★43
WARNING!!! 🔞
⚠️⚠️THIS SECTION CONTAIN GRAPHIC CONTENTS AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL READERS. READER'S DISCRETION ADVISED.
THIRD POV
Meanwhile in the Puppet Kingdom of Jistav.
Dark clouds formed around the nation, bringing the night with them. From the clouds, a figure dressed in a pure white outfit slowly descended in silence, his dress a white spot in the darkness. It'll appear to be a divine figure descending to bring salvation. However, this was no angel, only doom cloaked in light.
At his presence, the clouds expanded, creating a veil of darkness that isolated the entire land, with the kingdom centre.
He didn't scream nor did he announce his arrival. He began with fire.
"Cosmic Starfire."
It wasn't an ordinary flame but flames of cosmic decay. It flowed freely from his fingers reducing those within its limited range to scorched bones in an instant. The land outside was completely devoid of life but the inferno kept burning.
Silently, he flew past the scorching land and headed for the kingdom.
The soldiers' shouts were cut short as Asteri advanced, unbothered by the hail of cannonballs, arrows, and magical spells. Each projectile disintegrated into ash the moment it neared him, as if reality itself rejected their attempts to stop him. His movements were unnaturally fluid, precise, and relentless, like a force beyond mortal control.
Eyes wide with disbelief, the surviving soldiers looked upward just in time to see the Monster in White descending from the sky.
From above, countless spears rained down from Babylon, piercing the ground and the very air with lethal precision.
The soldiers barely had time to react. Each spear found its mark, striking skulls with surgical accuracy. Confusion and terror painted their faces as they fell, one after another, their cries silenced mid-breath. The battlefield became a graveyard, littered with the bewildered and the slain, all staring at the same impossible figure that had reduced them to immovable figures.
He stood before the untouched kingdom, swarming with demihumans and summoned a single person to the scene. A clone, the boy in brown, the Executioner, Eto. Without a word, he received his task and fled to the Eto fled to the eastern part of the kingdom to carry out his mission.
Asteri looked down at the creatures who were staring up at him in return. None of them knew what happened outside the Kingdom so they looked at him with curiosity.
Suddenly, the ground burst upwards. Not as an explosion, but from honed razor-sharp crystalline spikes. He started with the children, their little feet were severed. Tiny body impaled, skewered like meat. Mothers and fathers ran towards their torn children but it was too late. The earth split and numerous crystalline spikes erupted all over the place.
All living beings, demihumans, humans, and demons fell victim to the razor spikes. Their impaled bodies lifted high up into the atmosphere. Not a single spike can be seen without a body. Not a single life remained. Life in the north was wiped out instantly.
An unfortunate little boy was staring at Asteri, his eyes filled with unanswered questions but Asteri's own were empty. To him, this is part of his growth. It's part of his story and he must make it happen no matter what.
His teary eyes dimmed, the last flicker of life fading—
Pop.
The sound tore through the silence as the boy's head burst apart, crimson mist scattering into the cold air.
"Consider this mercy."
Asteri murmured, voice devoid of emotion.
He turned his gaze westward. A faint, eerie glow stirred in his golden eyes, pulsing with a quiet, divine malice.
With a mere thought, he cursed the element itself Iron (Fe). The corruption spread like wildfire through the veins of the land: the soil blackened, crops withered to ash, and the air grew heavy with metallic rot. Even the iron within living bodies twisted, rusting their blood from within.
On the horizon, a small army of elves and monsters advanced, brave, foolish, perhaps both. Within the city walls, citizens cowered, locking doors and shuttering windows, praying for salvation. But there was none.
"May the flowers of malice bloom with dignity."
He spoke in a low, controlled voice colder than forged steel, yet sharper than a blade drawn in silence.
The effect was immediate. Their bodies began to swell grotesquely, veins turning black and metallic, pulsing as if molten iron flowed through them. The corruption deepened their muscles convulsed and their skin tore open.
Then came the real horror. Their bones split and erupted outward, piercing through flesh like flowers of rusted blades, each petal glinting dimly under the dying light. Screams echoed through the ruined fields raw, human and desperate only to be swallowed by the metallic stench of decay.
Those outside were finished. Children burst open like overripe fruit, their small torsos blossoming into fountains of iron thorns. The air filled with the scent of rust and blood, thick enough to choke on.
Mothers who clung to their still-breathing children screamed as their arms snapped backwards, joints twisting at impossible angles before rusted thorns erupted from their flesh. Their final cries melded with the wails of their kin as entire families died clutching one another, their bodies fusing, skin melting, iron blooming into grotesque monuments of agony.
Asteri watched the ruin unfold, the reflection of burning iron glinting in his dim golden eyes.
"Beautiful."
He said simply, his voice barely louder than a whisper, as his gaze drifted toward the noble lands in the south.
Across the horizon, armies of elves, demons, and giants had gathered in defiance, ranks of steel and magic stretching as far as the eye could see.
In their marble towers, the nobles watched with trembling pride, praying that their legions would be enough to bring down the Monster in White.
But hope died faster than breath.
In an instant, the frontlines convulsed, soldiers clutched their stomachs as invisible hands twisted within them, tearing out their entrails with surgical cruelty.
Telekinesis ripped organs as if they were fragile parchment, twisting intestines into choking knots before a single scream could escape. Pyre magic ignited deep within, scorching flesh from the inside out, a merciless, crawling fire that devoured them inch by agonising inch.
Their blood began to boil, flesh split and bubbled, peeling from bone as the fire crawled inside. Despite the blockage, they tried to scream, but their lungs were already charred, their tongues burning and melting.
The proud banners of the noble houses fell silent, drowned in the echo of a thousand dying throats.
On the eastern front stood Eto, his small frame wreathed in a faint crimson haze.
The moment the soldiers and civilians laid eyes on him, a child cloaked in despair more terrifying than death itself, panic shattered their ranks. They trampled each other in blind terror, clawing and screaming for escape. But the roads ahead bubbled with boiling tar, swallowing their feet and fusing flesh to earth.
They shrieked as their legs melted into the black mire, the smell of burnt skin rising. Eto walked through it all, untouched.
With a flick of his wrist, skulls cracked like glass, blood spraying in graceful arcs. He tore hearts from chests, spines from backs, and wrenched the jaws off crying children, his face as expressionless as the void itself. He existence was rewritten for this task and he's performing splendidly.
He didn't use spells. He didn't need them. He killed with his hands, the old way.
A towering firewall ignited behind him, sealing the streets and trapping the survivors in a cage of molten death.
Eto moved from home to home, his silhouette framed in the blaze, ripping flesh from bone, slaughtering children, elders, civilians, nobles without hesitation, mercy or pause.
.
.
Azel went over to Mimon and reported.
"The Kingdom of Harley Clowns has fallen, your majesty. Also, we're under attack by an individual."
His voice was hurried, and he sounded a bit nervous.
"Impossible. Who are the invaders in Harley? "
He was 100% sure Asteri and his fellow peers couldn't escape, meaning the powerhouse of the island was gone. So it's natural to know who is fighting back.
.
.
The inferno eventually broke through the southern wall and was set ablaze instantly. Their cries were cut off halfway as the flames turned them into ashes. His gaze finally fixed on the castle at the centre of the spreading chaos.
"Demons."
Azel answered.
<
"... could it be..."
His mouth was forcefully silenced by the immense pressure that suddenly appeared above the entire area.
"A Demon Lord? Lord Guy?... So is this it?"
This was their only guess given the facts that Guy had three lineages under him.
Summoning them to destroy a kingdom is nothing but child's play to him. And also, Mimon and Co. were informed that Asteri befriended Guy, so this is an act of vengeance against his best friend? He couldn't wait to ponder. He has to see it for himself.
Two figures flew out and faced him.
Asteri hovered mid-air, his white hair fluttering in the unnatural wind generated by his aura. The cries from the south still lingered, a haunting echo against the carnage below.
His eyes, cold and dark, fixed on the two figures before him: Mimon and Azel, each radiating their own lowly mortal so-called 'lethal presence'.
He spoke deliberately, with a calmness that contrasted sharply against the chaos surrounding him.
"You're Azel. The one who gave Hinata an excruciating exit, yes?"
The words cut through the air, steady and composed, as if his sanity, fragile as it seemed in the midst of destruction was anchored to the singular target before him.
For the first time since his arrival, Asteri's voice carried a measured weight, signalling the beginning of a reckoning.
"You took what belonged to us. It's natural if we get it back."
Azel replied but Asteri wasn't going to drag this any further, so he skipped to the conclusion.
"You killed her,"
He whispered.
"And now....you'll become her."
Asteri didn't strike with brute force, he invaded. His magic bypassed every defence, reaching straight for Azel's soul, unravelling it thread by thread.
Azel coughed up blood, his body seemingly unscathed, his exterior betraying nothing.
"I'm an undead elf. Not even death…"
He rasped, though his words came out jagged, incomplete.
Suddenly, gravity twisted around him, compressing and immobilising him like a vice. When he tried to speak again, his tongue had already vanished, swallowed by Asteri's soul-consuming assault.
His defiance was silenced, stripped from within before it could manifest outwardly.
"I should thank you."
Asteri murmured in a low voice.
"You showed me how deep love could go by making me watch it die."
Azel's soul detonated, disintegrating completely, yet before any permanence could settle, the nonexistent particles swirled, coalescing, and Azel reformed. His body stitched itself whole, eyes widening with sheer terror at the inevitability of what awaited him. This wasn't his powers, Asteri was doing something.
Asteri snapped his fingers, bending reality around Azel. Instantly, he forced Azel to experience every ounce of pain Hinamatsuri endured in her final moments. The agony seared through him, body and soul alike, until death claimed him once more. And yet, the cycle repeated, resurrection followed by torment, each iteration stripping away his resolve.
Mimon moved to intervene, but his body refused his command. Every limb, every ounce of magic, frozen by the sheer authority of Asteri's will.
Helpless, he could only watch as Azel writhed in the cruel repetition, the outcome of this battle already etched in inescapable certainty.
Without a finger snap, the third round began.
Azel's body convulsed as invisible hands seized him.
One by one, his fingers twisted and snapped, bones grinding like splintered glass beneath the weight of unseen force. His skin was torn away from his arm, not cleanly, but peeled, slowly, with the heat of red-hot pliers that hissed as they met flesh.
The sound that followed wasn't a scream. It was the sound of a man who had forgotten how to breathe.
Then came the joints. They were crushed, then sawed apart by telekinetic precision, nerves still connected just enough for him to feel every separation.
Asteri didn't speak. He only watched.
When Azel tried to beg, the torment intensified. His own severed tendons were forced into his mouth, writhing like serpents as he was compelled to consume himself—flesh, muscle, veins, until only a quivering head and the hollow shell of his torso remained.
From deep within the remnants of his abdomen, a faint red glow pulsed ominously, each beat a silent countdown.
The glow swelled, erupting without warning. Crimson flames roared from his core, tearing through what little remained of his body, shredding his chest cavity from the inside out.
Organs charred and steamed, barely clinging to his scorched frame, as the infernal explosion left nothing recognisable but ruin and ash.
He had no voice left, and though tears clung stubbornly to his cheeks, they were meaningless his eyes, wide and unblinking, were fixed on Asteri. There was no pleading, no hope; only the stark understanding that mercy would never come.
"Ah… that look."
Asteri exhaled softly, almost tired.
"I'm certain Hinata wore it too—pleading, begging, clinging to the false hope that death might arrive and end it. It came."
He said softly. Letting the silence occupy his mind.
Suddenly, his gaze hardened, void-dark.
"But for you, inevitability has been denied. I'm the barrier to your salvation."
Asteri continued, his voice calm, almost reflective.
"So let us try something else."
A pulsing red light surged from his head. In an instant, it detonated, leaving only fragments of what remained. Yet his body regenerated fully, naked and exposed, the memories of each prior torment etched vividly in his eyes and mind. Suspended in the void, invisible chains seemed to pin him in place, restricting even the smallest movement.
Six small, grotesque creatures, nothing but wings and gaping mouths, sprang into existence on Asteri's palm.
"Go. Feed."
At his command, they descended upon Azel's body, swarming over him with ravenous precision. Razor-sharp teeth tore into flesh, some reforming his eyes, tongue, and genitals, while others burrowed into his torso, devouring from within.
Azel screamed, cried, and thrashed, but Asteri did not flinch. His gaze never wavered; he was a still shadow, an immovable presence absorbing every sound, every twitch, every shudder of suffering.
"It will take about seven days to die."
Asteri said, his voice low, detached, yet carrying the weight of inevitability.
"Hold on until I arrive to begin the fifth round."
A swirling portal of black and crimson energy—the Looping Chaos Prison—opened beneath Azel.
Slowly, inexorably, he was drawn toward it, his struggles futile against the pull of its unyielding current. His screams stretched across the chaotic void, bouncing off walls of suffering, mingling with the cries of countless others trapped within, each enduring their own personalised torment.
Azel became just another thread in the tapestry of agony, a new entry in Asteri's collection of unending horrors.
"If I don't attend to you, the Prison's natural effect will take action. And believe me, it'll be nothing comparable to what you've just witnessed."
This was Asteri sending his goodbyes to Azel as the portal closed, shutting down his voice.
With that Asteri's gaze now shifted his gaze to Mimon. The cries from the south serve as music in the background.
"You're a monster."
Mimon addressed him, but Asteri wasn't here to be judged.
A single dark sword was fired, and to no one's surprise, Mimon pulled out a similar sword, parrying away Asteri's own.
"A solid confirmation. I only have one thing to ask you."
It was a trap and he'd just reveal Mimon was given another Dark Star artifact to deal with Asteri.
"What's that?"
"Who gave you the cube?"
Mimon casually swung his sword, and his entire body was shielded with a black aura.
"I can't answer that."
Mimon charged with a roar, the sword slicing violently through the air in a flurry of up-and-down strikes. Each swing carried raw power, sparks of aura dancing along the blade, but Asteri remained eerily calm, his gaze unfocused, as if the attack barely registered.
With a single kick, Mimon was sent to the edge. If it had not been for the clouds, he would have destroyed the barrier and been thrown out of space. But Asteri manipulated the clouds, and he bounced back.
"Babylon."
Asteri summoned five swords, which were fired at Mimon simultaneously.
"C... Curse dragon."
He counted and summoned a misty black dragon, which took the hit, reshaped the swords, and fired back at Asteri. However, they all vanished in the presence of Asteri.
<
"Ultimate Awakening: Black Devil."
Mimon, being pushed back beyond his imagination, unleashed his trump card. As the dragon's aura shrouded him...
<>
With that conclusion, he spread his palm.
"My wrath that absorbs all, Void Eater."
Asteri launched his attack, an entity whose purpose is to devour all, including the void itself. The smoke-like effects were ejected from his palm ignoring the distance, devouring Mimon whole.
With Eto completely cleansed from the south, he was sent back to Raja to protect the Queen, his previous data restored, the current one completely destroyed.
Void Eater spread further, picking up the souls that hadn't been burned, the corpses, the inferno, and the dark clouds, which are part of its extension before retreating into Asteri's body.
<
[Individual named Asteri has now obtained the Demon Lord Seed.]
Mimon was on the verge of awakening. Absorbing him was the right choice as the consumer retrieves Seed.
<
After receiving the souls...
[Individual named Asteri has fulfilled all the requirements to awaken as a True Demon Lord. Preparations set, the Harvest Festival will now commence.]
Immediately after the voice, Asteri felt something he never should've felt.
<
[Yes.]
"Unforgivable... a supreme being like me... is immune to such things."
He staggered.
[Notice, this is an unavoidable process as it is part of evolution.]
"Formulator...alter, the ...I need.."
Asteri, suspended mid-air moments before, suddenly wavered. His form trembled as an unexpected dizziness coursed through him, and the darkened earth below rose to meet him.
Gravity, once ignored by his control, seemed to reclaim him, and he collapsed onto the blackened soil with a heavy thud, the impact sending cracks sprawling across the scorched ground. Yet even in this moment of apparent weakness, his aura pulsed faintly, a reminder that the tempest within him was far from spent.
<
Atlas, who was about to wipe the entire nation of El Dorado, stopped midway.
"Master's orders. You and your people get to live another day."
He vanished, appearing in front of Asteri. He saw him in a drunken state, struggling to stay on his feet.
"Young master, what's the problem?"
He rushed over, giving him a hand.
"D... deactivate clones... they're draining a lot of energy."
Ban, Shinn, and Eto suddenly disappeared.
Sai, who was alone in his room, also disappeared.
Yami was with Eren.
"Forgive me...master is ..."
He vanished, too.
<
Atlas, who just arrived, couldn't grasp the situation.
"Shooting stars... I need more strength."
He raised his arm to create something but was too fatigued.
(Shooting stars = shit.)
"A.. Atlas... all of the mission... all forces head back to the island."
"Sure."
Atlas immediately send a telepathic message to Majo.
<
<
With no reason to object...
"Retreat to the island now!"
All the demons disappeared back to the island, leaving the kingdom in ruins, devoid of life.
Asteri tried to get up but couldn't. His limbs were so heavy his eyes were almost closed... he's only keeping up thanks to a Formulator, which allows him to rewrite the laws for his body for a limited time, maximum two minutes.
This was proof Veldanava's laws reigns over him.
"A... Atlas... quick, I'm running out of time...take me...to the star..."
Without responding, Atlas teleported them back to Star Island above the palace in front of the star.
Supporting Asteri with his hands and making an artificial floor for him to stand, but his body is nearing its limit.
Elaine sensed his presence and rushed outside. After a while, everyone gathered outside and watched.
"Pull... out the All Barrier and..."
Atlas couldn't, but Elaine heard him and took action. Asteri summoned all his strength and got up, placing his palm on the star.
"Release all..."
As if those words drained him, he fell backwards, but Atlas caught him in his arms.
"You're in charge, Atlas."
[Limit overwritten. The Harvest Festival will continue.]
Atlas summoned a flat surface and placed him on it as the Young Master fell unconscious.
On the surface, he was sleeping, but internally, he was awakening. Atlas descended and went to the crowd, the whole city waiting for their Masters return.
To be continued...