Chapter 360. One-Man Army (4)

The disaster came completely out of the blue. There was no way the great demon, Aym, who had decided to go to bed early for the next day, could’ve expected it. The Cassiubia League had desperately scurried away to escape not long ago, and it would simply be mad for anyone to even attempt an attack considering how well-built the defenses were. Thus, Aym thought their enemies couldn’t possibly rush in to recklessly attack them. At least, that was how it should’ve been.

‘…What?’ Aym wondered. The commotion didn’t settle down and became louder instead. At that moment, there was an urgent cry for his presence, and Aym hurriedly got up. Was it really an ambush? That seemed to be the case considering the situation, and Aym quickly went outside.

‘There’s no way the Cassiubia League are such morons,’ he thought.

The other great demon, Saleos, had been spending a heated night with the special slaves he picked out among the prisoners of war, and he thought the same. No, the two great demons weren’t the only ones broken from their peaceful rest. There was a loud explosion, and the walls of the encampment crumbled down and drew everyone’s attention to the area. The two great demons’ troops stopped surveilling and all rushed to gather at the source of the chaos. There was such a big commotion that even those outside the Demon Empire’s territory could clearly see it, including those with the Cassiubia League.

Flash! An intense light lit up the darkness. It didn’t end with just one flash. Light continued to erupt and illuminated the night sky explosively as if it was venting all its past frustrations.

“…Yes.” Ismile watched the scene from afar and said in a low voice, “Were you actually not fine?” Even though no one was near him, he spoke like he was talking to someone. “It’s like that time with your brother—could you not let it be this time either?”

***

After enjoying peace the whole night, the Demon Empire fell into chaos when dawn broke. The scene was so strange that even those witnessing it couldn’t explain what was going on. It was a brutal fight where the two parties in the battle weren’t on similar footings at all. It was a completely one-sided annihilation, and the one committing the destruction wasn’t an army with greater numbers, but a single person.

“W-Whaaaaaat!” The first soldier to have rushed forward and noticed Chi-Woo stopped and opened his mouth wide in disbelief. Then, he yelled when Chi-Woo spotted him and immediately charged at him like a thunderbolt. His scream died down as suddenly as it rang when Chi-Woo’s hands pierced into his mouth; this was followed by the chilling sounds of something breaking or getting smashed into tiny pieces. A group of soldiers later reached the area and witnessed their companion rolling across the ground, limp.

Wiggle, wiggle. The soldier spazzed intermittently as a fountain of blood shot out from his mouth. The troop watched in a daze and gradually raised their heads. At once, bulbs of firelight bloomed like flower buds in the darkness. Alarm bells rang in all their heads, and they instinctively took a step back. The freshly bloomed light went straight toward them and drew a brilliant curve across the front-line soldiers’ necks.

Slice. Like sickles cutting through the wheat, four to five necks dropped in an instant. It was such a clean cut that the bodies that lost their heads stood straight for a couple of seconds before toppling down. The troops behind the fallen soldiers gasped in horror and tried to back away. But before they could, the light lengthened like the grim reaper’s scythe and swung wide. Another four to five heads rolled off. Even the armor that had been strengthened with territory benefits couldn’t endure the attacks, and Chi-Woo’s weapon sliced through steel like butter.

The demon soldiers left standing felt like they were in a dream. How should they put it? It felt as if they should naturally accept death, and that the God of Death from the Abyss had descended. They knew there was no way that was the case, which only made everything even more confusing.

“Y-You damn—” One soldier regained his senses and yelled in rage as he rushed forward. Chi-Woo moved then. He flowed like water, slipping past the troops coming his way. A glowing afterimage scratched the soldier’s face and grazed past his sides. Soon, the soldier stopped moving, and at once, his face was split into five parts while blood burst out. Chi-Woo looked at his glowing hands, now dirtied by black blood, and indifferently turned elsewhere. When soldiers from another troop met Chi-Woo’s cold pair of eyes, they immediately froze. They couldn’t do anything as Chi-Woo wiped his hands before kicking off the floor. He flew into the air and raised his shining five fingers.

He gripped the throat of a soldier who was about to shout something. The soldier couldn’t make a sound as his flesh was torn apart and his warm blood oozed out. Eventually, small clusters of light came from Chi-Woo’s fingers and gathered into one before changing shape. Chi-Woo kicked the fallen soldier away, dropping his arms. The soldier’s body snapped into pieces like styrofoam straws and exploded. Black blood splattered everywhere and dampened the ground. In an instant, dozens of soldiers’ lives were taken. It was then the screams that had been forced down burst out.

Chi-Woo remained indifferent to these screams and continued what he was doing. He didn’t consider his enemy’s situation at all as he moved straight on and killed every enemy on sight. There was not a sign of emotion on his face, and he only focused on killing. Chi-Woo’s cold, emotionless face incited even more fear among the scared Demon Empire soldiers, and the soldiers scattered like ants. Even though they were part of the great demons’ legions and were usually willing to give up their lives as meat shields, Chi-Woo was like calamity itself. He leapt around their territories with no restrictions and moved in the open. And while he brought about all this disaster, he maintained a calm demeanor like the eye of a hurricane.

Chi-Woo had no thoughts. If he had, he wouldn’t have done something as crazy as jumping into the battlefield alone. But was he fine? Not at all. Chi-Woo had already been feeling restless after leaving his brother behind and felt even more so after hearing what happened to Ru Amuh. His conversation with Ariel only added salt to his injury. And Chi-Woo couldn’t stand watching on the sidelines like the time he came out of Narsha Haram. He didn’t want to do that anymore; he couldn’t, and he didn’t have to. Perhaps he was just venting his anger right now, but all that didn’t really matter to him. If he continued to do nothing, he thought his heart would burn up and turn to black ashes. Before that happened, he needed to let out some of his emotions.

Soft light poured out of Chi-Woo’s eyes. It was then soldiers from the main corps began to appear. They saw Chi-Woo venture deeper inside from the back and became speechless. Some random human male was jumping around their territory crazy-eyed. Every time he swung his shining club, their comrades burst like balloons. They were just hit once in the stomach, but their bodies split in half and flew into the air. It was a mouth-dropping display of power. Still, after gathering the numbers, they didn’t back away for a hurried retreat. Facing Chi-Woo’s mighty powers, they quickly surrounded him and wielded their weapons.

They planned to defend and bide time until the great demons they served arrived. At first, it seemed to be working. Chi-Woo did stop moving for the first time after rampaging around nonstop. He saw the soldiers surrounding him and momentarily gathered his breath. If his weapon had been a regular sword, spear, or something of the same vein, he would’ve needed to take a lot more time to defeat his enemies. However, the light in Chi-Woo’s hand was no ordinary weapon; it was Armed with the Sixth Element, a weapon that took Chi-Woo’s exorcism mana as its base and changed forms according to Chi-Woo’s will. It was incomparable to ordinary weapons made out of metal.

The light in the shape of a club disappeared, morphing into a sword shape and radiating even greater white light. The next moment, the sword multiplied to a couple of dozens in an instant and dove through the soldiers surrounding Chi-Woo like the wind. They appeared and disappeared like flickering light. Claclaclaclang!

Metallic sounds followed suit. Everything happened in the blink of an eye, so the soldiers had a difficult time grasping what was happening. All they saw was flickering light. And before they realized it, streaks of light trailed down their companions’ armors. The same thing happened to their bodies, but it was already far too late when they noticed. Soldiers split into many parts like they were cut by scissors. Corpses piled up, and blood gathered to form puddles. The demon soldiers thought they were putting up a good defense, but in just a couple of blinks, their formation collapsed.

It was then the two great demons, Aym and Saleos, hurriedly arrived at the scene. “What’s going on? What happened?” Saleos looked confused by everything that was happening, and his face stiffened seeing Chi-Woo quietly walk out.

“What? One guy? Just one guy?!” It was completely unbelievable. Saleos was astonished by the situation and yelled in rage.

“I-I apologize, sir!” The soldier standing next to Saleos prostrated on the ground and apologized. “Reinforcements are expected to come soon. So, if you wait a bit more…” As the soldier said, waves of reinforcements were arriving from the east, west, north, and south and crowding the outskirts of their territory. With them, the demons established their front lines again and marched straight on.

The cluster of lights surrounding Chi-Woo became brighter then, and after letting out an inaudible cry, he faced the demons head-on. Not long afterward, the two sides fiercely clashed. The two great demons saw their subordinates scatter and fly away like popcorn pieces. They did fight back and try to stop Chi-Woo with all they had, but…

“Y-Your Excellency…” The soldier prostrating on the ground stuttered. “I-It’s hard to believe, but…”

Saleos didn’t even need to hear the rest of his subordinate’s words. He could clearly see what was happening before him and saw that his forces were getting destroyed. They poured all their military might and resources into fighting this one human, but the man devoured everything like a black hole. Some of them hastily backed away and tried to shoot arrows from a distance, but it was all useless. Their shots disappeared midway before even reaching the human. Eventually, the two great demons stood speechless.

They were standing on territories they had placed great effort into establishing, but their enemy didn’t seem to be affected at all. Instead, it felt as if they were the ones in the human’s territory. More demons fell without a chance to even use their strengths. The two great demons didn’t realize what was happening, but there was a reason Samigina had given up the effects of territorialization when fighting Chi-Woo.

“Oh wow… He doesn’t seem to be the legend. Who is he?” Even in such an urgent situation, Saleos couldn’t hide his admiration. The Demon Empire enjoyed war and thus liked fighting with the strong. Furthermore, Saleos especially enjoyed collecting slaves and showing them off; he had felt especially regretful and sad when Aym took the human he had been keeping his eyes on during the recent clash. Perhaps this was an opportunity for him to make up for that loss.

“All right, order the troops to withdraw. I’ll deal with that guy myself,” Saleos said. And before Aym could do the same, Saleos quickly stepped forward. “I hope you don’t have any complaints…hm?”

Saleos turned around in worry that Aym might follow him, but blinked hard when he got a look at his fellow great demon. Although Aym usually looked calm and solemn, he now looked pale and nervous. There were droplets of sweat collecting on his forehead. Yes, that man was strong for a human, yet he wasn’t the legend. Since there was no one among humanity to be wary of besides the legend, perhaps it was only reasonable for Saleos to think that a great demon would have a good chance of defeating the human. However, what came to Aym’s mind was one of the Demon Empire’s official documents he had read before..com

When did it begin? Starting from Andras, great demons had suddenly been extinguished one after another. As they lost their greatest forces in rows, the Demon Empire launched many investigations to find the culprit behind these incidents. Though they weren’t able to pinpoint one culprit after much searching, the investigation reached sort of a conclusion in the end. This was what was written on the documents:

—…Confirmed that Vepar and Zepar were extinguished without being able to put up a proper resistance against the culprit in question.

—The enemy is presumed to possess a power that gives them an advantage over the Demon Empire beyond holy light. It is estimated that this enemy would be able to handle at least an army of 10,000 soldiers alone.

— Before exact information is confirmed, we warn members of the Demon Empire to be extremely vigilant against this enemy even if there is a hundred percent certainty of victory. And if one meets an enemy that fits any of the descriptions above, we strongly advise them to withdraw as quickly as possible; those under rank 3 are strongly advised to avoid making any contact.

‘Could it be…him?’ This man was a mysterious enemy who could sweep away hundreds of soldiers alone. Aym felt cold sweat trickle down his back as he watched Chi-Woo.