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HELHEIM SCANS
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Chapter 340: The Descent of the Demon King (1)
Caliste didn’t just stand still and take it.
Twisting his body as much as possible, he redirected the force contained in Ketal’s punch.
But with the door pressing against his back, it was impossible to completely deflect the blow.
Some of the force rocked his body violently.
“Cough!”
Even that alone made him spit blood.
The powerful impact churned Caliste’s internal organs.
As an ordinary demon in terms of physicality, there was no way Caliste could endure even a portion of Ketal’s strength.
Grinding his teeth, Caliste quickly drew a dagger from his chest and thrust it toward Ketal’s neck.
Ketal swung an arm.
The wrist rotated like a pulley, perfectly deflecting the dagger.
He immediately raised his fist again and drove it forward.
The fist connected with Caliste’s body.
Boom!
Unable to withstand it, the castle gate finally shattered into countless pieces.
Caliste’s body was flung and rolled among the debris.
“Cough, cough…”
Lying sprawled on the ground, Caliste spat blood.
Ketal extended his arm, and a bracelet on his wrist gleamed.
A battle axe flew into their hand as if summoned.
But he didn’t swing it.
Or rather, he had no reason to.
Caliste was already dying.
Though he struggled to rise, his body wouldn’t obey.
With mangled organs, his physical form was deteriorating rapidly.
Strength ebbed from his entire body, and his consciousness began to fade.
“…I’ve lost.”
Caliste had been defeated.
Utterly and completely.
A bitter laugh escaped his lips.
“You’re stronger than me. Stronger than any of us.”
The lords of hell—beings said to rival gods, or even surpass them in strength.
Even they paled before Ketal.
From the start, it had been a hopeless battle.
“The only one who could stand against you in Hell… must be them.”
It was clear who Caliste was referring to.
The Demon King.
Stronger than the lords, the true ruler of Hell.
Ketal shook their head.
“Unfortunately, preventing that being’s descent is my mission.”
“We’ll see how that turns out… though it’s not a matter for me anymore.”
Caliste slowly forced thimself to rise.
It was more like he was moving his ruined body with sheer willpower.
Ketal silently observed as Caliste staggered to pick up his sword, driving it into the ground.
Taking a stance reminiscent of a knight, Caliste gazed at Ketal with unwavering eyes.
“Victory is yours, Ketal. It was… enjoyable.”
Crack!
With those words, the sword shattered—not merely breaking into pieces but disintegrating into dust.
Caliste’s sword had been an embodiment of their will.
Its destruction signified Caliste’s death.
Caliste’s corpse remained standing in place.
After a moment of silent observation, Ketal spoke.
“I enjoyed it as well. Truly.”
It had been a long time since Ketal had fought purely with physical skill.
The battle had been a deeply fulfilling experience.
Caliste’s death sent ripples across all of Hell.
The demons, realizing their lord had been defeated, let out groans of despair.
“Aah, aahhh!”
“Lord Caliste! Lord Caliste!”
Their morale crumbled.
In an instant, the once evenly matched battle tipped in favor of the surface forces.
As walls were broken, the demons were driven back.
[We’ve won.]
The Tower Master approached Ketal with a calm demeanor.
Ketal nodded.
“Yes, it’s a victory.”
[You’ve truly dealt with two lords. Hah, this is remarkable.]
The barbarian before them had accomplished a feat even the gods couldn’t achieve.
It was almost unbelievable, even after witnessing it firsthand.
But there was no time to marvel at the achievement.
Their goal wasn’t simply to defeat the lords.
[Let’s move quickly. I’ll guide you.]
“Let’s go.”
Ketal followed the Tower Master through the shattered gate, advancing rapidly into the Demon King’s castle.
“So, this is the Demon King’s castle.”
The place was not extravagant.
There were few decorations or chandeliers.
Yet, it was not unimpressive.
It exuded dignity and a strange sense of intimidation.
As they ventured inside, they felt it clearly—something utterly dreadful was happening below.
“Underground?”
[Wait a moment.]
The Tower Master snapped their finger bones, sending waves of mana to scan the castle’s interior.
[There are many traps. Not ordinary ones. These are traps capable of killing even hero-class beings. We must move carefully…]
“There’s no need for that.”
Ketal gripped his axe, an aura of mysticism gathering around it.
Then, he struck the ground.
Boom!
The floor of the Demon King’s castle collapsed in an instant.
Their bodies plummeted rapidly toward the underground.
“If it’s in the way, we’ll just break through.”
[…I detected that even I couldn’t scratch this floor, yet it means nothing to you.]
The Tower Master muttered in disbelief.
[Still, it’s faster this way. Let’s move on.]
Through the broken floor, they descended to the underground.
Traps triggered in a flurry, but the Tower Master’s magic and Ketal’s strength crushed everything as they pressed onward.
Finally, they reached the deepest level, smashing through a door at the end.
Crash!
The room was filled with various ritual instruments.
In the center, Materia lay, emaciated as though she hadn’t eaten for days.
Weakly, Materia turned her head.
“…Ah, you’ve come?”
“You don’t look well.”
“I can’t help it. This is straining even for me.”
Materia smiled faintly, weakly.
The Tower Master gasped.
[This…!]
It was a horrific ritual.
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HELHEIM SCANS
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A summoning of such a high order that even the Tower Master couldn’t fully comprehend it.
There was no need to ask what was being summoned.
The Tower Master quickly began gathering magic.
[Dispel!]
He tried to forcibly cancel the ritual.
Ketal, too, didn’t remain idle.
He poured mysticism into their axe.
“As much as I’d like to see it, unfortunately, my job is to stop it!”
With all his might, Ketal swung his axe at the magic circle of the ritual.
Boom!
But the magic circle did not break.
Instead, Ketal's body was forced backward.
A flawless repulsion.
Ketal looked at the Tower Master with a bewildered expression.
"Does this mean it can’t be destroyed by ordinary methods?"
His question implied whether it required magic or divine power to break it.
But the expression on the Tower Master's face made it clear that this wasn’t the case.
Despite being a skeleton, his rigid stance conveyed his shock.
[No, that’s not it. It should’ve been breakable without issue.]
The more intricate and delicate a ritual was, the more vulnerable it was to external shocks.
Rituals that took a month to complete could be ruined by something as trivial as a servant’s sneeze.
Yet the ritual before their eyes remained intact, even against Ketal's power.
This could only mean one thing.
[The ritual... is complete?]
“What’s the situation—?”
Helia, who had arrived late, gasped as she saw the power surging forth.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
The ritual erupted, and an immense force pierced through the roof of the Demon King's castle, shooting skyward.
[This is insane!]
The summoning ritual had succeeded.
Now that it was complete, there was no stopping it.
All they could do was watch as the ritual concluded.
Helia widened her eyes and shouted,
“This can’t be happening! How! How is it already finished?!”
Her words sounded like a denial of reality, but they carried weight.
“There’s no way the summoning ritual could be completed this quickly!”
The higher the rank of the being summoned, the more time the ritual required.
For an entity like the Demon King, an extraordinary amount of time would have been necessary.
And yet, it had been completed in just a week.
It was an impossibility, one even Materia did not deny.
“Haha… Even I thought it was a failure, but here we are. I suppose you could call it a miracle.”
“What nonsense are you spouting?”
Both the Tower Master and Helia were half out of their minds.
Only Ketal remained composed, asking in a tone of curiosity,
“But there shouldn’t have been a sacrifice.”
Hell had consumed countless sacrifices to summon Necronovix.
For a being as mighty as the Demon King, there couldn’t have been any sufficient sacrifices available.
“No sacrifices, you say? Aren’t you looking at one?”
Materia chuckled leisurely and pointed her finger outward.
“This hell. Itself.”
Crack, crack, crack!
The realm of Hell, where it was tethered to the material plane, began to shatter.
A third of it was consumed like a sliced piece of cake to fuel the summoning.
“Every ranked demon.”
“H-huh?”
“Wha-what?”
Those who were fighting outside faltered as they noticed something strange.
The bodies of all ranked demons began to blur.
“Oooooooh!”
“At last! The ritual has succeeded!”
As sacrifices for the ritual, those beings vanished completely.
Yet even in their obliteration, the demons rejoiced.
“Our King!”
“Please, reclaim the mortal world for us!”
Crack.
Every ranked demon vanished.
Onlookers stood bewildered and stunned.
“And finally, one of Hell’s Lords.”
Materia pointed to herself.
At the same time, something enveloped her—a power that consumed the rank and strength she had accumulated.
She collapsed, utterly drained as a sacrifice for the ritual.
The fact that she didn’t entirely vanish spoke volumes about the scale of her existence.
But that was the extent of it.
She now stood on the brink, as fragile as a flickering candle.
“Looks like Abyss will die soon… Necronovix and Caliste are already gone. And I’ll follow shortly. Ahahaha, this is the worst.”
All four Lords, who had survived even the Gods and Demons War, were now dead.
Hell had, for all intents and purposes, lost.
And yet Materia’s expression was not grim.
If anything, she seemed exhilarated.
“It doesn’t matter. This is how it was supposed to be from the start. I just clung to pointless pride.”
Materia spread her arms wide, as if welcoming her master with open arms.
“Now, come forth, my King. Please. Please, appear in this world.”
And then—
Crack.
The space shattered.
From the fractured rift, a condensed power burst out.
[Ah.]
“Oh.”
Both the Tower Master and Helia immediately realized what was happening.
The unsealing unleashed a ripple of power.
What surged forth was merely a fragment of the imprisoned entity’s might.
Even so, it was enough to kill them.
No response, no defense could withstand it.
It was akin to a human attempting to resist an avalanche.
Their thoughts froze in that instant.
Only Ketal moved, rushing forward with his axe at the ready.
He infused it with his aura.
BOOOOOOM!
The erupting power collided with Ketal’s strike, exploding in the process.
Ketal slid back, his body straining to absorb the impact.
Even so, he couldn’t block all of it.
The remaining force surged toward the Tower Master and the saintess.
Ketal shouted,
“Defend yourselves!”
[…Shield of Purity!]
“Hephaestus’s Shield!”
Snapping back to their senses, the two poured all their strength into shielding themselves.
Crack, crack, crack!
Their defenses shattered.
The Tower Master and Helia were flung into the walls.
[Grrrk!]
“Cough!”
Helia felt her insides churn, while cracks spread throughout the Tower Master’s entire body.
Even for a lich, it would take months to recover from such injuries.
“This… This is…”
Even a fragment of that power was unstoppable.
A being beyond classification.
A being above even the gods.
Ketal whistled.
“It’s coming.”
Creak, creak, creak!
Through the fissure in space, an arm emerged.
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HELHEIM SCANS
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