Chapter 140 – The Demon King

No one could have anticipated that there would be so many zombies and skeletons in Pyongyang.

Ever since North Korea fell to the undead years ago, Pyongyang had become a city of the dead.

As the corpses littering the streets rotted away over time, the only moving beings seen were a few wandering zombies.

Those who watched Pyongyang via satellite naturally assumed that the people who once lived there had all rotted away without becoming undead.

If they had turned into undead, they would have come out.

After observing undead who wandered in search of people, it was only natural for people to think that way.

But Pyongyang was different.

Everyone’s expressions hardened as they saw zombies pouring out of every building.

The Saintess’s face turned pale, and her hands trembled. The hero, who was supposed to lead the party, looked around helplessly.

“This… this is impossible.”

“There’s no way someone could control this many…”

As the mages murmured in dark tones, the royal mage spoke up.

“There must be some trick. Don’t worry. All we need to do is capture the Demon King! Let’s go, Hero!”

The hero nodded at the old mage’s words.

“Yes!”

The mage nodded at the hero, who responded firmly, and then turned to the Saintess.

“Saintess, we need your help too!”

“Ah… yes… yes…”

The young Saintess barely managed to reply in a trembling voice.

The hero’s party began running toward the Ryugyong Hotel.

As the mages and knights fought off the zombies and skeletons that attacked them, the party crossed the streets.

Rotten limbs flew through the air, and the hollow screams of the undead pierced their ears. After a fierce battle, the party finally reached the entrance of the hotel, which the old mage had cleared.

As the party arrived at the hotel, the undead that had been attacking them retreated.

Huff. Huff. Huff.

The Saintess gasped for breath.

Unlike the others, she had only been running.

But when had the imperial princess ever experienced such a situation?

Unlike the others, who seemed fine, she could only bow her head and pant after the short run.

Then, someone patted her back.

“Are you okay?”

The Saintess looked up in surprise.

Before she was a Saintess, she was an imperial princess.

No one had ever dared to touch her so casually.

The person who patted her back was a black-haired woman, someone she had met after coming to this world.

She had been allowed to join the party because she had useful information about this world and possessed abilities that could help.

But to touch the princess’s body…

The knights, mages, and even the hero were shocked, but the frightened Saintess was grateful for the woman’s gesture.

“Thank you. What was your name again?”

Fortunately, thanks to the translation magic cast by the mage, she could understand what the Saintess was saying.

“It’s Seung-ah. Park Seung-ah. I’m a psychic with telekinetic powers. Ah, you call us natural awakeners, right?”

She had followed the Eger Knight from Henan and, after fighting the octopus monster, stayed at the Daejeon Expeditionary Force camp.

While living with the Koreans at the camp, she quickly volunteered when they asked for locals to guide them.

And so, as an awakener, she had come all the way to Pyongyang.

She sighed as she looked at the zombies filling the streets.

“I came here to defeat the Demon King who created these zombies, but did I make the wrong choice again?”

The Saintess nodded sincerely at the words of the woman from another world.

She felt the same way.

She had become a priestess to avoid fighting with her royal siblings, but she ended up becoming a Saintess and now found herself in another world fighting a Demon King.

She had fled to the temple to avoid fighting her brothers, but she couldn’t understand why she was being tested like this.

Moreover, the knights and mages who were supposed to be her companions seemed to be watching her and the hero.

Even the priests didn’t approach her, and she felt as isolated here as she had in the imperial palace.

“Let’s go up. We just need to defeat the Demon King.”

This hero’s party was strange.

From what she knew, the hero was supposed to lead the party, but even if the hero was young, it didn’t make sense for the royal mage to be leading them.

But since the hero didn’t say anything, she, who was frightened, couldn’t say anything either.

In the end, she had no choice but to approach the woman from another world who had come to her.

“My name is Elena de Charli. You can call me Elena.”

Elena, a name taken from the sister of the former emperor, who had become a priestess.

Like her, Elena had tried to become a priestess to avoid fighting, but becoming a Saintess had brought her to the battlefield.

As the Saintess introduced herself to the woman from another world, the rest of the party prepared to rush into the entrance opened by the mage.

But before they could, a figure descended in front of the entrance.

He was a human of average height, standing on two legs. But he was an undead, reeking of the stench of death.

The undead standing at the entrance had a body and face wrapped in bandages, wore an ancient but ornate robe, and a golden crown.

He looked exactly like the figure who had been watching the party from above the building.

This undead was the Demon King.

The Demon King was called the King of Death not only because he was the king of the dead but also because he had been a king in life.

Risen from death, he sought to destroy the world in place of his fallen kingdom.

He was truly worthy of being called the Demon King.

As the Demon King descended, a dark aura swept through the streets.

“It’s… it’s the Demon King!”

“Attack!”

“Ahhh!”

The mages screamed, and the knights shouted as they charged at the Demon King.

In an instant, everyone was in a state of panic.

“Quick, pray!”

The startled priests and Saintess began to spread holy power, and the hero infused his sword with holy energy before charging at the Demon King.

“What is this… Are we going to die…?”

The American soldiers who were with them couldn’t join the fight.

Although the Saintess and priests frantically spread holy power, the soldiers had been mentally shattered the moment the Demon King descended, babbling incoherently.

In fact, that was a blessing.

Ordinary people couldn’t survive in the presence of the Demon King.

The American soldiers survived only because of the holy power of the priests and Saintess.

Although the encounter was sudden, neither the knights charging at the Demon King nor the mages casting spells thought they would lose.

The Demon King had already been defeated once by the previous hero’s party.

Of course, he had fled and later set a trap to defeat the hero’s party, but he had still been defeated.

And now, there was nowhere to run.

He had left the dungeon he had created, the Ryugyong Hotel, so he no longer had the advantage of terrain.

All the traps had already been removed.

Before encountering the Demon King, the American soldiers had dealt with the weapons of this world.

Guns, recoilless rifles.

Even now, satellites were watching, and drones were waiting in the distance for modern weapons to appear.

The Demon King could no longer use the weapons of this world to fight the hero and his party.

Of course, the hero and the Saintess were still lacking, but they had brought more people to compensate.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Spells rained down, knights charged, and even the hero joined the attack, but neither the spells nor the knights’ attacks reached the Demon King.

Instead, those who stood in front of the Demon King blocked them.

The knights and mages who had charged at the Demon King were shocked by the figures that appeared before them.

Because they recognized them.

“Why is the duke…?”

“Oh my god. The mage…”

Of course, the figures before the Demon King were undead.

A knight in armor and a mage in robes, with only bones remaining.

They were a death knight and a lich.

Though their living forms were gone, the mages and knights recognized them by their clothing.

They were the members of the previous hero’s party who had traveled with the hero.

The mages and knights who had traveled with the hero.

After the hero’s death, they had disappeared, only to return as undead to block the new hero’s party.

“Attack! They’re just undead! Clear a path for the hero!”

The old mage shouted in a pained voice, and the undead former hero’s party and the new hero’s party began to fight again.

The hero also charged at the Demon King.

With a sword filled with holy energy, he cut down the death knight blocking his path and, leaving the dying knights and mages behind, leaped into the Demon King’s embrace.

Slash.

He swung his sword, infused with holy energy, and cut through the Demon King’s body.

‘I hit him!’

Clearly, the Demon King’s body had been split.

The ancient robe was cut, and the bandages were severed.

The Demon King’s body began to tilt and fall.

At the same time, the hero was thrown back by the Demon King’s magic.

Having been hit by the Demon King’s magic at close range without any defense, he was clearly badly injured, but it didn’t matter.

That much should have been a fatal blow to the Demon King.

But as his vision darkened, he saw someone appear behind the Demon King.

Her hair color was different, but the hero had seen her before.

She was the woman who had come to his village to heal people.

He had decided to become a hero because he wanted to follow her, who had healed him and his family.

But instead of healing the injured hero, the woman with the changed hair color began to heal the Demon King’s severed body.

Black energy, instead of holy power, emanated from her hands, reattaching the Demon King’s severed body.

Clearly, dark energy shouldn’t be able to overcome holy power, but the energy from her hands pushed out the holy power remaining in the Demon King’s wounds.

As his vision darkened, the hero continued to stare at the Saintess healing the Demon King, the Saintess of Death.

Thud.

Then, in the darkening world, the hero felt someone grab him.

“I knew this would happen! I’ll hold the hero, so Saintess, grab my body tightly!”

A woman’s voice rang out. It was the woman from this world who had been talking to the Saintess.

At the same time, the ground collapsed.

* * *

At the same time, deep beneath the Colorado Mountains.

At the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, the U.S. Air Defense Command, people were watching the scene via satellite.

On the screen in the control room, similar to NASA’s mission control, the Demon King and the hole were visible.

As the hole formed and the new hero’s party was swept away, the expressions of the soldiers and officers in the room remained unchanged.

“The Demon King is still active! The operation has failed.”

“Did they all die?”

“All but the hero, the Saintess, and one psychic have been confirmed dead.”

“The hero survived?”

“A sinkhole appeared where the hero and Saintess were. It seems the psychic created it. Judging by its depth, there must have been a subway below.”

The four-star general who received the report picked up the phone.

“Yes. As expected, Operation A has failed. We will proceed with Operation B.”

He put down the phone and issued the order.

“Launch all planned nuclear missiles. Wipe Pyongyang, where the Demon King is, off the map.”

Moments later, from the sea and underground, countless missiles carrying atomic bombs were launched toward Pyongyang.