Where does a battle end and where does a war begin?
That boundary is clearer than you might think. But if every soldier who plunged into the fray was not merely a single military asset, instead comprising only sovereigns each equal to a nation—then the story would be entirely different. A single clash of blades would escalate into a formidable battle, and a duel would unfold into the realm of war.
"Very well, kings."
And so, the Demon Lords standing in this place were mortal men, yet also kingdoms unto themselves.
"I happily accept your declaration of war."
In response, the one who stood firmly on two feet was also a single Demon Lord. An empire that had never fallen once in the long span of five thousand years. Demon Lord Bael flung off the glove on his right hand. Thud — the black glove fell to the marble floor.
A staggering forty-seven Demon Lords.
And one Demon Lord.
"My dear comrades—let the war begin."
The first round began.
First, five combat-oriented Demon Lords charged in.
The Demon Lords surged forward from five different directions as five gusts of wind, following prearranged positions. The leader was Sitri, ranked twelfth — a monster who had climbed into the top ten purely through personal martial prowess.
Too many combatants deployed at once would make coordination unwieldy, and too few would be unable to face Bael. That was why these five Demon Lords had been carefully chosen. Every single one of them possessed combat power that far surpassed the sword's master.
Bael regarded them with eyes as tranquil as a mirror-still pond.
"Howl, Geten."
One of the eleven unique magics etched into the greatsword was unleashed.
A unique magic of the Red Dragon race — simple, straightforward, and driven purely by primal instinct to shake heaven and earth. Its effect was exceedingly simple. It allowed its wielder to cleave through anything that possessed the concept of a "weapon" in a single stroke.
And it was an absolute effect.
The serpent sword that Sitri had lashed out like a whip was sliced through as though it were a sheet of paper. Longswords, great spears, and crescent moon blades were destroyed with ease. Astonishment spread across the Demon Lords' faces. Were these not the finest weapons, forged from adamantine?
However, Sitri simply grinned and charged in with bare fists.
As Sitri roared and threw a straight punch, Bael barely managed to bat the fist away with one hand. A split-second opening was created. The remaining four martial-arts Demon Lords attacked as planned. Fists rained down from every direction in a relentless barrage.
"Impressive. Hand-to-hand combat is the most primal form of battle, after all."
Bael smiled as he swung his greatsword.
"However, your bodies are nothing more than 'weapons' in their own right."
The Demon Lords' waists were severed in a single stroke.
Blood sprayed in great quantities. The bisected Demon Lords screamed and collapsed helplessly to the floor. Only Sitri, with his beast-like sense of smell, had sensed the danger a fraction of a second before the counterattack struck — and thanks to that, he barely managed to sacrifice his left arm alone to escape the range of the blow.
There was no time to wait. The second round began.
— KRRRRUMMMBLE!
The ceiling of the ballroom collapsed. Puppets that had been lying in ambush above came crashing down. Their number was ten times that of the first round — fifty in total.
Puppets built purely for combat. They were killing machines that Ivar Lodbrok, the Vampire, had spent three thousand years crafting by hand. Forged from nothing but a single-minded desire for revenge against the Demon Lords, these weapons possessed no self-awareness whatsoever and therefore fell outside the Demon Lords' dominion.
Anti-Demon Lord killing machines, devised desperately by a girl betrayed by the Demon Lords.
The puppets descended with blank, expressionless faces, each gripping a razor-sharp weapon.
"So that's how it is. A puppeteer has joined the fray."
Bael looked up at the crumbling ceiling and clicked his admiration.
The fact that fifty puppets had been crafted was impressive enough, but to control them all simultaneously was a feat truly worthy of praise. Puppetcraft was far more difficult to master than magic. It was an exceedingly inefficient discipline. Reaching this level of mastery would have demanded a blood-drenched, grueling effort.
But above all, wasn't the order of attacks rather clever?
First, the pure martial-arts Demon Lords attacked. On top of that, Bael activated the Red Dragon's unique magic. Then, the opposing side deployed their puppets.
Even if Bael were to cut the puppets down in a single sweep, they were lifeless — they would cling like leeches regardless of whether their limbs were severed or their bodies shattered. The powerful unique magic would be rendered useless. The order of attacks had been calculated with meticulous precision.
As though they had seen right through the effect of the weapon on this side.
――Dantalion.
No one else could have devised such a strategy.
Bael felt excitement surging from deep within his guts.
Indeed. This was far more than a mere war between forty-seven Demon Lords and one Demon Lord. Beyond the dazzling and brutal duels, the two supreme commanders — Bael and Dantalion — were measuring each other's moves like chess players studying the board.
The pieces that had taken the field were none other than the most exalted of Demon Lords.
What an extravagant chessboard this was.
In that case, he simply had to play along with this magnificent, opulent board.
"――Dispel anti-magic."
Bael released the anti-magic enchantment on his cloak. It was a formidable piece of equipment that could negate nearly all magic, but its price was that Bael himself was also barred from casting spells. Now that the seal was undone, Bael began chanting with an intoxicating thrill.
"Mortals were always meant to carry but a single life."
An explosive wave of mana erupted outward from Bael.
It was pure, raw mana. Though Bael's level as a mage was modest, simply detonating his mana was enough to produce the power of grand magic. Fifty puppet bodies were caught in the shockwave. The killing machines were blasted apart — sent flying along with the ceiling, obliterated from root to tip.
Third round.
"O spirits. O primordial, lawless nature."
As the ceiling vanished, the Fourth Seat, Gamigin, began to chant.
A resplendent golden aura illuminated Gamigin's body. She was not alone. Twenty-one mage-class Demon Lords sang the magic activation incantations in unison like a choir. They had been preparing this grand magic since the battle first erupted.
"Darkness against darkness ――"
"Unique will against unique will. Matter against matter."
"Return ash to ash."
Hundreds of spells came roaring toward Bael.
Ku-hahahahaha!
Bael burst into hearty laughter as he watched the barrage of spells storm toward him like a tempest. Thunderous roars echoed, and the palace of Niflheim crumbled around him, but Bael couldn't help but laugh like a child.
It was truly excellent. The moment the anti-magic was dispelled, attacks poured down as if waiting for that exact moment.
Dantalion had crafted the scenario perfectly. He called it a gift presented to you. With a gift like this, one could receive it a hundred times and never grow tired of it.
Bael raised his greatsword high.
"Tear it apart, Hwarakcheon."
Another Unique Magic was activated.
It was the Unique Magic of the Blue Dragon race, befitting a wicked and cunning mage more devious than any other tribe. While the Red Dragon's Unique Magic could cleave all "weapons" in a single strike, the Blue Dragon's Unique Magic severed all "magical power."
Bael slashed once, twice, a total of three times toward the spells closing in rapidly from all sides. The first swing sent a blade of wind that neutralized half the spells. The second swing made the remaining half evaporate, and the final strike fell upon the Demon Lords of the magic-type faction.
Horrific screams erupted. The seven Demon Lords who took the direct hit clutched their chests and collapsed. Their magical power had been instantly severed by the Unique Magic. The power went berserk, churning their insides into pulp.
It was overwhelming.
Dantalion and Bael had already exchanged three fierce battles, but while the opposing forces dwindled quickly, Bael remained unscathed.
If Bael had panicked even slightly or grown excited, he would have been ensnared by Dantalion's prepared trap. Yet Bael responded with only a joyful and serene heart.
Now, even Barbatos's ambush summons, the martial artists' coordinated assault, the puppet army's swarm tactics, and the magic faction's focused bombardment had all been thwarted.
What other tricks could possibly remain?
And then, the fourth round.
"Hmm…!"
Bael looked upward.
From where the ceiling had vanished, revealing the evening sky, hundreds of massive objects were raining down like a meteor shower. It was a squadron of five hundred wyverns. The colossal dragonkin had surrendered themselves to gravity, gliding toward Bael.
"A suicide attack, is it?"
It was, in effect, a suicide squadron.
Bael fired a blade of wind imbued with his innate magic skyward, but the wyverns sustained no damage whatsoever as they descended at terrifying speed. They had been pre-warded with anti-magic. Bael marveled at their tactical cunning.
He would have to endure it here.
Bael braced himself to minimize the incoming damage. Evading nearly five hundred wyverns was impossible. They were bonded with Slave Brands, yet even those were beyond the reach of his dominion. There was no way to avoid this attack.
But it wouldn't be fatal.
Even if struck head-on by a wyvern, Bael was confident he could withstand it easily.
"Howl for me, Wolsong."
He had already switched his innate magic to that of the crimson dragonkin.
His intent was to cleave their bodies in two the instant before they crashed into him. The impact wouldn't vanish entirely, but it would certainly be drastically reduced.
Dantalion had probably predicted that Bael would have taken some degree of damage from the earlier assaults.
Worn down by the martial Demon Lord, battered by his constructs, his mana drained to a certain extent—and only then would the finishing blow be unleashed: the wyvern suicide squadron. That must have been the calculation.
It was an impeccably devised strategy, but unfortunately, the opponent was wrong.
*'Yet you are more than sufficient to serve as my rival.'*
Bael smiled as the spectacle of wyverns charging down filled his eyes.
He had considered Dantalion a distasteful and vulgar individual. That opinion had not changed, but even a distasteful and vulgar person could absolutely stand against him. Bael was delighted by this newly realized truth. And so he swore that even if he won here and now, he would not execute Dantalion.
Barbatos, Paimon, and Gamigin, however—they ought to be dispatched.
He had heard they were Dantalion's lovers. When his beloved ones perished, Dantalion would surely be consumed by endless rage and dedicate his life solely to vengeance. Playing along with that fervent revenge would undoubtedly be a thrill.
The plan was complete. At the same time, the wyverns had closed in to arm's reach.
Bael swung his greatsword, and the wyverns were helplessly split in two, their innards spilling like rain. At the moment Bael smiled, certain of victory—a small something plummeted toward him alongside the rain of wyvern blood.
It was a beautiful girl with black hair streaming behind her.
"——A human child?"
Bael's brow furrowed at the unexpected blow. Even a Demon Lord as mighty as he was could not read human psychology. That was why Bael had failed to notice that a human was riding the wyvern in advance. Could this have been the final dagger Dantalion had kept hidden?
"Hmph!"
Bael hastily blocked the girl's strike with his greatsword. Despite being a young human—and a girl, no less—the blow was surprisingly heavy. It was indeed worthy of being Dantalion's final card to play. But that was all. Bael was not so weak that he would meekly submit just because he'd been caught off guard, and the longsword the girl had brought down was deflected by a hair's breadth.
Bael asked kindly.
"Human child, how reckless. Why would a girl step onto a battlefield where the most powerful clash?"
"......"
There was no emotion in the girl's eyes.
Just as Bael was about to send the girl flying with a single swing—
Without any warning—the sound of gauntlets shattering, flesh tearing, and bones cracking echoed through the air.
"......"
Bael looked down at his own body with a blank expression.
Dozens of black greatswords had pierced clean through his body. Dark blood stained the blades and trickled downward. Bael followed the swords down, and further down, as though examining someone else's body entirely.
The greatswords had erupted from Bael's own shadow.
They were the very Death Knights he thought he had neutralized at the very beginning.
"……Hmm. Why—"
Before the question could even finish, as if refusing to grant him the luxury of an answer, dozens more blades erupted from the shadow. His right arm, his left arm, his thighs, his abdomen, his heart—greatswords bored into every part of his body that could be named.
Footsteps sounded through the cloud of dust raised by the wyvern's crash.
Thud, thud—the footsteps came to a halt right in front of Bael. Soon after, the sound of clapping hands rang out.
"Your power was truly fearsome, Lord Bael. Most impressive."
Dantalion was still smiling, as if the battle had never happened.