Monsters Die When Killed

It was as if... time had flowed backward, reversing the very cause of events and inflicting death upon death itself.

As the Black Tiger perished completely, the Crimson Demon vanished.

The Silent stood rooted to the spot, completely still, as if he hadn’t even noticed the Magical Beast’s assault.

Meanwhile, the other Leaders of the Spirit Summoning Association cast fearful glances at Bornev.

"That Demon’s face... it changed again. It used to look like Bornev, but now... you can’t tell who it is at all."

In that brief exchange, they had seen the Crimson Demon’s face. The Demon’s features should have been Bornev’s, but ever since Bornev had collected enough Celestial God Factor and advanced to the Commander Tier, its face had begun to shift constantly.

One moment it was a young man, the next a woman, then an old man, then a man in his prime.

Every being that Bornev had ever granted the ’End’—be it their Soul or their power, their pain or their despair—had been absorbed into the vessel known as the ’Punishment Demon’.

—Life is a vessel for accumulating pain.

When that vessel shatters, the overflowing End will spill forth.

’Perhaps... Bornev lost control long ago...’

The Controller murmured to herself. She, who could perceive the tracks of fate, could no longer clearly see the threads of possibility behind that man. It was like a collective of tens of thousands of people—everything was Chaos, everything was a blur, everything... was heading toward the End.

In fact, it was already the End.

That colossal Demon, the Demon of Punishment, was the ’vessel’ that contained all those things.

There was no time for the members of the Spirit Summoning Association to guard against the Silent, one of their own.

Soon, the pensive Controller sensed a fluctuation from the distance.

"A Space-Time Gate has opened. It seems the European Union can’t accept their defeat?"

The woman narrowed her eyes, gazing at the beams of fated light that suddenly flared up in the distance. She couldn’t help but mutter to herself, ’A little faster than we expected—but they’ll never find us. Satellites, drones, or any kind of Search Spell will only see an ordinary forest at the foot of a mountain.’

The Controller was supremely confident in her power to obscure fate and conceal destiny.

The Silent also raised his head, looking toward the distant Two Realms Time-Space Gate.

Bornev, who had been perfectly calm, now wore a shocked expression.

’No... pain?’

He looked as if he had seen something incredible, something that should not exist. He almost lost his composure as he murmured to himself, ’How is this possible... How can there be a life without pain? Even a God, even Typhon, who was mighty enough to defeat the Mycenaean Gods, felt pain. Why doesn’t he...’

’What in the world is that... What kind of Monster is he?!’

「At this very moment.」

Demon Realm. The Two Realms Teleportation Gate.

"Professor Su, you might find me a bit long-winded, but I have to say it. Bringing you to the Demon Realm ahead of schedule is already a violation of Harmony Bureau regulations."

A middle-aged man in a suit with thinning hair led Su Zhou and the grandfather-grandson duo, Rafael and Selos, across the Two Realms Teleportation Gate and into the Demon Realm. His tone was quite complex. "So, it’s best you don’t act alone and give the Spirit Summoning Association an opportunity to take you out one-on-one. You should stay in the fortress near the Teleportation Gate, wait for our main forces to be mobilized, and then we can all move out in coordination."

"Rest assured, we will support you when you decide to act. You are, without a doubt, our leading force."

"Okay, no problem!"

Su Zhou readily agreed to the earnest advice of the Harmony Bureau’s High-tier Steward. "I will, I will."

But the middle-aged man, his face beaded with sweat—whether from nervousness or the heat of his suit, it was hard to say—let out a long sigh. "I hope so... After all, you know as well as I do that the Spirit Summoning Association’s strength is beyond what we anticipated. Even though you are a Commander... No, precisely because you are Commander Tier, you must be careful for your own safety, to avoid sparking a dispute between the Zhengguo European Union."

"Don’t worry."

Su Zhou reassured him, "I’ll definitely wait for your main force to arrive before making a move. I absolutely won’t go running around on my own."

"I’ll just take a look, just a look. I won’t wander off, I won’t alert the enemy, and I certainly won’t act on my own."

With that, the young man—who always insisted on being objective and rational—patted his chest and declared with the utmost confidence, "Relax! I’ll stay right here. I’m not going anywhere!"