CH 40.2

On a night when the Demon’s Castle was immersed in deep silence for such a long time, the sound of pen scraping that echoed through the spacious office suddenly ceased to move. A drop of black ink splattered onto the pure white paper. As he looked down upon it, Barbatos’s eyes hardened slightly.

“Whoa, damn it.”

When he was just about to crumple up the paper, he let out a shallow sigh and leaned against the backrest. The two vultures that were preening their feathers in a corner of the office looked at their Master before looking away.

Barbatos liked the clear hue of black and white. The world which was divided into the Demon Realm and the Human Realm as well as the order of the underworld where the strong and the weak had been separated were all to his taste. In his very long life, he had never seen anything that could break the rules.

What had been, would always be it. And he categorized work based on experience as well.

‘Well, there is only one conclusion anyway. Since his soul is already broken, that human will be finished no matter what.’

As he looked down at the burning wilderness under the red crescent moon, Barbatos vented.

The color of mana that was emitted by the Sword Master had already reached an irreversible point. The stone, the source of vitality as well as the body of the enlightened supernatural force, had also lost its original power. The only ending left for him was a miserable death due to mana reflux.

It was an unusual sight, but not that unexpected. Mana and magical power had the opposite properties. They couldn’t coexist in the same vessel and even if they were forced to do so, only the stronger power would have survived.

“But that Sword Master was truly different.”

He had controlled the mutated stone and converted the magical energy in the air into mana. On top of that, he changed the form of the Soul Sword to reduce the burden on his own body and re-established the flow of the energy too. With all these, the Sword Master who had received the blessing of mana was able to gain unlimited power like those demons in the underworld.

So, was he now a human or actually a demon?

“What really went wrong…”

Upon contemplation, everything had started to go wrong when the key first opened her eyes in the Demon Realm.

The human whom they originally needed was Estelle Vestra, the noblest star on earth. However, the one who actually arrived was Julia Vestra, whom they had not even realized existed before.

Humans would have simply wanted to protect their precious Princess by sacrificing a fake one, but surprisingly, Julia Vestra was actually the real key. She had a powerful magical resistance that was unheard of and it thoroughly blocked even the magic crystal as well as the Master’s magical power. Even if she had truly been the key, at the end of the day, she was still another weak human being.

Yes, up to this point, he was able to think of it as the key’s own uniqueness as he eventually moved on. But that wasn’t the only strange thing at all.

The tower where the Demon God had slept in and the magic stone itself were going through a change as well. It was revealed just once, so only few people would have noticed it, but on the day when the castle had been overturned, the tower’s magic circle had restrained the King and the magic stone’s blade was pointed straight at the Master’s neck.

It was the first time that the magic stone, which had always been called a flawless fortress of iron walls, actually attacked someone.

‘It wouldn’t be absurd to say that it was all because of the key that came nearby.’

Still, he couldn’t let it go. The law of black and white, which had been sustained ever since the creation of the world, was now vaguely swaying. It eventually got on Barbatos’s nerves.

“What was the fragment that the Master had said before? The fragment of the Demon God…”

Barbatos’s teeth became clenched as he murmured. He stared at the blank sheet of paper silently, but that never gave him any means to solve any of these bizarre things.

As he thought that he should stop by the tower and check the records as soon as possible, he then stood up without any ounce of hesitation.

* * *

04. The Demon God’s Tower.

It was a late afternoon under the warm sun, only a few days after Julia had eventually finished the second episode.

After that night, she could no longer see where Bael had gone to and Revenna already fell into a long sleep in order to restore her magical power while saying that she was all exhausted from using her strength.

For the first few days, Legion had been on the edge as he observed the environment in which he was currently living in.

In the meantime, Julia naturally ended up living in the King’s nest without an owner. It was also the safest place in the Demon Realm since she wouldn’t become a  subject to external aggression. On top of that, it was because Barbatos dared to push onto her, who had already been puzzled by the exact words that said; ‘This is the will of the Master himself’.

As she leaned against the head of the bed, Julia checked the progress of the story while being buried deep in thoughts.

[▷SYSTEM

Story progress 30%.]

[The first monarch to unify the Demon Realm, the Great Evil Bael.]

[The young hero of the Human Realm, Sword Master Legion.]

As a reward for completing the episode, the progress rate had increased by 10%. Legion was eventually added to the target character, where only Bael existed before while 3 skill points had gotten added as well. Other than that, her basic stats also rose slightly, but the biggest change was the fact that ‘Legion’ had been unlocked.

‘It must have been too late for Legion to return back to the surface now. Then……’

Julia had never really given a thought about the ending. She was thinking that if she could survive after unsealing the Magic Stone, she would be better off going back to the Human Realm and live amongst the humans.

It wasn’t that she disliked her daily life in the Demon Realm. In fact, she was very happy and grateful every day that it felt rather undeserved.

However, as a human being, staying here would only make everyone uncomfortable. She was so weak that they had to constantly bring her water and food. On top of that, she also needed someone’s protection even for just a brief outing. Nevertheless, there was nothing else she could actually do for them.

She also preferred to live among the ordinary people. The things that transpired over here would be soon cherished as happy memories. When everything was already over, Julia vaguely thought that she would eventually return to the surface alongside Legion.

She entered the skill window next. A huge golden tree bloomed brightly while being lighted up all away from the roots. And three pieces of leaves were shining vividly right at the edge of the screen—waiting for a decision.