), Attacking Spirit (Epic), Pride (Epic), Depravity (Legend), Power of Domination (Ex Epic, Passive), Commune with Spirits (Epic, Passive), Reverse World (God), Kotodama (God, Passive), Complete Plundering (Demigod), Chaotic Blade (Legend), Destruction of Power (God)

Activated skills and items: Rage (Strength +7), Indolence (Agility +7), Pride (Health point +7), Sentiment du Fer (Strength and agility +3)

A few words made it through the darkness and appeared before me.

I bit my lips so hard that they almost bled. I used all of my remaining statistics on my intelligence. As a result, my intelligence point was far beyond two hundred and became two hundred and twenty-one.

[You gain a new skill, the Shield of Aegis.]

An intelligence point of two hundred was almost equivalent to a power. When I learned the Shield of Aegis, the darkness which was surrounding me started to disappear.

The world came back as it was, and only then could I open my eyes.

However, what appeared in front of me puzzled me.

“How dare a fairy challenge me? You must die.”

Death Bringer’s hand penetrated Lyhee’s chest.

Lyhee was a spiritual being, so physically penetrating her chest did not do any harm to her. However, Death Bringer had the power to slice even spiritual beings, because his strength lied in the realm of gods.

No matter how much Lyhee had grown – even if she became the Fairy King – she could never fight with Death Bringer.

At the same time, Lyhee became fainter and fainter.

“…”

I remained silent. Then Lyhee looked at me and smiled weakly.

“M-master… hehe.

I did a good job, didn’t I?”

Lyhee, who was smiling playfully, suddenly dropped her face.

Then she evaporated in a trail of white smoke.

“…”

I could not move.

I managed to open my mouth a bit, but that was all I could do. I did not know what to say.

This was the second time that I saw Lyhee die.

Both times, she died for me. And both times, she did not resent me.

Lyhee could have left me when she earned the position of the Fairy King, because that was the deal according to our contract. She had a more important job to work on, which was leaving the core and creating her own world. Despite such a paramount task at hand, the fairy decided to stay with the core.

She kept on saying that she was nervous. Perhaps she stayed to watch me and make sure that I was safe.

–Hello, Dungeon Master. My name is Lyhee, and I am Dungeon Master’s fairy! Lyhee!

–Wow, that’s amazing, master! You just read mind!

–Lyhee is very sorry for the mistake. She should have watched it until the last moment, but she did not. Please forgive her, master…

–Master! Master! Don’t leave Lyhee alone and die.

When I looked back, Lyhee had always caused troubles. She had never finished her jobs, and I had always scolded her. The fairy loved honeybees, and she even made a secret garden to grow them. Once in a while, she came up with brilliant solutions, but most of the time, she was much more helpful when she did not do anything.

Despite all the troubles, I had always had her by my side. She never betrayed me. No matter how mean I had been in the previous life, she had always smiled. The fairy had always been the same, even when she had died for me.

However, everything was over.

I could not turn back the time.

And even if I could, I could not do that twice. I was convinced about it, because the divine power taught me some truth about this world.

I would never see this minx again.

“Oh, now you have the Shield of Aegis? It doesn’t matter. No mortal can fully use that power.”

Death Bringer tried to provoke me.

Erasing all of my emotions, I looked at him.

“You will die.”

I declared.

I put the strongest will that I could imagine in these words, much more powerful than the Power of Death.