Divine Warrior Ludion brought his sword down. That great weapon, called a sword only for its shape, sheared through the Grugle’s wrist in a single stroke. The Grugle, its hand severed in an instant, lashed out with its other hand, radiating fury. But Ludion calmly ducked down to evade, then rose again and thrust his blade forward. The tip seemed about to pierce through its throat.

“Ugh?”

The blade stopped just before touching the Grugle. No, to be precise, it hadn’t truly stopped — it was advancing at a pace so agonizingly slow it was almost imperceptible. For all practical purposes, it had halted.

The one who had turned Divine Warrior Ludion into a sluggish grub was none other than Esla, the foremost Sorcerer of Saraon.

Ludion erupted with a furious aura. Dense karma surged outward in all directions, and Esla’s sorcery shattered. No matter — the Grugle that had been targeted was already clear of the attack’s trajectory.

The Grugle leaped and climbed onto Ludion’s back. Then it opened its massive maw wide and bit down on his neck. Ludion thrashed wildly, flailing his limbs. Each time the monster stamped its foot, heaven and earth shook.

From a distance, Hashumblant muttered his incantation. In moments, the ground within a hundred-meter radius transformed into a pitch-black bog. What rose from that swamp were massive, jet-black serpents. They coiled around Ludion’s arms, legs, and even his neck, constricting tightly.

With Ludion’s limbs pinned, three Grugle lunged at him with gleeful hunger. They clamped onto an arm, his belly, a thigh—and began tearing into him with ravenous bites. For them, this wasn’t a battle. It was just a hunt, a meal.

Another Divine Warrior, Ponpei, charged in to save Ludion. But the path before him was a thorn-choked briar field of hardship and peril. Blocking his way stood three Grugle and ten Saraon heroes.

“Kee-gegegiik!”

“Woo-ahh!”

Ponpei swung a spear taller than himself. The massive weapon, wielded by his giant frame, was a calamity in its own right. Hadn’t that same motion slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Saraon?

The devastating spear shot forward with blinding speed, reducing one Grugle’s face to pulp. He drove the shaft downward, splitting the creature vertically. Ponpei’s eyes blazed as he searched for his next target. Then his body lurched into the air.

Gigantina, enlarged to colossal size, had grabbed his leg in a tackle. Crash! Ponpei went down with a thunderous impact. The Adversary, Naiad, soared in instantly.

Naiad, inhabiting Gobungi’s body, wasn’t yet fully accustomed to this small frame. Still, the dense, tough muscle that filled it pleased him well. He raised his polearm high and dropped like a stone.

The polearm struck Ponpei’s helmet dead on. The helm shattered without lasting a moment. Ponpei shook his dizzy head, barely regaining focus. Then a blinding light flashed in his eyes. The next instant, a colossal bolt of lightning plunged from the sky.

“Kuuuuaah!”

The Thunder Emperor Gaianne’s lightning. Ponpei’s face seared black, his limbs twitching violently. Melted eyeballs leaked whitish fluid that streaked down. Grugle scurried over to suck it up. Even the one split in two crawled across the ground, coveting Ponpei’s flesh.

Their gluttony made even the Saraon heroes click their tongues in shock.

«What a truly abominable creature.»

The Sword God Arhi scowled deeply. That irrational, instinct-driven lifeform repulsed her. Trobatin came to stand beside her.

«Still, if they’re on our side, we couldn’t ask for stronger allies.»

«I’m not so sure, Lord Trobatin. I don’t think I can ever fully call them allies. Their maws might turn toward us at any moment.»

«A fair point. Let’s finish this.»

«Yes.»

The heroes surged forward as one. They climbed atop the Divine Warrior’s massive body. Then each took their assigned part and began to thoroughly tear it apart.

Shattered building rubble, thick clouds of dust. A section of the city reduced to barren wasteland.

Ludion and Ponpei. The two Divine Warriors had unleashed devastation on a grand scale, but in the end they fell to the heroes’ hands. Their corpses didn’t remain long—the Grugles devoured every last scrap.

Landriol stood behind them, arms crossed, a satisfied smile on his face. With just a few strides, he closed the distance to his subordinates.

«They say a great commander never fades. I see you all still carry the same majesty as in years past.»

«We are but humble before Your Majesty.»

«And that modesty of yours never changes either. Though this one here is done for now, isn’t he?»

Landriol turned his head. A Grugle split vertically in two writhed grotesquely on the ground, its severed halves twisting. From the cut surfaces, blackened flesh dripped like melting ice cream.

«Hm?»

Landriol received a signal from the remaining six Grugles. It was a kind of craving—a very intense hunger.

He shook his head and let out a wry smile.

«An utterly incorrigible breed. Fine, eat.»

“Kiiieeek!”

The six Grugles lunged at their bisected kin and began tearing into it ravenously.

The heroes, except for Landriol, all stared in horror.

«They—they devour their own kind?»

Sara Na’s face had gone pale.

«These creatures have no concept of kin. To them, there is only what can be eaten and what cannot. Tasting the flesh of the Divine has unleashed their gluttony to explosive levels.»

«If only we’d had these beasts back in that era. Then Asvillam might not have been so vainly…»

«Ahem! Priest, watch your tongue. You stand before His Majesty.»

Gasla of Phantoms cut Parpapan off. Parpapan glanced at Landriol’s expression and dropped his head.

«Forgive me. My reckless mouth got away from me.»

«Enough. It’s not wrong, is it? In that brutal battlefield, our enemies were not just the Divine Army and the demi-human coalition. Loneliness… yes, we had to fight a vast enemy called loneliness, too. If we’d had such eccentric allies by our side back then, might the outcome have changed?»

Landriol paused, lost in old memories. How long passed? He shook his head with a distant smile.

«Madmut once told me this: that we were arrogant. Looking back now, I think he was truly right.»

«No, Your Majesty! You were always right. Please, do not speak so…!»

«No. It is the truth. I resented deeply how the demi-humans hated and fought each other. So I believed that if I ruled over all things, such strife would vanish.»

«Didn’t peace actually come to Asvillam? Under Saraon’s rule, the demi-humans lived with full bellies and warm backs—a good life!»

«Even thinking that way was arrogance. Hating each other and fighting—that’s part of the natural order too, isn’t it? No one should have forced that wheel to stop. That’s why when Madmut hunted us Saraon down like vermin, not a single demi-human sided with us. They wanted freedom, not a stifled peace.»

The twelve subordinates swallowed their words.

No, they couldn’t say it. Couldn’t bring themselves to utter that the Emperor had done a great deed—that it was merely the demi-humans being cunning.

«Leaving aside the question of Madmut’s goodness or evil, we were truly arrogant—and now we must bear that responsibility. Look. Hasn’t the Saraon’s tragedy and their twisted vengeance already put this world—which had nothing to do with it—in danger?»

Landriol’s gaze swept slowly. His eyes blazed like the sun just before sunset.

His gaze caught a figure. A man stood atop the building across the way.

And behind the man, a massive form slowly rose into view. A physique a full one-and-a-half times larger than any ordinary Divine Warrior. It was Eraksen—the thirteenth and strongest of the Divine Warriors.

Eraksen raised his arm high. Something dangled limply from his grip.

For an instant, Eraksen’s arm blurred, and something came hurtling down at Landriol’s party. Trobatin, the Heart of the Legion, immediately stepped forward and unfurled a barrier.

—Crack!

The barrier and the colossal mass collided. Landriol moved only his eyes to look at the thing that had struck on this side.

A pointed head and a long tail. The creature, with its webbed wings, was a dragon.

But its state was wretched—hardly fit to be called alive. Landriol clicked his tongue briefly.

«Its master will grieve.»

«Your Majesty. They come from all sides.»

«I feel it too.»

Another pair of massive figures emerged, collapsing a tall building in their wake. Digma, Velasha, and Tyusborn. All three were Divine Warriors. They had slaughtered every human left in the lord’s domain before coming here.

The man standing on the building’s rooftop, Go Geonryong, leaped to the ground.

His expression twisted into something strange and subtle. The man commanding the goblins was someone he had never heard of or seen before.

‘I thought Seo Sihui had recruited an SS-rank hunter.’

He’d assumed she’d lured over some SS-rank hunter that the Hexagram Order’s backing hadn’t reached—someone not among their Last Eighteen. If it were anything less, they wouldn’t have managed to take down his members.

But that man wasn’t on any SS-rank hunter registry. Yet his strength was vivid enough to feel through the skin alone. The corpses of the two Divine Warriors, reduced to bare bones, proved that fact beyond doubt.

“Who are you?”

Go Geonryong asked. Landriol stared at him for a long moment before answering.

«I have nothing to say to a puppet. Show yourself in the flesh, Madmut.»

Go Geonryong’s eyes widened slightly. A look of dawning comprehension crossed his face. His mouth opened slowly, and the tongue of Asvillam slipped through his lips.

«I see. So you’re tied to that side, not mine.»

A bluish light flickered in his gaze. The aura he gave off was on an entirely different plane from before—yet Landriol still looked dissatisfied.

«I said I have nothing to say to a puppet.»

«You insignificant wretch dares to dictate terms to me?!»

It was only a shout, but the floor cracked and the windows shattered. The Twelve Generals tightened their grips on their weapons, bristling with wariness.

Landriol carried on, utterly unruffled.

«I see. You’ve half-merged with that human, haven’t you? Madmut, who once commanded the heavens, reduced to such a pitiful form. How laughable.»

«Who are you? Who dares to know my true form and wield the dregs I’ve shed?»

«Hah. Have you truly forgotten me, even after all this time? Or has senility finally set in?»

«You craven worm… You flap that rotten hole of yours without restraint.»

Go Geonryong flicked his fingers. In an instant, a torrent of karma surged forth, crashing down on Landriol and his company.

Landriol drew his sword in a flash and stepped forward. He poured out his internal energy to its fullest, casting it forward. Two colossal waves collided. The shockwave shattered everything around them.

Landriol blocked the attack, and Go Geonryong’s brow twitched. Unfazed, Landriol roared.

«Listen well! I am Landriol—the last king of the Saraon you exterminated, the earthly god who drank your blood! Does that not jog your memory?!»

«Landri… ol? Saraon?»

Go Geonryong quietly rolled the two words over his tongue. Then he let out a hollow laugh.

Heh haha. Heh hahahaha! He began to laugh uncontrollably. Landriol and the heroes watched him with grim expressions.

«That’s right! Now I remember. The arrogant vermin who dared to impersonate a god while the one true Master stood before you! I’d forgotten, but now it’s come back to me.»

«…Forgotten? You truly forgot? You plunged an entire race into the abyss of destruction, and you dare claim to have forgotten such an atrocity?!»

«And am I supposed to keep every trivial matter like that in mind?»

«What in the—»

A vein bulged on Landriol’s forehead.

«Yes, you arrogant fools. Why do you block my path, even going so far as to defy time and space to do it?»

Go Geonryong asked with shameless bravado. Landriol resigned himself at this point—expecting an apology from that heinous god was a lost cause from the start.

He answered in a voice cold as ash.

«What else is there to ask? To take your head and end this cursed, endless enmity.»