Vol 4 Chapter 100: The Demon King (Vol 4: The Otherworldly Battlefield Arc)

The Demon King was birthing monsters.

In this world, that was simply common knowledge. The Demon King spawned monsters, commanded them, and used them in battle—it was the most natural assumption about a Demon King’s combat methods.

“So, this is just the beginning?”

Surrounded by legendary-class monsters—dragons, hydras, and other colossal beasts filling every inch of the room—Sukui scanned his surroundings with a disinterested gaze.

“Even for a ‘beginning,’ you’d normally need multiple heroes and several holy magic users, you know?”

The Demon King leisurely watched.

These creatures were so powerful, so massive, that ordinary attacks wouldn’t even leave a scratch.

Yet, despite looking like he could be crushed with a single push, Sukui stood untouched—none of them could even get close.

“Huh.”

A battlefield.

The very place where Sukui had honed his abilities to absurd levels in his previous world.

And in this world, he had experienced it again—had even surpassed death itself.

Any monster that entered the range of Sukui’s threads was instantly severed, its body carved into pieces.

A level of speed beyond comprehension.

At this point, it didn’t matter how formidable his enemies were—nothing could reach him.

“But you see…”

The Demon King simply watched, a grin on his face.

The monsters he summoned weren’t just mindless brutes relying on brute force.

A quadrupedal beast composed entirely of air, without a tangible form.

A simian creature that exhaled a breath so dense it compressed anything it touched into mere particles.

A swarm of insects that, upon impact, erupted in an acid flood potent enough to dissolve an entire city.

Every single one was worthy of the title “legendary-class.”

Simply swinging a knife at extreme speeds wouldn’t be enough to deal with them all.

“I know that.”

Though Sukui’s knife movements seemed erratic, every strike was deliberately aimed.

And for the enemies he couldn’t cut—

He was prepared.

“Death Magic.”

From the moment the battle began, he had been releasing it.

The concentration had thickened to the point that even these legendary-class monsters—who wouldn’t flinch under a barrage of high-tier magic—were noticeably slowed.

A testament to just how potent this magic was.

Yet, compared to the sheer abnormal speed of Sukui’s knife, their movements no longer mattered.

“Now it really begins.”

As if signaling his readiness, Sukui’s aura shifted.

At the same time, the death magic surrounding him dissipated.

The miasma cleared. The monsters lunged at him simultaneously—

And turned to ash.

“Compression.”

The pinnacle of it.

The Demon King spoke, but Sukui didn’t respond.

Sukui had compressed the deathly miasma—condensing it until it clung only to his body.

A density so extreme that, if an ordinary person even looked at it, they would be driven mad.

It had reached the absolute limit—a manifestation of death itself.

A magic that accelerated the passage of time toward death.

Anything it touched was reduced to ash instantly.

Unlike the Mistral Priest, Sukui’s death magic didn’t negate—it erased.

No matter how enormous the foe, no matter how mighty the spell, before Sukui—

Everything turned to nothing.

Leaving death as the only possible outcome.

“An ability that hastens death, huh?”

Magic was a divine authority granted by the gods.

It always reflected, at least to some degree, the desires and nature of the one wielding it.

Which meant—

Sukui’s deepest wish was…

“Fine by me.”

What was the Demon King thinking?

As the last of the summoned monsters perished, he murmured those words and appeared directly before Sukui.

It wasn’t movement.

Sukui was sure of it—there was no way he would have missed it.

This was teleportation.

“A pathetic wish.”

The Demon King slowly raised his hand.

Sukui didn’t assume it was an idle gesture.

Recognizing it as an attack, he attempted to backstep—

Only to realize his body wouldn’t move.

At that moment, in Sukui’s eyes, the Demon King’s movements seemed almost sluggish.

Yet his hand—the one that not even the most legendary of monsters had been allowed to touch Sukui—

Delivered a diagonal slash from his left shoulder to his right hip.

“You’re in such a hurry to die. How pitiful.”

At the exact moment the Demon King muttered those words—

Sukui, with his right hand, pulled his bisected body back together, pressing against his left side as he began to repair himself.

The clean cut actually made it easier for him to heal, considering his immortality.

“I see… death itself.”

Two types of death magic.

Sukui glanced at the Demon King, who let out a voice of mild surprise.

The Demon King’s right arm, which should have been affected by Sukui’s miasma, showed no signs of damage.

And then, there was the matter of Sukui’s sudden immobility—as if he had run into an invisible obstacle.

“Because it is madness itself, is that it?”

His magic accelerated time.

A creature with a lifespan of a hundred years wouldn’t even have the chance to be touched before it turned to dust.

The Demon King, however, looked entirely unfazed.

“You should understand. If I were truly just madness itself—”

No matter how many thousands, no, millions of years passed—

It would never decay.

Such madness.

Such depth.

The Demon King, whose existence was slowly revealing its full scope.

“It makes sense.”

One aspect of madness was obsession.

It wasn’t something that could simply fade away with the passage of time.

As he reached that conclusion, the Demon King’s hands moved—this time at an incomprehensible speed—lunging toward Sukui’s abdomen.

Faster than even the attacks of Gehle, the warrior’s holy magic user.

Sukui, having seen that attack before, could tell—this was beyond it.

For an immortal, piercing attacks weren’t significant damage-wise, but at this speed, his body would undoubtedly be blown apart.

Sukui stopped it.

By deliberately allowing the Demon King’s hands to pierce both of his palms—

And holding on.

“Oh?”

A rare deadlock—

Four hands locked together.

The force alone should have been enough to shatter Sukui’s body, but he erased the impact with death magic.

The Demon King wasn’t surprised.

What surprised him was that Sukui had not only managed to counter his superhuman physical abilities—abilities that surpassed even warrior’s magic—

But had done so in a way that didn’t merely react to the attack.

He was guiding the Demon King’s movements.

Not just reading them—

Controlling them to a certain extent.

“This is…”

A human who had reached the pinnacle of combat.

A level of martial prowess so refined that it could contend with the very peak of this world—the Demon King.

A hint of admiration colored his words.

But in the end, even those words were meaningless.

Even though they were locked in a deadlock, Sukui had no intention of testing his strength against the Demon King.

With a twist, he snapped both of the Demon King’s arms, throwing him off balance—

Then drove a kick into his right side, sending him flying.

The impact was powerful enough to smash him against the wall.

Of course, that alone wouldn’t be enough to bring him down.

The Demon King may have looked human on the outside, but inside, he was something else entirely.

Which was precisely why grappling techniques weren’t even a viable option in a one-on-one fight.

Sukui moved in for the finishing blow—

Only for a wall to suddenly appear before him.

A single, ordinary wall.

For Sukui, this was no obstacle at all—his death magic-coated hands could tear through it without a second thought.

There was no need to even consider it an obstacle.

Yet—

Sukui crashed into it.

“Why?”

Before he had time to process it, identical walls appeared on his left, right, and behind him.

He was trapped.

And above—

A massive vertical slab descended, aiming to crush him completely.

None of it yielded to death magic.

“So, it’s not just monsters you can create.”

In the final moment before the chamber sealed, Sukui slipped out.

Even if death magic didn’t work—

His knife would slice through anything without fail.

Even against substances unaffected by death magic, the result was the same.

“Well, that makes sense.”

The Demon King, who had been slammed against the wall and collapsed onto the ground, stood up completely unscathed.

There was a sense of oddity, but if it was some kind of absolute-cut magic tool, then—

With an expression of understanding, he observed Sukui with curiosity.

Was Sukui’s skill so refined that it concealed the actual performance of the knife?

“However, that’s not quite right.”

The Demon King raised a finger as he spoke.

“World Alteration.”

At the very moment those words were uttered, an explosion engulfed the entire room.

A deafening roar. Flames filling every corner.

Yet—

Sukui remained untouched. Not even a scratch.

“So, explosions don’t work either?”

The Demon King spoke as if it were nothing—despite the fact that, had this not been within the Demon King’s castle, all of Poliviti would have been reduced to rubble.

It was clear now—the castle’s massive interior was designed solely to withstand such devastation.

“World… alteration.”

Sukui processed the words. Their meaning.

It was—

The absolute worst possibility.

“That’s…”

The act of remaking the world itself.

And that power—

“The authority of the gods.”

“Precisely.”

A mass of madness.

If the Demon King’s true identity was that, then where had this madness originated?

A chaos beyond chaos. Something even Sukui could not comprehend—so deeply entwined and refined that it defied all attempts at distinction.

A collective of wailing resentment.

“The Demon King is the negative emotions of the gods.”

A condensed mass of them.

The Demon King twisted his entire body, bringing both hands down toward Sukui.

In those hands—

Appeared a pair of massive hammers.

“The combined madness of the eight million gods.”

It was an overwhelming vortex of insanity—so vast that even Sukui could not hope to match it.

With a single motion, he reduced the hammers to pieces with his knife. The scattered fragments, now turned into projectiles, hurtled toward the Demon King.

Even as he attacked, Sukui understood.

The Demon King was not something the gods had created to bring harm to humanity.

It was likely an accident.

The gods, beings capable of manifesting anything with mere thought—

Had unintentionally brought their own emotions into existence. A byproduct of their carelessness.

That was why, despite rarely intervening in human affairs, the gods had gone out of their way to help more than ever before.

Even if the cause was divine, the problem belonged to the human world.

The compromise was the magic created to defeat the Demon King.

The Hero.

“A chaotic mass of countless, contradictory madnesses—forced into a single form. That is the Demon King.”

And that madness—

Even in the absence of gods—

Did not disappear.

If anything, their absence only loosened the chains.

A creation born of madness.

A being that continuously spewed forth monsters.

“And after countless eons since its birth, that scattered madness is now converging into a singular entity.”

In other words—

The Demon King was reaching completion.

“This is proof of that, isn’t it?”

The fact that he could now wield the authority of the gods.

Even as projectiles rained down upon him, the Demon King remained unfazed.

This time, he forged a single blade.

“An unchanging substance, one that has remained the same since the dawn of the world—altered into existence through world modification.”

And its form was entirely malleable.

What’s more—

“This as well.”

The Demon King distanced himself from Sukui and swung the blade.

Sukui, sensing the intent, braced himself for defense.

“Teleportation.”

The Demon King suddenly appeared before Sukui—

And cut him vertically in half.

Before Sukui could even react, the Demon King—who should have been in front of him—was suddenly behind him, slicing horizontally across his back.

Reality alteration.

It was the authority of the gods, which likely meant—

He couldn’t directly interfere with human beings.

However, altering the space around them? Moving himself at will? That was effortless.

With physical capabilities exceeding that of any warrior—

With a body that hadn’t even been scratched by the previous explosion—

The Demon King dictated positioning entirely on his own terms.

And Sukui’s magic was not only ineffective against him—

It couldn’t even affect the objects he created.

“When the Demon King reaches completion… what will happen then?”

Born from the gods’ madness.

A being that endlessly spawned more madness.

A wellspring of infinite filth.

And because of that—

He possessed the authority of the gods.

“In the end, I suppose this is the answer to the gods’ madness.”

Speaking to the now-dismembered Sukui, the Demon King watched.

His recovery was painfully slow.

More than that—

The Demon King had meticulously shredded him into minuscule pieces.

“I see.”

Yet, even in that state—

A voice leaked from Sukui’s lips.

“Madness is chaos. But even chaos is singular in nature.”

No.

Sukui’s answer was different.

“Chaos is the act of connecting every hell together—finding an answer to a question that should have none.”

And that answer—

That singular fixation.

That is what is truly called madness.

“The gods’ madness… it doesn’t even deserve to be called true insanity.”

Everyone, in their own way, dedicates their life to finding an answer.

Even though, by conventional wisdom, there should be no such thing as a correct one.

Only the insane believe their answer is absolute.

Only they are convinced it is the truth of the world.

Strength.

Faith.

No matter the form it takes—

“If you can’t even find an answer to your own chaos…”

“Then you are nothing compared to human madness.”

Even against the pinnacle of this world—the Demon King—

Sukui’s scattered body suddenly began regenerating at high speed.

Each dismembered piece of him—

Became a separate Sukui.

A countless swarm.

“Let me teach you what it means to die.”

His voice—

Perfectly in sync.