Chapter 579
KWA-BOOM!!
I swung my sword again.
At that moment, the Shock Wave built into Heracles’s Club activated and triggered a violent explosion.
Lucifer was driven far back.
His sword was unharmed.
But just because the sword was fine, did that mean the swordsman was safe too?
No.
Not only was the hand gripping the sword scorched, but so was the rest of his body.
Lucifer’s eyes widened in apparent shock.
How could he be producing this kind of power?
With a smile deeper than before, I said,
“After trading blows with you a few times, I realized something. Among demons, Pride might actually be the strongest. But paradoxically, it might also be the weakest.”
- You speak of something impossible.
“Impossible? I’m a very realistic person, you know. And honestly, you know perfectly well what I’m talking about right now, don’t you?”
My smile deepened even further.
It had to.
Once any being reached a certain level, they became keenly aware of both their strengths and their weaknesses.
One of Lucifer’s eyes twitched.
Right.
There was no way you wouldn’t know.
You didn’t become a Demon King by winning a card game, after all.
“So the moment you brought me in here, this became a game you can never win. That’s not all, either. The moment you lose to me, you’ll be raising your own grave inside your own domain.”
- You do run your mouth for quite a while.
Lucifer denied it.
His expression was endlessly cold and scornful.
Which was exactly why I couldn’t help smiling.
The very fact that the smile had vanished from his face was proof he was tense.
‘The demon of Pride getting tense? That’s about as classic a death flag as it gets.’
I foresaw my victory.
No, I had no choice but to be certain of it.
Because, just like I said before, the moment he brought me here, every possible move led to a checkmate that ended in my victory.
And there were plenty of reasons for that.
Not just reasons, either, but solid grounds that only made that certainty stronger.
‘The first reason I have to win: he isn’t some overwhelmingly powerful existence.’
After exchanging several blows with him, I realized Lucifer was not as strong as I had expected.
In particular, he wasn’t some absurd monster that made your palms sweat the way boss monsters from other major gates did.
Of course, that didn’t make him an easy opponent.
But after destroying Gluttony with Soul Cleave, I knew this was manageable.
‘Second, he personally drew a sword and declared he’d match himself to my level.’
This was the clearest reason of all.
Because the biggest blind spot of the demon of Pride was that the prouder he became, the stronger he became—but if his opponent wasn’t afraid of him, the demon of Pride didn’t actually explode in strength all that much.
Because Pride itself required a powerful conviction that he would be stronger, and conviction without a foundation was more fragile than it looked.
‘It’s a difficult area, and an easy one, all at the same time.’
Of course, the opponent couldn’t simply meet the demon of Pride with baseless confidence of his own, either.
Emotional energy wasn’t the sort of thing you could fake with a few expressions and a couple of lines.
That was why it seemed easy and yet was difficult.
Because it wasn’t nearly as easy as it sounded to hold absolute confidence in front of a stronger opponent.
‘Especially if that opponent is a Demon King.’
But he had made a fatally serious mistake.
He had openly declared that he would fight me as a swordsman, on my terms.
That was the decisive mistake.
Because when it came to sword fighting, I had the kind of boundless confidence that made me feel like I could beat anyone.
‘Except for one person.’
And that one person was obviously Sword Demon.
In all my life, I had never seen anyone who handled a sword better than that man.
But this bastard, who didn’t normally even use a sword, had picked one up just to crush me with sheer presence.
From the perspective of someone who actually worked in the field, how pathetic was that supposed to look?
‘The moment he gets pushed back and drops the sword, the game is over.’
He had picked up the sword out of arrogance, but the moment he later felt his life was in danger and put it down, that would be no different from admitting he was being overwhelmed.
And once that happened, the demon of Pride would fall into the trap of his own self-imposed restriction and end up weakening himself.
I ran my tongue once across my lips.
“Then let me learn a move or two.”
I closed the distance with him again.
KWAANG!!
Every time our swords collided, I triggered the Shock Wave effect from the club option.
Each clash set off a huge explosion, and Lucifer kept looking more and more unsettled, like this wasn’t the kind of sword fight he’d expected.
“What? Surprised? This isn’t the kind of sword fight you thought it’d be?”
- Hardly.
Look at this bastard, still pretending to be relaxed even now.
Though your hands look awfully busy, don’t they?
At some point, he started doing it too, detonating demonic energy every time our blades collided.
Wow. Look at Lucifer, full of fighting spirit.
He’d already copied that much.
But that wasn’t all he copied.
Those cold, razor-sharp eyes of his gleamed, and as time passed, he started reproducing my swordsmanship exactly.
KWA-BOOM!!
I triggered another Shock Wave.
This time, I packed in quite a bit of true demonic energy and set off a much larger explosion, sending Lucifer flying back again.
Resting the Blood Sword on my shoulder once more, I said,
“Hey, Western Demon King. Why don’t you swallow your pride and give up on sword fighting, even now? Looks like you’re trying to imitate my swordsmanship, but keep that up and it’s going to end very badly for you.”
- Why? Are you getting nervous because I’m executing your swordsmanship perfectly?
“Perfect? Hahahaha!”
The word “perfect” made me burst out laughing for real before I even realized it.
Ah, seriously. This bastard was killing me.
Why are you this funny?
Still letting the aftershocks of laughter linger, I said,
“Must be because you’re Pride. You keep going on about perfection at the drop of a hat. If you’d said that in front of my master, you’d have been cut into eight pieces already.”
- I can sense the impatience in you. Your tongue keeps getting longer.
“Impatience?”
At that, my expression went cold.
Then I dismissed every buff I had wrapped around myself and said,
“Then how about we fight using nothing but pure swordsmanship, no tricks? If you manage to leave even a single scratch on my body with swordsmanship alone, I’ll admit defeat and hand you my head.”
- What? Hahahahahaha!
At my offer, Lucifer threw his head back and laughed so hard his throat showed.
The demon of Pride loved wagers like this.
When an opponent showed strong confidence, breaking them after that was what tasted sweetest.
- Fine. I’ll grant your request.
Lucifer withdrew all the aura he had scattered around as well.
And so, no skills remained active inside the Hall of Worship.
No aura.
What echoed between us now was nothing but the sound of two swordsmen breathing.
Lucifer was confident.
At first, every clash of our swords had produced explosions, and he’d wondered what kind of swordsmanship this even was. But once he realized it wasn’t swordsmanship at all, only a side trick built into the weapon, he had focused solely on copying my swordsmanship.
‘And just now, I succeeded in making all of his movements my own.’
Could he possibly lose after understanding his opponent perfectly?
He was the smartest and most diligent existence among the Great Demons.
And now some mere human—worse, not even a Demon King, just the Avatar of a Demon King—was supposed to beat him?
Ridiculous.
Soon, without either of us taking the lead first, the two swordsmen rushed at each other almost simultaneously.
KAAANG!!
The cry of steel rang out.
The one smiling was Lucifer.
Because once all skills and mana were withdrawn and the contest came down to swords alone, he knew he would naturally have the advantage.
And in fact, it was true.
That was why he smiled.
Seeing the smile on the Demon King’s face, I smiled too.
“That’s a relieved look. Because your physical stats are higher than mine?”
- Khhh, of course I’d smile. When something insignificant throws itself into the fire like a moth, what flame wouldn’t laugh?
“Sure, you’ve got a point. But do you know this? Even if my raw stats are a little behind yours—”
As I spoke, I twisted my body and knocked his blade aside.
Then, in an instant, I swung my sword and carved twelve wounds across Lucifer’s body.
“On the technique side, I’m vastly superior.”
- ...!
“Looks like that surprised you.”
And then I began swinging my sword like a madman.
Lucifer, using the swordsmanship he had copied, started countering me in turn.
Kakang! Kang! Kang! Kakang! Kang!
Sparks burst every time blade struck blade.
The ringing cry of swords echoed.
And between those sounds, blood spattered.
Amazingly, every drop of it belonged to Lucifer.
Kakang! Kang! Kang! Kakang! Kang!
The exchange continued.
Adrenaline surged through me.
The cuts opening across my body didn’t hurt.
But something else was bothering him.
It was my smiling face, reflected in the brilliant clash of swords that looked like nothing but a flurry of blows.
‘Why? Why? Why? How?’
He had been certain that in terms of physical stats and everything else, he held the advantage.
And yet, the longer the sword exchange went on, the more impossible it became to shake the feeling that he was being pushed back.
It was a bizarre phenomenon.
How could this be happening?
And the moment that question arose in him, amid the sword dance that only grew faster, a voice whispered like a demon in his ear.
“You’re getting weaker and weaker. Looks like you’ve started doubting yourself.”
- What?
“Goodbye.”
Thrust!
A farewell.
At the same time, my sword struck squarely into the space between Lucifer’s brows and pierced through.
- How...!
“If you really thought that copying me a few times by eye would be enough to beat the real me, that’s what real arrogance and delusion looks like.”
[ You summon Heracles’s Club. ]
[ Blood Suit is activated. ]
[ Blessing is activated. ]
[ Paladian is activated. ]
[ Enhancement is activated. ]
[ Eye of the Nightsmith is activated. ]
[ Sword Energy is activated. ]
[ Rage Mode is activated. ]
[ Foxfire is activated. ]
[ Heracles Mode is activated. ]
[ The first power is unleashed. ]
The moment I said that, I detonated every ounce of power I had.
[ Weaken is activated. ]
[ Seal of Pain is activated. ]
[ Enrage is activated. ]
[ Blessing of Rage is activated. ]
[ Curse of Rage is activated. ]
I dumped every last rage curse on him too.
As that rapid chain of skill effects burst out all at once, Lucifer belatedly tried to raise demonic energy to respond, and I smiled darkly.
“Too late.”
- Bullshit!
“Goodbye.”
SPLAAAASH!!
The sword lodged in the middle of his forehead fell straight downward like a guillotine blade, splitting him all the way to the groin.
No regeneration occurred.
Because it had been a strike packed to the limit with holy radiance.
And because he had broken the promise he himself had spoken, the demon of Pride lost all the power of arrogance he possessed.
“The moment the demon of Pride feels fear, he’s no longer Pride.”
At last, the notifications I had been waiting to see rose before my eyes.
[ You have defeated Lucifer, Demon King of Pride. ]
[ Your level has increased. ]
[ All stats have increased by 1. ]
[ You have acquired 1 bonus stat. ]
[ Your level has increased. ]
[ All stats have increased by 1. ]
[ You have acquired 1 bonus stat. ]
[ Your level has increased. ]
[ All stats have increased by 1. ]
[ You have acquired 1 bonus stat. ]
......
The notifications poured upward.
At the same time, with Lucifer’s death, the Hall of Worship was released, and I appeared on the battlefield once more.
And along with that, a message like a victory bulletin appeared before the eyes of every Player in the Demon Realm.
[ Player An Su-ho has defeated Lucifer, king of the Western Demon Realm and Demon King of Pride. ]