Chapter 17 : The Hero Party Annihilation Incident (5)

In the vast continent of demons, it is rare to find the highest-ranking demon lords.

Even high-ranking demons are treated as legends in the human realm, and the appearance of a top-tier demon can shake the course of human history just by showing up on the human continent.

Especially, the top-tier demons are hard to control because they don’t even listen to the Four Heavenly Kings, so they don’t often appear in the Demon King’s army.

Amidst all this, there was one top-tier demon lord who was unusually obedient to the Four Heavenly Kings.

His name was Beelzebub.

He was the king of flies who lived by eating the corpses of the dead.

Although it was rumored that his combat power might even surpass that of the Four Heavenly Kings, no one knew why such a powerful demon lord would be so obedient to the Four Heavenly Kings.

However, from the Four Heavenly Kings’ perspective, he was a very useful “chess piece.”

A top-tier demon lord who would move exactly as instructed was a rare find.

Because of this, Morpino chose Beelzebub for a difficult task.

Morpino knew better than anyone the strength of the hero party.

After all… he had fought against them for an entire year.

And that was with the Demon King’s assistance.

The hero party wouldn’t know that they had already met the Demon King and clashed with him several times.

In truth, the Demon King had been participating in the war under different guises—sometimes as one of the Four Heavenly Kings, other times as an underling, and at times even as a fly—always appearing on the battlefield, fighting alongside the Four Heavenly Kings.

The result was always a draw.

In other words, the strength of the hero party was such that it could only match the Demon King and the Four Heavenly Kings when they fought together.

Even though the hero had changed, Morpino remembered that the weakest member of the hero party had been none other than the hero.

If the hero had been replaced with someone capable, the party’s strength would be greatly enhanced.

In other words, if the Four Heavenly Kings fought without the Demon King, there was a high probability they would be annihilated.

Or perhaps, even if the Demon King joined, they could still lose.

‘Could it be that the Demon King knows this and is trying to back out of the fight?’

Morpino had such thoughts, which he would never dare voice.

After all, the Demon King’s behavior had been quite strange.

After fighting together for a whole year, why was the Demon King suddenly pulling back?

What was the hidden motive?

Though he couldn’t directly ask about it, Morpino felt hesitant to confront the Demon King directly.

That’s why he called upon his strongest subordinate—the top-tier demon, Beelzebub.

“You called, Lord Morpino?”

The obedient Beelzebub appeared immediately and knelt before Morpino.

“There’s a hero party approaching. I want you to go and defeat them.”

“Just me alone?”

“Are you not confident?”

“It’s not that I’m not confident, but…”

Beelzebub hesitated before speaking.

“Even if the Demon King and the Four Heavenly Kings fought as a team, didn’t they only barely match the hero party’s strength? How could I, on my own, defeat the hero party?”

“Don’t worry.”

Morpino fluttered his wings, and something foul like excrement blew into the air.

Beelzebub accidentally inhaled the smell and, to his surprise, felt a surge of immense power rising within him.

“I’ve just copied my power and gifted it to you. Now, with both your power and mine combined, do you think there is any opponent you cannot defeat? Or… are you afraid? If so, we can follow behind you, just like parents attending their child’s first day of school.”

“…No, Lord Morpino.”

Beelzebub smiled secretly and spoke with determination.

“I’ll go and annihilate the hero party myself.”

Meanwhile…

“There’s something strange about this,” Esther said, looking nervously from side to side.

Everywhere she looked, there was a strong presence of evil mana, but no demons were approaching them.

“Why isn’t anyone coming closer? I’ve heard that demons are usually hostile and try to eat everyone they see.”

“Do you want to know why?”

Jeanne responded.

“It’s because they’re afraid of us. How many times have we visited the Demon Continent in the past year? Every time, we killed demons without mercy, so they can’t help but fear us.”

“I see… That’s impressive. But why do people still say we’re an incompetent hero party?”

“That’s because we couldn’t defeat someone like the Four Heavenly Kings,” Cynthia cut in.

“But there’s an excuse for that. The Four Heavenly Kings always came in groups to fight us.”

“Besides, our leader, the hero, was a useless piece of trash.”

Tiffany interjected, her eyes filled with disdain as she glanced at the hero, Lul, who was mindlessly swinging his holy sword in the air like a child with a toy sword.

“Well… I can only hope this time isn’t a bust.”

Tiffany decided to trust the diagnosis of the Guardian General over her own judgment.

General Zero’s “eyes” were the best in the Empire, after all.

Even if the hero looked this pathetic, Tiffany believed that, when the time came, he would surely perform as needed.

“Umm… I’m just curious,” Esther raised her hand and asked cautiously.

“On the Demon Continent, there must be many high-ranking demons, even top-tier demons, right?”

“What? Esther, are you scared of those kinds of demons?” Jeanne scoffed proudly.

“Don’t worry. We all have power equal to or greater than the Four Heavenly Kings. Even if they’re top-tier demons, they’ll be nothing in front of us.”

At that moment…

“Hooh—”

Suddenly, everything around them went dark.

The party members instinctively looked up at the sky.

The sun was turning black.

No… Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t the sun itself.

Countless swarms of flies were covering the sun.

“So, are top-tier demons not a problem? So this is the famous hero party, huh? Impressive, very impressive.”

Clap, clap.

A mocking round of applause came from the direction of a young man with an ominous expression and messy hair.

The hero party instinctively went into battle stance.

“Everyone, get ready!”

“Don’t let your guard down! This is probably a top-tier demon!”

“Right. It’s nothing to be afraid of, but he’s definitely strong.”

“Esther, stay back!”

“Whoa! Is this what demons are like?”

“Hero! You stay back too! You’re still inexperienced in battle!”

With their weapons in hand, the hero party faced off against the mysterious figure.

At that moment, Beelzebub took an unexpected action.

With no apparent hostility, he raised his empty hands and spoke in a friendly manner.

“Ah, don’t be so tense. I’m here to make a nice offer.”

“A nice offer?” Cynthia spoke, still on guard.

“What kind of offer could a demon make to us? If it’s a surrender offer, we’ll accept.”

“It’s something like that.”

Beelzebub grinned nonchalantly.

“I may be modest, but I’m one of the strongest of the top-tier demons. Honestly, I’m confident I could beat the Four Heavenly Kings in a one-on-one fight. The problem is, there are four of them, and there’s also the Demon King…”

“So what?! What’s your point?”

Tiffany shouted.

“You might not understand, but demon ranks are pretty important to demons. When you reach the top-tier demon rank, you could have a status almost like a noble among you humans. But that’s not enough for me. I don’t want to be a noble—I want to be an emperor.”

Beelzebub’s eyes gleamed like dark gemstones.

“In other words, I want to kill the Four Heavenly Kings and the Demon King and become the Demon King myself. But, as you can imagine, I can’t do it alone. So here’s my offer: why don’t we team up and kill them together? With our combined strength, defeating them would be a piece of cake. I know how strong you are.”

“Heh! Isn’t that a pretty good offer?”

“Wait, Raoul. This could be a trap.”

“Don’t worry, Cynthia! If it’s a trap, I’ll punish this lying demon with my holy sword!”

The holy sword.

Beelzebub’s eyes followed the hero’s holy sword, which was being swung around carelessly like a toy.

Though the hero changed every time, the holy sword had been passed down through the generations.

It was the same sword that had defeated the first Demon King, the greatest of them all.

As Beelzebub’s thoughts turned to the sword, a hidden ambition began to surface in his eyes.

“Hey, Hero. If you don’t mind, could I touch that sword…?”

At that moment, Beelzebub’s pupils split vertically, like a cat’s.

“Touch… touch it…?”

In the next instant, Beelzebub’s body began to swell up like a balloon.

“Kuwwweeeh!!”

With a pop, Beelzebub exploded.

Where he had been standing, only the King of Flies, now even larger than before, remained.