Barbarian in a Failed Game

321. The Great Demonic Realm (4)

The sight of sulfur-covered hands ripping out the heads of all humans was burned into their vision. Even with their eyes closed, it was vividly clear, like a brand seared into their minds.

It was hell.

What else could it be when tens of thousands of humans were massacred in an instant? No, perhaps the moment the Arch Demon began to descend, this place had already become hell.

Regin, the captain of a thousand and a senior knight of the imperial army, thought with a blank expression.

And he recalled.

‘Does this make any sense?’

The Arch Demon had yet to fully descend. But with just the appearance of one ‘arm’, the entire imperial army was being annihilated?

Impossible.

Then, Regin saw his own head exploding in real-time, as if from a corner of hell.

‘…Yes, this is strange!’

How could he see his head being destroyed?

Regin strongly reminded himself that what he was seeing was some kind of hallucination or the Arch Demon’s trick. The more he convinced himself, the more an inexplicable pain seized his brain as if squeezing it.

The Arch Demon’s power was crushing his mind. Convincing himself that he had to stay focused, he thought harder. But as if to confirm that there was no way for a mere knight to resist the Arch Demon’s authority—

‘I’m going to die…!’

Fear engulfed him like a lie. His consciousness began to fade, and Regin started to accept his death.

Regin was not alone.

Even those within the imperial army who were mentally strong—like knights—initially could not accept their deaths, but they were gradually starting to.

‘This is… dangerous!’

E-Urel, who had built his own mental fortress and possessed power sufficient to rival the highest divine beings, was different.

He firmly resisted the Arch Demon’s trick. However, the force crushing his mind was excessively strong. He hesitated, worrying about the impact on others if he wielded the Sword of the Night Sky carelessly.

‘If this continues, we’ll all die.’

But he couldn’t just stand by and watch forever. E-Urel readied the Sword of the Night Sky forged from his inner self, prepared to draw it at any moment, while glancing around the hellish scene.

He saw the platinum-haired girl—Aries—standing frozen with her eyes closed.

‘Thankfully, she’s holding on.’

Aries had not just acquired divinity from the heavens. She had taken the essence of divinity embodied in the two divine artifacts that symbolized the highest God, the Goddess of Justice.

The scales were given to Elena.

And the sword was given to Aries.

Two mortals wielding the authority of the highest divine beings had appeared on the earth. Moreover, Aries was an exceptionally receptive vessel for holy power. It was no coincidence that the Goddess of Justice favored her.

The slight movement of her hand, as if ready to strike the Arch Demon’s arm with her sword at any moment, showed that Aries was unscathed.

‘The child who received the scales is… doing something as well.’

A priestess with a peculiar appearance, holding scales in one hand and a flail in the other. Elena’s hair shimmered with light as it fluttered.

She was not alone either.

Crack-

‘… This mere illusion!’

Leonir von Istantil. Once a fanatical paladin with a devout faith in the heavens, he too resisted the Arch Demon’s power. It wasn’t the holy power within him that protected him.

He had witnessed the corruption within the Pantheon Church and had helped dismantle it. Traveling through life-and-death battlefields alongside Khan, he had naturally come to understand certain truths of the world…. Through this process, Leo abandoned his blind faith.

Right after realizing that something had gone wrong with the Goddess of Justice in the Great Forest, he started questioning the very nature of divinity. Were they not beings also bound and manipulated by something?

Beings not so different from humans….

『So, what will you do, mortal? If you give up your faith, you will no longer be a wielder of holy power. Will you still abandon it?』

I don’t know. But I need this power. Without being a paladin, I would just be a nobleman skilled in swordsmanship.

『Arrogant. You want to abandon faith but keep the power? No God would allow that. Even the Goddess of Justice would withdraw his favor. Will you still abandon your faith?』

In response to the voice, Leo smirked.

I don’t need it.

The power gained from begging a false God, I’ll cast it aside myself. Even if I revert to being just a nobleman, Leonir von Istantil. Leo would not regret his choice.

Without hesitation, he abandoned his faith.

The gods, who watched from their lofty heavens, only observed with superiority. In the end, wasn’t it humans who solved the problems in Midland? If so… they would do it again this time.

At that moment of resolve.

Ha ha ha─!

The voice that had been speaking to him burst into laughter, as if it had been waiting for this answer.

『Wonderful! Even after doubting and abandoning faith, you still possess such a strong will to sacrifice. That too is a nobility that only humans can have.』

The previously solemn voice became as innocent as a child’s and the tone lightened. But Leo clearly understood. The owner of this voice was… a divinity. And a very high-ranking one at that!

“The Knight God! This insane bastard…!”

The first to realize the identity of the God contacting Leo was none other than E-Urel. He had no choice but to realize.

‘The connection…!’

The persistent bond with the Knight God, which he wanted to sever for centuries, had finally been cut. He had been completely stripped of his authority as an apostle.

Typically, the bond between a God and an apostle cannot be severed unilaterally. But since E-Urel had fervently desired to abandon his position as an apostle for so long, the Knight God had effortlessly reclaimed the authority.

‘Damn brat, why now…!’

The truth was, after obtaining the Sword of the Night Sky, E-Urel’s power as an apostle had not significantly contributed to his strength.

But to forge the Sword of the Night Sky, he needed aura. E-Urel, being a paladin, could endlessly generate aura because he was an apostle of the Knight God. Now, that would no longer be possible.

Or perhaps, his body might disintegrate before that. The body he had used for centuries, unable to die, was obliterated by the God of Death. His current body was a new one given by the Knight God.

Now, having been stripped of his apostolic authority, the death he had so longed for might finally come for him….

He felt both anger and horror at receiving the freedom he had desired at such an unwelcome time. Before the aura within him completely vanished, he tried to draw the Sword of the Night Sky.

And then he realized.

‘What is this….’

When had it been there?

E-Urel was astonished as he sensed the ‘aura’ within him. Even after falling from the status of an apostle to that of a mere paladin, he still had aura within him.

No, it wasn’t just residual aura.

Boom─!

An explosion occurred within E-Urel’s body. An immense amount of aura, more than he ever had as an apostle, flowed through him.

‘That damned God…!’

E-Urel finally understood the truth. The reason the Knight God had given him a new body was to pass on the essence of his divinity to E-Urel.

Just as the Goddess of Justice had given the scales and the sword to her prospective apostles. What the Knight God left behind was ‘aura’.

Now, E-Urel no longer needed to draw aura from a connection with the God. A small, marble-sized core within his belly was constantly rotating, generating aura.

Boom──!!

Another explosion.

The rotation of the aura expanded throughout his entire body. His body became one with the aura. Simultaneously, the Sword of the Night Sky rose on its own, completely dispelling the Arch Demon’s power.

『From now on, you will be an apostle.』

The Knight God, who had secretly left this gift, conveyed a message to Leo with a chuckle in his voice.

『If you can bear the favor of all the surviving gods—from the God of Magic and that monstrous demigod who stirred the heavens—you will realize, as you have, that humans can save humanity with their own hands.』

『But if you fail, your mind will collapse under the holy power, and you will die.』

『Are you still okay with that?』

To this question, Leo sneered. Okay with it?

‘Shut up and give it to me, you gods of the heavens.’

I’ll wield the power myself. To this grand declaration, the Knight God burst into laughter once more.

At that moment.

Rumble…!

A pillar of light tore through the chaotic sky of the Great Demonic Realm, striking down upon Leo. The divine gods who had survived had not perished. Their numbers remained vast.

And all those gods projected their divinity onto Leo. The pillar of light, sent from the heart of the Pantheon, dispersed a wave powerful enough to push back even the Arch Demon’s strength—

『Begone!』

Arkadnil’s dragon words, released as if waiting for this moment, began to erase the Arch Demon’s influence.

Crack! Boom─!

“Gah!”

“B-but I was dead…?!”

The sound of something breaking was heard. The humans who had accepted their deaths one by one started to regain their senses. The Arch Demon’s power, which had been bewitching the humans, was shattered.

“Such futile struggles….”

The black sun still hung in the sky. The arm of the Arch Demon, which had harvested countless lives, had never even fully emerged.

And for a moment, it seemed as if the chaos filling the sky of the Great Demonic Realm had slightly diminished.

“The Arch Demon is not in a perfect state! It can’t harm us directly yet, so it’s trying to break our spirits!”

Elena, wielding the Scales of the Goddess, cried out as she performed a miracle. It was a holy art manifested through the divine artifact containing the essence of the highest divinity.

“Do you truly believe that….”

“You do not understand. All sentient beings in this world are mere puppets, and my act of destruction is also part of the play.”

“Do you think it is possible to change a predetermined ending?”

But.

Even as the truth was revealed, the Arch Demon remained unconcerned. Instead, it seemed to find the sight of their defiance amusing, sneering at their resistance.

“Shut—up—!”

Leo, who had absorbed the pillar of light, shouted at that moment. Repelling the Arch Demon’s voice that urged them to give up, Leo, now radiating a brilliance more intense than ever, launched a sword strike towards the black sun.

Boom!!

Amazingly, the black sun wavered under Leo’s sword strike. No, the entire Great Demonic Realm seemed to tremble as if it were screaming.

Now, Leo was not merely an apostle of a God; he was akin to an avatar of the heavens. An immense amount of holy power, too vast for a mere mortal to contain, surged within him. For a moment, he possessed the strength to repel the black sun.

However, he could not wield this power indefinitely. Any momentary lapse in focus, and the overflowing holy power would destroy Leo’s body. At the same time, the transcendent perception granted to him as an avatar told him. With this power, he could strike the still incomplete Arch Demon.

‘If that is so, then it is enough.’

Leo genuinely believed this.

Thus.

Just as Leo was about to unleash his sword strike with the will to die.

“Leo! Fall back!”

The voice of Ron, someone he never expected to hear at this moment, echoed.

And then.

“You’re using that old body quite harshly.”

“Shut up and swing your sword! Damn master!”

“Click, click… Rebel now that you’ve grown a bit. Understood.”

A woman with red hair flowing like a lion’s mane, the Sword Phantom Leniyar, and a very gaunt old man entered the battlefield. The old man, laughing at his apprentice’s grumbling, drew the sword hanging at his waist.

That alone transformed the old man’s presence entirely.

He seemed like a sword disguised as a human.

“Watch and learn.”

In contrast, the old man’s movements were very slow. But everyone on the battlefield saw it. The sword energy that exploded from the old man tore through the chaos of the Great Demonic Realm.

Eventually.

“My joints are aching.”

Slice─.

A cutting sound, enough to make one’s neck hair stand on end, resonated as the sky of the Great Demonic Realm split open.