"......So it was."
Bael laughed bitterly.
Summoned-type Monsters required hosts. Without a host supplying mana, a summoned creature could not move. When fighting summoned creatures, it was wisest to eliminate the host first.
Amon had said there were five hundred Death Knights in the ballroom. Death Knights were among the most powerful of all summoned Monsters. That was why Bael had provoked Barbatos from the start, drawing him out. He hadn't forgotten to destroy the heart — the source of mana — either…….
"So you were deliberately acting as though you had lost."
All things considered, Bael could understand Barbatos's fury. It was Barbatos who harbored the deepest regret and hatred toward the Second Crescent Alliance Army. But had it truly been nothing more than a mask for his rage…….
Bael began to understand piece by piece. The reason Zepar had bypassed Bael entirely and focused solely on rescuing Barbatos wasn't because he was level-headed — it was because, tactically, the rescue was absolutely essential. After pulling him free, Zepar had covered Barbatos with his cloak.
So that no one would see Barbatos had already recovered.
Bael spoke, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
"Now that I think back, something was off. As though you already knew Barbatos would attack — you never once moved more than a few paces away from me."
It hadn't been an attack born of overwhelming emotion. It wasn't a spontaneous ambush — it had been a plot thread laid from the very beginning, all for the final moment.
"So in the end, the one who kills me is Barbatos…… How fitting."
"Mm, not quite. Half right, half wrong."
Dantalion scratched his cheek with a finger.
"I did deliberately stage my defeat. I knew my heart would be targeted, so I made sure to draw on a healing elixir in advance. But it wasn't Barbatos who killed Your Majesty."
"A healing elixir?"
"I mixed it into the wine."
Before the assembly had even begun, Barbatos had been drinking wine in the ballroom. That had been the healing elixir? At this almost obsessive level of thoroughness, Bael's bitter smile deepened.
"That makes it even more bewildering. But if that's so, how is Barbatos not the one who pierced me through?"
"I can't speak for Lord Bael, but the heart isn't exactly the kind of organ that regenerates so easily. Even a high-ranking Demon Lord suffers considerably when the heart is destroyed."
Dantalion chuckled, as though he found the whole thing amusing.
When he flicked his finger, additional greatswords surged from the shadows. With the sound of flesh being sliced apart, the blades buried themselves in Bael's body. Meanwhile, the greatswords that had attacked moments earlier sank back into the shadows. They were alternating their assault.
Bael groaned, "Mmgh." He had been hoping to stall with small talk and recover as much stamina as he could, but there was not the slightest opening.
"Daisy. Cut it off."
"Yes, Father."
The human girl swung her blade down. With a clean snip, Bael's right wrist was severed. The greatsword of Pam that the Demon Lord had been gripping clattered lifelessly to the floor. Disarming him entirely had been a precaution against any unforeseen contingency.
Bael furrowed his brow.
"Father?"
"My adopted daughter. She shares no small connection with Your Excellency from a past life, so do be fond of her. Of course, even if you were to dote on her, you don't have much time left anyway."
Dantalion kicked Pam's greatsword aside.
"Let's return to the matter at hand. It's true that Barbatos appears to be in relatively decent shape, but he hasn't recovered to the point of commanding his summoned creatures freely. So how were the Death Knights able to launch a surprise attack...?"
Dantalion clapped his hands once more, and the greatswords tore into Bael's flesh again.
"The reason is simple. From the very beginning, the dominion had already shifted to me."
"......"
"Of the four hundred and sixty-seven Death Knights lurking in the ballroom, only sixty-seven were parasitic monsters implanted in Barbatos."
He smiled thinly.
"The remaining four hundred were all loyal to me."
Bael let out a low, hollow exclamation. "Ah..."
"You deceived yourself."
"Yes, yes. There's no need for you to blame yourself, Your Excellency. After all, anyone would assume the Death Knights were all part of Barbatos's personal guard."
"Your silver tongue is second to none."
Bael laughed.
"When the martial Demon Lords attacked me, when the puppets ambushed me, when magic rained down... if the Death Knights had pressed the assault alongside them at that point, continuing to hound me — I might well have been defeated. At the very least, I might not have won so easily."
He had dismissed every last possibility. He had played along to the very end, pretending the Death Knights had been neutralized. He had been aiming for one perfect moment and one alone.
Dantalion shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, saying you 'might have been defeated' is the same as saying you 'might have won,' isn't it? You hold first rank among the Demon Lords, after all. It is only proper to be prepared for every contingency."
The wyverns diving from above drew his gaze upward. The human girl attacked, seizing his greatsword for even a single moment.
Right in that gap — the very moment he believed everything was over — the Death Knights broke their silence and struck.
Dantalion lowered his voice to barely a whisper and leaned close to Bael's ear.
"This is a secret, but truth be told, some of the Demon Lords needed to die. The fewer Demon Lords stronger than myself, the better, wouldn't you agree?"
"Kuhuhuhu."
In the end, even Bael himself had been used.
It was Dantalion who had killed Andromalius, ranked 72nd. It was Dantalion who would kill Bael, ranked 1st. From now on, the Demon Lord army would undoubtedly revolve around the man standing before him. In the chaotic era he ruled, there would be no righteousness, no warrior's conviction...
"So this was my fate — to die at the hands of someone like you. However, Dantalion, this was no feat accomplished by your strength alone. To kill me, you had to rally every last Demon Lord."
Bael smiled contentedly and closed his eyes.
"My five-thousand-year existence was a heavy one. As a mortal, what more could I have wished for? Has anyone ever met such an end before? No. No, there hasn't..."
Even now, when he closed his eyes, the gray sky.
The sky he had gazed up at endlessly, starving with hunger, stretched out before him.
The Demon Realm was a land of unparalleled barrenness. All one could do was struggle to survive. Since it was natural for the strong to take one more meal, every Demonkin aspired to become powerful — and Bael had been no different.
As Bael killed and killed, a single question arose in his mind.
If he were to die a meaningless death, what meaning would the countless lives that had perished at his hands hold?
There had been times when he killed a mother and her young daughter for a single slice of bread. He had ruthlessly slaughtered families as they pleaded for their children to be spared. He had killed a preacher who urged an end to the hellish fighting and a path toward reconciliation. Every warrior who had fallen to his blade had been great and noble.
He devoured such people, and he lived on.
——A meaningless death could never be forgiven.
From that moment on, Bael sought his own death.
Barbatos championed a world where every Demonkin lived happily. A man who shouldered ideals of that magnitude was worth killing him.
Paimon dreamed of a world where all sentient beings coexisted in peace, transcending race. He, too, was worth dying for.
Even though Dantalion's schemes had played the leading role, in the end, it was all the Demon Lords who had killed him.
Bael had wanted to accept this death gladly.
"You seem quite satisfied. Gazing upon a peaceful scenery, are we, Bael?"
Yet no matter how long he waited, the other party did not take his head.
"I'm sorry, but it would be troublesome if I killed Your Majesty here. I'd end up being the Demon Lord who killed Bael out of nowhere. Drawing that kind of attention would be rather exhausting."
"...What do you mean?"
"Your head simply isn't attractive enough to warrant that level of risk."
When Bael opened his eyes, there stood Dantalion, wearing a sickly smile.
"I don't want a 'new Emperor'. Even you ended up dying like this. Even if I were to ascend to an unassailable position, how could that throne last a thousand years? I simply plan to keep a low profile and live a long life."
"......" Bael felt anger for the first time.
The bastard had declared that his death held no particular value.
"You...!"
"Allow me to share one fact with you. Now that an absolute powerhouse like yourself is gone, the Demon Lord army will plunge headlong into internal strife. Agares is already half crippled. And you've disappeared too. The need to be wary of the future has been drastically reduced."
Dantalion laughed in a hushed voice.
"What a pity, Bael. The struggle and war you so desperately craved will, paradoxically, only come to fruition after your death. Do you understand? You were chasing an impossible dream."
"……."
"You mustn't blame me for it, though. Even if you'd been left alone, you would have simply been killed by some human or other. Dying by my hand is a blessing in disguise, really. Hmm. You should be thanking me."
Dantalion leaned in and whispered.
"A dog's death is fitting for a son of a bitch."
Then Dantalion turned to face the Demon Lords.
He raised both arms high and shouted.
"Comrades! The Demon Lord Bael — the one who destroyed the Second Crescent Alliance Army and engineered the failure of every Crescent Alliance Army thereafter — has been defeated. This traitor above all traitors, who trampled the desires of every being in the Demon Realm under his own selfishness, is now moments from execution."
However, Dantalion continued.
"If any one of us were to execute Bael, that person alone would be hailed as the hero who slew him. Comrades, we cannot stand by and allow such a tragic outcome. Because Bael is not one person's traitor — as I have said, he is the traitor of all Demonkin."
Dantalion wore a more serious expression than anyone had ever seen on him.
"Therefore, Bael must be executed by the hands of all of us together. My dear comrades. We do not want a single hero — we want the Demon Realm itself, united as one. If you truly believe yourselves to be representatives of the Demonkin, if you genuinely consider yourselves kings of ten thousand demons — then please, step forward."
Dantalion drew a dagger from his waist.
"For a new era!"
Without hesitation, he drove the dagger into Bael's shoulder.
"Not an old era stained with struggle, competition, blood, and slaughter — but a new era of harmony and peace, coexistence, and above all, one that serves everyone. I ask that we open the door to it right here, right now, with our own two hands."
At that, the Demon Lords began to slowly approach.
Barbatos was the first. She was still breathing hard, clearly struggling, but she summoned her battle scythe and hacked into Bael's thigh. Paimon, half-moved by sorrow and half-consumed by regret, severed Bael's right ear. Gamigin, grinning as always, carved open Bael's chest.
As if the hounds were tearing his flesh away piece by piece, one by one, slowly.
'Ah...'
Feeling the sensation of his body being ripped apart — thud, thud — Bael thought.
The last to step forward was the third-ranked Demon Lord, Vassago. Vassago had long been known as a devoted follower of Bael, and so he had to participate in this killing — if only to shake off the stigma of being called one of Bael's inner circle. More precisely, it was Dantalion who had goaded Vassago into it.
Vassago's face was a portrait of fear and greed. This was the true visage of the one they called a noble gentleman. The sight of Vassago raising a longsword high and swinging it toward his neck unfolded before Bael's eyes in slow motion.
'So this is my death.'
And then everything went dark.