Boom!

Boom!

From the rift in the abyss, purple fireb.a.l.l.s started raining down and turned into demons once they hit the ground.

Seeing this unfold, Hong Yuri led her vampires and went on the attack.

Chwaa!

The vampires’ sharp weapons cut through the demons, skinning them with ease.

It was quite a useful skill.

However, Woohyuk didn’t pay much attention to them.

“Where are the Demon Kings?”

“I don’t know. I can’t see them either. We better be careful.”

“I’m sure they’re hiding in a place where they can’t get caught. It seems their plan is attrition until they gain the upper hand.”

With their backs together, Helena and Maria chanted spells to create a defensive barrier.

Woohyuk made sure that his party members were within the barrier before summoning all the Demon Kings in Lemegeton.

“I want you guys to call on all of your subordinates in the Demon Realm. I don’t want you guys to engage directly with these lesser demons and expose yourselves to attack.”

“Will we finally play the role of commanders again?”

“As a Demon King, this type of order is a new feeling.”

“I hope my subordinates don’t ignore me after such a long separation.”

The Demon Kings shed tears of emotion when they were told to summon their subordinates. They missed the sensation of being at the top of the food chain. 

Soon, another abyss rift was created, and the Demon Kings’ armies started populating the battlefield.

“Are you planning to continue observing?” Sieg asked Woohyuk.

“… I guess I’ll have to go find them,” Woohyuk replied as he scanned the battlefield.

He couldn’t see any of the Demon Kings.

However, he felt an observing gaze coming from somewhere nearby.

“Isn’t it possible that they’re using stealth magic, Master? If the Demon Kings are at least at Paimon’s level, they’ll be able to trick our eyes,” Roan suggested.

“That’s possible. What do you think, Dantalion?” Woohyuk suddenly asked after hearing Roan’s comments.

Dantalion put his hand on his chin and made a thoughtful expression.

“Well… this is my opinion, but it doesn’t seem like they’re using stealth skills. It seems like they’re observing this side between the dimensional boundaries.”

“Using the boundaries between dimensions. That can certainly be the case.”

The boundary between dimensions that Dantalion spoke of was the rift in the abyss.

In other words, the Demon Kings weren’t coming down to the battlefield but watching the unfolding situation in the abyss rift.

Roughly understanding the situation, Woohyuk summoned Verserios.

“You’re planning on destroying their abyss rift, Lord?”

“Yeah. I did it once during a tutorial.”

At that time, it had taken him half a day riding and fighting atop a three-legged eagle to destroy an abyss rift.

Of course, it was a much weaker version than a real abyss rift.

Woohyuk flew towards the enemy’s abyss rift and swung Verserios once.

KRang!

Verserios bounced off the abyss rift. Purple lightning flew out in all directions like sparks.

KwKwKwKwKwKwKwKwKw.a.n.g!

The damage he sustained from the lightning sparks was much larger than in the tutorial.

However, Woohyuk had greatly developed since that tutorial.

KRang!

KRang!

Verserios repeatedly struck the enemy’s abyss rift.

Then Hong Yuri shouted to Woohyuk with a nervous expression,

“Watch out for the lightning strikes! You’ll become incapacitated if you get hit directly!”

“… Don’t worry.”

There were many situations where he had to pretend to incapacitate, but he had never once actually become incapacitated.

As Woohyuk repeatedly damaged the abyss rift, an old man’s voice rang out from within.

[Stop hitting it. We’ll go down to the battlefield on our own.]

“So, it’s you, Paimon. What’s the 9th ranked Demon King doing in there? Were you bored and wanting to play pretend as the Creator?”

Woohyuk tried to egg Paimon on as much as possible.

However, Paimon smiled and simply brushed off Woohyuk’s provocation.

[Honestly, I do want to become the Creator, but it’s still impossible for me. However, the Demon King throne is another matter.]

“Do you think an old man like you can get there?”

[If you keep provoking me, it won’t be good. Let me give you an example of why.]

High-density magic power collected in the abyss rift.

As Woohyuk hurried away, a huge purple particle lightning strike hit the ground in front of him.

Kw.a.n.g!

The purple particle lightning strike wasn’t just a one-time attack. It continued to wander on the ground and affect everything in its vicinity.

As a result, the demons within the range of its spread were annihilated.

Hong Yuri rolled on the ground and got to her feet with a startled expression.

“What, what was that!? Are you some sort of scientist in the Demon World?”

“It’s probably a skill that was developed in-house, Blood Queen. I’ve seen members of the Golden Roses use similar skills on the Isle of Chaos,” Sieg answered while looking up at the abyss rift.

Meanwhile, Roan exclaimed while giving a thumbs-up sign,

“Amazing! I want to try something like that!”

“You can’t even grasp the current atmosphere… do you want me to cut your b.a.l.l.s off?”

“Ahh! I don’t want to be castrated by the Witch of Annihilation!”

From a certain point, Helena was referred to as the castrating specialist.

Maria started sweating at the weird development of events. The atmosphere had turned from serious to something weirdly comical.

‘These people aren’t normal…’

Even though the Demons and Homunculus may not have a sense of seriousness, Helena was a Saintess like herself, but her image was very different.

Not caring about how she looked right now, Helena continued to hysterically scream out,

“Ah~ Roan, you remind me of that terrible scene from that time again. It was really hard to cut the tough leathery skin that enwrapped those precious...o...b...”

“… Helena… please stop,” Maria stuttered as her eyes shook violently.

As she struggled to clear her mind, another purple particle lightning strike penetrated the ground.

Kw.a.n.g!

This time, the strike hit right next to the party members.

The party relied on the defensive barrier to endure the formidable attack.

“Is everyone okay? I think we stopped it somehow…”

“We were lucky this time, but I don’t know what’ll happen if we keep getting struck.”

Brynhildr and Maria exchanged words with serious expressions.

Then Helena pointed at Woohyuk and shouted out,

“Hey, you! Can’t you break it up a bit quicker? We’ve only stopped the attack once, but it’s already difficult to keep ourselves safe!”

“… I’m trying, so don’t complain so much, Witch of Annihilation.” 

Woohyuk lightly pa.s.sed Helena’s words into one ear and out the other.

Later, as he swung Verserios again, cracks gradually formed around the rift.

KwJi-Ji-Ji!

It seemed like he was making some progress.

Paimon also seemed to decide that he couldn’t prolong the inevitable.

[I think this is a suitable time. As you wish, I’ll present myself.]

Saaaa~!

Purplish wind blew out wildly from the rift as Paimon appeared.

He was an old man with gray hair.

Maybe his image was why they felt a level of dignity exuding from him, but, outside of that, there was no big difference from other Demon Kings.

“Are you going to fight against me alone? I’ll compliment you for your courage,” Woohyuk calmly stated.

“I never said that. Do you think I don’t know that you have seven Demon Kings under your control?” Paimon retorted. He certainly exhibited a seasoned and computational side.

Woohyuk also knew about Paimon’s calculative nature, so he didn’t do anything brash or clumsy.

“Why are you wasting time? Did Aleister promise you a magical invention if you helped him?”

“Haha… no way. However, he did lend me the weapon that fired the particle lightning a moment ago. For free, too.”

In short, the Demon King Alliance believed in Aleister’s invention enough to confront Woohyuk.

Woohyuk looked at Paimon as if he was looking at a pathetic gambler.

“Do you think I’ll be hit by that? You probably don’t know who stopped the first catastrophe.”

“Haha. We won’t know what will actually happen until we try, will we? That’s why we took some time.”

As Paimon finished speaking, a huge human-shaped demonic horseman appeared in front of the abyss rift.

“Is that the weapon that fired the particle lightning bolts?”

“Yes. Aleister named it Ishvar Unit 1.”

Ishvar Unit 1 used condensed mana as a power source.

Thus, the Demon King Alliance had wasted time because they were waiting for Ishvar Unit 1’s power source to be fully charged.

As Paimon talked proudly, Woohyuk looked at him pathetically.

“So, you’re saying that Aleister’s toy is stronger than you guys.”

“… It’s just a tool. It seems like you keep wanting to put us down, so why don’t you deal with this before blabbering on!”

When Paimon finished speaking, the red jewel on Ishvar Unit 1’s face flashed before it dashed towards Woohyuk.

At the same time, the rest of the Demon Kings in the Alliance emerge from the abyss rift.

After Woohyuk entrusting the other enemies to his allies, he focused on dealing with Ishvar Unit 1.

“Quo-oh-oh-oh-oh!” 

KwJi-Ji!

When Ishvar Unit 1 screamed out, the battleground’s surface began to split like tree branches as a semi-translucent wave reverberated out.

Woohyuk leaped up into the air and avoided the wave attack. He had already grasped the attack’s characteristics.

‘It is a machine after all.’

The general attack power may be stronger than a Homunculus’, but if the unit relied heavily on mechanical operation, its learning and critical thinking ability would be relatively low.

In other words, if he figured out the pattern of its attacks and aimed for the loophole in its artificial intelligence, the unit could easily be taken care of.

The problem was that he had to avoid hasty approaches until he figured out the pattern.

Schwing-Wing!

The Ishvar Unit 1 fired a purple particle lightning bolt from a red gem embedded in its chest.

Woohyuk observed the trajectory of the particle lightning bolt and then moved outside its range. He then performed a simple long-range attack.

Kw.a.n.g!

A jet-black wave flew from Verserios’ spear tip and struck the Ishvar Unit 1’s head.

It was an attack that would have caused quite a blow to any of the Demon Kings.

However, Ishvar Unit 1 moved casually after being struck.

Schwing-Wing!

Ishvar Unit 1 created a long sword made of purple particles.

[Neutral Blade].

It was a weapon with excellent cutting power, like a high-heat lightsaber.

“So, Aleister made that, huh…”

He recalled seeing mechanical calvary, albeit smaller, in Inotia, the city of high-tech magical creations.

If he could somehow take down this invention in one piece and give it to Aris, a more powerful ent.i.ty could be invented.

Now that he had roughly figured out the pattern of Ishvar Unit 1’s attacks, he only needed to find its weaknesses.

Chi-Ji-Ji!

The Neutral Blade struck Verserios and made a high-frequency sound.

As he made contact with the Neutral Blade, Woohyuk a.n.a.lyzed the inner magic circuitry of Ishvar Unit 1 by a.n.a.lyzing its flow of mana.

‘It seems the power source is the red jewel on its face.’

Based on what Paimon stated earlier, the red jewel seemed to be a container of mana rather than a mangenerator.

When Ishvar Unit 1 took a step back after the clash, Woohyuk used Amon’s skill, Demon Annihilation, by operating the Nocturne of the Hidden Crescent Moon. The wide-area spell created black holes around the enemy to attack from different locations. 

Hwi-Ahh!

Dozens of small black holes sprung up around Ishvar Unit 1.

Woohyuk continued to teleport in an irregular pattern along the small black holes after creating an alter-image.

All of this was done to confuse Ishvar Unit 1’s AI and give Woohyuk the chance to give the final blow.

As expected, Ishvar Unit 1 became confused and tilted its head.

‘Now!’

Woohyuk, who located the blind spot in his field of vision, escaped from a nearby small black hole and inserted Verserios into Ishvar Unit 1’s chest.

At the same time, a black vortex engulfed Ishvar Unit 1.

Its mana was being sucked in by Verserios.