The Goddess’s Blessing.
It refers to the divine power of Ilina, the Goddess of Light.
It is, without doubt, the power of a god.
And not just any god—Ilina, the Goddess of Light, one of the principal deities of the Gritia Continent, whose divine power works miracles.
[Invincibility]
The highest of absolutes.
For a brief moment, the effect of invincibility, which is the highest state of all, is maintained.
Of course, it lasts only an instant, but that one instant is more than enough to extinguish a life.
[Time Distortion]
[Power of the Colossus]
The Goddess’s Blessing doesn’t just confer invincibility—it also grants Time Distortion, as well as the Power of the Colossus.
With Time Distortion, one gains immense speed.
With the Power of the Colossus, one gains the might to destroy all things with the power of a god.
There is said to be no one who can escape this absolute skill, attainable only by a hero who has gathered the Three Divine Artifacts.
However, the hero, Kayle Turner whose abdomen was pierced through screamed in agony.
“Ahhhhhj!”
“What?!” Frankie Duncan, who had been so full of confidence just moments ago, now wore a shocked expression.
He couldn’t help it.
The invincible defense of the Goddess’s Blessing had been broken.
It was something that shouldn’t have been possible.
No, it could only happen in one specific case.
Only Nox, the Demon King’s Sword, which bore the destiny of a lifelong nemesis, could shatter the Goddess’s Blessing.
Knowing this, shock was inevitable.
But, after living nearly a thousand years, what I’ve learned is that there is no such thing as ‘absolute.’
Even a power said to be absolute can have unforeseen methods of being countered.
And the method by which I broke through the Goddess’s Blessing is the sword, which should have been Excidium, had turned into the gray blade, Turba.
No, it was radiating an even sharper ash-gray aura than before.
Was it because the demonic energy had grown?
No the force of chaos cannot be filled with demonic energy alone.
With the addition of poison, this power had formed an even more potent chaos.
I had yet to reach ‘True Chaos’ with all seven energies united, but even with just three, the chaos had grown stronger.
Strong enough, in fact, to shatter the invincibility forged by the energies of light and darkness.
Moreover.
“…A fake, huh.”
That was my judgment of Kayle Turner.
“A hero? Nonsense. A true hero isn’t this weak. You’re nothing but a replica. The Three Divine Artifacts you possess are the same.”
Whether he realized it or not, it was the truth.
He appeared to be a perfect hero, but the energy he held was only a fraction of the real thing.
If it weren’t, I would never have been able to pierce his blessing with my still immature chaotic energy.
And so.
“Shrrrak!”
I put strength into the sword that had pierced his abdomen and split his body vertically in two.
“Thud.”
What poured out from the cut surface of the body—
If he were human, it would have been entrails.
But what came out from within was a fragment, faintly glowing like a jewel.
‘Soul Crystal.’
The reason the Demon Clan cannot coexist with humans is because the Demon Clan does not eat food.
They are beings born from the abyss, from darkness deeper than black.
To survive, they require something imbued with light—more precisely, the source of life.
They consume the life possessed by living beings.
Just as humans take in food, the demons ingest the source of life to survive and grow.
But there’s a catch.
It’s not easy to store such ‘food.’
In the past, like bears preparing for hibernation, they’d gorge themselves, but that was only a temporary solution—not a real answer.
What they invented was a method for storing their ‘food.’
They got the idea from humans.
Inspired by how humans keep food from spoiling by lowering the temperature and storing it in cool places, they conceived of storing souls.
What they consumed was souls.
But once a soul was extracted, it could never be returned.
They even tried raising humans as livestock, but this only led to spiritual degradation—corrupted souls.
A corrupted soul is the same as spoiled food.
Thus, they researched storage methods akin to how humans preserve food.
And so, what they created was the very thing before my eyes—the Soul Crystal.
A method of storing souls inside a specially-treated crystal.
For the Demon Clan, these Soul Crystals are daily sustenance.
Dozens of them spilled from Kayle Turner’s body.
‘Homunculus.’
It was only then that I realized his true nature.
One of Salmora’s great masterpieces.
His ultimate goal was to turn humans into demons.
For this research, several experiments were conducted, and, in the process, the homunculus—a human replica—was born.
By using Soul Crystals, the very source of life, as materials, they replicated humans.
Of course, the homunculi I knew of didn’t have complete human forms like Kayle Turner.
They always seemed somewhat off, like dolls.
But Kayle Turner, even to my discerning eye, looked like a perfect human.
That meant Salmora’s experiment, the homunculus doll, had been completed.
Furthermore, the hero’s Three Divine Artifacts, which had gleamed so brilliantly just moments ago, were now corroding.
‘It must be him.’
Commander of the Magic Legion.
Master of all things magical, known as the Blacksmith of the Abyss.
If it was him, he could have created degraded replicas of the Three Divine Artifacts that produced similar effects, even if not the real ones.
A homunculus using some of the hero’s power, paired with imitation artifacts.
‘That confirms it.’
What I realized from all this is that the Demon Clan, including Salmora, had progressed far ahead of me.
Even the homunculus research, which was in the experimental stage back then and had been put on hold for a long time, was now a success.
Thanks to that, things had become interesting.
Because if they could replicate the hero, they could just as well replicate the Demon King.
If you ask whether it’s possible for them to replicate a Demon they venerate as holy—
‘If it’s him, he can do it.’
If Salmora, who once asked the Demon King for blood, could replicate him, there’d be no reason to hesitate.
“Heh heh…”
The harbinger of war, and the homunculus who had been guarding him, had both fallen.
And yet, Frankie Duncan was still smiling.
“This is…an unexpected turn of events.”
He gazed at the lifeless Kayle Turner and the dimmed Soul Crystals.
“I thought that doll, supposedly the pinnacle of humanity, would put up more of a fight.”
The reason he could laugh even after all his moves had been thwarted—
That was because.
“You’re a doll, too.”
Frankie Duncan, who appeared here—no, Salmora himself—was also just a homunculus.
“Heh heh heh. Indeed. This body is just a replica. Merely a doll with a portion of my memories.”
Not only that—it was a lower-grade product, unable to use even a part of his real abilities.
“I have a question.”
He was an enemy.
But without using any coercion, I posed an abrupt question.
Because I was well aware of his tendencies.
“As much as you like.” He accepted my request.
“Does that doll possess all the memories of the original?”
“No. It does not. After I was created, memories are not shared with the main body.”
“And memories up to the moment you were made—are they intact?”
“Heh—yes. I have all the original’s memories up to that point.”
“Then……”
I unleashed the energy of chaos and released Turba and Irregular.
A writhing aura of black, tentacle-like shadows enveloped my body, swallowing all light.
An instant later, a wave of bone-chilling cold surged outward, freezing the very air and coating everything in crystalline frost.
From that darkness rose my armor and helm—pitch-black plates etched with veins of cold, sapphire flame, crowned by a halo of blue fire that burned with an icy, merciless glow.
I had transformed into the perfect form of the Commander of the Undying Legion.
“Oh? Such powerful demonic energy. Just who are you…”
It was to gauge his reaction.
‘He doesn’t know.’
But he looked at me with eyes that showed no recognition.
In truth, I had already suspected as much.
The traces of my deeds—Fimbulvet, the Great Demon Prison, the Great Demon Sword—all were left behind.
If anyone could have recognized them, it would have been Salmora.
He should have identified me at once and mustered all his strength to try and kill me.
Yet there was not a hint of such intent.
No matter how inscrutable he was, would he really show no interest in eliminating me, the great nemesis of the Demon Clan?
It didn’t make sense.
After what happened, I had become an enemy with whom the Demon Clan could never coexist.
I had all but brought about their extinction—how could he see me and do nothing?
I’d wondered about this for a long time, and at last, I was close to the answer.
‘They don’t know me.’
Kim Si-won.
No—Valdevron Brocia, Commander of the Immortal Legion, did not exist in their memories.
Just as I’d felt before.
Someone had erased me from their memories.
At first, I thought it might just be ordinary demons, but even Salmora’s replica showed not a hint of recognition.
That’s why I asked just how much memory they retained—to be sure.
And he didn’t know me.
That was enough to turn suspicion into certainty.
“An adaptable human, huh. Well, in a world where even the hero who wields the Goddess’s power can be replicated, it’s not so strange, heh heh heh~!”
He really was something.
Even upon seeing me wielding demonic energy—greater than that of the highest demons—he was unperturbed.
There was a moment of surprise, of course.
But that was only natural.
Rather, he showed an admirable boldness in accepting a human using demonic energy as a matter of course.
“Just to check—are you interested in…our plans?”
I didn’t need to hear the end of his sentence.
He was inviting me, hoping to pull a human who could handle demonic energy into the ranks of the Demon Clan.
But there was no need to listen any further.
“You’ve outlived your usefulness.”
The fact that he didn’t know me—
That meant his role was finished.
“Swish!”
A blue trail swept past his neck.
“Thunk.”
His head rolled across the ground, severed from his body.
‘…What a pity.’
But even with his head cut off, he continued speaking.
“You may not realize it, but the world is already within our grasp. No matter how powerful a god you may possess, compared to the strength we’ve prepared for so long……”
But he never finished his sentence.
“Puk!”
A stomp of my foot crushed his head completely.
And then the Soul Crystal inside his head tumbled across the ground.
There was no reason to converse with Salmora’s doll.
His mind was beyond even my comprehension, despite a thousand years of life.
Any further conversation would only let him dictate the pace.
So I simply checked, then eliminated him.
He already had a backup plan in place.
“Kekek!”
Still gripped in my hand, the Harbinger of War writhed in pain.
“I expect you won’t disappoint me.”
Because, as the only one who ever betrayed the Demon Clan, I believed he would provide useful information.