“Go to hell!” The Great Demon King clenched his fist tightly and threw a punch at Ferd.
“Rah!” Ferd, who’d assumed a shining humanoid form, focused his power into his shield.
The black mist and the shining shield collided. The moment the world cracked, it seemed as though time rewound and converged between the fist and shield, then another crack appeared in the world immediately afterward. Light and darkness combined, on the verge of birthing a primordial chaos.
“My path is null. My fist is null.”
“You know what it means to trade blows with me, don’t you, you exhibitionist?!”
Yes, I do, Stein thought.
Stein was trying to take advantage of the opening between the two, but there was no way he could survive the Great Demon King’s fist. The weight behind the punch alone was an important factor, and no scholar could calculate the density and mass of this fist of darkness, which was like an entire world in itself. The Great Demon King’s fist was a lethal weapon; if anyone other than Ferd was on the receiving end of it, even a graze from its pinky would undoubtedly result in instant death. But the same was true for Stein. The Null Wave, which didn’t originally exist, was supposed to be an ultimate power that could strip away all things and completely erase them from this world.
“Drop dead!” the Great Demon King shouted. Not only was he alive and well after getting hit in the side by Stein’s supposedly ultimate fist, but not a single part of him had vanished, and he tried to punch Stein back as if in retaliation.
You bastard! But before the Great Demon King’s attack could land, Max thrust his spear at his foe’s head, glowing such a bright blue as he unleashed his full dragon power that even his equipment’s disguise disappeared.
“Tell that lass to come here herself, you gofer!” Even after the Great Demon King was hit by the spear that had killed all manner of dragons, his face merely leaned back a bit. And as if that weren’t enough, he even called the blue dragon who’d bestowed her power to Max a mere “lass,” and in his irritation tried to break the shining spear.
But before the Great Demon King could act, a red glimmer ran across his neck. No living being could survive a direct slash to the neck from Sazaki’s bewitched sword, but the Great Demon King wasn’t someone who could be classified as a living being.
“Insignificant!” the Great Demon King shouted in annoyance, feeling no more than a tiny itch.
The next moment, Elrica suddenly appeared behind the Great Demon King. She drew the blade hidden in her staff, and the power, letters, and patterns—the poison meant for slaying gods—emitted a dark glow. As if her usual unsteady steps were nothing but a lie, she moved with agility befitting an assassin sent against the Great Demon King and tried to stab her blade into his back.
“You damned puppet of those utter fools!” the Great Demon King cursed at Elrica, the gods’ favored and one of their creations made solely for killing.
The Great Demon King was emotional as he derided the gods because some of them had been even worse than him, and the battle between him and the gods had been so chaotic that it had been difficult to evaluate which side was good and which was evil. But that would be a story for another time.
In any case, the blade that specialized entirely in killing the Great Demon King was sucked into his back. Seventy years ago, Elrica would have been convinced that this attack would bring certain death, but she was different now.
“That hurts!” Even when the Great Demon King was hit by a blade containing the gods’ grudges, it was just a mere stab for him.
The churches and the gods had been naive. The specially made blade they’d believed would bring certain death, along with the specifically calibrated Elrica, were nothing more than simple weapons. However, the King’s attention was undoubtedly diverted to his back.
“Yah!” Ferd swung his sword down. The dazzling brilliance bright enough to overthrow the darkness became a sword and struck the Great Demon King’s head. No one should have been able to survive a hit to the head from a sword containing the prayers and the brilliance of life of all mortal-kind.
“Ouch!”
With a certain exception. This time, all Ferd’s attack did...was cause the Great Demon King deep pain.
I’m really sick of this... This guy’s way too tough. Not to mention that we’d be knocked dead with a single punch. Things are fine for now since he’s still humanoid, but if he goes all the way to his final form, I’ll die for real this time. Max complained inwardly about the Great Demon King’s absurd resilience and monstrous stamina.
Did he possess the power to alter reality? No. The power of the stars? No. The ability to suppress the gods’ power? No. The power of judgment? No. The power to impose calculations onto reality? No. Although he’d once had people with all kinds of abilities working under him, he was exceedingly simple himself. The Great Demon King’s humanoid form simply destroyed everything with its ridiculous stamina and physical strength that only Ferd could withstand.
Our enemy is nothing but a defect, but things are also tough for us since we don’t have Erhard... Sazaki calmly thought as he continued swinging his katana.
The Great Demon King was cobbled together and full of defects, but the Hero’s party was also missing the companion who had served as a special offensive force against the Great Demon King alongside Ferd, so the balance between the two of them was maintained to a certain extent. But if anything, the Hero’s party had the advantage.
It really was only able to re-create the exterior. He was a much sharper, faster, and terrifying existence than this. As Lara’s magic slipped past him, Stein realized that this inferior copy lacked the complex mix of joy and sorrow that the original had felt toward humans, and that only his superficial power and will of rage had been reproduced. Even disregarding the seventy years of experience under Stein’s belt, the Great Demon King before them was clearly inferior to the real one.
“Ugh!” The Great Demon King grimaced as Stein punched him.
Not to mention tougher. Stein knew that the real one wouldn’t have been injured in a brief battle like this.
The real Great Demon King had finally started feeling actual damage after being under constant assault for an entire hour. He was the sole being in history who’d not only had anything left of him after enduring an entire hour of devastating attacks from the Hero’s party, but had been able to continue fighting them to the death.
But even so, I shouldn’t allow myself to get hit. Stein evaded the Great Demon King’s fist with a bit of leeway, though the very fact that he could dodge with any leeway at all was abnormal. If he’d tried parrying the Great Demon King’s arm, that alone would have carried him away and sent him flying, leaving even someone as sturdy as Stein beyond recovery.
“Die!” The Great Demon King threw a backhand blow, like the kind used by a common street thug.
We somehow need to end this before he reaches his final form... Elrica crouched to dodge the blow, feeling a slight sense of urgency as she pressed the ball of light she’d created in her hand against him.
In his current state, Ferd couldn’t attain the pinnacle of further converging the light of all mortal-kind, like he’d done seventy years ago. Even if he could, he would likely be unable to endure it this time and pass away. However, there was a very high possibility that Ferd would be drawn in by the Great Demon King—the other side of their shared coin—and embody the ultimate light inside him; if that were to happen, they would likely end up taking each other out.
“Graaaaah!”
“Raaaaah!”
The light and darkness roared. Ferd had already been struck by five of the Great Demon King’s attacks, which alone would be an achievement worthy of praise from all the gods. The real one hadn’t been someone who could nullify attacks from all the gods’ authorities, but rather a monster that wouldn’t care about being cut up into pieces, relying solely on the sturdiness of his body. Confronting the Great Demon King head-on was an option that the gods had ruled out at the very beginning, but since that was all Ferd could do, he kept charging ahead with brute force, just as the Great Demon King did.