Volume 2 chapter 24
"Ah!"
Charlo flailed helplessly as an irresistible force dragged him down. The last speck of light above him vanished, and he fell completely into the Abyss of Memory.
"Ugh..."
Despair. It was a tangible, visible force, surrounding him like vengeful spirits. Black flames burned on all sides, dancing like the desperate hands of those dying in agony.
"Damn it!"
Charlo swung his sword, trying to drive away the "spirits." It was futile. They had no physical form, yet they filled every corner of this space.
The pervasive aura of despair quickly breached his defenses, flooding into his body like a swarm of insects.
"ARGHHH..."
In an instant, he felt it—a suffocating sensation. Despair, accompanied by a bone-chilling cold, traveled through his meridians. Wherever it went, the freezing cold followed.
In just a few breaths, Charlo felt as though he had been plunged beneath a glacier. His entire body was frozen stiff, unable to move.
And it wasn't just his body. The Breath of Despair penetrated deeper, into his soul. It sought to freeze his mind, to make him give up thinking, to let him fall into eternal darkness.
At the same time, the black flames crawled onto his skin, burning silently, further dismantling his will.
"Guh..."
Through the onslaught, Charlo began to see them—fragments of Clyris's dark past.
The Origin of the Demon Lord.
Arya's departure was merely the beginning of a life defined by tragedy.
After suffering humiliation, Chris chose to enlist. He went to the Magdeburg Line, becoming an ordinary soldier.
He spent two years in the military, successfully advancing to the Third Rank and becoming a formal Knight. He served as a squad leader in the Northern Legion of Thebes, commanding ten soldiers.
Things seemed to be looking up. His sister's studies at the Magic Academy were going well. Mages were even more arrogant than Knights—their one-in-a-hundred talent made them look down on everyone equally. Ironically, this helped his sister. Since she had talent, the mages saw her as "one of us," ignoring the classism that Knights often displayed toward commoners.
After graduation, his sister joined him at the Magdeburg Line. following a childhood dream, Chris left the army. Together with his sister and a few partners, they formed an adventurer party and gradually built a reputation.
Then came the mission from a Viscount. It was a trap.
The partners he had struggled to find turned on each other. Betrayal. Death. A tragedy unfolded before his eyes.
The feeling of collecting the scattered remains of his friends with his own hands.
The feeling of watching trusted comrades stab him in the back.
The feeling of watching his sister die because of his own stupidity...
Regret and hatred gnawed at his heart like vipers. Chris could barely think.
"Ah..."
Charlo felt as though he were experiencing it firsthand.
Burying dead comrades. Being betrayed. Watching his sister die.
And finally, being pushed off a cliff by his most trusted friend.
He was pierced through the chest by a tree branch, left hanging on the cliff face for three days and two nights. Exposed to the wind and sun. Pecked at by carrion crows.
In his final moments, the Ancient Demon Lord's Power, sealed deep below the cliff, was somehow triggered. As the first living being directly above the seal, Chris was chosen as the vessel.
He became the Demon Lord. The ancient power drew in the scattered fragments of the current generation's power, completing his transformation.
But it also... changed his gender. From him... to her.
Despite this, she never thought of betraying humanity. After a simple disguise, she quietly fled the border, returning home.
But when she arrived...
The Viscount who had framed her wanted to eliminate all loose ends. He had mobilized dozens of knights to surround her family home. Her father was accused of colluding with demons and betraying the Empire. He was dragged out of the house, about to be hanged on the city wall.
That was her first act as the Demon Lord. Unfamiliar with her new Authorities, her strike was clumsy and overpowering. She killed the dozens of knights instantly—but the collateral damage also killed over ten innocent bystanders.
Her father recognized her. He questioned her sternly. Where is your sister?
After hearing her story, her father remained silent. Finally, he drove her out of the house.
After casting her out, her father went back inside. He dug out an old set of armor, put it on, and took up a sword. Like a knight of old, he went to the Viscount's castle to seek revenge.
But he was just an ordinary man. He didn't even make it past the gate. A mere gatekeeper cut him down.
Then, she, who had been following in the shadows, struck for the second time.
A Sixth-Rank Viscount was nothing before her. She decapitated him easily.
But when she brought the Viscount's head to her dying father, hoping for forgiveness or peace, he showed no joy. Instead, he looked at her with a complicated expression.
And then—he slit his own throat in front of her.
Yes. Her father committed suicide.
She stood there like a child who had made a mistake, staring blankly, unable to comprehend why he would do such a thing.
In the very end, her father lay in her arms. But he didn't look at her. He looked at the sky and spoke his final words:
"My children... are all dead! You are not... him..."
That sentence struck like lightning, shattering the deepest part of her soul.
Her last refuge... was gone. Her last anchor to humanity... ceased to exist.
That day, she lost her soul. In a daze, she buried her father on a hillside. Then she stood there, thinking nothing, doing nothing, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
She stood there until the local Lord brought knights to crusade against her. Only then did she wake up.
What caused me to lose everything?
Nobles! The Empire!!
They took her childhood love. They took her trusted partners. They took her beloved sister. They took... her father!
Rage burned away reason. Hatred corroded her heart.
She struck for the third time.
This time, she held nothing back. She let the madness take the reins, venting her violence without restraint. She slaughtered three entire Viscount territories.
After the massacre, she calmed down. She finally understood that she could never go back. So, she chose to accept the Demon Lord's destiny and went to the Demon Realm.
However, upon arrival, she found the Demon Realm in ruins.
Thousands of years of defeat had left the demons in despair. Many just wanted to live out their days in their corner of the world.
The Nine Great Tribes were disjointed. The nine Grand Dukes did not answer to each other. It was a pile of loose sand.
She first beat Gruen, the Grand Duke of the Beast Demons, into submission. Then, using the Beast Demons' strength, she coerced the others, finally uniting the Nine Tribes with great difficulty.
She reformed their military system, ending the chaos of tribal warfare and selecting elites for shock troops.
Up to this point, things went smoothly. But then came the invasion of the Empire.
Until the very moment of the attack, the strategic goal was unclear. The Grand Dukes argued endlessly, each having their own agenda.
They chose to attack the Fortress of the Western Reach simply because its defenses were the weakest.
In the end, she had to single-handedly force a consensus to attack the Wall of Despair.
But the gap between Demons and Humans was too vast. Before the Wall of Despair, eighteen Ninth-Rank powerhouses awaited her.
She was besieged by nine of them. It was her first time facing true desperation in battle. Although she possessed three Authorities—Darkness, Gravity, and Charm—she only knew how to use the first two. She, a woman by circumstance, neither knew how nor wanted to use the Authority of Charm.
She was beaten to the brink of death. But luck favored her one last time. In her final moments, she touched the Wall of Despair. The Demon Lord's power resonated with the Abyss, granting her the Authority of Death, allowing her to turn the tables.
But after that, there was no more good news.
Three Saints descended. She fled in disgrace.
Then a fourth Saint arrived. She was beaten half to death.
She hid in Ironwood to catch her breath, but only a year later, the Rodinia Grand Alliance formed. She had to return to the Demon Realm.
Facing the Alliance's overwhelming advantage, she had to gamble on asking the Demon God for help. But the Demon God didn't care about her or her people. He only wanted her body as a vessel to resurrect his daughter.
She accepted the Demon God's modifications, reshaping her body to match Phyllis, all to fight the eight incoming Saints.
She wanted to drag at least one Saint down to hell with her... but she failed.
Facing eight Saints, she couldn't even resist. In the end, Phyllis, unable to watch the pathetic display any longer, took control.
A life defined only by despair and failure.
When the broken, bloody truth was laid out before him, Charlo felt his own will faltering. She had already given up struggling.
"So... give up!"
A sigh echoed in Charlo's ears. A sense of utter powerlessness flooded his body.
"What is the point of persisting in a life where you can achieve nothing? You are merely adding to the joke..."
"I... will not... give up!"
Charlo struggled, trying to crawl out of the quagmire of despair.
"No matter how you struggle, you are just a clumsy actor performing a terrible, laughable play on a stage. You struggle amidst mockery, and you exit amidst mockery. You cannot even stir up dust! You have achieved nothing! You are worth nothing!"
Countless hands reached out from the darkness, grabbing Charlo, dragging him toward the deepest abyss.
"Ugh..."
The suffocating breath of despair filled Charlo's lungs. He had no strength left to fight...
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