Chapter 156

The Flames of Hades was the name of Alvarto’s special ability and one of his titles. The skill brought instant death upon anything it touched. The moment those black flames grazed a target, the victim’s soul would be sent immediately to the underworld. Nothing was exempt. Making contact with that burning darkness spelled doom. The black flames raced toward us…then split in two, surrounding our group and blocking off our retreat. “Irritating. Ahh. So very irritating!” Alvarto said this with a note of intense irritation and yet with the kind of grace that would put the most beautiful women to shame. The flood of shadows coalesced around him, slowly shrinking. He was like a grim reaper emitting the ebon aura of death. “You have no idea how much effort I put in to all of this. You cannot understand how my hopes grew while I waited,” Alvarto lamented with a deep sigh. His eyes narrowed to sharp daggers. “You’ve ruined it. Ruined, ruined, ruined, ruined. Ahh, such a shame. The only thing I can do at a time like this is dance.” Alvarto spun in circles. Mad, chaotic rings. He stepped around in odd spirals, moving with strange steps. As he did so, he stared upward at the sky and quipped, “Still, that was quite brave of you. There are two things that are of vital importance to you here. To just utterly destroy the area… Quite bold, quite bold.” I dismissed his commentary. “Don’t lie. Neither the Strange Cube nor Ireena is here. You’re hiding them somewhere else, right?” Alvarto snorted as he danced, perhaps because I was right. “Impressive. Sharp as always.” “I understand how your mind works. You probably intended to enjoy a drink as you watched our efforts go to waste. Unfortunately, that won’t be happening.” When I smiled tauntingly at Alvarto, his mad dance began to slow. “Ah. I finally feel a bit of motivation.” The cloud over his beautiful features cleared in an instant, replaced by a mischievous glint. With the ease of a morning stroll, he immediately closed the distance between us, saying, “So, shall we dance?” A predatory smile spread on his face, and he waved his left arm. “Tch!” It was at this moment that we realized our mistake. We’d let our guard down because Alvarto hadn’t displayed much hostility, allowing his black flames to lash out at us. “—Wind!” I reacted entirely on reflex. With no time to evade, my brain sought an alternative and executed it. My wind magic hurled us backward with a great deal of force. No sooner had we escaped than the shadowy fire engulfed the spot we’d been standing in only a moment earlier. As we landed, we cautiously looked over at the enemy. “What a pity. So close, too! Ha-ha-ha.” Alvarto smiled like a child at play, showing no trace of aggression even as he casually tried to kill us. It was the demeanor of a madman. The years hadn’t changed him; he was still as thoroughly broken as he had been in the past. “…I suppose there’s no point in holding back.” There was a reason Alvarto was known as the most powerful of the Four Heavenly Kings. At this rate, it would be tough for me to do what I needed to. Thus, I decided to play my trump card. “Please leave this to me,” I said to my companions. Then I summoned a particular magic item. “Oh-ho. I thought it took you a while to get here. Now I understand you took a little detour to get something.” Alvarto narrowed his eyes as he grinned with delight. His gaze and attention were focused on my hands and the gem held within them. The white-gold treasure in my grip was something I had created in the distant past… And I had recovered it from a dungeon for this very fight. “I’m going all in from the beginning. Enjoy the show.” With that, I held the gem to the heavens and activated it. “Overwhelming power. Manifest before me. And bring me a hallowed victory!” After I recited a three-line incantation, the white-gold gem shimmered brilliantly, and a giant gate appeared beneath the cloudy sky. “Ahh! Such beauty! A portal to purgatory itself!” Alvarto shouted with mad glee as he beheld the gothic beauty of the gate. There was no fear in his expression. If anything, he had been waiting for this moment. It made no difference to me. He could laugh and play around all he wanted. Alvarto Egzex, I doubt this battle’s end will produce your desired outcome. “Open! Gate of Annihilation!” With those two incantations, the portal floating in the heavens loudly began to open. On the other side awaited nothing but a dark abyss. An onyx so dark that it seemed to absorb all the light. Slowly, objects began to appear. They were weapons and armor. Of course, they were no ordinary items. All the things that appeared from the gate were overwhelmingly powerful. In total, there were six hundred sixty-six of them. The collection hovering in the gray skies was my ace in the hole. The collection was the Armor of the Demon Lord. Each item was an overwhelming weapon on its own. There had only been one time in the past when I’d had to use all six hundred sixty-six of them—my final battle with the Fallen God Mephisto Yuu Phegor. Alvarto had been present for that, so he understood what he was up against. Yet the greatest of the Four Heavenly Kings continued to laugh. “Ahh, such beauty. Even all the art in this world couldn’t match this sight.” He chuckled. His demeanor suggested he still felt confident of victory, making him appear even more disturbing. “I never desired more destructive power, but I’ve longed to possess the Armor of the Demon Lord since I first laid eyes upon the collection. The power is so great that it drew me in. That’s the true nature of the Armor of the Demon Lord… Undoubtedly, the pieces are something of a reassuring crutch for you, are they not?” Alvarto continued to laugh. It made me feel as though I had forgotten something critical and obvious. No, it’s not worth worrying about it. I need to just shift to the offensive and buy time. “To you, those are essentially your lifeline, yes? Any enemy can be dealt with so long as you have that collection of weapons and armor. It’s a power you rely on when all else fails. Then…this… Then this… “…then this must be completely unexpected! Your ultimate weapon now belongs to your enemy!” Before I could give the order to attack, one of the six hundred and sixty-six pieces, the Javelin of Time Thieving, acted despite my not giving it a command. The weapon flew from the cloudy heavens toward the ground. It raced at the speed of a lightning bolt, plunging down like a predator. And then… “—Oh.” True to its name, the spear had the power to manipulate time. The moment it was thrown, it escaped the laws of this world and moved to an axis where time flowed much quicker. This enabled it to deliver a completely unavoidable attack upon its target. It wasn’t simply that it was moving faster, it operated in a completely different manner from other weapons. No matter how much one strengthened their reflexes and senses, it couldn’t be evaded. To the target, it was as though the javelin had suddenly sprouted from their chest. Which was why I wasn’t able to stop it from piercing Ginny’s heart. “G-Ginny!” Sylphy shrieked. There was no response from Ginny, however. Her eyes stared lifelessly as her body collapsed to the ground. “Worrying about someone else on the battlefield…? What nonsense.” After a mocking laugh, Alvarto turned his cold gaze upon me. Sylphy ran toward Ginny as she fell, as a light shone beneath her feet. A moment later, her entire body was consumed with raging flames. It happened so quickly that there was no time to help her. All that was left of her was a charred corpse. Alvarto grinned at Sylphy’s demise. “When was it? I believe it was during our attempt to kill one of the avatars of the Evil God. I stepped upon Miss Sylphy’s traps and got burned to a crisp. Ha-ha. I suppose this is poetic payback. Now—” He turned his eyes toward Olivia, Verda, and Lizer. I wondered what he thought as he faced his old comrades. Whatever it was, Alvarto’s look was frigid and unfeeling. “’Tis a problem to be too powerful. It takes all the fun out of fighting.” I couldn’t stop his mad acts. By the time I realized what was happening, it was all over. Olivia’s head had burst, Verda had been chopped into pieces, and Lizer had been crushed into a lump of gore. The scene was the very epitome of despair. “T’was such a long wait. A long, long wait.” A destroyed landscape. A gray sky. As darkness engulfed the world, the enemy in front of me flashed a pleased smile. Alvarto Egzex. Once, he was one of my vassals…and the most powerful member of the Demon Lord’s army. A person I had previously shared meals with as a comrade until he became the worst enemy I’d ever known. “Finally, all things have come to fruition. It was worth the millennia of waiting.” Alvarto proudly puffed out his chest in triumph, letting out a sigh of satisfaction. Honestly, the situation filled me with anguish. “A lovely sight. A lovely, lovely sight. Do you not agree? My Liege?” Spears. Long swords. Great swords. Armor. Bows and arrows. Mauls. Shields… The six hundred and sixty-six pieces of equipment that possessed overwhelming power were known as the Armor of the Demon Lord. One of my most vital assets was now in the hands of my enemy. “A frustration without equal, is it not? To have everything you could possibly possess taken from you.” Alvarto grinned as he turned his gaze in our direction. His eyes moved down to those around my feet. There was…everyone who was of any value to me. Ginny, Olivia, Sylphy, Verda, Lizer. The corpses of my friends lay upon the ground. “…” Silently, I looked upon them. Even if the results were exactly as I’d expected, I couldn’t help but wonder how it had come to this. “So, my dear Demon Lord, if you do nothing, the next move will settle it all.” With those words, the weapons and armor that filled the gray skies flashed. They were all aimed at my body. Their very presence was so overwhelming that it filled the target with the fear of death. Thus, my mind began to play back the events that had led to this moment. “…Well, this is quite the bother.” The moment I let out my sigh, the six hundred and sixty-six pieces flew toward me with immense destructive power. Nothing I did would protect me from this attack. Thus, I chose just to endure the onslaught. I continued to cast regeneration magic on myself to avoid being eradicated outright. Not yet. I can’t yet. I haven’t finished my job. I can’t disappear yet. I need to wait until everyone’s finished with their— As my vision filled with incredible displays of power, a shimmering orb was fired into the sky. That was the signal. The signal that everything was done. “…Then that’s fine.” My role was complete. All that remained was to endure. I cut off the regeneration magic. Naturally, that meant my body was going to be destroyed. But that was fine. The outcome had already been settled. “Ahh, I see. As I thought, you really are no fun,” Alvarto remarked with a tone like he was pouting. The devastating attacks stopped at his comment. I suddenly fell to the ground. After the impact, I tasted the coolness of the earth. Alvarto peered down at me, his brow furrowed with obvious frustration. “You never intended to give me a proper fight, did you?” “Yup. Screw your script.” As we exchanged words, my body began to fall apart. Starting from my fingertips, my body slowly evaporated into motes of light. The same began to happen to the corpses of my already fallen comrades. “Stand-ins created with duplication magic. That you managed to keep me from noticing speaks well of your skill.” Alvarto shrugged his shoulders. He was pretending not to be bothered, but his heart had to be a furious storm. I felt a tinge of satisfaction. “All of your actions fell well within my expectations. Undoubtedly, you’d spent several thousand years preparing. To wage a conflict that would take all of your effort against me and…to face your own end.” Alvarto must have gone around the world to each scattered piece of the Armor of the Demon Lord to overwrite its ownership. Yet no matter how much he schemed, I had no intention of cooperating. “Our goal is simply to save the world. We’ll take Ireena and the Strange Cube back, and return the world to normal. That’s the important thing… Defeating you isn’t a priority.” And we’d succeeded. Thanks to the quick work of my comrades, I was able to put an end to this incident without breaking my promise. I basked in the sense of accomplishment from completing a particularly difficult task as I addressed my enemy. “You’ve lost, Alvarto Egzex.” He let out a small sigh in response, and then he gazed upward. “You’re the epitome of a spoilsport. To know what I feel and dismiss it, even though you made my body and soul this way…” Although his words were resentful, there was no actual emotion behind them. “It’s much too early to declare victory, my dear Demon Lord. Don’t underestimate my resolve, my obsession. I’ve spent thousands of years preparing. Yes… I have made thorough preparations for my own destruction. Which is why…” A dark shadow fell over Alvarto’s features. He then continued calmly, as though he were reading out a ruling. “You must kill me. There’s no other option.” Just how true was his statement? There was little time to think on it, as my duplicate form’s endurance had run out. My consciousness moved back to my body with a new question lingering in my mind. My vision went dark for a moment before I awoke in the middle of a field. “Damn that Alvarto… Just what is he planning…?” No answers came to mind, meaning it was best not to think about it. For now, I needed to meet with my companions and enjoy our successful rescue of Ireena. I used my detection magic to determine everyone’s location, then activated my teleportation magic. I had already completed analyzing the anti-teleportation spell, and there was nothing left to obstruct me. I arrived to join the others in an instant. They had taken shelter inside a shadowy forest, and close by was a building that appeared to be a ruin of some sort. That was probably where Ireena and the Strange Cube had been kept. “A…Ard…,” Ginny said softly as she caught sight of me. That’s strange. Why does she seem so gloomy after our victory? She wasn’t the only one. All of my companions looked defeated. Their expressions fanned my anxiety. “What’s wrong, everyone? You succeeded in securing what you came for, yes?” I turned to look at Olivia, who held Ireena in her arms. The elf’s eyes were closed, as though she was in a deep sleep. She was clad in a white frock that looked like a wedding dress, and she cradled the Strange Cube in her hands… There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with her at a glance. All we needed to do was wake Ireena, analyze the cube, and figure out how to activate it. Once that was done, the world would return to normal, and we’d have our lives back. That should’ve been all there was to it. Yet, for some reason, everyone wore despair plainly on their faces. Lizer was the one who explained why that was. “Ard Meteor…calmly listen to me.” What he said next was just too much of a shock. “Ireena Olhyde’s body…contains no soul.” That meant… “This girl is already…completely and irreversibly dead.” My mind went numb. The scene before me went white. “…That. Can’t be…” All I could do was stand there, mouth agape like a fool, utterly numb.