Chapter 68: Chapter 68: The Devil’s Playground [2]

"Azrael?" Arthur asked, crossing his arms and leaning lazily against the bookshelf.

He stood right beside Principal Boros, who sat heavily behind his large wooden desk.

Inside the quiet office stood Mia, Raven, and Zephyr.

They were the three students who had been unfortunate enough to be assigned to Melissa’s path.

Professor Sianna sat rigidly in a small chair off to the side, her pale hands folded tightly in her lap.

This secret meeting happened one day before the cave exploration officially started.

Zephyr had decided to lay all his cards on the table, gathering the few people who might actually have a fighting chance to bring Shane back.

Zephyr did not particularly like Shane in this new life, but that did not change the fact that they had spent a full lifetime fighting side-by-side in a dead timeline.

You don’t just abandon a brother-in-arms, even an annoying one.

"Yes," Zephyr said firmly, holding the principal’s gaze.

"He is the King of Demons. The King of Seventh Layer."

"Demons?" Boros asked, genuine surprise cracking his usual calm expression.

"The last recorded sight of a high demon was over a thousand years ago during the Great Divine War. How did a king manage to cross over into our realm?"

"I don’t know all the specific details," Zephyr replied smoothly, sticking to his prepared cover story.

"It was just a vision I had in the illusion trial. That is all I can offer. But I saw Shane being possessed by something in that cave."

Boros didn’t question the convenient vision any further.

He knew Shane had talked to him about this exact threat in the very same way, and his own Soul Scale trait had already proved the terrifying thesis.

The old man nodded slowly.

"Wait a minute," Raven raised his hand, his eyes darting between the adults.

"If this thing is actually a demon king, and he is that strong, why would we even try to fight him? Or better yet, how can we fight him without dying instantly?"

"You don’t," Arthur said flatly, his lazy demeanor vanishing.

"You don’t fight a king in close quarters."

"Then what are we supposed to do down there?" Raven asked, looking highly stressed.

"All you have to do is follow his plan," Arthur instructed, his eyes sharp and serious.

"Go wherever the girl takes you, keep his attention focused on you, and at most, stall for time. Do not try to be heroes."

"And then?" Zephyr pressed.

"Then I will come," Arthur stated, his voice leaving no room for doubt.

"I will drop down and cut his head off."

"Are you truly up for this?" Boros asked quietly, turning his gaze to Sianna.

The professor had just returned from a sudden leave of absence, looking pale and exhausted.

"I will do it," Sianna said firmly, her voice steady despite the slight tremor in her hands.

Mia just nodded her head once, accepting the dangerous mission without a single complaint.

"Okay, sealing the demon is one thing," Raven questioned, leaning forward.

"But how can we be sure of saving Shane? What if the core shatters when we attack?"

"If he dies, he dies," Arthur said, offering a shrug.

"We cannot put the lives of innocent people at risk just to save one freshman. He knew the risks when he let it happen."

"What about her?" Zephyr asked.

"Melissa?"

"I don’t know either," Boros admitted, rubbing his one eye.

"She was the odd one out in this entire equation. Shane never mentioned her in his warning. She must be the anchor."

"Whatever it is, we have to finish it very quickly down in the cave," Boros said, closing his golden ledger with a thud.

"If this quiet mission fails, the other leaders and the Council will begin a public hunt for him. They will not care about Shane’s life anymore and will just burn the whole mountain down."

"This is our one last chance," Zephyr muttered.

Back inside the green-lit cave, the present reality was a total nightmare.

The suffocating energy from Azrael’s body wavered wildly to all sides.

The dark mana hit everything in the narrow tunnel, breaking rocks and shattering the glowing fungus off the walls.

Azrael tried to look at his attackers, but blood filled his vision. Zephyr had struck fast and true.

Both of his human eyes had been severely ruptured by the holy light.

"Do you really think I need these fragile eyes to kill you?" Azrael roared, his voice filled with malice.

The Demon King moved with terrifying accuracy, relying entirely on his heightened smell and his spiritual senses.

He lunged blindly forward and grabbed Zephyr right by the throat.

Zephyr choked as the steel grip tightened.

Azrael slammed the hero face-first into the hard stone ground, breaking the path beneath them.

He then threw Zephyr to the side like a broken doll and immediately followed up the attack, aiming a kick right at the boy’s ribs.

Zephyr could not react fast enough.

The light had weakened the demonic aura slightly, and the stitched core was still restricting the mana flow, but Azrael’s base physical strength in this human vessel was still highly overwhelming.

Before the boot could crush Zephyr’s chest, Mia intervened.

She threw her hands forward, stopping Azrael dead in his tracks and making his body float a few inches off the ground.

Azrael felt the telekinetic grip.

He did not panic.

He simply gathered energy in his right arm and waved his hand sharply to her side. The aura moved like an invisible cleaver cutting through the air.

Mia quickly dropped the hold and dodged to the left, but her mental focus wavered for just a split second.

That tiny opening was all he needed.

Azrael appeared right in front of her in a single heartbeat.

He kicked her hard in the stomach, sending her flying backward.

She hit the cavern wall and coughed up a bright splash of blood.

Raven stood perfectly still near the back of the tunnel.

He clearly knew his own combat limits and decided to take care of the weaker target instead.

He turned his attention to finish off Melissa.

But when his eyes darted to the side where she had crashed, she wasn’t there.

’The fuck?’ Raven thought, his eyes widening.

Before he could even process her sudden disappearance, a wave of dark energy came rushing right at his face.

Azrael had sent a highly red slash of aura aimed directly to cut Raven’s head off.

Raven reacted purely on instinct.

He disappeared into a puff of black smoke just as the red slash tore through the space where his neck had been.

A second later, he appeared again in the same spot, breathing heavily.

’Tch. Spatial teleportation,’ Azrael thought in his mind, feeling the shift in the air.

He could easily sense all three of their magical cores burning like bright candles in the dark.

There was no need for his physical eyes to track them.

A sudden crack formed in the stone floor right beneath his boots.

Azrael jumped backward just in time to avoid a massive spike of earth being lifted by Mia.

The quiet girl was kneeling on the ground, her nose bleeding heavily as she forced the cavern floor to attack him.

At that exact moment, Raven teleported into the empty air right above Azrael.

The shadowy boy appeared in a blink, swinging both his fists down hard to punch the blinded demon toward the ground.

Bam.

As Azrael staggered from the downward blow, Zephyr pushed himself up from the broken floor.

He stood twenty feet away, but he punched the empty air at incredible speed.

[Hundred Fists]

The multiplied power of a hundred golden fists landed brutally on Azrael’s body all at once, despite Zephyr being standing far away. The relentless impacts pushed Azrael backward, slamming him hard against the cavern wall.

Bam Bam Bam Bam Bam Bam Bam Bam Bam

The physical body shook under the sustained assault, but Zephyr’s phantom punches were still glowing, pressing the demon king into the cracked stone.

The humiliation of getting beaten up by these pathetic mortal nobodies burned away the last of Azrael’s patience.

After the hundred punches finally faded, smoke started emitting from Azrael’s ruined suit.

His human skin began to change, shifting to an unnatural red color as glowing cracks of hellfire appeared across his arms and neck.

The stitched core was finally buckling under his rage, letting the true Abyss leak out.

Azrael raised his face and looked right at them with his bleeding, ruined eyes.

A terrifying smile stretched across his face.

"Come," Azrael whispered, the single word echoing with the weight of a thousand dead souls.