52 — Chapter 52

Whoooosh!

“Finally here, are we?”

Purple hair whipped in the wind. Violet eyes. A tall, handsome frame. An impossibly beautiful face. Hovering in the sky was the demonkin Hiberio, who closed his eyes and drew in a long breath.

“Fuuuh…”

The air around him seemed to funnel straight into his lungs. Opening his eyes again, he let out a voice laced with a strange allure.

“Light.”

That was his first impression of the Human Realm—it felt unbearably light. The world itself was light, insubstantial, lacking the weight of the Demon Realm.

Hiberio ran his hand through his wind-tossed hair, scanning his surroundings. Beneath his feet stretched a vast ocean of clouds.

“Beautiful.”

His red lips curved as he whispered again. The blue sky, the white clouds, and the lush green earth peeking through them… sights he had never known in the Demon Realm, captivating him instantly.

What’s this?

As he admired the land between the clouds, he felt a presence approaching swiftly. Looking toward it, he saw a black speck cutting through the sky in his direction. The dot grew larger, its shape forming.

A Teilro? No… I’ve seen this before.

He thought for a moment, watching the creature rush closer. Its black body spread enormous wings nearly ten meters across, its size matching its span. And that beak—sharp enough to chill the heart.

Yes, I saw this in the monster codex.

Recognition flashed, and Hiberio lifted his gaze to meet the approaching beast. His lips parted, and his voice—infused with warped dimensional energy—cut through the air.

“Gargoyle.”

The word tore through the sky and reached the beast. The gargoyle, soaring high above, had marked Hiberio as prey and was streaking toward him at full speed. Its eyesight, razor sharp like all great birds of prey, saw him clearly despite the distance.

Closer now, it shrieked a harsh, grating cry and opened its beak wide. Yet instead of hunger, the gargoyle was seized by a force beyond instinct—terror. Its body froze in place, unable to move.

“Screee!”

With its instincts crushed beneath that alien voice, the gargoyle plummeted helplessly from the sky.

A single Sword Expert could fight forty average men at once. Numbers varied depending on stamina and experience, but still—five Sword Experts together were needed to bring down a gargoyle. Hiberio subdued one with nothing but his voice.

This was a glimpse of his power as a demonkin. All living things had instincts, but monsters bore them most strongly. And when instincts were suppressed, control vanished.

The dimensional energy flowing from Hiberio’s mouth had shattered those instincts. Comparable, perhaps, to techniques like the Lion’s Roar, the Heavenly Demon’s Roar, or even Dragon Fear—but the nature and force were completely different.

He watched the gargoyle’s fall with a detached gaze and began descending slowly himself. He didn’t spread wings; instead, he used the nearly limitless dimensional mana flowing within him. For a demonkin, spreading wings meant transformation.

“Where should I go?”

His alluring voice spilled from slightly parted lips. All demonkin could transform. In their human form, they looked ordinary. Once transformed, wings, tails, and horns emerged—and more importantly, their abilities surged exponentially. Their flesh became almost indestructible, their destructive might unimaginable, and whatever emotions they held dwindled into nothing. In other words, they were reborn as near-invincible weapons of slaughter.

In Hiberio’s case, in his thousand years of life, he had transformed only once—before the Demon King himself.

I need to find that human.

As he descended toward the earth, Hiberio pictured the one who had drawn him into the Human Realm. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call that person the reason he had come here at all. He hadn’t managed to catch his appearance, missing it by a hair’s breadth—but the aura he carried, that he remembered clearly. Other than the sheer strength of it, though, he knew nothing.

Which meant, in his current situation, the only option was to subdue a human with a powerful aura and forcefully read their memories. There were countless other methods available, but Hiberio judged this to be the most suitable for now. Besides, another thought lingered—if he did find that human, he wanted to travel through the Human Realm alongside them.

And if they refused? No, they wouldn’t refuse. He felt certain of it.

Whoooosh—

He passed through the wet, heavy clouds and halted at a height not far above the ground, scanning below. About twenty small buildings clustered together, forming a village. People were gathered in the center, all drawn to something.

Looking closer, he saw the corpse of the gargoyle he had cast down. The villagers had flocked around it. The men, returning from their work, each carried a farming tool, talking animatedly among themselves—no doubt about the fallen beast.

The women stood back, clutching their children away from the shattered carcass. Among them, a toddler of maybe three or four chased after a butterfly… then suddenly stopped, tilting their head upward.

“Huh? What’s that?”

In the child’s clear eyes shimmered raw curiosity. Something hung in the sky—something that wasn’t a dragonfly, or a butterfly, or even a bird. To the child, the sight of a person suspended in midair was nothing but wonder.

“Mom! Mom! What is that?”

“Hm? Let me see—kyaaah!”

The mother followed her child’s finger, then screamed in terror. To her eyes, it looked like a human plummeting from the heavens. Her shriek stirred the village into commotion, and when pressed, she raised a trembling hand to point at the sky.

Gasps spread quickly as others saw it too. They didn’t scream like the mother, but shock and disbelief colored their faces.

For them, it was nothing less than a nightmare: a figure hovering in the sky. In a rural village like this, tucked away at the edges of civilization, most people had no real understanding of magic. For them, this was unthinkable. No wonder they were shaken.

“G–God!”

As the villagers stared in shock, the elderly village chief dropped to his knees, prostrating himself as he declared the figure in the sky a deity. Hearing his cry, the others followed suit, pressing their trembling bodies flat against the ground.

Hiberio descended slowly, his violet eyes sweeping across the humans who had bowed and called him a god. The more they saw of him, the deeper they lowered their heads.

[Where in the Human Realm is this place?]

The voice did not come from his mouth but resounded everywhere at once. Hiberio did not yet know the human tongue; instead, he willed his meaning into existence, and it was delivered straight into their minds. To the villagers, such a thing was terrifying beyond measure.

“Th–This is the P–Poseidon Kingdom, l–located in the southern part of the c–continent,” the chief stammered, his whole body trembling.

[I see.]

Again, Hiberio’s voice echoed from all directions, making the villagers shiver harder. From that answer, he decided to survey this nation first, then head eastward. With the thought settled, his body flickered and vanished across the wide plains.

Fwoosh!

Time passed after his disappearance, yet no villager dared to raise their head. To lift their gaze before a god was unthinkable. Naturally, they had no idea Hiberio was long gone, and so they remained face down in silence.

After about twenty minutes—

“Uuugh, my legs hurt.”

The whine of a child shattered the tense quiet.

“Ah! Forgive us, forgive us, forgive us—eh?”

The child’s mother clutched them tightly, bowing as she babbled apologies. When no response came, she risked lifting her head.

“H–He’s gone.”

Her cry made the rest of the villagers look up in unison. When they saw no trace of the being in the sky, awe and dread overtook them once more. They dropped to their knees and whispered reverently.

“Oh, divine one!”

“Oh… impossible… oh, holy god…”

Their chanting carried on for a long time.

And though this was far in the future, the event became legend, passed down through generations. Strangely enough, after Hiberio’s visit, people began flocking to the village, and it eventually grew into a great city. But that, of course, was a story of distant days.