Episode 301: The Decoy Strategy (2)
The Covenant members stared at Damian Haxen with trembling eyes.
They already knew Damian Haxen was powerful. After all, he had single-handedly taken down Slar, one of the pillars of Pandemonium.
They thought they had prepared themselves to face him. But…
The reality of Damian Haxen’s strength far exceeded their expectations.
“Why is no one answering me?”
Damian asked again, his voice calm yet commanding. The Covenant members flinched involuntarily.
“If you won’t answer, there’s no reason to let you live.”
Slowly, Damian drew his sword. The chilling sound of the blade scraping against the scabbard echoed ominously.
That was when the Covenant members snapped back to their senses, immediately summoning all their dark magic.
“Damian Haxen! How dare you underestimate us!”
“For Lord Dorgo, we’ll kill you right here!”
They knew that holding back would mean their deaths. They had to give it their all from the start.
Almost simultaneously, all the Covenant members launched their attacks on Damian.
Various deadly assaults erupted from their modified bodies, each one potentially lethal.
Just before the attacks could reach him, Damian murmured softly.
“Second Wheel.”
In an instant, Damian’s aura surged, overwhelming the Covenant members.
His longsword accelerated, moving so fast it seemed to multiply into dozens.
The blade grazed past the Covenant members, slicing through them with precision.
They halted mid-attack, their bodies trembling uncontrollably.
Click.
Damian sheathed his sword. Only then did blood erupt from the Covenant members’ bodies.
Joints and tendons were severed, vital organs were shredded, and most decisively, their necks were completely severed.
Heads rolled to the ground, followed by their lifeless bodies collapsing.
Not a single Covenant member survived. They were all reduced to corpses.
”…”
”…”
The elves standing behind watched Damian in shock.
The Covenant members were feared as the nightmares of spirit summoners.
Yet, they had been wiped out in the blink of an eye, unable to even react.
In that moment, the elves understood why the Empire’s greatest swordsman trusted Damian.
“Let’s move.”
Damian turned to the elves, who nodded silently.
“Ugh, ugh…”
In a dimly lit room.
Dorgo sat at his desk, clutching his head.
“It hurts… feels like my head’s going to explode…”
Lately, Dorgo had been plagued by relentless headaches.
No amount of medicine or dark magic could alleviate the pain. The headaches clung to him like a curse.
-What are you doing? Why are you just sitting there? Kill him! You have to kill him! If he’s around, everything will fail!
As the pain intensified, a mysterious voice echoed in his mind, amplifying the headache.
-You fool! Why can’t you remember the most important thing? What’s the use of having eyes if you can’t see the greatest danger?
Dorgo gripped his head with both hands.
“Aagh… Aaaagh! Gah!”
Today, the headache was worse than ever. Unable to endure the excruciating pain, Dorgo banged his head against the desk.
Just then, a knock sounded, and a large figure entered. It was Epsilon, the eldest of the four demon lords.
“Mother, an intruder has entered.”
At Epsilon’s report, Dorgo lifted his head.
“An intruder? Has the Empire’s greatest swordsman finally found us?”
Despite the news of an intruder, Dorgo was elated.
“All that effort to leak information paid off! Finally, I’ve lured him out of the castle! It’s all coming together!”
Epsilon shook his head.
“No, it’s Damian Haxen.”
“Damian Haxen? What about the Empire’s greatest swordsman?”
“I was about to explain that.”
Epsilon approached a large mirror in the laboratory.
As he channeled magic into the mirror, it displayed a different scene.
There, the Empire’s greatest swordsman was battling Hella Fallen and the Lord of Flames.
Dorgo watched the scene and muttered.
“A decoy strategy. The Empire’s greatest swordsman is the bait, while Damian Haxen attacks here.”
Dorgo chuckled, his shoulders shaking with amusement.
“Fools. They still haven’t figured out my true objective.”
The fall of Elfheim was merely a secondary goal. Dorgo’s real aim was to kill the Empire’s greatest swordsman.
He believed the danger his headaches warned of was the Empire’s greatest swordsman.
After all, there was no knight on the continent more formidable than him.
If he could just eliminate the Empire’s greatest swordsman, he could rid himself of these accursed headaches.
“Though my preparations have become useless… it doesn’t matter. That monstrous man is out in the open now.”
The thought of killing the Empire’s greatest swordsman filled him with exhilaration. Dorgo smiled brightly.
“Let’s go claim the life of the Empire’s greatest swordsman.”
Dorgo rose from his chair, grabbing his staff as he moved.
“But first, I need to deal with Damian Haxen. Inform the others to take care of him.”
Yet, there was no response.
Epsilon, the most loyal among the demon lords, left Dorgo puzzled.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s a problem. Damian Haxen is approaching too quickly.”
“What do you mean? The Covenant members are guarding this place, aren’t they?”
The Covenant members were warriors Dorgo had personally selected.
He had recognized their potential early on and invested heavily in them from a young age.
By enhancing them, he had made them even stronger.
Two Covenant members could kill a great evil, and five could challenge the pillars of Pandemonium.
They had proven their worth by killing a spirit summoner who commanded the Fire Spirit King.
“The Covenant members didn’t last a single round. They’re all dead.”
Dorgo looked at Epsilon in disbelief.
”…The Covenant members couldn’t hold out even for a moment?”
“That’s correct.”
Had anyone else said this, Dorgo would have dismissed it as nonsense.
But Epsilon wasn’t one to lie, unlike the other demon lords.
“Currently, Damian Haxen’s strength is immeasurable. While we could kill him if we reveal our true forms, it would cause significant trouble…”
The issue was that time was of the essence.
“If Damian Haxen is stronger than we anticipated, the battle could drag on. We might lose the Empire’s greatest swordsman.”
Gritting his teeth, Dorgo felt the headache intensify once more.
“Damian Haxen… this wretched brat… always getting in my way?”
Dorgo’s face twisted with anger.
Damian Haxen had always been a thorn in his side, disrupting and ruining his plans.
Initially, Dorgo had considered using him as undead material, but now he was nothing but a source of hatred.
“Mother, what will you do?”
Epsilon asked calmly.
Dorgo chewed on his bony thumb, deep in thought, before making a decision.
”…Forget Damian Haxen. Activate the magic circle and head to where the Empire’s greatest swordsman is.”
“Understood. I’ll prepare immediately.”
“But it’s a shame to let Damian Haxen go just like that.”
A peculiar smile appeared on Dorgo’s lips.
“Prepare to activate the trap. It was made for the Empire’s greatest swordsman, so it should work on him too.”
Elfheim was under a grave misconception.
They had indeed discovered Pandemonium’s base.
But what awaited them here was not victory. Only a gruesome death.
“Damian Haxen, I’ll show you true despair.”
With a sinister laugh, Dorgo left the laboratory.
Damian descended into the depths with the elves.
The cave spread out like an anthill around a large central hole.
-Screeech!
-Roar!
Undead creatures emerged to block their path, but it was futile.
“Annoying pests.”
With a single swing of his sword, Damian reduced them all to lifeless corpses.
“Shouldn’t we be doing something? Damian should conserve his strength, right?”
Mata asked Hata, who looked troubled.
“You’re right, but… it’s not the right time to say anything.”
Though Damian’s face was expressionless, the elves could sense it instinctively.
Damian was deeply enraged.
Even as allies, they found it hard to approach him, so intense was the aura of menace he exuded.
“And it doesn’t seem like he’s wasting any energy.”
To the two elves, Damian’s movements were precise and controlled.
Yet they were devastating. No matter how many undead there were, he dispatched them with a single stroke.
“Huh?”
Just then, Damian made an odd sound.
“We’ve reached the bottom. Prepare yourselves.”
At those words, Mata and Hata fell silent, their idle chatter abruptly cut off. The other elves, too, sharpened their senses, alert to the change in atmosphere.
As Damian stepped out of the cave, a vast expanse unfolded before him.
There was no ceiling above—only the open sky. At last, they had reached the bottom of the chasm.
Etched into the ground was an enormous magic circle, identical to the one he had seen at the Pandemonium fortress.
But Damian had no time to dwell on the magic circle.
In the distance, a dimensional gate stood open.
Beyond the gate, the Four Demon Lords were visible. Yet Damian’s attention was fixed on something else entirely.
A small figure, draped in a gray robe, stood there.
The moment Damian laid eyes on that gray robe, he shouted.
“Dorgo!”
The figure in the gray robe turned to face Damian.
From within the skull, a pair of glowing red eyes locked onto him.