The New Demon King

“…So Hang-woo?”
“……”

Tang Seo-ran stared at the old man before her with startled eyes.
She had assumed the monstrous old man wouldn’t be dead,
but she never dreamed he would appear so calmly like this.

‘…How?’

A cascade of questions followed one another.
Sword Ghost So Hang-woo,
He was, by position, part of the leadership of <Tartarus>, yet clearly an uncontrollable entity.

Even by Tang Seo-ran’s experience with countless villains, he was an unclassifiable horror and the crystallization of madness.

His desires were clearly outside any norm.
He had no lust for power to sit in high places,
No sexual desire to hold a beautiful woman in his arms,
No greed for countless riches and treasures,
Not even the material greed for powerful weapons hunters naturally want.

He was simply a madman who acted on whim.
Yet he was seated in the leadership because of an overwhelmingly superior strength that dared exceed a hundred men.
Even Tang Seo-ran, hardened by long years, felt chilled to the bone by his voidlike apex.
He was literally asymmetric power incarnate.

But even so, he remained an undetonated nuclear bomb whose timing was unknown.

Therefore Tang Seo-ran intended to sever ties with the Sword Ghost after this.

She hadn’t been giving contact,
Nor had she provided any means to reveal her position,
Since she judged a day like this would come soon.

A routine farewell among underworld beings: part without offending his temper.

“…How dare you.”

That was why Tang Seo-ran was furious.
Though she held the position of <Clan Master>, she had clearly accommodated the Sword Ghost.
It was true she feared him, but she also respected him.

Tang Seo-ran looked at Tang Pyo-rim, who had died instantly without even a last word.

From the horrifically split corpse,
blood and pale gray brains ran down and reached her toes.

They had been connected for quite a long time,
The one who had borne a girl for her to use,
A mother and friend was brutally dead.

Tang Seo-ran contained the quietly rising rage.
The poison and bloodlust coiling in her hands intensified.
Of course, observing So Hang-woo wore an expression of empty thought with his remaining eye.
As if he posed no danger at all.
In fact, that was somewhat true.

“So Hang-woo…!!!”
“You’ve gotten into quite a paltry body, Master. Both arms are collapsing. It’s proof you can’t handle your own strength.”
“…Why did you kill her?”
“Because she was in the way.”
“…How did you find this place?”

The Sword Ghost flicked the ring in his pocket.
Ping-greulre-!
The ring fell to the very center of the floor, spun round and round, then clicked to a stop.

It was undeniably the oath ring imbued with the clan master Go Joo-geum’s power from <Niflheim>.

Tang Seo-ran’s eyes narrowed viciously.
She drew both hands back.
She formed dozens of dark blades fused with poison and bloodlust.

“Why do you have this?!”
“Explaining from the start would take too long. Showing this willingly is my last courtesy to the Master.”

A staggeringly cheeky attitude.
As she prepared to launch the dark blades, ready for a bloodfight,
the Sword Ghost said casually.

“Don’t be so frightened. My role ends here.”
“……?”

He brushed the blood off his longsword.
Shouldering the hilt,
he leaned against a drum in the corner of the abandoned factory.
For the last time, like someone watching a distant fire across the river, he spoke.

“…The Master has another opponent.”

He said it behind her back.

“……What?”

Tang Seo-ran, bewildered, retorted.
Soon, with a sound of something falling, a black silhouette latched onto her back.

It wrapped the remaining arm around her neck,
and began to squeeze as if to kill.

Tang Seo-ran glanced over with a flushed face.
Immediately after, she was appalled.

“You, you!?”
“Seeing you again like this, I’m truly delighted… Master!”

The identity was none other than Moon Ha-yeon.
In that horrific state, she clung to Tang Seo-ran.
Looking closely, her body was covered in slashes that appeared to be carved by the Sword Ghost.

Pajijik-!

Immediately, before Tang Seo-ran could react, a sigil was drawn on the floor.
Tang Seo-ran stared at it and quickly understood the ritual.
Grinding her teeth, she shouted.

“Where, where do you think you’re moving to!”
“Don’t worry. For you and me, it’s a place where things can be neatly finished!”
“You—dying bitch!”
“Stop hiding like worms waiting for a chance…let’s settle this here!”

Bluish flames spread outward.
In the blink of the Sword Ghost’s eye,
the two disappeared simultaneously.

“……!”

Tang Seo-ran opened her eyes.
She quickly assessed her surroundings.
She realized this was not the real world.

Where she had opened her eyes was a world of intertwined inner images forming a complex mental landscape.
It was commonly called a mental realm.

The magic circle etched on Moon Ha-yeon’s body was largely composed of the seals for <Movement> and <Soul>.
It seemed an expanded form of magic typically used for psychological treatment.

Tang Seo-ran looked around warily.
Soon a dog-like voice reached her ear.
A disgusting female laughing in a non-human guise.

Moon Ha-yeon,
that damn woman was smiling brightly at her.

“You finally came to? Master.”
“…Moon Ha-yeon!”

Tang Seo-ran gathered magic into both hands.
She’d been caught off guard and had struggled earlier.
Seeing her head-on like this, she judged she could tear her apart at once.

But no magic came forth.
Of course.
This place was a kind of space where both their inner worlds mixed.
Additionally, it wasn’t a simple mental realm.
Some rule seemed to be in place that prevented the act of attacking itself.

Kugugugu-!

“……?!”

Tang Seo-ran realized it belatedly.
An energy that overflowed as if filling the floor.
It was Demonic energy.
A pure Demonic energy that only a demon king or the like could emit.

Tang Seo-ran turned her gaze toward the source of the Magi.
And she saw.

A slender, thin humanoid wrapped in something like inverted black cloth, impossible to tell male or female…

It was a familiar face.

“…Kazantia?”

<Demon king> Kazantia.
The first of the 72 Demon Kings and their de facto leader.
And peculiarly the least belligerent among the demon kings—impossible to read.

Kazantia, whether conscious or not,
Made no sound even when meeting Tang Seo-ran’s eyes.

Kugugugugugu-!!!

At that moment.
A torrent of immense power surged.

The source was Moon Ha-yeon.
Blood pooled in the slashes carved into her body and began to link together.

Tang Seo-ran realized this was a kind of ritual and sigil.

Tang Seo-ran was also a mage who had researched and practiced magic as much as Moon Ha-yeon.

She understood in an instant what that ritual aimed to achieve,
And why it had been drawn.

“…No way, a sacrifice ritual?!”
“Correct, Master.”

<Sacrifice ritual>.
An ancient shamanic practice without a precise modern term.

Normally magic pursues higher efficiency.
Based on a cost of 1 to produce a result of 10.
That is the basic doctrine of such craft.

Moon Bora, Moon Ha-yeon,
and Tang Seo-ran all use system adjustments to handle magic and don’t break this rule.

But that’s the story of modernly developed craft.
The most primal, original magic.

What is commonly called shamanism focused on paying a definite price to yield extraordinary results.

What that requires is the slow ritual product called a magic circle.
Unlike the that auto-generates in the void, these are old relics you must draw, study, and establish rules for.
The slashes carved on Moon Ha-yeon’s body served that function.

“…Ha.”

Tang Seo-ran laughed in disbelief.
She must have been seriously underestimated.

“You can’t win in a fight, so you carve in combat prohibition…and intend to defeat me with demonic craft?”

Tang Seo-ran absorbed part of the Magi pooled on the floor.
From that she understood the purpose of the rite being performed.

The victory condition here was simple and straightforward.
Compete for influence over each other; whoever is chosen by the demon king Kazantia wins.
The loser pays all costs and is annihilated.

It was a structure possible because this shamanism desired the harshest price.

As mentioned, shamanism favors certain sacrifice.
Rather than paying 1 for a result of 10,
it seeks a more dazzling, certain 1.

Thus shamanists who paid honestly had, at some point, evolved to force others to pay the price, and naturally perished.

Tang Seo-ran read Moon Ha-yeon’s intent.
A ritual of this scale.
Moreover directed at a demon king, a transcendent being to be chosen by.

Naturally, whatever vessel or self accepted it, it would be hard to withstand.
All resulting risks were assumed by the defeated.

Literally kill the one you hate,
and the self grows stronger,
it was no different from a student wanting a selfish answer sheet.

Therefore Tang Seo-ran smiled.
She actually welcomed it.
Because she wanted that too.

Originally, her own soul had crumbled and she needed Go Joo-geum’s help.
That only the ring had come meant Go Joo-geum was dead,
And Tang Seo-ran had no choice but to wait for her day of death.

“But oh my, I have an opportunity now?”
“……”

Tang Seo-ran showed a deep smile.
She would make that cockroach-like Moon Ha-yeon pay all the costs and die a horrific death.

She would regain the strength of her prime.
Using the contract with demon king Kazantia as a starting point, she would summon all the other demon kings.

Literally an ideal story.
In truth, Tang Seo-ran brimmed with confidence.

As proof, the demonic energy swirling around Moon Ha-yeon gradually absorbed toward Tang Seo-ran.

Tang Seo-ran laughed.
Watching Moon Ha-yeon’s expression harden,
She answered like a teacher explaining the reason.

“Why? Flustered? You designed the ritual and set the conditions favorably yourself, yet you don’t know why you’re losing?”
“……”
“The reason is simple.”

Tang Seo-ran looked at Kazantia.
Her identity and heyday were,
The priestess of a ruined nation who first summoned the 72 Demon Kings into this world.

She sacrificed her country’s king and people for her own greed,
Even offered parents as offerings,
She tore a massive hole into this world,
And connected a passage called the ‘outside’, spawning a ‘demon realm’ like a shadow.

Therefore Tang Seo-ran’s understanding of demonic energy surpassed all others.

“No matter how many contracts were severed…someone like you can’t beat me.”

Tang Seo-ran smiled with joy as the Magi clustered around her.
She seemed ready to crush Moon Ha-yeon utterly.

It was then.
Suddenly, the silent Moon Ha-yeon gave a clear sneer.

“Fuck, what’s proud about being old…stop making your dentures clack, you old blood-splattered hag.”
“…Ha! You’re still alive with that pathetic look. Fine, I like it—anyway the demon king will choose me—”
“-Who gave you the right to be chosen by the demon king?”
“……”

A low retort,
Made Tang Seo-ran feel something off, and she turned around.

The demon king Kazantia.
If it had taken this much initiative,
he (she) who should choose her still did not move.
No, wait…

‘…Could it be?’

Only then did Tang Seo-ran realize.
That it was merely an empty shell.
The worst assumption flashed through her mind.
She looked back at Moon Ha-yeon, and saw.

“……”

Moon Ha-yeon grinned and bared her chest.
The Soul Stone’s center had been ripped out.
Into it, a black, soul-like thing writhed and filled the flesh.
It was undoubtedly Kazantia’s soul,
and that meant it had chosen Moon Ha-yeon.

Tang Seo-ran froze on the spot.
She instinctively knew her premise was wrong.
From the moment it was summoned into this space…
Already, to Kazantia…
to the demon king…

“…You say you were chosen?”

Someone like you?