The demon king looked at Alexander with confusion while his body made of shadows trembled slightly.
Why was he so angry?
He had acquired a more human form because that's what Alexander had wanted.
Using the hero's appearance as a base, the demon had acquired a more "convenient" form.
What had he done wrong?
"Let's see how you look after taking the impact of a star, eat this!" Alexander then said.
A bright sphere of fire blazed above his head, illuminating the entire hall with golden light.
Sylvie knew what technique that was. A sphere of fire that burns at over 5000 degrees, capable of melting metal with ease.
That star was characterized by not harming allies, only enemies, which made it surprisingly useful since it wouldn't cause friendly fire.
"How interesting, you've used your blessing?" the demon king asked as he watched that enormous sphere of fire heading toward him, though he didn't seem worried at all.
Alexander frowned. Why wasn't he doing anything?
The sphere of fire was getting closer and closer to the demon king, but he remained motionless, fearless, his eyes staying empty as an abyss.
"This doesn't matter now... [ ]"
Alexander felt a chill. That being had pronounced an incomprehensible word.
Sylvie, in her 1500 years of life, had never heard a similar sound.
It was like a foreign tongue, an alien vocabulary.
Before the sphere of fire could impact him, a dome of "darkness" surrounded him.
Upon impacting that dome, the star began to crumble, as if that surface were swallowing it.
Before Alexander and Sylvie's incredulous eyes, the star disappeared.
When the veil of darkness vanished, the demon king was visible again. Completely intact.
"H-how?" Alexander asked in disbelief.
While that hadn't been his best attack, it had been enough to obliterate very powerful enemies, and that creature had erased it like it was nothing.
Without any kind of effort.
"Oh, that? Just a little trick," the demon king affirmed calmly. "You use the power of order, right? In my case, I use the power of chaos. What I did was simply manifest a very pure chaos around me to protect myself."
Alexander looked at the being with more confusion.
Power of order? Power of chaos?
What was all of that?
Seeing his confused face, the entity decided to continue explaining.
"Chaos is the opposite of order, though just as there's no order without some chaos, chaos can only exist if there's a little bit of order."
"However, the purer the chaos, the more undefined it will be. In this case, I invoked a formless mass without a defined state, as if hundreds of states had been superimposed."
"Such pure chaos disrupts sequences of causes and effects, which collapses the elements of an ordered system, making it become chaotic, like a poison."
"Imagine this: in an ordered system when a hot object approaches a colder one, generally an energy exchange occurs where the hot object loses energy to give it to the colder object and create thermal equilibrium."
"However, a hot object couldn't do that with a mass of chaos, since it has multiple undefined states. It's as if the object didn't know how to react, and therefore collapses."
Alexander remained silent while trying to understand the demon king's explanation.
However, the boy wasn't really interested in that explanation.
For him, the fact that the demon king was taking the time to talk was an insult, but also an opportunity.
While it talked, he gained time to charge energy.
His power was the [Gift of the Stars]. In that world, stars were gods, and each one usually gave a power.
However, this time, a hero had received the blessing of all of them.
While he didn't use all his power to avoid overloading his body, if he manipulated the energy flow carefully, he could strengthen his body to extreme levels.
Plus it wasn't just that. If he listened to the demon king, Sylvie would also have time to resurrect his group.
"Are you done with your chatter?" Alexander asked with a serious voice.
The demon king just shrugged.
"I suppose you've understood it now, so I'd say yes," the demon king answered.
As soon as the being pronounced those words, Alexander launched himself with a burst of speed toward him.
His aura materialized around him like golden flames that covered his sword and armor.
"Perfect, now die."
With tremendous speed, Alexander unleashed a series of ferocious cuts against the demon king.
Each cut was precise, strong, and lethal, targeting joints, limbs, neck among others, just as Mei had taught him.
He didn't waste time attacking vital points since that creature very surely didn't have any.
Each cut connected fully, piercing through the demon king's body.
In doing so, the flames covering his sword's edge stuck to each wound, seeking to prevent it from regenerating.
"I see you're not very fast!" the hero mocked as he spun his body and delivered a spinning kick to the creature.
All his acceleration and weight was transmitted in that kick, just as Aleida had instructed him, exerting enough force to send it flying.
The demon king's body impacted against his throne, in an almost ironic act: the king would be defeated on his throne.
"There's still more!" he exclaimed, launching himself at the demon king and piercing his chest with his sword.
The golden flames intensified, completely surrounding the demon king, wrapping him in an infernal mantle.
"Don't think you can put out these flames with cheap tricks, there's no magic that can extinguish divine flames! You're doomed to die consumed by them," the hero proclaimed with pride as the demon king's body became almost imperceptible within the sea of flames.
It was then that he heard it.
A broken scream, full of desperation.
The boy turned by instinct, wanting to know what was happening.
"Why? Why isn't it working! [Resurrect]," Sylvie shrieked desperately.
Small tears fell from her eyes as she repeated that spell over and over.
But it wasn't working.
Those bodies remained lifeless.
It was then that the demon king's voice echoed.
"Isn't it obvious? It's impossible for you to bring them back to life. I destroyed their souls, so there's no way for them to return."
Sylvie turned toward the voice, completely incredulous.
Not even the gods could destroy a soul.
How could he?
What the hell was that being really?