Chapter 236 – Confronting the Demon King

The two divine powers given by the gods of Earth and Ea didn’t merge into one, but instead created a peculiar synergy.

The divine power given by Ea’s god, the divine power attack of Ea’s hero—the death knights could withstand it to some extent, but the following divine power from Earth was something the death knights couldn’t handle.

And the same was true for the liches.

The magic created with spiritual energy couldn’t immediately penetrate the defensive barriers of the two saintesss and the mages, and I was able to quickly dispose of the liches after taking down the death knights.

Although I had left the defense to my companions, in the end, I was the one who took down all the liches and death knights.

Considering that not long ago I had prepared to die when fighting just one death knight, I could truly feel how much things had changed.

And I could once again realize the greatness of being a hero chosen by the gods.

My companions also looked at me with admiration.

Even Meliya, who had advised me earlier, didn’t seem to have expected me to take down the enemies so easily.

She asked me with a surprised face.

“Is your method to blow away the spiritual energy of the undead with Ea’s divine power, and then strike the exposed body with divine power from the other world?”

As expected of a properly trained saintess, Meliya quickly figured out how I had defeated the enemies.

“Just as the divine power of saintesss and heroes differs, there are also differences in divine power between dimensions.”

Though the difference wasn’t that significant, Ea’s divine power seemed to be more effective in destroying spiritual energy, while Earth’s divine power was better suited for destroying the physical bodies of the undead.

Of course, since I was the only hero from Earth, and I hadn’t used it extensively in various situations yet, I couldn’t know for certain, but based on my brief use just now, my thoughts seemed correct.

“Then, does the divine power from the Divine Tree dimension also have some special characteristic? Something specialized in regeneration perhaps?”

Yerim, who had been listening to our conversation, asked out of curiosity.

Now that the battle was over, there was no problem in answering her question, but this wasn’t something for me to answer.

“There has never been a hero in the land of the Divine Tree. Partly because a being called the Demon King never appeared there, but also because we have the Divine Tree, a living god.”

As expected, Zahina provided the answer.

Princess Meliya looked at her with an awkward expression, seemingly surprised by the friendly response from the daughter of the Divine Tree.

Seeing the princess’s expression, Yerim, who had asked the question, instead showed a satisfied expression, which made me unable to hold back a small laugh.

Anyway, now wasn’t the time to worry about the divine power possessed by the Divine Tree.

I couldn’t even properly handle the two divine powers I currently had, let alone consider the divine power of the elves.

This wasn’t something to approach carelessly.

Moreover, the Divine Tree, the god of the elves, seemed ambiguous as a god from my perspective.

The Divine Tree, possessing divine power and godly strength.

Seeing how it created cities with its body and allowed elves to live within its embrace, it could rightfully be called a god, but honestly, it seemed too weak for a god.

The two Divine Trees I had seen both died for their own reasons, so it wasn’t strange for me to feel that way.

Of course, I had no intention of belittling the Divine Tree.

There are monotheistic religions and polytheistic religions, so there must be weaker gods too.

Just as games have tanks, damage dealers, healers, and producers, there must be gods who don’t know how to fight.

But that didn’t mean I had any intention of becoming the hero of the elves.

I was already filled with thoughts of abandoning my duties as the hero of two dimensions, so being chosen by the god of another dimension was out of the question.

Besides, the Divine Tree was a tree.

Being the hero of the elves would essentially mean becoming a tree hero…

That was physically a bit too much.

And anyway, all these discussions were pointless.

As everyone had expected, the undead we had just defeated were the final mid-bosses.

After clearing those undead, there was a staircase leading down behind the hall.

Stairs leading to the 8th basement floor.

The 8th basement floor was where the gate I had visited before was located, and where the Demon King and the previous generation’s hero party had fought.

Not only the 8th floor but also the stairs leading down to it had been full of battle traces, but now there were no such traces visible.

We passed through the somewhat magnificent yet bizarre staircase and stopped in front of a large door.

Even without opening the door, we could tell.

That the Demon King was inside.

Before opening the large door, I turned my head to check on my companions one by one.

The daughter of the Divine Tree, Zahina, was stroking her Divine Tree bracelet with her usual calm face, while Yelena and Irene, the mage and her disciple, were both gripping their staffs with tense expressions.

I was worried about the still young Irene, but both mages had consistently opposed leaving her behind, whether when leaving the imperial capital or when entering the Demon King’s dungeon.

Yelena’s reason was that Irene was a proper mage who worked well with her, and besides, if we couldn’t bring her because she was young, we should have also left behind the saintess of Ea, the princess.

This was because both Princess Meliya and Irene were minors, the same age by Earth standards.

So it was difficult to exclude only Irene due to age issues.

After checking on the two mages, I turned my head to look at the saintesss.

The tense princess and, unlike her, Yerim who seemed full of anticipation.

The saintesss from different dimensions differed completely in age, appearance, and personality.

Looking at the two saintesss with entirely different thoughts about the gods they believed in, I couldn’t even begin to guess what criteria the gods used to select saintesss.

‘Well, how desperate must they be to pick someone like me as a hero.’

With such irreverent thoughts as always, I turned my gaze from my companions to face forward.

Before looking straight ahead, I briefly felt an empty space, but now was not yet the time to mourn.

“Let’s go.”

“Yes.”

At my words, everyone in the party nodded, and I pushed the restored door with force.

Kuuuung.

The large stone door was much heavier than it looked.

No, beyond the weight of the door itself, some kind of pressure was being applied to it.

It felt so heavy that without the strength I had gained as a Sword Master and hero, I wouldn’t have been able to open it.

As I forcibly pushed the door open, hot wind blew through the gap from inside the room.

No, it wasn’t wind. It was mana.

Not mana transformed into magic, but simply mana accumulated inside the room.

It had accumulated so much that the mana had materialized and felt like wind.

And inside the opened door.

In the underground plaza where the Demon King sat on a platform opposite the door, a massive magic circle was drawn everywhere.

On the walls, floor, and ceiling.

“Is he saying come in if you can?”

It was clearly no ordinary magic circle… Moreover, given that the Demon King had always done crazy things with magic circles, we couldn’t just ignore it.

Fortunately, the Demon King didn’t immediately attack us when we opened the door.

The Demon King was sitting on a chair on the platform, watching an image projected in mid-air.

He was watching an image created by magic as if watching a movie in a theater.

Despite the distance and the image being inverted, I could see it clearly.

What the Demon King was watching was footage of an intense battlefield.

A battle between undead and human armies.

This was clearly the battle currently taking place on the surface.

Creating battle footage with magic and watching it.

This was a type of magic I had never seen before, despite having witnessed numerous spells from mages.

And it seemed the same was true for Yelena.

“This is absurd. Receiving telepathy from a distance and using it to create moving images of mana in mid-air. How much mana must he have to waste it like this?”

Of course, Yelena was surprised for a different reason than I was.

It seemed the reason other mages didn’t create images with magic like the Demon King wasn’t due to lack of skill, but because it wasn’t cost-effective.

“Ah, since the mana quantity itself is insufficient, it is also a lack of skill.”

Indeed, one should always listen to people’s words until the end.

In any case, the reason we could observe the Demon King and talk amongst ourselves like this was because the Demon King wasn’t paying attention to us.

The Demon King seemed more interested in the battle footage than in us, occasionally waving his hand slightly as he watched.

Bony fingers emerged from within his robe, and each time those fingers moved, the battlefield in the image rippled.

The undead changed direction according to the movement of his fingers, and liches fired magic in the direction the Demon King indicated.

Each time, the humans were pushed back.

‘Could it be that he’s not just watching footage, but commanding from here?’

If so, we definitely couldn’t leave him be.

The weakness of the undead, or rather the Demon King’s army, was precisely their lack of command capability, but with the magic being displayed now, that problem could be completely solved.

In that case, even this supposedly inefficient magic would become a masterstroke.

‘Is this also something he created based on what he saw on Earth?’

Regardless of what inspired it, we couldn’t do anything while standing here.

I pushed mana into my sword, creating sword energy.

And I extended that sword energy through the open door.

It wasn’t long enough to reach the Demon King, but it was sufficient to check inside the door.

The sword energy extended into the doorway without any issues.

But that wasn’t enough to put my mind at ease.

It was obvious that the magic circle hadn’t been activated yet.

The question was what would happen when the magic circle drawn all over this room was activated.

In this situation, a thick-headed swordsman like me couldn’t come up with anything no matter how hard I tried.

At times like this, I needed to ask the experts.

“Can you tell what kind of magic circle it is?”

In response to my question, Irene answered first.

“Not integration, but separation. It seems to be a magic circle that affects the inside rather than the outside.”

Yelena nodded at her answer.

“As Irene says. I can’t immediately confirm beyond that. Basically, it seems to be drawn in the opposite way to the magic we saw before…”

As Yelena was frowning and glaring at the magic circle, I noticed the Demon King turning his head toward us.

[I saw you coming down. But will you continue to stand there? I don’t mind, but isn’t delaying bad for the humans?]

It seemed the Demon King had also been watching our battles as we descended, just as he was watching the outside battle.

Yet he remained so composed.

Of course, since the Demon King had returned to being a skeleton, his current appearance might also be fabricated.

But even considering that, he was excessively calm.

Moreover, as the Demon King said, delaying would only benefit him.

I looked at Yelena one last time, and

“It’s difficult to confirm immediately, but it’s not magic that directly threatens us.”

At her answer, I stepped inside the door.

My companions followed behind me.

Kugugugugung.

As we entered, the door closed as expected.

And the Demon King stood up.

[I’ve been waiting. Hero of Ea and Earth.]

With those words, the Demon King drew forth mana.

Simultaneously, the magic circles lit up brightly.

As the mages had said, the magic circles didn’t harm us.

Instead, magic completely opposite to what had been deployed in Pyongyang spread throughout the interior.

Instead of magic that united different dimensions, the magic the Demon King had prepared in this underground plaza was magic that severed the connection between this interior and other dimensions.

The moment the magic circles activated, the connections to Earth, the land of the Divine Tree, and even the gods were cut off.

The divine power disappeared.