"Buahahahaha!"
Hearing the sinister laugh, hope drained from the Baron's eyes, the confidence and thrill he had worn moments ago had vanished like mist as he was running away before his brain could process why.
'I cannot understand. I cannot understand, but I have to escape from here!'
Panting and trembling, he poured the last of his strength into a desperate escape.
Right at this moment, his life was playing right before his eyes as cold sweat trickled down his forehead. It was when he was still a true demon in the Demon Continent and the sword hero had appeared. The man hadn't even struggled at all as he just appeared out of nowhere and started to kill. That time, his holy sword had slaughtered a hundred demons alone.
And now—
He felt it again—that same primal fear. The terror of prey that doesn't realize it's standing before an apex predator… and when it does, there's nothing left to do but run or hide or both. Yes, he had survived only because he ran. He wasn't ashamed of it as thanks to that, he had survived.
At this time, I was on the chase.
I had to admit—I was impressed. Few demons, not even ones at the level of a Demon Lord, moved with such lack of pride. Honestly… it was almost like watching a human.
The demon lord moved faster than the naked eye could follow.
But little did he know, I was tearing through the night even faster. Through the shadows in the night, I flowed beneath the walls and the ground and had already arrived just before the town walls to intercept him.
Then in the next instant, when he saw me again, he saw my crimson eyes.
Cognitive Fracture!
'Again???'
Just like earlier, he suddenly lost sight of the real world and this time it was like he was falling on an endless well of darkness.
When he snapped back, he collapsed to his knees, coughing up blood. It streamed from his eyes, his nose, even seeping through his nails and skin. The mana inside him had turned traitor, writhing and rebelling against its own vessel.
He felt like his head was going to split open as he screamed upwards in unexplainable pain.
The feeling of being on the ground disappeared and there was no smell, only the constant pain in his psyche was present. As if there were parasites moving around in his brain.
At this moment, the demon inside the Baron's body had enough. The body opened its mouth and a black smoke started to get out, but then—
It couldn't.
"What do you think you are doing?"
Ard's crimson eyes bored into him, cold and unyielding. A cruel smile curved Ard's lips, and a low chuckle escaped him while seeing him struggle.
The demon lord couldn't understand! For the first time, he couldn't escape its own vessel.
His throat quickly felt hoarse as he became incapable of breathing.
"My Liege will find y—"
Just then, he doesn't know if he was seeing things or had lost his mind, but he felt something familiar. It was demonic energy!
"Help!" the demon lord screamed, a reflex born of both fear and confusion.
For a moment, he thought it was an ally—but the joy died instantly as he soon realized it wasn't a friend. The sudden, chilling presence froze him.
It radiated from whatever the human was summoning.
The he said something in a low voice.
"Arise… Shadow Demon."
From the shadow that extended beneath Ard's feet, a creature emerged from a pool of shadows dancing across the ground.
The creature towered over a man, its body cloaked in shaggy, midnight-black fur that seemed to drink in the torchlight. Its head was a bleached skull—part beast, part human—with massive horns sweeping outward like a twisted crown.
The demon on the ground froze as the creature's hollow, black eyes locked onto him. It leaned in, hot, metallic-scented breath curling through the air just inches from his face. A long, purple tongue flickered from its skeletal maw, tasting the fear that radiated from him.
"How… can a human… command this?" the demon lord whispered, swallowing hard. "The Shadow Demon… one of the seven royalties of the summoning world… said to have never been tamed in thousands of years."
In the next instant, the merciless black creature moved its long spindly arms and grabbed the demon lord then opened a jaw filled with jagged, needle-like teeth and bit down viciously, tearing out the baron's throat first.
The baron died screaming in despair then his black eyes went stiff as his body went limp.
I of course watched as the Baron demon was devoured, his body vanishing piece by piece between the Shadow Demon's jaws.
With a quiet sigh, I released my sword. It clattered against the stone and shattered into a thousand fragments before it even hit the ground. It had served its worth… more than its worth, in fact.
After a few hours, nothing was left of the baron demon's presence in the area except for a pool of red blood and pus.
For some reason, a strange sense of confusion lingered in me.
Then—
"Thanks for the help, Shadow Demon."
"Till next time." The creature spoke in a rather deep guttural voice.
Right at that moment, I unsummoned the Shadow Demon which had disappeared before my eyes as if it was never there.
Then I closed my eyes for a second.
"This one killed at least ten thousand humans," I said quietly, estimating the mana I had absorbed from the Shadow Demon's meal. "It devoured enough souls to become a demon lord in just two hundred and twenty years. And settled for the baron's body in the last year or so."
Ard then looked around.
'My plan is to live like a normal person and live quietly. Is it still possible in this town? It looks very similar to the ruined towns we passed on the way now…'
As if answering his premonition, the wall to his right collapsed and a few more others followed from time to time.
--
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--
At the very same time, the knights and adventurers were staring at the town on top of a hill.
"Who… exactly is that boy?" Ellie whispered. "Not only is he a martial artist. He's a mage who can use his attribute without a magic staff. A staffless mage… I've only ever heard of people like that in stories."
Like everyone else, she was still in shock.
The young teenager who had traveled with them, who spoke little and looked like any ordinary citizen, had clashed head-on with a demon lord! The sight they had just seen was too absurd to accept!
Corre didn't talk. Neither did Jane. For some reason, she now had a fuller quiver of arrows at her side when she thought she only had one left.
'Where did this come from?' She thought, glancing side to side, but no one was sane enough to talk to her.
"To think we ran into a demon lord," Mike muttered as he put his cross bow on his back. "We would've been wiped out if not for him."
Faller clenched his teeth. Right now, he was looking at an old man in the ground who had no right hand. The old man had passed away just moments ago. As a knight, Faller understood death was inevitable. He had seen it countless times.
But this—
'If that boy had possessed such strength from the beginning…had he simply watched as everyone died?' Faller asked himself with a darkened expression.
--
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