Volume 2 chapter 12
"BOOM!!!"
A deafening explosion shook the very foundations of the Temple. Beside the Demon God Pool, Cossette and Lilith, who had been in deep meditation, were jolted awake by the violent tremor.
"What is happening...?"
Lilith opened her eyes, only to see Cossette mirroring her expression of bewildered alarm.
"Bad news! Your Graces! Bad news!"
A communications officer stumbled into the sanctum, panic written across his face.
"Silence! Compose yourself. What is the matter?" Lilith barked, her voice sharp.
"Disaster! Lord Dukes, the Alliance... the Alliance Saints have gathered! They are attacking us right now!!" the soldier screamed.
"What?!"
Both Dukes cried out in unison. Ignoring their unhealed injuries, they sprang to their feet.
"Where are they now? And where is Her Majesty?" Cossette demanded, his voice tight.
"They have already breached the Tarisk Fortress and are driving straight for the City of Darkness! As for Her Majesty... we cannot find her! That is why I barged into the Temple!"
The soldier looked around frantically, but the vast, hollow hall held only the two Grand Dukes and himself. There was no fourth shadow.
Lilith and Cossette exchanged a grim look. The temple was indeed empty.
"Have you searched the other districts?" Lilith asked.
"We’ve turned the entire city upside down! We simply cannot find Her Majesty!" The soldier sounded on the verge of a breakdown.
"Could Her Majesty have left the city?" Cossette asked, a frown creasing his brow.
"Impossible. The gate guards haven't seen her leave in days!" The soldier shook his head violently.
"Damn it! What do we do now..." Cossette began to pace, his composure cracking.
"Calm down. Perhaps Her Majesty went somewhere in secret and hasn't returned yet," Lilith said, forcing herself to sound steady, though her hands were clenched.
"But the Alliance Saints are already at our doorstep!" Cossette snapped.
"Then we hold the line! We hold until Her Majesty returns!" Lilith declared firmly.
"With what? This half-dried Demon God Pool? Or with our broken bodies?" Cossette challenged her, his voice rising. "Even if we stand together, can we survive a single strike from a Saint in this state?"
"We defend it even if we cannot! Or are you suggesting we flee?" Lilith shouted back.
"I didn't say I was running! But at such a critical moment of life and death, how can the Demon Lord be missing?!" In his agitation, Cossette let slip his true frustration.
The hall fell into a suffocating silence.
Demon Lord Clyris. Although the general populace didn't know the specifics of her ascension, the Grand Dukes knew the truth—she had been human.
She bore no traits of the Demon Race. She wasn't an Elf, nor a Dwarf. On this continent, only humans looked like that. The knowledge she had brought to them—the military reforms, the technology—was undeniable proof of her human origins.
In the beginning, the Nine Grand Dukes had resisted this truth. Grun, the Beast Demon Duke, had even publicly refused to acknowledge Clyris as their ruler. But under her leadership, the Demon Race had evolved. She brought the shock cavalry formations of the Human Empires. Under her rule, the fractured tribes united. Eventually, even Grun had bowed his head and sworn loyalty.
But the stigma remained.
"What... did you just say?" Lilith stared at him, her eyes widening.
Cossette realized his mistake instantly. "I... I meant... maybe we should look around again?"
"Enough!!"
"Cossette, even if you suspect me, you cannot suspect Her Majesty!" Lilith’s fury boiled over. "How dare you?! Have you forgotten? If not for Her Majesty, we would have died at the Wall of Despair! No—without her, we wouldn't have even passed Conqueror City! A few charges from the Human Knights would have trampled you into the mud! And now... now you dare doubt her?!"
"I... it was a slip of the tongue!" Cossette offered a weak defense.
"Save it! If you won't fight, stand aside! I will! Even if I have to plug the breach with my own corpse!"
Lilith slammed her hand through the air in disgust and stormed out of the Demon God Temple.
20,000 Meters Above the Demon Realm.
Eight figures cut through the thin atmosphere.
Curtis, Farragut, Theia, Wade, Melton, Brand, William, and Schnet. The Eight Saints of the Alliance were flying at speeds exceeding Mach 2, arrowing toward the heart of the enemy—the City of Darkness.
"These Demon machines are somewhat intriguing. I wonder how many secrets we can reverse-engineer once we take them back."
Melton spoke with casual interest, effortlessly catching a fighter jet that had attempted to intercept him.
"Hmph! In the end, it is just the futile struggle of the weak," Curtis said coldly. He closed his hand, crushing two fighter jets into scrap metal as if they were made of paper.
"They do possess a certain wisdom, however. The structure of these weapons mimics the aerodynamics of Giant Eagles, yet the internal geometry is baffling," Theia mused, watching the debris fall. "I truly wonder how they manufactured them."
"Enough chatter, everyone," Farragut interrupted. He looked ahead at the colossal black city rising on the horizon. His voice dropped an octave. "We have arrived... It is time to end this."
________________________
Cold...
So cold...
Save me...
Clyris slowly opened her eyes. She found herself back at the edge of the Demon God Pool.
"I... am back?"
She exhaled slowly, a plume of white mist escaping her lips. She realized immediately that her body had never felt this powerful. It was overflowing with energy.
But there was a price.
She looked down. A set of hideous, pitch-black armor now encased her body. Her once-dark hair had turned snow-white, and her eyes, once human, were now crimson orbs colder than the deepest glacial ice.
She stared at her reflection in the water, rendered speechless.
Is this... me? Clyris asked herself.
No... this isn't me.
This is an evil spirit. A flesh-eating ghoul. More brutal than a demon, more insane than a beast—a Revenant of Vengeance.
But as the thought formed, she realized she didn't regret it. She didn't care what she looked like anymore. Was appearance important? No. Not anymore.
As long as she had power... as long as she could make the Empire tremble... that was enough.
"Bang!"
She stomped her foot, shattering the stone floor. She shot upward, smashing through the roof of the temple and coming to a halt high above the city.
"Your Majesty! You've finally returned!"
Lilith, standing on the city walls, spotted her immediately and flew up to meet her. But as she drew close, she faltered, stopping in mid-air to stare at the figure before her in confusion.
"Majesty...?"
"It is me, Lilith."
Clyris nodded slightly.
"You look... Ah! Right, the Alliance's Eight Saints are attacking! Did you... did you break through?" Lilith looked at Clyris’s transformed state, sensing the terrifying aura radiating from her. She wisely chose not to ask about the appearance.
"No."
Clyris shook her head. Although she had somehow obtained the blessing of the Demon God's power in those final moments, she still lacked a Domain. The only thing she could do now was use the sheer volume of the Demon Lord’s power to repel other Domains and affect a large area.
It was, effectively, a singular Pseudo-Domain.
Her current state barely reached the Ninth Rank intensity that the Demon Lords of the Dark Age possessed, but she was not yet a true Saint.
Clyris looked toward the horizon, her face void of emotion.
"They are here."
As soon as the words left her lips, eight figures descended from the heavens. Each one radiated an aura as deep as the abyss and as vast as the sea. The terrifying pressure wiped the clouds from the sky and forced countless lower-ranking demons in the city to fall to their knees, crushed by the mere presence of the Saints.
She stood in the air, facing them calmly.
There were no words exchanged. No ultimatums.
In the next instant, the eight figures vanished. Simultaneously, Clyris raised her hand, and her figure disappeared from above the city.
A split second later, a deafening boom erupted from the high atmosphere.
Lilith looked up, her mouth falling open in shock.
"The sky... it cracked?!"
_____________________________
Ironwood Territory.
"Huh!?"
Charlo looked up sharply toward the northwest, driven by a sudden, violent whim. Although he could see nothing but the walls of his study, his heart missed a beat. A chill ran down his spine.
"What... happened?"
He shook his head, forcing the inexplicable anxiety out of his mind. He returned his focus to the desk.
There, on a blueprint, he was sketching a long, cylindrical object. It had a conical warhead at the tip and four stabilizing fins at the tail...
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