Volume One: The Devil's Nature Never Changes
Arc: The Great Guerrilla War
Outside, Scarlet King was pummeling the beast, each strike shattering its body with brutal, overwhelming force.
The beast sacrificed part of its temporary strength and channeled it into enhancing its regeneration, allowing it to regenerate within the same second and escape death.
Yet even with its regeneration speed drastically heightened, it still could not keep pace with Scarlet King's devastating onslaught.
Its regeneration could not save it.
Its body melted, disintegrated, and regenerated within the same second as waves of thermal energy erupted outward, melting the snow and gouging into the earth.
Lasers bored into the ground with tremendous force, while every cannon and the sword continued tearing the beast apart.
At that moment, one of the stone giants appeared behind Scarlet King.
It was a soldier.
It swung its sword at him.
But the blade struck Scarlet King's body and shattered into fragments, inflicting no physical harm whatsoever.
Scarlet King's neck snapped and twisted until his face turned toward the stone giant.
Rather than turning his body, he had broken his own neck.
The giant immediately tensed.
Scarlet King's lasers struck it and sliced it cleanly in half.
His neck twisted back into place as he continued beating the beast.
The fighting halted for several moments as everyone stared in shock at Scarlet King's overwhelming power—power that rivaled someone at the peak of the Path Initiation Realm.
Suddenly, a wave of aura erupted from Scarlet King and transformed the entire cosmic region.
It erased the laws of color.
Everything turned completely white, black lines outlining the borders of every body.
The aura spread across the entire universe and erased everything within one hundred and eleven meters of Scarlet King from existence.
Whether it was laws, existence itself, or anything capable of existing—
it was erased.
Even the Pallid Regenerative Beast let out one final scream before fading from existence.
It was the only one erased, as everyone else stood beyond the range of Scarlet King's erasure.
Colors returned to normal after the wave of aura withdrew into Scarlet King's body.
However, his body shut down and ceased to function.
He remained standing, but his body went limp. His upper body folded forward until his hands hung level with his feet.
Meanwhile, the one-hundred-and-eleven-meter area surrounding him had become a white void.
The general spoke:
"Interesting!! He managed to erase every layer of existence and reach the White Page! The very page from which the overarching Mortal Narrative is formed—the page that carries all the Mortal Dimensions!"
"This person deserves our attention. He should be made a slave of the Chaos Beings!"
One of the commanders seized the moment and charged toward Scarlet King, but chains suddenly erupted and restrained him.
It was Ikalat.
"You will not touch a single hair on his head as long as I am alive!"
He shouted toward Liu Zai Hang, who had just crushed two soldiers:
"Protect Scarlet King at any cost!!"
Liu moved, ignoring the commander and the other two soldiers, and positioned himself behind Scarlet King's motionless body.
He began deflecting every attack aimed at Scarlet King—whether an arrow fired from a bow, a scythe strike, or a sword hurtling toward his neck.
Liu Zai Hang parried them all with his two medium-length swords.
Ikalat, meanwhile, endured and blocked numerous attacks using his black chains.
They materialized before incoming strikes, intercepted them, then morphed into weapons and attacked on their own.
From the perspective of the unconscious Scarlet King, existence had turned a dark red, nearly brown.
Beneath him lay a scorching stone floor surrounded by countless shattered mountains, and he knelt there, a wound torn through his abdomen.
Scarlet King looked around and wondered:
(Is this Hell?)
A shadow suddenly appeared beside him.
When Scarlet King turned his head, he saw a man with long red hair, blazing orange eyes like molten lava, a faint red beard and mustache, and white draconic armor streaked with red.
His expression was cold and utterly indifferent.
Shock flickered across Scarlet King's face.
"The Western Red Dragon King, Antares!"
Antares smiled faintly and said:
"I am fire."
"I am death and destruction."
The Lord of Destruction and Chaos turned and looked toward the army of enormous dragons behind him.
It consisted of thousands of dragons possessing insane levels of power and cultivation realms that could not even be compared to those found within the Worldly Dimensions.
He raised his arm.
The dragons unleashed their fiery breaths, scorching the land even more than it had already been burned.
"Burn the Earth Tree to the ground and incinerate all that divides and distinguishes. Let chaos and destruction devour the world. Let the world be purified through destruction and chaos!"
He then turned and looked at Scarlet King.
"It is an honor to meet you, Devil of Rebirth. Accept this gift in celebration of our first meeting."
Antares opened his mouth.
A red sphere with an orange core began gathering within it, and inside that core was another purple core.
It was the Great Breath of Chaos Destruction—
an attack capable of erasing anything.
As Antares prepared the destructive breath, he spoke:
"Chaos and destruction endlessly devour life and ideas. Yet life emerges from chaos, for existence itself is born from the Primordial Chaos. Is that not beautiful? What do you think?"
The breath shot toward Scarlet King.
The beam engulfed his face with overwhelming force and surged forward to erase him.
As the Great Breath of Chaos Destruction swallowed his image within the vision, his consciousness trembled—
and his external body suddenly exploded back into motion.
Outside, the battle raged with ferocious intensity.
Everyone fought one another chaotically, with no central focus to the conflict.
It was living chaos.
Suddenly, everyone stopped attacking Ikalat and charged toward Liu Zai Hang.
Liu was shocked as they all converged on him.
They unleashed their attacks.
He managed to block some, but the rest pierced his body, drawing blood and forcing him to cough it up.
Liu Zai Hang remained standing for several seconds before collapsing to his knees.
"Ikalat… I am sorry. This is the limit of what I can do."
One of the Stone Slaves of Chaos moved, drew an arrow, aimed it at Liu Zai Hang, and fired.
As the arrow flew toward the motionless Liu Zai Hang, an incredibly fast blur suddenly appeared and shattered it with a single strike.
Scarlet King emerged from the mist, standing upright after effortlessly blocking the attack.
One of the commanders demanded:
"Identify yourself! Perhaps you could prove useful to your masters, the Chaos Beings!"
Scarlet King raised his voice.
"I am Scarlet King—or rather… the Legendary Perseverer whose cries of perseverance echo endlessly."
"The one who surpassed all who persevered for the impossible, and who carried the banner of free will until it burned beneath the overwhelming force of his will."
"The transcender of the greatest time and the guardian of the blazing fervor of supreme, selfish self-hope."
"That is who I am—the Devil of Rebirth!"
All the stone slaves were stunned.
"The Devil of Rebirth!?"
Scarlet King thought:
(We are currently the weaker side. There is only one solution, and it may cause me tremendous damage, but I have no other choice. Even if I use Vaporization and escape, they can track Ikalat and capture us.)
(Also, was that caused by the Arm of Eternal Time or the River of Time?)
Scarlet King suddenly drew the pistol and began channeling his full strength into it.
"It has finished cooling down."
He used Partial Vaporization to transport Ikalat beside him, then continued:
"Bingo!"
A small sphere began forming at the pistol's muzzle.
An enormous shot erupted from it, accompanied by a powerful light that engulfed the entire interior of the universe and pierced through everything ahead.
Anything located to the sides or behind remained unharmed.
However, the projectile erased everything in front of it.
It pierced through the universe and erased half of it.
Beyond that, the shot erased tens of thousands—
no, hundreds of thousands—
of neighboring universes.
In return, Scarlet King was hurled ten full kilometers backward.
Every part of his body shattered.
He crashed into the ground and disappeared beneath the dirt and earth.
Liu Zai Hang moved his hand, took out a pill, swallowed it, and said to Ikalat:
"Go to Scarlet… Help him!"
Ikalat stood there in confusion for several seconds, uncertain whether to help Liu or Scarlet King.
In the end, he moved toward Scarlet King, who had been buried underground, and attempted to pull him out by force.
Ikalat dragged Scarlet King's body free and laid him on the ground.
Scarlet King opened his eyes with great difficulty and asked:
"Scan the universe and make sure the two spacecraft are unharmed."
Ikalat was shocked and shouted at him:
"By the heavens, you are thinking about the spacecraft while you are in this miserable condition?!"
Scarlet King answered:
"My body will regenerate after some time and return to normal as though nothing happened, but benefits and resources disappear and never return. They may not have legs, but they can still be destroyed."
The system appeared before Ikalat.
[System]
[Master will begin recovering after one hour. Due to his adaptive ability, his regeneration has grown stronger. His body will require between one and two hours to return to normal.]
Scarlet King looked at Ikalat.
"Go and help Liu Zai Hang recover. I will heal on my own."