Chapter 75 : Chapter 75
Chapter 75. The Entrance to Hell (7)
Mammon felt as if he were dreaming.
Not only had his body shrunk, but the earth was overflowing with magical power.
‘Is this a dream of my childhood?’
How long had it been since he had felt such abundant magical power?
He took a deep breath and decided to enjoy this situation to the fullest.
But his wish soon turned to shreds.
Because the events of the time he least wanted to remember were being reenacted.
“Hehe. Mammon. What’s this?”
“What do you mean, what is it? It’s candy.”
“I’m asking what you gave to get this. Anything different?”
A young Lucifer was grinning as he held out a dwarf-specialty lava-flavored candy.
Behind him, his other brothers wore the same expression as Lucifer.
“N-no way!”
“It is that no way. I’ll enjoy it, Mammon. Hehe.”
Mammon left them and immediately made his way to his secret base.
But the things that should have been there were nowhere to be seen.
‘The root of a thousand-year-old mandrake, the golden coin of purgatory, the tooth of a Vajrayaksa, the scale of a giant sea serpent, the quill pen made from a hatchling’s scale… Where have all my treasures disappeared to!?’
Mammon’s mind turned upside down.
His brothers had traded away the magic devices he cherished so dearly.
“Noooooo!!”
He knew this was a dream, but his anger would not subside.
His heart felt like it would burst with immense frustration.
“You bastards!!”
Mammon, determined to tear them to shreds, searched for his brothers.
But they were nowhere to be seen.
They had run away, anticipating his anger.
The sky turned yellow, and his world collapsed.
At that very moment.
He returned to the previous situation.
‘Wh-what?’
While he was flustered.
He saw his brothers approaching from a distance, grinning.
All of them had lollipop sticks in their mouths.
Lucifer approached and said the same thing.
“Hehe. Mammon. What’s this?”
After that, the moments of hell repeated endlessly.
Mammon had beaten his brothers to a pulp and had been beaten up himself, but nothing changed.
After a certain amount of time, it would reset.
They would appear without fail and tease him.
In fact, this incident was the reason he could no longer trust his brothers.
“Dammit!!”
Mammon roared violently.
How many times had he repeated this?
Just when he was about to think that it didn’t matter anymore.
The sky cracked and began to crumble.
At the same time, he heard this voice.
“Mammon! Get a grip!”
To Mammon, that voice felt like the voice of a savior.
***
Slap, slap.
Anonymous mercilessly slapped Mammon’s cheeks.
Mammon’s cheeks swelled up as if they would burst.
At the same time, I called out his name loudly.
“Get a grip, Mammon!”
Did it have an effect?
His eyes gradually opened.
“Wh-where am I?”
“You’re finally coming to. Are you okay?”
“…What happened? Ouch, ouch.”
He grimaced in pain as he caressed various parts of his body, including his cheeks, as if he were just now feeling the pain.
“Ugh. I’m dying. What the hell happened?”
I explained to him what had just happened.
Mammon looked at me with a dumbfounded expression.
“I was taken down by a mere mental magic?”
“You couldn’t help it. The opponent was the ghost of the first Demon King.”
“But why does my whole body hurt? If I was hit by mental magic, it shouldn’t hurt like this.”
Mammon tilted his head with a bewildered expression.
No one looked him straight in the eye.
“Ahem. I don’t know for sure, but it must have been a vicious method that strained your body.”
“Mental magic that exerts physical force. That’s insane.”
“You’ve been through a lot. Can you even stand up?”
Mammon made a face as if he were dying and painstakingly got up.
“Ugh. I feel like I’m going to die. The opponent?”
I pointed to the corpse of the Demon King, which had become like dried squid.
The corpse, not only burnt but also flattened by the front paw of the transformed Anonymous.
Mammon frowned and his whole body trembled slightly.
“It was a terrible magic. To think it would endlessly show me the memory I least wanted to recall.”
If Mammon, an Archdemon, was like this, I can’t even imagine what it would have been like for the others if they had been caught.
I consoled him once more and we all headed to the Demon King’s room.
Then I glanced back.
For some reason, I felt like the Demon King wasn’t dead yet.
‘In the game, he was immortal too. Even if you killed him, he would revive like a dog after a certain amount of time.’
But he still hadn’t even twitched, and it seemed like it would be safe for a while.
Anonymous chuckled and opened her mouth.
“He’s already dead. You don’t have to worry.”
“You never know. The Lich King doesn’t die.”
“If you’re really worried, shall I burn him one more time with my breath?”
I nodded, and Anonymous transformed into a dragon once more and shot her breath at him.
Fwoooosh.
Seeing him burnt to a crisp gave me a sense of relief.
‘This should be fine.’
The inside of the room was very narrow.
It was an artificially created space dug out of a cave, so low that my head touched the ceiling, and there was no room to move once everyone entered.
However, the orb placed in the middle of the room created a strange atmosphere.
With dark red magical power constantly swirling around, it felt like I was facing an abyss.
At that moment, these words came to mind.
‘If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.’
Phew. I got goosebumps all over my body.
I soon took my eyes off the orb, but Adel stared at the orb with a somewhat dazed expression and said.
“…Is that the Dungeon Core?”
At Adel’s question, Anonymous, who had finished her humanization, nodded.
“That’s right. That’s the Dungeon Core. But hmm… it’s lacking a lot more magical power than I thought.”
Anonymous frowned and made a displeased expression.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s very different from what I expected. Maybe it exhausted all its power while reinforcing the ruins.”
“Is that a problem?”
Anonymous shook her head.
“No, it’s not. That much is fine.”
“That’s a relief. Then let’s take that and get out.”
“But the moment you do, the ruin will collapse immediately. The ruin itself seems to have existed for a long time, but what’s supporting it now must be the power of the Dungeon Core. So it would be best to prepare to use teleportation magic right away.”
When I turned my gaze to Noemi, she nodded.
“Just a moment. Five minutes should be enough.”
Five minutes passed.
Noemi smiled brightly, saying she was all ready.
“It’s done.”
“Okay.”
I looked at everyone and muttered in a small voice.
“On the count of three, I’ll lift the Dungeon Core. One, two, three!”
As I lifted the Dungeon Core high, the magic circle installed under my feet flashed.
Woooooong.
My body felt like it was floating in the air, and my vision blurred.
The floor shook violently as if there were an earthquake, but it was only for a moment.
Soon, a different scenery unfolded.
***
A little before Frank’s party entered the room.
Nox, who was sprawled on the floor, looked up at the ceiling and panted.
“Damn it! I’m not doing it! No, I can’t!”
Son of Primus or whatever, this was something he really couldn’t do.
“How am I supposed to break through something like this?”
His whole body had been a wreck for a long time.
If he went any further, he might even lose his life.
He was about to give up, thinking he couldn’t do it.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
“What’s this now?”
The surroundings vibrated, and the ruin began to collapse.
Was this also a trap?
But for that, it seemed like everything was just collapsing.
In the end, Nox couldn’t even let out a squeak and was crushed by the collapsed rock mass.
His vision went dark, and Nox lost consciousness.
***
The situation of Kaliditas, the master of this place and the first Demon King, was not much different.
‘Are they gone?’
He peeked up and looked back, but he couldn’t see them.
Kaliditas managed to get up and grumbled to himself.
‘Disgusting bastards. How many times are they going to kill me.’
To think that he, the first Demon King, would have to act like he was dead.
There was no humiliation like this humiliation.
In fact, since he was already a dead body once, the expression ‘dead’ was not appropriate.
But once by being burnt.
Once by being crushed by a front paw.
And once more by being burnt.
He had to experience a total of 3 deaths in one moment.
‘If I hadn’t been a lich’s body, even my soul would have disappeared. You damn bastards.’
No, it was because he was the Lich King that he was able to survive this level of attack. If he had been an ordinary lich, regeneration would have been impossible.
‘To think they would cowardly shoot a breath into the room. What kind of bastards are they?’
He was fully prepared to cast mental magic as soon as they came out of the room.
But what is this?
The floor shook, and dark red cracks formed as the ground began to split.
A dark aura rose from under his feet like steam.
It was as if the ground itself were alive and moving, about to vomit something out.
‘Wh-what?’
Could it be that they had touched the Dungeon Core, which was like his own life?
He belatedly ran towards the room, but, Thump!
A huge rock that fell from above flew like a meteor and shattered his body to pieces.
***
It wasn’t just those inside the ruin who were crushed by fear.
The outside of the ruin soon had to face the same fate.
Desiderius, who had been lounging idly on the throne, was flustered by the sudden situation.
“Wh-what’s going on!”
The surroundings shook uncontrollably.
The collapsing castle walls.
The vibration that would not stop.
It was a scene of utter chaos.
“We must evacuate immediately!”
Evacuate?
After painstakingly conquering this place?
But he wasn't even given time for that.
Because the rapidly collapsing ground swallowed the Demon King's Castle whole.
“Uwaaaah!!”
The huge Demon King's Castle was sucked in and sank underground.
A thick cloud of dust rose, obscuring the view.
A long time after that.
The surroundings quieted down, and little by little, the scenery began to be seen.
But the demons who had barely survived could not close their mouths in astonishment.
Because the Demon King's Castle that should have been there was nowhere to be seen.
It was the result of the great incident that would later be named the Collapse of the Demon King's Castle.