Son of the Hero King
chapter-361-30041322

[Tartarus – 6th Circle of Hell]

When Sol finally entered the fabled 6th circle of hell, he was disappointed to find that it was in a rather deserted state.

Even after stretching his senses as far as he possibly could at his current level, all he could find were some chaos spawns proffering about here and there. Doing what beings of chaos were expected to do. Spreading chaos and carnage.

There were a few Duke rank beings there and here but nothing particularly interesting, at least to the current Sol it wasn't.

Sol then suddenly recalled some thing Kiyohime once said to him. The dragon queen had personally culled the entirety of the sixth circle slightly before his breakthrough. This had been done in case they managed to escape and Kiyohime went at it with gun-blazing, full kamikaze style.

“Well… I guess I will have to use the weak ones. It is what it is, can't do anything else about it, *sigh*...”

—

Doro was a Duke-ranked being, or rather a Lord-ranked chaos spawn. One of the oldest ones in this layer but as well as one of the most cunning of them all.

Appearance-wise, he looked like your average lamia. His upper body was that of a muscular man while his lower body was akin to a long snake's slithering tail. There race could also be referred to as Nagas but they had more characteristic matches to Lamia's. All in all chaos spawns had a chaotic characteristic to them that led them not being able to be classified in a single species.

Of course, even though the chaotic bastard had such an appearance, this was simply the most optimal path he had taken toward his evolution.

Before being captured and well before he became a Duke-ranked being, he had the honor of witnessing a fight between Asmodeus and king Skryrim— the king of all Ice Titans.

The fight had been of rather epic proportions and it was a miracle that he was even able to survive that encounter. Still, what he learned from the fight he witnessed was that…the most important thing in a fight was survivability over anything else. If you survived, you triumphed. There was nothing above being alive and kicking.

King Skryrim had been far superior to Asmodeus, the divine beast of lust at that time. But even then it changed almost next to nothing. The snake was simply too hard and too slippery to be killed.

This was the path that Doro sought for himself. The path that was established through developing his hiding, healing, and escaping skills. And using this path he had lived to this day, through all the culling that had transpired in this realm.

But…

But…

‘Oh mother of chaos, why send me such a trial?’

Doro cursed while he slithered on the ground as fast as possible for him. His tail left absolutely no trail on the ground and his movements were perfectly silent and unnoticeable.

Even then, no matter what he did he could not fully escape.

Everything began a few minutes before. When he felt the presence of a Duke, the first thing Doro did was hide and observe the individual.

Doro knew that a culling had happened not long before. As such he didn’t have to worry about another one for a few centuries at the very least.

The young boy was without a doubt a test taker one extremely talented.

What did Doro do when he saw such a delicious prey?

He fled.

Without hesitation, he fled into the distance.

The danger he felt emanating from that single entity was so high that all his instincts were screaming at him to run for his life.

Sadly, no matter what he did, he seemed unable to escape from the dastardly boy's grasp. The shadow of death seemed to follow him everywhere.

“Oh, you are finally here.”

Doro wasn’t running aimlessly. This place was a true maze that he had created for his explicit uses. It would take that boy a few hours to even think of succeeding in escaping.

‘This place is an ideal hiding place for me. Let's see how that bastard can find me inside where’

At least this was what he thought. But sadly for him, the same bastard was waiting for him in his path, smiling as he finally reached him. It sent a chill down his spine.

“How…?”

“Well, let’s say I just deduced the place you would go to.”

Doro had his mouth open. This made absolutely no sense to him.

Sol smiled as he approached Doro. He ignored the surprised expression smeared on the being's face and focused on the matter at hand.

“Now, I guess it’s time to kill you, huh?”

Sol bore no animosity toward the man staring at him with an absolutely frightened look etched on his oddly human face. Unlike last time, he was not under the throes of insanity.

He simply did not care very much about the life or death of this monster.

It didn’t matter to him if Doro was good or evil.

In the first place, the war between Chaos and Order had nothing to do with good or evil. It was just a war forged for principles.

Doro, feeling that it was useless to try and flee, decided to face him head on in one last bout for survival.

In a place polluted by Chaos, the divine beasts of Order found their energy diminished without means of absorbing energy as they liked.

Furthermore, it was just a Duke-ranked Dragon, it did not necessarily mean that he wouldn't be able able to triumph or survive this encounter.

‘I just need to incapacitate him. Break a few bones, then flee.’

He did not even entertain the thought of devouring Sol. Not because he didn’t want to. He wished to eat Sol so much he could die.

But he knew that if he did eat Sol, he would without a doubt die a gruelling death.

[Assault Mode]

Since they reached the level of Lord by devouring their own kind, Chaos spawns did not possess a zone. After all, they had realized no truth, their very concept of power was different from those of the side of Order.

But this didn’t mean that they were weaker than any Duke. In fact, they were generally stronger because of their own version of a Zone that was ingrained in their very essence.

A form that allowed the user to bring the full strength and talent of their bodies. One could say that it was the War form of the Chaos spawns.

When Doro entered this form, his human upper body began to contort and dostort until all that was left of his previous form was a monstrous entity.

Then, holding a trident made out of one of its very bones, Doro attacked with all his might. Well intent on absolutely beating Sol in one attack.

Watching the incoming attack, Sol remembered the last time he fought against a Lord level being of Chaos. The fight had been pretty hard since they ganged up on him and even without that, that dude was strong.

In the end, he had to use his War form to win and could only watch as a few managed to escape.

The man in front of him was surely stronger than the ones he fought in the past now. The old him would have been forced to dodge or transform in order to have a chance at defeating him.

But for the current him….

“I guess I have really gotten stronger.”

Sol did not even bother transforming. He did not even clad himself in mana nor did he enter his dimension. Muttering absent-mindedly about his growth, all he did was to raise one hand.

Seeing this, Doro smirked. A coward he might be. But he was still strong. Just how much did that young dragon want to mock him with his actions?

His anger changed to strength and the power contained in the spear increased tremendously. Strong enough that it could change the entire landscape if it landed.

At least, that should have been the case.

But…One hand. With just one hand, an attack that contained the full might of a Lord-level Chaos spawn was stopped.

No worse. If it was just stopped, the shock wouldn’t be so great.

But the trident actually ended up getting destroyed. Simply snapping as it was a vulgar toy.