After Ten Millennia in Hell

Del Lain shone. The flat of its blade blew away the Demon Cultists\' heads.

It was a horrifying scene. An enraged god was standing there, covered in blood.

"How dare you… How dare…"

It was a voice filled with sadness.

The radiant light that had burst out gradually died down.

Tirion, God of Heroes, had manifested by borrowing Oh Kang-Woo\'s body.

He was breathing heavily and feeling an uncontrollable rage.

"Lord Tirion…"

"Daughter of Gaia," Tirion mumbled. He continued in sorrow, "Do not give them any attention. Do not try to get an answer from these evil demons."

"I-I\'m sorry."

"Demons are dishonest in nature. They will always try to deceive you with sweet words and treacherous lies."

"I will keep that in mind."

Gaia bowed after hearing Tirion\'s sincere advice, but there was still an unanswered question, which Kim Si-Hun asked instead of Gaia.

"Hadn\'t you been annihilated after the previous incident, Lord Tirion?"

The blue message that had appeared in front of them back then… No, even if it weren\'t because of the message window, Tirion had specifically said that he would pass his power onto them while resolving himself to be annihilated.

The god they thought had died after giving his power to Kang-Woo was talking through him as if nothing had happened, so it was understandable that he would have doubts.

"…"

Flinch. Tirion, who had manifested by borrowing Kang-Woo\'s body, was trembling so subtly that it was impossible to see with the naked eye.

But he hesitated only for a short while. As if he\'d expected the question, he explained, "You are right. To be more precise, it was my Divinity that had been annihilated. Right now, I am just a shell of my former self."

"Ah…"

"I probably will not be able to manifest in this body many more times, but I wanted to tell you this before things got out of hand."

He spoke with an intense look in his eyes.

"Do not be fooled by demons, dear heroes. Evil will corrupt your minds the moment you listen to a demon\'s whispers."

It was a desperate voice. The golden light around them was starting to get weaker.

"When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at y—"

The light extinguished.

"Huff! Huff!"

Kang-Woo panted heavily while grasping his chest. He turned his head and looked at his surroundings.

"What just…"

"Lord Tirion manifested through your body, hyung-nim."

"What?"

Kang-Woo\'s face was dyed with bewilderment. He looked at his hands as if he couldn\'t believe what Si-Hun was saying.

"You don\'t remember?"

"… No. But wasn\'t Lord Tirion annihilated back then?"

"He said that his Divinity had been annihilated, but he was still alive within you."

"Oh…"

A short exclamation left Kang-Woo\'s mouth. He looked at his body as if moved.

"I see. He is still within me…"

"We realized how much Lord Tirion cares for us." Gaia continued in sorrow, "Without knowing how he felt, I…"

"No. I understand why you said something like that."

Kang-Woo shook his head.

"To be honest, I am also curious about why they are trying to drive this world to ruin."

"Lord Tirion said that we shouldn\'t listen to them."

"… I see."

He nodded.

Since Tirion had manifested personally to tell them that, it needed to not be taken lightly.

Kang-Woo\'s expression hardened as if he\'d understood the meaning behind Tirion\'s words.

\'Fuck, shit almost went south.\'

His heart beat faster.

\'I didn\'t expect her to question the Demon Cultists then and there.\'

He could understand Gaia\'s actions.

They had lost so much to Satan\'s hands, so it would be weird if she didn\'t feel frustrated at all.

It was amazing she had been able to keep her emotions bottled up for such a long time.

\'But Lord Tirion managed to patch things up.\'

The Demon Cultists\' wicked whispers had almost ruined everything.

\'Nasty sons of bitches.\'

He recalled them acting confused as if they didn\'t serve Satan or hadn\'t killed Reynald or Alec Osborne.

Instead of denying the claims, they had made a detailed performance by tilting their heads in confusion as if they had no clue what Gaia was talking about.

Their acting was so shameless that they even almost deceived Kang-Woo.

\'I\'d really think the Demon Cult had nothing to do with it if I didn\'t know any better.\'

Even he, the loyal apostle of Tirion, the successor of the hero Reynald and savior of this world, had almost been fooled, so it wasn\'t hard to estimate how good their acting skills were.

Shaking his head, Kang-Woo opened his mouth to say, "This isn\'t the time to think about why they committed such evil."

He turned around.

He could sense that demons were racing through the massive jungle and approaching them.

Tirion was right. This was not the time to be wondering why the Demon Cultists were doing this and why they had killed the innocent Reynald and Alec.

Boom! Boom!

"Here they come."

After saying those short words, Kang-Woo and the other Guardians members raised their weapons.

[Hahaha! Jaraxxus, you idiot! You asked for help because you couldn\'t get rid of a puny human?!]

[Let us engrave the fear of demons into the minds of these weak humans!]

Ding, dong. Kang-Woo heard the sound of a doorbell in his head.

\'It\'s here.\'

The food delivery he\'d been waiting so long for had finally arrived. He gulped and raised Del Lain.

\'It\'s here!!!\'

He stomped on the ground and quickly rushed toward the demons emanating demonic energy.

Crack!

[Kurgh!]

A demon\'s head was smashed by Del Lain; black blood poured in all directions.

The tips of Kang-Woo\'s mouth went up.

\'I\'ll pay with credit!!\'

The massacre had begun.

* * *

[Kurgh! Wh-What the—?!]

[What the fuck?!]

Desperate screams were heard.

It was overwhelming, and there was no other way to explain it. Someone the demons wouldn\'t believe was a human was wiping them out all too easily.

"Haap!"

[Kuh!]

The problem wasn\'t just the one person at the forefront… Those behind him weren\'t at all the weak and worthless humans they were accustomed to.

All of them were as powerful as the demons of the Seventh Hell. No, among them, a few were even stronger than that.

[R-Request more backup, human!]

"Y-Yes, my lord!"

The Demon Cultists who had arrived with them raised their crystal orbs.

\'Four who are World Ranker-level?\'

The old man with a sword, the red-haired girl with chains, the blonde woman with a rapier, and the young man wielding a sword emitting a blue light…

They seemed to be World Ranker-level Players at just a glance.

\'And…\'

Crack!

[Gaaaahhhh!]

[Stop that monster!!]

The human wearing a white mask and wielding a sword that emitted golden light…

\'What in the…\'

He had an overwhelming strength that couldn\'t be compared to that of a World Ranker.

The Demon Cultists were so surprised that they couldn\'t close their mouths after seeing the man one-sidedly massacre the demons of Hell. It was so one-sided that they felt bad for the demons.

\'This is bad.\'

If things continued, the summoning ritual at the core of their plan could be interrupted.

\'I cannot let that happen!\'

The amount of money the Demon Cult had invested in this summoning ritual was huge. The Apostles of Evil… no, even the \'Aspects\' had high expectations for this plan.

Failure wasn\'t an option.

"Please hold on for just a little longer!!" the Demon Cultist desperately shouted. Just a little longer, and the core summoning ritual would be complete.

If that demon was successfully summoned, they would be able to easily eliminate that monstrous human.

Boom!

"Just a little longer, you say?"

"Gasp!"

The monster who had been massacring the demons approached him in an instant.

Kang-Woo grabbed the Demon Cultist by the collar and said quietly, "You must have a card up your sleeve that you can use if you wait just a bit more."

"E-Eek!"

A terrifying energy burst forth.

A fear that the Demon Cultist had never felt while encountering numerous demons up until this point invaded his mind.

"A-Aaahhh."

His mouth fell open as the fear, which he couldn\'t refuse, invaded his consciousness.

The eyes he could see behind the mask… They were too thick with madness to say the man was a hero fighting demons.

The Demon Cultist\'s mind went blank after he saw Kang-Woo\'s eyes.

"Alright, tell me what you\'re waiting for," Kang-Woo asked.

"I-I can\'t…"

"You joined the Demon Cult to attain eternal life, didn\'t you? You wanted to become immortal, so what\'s the point of that if you die here?"

"…"

"Loyalty to demons? Admiration? What\'s the point of all that?" His words were like sweet whispers. "Don\'t you want to live?"

A temptation the Demon Cultist couldn\'t refuse was dangled in front of him. His powerful desire to live stimulated him.

Kang-Woo said, "You can be honest. No one will criticize you. After all, there\'s nothing else you could possibly do in this situation."

"Nothing else I could do…"

"Yeah. Anyone else would do the same," Kang-Woo said in a low whisper.

The Demon Cultist was nodding before he had realized it.

\'Yes… there is nothing else I could do.\'

This man was a monster who\'d massacred those powerful demons.

How could he resist such a monster?

\'There is… nothing else I could do.\'

The Demon Cultist nodded.

He looked at the demons and his comrades who had been killed. He was scared. He did not want to die. He felt as if he should listen to this monster if he wanted to escape from the fear that was about to drive him insane.

Kang-Woo said, "I promise you. If you tell me the truth, I will guarantee your life. I swear in the name of Tirion, God of Heroes."

"Tirion…?"

It was the first time he\'d heard such a name.

"It\'s the name of the god I serve."

"…"

The Demon Cultist remained silent. His thoughts started to race.

\'I guess he\'s a hero.\'

The cliche of a hero who had been chosen by a god…

But thanks to that, he was able to calm down a bit.

\'Come to think of it, Guardians is made up of the retainers of a god, isn\'t it?\'

The retainers of gods interfering with their plans…

It seemed as if the monster in front of him was one of those retainers.

\'In that case…\'

The fear inside him disappeared. A smile appeared on his face.

\'I can live.\'

A servant of a god had made a promise in the name of the god he served. The Demon Cultist didn\'t think that someone who called himself a hero wouldn\'t fulfill a promise made in the name of their god.

\'As long as I survive…\'

As long as he survived, he could grasp the opportunity to make a comeback. He would be able to obtain the eternal life he so desperately wanted.

The hesitation lasted only for a short moment. He opened his mouth and spoke with a trembling voice.

"The summoning ritual…"

* * *

"Summoning a demon from the Ninth Hell, you say?"

A smile appeared on Kang-Woo\'s face after he heard the explanation from the Demon Cultist.

The Ninth Hell…

It was the deepest layer of Hell—a place where only the strongest demons gathered.

\'Yeah, I had a feeling they could be summoned.\'

Devouring demons from the Seventh and Eighth Hells was great and all, but a demon from the Ninth Hell was on another level.

That could be seen just by the fact that he hadn\'t been able to fulfill the condition for the Demonic Soul even after absorbing over a hundred demon souls, but the condition had been fulfilled after he absorbed the souls of Malphas and Phenex.

\'I\'m almost there.\'

He\'d killed dozens of demons, but his Demonic Energy stat hadn\'t reached 130 yet. However, he could instinctively tell there wasn\'t much left before he reached it.

If he killed a demon from the Ninth Hell and absorbed their soul, the stat would easily reach 130.

\'Alright.\'

His throat burned with thirst.

Kang-Woo laughed. He would soon be able to get rid of this thirst.

"Thanks for the information."

He raised his sword and thrust it into the trembling Demon Cultist without hesitation.

Stab.

"Kurgh?!"

The Demon Cult member looked up at him in confusion.

"Wh-why?"

The promise that Kang-Woo had made in the name of a god that he would let him live if he told the truth had been broken all too easily.

"Y-You told me you would… let me live."

The Demon Cultist extended his hand, drenched with blood, toward him. He widened his eyes and shouted, "You swore in the name of the god that you serve!!"

Cough. He vomited blood.

He couldn\'t understand it.

The heroes that he knew—the retainers of gods—weren\'t like this.

At least they were beings who would fulfill a promise made in the name of the god they served.

\'But what\'s with him?\'

The man hadn\'t even hesitated. It was as if a promise made to a god had absolutely no meaning to him.

Kang-Woo opened his mouth after seeing his confused look.

"Man, I was really going to, okay? But I thought about it carefully, you see?" He sounded serious. "No one will know if you die, right?"

"Wh-What do you…"

"If you die, no one will know I didn\'t fulfill a promise made in the name of a god."

"… W-Wait."

"Shieeet, why hadn\'t I thought of such a good way until now?"

"What nonsense are you…"

Kang-Woo laughed at him. He twisted the sword stabbed into the Demon Cultist.

"It\'s not murder if there are no witnesses!"[1]

It was as if he had been enlightened.

Kang-Woo trembled in excitement after realizing a new truth.

\'EUUUUUUREKA!!\'

1. This is a meme in the Korean Assassin\'s Creed community. The literal translation is "It\'s an assassination if there are no witnesses," but I tweaked it a little. ☜