Chapter 30: Despair? Fear? What's That?
Morlai Palace, Imperial Study.
Israel, who was observing the battle at the sacrificial site in the city center through powerful psychic projection, let out a soft exclamation. His expression turned serious. "The summoning actually succeeded? And it's a clone of an Ultimate-rank Greater Demon, at Gold Peak…"
Before he could finish speaking, a visible distortion of space-time appeared around his clenched fists. Chaotic light bloomed, and countless fragments of collapsed surface world structures swirled around him like shards. The Emperor was preparing to gather his power and deliver a crushing blow to this demon and its true body in the Abyss.
"Wait a moment, Israel."
Nostradamus, standing nearby, reached out and stopped the Emperor's fists, which were brimming with power. The old mage's eyes were filled with curiosity. "Let's first see what methods this Northern Count, who always surprises us, uses against the demon."
In truth, there weren't many methods to speak of.
At the edge of the Imperial Capital, the wooden hut originally used for the sacrificial ritual had completely collapsed under the impact of a tremendous force. A gale, carrying countless fragments of debris, surged outward in all directions. Amidst the dust and rubble of the ruins, it seemed as if two colossal beasts were locked in close-quarters combat.
They wrestled for a while, and then, accompanied by the panicked screams of the surrounding citizens, a crimson light flashed. A massive shadow was blasted into the air with a loud 'bang'. Before anyone could clearly see what that shadow was, another humanoid figure wreathed in crimson light shot into the sky and kicked it back down to the ground.
The massive shadow crashed heavily to the earth. The stone-paved street shattered under the impact, like a meteor strike. Countless cracks radiated outward, causing large-scale collapses. A pillar of dust shot into the sky, shrouding several surrounding streets.
Then, a miserable scream, inhuman in its shrillness, rang out from the smoke. It carried a despairing spiritual energy capable of shattering one's mind, which brought the City Guard, who had rushed over due to the massive disturbance, to an abrupt halt.
"What happened?" They exchanged bewildered glances and murmured among themselves, but not one dared to step forward and investigate.
"This is…" Brandon, who had followed closely behind the City Guard and arrived near the hut, narrowed his eyes. "A demon's scream?"
"What's going on?"
No one answered this question. Amidst the dust, the once-powerful scream was suddenly cut short, as if someone had choked it off. Then, with an eruption of Battle Qi fluctuations, the smoke obscuring everyone's vision completely dispersed.
One man and one beast, one large and one small, slowly emerged from the dust. Joshua was wreathed in black-red Battle Qi ripples. The overflowing power caused countless grains of sand and stone to spin around him. In his hand, the five-meter-tall, two-horned, one-eyed demon was kneeling on the ground, struggling desperately.
The demon had a human-like torso but possessed bat-like wings and thick limbs. Its body was covered in hard, black carapace, and a strange light flickered in its single purple eye.
Its throat was tightly clamped by the warrior's iron-like fingers. Due to the difference in their heights, it couldn't even stand up, forced to kneel on the ground in humiliation. No matter how fiercely the demon flapped its wings or attacked with its claws, it couldn't break free from the grip or pierce Joshua's protective Battle Qi.
The City Guards and Brandon held their breath. This scene was too shocking for them. The blonde swordsman could sense that the demon's energy level was at Gold Peak, which made his shock even greater.
When had Joshua's power reached such a level?
In the ruins, realizing the gap in physical strength was too vast, the one-eyed demon abruptly stopped struggling. Countless runes, hovering between illusion and reality, appeared on its forehead. A strange, gloomy wave began to spread from the demon's single eye.
**[Heart-Devouring Illusion]**
The true body of this demon, which had crossed over from the Abyss, was the Ultimate-rank Greater Demon [Heart-Devourer Raldanas]. As its name suggested, its true expertise wasn't the powerful physique common to most demons, but the power of the mind.
Peering into souls, manipulating desires, creating illusions with despair, fear, and sorrow, devouring hearts—to fight this powerful warrior who had pinned it down, the demon fully activated its innate talent, vowing to drag him into the illusion. For millennia, many demons and powerful beings from other worlds had fallen to this move. It believed Joshua would be no exception.
The invisible psychic wave spread rapidly, instantly ensnaring the City Guards who were protecting and evacuating the surrounding citizens. Everyone was immediately stunned on the spot. Brandon was no exception. He felt a tremor in his mental defenses, a massive impact on his soul, and was nearly pulled into the illusion.
"Such powerful mental energy!"
Shaking his head to clear his dizzy mind, Brandon pressed his right hand to his forehead, frowning deeply. He looked warily towards the ruins of the hut. Although the swordsman had suffered a hidden loss because he wasn't prepared, the demon's target was Joshua; what swept over here was merely the residual wave.
Within the illusion, there was a boundless, pitch-black world. Everything seemed to be sinking, falling towards an endless abyss.
Within it, the Heart-Devourer laughed loudly and spread its wings. It stretched its body freely, letting the pain from being clamped earlier dissipate.
**[Heart-Devouring Illusion]**—this was its world, the world of the Greater Demon Raldanas. Here, aside from itself, any mind dragged into it would have to endure the impact of endless wailing. All the pain and tragedy buried deep in the heart would be unearthed, deepened, and replayed over and over, until the mind was completely shattered by fear and despair.
No one could escape fear and despair. For millennia, there had never been an exception.
Ignoring the scattered minds of the mortals accidentally caught in the darkness, the demon flew towards the largest mass of light. Unlike the surrounding firefly-like specks of light, this soul's radiance was like molten metal core, emitting a blazing, golden-red glow.
Without hesitation, it prepared to delve into this light, to witness the scene of that powerful warrior being crushed by despair.
But there was nothing.
Delving into the light, Raldanas saw no replayed scenes. The warrior's mental world was consistent inside and out—just a mass of golden-red light.
Suddenly, sensing something, the demon slowly turned its head. It saw a pair of enormous, crimson eyes.
These eyes were looking down at it, as if gazing upon a crawling insect on the ground. Within those eyes seemed to burn a fire capable of consuming the world, yet they gave off a bone-chilling sense of fear. There was no trace of emotion in those eyes, only the purest desire for destruction and battle.
"Fear? Despair?"
A cold voice came, as if mocking. "What's that?"
"A coward who only dares to toy with hearts dares to meet my gaze?"
The clanging sound waves echoed. Time froze at this moment. Then, the entire illusion crumbled, the boundless dark world shattering into pieces, turning into nothingness.
Back in reality, the one-eyed demon stared blankly at the human warrior still gripping its throat, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
Hadn't it… already dragged him into the illusion?
"Raldanas, don't waste your strength."
Having experienced the direct curse of an Evil God's will, how could this warrior fear mere demonic mental attacks? After easily shattering the illusion, Joshua's expression didn't change at all. He calmly said to the ferocious monster before him, which wore a look of surprise, "Your mental attacks are like a spring breeze to me. Try other methods."
Who is he?
How did he break the illusion?
How does he know my name?
His last trump card easily broken, the one-eyed demon's expression twisted as he came to his senses. He surged all his power, letting the flesh at his throat be torn by the warrior, forcibly breaking free. Raldanas flew backward rapidly, then roared, unleashing a continuous stream of Abyssal spells.
**[Abyssal Flame Burst]** **[Evil Gaze]** **[Petrifying Beam]** **[Sulfur Impact]** **[Corrosive Light]**—relying on his Ultimate-rank experience and Gold Peak strength, he pushed his bloodline power to its limit, unleashing one terrifying Gold-rank spell after another. The ruins of the hut were completely blasted away by the massive torrent of mana, flattened into a plain. Explosion after explosion struck the warrior, as if trying to burn him to ashes.
But Joshua paid no attention to the attacks. He walked forward slowly, occasionally raising an arm to block or shatter a spell aimed at a vital point. The explosions and shockwaves, powerful enough to blow open a city gate, struck the warrior's protective Battle Qi, only splashing up faint, barely visible crimson ripples.
Seeing this, Raldanas didn't stop attacking, still using endless spells to suppress Joshua. But the more he fought, the more confused he became. No matter what spell or method he used, even hidden trump cards unknown to his trusted subordinates in the Abyss, the human before him could perfectly counter them with various techniques.
Sometimes, the Heart-Devourer would even be shocked to discover that his own spells had flaws he himself didn't know about, yet the warrior exploited them as if he had dealt with them a thousand times before, easily breaking them.
"Shit! By the fires of the Abyss, what the hell is going on?!" The crude Abyssal language slipped out. The demon could no longer maintain a calm facade.
What kind of monster am I fighting? How does he know me better than I know myself?
Though still attacking fiercely, in Raldanas's eyes, the black-haired, red-eyed warrior had become the most terrifying demon. This fear even surpassed his fear of the Abyss Lord who controlled his true name—it was the terror of having everything seen through.
Joshua, however, continued walking unhurriedly.
This was indeed an old acquaintance.
The monster before him, the Heart-Devourer Raldanas, was a demon from the first wave of the Abyssal invasion of the Mycroft World in his past life. This heart-toying monster used his mental powers to enslave a large number of low-level demons and occupied several cities. He treated humans like livestock, planning to use the fear and despair of the city's inhabitants as a source of power, gradually advancing to become a Legendary-rank Demon Lord.
Unlike most mindless demons, Raldanas's plan was very thorough. If followed step by step, it would surely succeed. During that time, the human side naturally did everything to obstruct him, even developing several specialized combat methods against this one-eyed demon. In his past life, Joshua had taken on a mission to hunt him down, and through countless attempts, he had memorized all of the demon's combat techniques.
Now, he understood the demon better than the demon understood itself. Even if this were just a clone, even if it were Raldanas's true body in the Abyss, Joshua was confident he could defeat it.
A flash of silver light streaked by. The silver greatsword, which had been embedded in the ground, was sent flying by the demon's endless spells. Joshua reached out, grabbed the hilt, and held it firmly in his hand.
"I'm getting a bit tired of this."
He said softly.
Then, the warrior's form flickered and vanished like an afterimage. At the same time, Raldanas felt a lightness in his arm. He instinctively turned his head to look and was stunned to find his right arm missing. The smooth wound hadn't even had time to spurt blood, as if it hadn't yet realized it was gone.
Letting out a furious roar, the one-eyed demon was both terrified and enraged. He prepared to counterattack, but Joshua suddenly closed in and struck him in the chest with a heavy elbow strike. With a muffled grunt, Raldanas's massive body flew backward like a kite. A crisp sound of bone cracking rang out, and a large section of the black carapace on his chest caved in.
Bang!
He crashed heavily to the ground, kicking up a large cloud of dust. The one-eyed demon's face was twisted in agony. One of the horns on his head had snapped off from the impact—the greatest humiliation for a demon.
But now, having regained some clarity, he had no intention of retaliating or resisting. Raldanas turned decisively, spread his wings, and flew straight towards the spatial rift he had used to enter this world. The black heart that served as the summoning coordinate had been destroyed by their earlier attacks, making the spatial rift extremely fragile, but he no longer cared about that.
He would never come to this terrifying world again! No matter who summoned him, he would never come!
But before Raldanas could make it halfway, he felt a tight grip on his left foot. A powerful force, like a vise, crushed down, nearly shattering the bones in his leg. Before he could react, his entire body was lifted by a tremendous force and swung wildly through the air.
"ROOOOAAAARRR!!"
Unable to win, unable to escape, Raldanas let out a desperate roar. He was the Heart-Devourer, named after despair, who devoured souls. But now, in the hands of this human before him, he tasted the flavor of despair.
Bloodline power surged beneath the black carapace. Dark red veins began to flash across the one-eyed demon's body. Wild power gathered as he prepared to unleash his final attack.
**[Immolation Burst]**
This was a technique every demon knew, unleashing a devastating energy blast at the cost of their own bloodline and life.
But a silver sword light danced, bringing with it a fierce gale. The demon's body was instantly cleaved in two at the waist.
Although a demon's physique surpassed most living beings, it wasn't a supernatural body like an elemental lifeform. Under the edge of the Divine Mechanism and Joshua's strength, even the strongest physique was no different from tofu.
Bones, muscles, and carapace were all severed. The Immolation Burst was halted immediately. However, Raldanas still didn't give up. Having his legs and lower body cut off actually lightened his burden and freed him from Joshua's grip. At this moment, the demon displayed incredibly powerful vitality and a will to survive.
With a powerful flap of his wings, blood and organs continuously spilled from his abdominal cavity. His face twisted in a snarl, the remaining upper half of Raldanas's body shot towards the spatial rift at several times his previous speed.
He had finally escaped! A thought of relief flashed through his mind. This clone was severely damaged, which would also be a great loss to his true body in the Abyss. It would take at least several years of recovery to return to full strength.
But just as Raldanas was about to rush into the spatial rift, his wings were grabbed by a tremendous force, and his half-corpse was pulled back.
"AAAAHHHH!!!"
The one-eyed demon stared at the spatial rift, less than a meter away, and let out an incomprehensible roar. His giant claws dug into the ground, but it couldn't stop the dragging force behind him. Deep gouges were left in the earth as he watched helplessly, getting farther and farther from the spatial rift.
"I hate your screaming."
A calm voice came. Joshua stepped down, crushing the demon's head into the ground. "But you can't die yet. It's rare to meet a demon that can talk."
(To be continued)