Although abandoning Arudap would mean that—due to the demon contract—Maxwell might not receive the price the other party was supposed to pay, and that unilaterally breaking the contract could cause some backlash for him…
Compared to losing his life, Maxwell felt that kind of backlash was entirely acceptable.
Having grasped the nature of Maxwell's power, and realizing that unless Maxwell himself corrected the twisted reality, the only way to restore the memories of Axel's residents was to kill him outright, Ren Kuroda—after a prolonged stalemate—finally decided to unveil a portion of the strength he had been holding back.
"Forged by the sunwheel, protected by the heart—Sunwheel, Divine Protection!"
Unlike Half-Oni Transformation, the release of the blade spirit did not grant Ren an overwhelming increase in raw mana. However, the enhancements it provided in other aspects were in no way inferior.
In this state, Ren's five senses were pushed to their absolute limit. He became a swordsman refined to pure essence—a true greatsword master. His eyes glowed faintly blue, and with a single glance at Maxwell, he could clearly perceive weaknesses that had previously been invisible to him.
As for Maxwell, being stared at directly by those blue-lit eyes—eyes empowered by Weak Point Perception—he felt as though he were being gazed upon by a god or demon. A bone-chilling tremor ran through his entire body.
So his earlier suspicion had been right.
This young adventurer had been holding back even more power.
"Hear the howl of the divine wind—With the momentum of a shattered army, swift as the gale—As the Wind, Break the Vanguard!"
Howling gales converged into a single point. In the next instant, a wind blade like a charging army—accompanied by the clash of steel—roared straight toward Maxwell.
From the sheer power of the strike alone, Maxwell immediately realized something had changed. Ren's mana hadn't noticeably increased, yet something fundamental was different.
Ren had used this technique earlier in the fight—but its speed, power, and even visual impact now were on an entirely different level.
The massive wind blade was too fast and covered too wide an area to dodge. With no other choice, Maxwell once again invoked his law-defying ability—twisting reality itself to evade the attack.
But this reaction was completely within Ren's expectations.
Even Ren had no perfect counter to Maxwell's ability. However, through their prolonged battle, he had identified a critical flaw in what appeared to be an invincible power.
Aside from the heavy mana cost, Maxwell's reality distortion could not be used in rapid succession.
Or rather—it wasn't that it couldn't be chained, but that its activation depended on conscious intent.
Which meant the solution was simple.
Kill him before he had time to react.
The massive wind blade veered off course due to the distortion of reality and slammed into a nearby wall instead. The impact shook the entire underground chamber violently, causing large-scale collapses.
But before Maxwell could even catch his breath—
A dark figure appeared behind him.
A silver arc of light slashed down once more.
"So fast—! His speed jumped this much?!That huge attack earlier was just a feint—this is the real killing blow?!"
Maxwell sensed Ren behind him—but both his physical reactions and even his conscious thought lagged behind Ren's strike.
A spray of crimson blood scattered through the air.
Ren stared at Divine Protection in his hand, now stained with blood, then at the long slash carved into the ground. A hint of surprise flickered across his face.
Maxwell, meanwhile, had already retreated dozens of meters away. Clutching his back as searing pain burned through him, he looked at Ren with naked terror.
He didn't need to look to know—the wound on his back was deep enough to expose bone. If, at the very last instant, his consciousness hadn't reacted faster than his body and triggered his ability, he would have been cleaved clean in two.
"You're really something," Ren said calmly. "I thought I'd timed it perfectly and struck your most fatal weakness—but I still missed.
"But there won't be a second time. Now that you're injured, you won't be able to keep up with my speed. The next strike will kill you."
Watching Ren flick the blood from his blade and take up a combat stance once more, Maxwell truly panicked.
That strike had let him feel death at point-blank range. And he had no doubt Ren meant every word he'd just said.
Any lingering hesitation about the consequences of breaking the contract vanished.
Without a shred of delay, Maxwell opened the gates of Hell.
Compared to the minor backlash of a broken contract, his life was far more important. The man before him was a monster—one he couldn't afford to antagonize.
Maxwell even felt that Arudap had to be brain-dead to provoke such a calamity in the first place.
"Ren Kuroda, was it? I'll remember your name," Maxwell said quickly. "This battle is my loss. Arudap is yours to deal with.
"You defeated me by force, so as the victor, you naturally have the right to all spoils. As your reward, I will restore the twisted reality I created and return everything to its proper course."
His words sounded lofty and dignified—but his actions were anything but. Maxwell hastily widened the gate to Hell, and before Ren could make another move, he dove headfirst into the portal.
"Aqua! Do you have any way to get to Hell?" Ren shouted. "He talks big and then runs—he was about to lose, and he still acted like a winner!"
Ren immediately unleashed a ranged slash after him, but unsurprisingly, Maxwell distorted reality once more to avoid it.
By the time Ren launched himself forward at full speed, Maxwell had already vanished beyond the gates of Hell.
"I'm a goddess, you know. Of course I don't have a way to go to Hell," Aqua replied indignantly. "The Heavenly Realm and Hell are fundamentally opposed. If it were that easy to invade each other's headquarters, everything would be chaos.
"But wow, Ren—you were amazing! A demon duke of Hell is basically on par with a goddess, you know. And you beat him! Are you really just a normal human?"
Seeing that even Aqua had no way to pursue, Ren could only sigh helplessly and turn toward the utterly petrified Arudap.
"You can't kill me!" Arudap screamed. "I'm a noble of the kingdom—the lord of Axel! If you kill me, you'll be hunted by the entire nation!
"No matter how strong you are, you can't stand against the power of a country!Let's talk this out. I can give you endless wealth, beautiful women—if you serve me, I'll even grant you noble status!"
Because Maxwell had unilaterally terminated the contract, Arudap no longer had to pay its price and had narrowly clung to his miserable life.
As Ren approached him slowly, Arudap continued to flail desperately—threatening and tempting him in equal measure, trying to impress upon Ren how disastrous it would be to kill him.
When Arudap saw Ren calmly sheath his blade after hearing his words, fear melted into smug triumph.
"That's right. With your strength, as long as you obey me, you can quickly rise above the rabble and become a noble like me. I'm the lord of Axel—if you kill—"
Before he could finish, Ren extended a hand toward him.
A crimson sphere of magic bloomed—and in Arudap's disbelieving, terror-filled gaze, it swallowed him whole.
"I'm not killing you with my sword because Divine Protection said it didn't want to cut something this disgusting," Ren said coldly. "So I'm using Crimson Fire Cannon instead.
"I don't care what kind of noble you are. Even if you were the king himself—if you try to kill me, do you really think I'd let you keep living?"
Arudap never heard the end of that sentence.
Under the searing heat of the Crimson Fire Cannon, he was reduced to a pile of ashes.
"…Since he colluded with demons and deceived the people, we could've handed him over to a tribunal," Aqua said hesitantly, looking at what remained. "He probably wouldn't have escaped execution anyway.
"But if we executed a noble ourselves… won't we be punished the same way if this is discovered?"
Aqua felt no sympathy whatsoever—Arudap had worked with demons and brainwashed the citizens of Axel. He had more than earned his fate.
What worried her was whether two ordinary adventurers like them might run into trouble for privately executing a noble.
"I knocked out all the guards earlier. There's only the two of us here," Ren replied calmly. "Who's going to know I killed him?
"Unless you plan on secretly reporting me. But don't forget—we're accomplices now."
Ren glanced at Aqua meaningfully. With her chronic lack of money, he estimated the odds of her selling him out for a reward at nearly one hundred percent—so a preemptive warning was necessary.
"What? I didn't see anything," Aqua said immediately. "Wasn't this fat lord tricked by a demon and then killed by that demon in the end?
"We were just righteous passersby who tried to help. Even though we repelled the demon, we sadly couldn't save Lord Arudap."
Who said Aqua's intelligence was always in arrears?
At least in situations like this, her brain occasionally exceeded expectations. And that shameless excuse—Ren had to admit—was impressive even by his standards.