The Death Mage Who Doesn’t Want a Fourth Time
chapter-145

In the world where he had originally come from, Ravovifard, the evil god of release, was the weakest kind of god, of equal rank to Fidirg, the dragon god of five sins and Zozogante, the evil god of the dark forest… no, even slightly below them.

That was because there was no worth in what he ruled.

Ravovifard ruled over instincts and desires, the display of power that surpassed one’s limits by releasing themselves from their reasoning.

But in Ravovifard’s world, those with the ability to reason were in the minority. Many were loyal to their instincts and desires even without being released, not needing Ravovifard’s power.

And those with reasoning and wisdom were often physically weak and weak in their abilities, so even if they were released, they couldn’t gain great power. In fact, they were all races that had developed intelligence because they were weak. Thus, they took no notice of Ravovifard.

Ravovifard was not content with being a weak god in a realm so small that he could see all of it from a single spot, worshipped only by the members of his own race.

That was still true even when he became a part of the Demon King’s army and fought the gods and champions of Lambda.

The evil gods, including the Demon King, had created monsters as their new servants in this world, but they hadn’t been able to create them without limit. The monsters’ strength and numbers that could be created were influenced by the strength of the god that created them.

Ravovifard was only able to create several hundred monsters that were weaker than those created by the other evil gods. And Ravovifard wasn’t flexible like Fidirg, who had ordered the Lizardmen to create tools for themselves. The monsters he created were quickly defeated and had their numbers reduced by the champions and their allies.

But even so, he didn’t even consider the offer of the champion Zakkart.

Zakkart’s words had the idea of coexistence behind them, and Ravovifard perceived this to be in conflict with his own values.

Ravovifard fought in the Demon King’s army as a weak god, and because he was weak, he was never given any important roles. Thus, when Bellwood and his companions defeated the Demon King, Ravovifard was able to survive even as the Demon King’s body and soul were taken apart.

Fortunately for Ravovifard, he managed to acquire one of the Demon King’s fragments, his scent glands.

That was when circumstances changed for this god.

Many evil gods had been sealed away or forced into slumber after losing their powers, so many monsters had lost their masters. Ravovifard succeeded in turning these monsters into his servants.

Ravovifard ruled over instincts and desires. Thus, he was able to turn beast-type and plant-type monsters, which didn’t have a single shred of intelligence, into his believers. Other evil gods would value a monster believer to be worth less than a tenth of an ordinary believer, but Ravovifard valued them as believers.

With a hundred Huge Boars, a thousand Poison Frogs and ten thousand Horn Rabbits, to Ravovifard, it was equivalent to being worshipped by an entire religious nation.

There were monsters like Orcs and Kobolds as well, who possessed some intelligence, but because the evil gods that had originally been their masters were no longer around, it was simple for Ravovifard to turn them into his believers.

Of course, if he made any conspicuous moves, the heroic god Bellwood, who was still active after the battle between Alda and Vida, would have moved to exterminate him. Fortunately, however, Ravovifard was searching for monsters to become his believers on the Dark Continent, the entirety of which had become a Devil’s Nest.

Because not a single ‘human’ that Bellwood was supposed to protect existed on the Dark Continent, he wouldn’t notice Ravovifard no matter how many monster believers he gathered.

And after a hundred thousand years, Ravovifard succeeded in gathering power that his previous self from when he was in the Demon King’s army could not be compared to. Though the majority of the gods hadn’t managed to regain their former powers, Ravovifard was one of the few exceptions.

On top of that, he stole the Demon King’s luminescent organs from another evil god who was once in the Demon King’s army, so his power only continued to rise.

And then things had changed once more a hundred years ago when a great god who had been devoting all of his efforts to recovering from his wounds after the battle between Vida and Alda, the fallen war-god Zantark who had fused with an evil god, had made a sudden move.

In order to regain his power, Zantark issued a great command to his subordinates, setting them on a large-scale monster hunt on the Dark Continent. Ravovifard had gathered plenty of fighting forces as well, so he had planned to take Zantark’s realm from him, but he was attacked first.

The evil gods who had become Ravovifard’s subordinates were killed by Zantark and the heroic god Farmaun Gold who had returned to his side, and the monsters that were his believers were turned into Experience Points one after another.

And now, it had been more than half a century since Ravovifard became content with his inferiority. He had decided that turning things around was impossible, and fleeing was best. Sacrificing the power that he had gathered, his subordinates and the monsters that were his believers in the process.

The place he had chosen to begin his recovery was the inside of the Bahn Gaia continent, where Farmaun Gold could not enter, the sacred land of Vida’s races where the goddess Vida slumbered.

He gained monsters from outside the Boundary Mountain Range as his believers, made them infiltrate inside, spent years increasing the number of monster believers he had little by little, then chose Bugitas, who had a deep complex due to his older brother, as his priest.

It was merely a time period of just over ten years, but for Ravovifard, who was also loyal to his own instincts and desires, it was more than long enough to be existing in obscurity.

And once the opportunity was ripe, he gathered others with suitable minds to grant them his divine protection, such as Gargya, Gido and Gerazorg, gained supremacy over the southern region of the continent and now, the time had come to fulfill his ambition of ruling Lambda as the greatest, most powerful god.

He had lost some pawns unexpectedly due to a monster who could tame the Undead and skillfully wield not one but multiple fragments of the Demon King despite not being an evil god. He had even been forced to move his plans up and possess the body of Bugitas early, even though he had planned to raise Bugitas more first. But now that he had done this, he should definitely be able to turn things around.

He had already turned the monster’s pawns into his loyal servants, and the monster himself would be destroyed by the Demon King’s fragments going wild inside his body.

“UGOAAAAH?!”

That was how things were supposed to be, but Ravovifard, who had possessed Bugitas’s body, was sent flying with great force as he stopped the swords of Budarion, Bone Man and Borkus with his great scythe.

“GAHAH?!”

His back was struck by the countless horns of the Demon King mounted on a wall of the Demon King’s blood that had been placed behind him without him knowing it.

What is happening?! Why are the monsters disobeying me?!

Thinking that there was some kind of mistake, Ravovifard sprang to his feet with a movement that wouldn’t be expected from his enormous body and issued orders once more. “Th-the one you are to kill is that monster, Vandalieu! Not me! I am Ravovifard, the evil god of release who has returned you monsters to your original form!”

But there were none present here who would listen to Ravovifard’s words.

“SHUT UP, YOU FOOL! BUOOOOOH! CONSECUTIVE SCREW THRUSTS!” Budarion roared.

“UOOOOH?!”

Ravovifard’s scythe was unable to stop all of Budarion’s spinning, high-speed, consecutive thrusts; they gouged out large chunks of flesh from his arm, his side and his cheek. But now that Bugitas’s body was possessed by a god, such damage was repaired in the blink of an eye.

Because Budarion’s magic sword was made from the Demon King’s horns, the wounds took longer than usual to heal completely, but this level of damage wasn’t enough to be called significant.

But the problem with this was the mental damage inflicted.

“Impossible, why are monsters disobeying me?! Monsters that are supposed to be my loyal tools!” Ravovifard shouted.

“Magic Blade Attack, Instant Flash, Lifeline Sever!” Budarion released advanced martial skills, one after another.

Each of them sent Ravovifard’s blood and pieces of flesh flying into the air, and he was further wounded by the wall created from the Demon King’s fragments, and Budarion’s body began letting out scream-like noises as well.

“Stop! Darling, you’ll die!” Princess Kurnelia screamed.

Perhaps hearing her, Budarion fell back as if staggering. But Ravovifard didn’t even have room to breathe.

An assault from Borkus and Bone Man, even fiercer than Budarion’s, awaited him.

“I’LL BUTCHER YOU! CONSECUTIVE FLYING DRAGON CUT! DRAGON SLAYER!”

“I SHALL OFFER MY LORD YOUR RIBS! YOUR LOINS! YOUR HEAAAAART!”

Borkus unleashed a Sword King Technique martial skill that released slashing attacks, and a moment later, he raised his sword and charged in.

Bone Man had disassembled his entire body, having attached a blade to each limb and each of his ribs, using the Long-distance Control Skill to unleash separate Swordsmanship martial skills.

“You bastard, how many weapons made from the Demon King’s fragments do you have?!” Ravovifard shouted.

Ravovifard could have almost instantly healed wounds caused by Upper-class magic Items, but the damage caused by weapons made from fragments that had once been a part of the Demon King Guduranis’s body was building up.

On top of that, Borkus and Bone Man’s weapons were Magic Items enchanted with the death-attribute spell Negate Healing. The Level of Ravovifard’s Status Effect Resistance Skill was high, so his regeneration wasn’t stopped entirely, but its speed was reduced.

“And you said you’ll butcher me?! Offer my meat?! I AM AN EVIL GOD!” Ravovifard was enraged not by the damage being inflicted upon him, but the arrogant way that Borkus and Bone Man were treating him like food.

He swung his great scythe forcefully, shattering Bone Man’s bones and severing Borkus’s sword.

But the price of this was that the great scythe shattered to pieces as well.

“Hmph! I need no weapon against enemies like you who do not know their place!” Ravovifard threw aside the scythe’s handle without hesitation, attacking Borkus and Bone Man with his own enormous body as his weapon.

As he was a god who ruled over primitive instincts, he was more proficient at close-quarters combat relying on physical strength than using advanced martial skills.

No, it was more accurate to say that he wasn’t capable of anything other than this kind of combat to begin with.

“You lowly monsters, don’t disobey me!” Ravovifard roared.

“GOAAH?!”

Unable to hold back Ravovifard’s tackle with his broken sword, this time it was Borkus’s turn to be sent flying, crashing into Bone Man along the way. The two of them collided with a gelatinous wall of the Demon King’s blood that appeared behind them, sinking into it.

As Ravovifard tried to perform another tackle to finish them off, black flames and ice rained down from the sky above him.

“KYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Princess Levia and Orbia laughed loudly.

They and the other Ghosts had confirmed that there were no other allies in the vicinity, and now they had begun attacking from range.

“GUOOOOH?! What is this quantity of Mana that is unthinkable for the attacks of small fry?!”

Ravovifard possessed the body of the Rank 11 Bugitas; his physical abilities were beyond those of a Pure-breed Vampire. He should have been unharmed by the attacks of Rank 6 and 7 Ghosts.

But the vast amount of Mana in the attacks released by Princess Levia, Orbia and the other Ghosts caused more damage to accumulate in Ravovifard’s body.

“Don’t get carried away!” As Ravovifard rolled across the ground, he picked up a broken horn of the Demon King and tried to throw it at the Ghosts.

But the moment he picked it up, the Demon King’s horn changed shape, forming countless spikes that stabbed his hand.

“GUOH?!”

“NOOOOOOOOOOW!”

“GIIIIIIIH!”

As Ravovifard stopped moving, surprised at this unexpected pain, Kimberley and Pete released their lightning attacks at him.

“We shall continue this fight!”

“Alright!”

Zadiris and Basdia joined the attack as well. As they were members of a race created by Vida rather than pure monsters, perhaps they had decided it best to utilize Ravovifard’s influence rather than suppress it. With a glaring bloodthirst shining in their eyes, they released their spells.

Blades of light and wind cut into Ravovifard’s body. The wounds recovered immediately after they appeared, but the healing gradually started becoming outpaced by the damage.

“NUUUUUGH! DON’T GET CARRIED AWAAAAY!” roared the enraged Ravovifard, releasing a shockwave.

The shockwave scattered the spells and caused Princess Levia to waver like the flame of a candle in the wind, while Zadiris groaned and bent low towards the ground.

“As I thought, we cannot cast spells effectively. Things won’t go as well for us as they did for Pete and the princess,” Zadiris muttered.

Pete and Princess Levia released their lightning and flames not through magic, but through their bodies’ abilities. Under the influence of Ravovifard’s scent glands and luminescent organs, they could exert more power than usual, but spells were harder to cast due to Zadiris’s thoughts and concentration being thrown into disarray, and this was what she was lamenting.

Meanwhile, Ravovifard was lamenting something else.

My power is working against me?!

It was hard to admit, but he couldn’t continue averting his eyes from the reality that the monsters were going against him, not listening to his commands at all.

Ravovifard had not yet become fully accustomed to Bugitas’s body, as he had only just possessed it moments ago, so he could not move it as he desired. He suspected that this might be one of the reasons for the monsters defying him, but he stopped this train of thought, knowing that he had no time to investigate the cause.

“Demon King’s fragments, cease activation! Cease!” Ravovifard attempted to cease the effects of the Demon King’s scent glands and luminescent organs that had driven Budarion, Borkus and the others mad. “With this, you underlings of that monster will no longer receive my power -!”

“We refuse. Release us! Release us!” said the Demon King’s fragments which were supposed to have only their primitive instincts remaining, clearly refusing to obey Ravovifard’s command.

“WHAT?!” Ravovifard froze in shock.

“Monster this, monster that!” said the voice of Eleanora.

As if taking advantage of the fact that Ravovifard had stopped moving, Eleanora emerged from the wall of the Demon King’s blood and cut deep into Ravovifard’s back.

“GAH?!” Ravovifard screamed in agony and anger, trying to strike Eleanora with the back of his fist, but before he could, she disappeared back into the wall of the Demon King’s blood.

But in the next moment, Eleanora’s upper half reappeared from a pool of blood at Ravovifard’s feet.

“Can you stop mocking Vandalieu-sama?” she said, swinging her sword, cutting into Ravovifard’s shin.

And as Ravovifard tried to stomp on her in retaliation, she disappeared once more into the blood.

“Where, no, how are you able to enter and exit blood?! I have never heard of such an ability, even in Vampires… Could it be that this is the Demon King’s blood that has broken off and returned to liquid form?! The same ability that the monster used to store - GUOAH?!”

The horns of Pete, who had appeared from the side, sunk deep into the astounded Ravovifard’s side.

Fragments of the Demon King’s blood and carapace were scattered all around Ravovifard. Eleanora and Pete were moving in and out of them using Vandalieu’s Group Binding Technique Skill, conducting a series of hit-and-run attacks.

“If we do not defeat him quickly, everyone’s bodies will not last! Thus, I shall join the battle!” Gizania declared.

“I shall step forth!” said Myuze.

“I prefer that, too!” said Basdia.

“UOOOOOOH!” Vigaro roared.

Gizania and Myuze hadn’t been able to participate in the battle directly until now due to their lack of strength, but now they joined Basdia and Vigaro in jumping into the puddles of blood one by one.

Surrounded by enemies not only in 360 degrees around him but from above and below as well, Ravovifard screamed as enormous swords, sickles and an axe cut deep into him, all over his body.

As he tried to counter-attack, he was entangled by the threads of Princess Kurnelia, who was participating in the battle secretly, and the limbs of Eisen. The moment he needed to cut himself free of them caused him to miss his chance to attack, and then Budarion and Borkus, who had recovered from their injuries by drinking Blood Potion away from the battle, attacked him once more.

And the recovered Princess Levia, Orbia and Kimberley sent a storm of fire, ice and lightning raining down on Ravovifard as well.

Due to the power leaking from the Demon King’s scent glands and luminescent organs, everyone had been strengthened, surpassing their bodily limits. Each time they swung their weapons, their bones creaked and their muscle fibers were torn with loud noises.

“Soothing Light! You cannot rampage to your heart’s content!” shouted Zadiris.

“Uwah! Darling’s arm has been torn again!” cried Princess Kurnelia. “Healing Wind!”

“If I knew this was going to happen, I would have studied magic more diligently!” said Princess Lulu.

The three of them were supporting the others as well as they could with healing magic. Even Prince Zorgo, who was still a very young High Goblin, was contributing to the battle by distributing Blood Potion to those who had fallen back, unable to be healed in time.

Trying to do something about the situation, Ravovifard was blowing away the puddles of blood at his feet with shockwaves and trying to get away from the wall made of the Demon King’s blood. But each time he did, he was blocked by the Blood Slime Kühl, who was spraying the Demon King’s blood stored inside him all over the area.

“UOOOOH! DON’T SWARM ME, YOU SMALL FRYYYYY!” Ravovifard bellowed.

As he was exposed to an overwhelming number of attacks the likes of which he had never experienced before, he felt tormented by a maddening sense of irritation, anger and humiliation.

Normally, nobody would possess more power than Ravovifard, not even the Rank 11 Borkus and Budarion. There was such a difference in strength that if Ravovifard were to fight any of them one-on-one, they might put up a good fight, but they would never defeat him.

But due to his enemies’ physical abilities and fighting instincts that had been pushed past their limits by Ravovifard himself, their weapons made from the Demon King’s fragments, their unnaturally vast quantity of Mana and the hit-and-run tactics of refusing to face him head-on, he had been cornered into a situation where he couldn’t land a single blow back.

Up until now, Ravovifard had always started battles with large numbers of monsters under his command. He had never imagined that he would be the one to experience a large quantity of violence like this.

Back when they were a part of the Demon King’s army, the evil gods had always created large numbers of monsters to use as frontline soldiers, inflicting violence upon their enemies. Ravovifard hadn’t changed his combat strategies since then; he had no experience in fighting against multiple enemies on his own.

“GAAAAAAH!”

Unable to concentrate, Ravovifard was distracted by new attacks and unable to focus on a single target.

He was like a wounded beast. Since that was the case, it was easy for Borkus, Vigaro and Eleanora, who regularly hunted powerful monsters, to make sport of him.

But Blood Potion and the healing magic of Zadiris and the others were not unlimited in supply. This was a contest of who would collapse first - Budarion and his allies, or Ravovifard… or at least, that was what he thought.

Clear air gently filled his surroundings.

“GAH?!” Borkus shouted.

“Uooh… what was I… ugh,” Budarion groaned.

“My strength is… fading…” Eleanora mumbled.

Reasoning returned to the eyes of these three. They felt an intense sense of fatigue and stopped moving.

As Undead, neither Borkus nor Princess Levia and the rest of the Ghosts felt physical fatigue, but their mental fatigue was tremendous. Borkus fell to his knees, while the Ghosts flickered and vanished.

And Ravovifard was unable to take advantage of this opportunity.

What is this? My fragments went against my will and continued to stay active, so what happened?! And what is this presence and this incomprehensible sense of exhilaration?!

These events unfolded before Ravovifard as he stood where he was.

“That took a lot of effort… since the fragments were noisy and activated on their own, and they were difficult to control…” Vandalieu, who was supposed to have been immobilized by the blood, horns and carapace, stood up. “It seems that the effects of the Demon King’s luminescent organs were halved because they became stained with blood. As for the scent glands, I knew that their effects would be removed if I erased your scent with the death-attribute spell Deodorization, but it was difficult casting spells while keeping the rampaging fragments under control and providing everyone with Mana, and on top of that, as expected of a scent produced by the Demon King’s scent glands, it wasn’t easy to erase.”

Vandalieu’s appearance was bizarre. He was a roughly person-shaped object made of the Demon King’s blood, which was in a jelly-like form and pulsing ominously, as well as carapace, horns and suction cups that had appeared haphazardly all over it. And Vandalieu’s face, the only part of him that was exposed, was where this bizarre person-shaped object’s chest should have been.

Vandalieu was speaking in a calm, quiet, matter-of-fact tone. But even now, there was a harsh, grinding noise coming from inside his body as the Demon King’s fragments raged inside him, trying to appear once more.

Perceiving this as a pleasant sensation, Vandalieu spoke to Ravovifard. “How dare you… You’ve gone and done a lot, haven’t you?”

“… What… did you say…?” Ravovifard asked incredulously.

Wasn’t Ravovifard the one who’d had all kinds of things done to him? But Vandalieu’s view on things was very different.

『The Levels of the Demon King Fusion, Grotesque Mind, Status Effect Resistance, Multi-Cast, Long-distance Control, Parallel Thought Processing and High-speed Thought Processing Skills have increased!』

“I thought I was going crazy. Seeing everyone getting torn apart while I was unable to move my body as I wanted, unable to cast spells, forced to devote all of my concentration to controlling the fragments. Do you understand how powerless I felt?” Vandalieu asked.

The moment the Demon King’s scent glands and luminescent organs activated, the fragments in Vandalieu’s possession had started making an uproar.

“Release our anger! Release our hatred! Release our destruction! Destroy those who undeservingly hold some of us in their possession and release us!”

With those words, the fragments had impulsively tried to destroy Ravovifard, along with the surrounding area… Vandalieu had supported Budarion and Borkus during the battle while controlling the fragments within him. If he hadn’t done this, the damage inflicted to the Noble Orc empire and most importantly, his companions, would have been enormous.

Vandalieu had seen Ravovifard being attacked one-sidedly during that time, but that wasn’t significant enough for him to take into account. He didn’t care about the circumstances of someone who had cornered him into an unfavorable situation.

The problem was that everyone had been damaging their own bodies in their frenzy.

“But with this, I’ve finally managed to make everyone calm down. Borkus, Eleanora, everyone, I’ll take care of things from here, so please rest,” said Vandalieu.

As he walked forward with unnatural-looking movements, Eleanora hastily stopped him.

“Wait, Vandalieu-sama!”

Vandalieu’s Mana was tremendous, but his other Attribute Values were barely within reach of a B-class adventurer’s, and his combat-related Skills were of about that level as well. Even though Ravovifard was incomplete and had become weakened, he was still an evil god who had incarnated himself in this world, and Vandalieu would be no match for him. Even Borkus and Budarion would not be able to defeat him head-on.

Even though Vandalieu possessed the Demon King’s fragments, they were meaningless if their attacks did not land.

That was why Eleanora and Budarion tried to stop him.

“Vandalieu-sama, it’s impossible to fight alone!”

“Holy-Son-dono, I can still fight!”

But Basdia and Princess Kurnelia held them back.

“Eleanora, leave this to Van.”

“Wait, Darling.”

That’s right, what do I have to fear!

Ravovifard returned to his senses, realizing that Vandalieu was an enemy that could never defeat him if they fought head-on.

I can win! Ravovifard thought with certainty as he charged towards Vandalieu, who resembled a living mass of the Demon King’s fragments.

Like a charging rhinoceros, he moved to crush Vandalieu’s unprotected head.

Perhaps Vandalieu had withdrawn the Demon King’s fragments scattered around; the ground was bare, clear of the Demon King’s blood and ink. Thus, it was impossible for Borkus and Budarion to utilize Group Binding Technique to act as his shield.

To Vandalieu, Ravovifard’s speed would have appeared to be like teleportation.

“To expose your weakness and leave it unprotected, your overconfidence will be your downfall!” Ravovifard shouted.

The Demon King’s carapace and horns were unable to keep up with him; they showed no reaction at all. Vandalieu’s head was crushed easily, not even giving off a squishy sensation or noise.

“VANDALIEU-SAMA!”

“BUOOOH!”

Eleanora and Budarion let out sorrowful screams. Ravovifard sneered with his fangs exposed, feeling his anger turn into joy.

In his mind, he could clearly picture himself being worshipped as the chief god in the southern region of the continent… no, in the entire world of Lambda.

“FUHAHAHAHA! I’VE WO - GOBOBOH?!”

Ravovifard’s fist, which had crushed Vandalieu’s head, sank into the person-shaped mass of the Demon King’s fragments. It offered no resistance, as if it were made of water, and didn’t stop at Ravovifard’s upper arm; his shoulder and head were engulfed as well.

“PUHAH?!” Ravovifard was astounded by what he saw as his arm and head emerged on the other side of the mass.

“Hey,” said Vandalieu, who was floating in the air using Flight with a composed look on his face.

“I-impossible! I crushed your head! It wasn’t an illusion; I definitely crushed it!” Ravovifard shouted, astonished, with still only his arm and head protruding from the person-shaped mass’s back.

“Yes, that’s right,” Vandalieu said in a carefree tone. “Though it was the head of a clone I made using Out-of-body Experience and materialized with Materialization to use as a decoy.”

The truth was that Vandalieu’s head that had been protruding from the fragment mass’s chest was that of a clone, and crushing it had only caused pain rather than a fatal injury.

The real Vandalieu had been floating behind it the whole time, where neither Ravovifard nor Eleanora and the others could see him.

“A decoy, you say?!” Ravovifard was astounded as he realized that he had been played for a fool. He immediately became enraged and tried to extend his arm towards Vandalieu in anger, but realized that he couldn’t do that and felt astounded once more. “My arm, my body won’t move?!”

Just a few seconds ago, the person-shaped mass of the Demon King’s fragments had provided no resistance, as if it were made of liquid, but it had rapidly increased in viscosity and stopped the movements of Ravovifard, even though he possessed physical strength equivalent to an Elder Dragon’s.

Not only that, but the Demon King’s horns extended towards the inside of the mass, impaling Ravovifard who was trapped inside.

“GUOAAAAAAAAH!” Ravovifard let out a scream that shook the very air as blood poured from his mouth, his entire body impaled by the Demon King’s horns that possessed the effects of the God Slayer, Soul Break and Hostility Skills.

Eleanora sank onto the ground. “Basdia, you knew, didn’t you?!” she said.

“Rather than knowing, I could see the real Van from here. But I couldn’t just explain things to you, right?” Basdia replied.

“That’s true, but… Well, it’s fine. I’ll have Vandalieu-sama comfort me later.”

“And Darling will be comforted by his wife~?” said Princess Kurnelia.

“No, Princess, the battle is still ongoing,” said Budarion.

This conversation made it sound like the battle was already over, but Ravovifard didn’t have the time to pay attention to it. In addition to the Demon King’s horns, the Demon King’s carapace was trying to crush his limbs and the Demon King’s blood had started crawling up the arm and across the head that he was still able to move.

He opened his mouth to let out a roar and release a shockwave, his only remaining method of attack, but he was showered with a rain of Mana Bullets, Death Bullets and the Demon King’s horns unleashed by Vandalieu.

With a wind-hole opened from his mouth to the back of his brainstem, Ravovifard let out a scream rather than a roar.

“There’s no way you could make a counterattack while your head is exposed so defenselessly, is there?” said Vandalieu. “Ah, have this while you’re at it.”

As if as an afterthought, he threw a coagulated lump of the Demon King’s blood that had turned into poison with the Deadly Poison spell, and it landed directly in one of Ravovifard’s eyes.

The evil god let out more screams that had gradually begun to sound like dying screams.

“You fell for a stupid trap, but I think that’s understandable,” Vandalieu told him. “You were being pushed by the voices in your head, weren’t you?”

Though he was tormented by intense pain, Ravovifard listened to Vandalieu’s words and became aware of voices other than his own inside his own consciousness.

“Release us! Set us free! Release us from this false host! Fall, and release us to our true body!”

These are the voices of the Demon King’s scent glands and luminescent organs?! The sense of exhilaration, the joy, they were not mine but the emotions of these fragments! I mistakenly thought that I was controlling them, but they were really manipulating me?! Then the monster whose mind is preserved even though he possesses even more fragments than me, the one that the fragments refer to as their ‘true body’…!

Ravovifard looked at Vandalieu with the eyes of a living prey in the jaws of its predator.

Ravovifard saw in Vandalieu something in common with someone he had sworn obedience to in the past, a being that he could not defy under any circumstances.

“Demon-King-sa -” he whispered. “GOBYUH?!”

But his words were cut short as his head was pulverized by a bowling-ball-sized mass of the Demon King’s carapace fired by a gun barrel that Vandalieu had created from the Demon King’s frozen blood.

At the same time, the fragments’ loud voices faded from within Ravovifard. The Demon King’s scent glands and luminescent organs had been removed.

And in the next moment, life vanished from Ravovifard’s body.

“Ah, Prince Budarion. Please finish off this extremely rude person,” said Vandalieu.

“Eh? Is it all right for me to do that?” asked the bewildered Prince Budarion.

“He was Bugitas to begin with, and at this rate, I won’t gain any Experience Points,” said Vandalieu’s spirit form clone, who fused with Budarion to give him the effects of Soul Break, God Slayer and Hostility.

“Thank you… Farewell, Bugitas. My brother,” Budarion said in a fatigued but firm voice as he thrust out his magic sword.

Its tip pierced the head of Ravovifard, which still just barely had traces of its appearance from when he was Bugitas.

That was the final blow, and Ravovifard stopped moving completely.

The person-shaped mass of the Demon King’s fragments dissolved and returned to Vandalieu.

『You have acquired the Demon King’s scent glands and the Demon King’s luminescent organs!』

『The Levels of the God Slayer, Demon King Fusion, Superhuman Strength, Enhanced Agility, No-Attribute Magic, Mana Control, Spirit Form, Unarmed Fighting Technique, Materialization, Coordination, Commanding, Throwing, Artillery Technique, Armor Technique, Shield Technique and Group Binding Technique Skills have increased!』

『Death-Attribute Magic has awakened into Dark King Magic!』

As expected, it seemed that the amount of Experience Points gained by defeating an evil god was vast; Vandalieu’s Skills and Levels increased greatly and Death-Attribute Magic had awakened into what was likely a superior Skill, Dark King Magic.

The Corpse Demon Commander Job had likely reached Level 100 as well.

“We have been released! We are you! You are us!”

“You’re too loud,” Vandalieu said, slapping his forehead, and the voices of the fragments quietened down.

And so the throne usurpation incident in the Noble Orc empire was resolved.

But in a certain Divine Realm, the battle was not over yet.

Because although Ravovifard had performed some work on Bugitas’s body, his power had increased and he could not descend onto Bugitas with all of it, so Ravovifard’s main body still remained in his Divine Realm.

But though Ravovifard remained, he was in such a pitiful state that there was no other way of describing him other than as having barely survived.

He hadn’t managed to send his entire being into Bugitas, but important parts of him, including his personality, had been in the part that did descend. Thus, with that having been destroyed, Ravovifard was now in a position from which he could not recover.

But as rotten as he was, he was a god. If he were to continue on in this state, he would have been able to make a recovery over a long period of time, but… now that he was in this state, there was no way that the gods of the southern region of the continent, whose movements Ravovifard had been preventing up until now, would leave him be.

“We shall take you apart in a way that it will be impossible to recover, and seal you away for all eternity!”

“Sleep in your eternal nightmare!”

Mububujenge, Zozogante and the gods of the other cities like Zanalpadna tore Ravovifard to pieces and sealed him away.