Schlacht had been blind.
For years, the Omniscient demon had been unable to perceive any data regarding this specific entity.
His magic, which laid the future bare before him, simply failed whenever she was involved.
It was only recently that the fog had cleared enough for him to catch a glimpse of the calamity approaching from the south.
But by then, it was too late. The prophecy was absolute: "Unavoidable."
Schlacht had gone ahead, sacrificing himself in a desperate bid to buy time.
Now, it was the Demon King's turn.
He stood amidst the ruins of his castle, watching the white angel descend. He knew why he and his strongest generals had been spared the initial bombardment.
It wasn't mercy. It was efficiency. She was herding them.
The moment her foot touched the blackened earth, a heavy, invisible pressure slammed down on the area.
A barrier.
Space itself had been locked down. Teleportation was impossible. Flight was impossible. They were trapped in a cage with a god.
The Angel's lifeless, golden eyes locked onto him.
The Demon King did not cower. He stepped forward, walking calmly toward his executioner.
But demons are, by nature, treacherous creatures. Even as he walked with open hands, seemingly accepting his fate, mana was surging into his right arm. He was compressing a spell of apocalyptic power, preparing to unleash it at point-blank range.
It was a gamble. A one-in-a-million shot.
Swish!
One of the glowing feathers floating behind the Angel flickered.
The Demon King blinked.
His right arm, severed cleanly at the shoulder, was spinning through the air. The spell he had been charging dissipated into harmless sparks.
"..."
He looked at the empty space where his limb had been, his pupils contracting.
She didn't even move.
…
The Demon King stifled a grunt of pain, cauterizing the wound with a thought.
Even he, a being of immense power and surprising emotional depth for a demon, was shaken. He had moved with his utmost speed, masked his mana flow perfectly. Yet she had reacted before he had even initiated the attack.
Stell stood motionless in the center of the barrier. Her sensors weren't just focused on the King; they were sweeping the ruins.
Because of the spatial lock, no one could escape. The surviving Great Demons, realizing they were trapped like rats, had crept out of the rubble.
They were hiding in the shadows, watching, waiting for an opening.
They were terrified. But a cornered demon is a dangerous thing. When survival is the only prize, they will fight with a savagery that defies logic.
Stell waited. She let them come.
She was also cross-referencing her current data with the report from her future clone.
According to the future timeline, the Demon King survived this encounter.
In the original history, or rather, the history that would have happened, the King had managed to escape, lingering as a crippled threat for a thousand years until the Hero's party finished him.
He must have a hidden escape method, Stell analyzed. A trump card I have not yet seen.
Conclusion: Do not give him the opportunity to use it.
By now, every surviving Great Demon had gathered within the barrier's perimeter. They were surrounding her, lurking behind broken walls and shattered pillars, hesitating. They had seen their King lose an arm in an instant. No one wanted to be the first to die.
They hoped the Angel would stay passive, giving them time to coordinate a strike.
But Stell was done waiting.
Her gaze snapped away from the Demon King. She turned her head, her eyes scanning the empty air around her in a slow circle.
The demons felt a chill run down their spines. She sees us.
"Confirmation: All targets are present," Stell announced, her voice echoing through the ruins. "Initiating annihilation protocol."
Before anyone could react, the air around them began to distort.
Voom. Voom. Voom.
Golden portals, Vector Gates, tore open in the air. But not in front of Stell.
They opened directly beside, behind, and above every single hiding demon.
Except for the King.
…
Somewhere.
"Flamme, why do you think Teacher left us behind?"
Takson sat on a flat rock, his chin resting in his hand, looking like a pouting child.
"I'm sure Stell-neechan has her reasons," Flamme replied, not looking up from the wild herbs she was inspecting.
"That's a non-answer and you know it."
Takson grumbled, kicking at a pebble. It gnawed at him. He was the First Apprentice. He was a warrior. Yet, at the decisive moment, his teacher had parked him on the sidelines like luggage. It made him feel... small.
Stell had returned briefly after dispatching Schlacht to give them orders: Wait here. Do not engage. Then she had vanished toward the Demon King's Castle.
Resigned to his fate, Takson pulled a thick grimoire from his pack. If he couldn't fight, he could at least study.
"Are you reading?"
Flamme popped up behind him, peering over his massive shoulder.
"Yeah. Got a problem?" Takson asked, his tone grumpy but not unkind. He knew he shouldn't take his frustration out on her.
"I thought warriors couldn't learn magic," she noted, tapping the page. "The mana pathways are completely different. If you try to walk two paths, you usually end up going nowhere."
"It's just a hobby," Takson muttered. "Besides, I never said I couldn't use any magic."
"Oh?" Flamme raised an eyebrow. "Prove it."
Takson sighed, stood up, and closed his eyes. Mana gathered around him, not the refined, complex weave of a mage, but a blunt, forceful surge.
"Physical Reinforcement."
A faint, blue aura wrapped around his body. His muscles tensed, becoming hard as iron.
"Hmm," Flamme nodded, analyzing the spell. "Basic reinforcement. It suits your style."
"It gets the job done," Takson shrugged, letting the magic fade.
Just then, the ground jumped.
It wasn't a tremor; it was a convulsion of the earth itself.
"What was that?!" Flamme yelped, grabbing Takson's arm to steady herself.
"I don't know," Takson said, his gaze snapping to the north.
The horizon, previously dark with the gloomy clouds of the demon lands, had turned a blinding, absolute white. A pillar of light, wider than a mountain, pierced the heavens, erasing the clouds, the shadows, and the sky itself.
It was the light of judgment.
"Teacher..." Takson whispered, recognizing the signature of the energy. "What are you doing over there?"
….
A thousand years later.
I stood in a desolate wasteland, surrounded by the stench of death.
Countless headless corpses littered the ground, undead puppets severed from their strings. Standing amidst the carnage was a single demon.
She had pink hair and held a set of scales in her trembling hand.
Aura the Guillotine.
In the original timeline of this world, she was a Sage of Destruction, a demon of immense power who had lived for five hundred years. But in this timeline, history had been rewritten.
There were no Sages of Destruction here. I had vaporized the original Sages a millennium ago during the siege of the castle. The power vacuum had been filled by younger, lesser demons.
Aura was one of them. Born after the Great Purge, she had risen to power in a world where demons were an endangered species, hunted by the legends of the past.
Finding her had been troublesome. She was elusive, hiding in the shadows of history. But no one hides from me forever.
I stared at her with my glowing, golden eyes. My face was a mask of cold indifference.
To Aura, however, I looked like a nightmare incarnate.
Tap. Tap.
Crack.
I stepped on a dry branch, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the silent clearing.
Aura flinched violently. She took a step back, her composure shattering.
"Stay... stay back!" she shrieked, her voice cracking with terror.
She recognized me.
Every demon knew the story. It was the primal fear drilled into them from birth.
The story of the Calamity that had nearly extinguished their race a thousand years ago.
The being that had descended from the sky and turned the Demon King's Castle into a crater.
The White Monster.
….
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