AN: BIG 200 CHAPTERS IN THE BUILDING!!! ✌️😭. It's been such a journey for this novel. Many ups and downs, but I'm happy to have made it to this point.
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The rocky terrain of the Jistav valley trembled under the synchronized, rhythmic march of thirty thousand armored monsters. Orcs, goblins, lizardmen, and high-tier magical beasts. All heavily modified and armed through the late Demon Lord Clayman's vast military industrial complex flooded the canyon like a dark, unstoppable tide. At the front of this massive assembly stood the vanguard captains, their faces twisted into expressions of unadulterated rage and bloodlust.
As the dense dust clouds began to settle, a lone figure descended calmly from the high stone ridges, stepping directly onto the cracked earth of the valley floor.
Loki stood entirely alone, his hands loosely tucked into the pockets of his dark traveling cloak. His expression was a masterclass of pure, unbothered serenity as he looked upon the massive wall of shields and spears arrayed against him.
Instantly, a chorus of deep, echoing roars erupted from the vanguard lines.
"Look at him! It's the cowardly pretender!" an orc captain bellowed, raising a massive, jagged battleaxe toward the sky. "You think you can just step into the Puppet Nation and claim our lands after what you did?! You snuck around like a rat! You used cheap tricks and illusions to murder Lord Clayman at Walpurgis!"
"We will bathe this canyon in your blood!" a lizardman warlord shrieked, his tail slamming violently against the stone. "We will avenge the honor of our master! Tear him to absolute pieces!"
The massive army echoed the sentiment, their unified war cries creating a deafening, localized shockwave that caused the loose gravel across the valley floor to vibrate violently. They glared at the young Demon Lord with absolute, blinding hostility, completely convinced by Yuuki's fabricated narrative that the boy before them was a fragile intellectual who lacked any real, individual martial capability.
Loki didn't flinch. He didn't even take his hands out of his pockets. Instead, he let out a soft, pitying sigh, tilting his head slightly as his golden eyes scanned the massive, undulating sea of thirty thousand troops.
"You know... it's genuinely tragic how easily you guys were manipulated into committing collective suicide," Loki spoke, his voice completely calm, yet it somehow resonated perfectly over the roaring din of the entire army. "Avenging Clayman's honor? That guy didn't even value your lives enough to remember your names. And as for fighting me..."
Loki's eyes turned incredibly cold, a small, dangerously amused smile playing on his lips.
"You are simply too weak. Every single one of you. You are completely irrelevant to the grand scheme of things."
"Kill him!" the vanguard captains screamed in absolute fury, their logic entirely consumed by the insult. "Charge! Leave absolutely nothing left of him!"
With a unified, terrifying roar that shook the very foundations of the canyon, thirty thousand heavily armored monsters surged forward simultaneously, transforming the valley into a roaring avalanche of steel, claws, and raw, chaotic magic.
A few hundred meters away, deep within the primary command sanctuary of the Jistav military tent, Mjurran stood paralyzed as she watched the magical scrying crystal project the terrifying unfolding madness. Her hands clutched the edge of the wooden command table so tightly that the reinforced oak began to splinter under her fingernails.
"Damn it!" Mjurran cursed, her voice cracking with an intense mixture of panic and moral desperation. "Those absolute idiots! They are blindly rushing toward an absolute, cataclysmic execution!"
She knew the truth. She had perceived the brief, terrifying display of Loki's magicule density when he effortlessly vaporized Yamza. This wasn't going to be a battle; it was going to be an unmitigated slaughterhouse. Even though she harbored an intense, lifelong hatred for Clayman, she couldn't stand by and watch thirty thousand lower-ranked monster soldiers who were entirely ignorant of the global political script and simply following orders, get completely wiped off the face of the earth.
"I have to go stop them right now!" Mjurran shouted, spinning on her heel and frantically dashing toward the exit of the command tent, her wizard robes whipping wildly behind her.
But before her boots could even clear the threshold of the tent, the world outside fell completely, utterly silent.
Back on the battlefield, Loki stood perfectly stationary as the vanguard of the army reached a mere fifty paces from his position. The front lines were so close he could see the saliva flying from the orcs' fangs.
Loki slowly withdrew his right hand from his pocket, raising two fingers toward the gray sky.
"Malevolent Shrine," Loki whispered softly.
There were no flashy explosions. There were no dramatic screams of agony. There was only a quiet, rhythmic, and utterly terrifying sound of millions of invisible, microscopic blades slicing through the air simultaneously.
In the span of a single microsecond, the thirty thousand armored monsters charging forward simply... stopped. Their forward momentum completely froze. Then, like a line of dominoes constructed from fine sand, their armor, weapons, flesh, and bones cleanly separated into millions of uniform, perfectly geometric cubes.
Splush.
A colossal, silent crimson wave erupted across the valley floor as the entire thirty thousand-strong army collapsed simultaneously, disintegrating into a vast, silent sea of residual magicules and severed material. The grand army of Jistav was entirely erased from existence in a literal heartbeat.
Mjurran, who had just managed to sprint out onto the edge of the command overlook, froze entirely. Her eyes widened into massive, glassy circles of pure, unadulterated horror. Her breath hitched completely in her throat, her mind entirely shutting down as she stared at the empty, crimson-soaked canyon where an army had stood a mere second ago. The sheer, incomprehensible scale of the instantaneous devastation shattered her sanity.
Before Mjurran's brain could even process the visual data, a sudden, violent distortion of space-time rippled directly in front of her face.
Flash.
Loki materialized instantaneously a mere single inch away from her, his golden eyes locking onto hers with an intense, playful brightness.
"Gah!" Mjurran shrieked out of sheer, raw, terrified survival reflex.
Without thinking, she forcefully thrust her hands forward, channeling every ounce of her remaining magical pool into a high-density, close-range burst of wind and earth destruction magic designed to blow an opponent to pieces.
Loki didn't even blink. He casually raised his left hand, performing a loose, lazy backhand flick through the air. The sheer kinetic and magical pressure behind his casual movement completely deflected her high-tier spell, scattering the concentrated destructive energy harmlessly into the sky like a handful of harmless sparks.
Mjurran gasped, frantically stepping backward as she began to rapidly chant a secondary defensive barrier spell, but her speed was completely meaningless.
Loki blitzed her instantly. To Mjurran's senses, he simply vanished from reality, reappearing behind her before her eyes could register a micro-movement. His hand snapped out like a striking viper, his fingers clamping firmly and unyieldingly around her throat, pinning her physical body against the stone pillar of the command tent framework.
"Ack...!" Mjurran choked out, her legs dangling helplessly off the ground as she clutched at his iron grip, her vision blurring from the sudden lack of oxygen.
Loki looked up at her, his expression carrying a mix of cold curiosity and mild amusement. "You know, Mjurran, I'm genuinely curious. Why exactly are you fighting so hard to defend the honor and legacy of a pathetic piece of trash like Clayman? From what I understand of the script, that guy treated you like a literal slave, kept your physical heart in a box, and threatened your life daily. You should be throwing me a victory parade right about now."
Mjurran struggled against his grip, tears of pure frustration and physical strain welling in the corners of her eyes. She looked down at him, her voice a ragged, desperate whisper.
"I... I am not... defending him!" Mjurran gasped out, coughing violently. "I hated Clayman... with every fiber of my being! I am glad... he is entirely dead!"
Loki tilted his head, his grip loosening just enough to allow her to speak clearly. "Oh? Then why the dramatic rescue attempt?"
"Because... because that army... those thirty thousand soldiers below... they knew absolutely nothing!" Mjurran cried out, her voice filled with deep, emotional grief as she stared at the empty valley floor. "They aren't malicious monsters! They were just brainwashed, lower-ranked citizens who were forced into servitude by Clayman's curses and fear tactical parameters! They were entirely innocent, just following the only orders they had ever known! I wanted to protect them... but I failed... I couldn't save a single one..."
Loki stared at her for a long, quiet moment, observing the genuine, unselfish sorrow radiating from her soul. Then, a broad, incredibly casual smirk returned to his face. He loosely released his grip, allowing her to slide down the stone pillar until her boots hit the ground.
"Oh, is that all you're crying about?" Loki chuckled, waving his hand dismissively as he tucked it back into his cloak pocket. "Don't sweat it, Mjurran. You can relax. Gathering up thirty thousand fragmented souls and performing a mass-scale resurrection ritual is literal child's play for an entity of my caliber. I'll patch them up later when I have some free time."
Mjurran collapsed onto her knees, gasping for air as her jaw completely dropped. She stared up at him as if he were an absolute lunatic. 'Mass-scale resurrection?! Child's play?! Is he genuinely claiming he can reverse a total spatial erasure of that magnitude on a whim?!'
Before Mjurran could even attempt to internalize the absurd declaration, a sudden, blinding pillar of pure, radiant golden light violently erupted from the interior chambers of the primary command tent behind them.
"Be gone, you unholy, blasphemous demon!" a grand, booming voice echoed from the shadows.
A massive, highly concentrated vanguard spell of Holy Ray shot out from the darkness with terrifying velocity, striking Loki squarely in the center of his back. The absolute impact of the holy element generated a massive, deafening explosion that completely vaporized the rear fabric of the command tent, kicking up a towering cloud of white dust and pulverized stone.
Mjurran shielded her face from the violent gale-force winds, her heart pounding against her ribs.
When the dense dust cloud slowly dissipated, Loki was still standing in the exact same spot. He hadn't moved a single millimeter. His traveling cloak wasn't singed, his hair wasn't out of place, and there was absolutely zero physical damage or magical strain visible across his frame. He casually turned his head around, looking over his shoulder with a look of supreme, unadulterated boredom.
Stepping out from the ruins of the shattered inner chamber was Adalman. The Wight King stood tall, his tattered crimson and white cardinal robes billowing around his skeletal frame. The hollow, empty sockets of his skull burned with a ferocious, fanatical purple magical fire, and he held a golden staff embossed with twisted, dark religious iconography.
"Incredible..." Adalman hissed, his jawbone clicking violently as he glared at Loki with absolute, unyielding hatred. "To tank a high-tier holy purification spell at point-blank range without a single shred of defensive barrier preparation... you truly are an entity of profound malice, Demon Lord Loki! But do not think your unholy strength will save you from the righteous judgment of Clayman's legacy!"
Loki turned his entire body around to face the skeletal archmage, his golden eyes narrowing slightly as a wave of deep, meta-analytical recognition flashed across his thoughts.
'Ah, right. Adalman,' Loki thought to himself, a slow, calculating smile spreading across his face. 'This is the version of him before he ever encounters Rimuru or Shuna. He's still entirely brainwashed into believing that Clayman is a literal saint who saved his soul from the corrupt clutches of the Holy Empire of Lubelius.'
Loki maintained his position, his analytical mind evaluating the strategic future variables. He possessed a perfect, blueprint-like knowledge of the global timeline. He knew with absolute certainty that in the future progression of this world, Adalman would eventually evolve into an absolute, world-shaking powerhouse. The terrifying Immortal King who would manage the deep, lethal defensive structures of the Subterranean Labyrinth as one of its premier floor guardians.
'Killing an asset of that caliber right now would be an absolute, monumental waste of high-tier talent,' Loki reasoned internally. 'I need to get him on my payroll.'
Loki took a slow, non-threatening step forward, extending a open hand toward the Wight King. "Listen to me, Adalman. I know your entire history. I know about your betrayal by the Church of Lubelius, and I know why you think Clayman is your savior. But the truth is, Clayman was simply utilizing your fanatical loyalty as a disposable magical battery to secure his own status. I'm giving you a unique, one-time alternative offer right now. Drop your staff, abandon his dead memory, and bring your talents under my banner. I can offer you a position of true, uninhibited magical research and absolute authority."
Adalman let out a loud, screeching laugh of pure, fanatical derision, raising his golden staff high into the air as his magical fires flared to their absolute peak limits.
"Silence, you silver-tongued demon!" Adalman roared, his voice echoing with absolute, unshakeable dogma. "I hear nothing of your foul, deceptive compromises! Lord Clayman provided a sanctuary for my undead followers when the entire human world cast us out into the void! My loyalty to his memory is absolute, eternal, and entirely unyielding! I will tear your soul apart or die trying!"
Without a single second of hesitation, Adalman aggressively unleashed the absolute maximum parameters of his high-tier magical arsenal.
"Necrotic Curse: Death Sentence!" Adalman shrieked, slamming the base of his staff against the stone floor.
A massive, swirling vortex of pitch-black, highly corrosive spiritual energy erupted from the ground beneath Loki's boots, transforming into thousands of spectral, screaming skeletal hands that tightly wrapped around his legs, attempting to violently rot his physical flesh and siphon his core magicules directly into the void.
Loki just stood there. He didn't even activate an intrinsic skill. His passive, multi-layered Demon Lord aura simply vaporized the necrotic hands the exact microsecond they made physical contact with his trousers, turning the deadly curse into harmless black soot.
"Holy Magic: Disintegration!" Adalman screamed, his fanatical devotion allowing him to bypass the natural restrictions of his undead status, manifesting a massive, blinding circle of geometric light directly above Loki's head. The ultimate spell of absolute atomic purification descended like a localized pillar of starlight, completely enveloping Loki's entire physical form in a cataclysmic flash of raw, white-hot energy.
The sheer intensity of the holy light melted the stone floor into bubbling magma, the heat turning the surrounding air into a suffocating vacuum. Mjurran screamed, covering her eyes as she was forcefully blown backward by the kinetic shockwave.
Adalman panted heavily, the magical fire in his skull dimming slightly from the sheer, immense magicule expenditure. "Haha... Ahaha! Witness the absolute power of pure purification, you arrogant—"
The white light faded.
Loki was still standing there, his hands comfortably resting inside his cloak pockets, looking entirely unmoved. The bubbling magma beneath his boots didn't even singe the soles of his shoes. He looked up at Adalman, lazily scratching his chin with a look of extreme, unadulterated boredom.
"Is that seriously the absolute best you can do?" Loki asked, his tone completely flat. "Because honestly, it felt like a lukewarm hair dryer."
"Impossible! Blasphemy!" Adalman shrieked, his fanatical composure completely shattering into pure, chaotic desperation. "Die! Die! Die!"
For the next five minutes, the command overlook became a literal theater of magical madness. Adalman completely threw away all tactical reservation, unleashing a relentless, non-stop barrage of ultimate-tier spells. Holy Rays, Necrotic Blasts, Corrosive Cloud Callings, and massive waves of elemental destruction magic rained down upon Loki's position like a relentless cosmic thunderstorm. The entire structural foundation of the command base was utterly obliterated, turned into a crater of pulverized dust and shattered rock.
Yet, through the entire world-shaking onslaught, Loki simply stood perfectly still, tanking every single cataclysmic spell without breaking a single micro-gram of sweat. Absolute zero damage. Not a single scratch on his skin, not a single thread out of place on his cloak. He looked like an immutable god standing amidst a flurry of harmless autumn leaves.
Finally, Adalman stumbled backward, his golden staff slipping from his bony fingers as he fell onto his knees, completely exhausted, his magicule reserves entirely depleted. The fires in his skull were reduced to tiny, flickering purple embers as he stared up at the boy with a look of profound, paralyzed existential dread.
Loki slowly walked out of the smoke, stopping directly in front of the kneeling Wight King. He looked down at the stubborn, fanatical skeleton, tilting his head as a small, darkly twisted smile slowly returned to his face.
'Yeah, it looks like standard diplomatic dialogue and logical reasoning are completely useless against this level of religious brainwashing,' Loki thought to himself, his fingers lightly twitching inside his pockets as his aura began to quietly rise.
"Well, Adalman... you've definitely proven your stubbornness," Loki murmured softly, his voice carrying a terrifying, playful undertone that caused even the ancient undead king to shiver. "But since I absolutely refuse to let a premium asset like you go to waste... maybe I should just beat the absolute loyalty right out of your bones."
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