I Picked up the Demon King - Chapter 108

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 108

 

“This place is…”

 

Someone’s muttering echoed through the ruined corridor.

 

Johnny swallowed dryly. Everyone was far from fine. Not only the soldiers, but also the high-ranking forces like knights and mages, and even himself were nearly at their limit.

 

“I encountered him beyond this point.”

 

This was the Holy Sword Storage Room. The place where the Goddess had descended by borrowing the Saint’s body, and where the Demon Lord had invaded. The first place he had faced the Great Demon’s darkness… It had been a nightmare.

 

There was no way he could forget it. If the Great Demon was anywhere, it would only be here.

 

The faint light emanating from the Holy Sword was confirming that Johnny’s guess was correct.

 

“…I’ll open it.”

 

Albeng and Shtidy approached from the side. This was the place where the concentration of darkness was expected to be the thickest. They needed to handle mana and holy power more delicately than anyone else.

 

Naturally, everyone behind them had also finished their preparations in unison.

 

The moment the door opened, a tremendous explosion would cover everything beyond it. Even if the opponent was a Great Demon, it would be tremendous power that would inevitably cause damage.

 

Johnny took a deep breath and grasped the handle.

 

‘Was the door originally closed…?’

 

Of course it was when they entered. They had said there were even several barriers using holy power in place. But did he have the leisure to close the door while frantically escaping?

 

The doubt was brief, and in that time the handle had already turned halfway. Johnny shook his head to dismiss his thoughts and turned the handle the rest of the way.

 

Creak.

 

The moment a very small gap opened, he could sense it intuitively. Something was wrong. He had done something that should never have been done.

 

A mage paralyzed with fear reflexively unleashed magic. The priests also poured out divine magic, and the knights drew their swords.

 

So much magic and divine magic mixed together that even without maintaining precise ratios, a huge explosion occurred. Naturally, the darkness should have retreated and the scenery inside the room should have been revealed.

 

But that didn’t happen. Slowly, concentrated darkness approached.

 

“Shtidy! Albeng!”

 

When Johnny, who had lost his grip on the door and been thrown back, shouted, Shtidy and Albeng mixed mana and holy power once more. The result was the same.

 

Before they knew it, the darkness had reached Johnny’s feet. Shtidy and Albeng, who had been in front, were already half-consumed.

 

The door continued to open. It hadn’t broken despite several explosions.

 

One by one, they began to be devoured by the darkness. As if toying with them, the speed at which it covered their bodies was slow.

 

As phenomena beyond common sense occurred one after another, the fear that had been eating away at the expedition force began to run wild once more. The formation collapsed, and soldiers screamed as they scattered in all directions.

 

However, the corridor was too narrow for everyone to flee.

 

A desperate situation. The horrible corpses they had seen all this time came to mind for everyone. They would die like that in the underground where no one could come to find them.

 

Then, Johnny shouted.

 

“Hold on!”

 

He too was trembling with fear. His unconcealed trembling was transmitted to everyone. Even so, Johnny shouted.

 

“Trust me and hold on!”

 

It wasn’t the voice projection he had learned from being caught by Dahan, nor was it a thoroughly calculated speech. Like the others, his desperate voice showed no trace of heroic qualities.

 

But because of that, it pierced everyone’s ears.

 

“I! Will definitely defeat that thing and save you all! Because! I’m the Hero!”

 

When he finished speaking those last words, only Johnny remained in place.

 

In fact, he couldn’t even tell if remaining was correct. The surroundings were completely covered in darkness. It wasn’t the collapsing corridor. Perhaps the others who had been devoured by the darkness were seeing the same scene.

 

Johnny moved forward, relying on the light of the Holy Sword. When he felt like he might lose direction, the Holy Sword vibrated.

 

Finally, at last.

 

Johnny was able to find something other than darkness.

 

It was a girl whose entire body was dyed pure white. In this place filled only with darkness, she was the only being that emitted light. She was an existence that was far too sacred and beautiful.

 

‘Did the Great Demon imprison her?’

 

Was she a victim taken hostage by a demon? Thinking this, Johnny carefully approached the woman. The moment he brought the Holy Sword close to free the girl bound by darkness.

 

The girl opened her eyes.

 

“Uh…”

 

Flustered, Johnny tried to hide the Holy Sword behind his back. Of course, there was no way it could be hidden. The Holy Sword was not only long, but was also emitting light in real time.

 

Cold sweat flowed.

 

In a situation where she was captured by a Great Demon, if she opened her eyes to find someone pointing a sword at her, who would think he was the Hero? It was obvious she would think he was a demon’s minion.

 

“It’s not what you’re thinking right now. I’ll free you. How did you end up trapped in this place? Do you know anything about the Great Demon?”

“Again.”

“Again…?”

 

The moment he felt the Pure White Girl let out a small sigh. Before he could even think about the meaning, the Holy Sword vibrated.

 

“…!”

 

He gripped tighter to avoid losing the Holy Sword that was thrashing as if trying to fly somewhere. He felt a slight sensation of levitation.

 

This was the first time the Holy Sword had acted like this. He retracted his previous thought that it was just a sword that gave tremendous power.

 

A sword that flies around carrying its master. Wasn’t that like some Demon Sword made by demons? As if sensing Johnny’s impression, the Holy Sword’s power weakened for a moment. When Johnny held on with all his strength, it was reduced to just being dragged around slightly.

 

“Ah…?”

 

And his toe was severed.

 

It fell off so naturally that he almost had the illusion it had never been attached in the first place. The toe remained right where Johnny had been standing just moments before.

 

Johnny collapsed as his balance crumbled.

 

If he had stayed still, he would have died. The belated realization came along with the pain.

 

‘The only thing that could make such an attack…’

 

Was a Great Demon.

 

There were two possibilities Johnny could think of right now. True to its name, either a Great Demon was hiding somewhere watching him…

 

‘Or that girl is a Great Demon.’

 

A demon that bewitches people with beautiful appearance. Tales about demons weren’t that hard to come by.

 

The Holy Sword emitted Holy Power along with intense light. As the light settled on the severed cross-section, the pain quickly subsided. However, since Johnny had never learned how to heal the human body, the treatment wasn’t very complete. He suddenly missed Albeng, who had been swallowed by darkness.

 

The regret didn’t last long.

 

The Holy Sword vibrated again. This time Johnny didn’t force himself to resist, but entrusted his body to the sword’s movement.

 

He couldn’t perceive it. There was no sound, no presence, not even a flow of mana. Yet he was certain that the same attack as before had occurred.

 

Once again, an invisible attack slashed his shoulder. Armor that couldn’t be obtained even with all his guard wages combined was torn like paper, and the blood that spurted out stained his face.

 

“Just what is your identity…!”

 

The attacks didn’t stop. His side, thigh, back. Wounds multiplied all over his body. Each one couldn’t be called a vital spot, but considering the bleeding, they were all fatal injuries. Without the Holy Sword, he would have died long ago.

 

Of course, Holy Power wasn’t omnipotent. While it could heal wounds, it couldn’t replenish lost blood. His vision gradually turned dark and blurry.

 

Johnny closed his eyes.

 

The attacks weren’t visible anyway. He abandoned his sight and heightened all his other senses. He could react more immediately to the Holy Sword’s movements.

 

Thanks to this, his wounds decreased, but the intervals between attacks gradually shortened. His attempt to swing his sword when he saw an opening failed. With Johnny’s reaction speed, avoiding was the most he could do no matter how hard he tried. If he rashly attempted to attack, his arm holding the Holy Sword would be severed.

 

‘Are you toying with me?’

 

That was it. The opponent seemed to be gradually increasing the intensity, checking how he responded. Like a cat playing with a caught mouse.

 

If what Johnny felt was true, then soon…

 

‘I’ll die.’

 

The moment interest was lost, his life would end. The sight of an adult man being dragged around while hanging from a sword would be quite a rare spectacle, but that interest didn’t seem like it would last long. Along with the thought, his wrist split from the inside. With terrible pain, his left hand fell off. His foot, where the bleeding had barely stopped, twisted and burst open.

 

Only then did Johnny realize the true nature of the attack.

 

This entire darkened space was arbitrarily splitting and twisting, trying to kill the intruder.

 

‘Is this the end…?’

 

He couldn’t survive. There had been no possibility of winning from the beginning.

 

What was this talk about a Hero’s destiny?

 

‘Well.’

 

Shtidy had said it. To interpret any phenomenon or law, you need to repeat as many experiments as possible.

 

Heroes were a sample of only three, including himself. Too few to interpret the laws of the world. The saying that they would never die until defeating the Demon Lord was, in the end, just empty comfort.

 

‘I promised I would save them.’

 

The eyes of the Expedition Members flickered in his mind. Despite their fear of being devoured by darkness, they would be holding onto small hope from Johnny’s promise and enduring.

 

How many more days could they last?

 

They would cling to false hope like a lifeline, fight against fear, and slowly wither away to death.

 

Pathetic.

 

He had been revered as a Hero by those who knew nothing, yet here he was dying without even being able to swing his sword once.

 

He thought of Ruin Epeldor, who had cleaved the sky along with a dragon. What would it have been like if he were in this position? Even with effort, reproducing such power was impossible. Even if it were possible, with his posture ruined like this…

 

He couldn’t become a Hero. Even if the Goddess acknowledged him, it was the same. Even gods make mistakes sometimes. The Goddess’s biggest mistake was himself.

 

Johnny smiled self-deprecatingly and waited for death.

 

But the death Johnny expected didn’t come. Only a sound like ice breaking reached Johnny’s ears. Belatedly, he felt a piercingly cold energy.

 

‘Ice…?’

 

In this space filled with nothing but darkness, what ice could possibly exist here?

 

“How pathetic, Johnny.”

 

At the voice piercing his ears, Johnny opened his eyes.

 

“What is… this…?”

 

He could see ice pillars rising up in various places. Long tree trunks extending from somewhere were coiling around and constricting the ice pillars.

 

It was a bizarre sight he had never once imagined in his life. Near the area where the ice pillars and trunks had grown, he could faintly see hard stone floor.

 

“Can you really call yourself a Hero like that?”

 

He hadn’t seen it wrong. The dense darkness that couldn’t be dealt with even by the repulsion effect of mana and Holy Power had been peeled away, even if just a little.

 

The Holy Sword vibrates frantically. As if telling him to immediately cut down the one speaking, it emits tremendous Holy Power unlike anything it had ever shown before.

 

Thanks to this, Johnny was able to confirm who the owner of that voice was.

 

It was a voice he had never forgotten once during the past few months. A face he had encountered just a few days ago.

 

“…Jude?”

“Get up. Unless you want to die.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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