Necromancer Of The Black Bible (178)

The Citadel of Ruin in the western part of the Ethereal Realm.

Alseira was imprisoned in the underground dungeon there.

Alseira, who had once served as the chief retainer of Dikrea, the Great Demon King of the East.

Her right eye, which had housed Cadenza, one of the Ethereal Realm’s most powerful artifacts, was blown open and bleeding black blood.

That wasn’t all.

Her limbs were locked in iron shackles, and a black crescent-shaped sword was lodged in her abdomen.

Alseira was dying like that.

It was the price of trying to negotiate with Illinas under the pretext of Cadenza.

‘Was I foolish?’

After thinking for a moment, she soon shook her head.

‘I never want to be bound again.’

Living as the Demon King’s tool without being able to think for herself is worse than death.

‘You did well. This is the best.’

She didn’t know what had become of the subordinates who had trusted her.

Some had died, some had probably sided with the other side, but she felt no sense of debt to them.

That was simply how life in the Demonic Realm was.

They had not stayed with Alseira out of loyalty.

They had stayed because there was a high chance it would be more advantageous than surrendering to Illinas alone.

A relationship of mutual use.

There was no such word as betrayal here.

They had each simply made their choice.

Until just a moment ago, Alseira had been groaning in pain, but even that had now dulled.

‘Such a stubborn life.’

The angelic body originally bestowed by the god of the Ethereal Realm was brutally resilient.

Most wounds healed easily, and it had a lifespan that was close to eternity.

There was a time when she had felt that was a blessing, but not anymore.

Because as long as there was someone stronger than her, she had to submit.

A life no different from slavery.

Human slaves actually had it better.

At least they could think freely and hope.

At one point she had also feared what came after death, but now she looked forward to it.

No matter what awaited her, it had to be better than this.

Alseira lowered her head.

At the same time, the remaining pupil in her eye lost its light.

After that.

Space opened, and someone appeared.

It was Damian and Dikrea.

“Hmm. She’s already dead.”

Dikrea wore an expression of utter indifference.

Damian was displeased with her attitude.

He had felt a similar emotion before, but it was hard to define.

Damian, after briefly trying to grasp the nature of that feeling, soon gave up.

Emotions were difficult.

No one had taught him, there were no books about it, and it wasn’t even a subject this world cared about.

Damian stopped thinking about such a pointless subject and approached Alseira.

As Dikrea had said, she had already stopped breathing.

Her right eye had been torn out completely, and blood had pooled beneath it.

It was quite coagulated, so it seemed she had been left here for quite some time.

‘There’s still warmth in the skin. She died not long ago, but this blood looks to be at least three days old.’

Blood enough to fill the cold stone floor.

A normal human would have died long ago, but Alseira was a demon.

A demon’s body is incomparably stronger than a human’s.

But the stronger it was, the longer she must have suffered.

Looking at Alseira’s corpse, he felt as if that long agony was being conveyed directly to him.

‘The life of a demon doesn’t look all that good either.’

Life always involves pain.

The living, whether human or demon, all want to spend only enjoyable times.

That’s why they fight each other, and only the strong can enjoy pleasure.

There was a time when he had thought it would be nice to be just a little stronger, but looking at it now, that had been a mistaken thought.

Simply becoming a little stronger did not mean living any more happily.

Alseira was a prime example of that.

Damian was examining Alseira’s past.

Her life had been tragic.

Right after receiving an angelic body from the god Kallios, a rebellion broke out, and after flailing about helplessly, she had tried to protect Kallios.

She gathered a force with those who shared her convictions, but it was not enough.

After wandering here and there through the Ethereal Realm for many years, she was ultimately defeated by Dikrea.

It was also at that point that, under brainwashing, she gouged out her right eye and implanted Cadenza, an artifact of the Ethereal Realm.

From then on, she lived strictly as Dikrea’s tool.

Her self-awareness returned only recently, right after Dikrea became Damian’s subordinate.

After that she had tried to make a deal with Illinas, but failed, and in the end ended up in this state.

After sweeping through her past, Damian looked at her soul standing dazedly right behind Alseira’s corpse.

She was retracing the long years of her life.

And yet she repeated only one thing.

-I want to be free.

Originally, Damian had planned to revive Alseira and make her his subordinate.

He judged that doing so would be useful in this fight, whether she had Cadenza or not.

However, after confirming Alseira’s past and facing her soul, he gave up on that idea.

Because he could feel no light from Alseira.

At that moment, Damian realized one thing.

‘Light.’

All the souls he had encountered so far possessed light.

Whether human souls or monster souls, they all had light.

There were differences in brightness, but it was certainly light.

But Alseira’s soul was not like that.

Her soul was nothing but darkness.

Damian watched her for a moment.

Having retraced all the time she had lived, she soon looked at Damian as if satisfied.

And then she spoke.

-You’ve come at last. I’m relieved.

It was as if she knew Damian.

Damian wanted to say something to her, but he couldn’t.

She greeted him with a bright smile, then began to scatter and soon vanished completely.

At that moment, Dikrea approached, checked Alseira’s right eye, and clicked her tongue.

“Tsk! Useless to the very end.”

Then she looked at Damian and said in a gentle voice.

“What should we do? Those bastards took Cadenza. How foolish… It seems she was trying to make a deal with Illinas after the brainwashing wore off.”

“I know.”

He had already seen the past and confirmed whose hands Cadenza had fallen into.

Damian opened a dimensional gate again.

“Now that we know who has Cadenza, let’s go.”

Dikrea smiled brightly and stepped through the gate, and Damian looked back at Alseira’s corpse.

‘What did those words mean?’

With that thought, Damian stepped into the dimensional gate.

The place Damian and Dikrea arrived at was a room in the upper level of the Citadel of Ruin.

A room with a massive map spread out.

On a throne in one corner, a huge demon with his entire body blazing looked this way.

Even without revealing his identity, Damian felt like he knew who he was.

‘Magnia, Lord of Fire.’

He was the one Shador had reported to him about before.

He had heard that he served as Illinas’s subordinate and acted as the captain of the guard, so it was strange to see him remaining in an empty castle like this.

Then Magnia opened his mouth.

“Who are you?”

When Damian merely stared blankly, he asked toward the side.

“Hey. Do you know who that guy is?”

“Well…”

With a low voice, a shape emerged from the darkness.

It was Shador, the dark warlock.

If he had communicated with him from the beginning, it might have been easy, but Damian had not done so.

Because that would have given Illinas, who was preparing for war with Cadenza and Ten Thousand Eyes, a pretext.

Damian whispered to Shador.

-The time has come.

-I have been waiting.

-Where is Cadenza?

-This one has it.

Shador looked at Magnia.

Indeed, a golden eyepatch covered his right eye, and red energy was surging from it.

Damian smiled faintly and ordered.

-Bring Cadenza to me.

-I shall obey.

Shador’s form wavered briefly.

In the meantime, Magnia’s neck twisted a full 360 degrees.

Crack-

The sound of bones breaking rang out chillingly.

Magnia couldn’t even struggle, and in that state Shador pulled out Cadenza, which had been attached to his right eye.

Fwoosh-

Magnia’s entire body burst into flames.

But the flames had no effect on Shador at all.

As if handling a child, Shador turned his whole body into fire and whispered to Magnia, who was thrashing about with his neck completely turned around.

“I’ve been curious for a long time. Whether I could burn you.”

Shador’s entire body began to be stained by darkness.

Along with it, the flames shrouding his body also darkened.

Ultra-high-temperature black flames.

It was the ultimate Fire magic said to be usable only by the Ancient Crimson Dragon Eckhart.

Shador wrapped Magnia in black flames and embraced him.

Magnia, with his neck twisted, couldn’t even scream.

He only kept trembling from the pain.

Along with that, his body oxidized away, giving off blue flames.

Shador watched with a smile as his entire body disappeared.

A little later, once Magnia’s entire body had been incinerated and only ashes remained, Shador returned to his original form.

He slowly approached Damian, dropped to one knee, and held up Cadenza, which he had just taken from Magnia.

Damian took it and spoke.

“Well done.”

Shador looked up at Damian and asked,

“Illinas is watching us with Ten Thousand Eyes.”

“I know.”

“Then do you intend to fight the decisive battle?”

“Yes.”

Damian carefully looked around the room and checked the map once more.

It was a continental map, and several red dots were clustered inside Edelmund, the Imperial Capital.

Those dots soon began moving south.

Damian could immediately tell what this meant.

“Dikrea.”

“Yes.”

“What do you need to use Cadenza?”

Dikrea looked at Cadenza in Damian’s hand and answered.

“You need a living being and one of its eyes.”

“So an eye is absolutely required.”

“It’s that sort of object. It can function only by parasitizing an eye.”

After hearing the answer, Damian smashed Cadenza without hesitation.

Then he asked Shador.

“Do you know Illinas’s plan?”

“I do not.”

“Do you know where he might be?”

“He is probably in the palace.”

“Good.”

Damian grinned.

Shador explained Illinas’s methods to him.

“Illinas never takes risks. He always hides his true body in a safe place and plants an illusion at the front. He’ll do the same this time. Because more than anyone, he fears Master.”

“Where is the Ten Thousand Eyes?”

“It is on the lower floor.”

“Let’s deal with that first. After that…”

Damian stared at the map for a long time.

As he focused, the area indicated by the map formed clearly in his mind.

One million imperial cavalry, and behind them the monsters marching in formation.

It was the exact same scene he had seen in his future vision before.

Damian watched it and continued.

“We should bring this war to an end.”