Chapter 95- Slaying the Devil
Rook moved first, cutting at the avatar’s wrist to steal its attention. Caelum seized the opening and slashed a line across the devil’s thigh. Between them, they’d bought Leo maybe two seconds.
More like they brought time for Saintess.
It was enough.
The Saintess’s light wrapped around him in that same instant.
The killing blow was already coming. Leo braced for it.
Then the holy light around him shifted on its own, deflecting the claws away from his throat and into his shoulder instead.
The blow still landed. It just didn’t kill him.
A golden thread stretched taut between the Saintess’s hand and his chest, bright enough that the whole square could see it.
[Saintess: Life-Pin — Active]
[Leo HP: 170/3,400]
The threshold held.
For a moment, Leo just breathed. Alive. That was enough.
Then his Blood Chanter’s armor ignited, crimson light pouring through its channels, and the rage came roaring up the way it always did.
The devil’s mark flared with it.
He triggered it — and for one second, the devil’s avatar recoiled, staring at him with something close to horror. It didn’t dare move.
The bloodline aura rolling off Leo was pure. Unmistakably pure. And the Gate, sensing it, poured more devil energy into him, tipping him fully into his devil form.
The urge to kill, to destroy — it hit him like a wave. He turned his eyes on the Saintess, and they weren’t his own eyes anymore.
Everyone froze...
The knights, Rook, all of them.
Leo had become a devil. Worse than the one they’d been fighting — murderous intent rolling off him in waves thick enough to taste.
Even the Saintess felt something close to fear as she looked at the eyes that were staring at her.
Leo’s mind was in chaos. So he activated hyperfocus, and all the noise and urges fell away. Clarity came again.
Leo finally released the breath he had been holding....
He had feared that even with hyperfocus, he might not be able to control it. But, the hyperfocus held on... Thankfully...
The avatar recovered in the same breath and threw itself at him with everything it had left.
The Saintess met it bare-handed, gold flaring against black-red force, and the knights’ shield wall slammed into the gap with a sound like a house caving in.
[Knight Shield Wall: Combined HP → 1,205 → 720]
Seconds. That was all he had.
[Ding~]
[Blood Frenzy: ×4 — DMG ×4, STR/AGI surge]
[Warning: HP Critical — 170/3,400]
[Ding~]
[Devilization: Active — 30s]
Then he called up primordial trinity, and everything doubled — every stat, every sense, every cost. Mana burned straight through the well and drained it dry.
[Primordial Trinity-Activated]
With the Saintess’s boost still layered over the top, his damage output went somewhere past the reasonable limit.
The charge he’d been building since he first realized what it would take to break the seam — it finally caught fire.
"Everyone evacuate!" Leo shouted. He had told Rook and Caelum beforehand.
So, Rook and Caelum had already cleared the square before it came to that. Soldiers, registrants, knights, clerics — all of them well outside the incoming reach of Gungnir.
Three figures remained. The devil. Leo. The Saintess, who stayed because she trusted her defense completely, and had no reason not to.
The pressure came first, dropping out of the sky like a weight. Night turned to day in an instant. Thunder rolled overhead, and the lightning hummed itself into shape — a spear of pure current, hanging in the sky like a verdict already passed.
Leo raised his hands slowly.
The pressure in the square doubled again. The devil was on its knees now, fighting just to stay upright.
Leo brought his hands down.
[Gungnir’s Descent]
The boom came a half-second after the flash — light tearing down from the sky and striking dead center, through the devil, through the Gate, through the earth itself, right where the three veins converged. For a moment the whole area was nothing but crackling white light.
[Damage Dealt: 96,800]
[Avatar HP: shredded]
The avatar came apart — limbs, flesh, the crimson thread binding it to the Gate and the vein, all of it snapping at once.
Beneath the square, the convergence point simply stopped existing. Where the three veins had met the city’s foundation, there was only a crater of molten stone and severed thread. The skull above cracked in half and dropped away from the Gate’s light. And the Gate itself — the wound in the sky that had hung open all night — began to convulse, and close.
[Anchor Convergence: DESTROYED]
[Dragon Skull: Split — Anchor Dissolved]
[Gate Stability: Collapsing]
The recoil hit Leo like a wall. His body went numb. His mana bottomed out.
[MP: 0]
The buffs unraveled one after another.
Devilization, gone.
Hyperfocus, gone.
Blood Frenzy, gone.
He hit the ground, HP flickering, and the Saintess’s light closed around him — warm, gold, steady.
His HP crawled back up the scale — 170, 900, 1,900, 3,400 — and the ringing in his bones finally faded to something bearable.
...
The Gate was collapsing.
[Gate Stability: Failing]
What was left of the avatar got dragged back through the opening, hauled in like it had never mattered at all.
The city held its breath — rooftops broken, barricades splintered, a crater carved into the middle of the square where none of that had been an hour ago.
The light dimmed. The air still felt wrong. Heavy, thick, off.
The Saintess’s light flickered once, she’d taken the whole lightning barrage without a scratch. Not a speck of dust on her. She didn’t look like someone who’d just survived a battle at all.
She turned to Leo.
[Ding~]
[Your favorability with the Saintess has increased.]
[Favorability: 60]
She studied him — something like appreciation in her expression — and then her gaze dropped to the horned skull tattoo on his armor.
Recognition flickered behind her eyes. She knew exactly what it was.
She stepped closer and rested her hand against the mark.
"You’d better learn to use that carefully," she said, and her smile was gentle. "It’s better if you learn to control it. But if you ever lose that control and hurt someone innocent — I will kill you myself."
The smile never left her face. That was somehow the worst part.
Leo nodded, stiff, and pushed himself up. He looked around — everyone else was well back, only the Saintess close enough to matter. The Gate was gone. So was the devil.
Then the notifications started.
[The server announcement will be made.]
[Do you wish to hide your identity?]
Leo thought about it for a second. His name was already public — no point hiding it now.
He selected no.
[WORLD ANNOUNCEMENT]
[REGIONAL CATASTROPHE — IRONHAVEN]
A forbidden summoning ritual was performed beneath the city of Ironhaven, calling forth a Devil from beyond the mortal realm. A Gate to Hell was forced open beneath the city, allowing the Devil to cross into the world. Once through, it attempted to strengthen and permanently anchor the connection between Hell and the mortal realm. Had the ritual succeeded, the Gate would have become permanent — opening the region to continuous Devil-kind invasion and placing not only Ironhaven, but the surrounding lands, at extreme risk of destruction.
[The Catastrophe has been resolved.]
[The Hell Gate feeding on Ironhaven has been destroyed.]
[The Gate’s primary anchor beneath the city has been severed.]
[The invading entity designated <DEVIL> has been slain.]
[The pathway connecting Ironhaven to Hell has been permanently sealed.]
[Regional Threat Level: TERMINATED]
[Ironhaven has survived.]
[CONTRIBUTION SETTLEMENT]
[Analyzing contributions...]
[Contribution has been calculated according to:]
[— Hostile entities defeated]
[— Damage dealt to the primary threat]
[— Critical objectives completed]
[— Civilian lives protected]
[— Destruction of the Abyssal Anchor]
[— Sealing of the Abyssal Gate]
[Settlement complete.]
[Top Contributors to the Defense of Ironhaven:]
[Rank #1 — LEO STONE]
[Contribution Rating: 76.6]
[Achievement: DEVIL’S SLAYER]
[Rank #2 — CAELUM]
[Contribution Rating: 31.0]
[Achievement: THE WALL’S BLADE]
[Rank #3 — SAINTESS VENARA]
[Contribution Rating: 20.6]
[Achievement: THE LIGHT THAT WALKED]
[Rank #4 — SWORD MASTER]
(Master Rook’s in-game name)
[Contribution Rating: 15.4]
[Achievement: THE PHASE WITHIN]
[Rank #5 — TOWN REGISTRAR IDRIS]
[Contribution Rating: 6.7]
[Achievement: KEEPER OF THE SQUARE]
...
..
....
[Rank #8 — HUGH]
[Contribution Rating: 2.2]
[Achievement: THE KEEPER’S STEAD]
....
...
[SPECIAL RECOGNITION]
[The System has detected an extraordinary contribution.]
[LEO STONE has made the largest individual contribution
to the defense and survival of Ironhaven.]
[His actions directly contributed to:]
[— The rescue of civilians]
[— The destruction of the Abyssal Anchor to hell]
[— The sealing of the Abyssal Gate of hell]
[— The extermination of the Devil]
[For exceptional bravery and contribution during a
Regional Catastrophe...]
[Title Awarded:]
[ HERO OF IRONHAVEN ]
[For personally slaying the entity designated <DEVIL>
and preventing the opening of the Abyssal Road...]
[Title Awarded:]
[ DEVIL SLAYER ]
[ REWARDS ]
[Primary Reward — Granted]
[+500 Gold Coins]
[+50 Strength]
[+50 Dexterity]
[+50 Vitality]
[+40 Intelligence]
[Holy Attribute has been unlocked.]
[+50 Holy Attribute]
[Special Reward detected.]
[Unique Skill — SEALED]
[The authority of the Devil Slayer has been recognized.]
[A sealed skill associated with the title <DEVIL SLAYER>
has been bound to LEO STONE.]
[Skill activation condition:]
[Confrontation with a being of Devil-kind.]
[Additional information will be revealed when the
activation condition is fulfilled.]
[Ding~]
[Now Rewarding the remaining contributors....]
[Analyzing the contribution and rating them...]