Chapter 190

The time has come.

As he spoke, Dale shattered the castle’s glass window and shot a crimson flame toward the night sky. It was a magical flare used to send surprise signals on the battlefield.

Despite the cold coursing through his body, the furnace within his world still burned fiercely. The essence of fire and crimson magic that had once devoured and absorbed countless Purifiers during the War of Roses.

The signal echoed out, and simultaneously, an ominous darkness of dark magic settled over the entire interior.

It wasn’t Dale’s.

“I knew this would happen.”

“Ah, ahhh…!”

A scream echoed through the room. The maid trembled in terror at the sound, and Lady Shadow addressed her.

“There is no need to fear.”

Slowly lifting the visor of her black helmet, the maiden’s smile greeted the maid from within.

“I swear by the sister goddesses’ kindness and mercy that I will protect you.”

“Ah, ahh…! Thank you!”

“……”

After invoking the Sister Goddess’s name, Aurelia lowered her helmet’s visor once more. The jet-black warrior, shrouded in dark armor, channeled a crimson aura blade along the length of her sword.

At the same time, footsteps echoed from afar. Not just one pair, but many pairs racing swiftly.

“Lady Aurelia, protect her.”

Simultaneously, Dale too was enveloped by the Shadow Lord’s avatar. It was armor of darkness and cold, interwoven with black and blue, and at the same moment, the Shadow Lord turned its head, possessing the ‘Eye of Truth’.

Reflected within the shadow of the terrified maid was exactly what she had spoken.

“Igniter.”

Whoosh!

Dale murmured softly as crimson magic overlaid an otherworldly image around his heart. The four-stroke cycle thermal engine activated, supplying energy as the circle rotated, and the Shadow Lord, preparations complete, began to move.

Beyond the castle corridors, countless corpses were charging forward.

Ghouls.

“Well now, looks like the night won’t be ending easily.”

Master Baro shrugged his shoulders and drew the dagger from his waist. The Blade of Death, Lady Shadow, and the Shadow Lord gripped their weapons more firmly as they faced the horde of ghouls pouring through the corridor.

Additionally, two swords hung diagonally from Dale’s sword belt, and Dale placed his hand on the hilt of one of them. It was the jet-black demon sword ‘Hunger’. But just as he reached to draw Hunger’s hilt, Dale lowered his arm.

Swish.

The ancient warrior’s beloved sword, Peacemaker, revealed its pure white blade.

“Oh? Do you find yourself longing for peace today?”

Master Baro, who knew the sword’s name, laughed, and Dale replied.

“One who desires peace.”

“…Prepare for war.”

Receiving Dale’s following words, Aurelia re-gripped her blood-red aura blade.

“Stay behind me.”

“Ah, I understand!”

To protect the frightened weakling, Aurelia gripped her sword anew with the purity of a maiden.

Facing the surging horde of ghouls, the Shadow Lord extended his arm. Not the warrior’s blade, but the black-blue armor forged from primordial darkness and frost of doom.

Simultaneously, the darkness and cold at the edge of providence swept through, engulfing the ghoul horde.

“They are already dead.”

Dale spoke to the maid behind him as he swept away the fallen.

“Painless annihilation is the mercy we can offer them.”

At the same time, as if admonishing himself.

“Do they know about the suspicious ceremony held in this castle?”

“The Great Hall!”

Dale asked, and the maid answered.

“They always block people from entering, and every night in that Great Hall, with the innocent children kidnapped from the city…”

“I see.”

Dale nodded and moved on.

Dale’s blood-red magic scattered across the night sky. Seeing that signal, the Grave Walkers infiltrated throughout the count’s territory began to move. Among them was Mac, the assassin from the High Court who had bowed his head before the Shadow Lord and Master Baro himself. He was no exception.

“It is the Lord’s command. Move.”

Meanwhile, dark elves with bronze skin, hoods pulled tight, were enveloped in a crimson aura as their silhouettes raced forward.

“……!”

At the same time, they gasped upon seeing the soldiers guarding their castle.

They were the Dead Soldiers.

“What the hell? How the hell are we supposed to kill dead bastards again?”

McGee muttered in disbelief, but before he could finish, the assassin from the mountains who acted alongside him stomped the ground.

A crimson aura swept through, shattering the bones of the dead into scattered fragments.

“Ah, now I understand.”

McGee murmured softly at the sight.

“How on earth did you survive in this goddamn hellhole?”

Master Baro asked the maid, and at his question, the maid gasped in bewilderment.

“The Blue Mage Tower Lord moved through her body. She came to warn me.”

“Huh, Shiel.”

Master Baro spat out curses at the Shadow Lord’s words.

“Instead of spouting such nonsense, you’d be better off lending me a sword hilt.”

And then it happened.

“Oh my, where are you rushing off to so urgently?”

A woman with blood-red hair blocked their path. She wore the mask of the Smiling Man, its corners stretched into a wide grin.

“Lady Scarlet.”

The Shadow Lord spat coldly, and simultaneously, his Eye of Truth began to illuminate ‘Lady Scarlet’s Shadow’.

To glimpse the truth held by one of the Empire’s rulers.

Crackle!

There was Lady Scarlet, crucified. Large iron spikes were driven through her limbs, pinning her in place, and blood dripped steadily onto the woodpile below.

Lady Scarlet sobbed in agony, crying out the goddess’s name. Desperately pleading her innocence. But no one listened to her words.

‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…….’

The crowd spat, pointed fingers, and raised their voices. Kill the witch! Burn her!

But there were no humans among them. They were all elves. Lady Scarlet, hanging there, also appeared as an elf with ears even longer and more slender than before.

Flames blazed.

It was a mad, dancing flame, a fire of sheer madness.

The raging inferno climbed the mountain of firewood, opening its hot, glowering maw toward the woman.

‘I truly cursed no one. I am absolutely not a witch. Please believe me.’

‘Serves you right, you damn witch!’

Whoosh!

Once more, the flames blazed. Within that fire, the Shadow Lord’s consciousness finally returned.

“Oh my, what were you looking at so intently?”

Lady Scarlet asked in return. Simultaneously, the shadow she cast revealed her body covered in horrific blisters from third-degree burns. The dermis, where nerves pass, was exposed, and the subcutaneous fat was burning. Flesh was peeling away, and pus dripped down.

That was Lady Scarlet’s truth.

“Your Majesty of Truth, I asked what you were observing so gravely.”

Simultaneously, a hostility unlike anything before flowed forth.

“……I was watching your shadow.”

The Shadow Lord replied. The color drained from Lady Scarlet’s face.

“Was that attitude—so blasphemous and mocking toward the divine—the reason you were abandoned by the goddess?”

“……”

The mask of the Laughing Man still wore its crescent-moon-shaped, torn smile. But Lady Scarlet beneath the mask surely did not.

Bats rose behind her. Simultaneously, a crimson magic unlike anything seen before began to swirl.

Dale re-gripped the hilt of the Peacemaker. Still, nothing changed.

No matter how terrible and miserable her past was, she was no exception.

It was merely time to prepare for war.

Ta-at!

Lady Scarlet leapt from the ground and charged forward. It was an unthinkably swift assault, one that could only belong to a mage.

Her claws had already taken the form of blood-claws, like blades of blood.

The sharp blood claws were swung, and it fell to Master Baro to block that single strike.

“Whoa, damn. This lady packs a punch.”

As the blood-stained claws lashed out, flames of hellfire swept in off-beat. Master Baro swiftly kicked off the ground to create distance, and in that opening, Dale scattered the chill of doom.

Simultaneously, bat wings spread behind Lady Scarlet, and she twisted her body like an acrobat, soaring upward.

“So the demon was here all along.”

The Shadow Lord murmured at the sight, while Lady Scarlet looked down at Dale with a cold expression.

“Well… it seems a bit of blood has rushed to your head.”

“I don’t enjoy seeing shadows either.”

Dale replied.

“But since you choose to fight me, I have no choice but to use the ‘Eye’.”

Saying this, he adjusted his grip on the sword hilt.

The world’s landscape seen through the Eye of Truth. Even Lady Scarlet’s movements just now could not escape the sight of this pupil. A power beyond comparison to anything that had come before, utterly absurd.

“……”

Lady Scarlet fell silent for a moment, fluttering her bat-like wings.

“Regrettably, my amusement here ends here.”

Simultaneously, she flung aside the mask of the Laughing Man she wore.

“Are you abandoning the ritual of the Demon King?”

“Oh, come now.”

Lady Scarlet laughed calmly. At the same moment, the landscape of truth unfolded once more within her shadow.

“…….”

Dale gasped at the sight. The most horrific scene imaginable, one impossible to behold without nausea, was there.

“A man who spies on a lady’s secrets? Truly the worst.”

Lady Scarlet shot back, her voice carrying undisguised hostility for the first time.

Dale couldn’t suppress his nausea as he looked at Lady Scarlet.

Toward the ‘seed of evil’ nestled within her womb.

“But as you can see, I’ve already conceived ‘one demon’ in this belly.”

Lady Scarlet smiled as she stroked her belly affectionately.

“Frankly, I couldn’t care less about what happens to the remaining ‘three devils’ and the secret society that needs them.”

“Wasn’t cooperation among members the rule of the 《Society》?”

“Ah, I have provided them with more than enough.”

Lady Scarlet said, and at the same moment, flames surged forth. Within the raging flames, Lady Scarlet had already vanished without a trace.

“Oh my, damn it. Now you’ve suddenly become a demon mother.”

The remaining Master Baro muttered as if it were someone else’s problem.

“……Let’s go.”

Deli pretended not to hear the words and began walking.

To the great hall of the Count of Wallachia’s castle, where the ritual to summon the remaining three demons was unfolding.