The Descent Of Skels, The Great Demon King

Several hours after the Dungeon World War began.

At some point, the world had been covered in ominous clouds. Dark red clouds like clotted blood.

Under the cloudy sky where no light shone, shadow monsters were rampaging.

The people did not know it, but this was different in nature from the Dungeon World Wars that had taken place until now.

Normally, fighting unrelated people and monsters would reduce the fighting strength needed to defeat the enemy dungeon.

That was why only dungeons fought each other, and many people and monsters lived without even knowing that a Dungeon World War had occurred.

This time, however, towns and villages had been targeted from the start. People and monsters alike were attacked.

Towns near dungeons were suffering especially heavy damage.

The monsters released from the castle that had appeared near the Royal Capital were throwing the entire world into chaos.

However, the Royal Capital was attacked the most.

It was not only because it was close to the demonic castle and had a large population, but also because there were entrances to two dungeons, Rubel’s and Kou’s, there.

Rather, the dungeon entrances had been deliberately left in place to draw the enemy toward the Royal Capital, where the fighting strength was best prepared.

Near the Royal Capital.

Against the surging shadow monsters, the knight order and adventurers had launched an attack.

The monsters were merely rushing forward by relying on their numbers, so they were being handled through the knight order’s organized tactics and the adventurers’ coordination.

However, there were far too many of them.

Vice Knight Commander Milford, who was in charge of the right wing, shouted while cutting down a wolf monster with his sword.

“The monsters are getting bigger and stronger little by little! Don’t let your guard down!”

“““Yeah!”””

The knights answered energetically.

The small, fast-footed monsters had reached the Royal Capital first, while the strong but slow-footed monsters were arriving afterward.

In other words, the more they fought, the stronger the enemies became.

When he looked into the distance, huge shadows like ogres and trolls, twice the height of a person, were also appearing.

Milford clicked his tongue inwardly.

If those reached the Royal Capital, things would get bad, he thought.

—Then.

A red flash was fired from the Royal Capital into the sky.

The instant Milford caught a glimpse of it, he shouted loudly.

“All personnel, retreat to the Royal Capital! You’ll be burned to ash!”

As the right wing began falling back, the other units also began to retreat.

Perhaps they had not noticed, because the left wing was still fighting, but an angry roar flew down from the sky.

“Run! You’re in the way! If you’re too slow, I’ll burn you all together!”

The knights and adventurers looked up.

Rubel, transformed into an incarnation of flame, was flying. Her hair blazed upward like fire, and the outline of her whole body flickered like flames. Only the fire-resistant cloak fluttered in the wind.

Agitation ran through the knights and adventurers.

“This is bad!”

“We’ll get burned!”

“Whoa, the Guildmaster’s naked!”

“Idiot, if you look directly at her, you’ll go blind!”

Rubel grinned, then cast a spell as if threatening them.

“Infinite Fire Arrow Rain.”

Fire arrows poured down like rain from the sky. They pierced monsters one after another, turning them into charcoal.

It was only several hundred ordinary fire arrows fired at the same time, but their power was tremendous.

Rubel charged into the monster horde like a scorching cannonball.

A huge explosion erupted, and hundreds of monsters were blown away.

Rubel smiled fiercely while licking her lips.

“It has been a while since I went all out. Burn and dance all night at my party! —Plasma Detonation!”

Boom!

A scorching great explosion erupted with Rubel at its center.

It was the strongest lightning-flame spell. Especially when Rubel used it, its power became abnormal, and everything within several hundred meters was blown away.

Even the knights and adventurers who had been at the rear guard were scorched by the flames and heat wave and screamed, but Rubel did not care.

She looked at the shadow monsters still surging like waves with shining eyes.

In the direction she stared, there was a monster as large as a mansion. A lizard with wings—it looked like a dragon.

Rubel sent it a heated gaze and shouted.

“You look worth burning—Prominence!”

Rubel pointed at the dragon. Flames as thick as a pillar surged from her fingertip.

It was an advanced fire spell.

Originally, it was a spell that attacked a single enemy, but in Rubel’s case, it burned a straight line through the monster horde and even pierced and burned the dragon to ash.

Rubel clicked her tongue.

“Just a big piece of trash, huh… More! Send out something more worth burning! —Ignis Tempestas!”

Rubel thrust out both hands.

It was the strongest fire spell. A red vortex began to swirl above the monster horde.

The next instant, enormous flames became a storm and burned everything around them to ash.

The monsters spread across the ground, the monsters flying in the sky, the woods, and the fields all burned together.

Several thousand monsters within a five-hundred-meter radius vanished.

All that remained afterward was scorched ground—and here and there, pools of red lava melted by heat.

The knights and adventurers who had evacuated to inside the Royal Capital muttered.

“Maybe we only need her…”

“We’re not useful at all…”

“As expected of humanity’s only SS rank.”

“Maybe I should go home…”

Rubel kicked the ground and flew into the sky.

Since her body had almost become flame, she could fly or float if she adjusted the amount of heat she released. Incidentally, physical attacks also did not work when she was in her flame state.

She floated in the sky and looked around.

Shadow monsters were still emerging from the pitch-black castle.

“Boring. Are you only sending out weaklings? In that case, triple—Inferno Flare!”

Rubel fired three scorching great fireballs. Each fireball was about the size of a house.

Two of the fireballs blew away the monster horde, and one directly hit the demonic castle.

The roof was blown away in one strike, the walls collapsed, and the castle was half-destroyed.

Rubel crossed her arms, looked down, and snorted.

“Now then, I struck your nest, didn’t I? Will you come out? Or shall I storm inside?”

“Petty… To think you cannot wait until my preparations are complete. You require discipline.”

An eerie voice shook the atmosphere and echoed across the entire area.

At the same time, the demonic castle collapsed with a rattling roar.

What emerged from the collapsed castle was a giant twenty meters long.

It wore a robe that covered it completely from the head down, and it was wrapped in black darkness.

Rubel, floating in the sky, wore a bold smile.

“Despite this being a World War, only one dungeon has appeared. Are you the Dungeon Master from another world?”

“Indeed. My name is Skels, the Great Demon King. Let this world perish as well.”

“I refuse! Extreme—Prominence!”

Rubel pointed at Skels and shouted.

An extremely thick red pillar—a pillar of flame thick enough to swallow a three-story mansion—surged from her fingertip.

It swallowed Skels in one blow, and the reflected flames became a huge cylinder that scorched the heavens.

—However.

Skels stretched out his arm while wrapped in the red-glowing flames.

“Hmph, is this all? —Ruin Nightmare.”

A black sphere of magic power appeared in the Great Demon King’s palm. It swallowed the red flames and became a fireball mixed with red and darkness.

The next instant, the black fireball was released.

It swelled as it swallowed the pillar of flame Rubel had unleashed and attacked Rubel.

“Kuh!”

Rubel concentrated magic power in her right hand. With her red-glowing right hand, she knocked the magic sphere away.

The sphere crashed into the distant earth and exploded violently. Afterward, a huge crater where the ground had been gouged away was left behind.

Skels, the Great Demon King, who had taken no damage at all, took a step forward while making his black robe sway.

The ground shook, and an eerie laugh echoed.

“Kukuku… Mere flames do not work on me. Be embraced by the abyss and wander eternal darkness!”

An aura of darkness was released from Skels, the Great Demon King’s entire body. Since his massive body was twenty meters long, a hundred-meter radius was covered in darkness in an instant.

Rubel flew backward with a frustrated grimace and avoided the dark aura.

“To think it even devoured my flames! It seems this will not be easy, damn it!”

“Kukuku! Exactly! Regret the sin of defying me!”

Skels laughed loudly enough to shake the atmosphere.

It was at that moment.

A white, purifying light cut diagonally through the dark aura.

“What!?”

Skels was shocked and turned his eyes toward the direction the light had been released from—behind him.

Beside the demonic castle that had become rubble, a five-meter entrance emitting golden light had appeared. It was a dungeon passage.

From there, holy knights and holy spellcasters appeared one after another. There were over a thousand of them.

However, not only the Sacred Knight Order and the Sacred Mage Corps, but also holy undead—Holy Death Knights and Holy Hell Liches—made up half of them.

The Pope appeared last and declared in a solemn voice. His face was twitching as if he were somehow holding back laughter.

“Demon king of another world, Skels, the Great Demon King! The ones who will win are we who worship God Luktia of Light! Behold! The power of God’s great servants! —Go!”

At the Pope’s command, the knights raised a battle cry and charged.

Before the twenty-meter giant body, the knights were as small as grains of beans, yet they swung their shining swords and released Justice Slash and Holy Strike, while the holy spellcasters released Shine Arrow and Aurora Detonation.

The sacred attacks became waves and tore apart the robe of darkness covering the Great Demon King.

“Nwaaaah! Do not mock me!”

Skels, the Great Demon King, swung his large hand and released a dark aura, but even that was blown away by the light slashes and spells.

The Pope laughed loudly.

“This is the power of God Luktia of Light! —Ah, powerless people of the Fortis Kingdom, thank you for clearing the way. Please rest at ease.”

“““What!?”””

The knights and adventurers watching from the Royal Capital’s outer wall grew furious, but the Pope merely wore a composed smile.

“Please leave the rest to Luktia’s Sacred Knight Order—now! Everyone, deliver the final blow to the Great Demon King!”

Further attacks flew from the Sacred Knight Order.

The Great Demon King covered his face with his hands and writhed painfully.

Rubel could only bite her lip in frustration and glare with furrowed brows.

“So he really can only be damaged by the light attribute or the holy attribute…”

“Exactly… Only the holy attribute works on me. If I were a demon king, I would have been defeated…”

At the words the Great Demon King uttered while groaning in pain, Rubel and the Pope raised puzzled voices.

“Hm?”

“To speak bravado at this point! Come, more, everyone!”

At the Pope’s command, more and more attacks of light and sacred power flew.

However, beneath the face he covered with his hands, the Great Demon King wore an atrocious smile and laughed, kukuku.

“Yes. If I were merely a demon king, that is. You have lost because you underestimated a Great Demon King! Die—Abyss Pulsar!”

The Great Demon King thrust both arms out toward the holy knights.

A vast darkness that swallowed even light was born in his palms, then fired like a laser.

When the black darkness pierced the ground, it exploded soundlessly. No, the exploded darkness had even sucked in the sound.

“Wh-what!?”

“Uwaah!”

“God!”

As they screamed their death cries, the holy knights and holy spellcasters were blown away into shredded pieces of flesh.

The Holy Death Knights and Holy Hell Liches also vanished one after another in silence, wearing expressions of agony.

The explosion became a shock wave that spread across the surroundings and violently made Rubel’s red hair flutter in the sky.

Rubel protected her face with her arm while compressing her flames to maintain the outline of her body.

“Kuh! So this is the power of a Great Demon King from another world!”

The Pope, who had lost the Sacred Knight Order in an instant, exposed his thin, half-naked body through his tattered priestly robes and trembled with his eyes wide in shock.

“I-impossible! My perfect plan! The strongest dungeon that used one hundred and twenty cores…!”

“It was useless.”

Thoom!

The Great Demon King took one large step forward and crushed the Pope underfoot.

The Pope’s pathetic death cry and the limp splat echoed at the same time.

The Great Demon King spread both arms and laughed.

“The mistake was thinking that mere humans could do anything about me. O world with no plans left, perish within my darkness, fuhahahaha!”

As his loud laughter echoed around the Royal Capital, Rubel shouted while manifesting her anger like flames.

“No, there is still a way! —Kou! Send out the dragon with sacred power! Enlarge the Sacred White Dragon and send her out!”

“It is useless! Give up!”

“Hurry and come, Sacred White Dragon Rāna! Extreme—Ignis Tempestas!”

A red, swirling storm with a radius of several hundred meters enveloped the dark Great Demon King.

However, even within the flames, the Great Demon King did not stop laughing.

—Then.

From somewhere, an immature yet gallant voice rang out around the Royal Capital.

“Kiiiin!”