The relationship between Zich and the Demon Lord of Magic wasn’t good at best. In the first place, Demon Lords were the most egoistic beings among the Demon People; thus, it would be stranger if such people were on good terms with each other. Naturally, Zich butted heads with other Demon Lords frequently. He sometimes clashed with them by himself or gathered all the forces he could muster to kill them.
There were always a variety of reasons for his fights with other Demon Lords. He fought for the pride of his forces sometimes, overlapping interests other times, or he fought simply because he didn’t like the other party. He and his enemies would fight to death over something an outsider would have thought so little of. But this was also a common happening in the Demon People Era that Zich had lived in before his regression.
Craaaash! A huge flame slammed into the ground. It turned everything within its reach into ashes, and with its high heat, it made everything in the surroundings burst into flames by themselves.
Bam! Bam! Baaam!
The flame held an incredible amount of power by itself alone, but there were more than just a few of them. They blanketed the sky with their numbers and blasted the ground, as if a god was raging or an army of demons was invading. It seemed like everything the flames targeted, whether they were animals, plants, or items, wouldn’t be able to maintain their forms under the attacks. Yet, the spell’s sole target— a single human— moved very leisurely amid these attacks.
Pop!
His sword sliced a fireball and it exploded. Although these fireballs didn’t budge from most attacks due to their high temperature and pressure, they easily lost their shape against the sword strike. After breaking one fireball, Zich tightly gripped his sword with two hands. The sword he treasured, Tornium, let out its quiet cry to the heavens. Zich Moore moved.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Zich moved his sword so fast that there wasn’t even an afterimage, and black blades poured out of the swinging Tornium. Tens and hundreds of blades exposed their fangs and shot towards the sky, meeting the fireballs above.
Bababababam!
Red sparks bloomed in the sky. Beautiful and fancy but also frightening remains from the fire sparks rained down from the sky. Zich flicked away the sparks that fell on him and stamped the rest purposefully on the ground. Then he stared up at the sky. The flames that had colored the sky red were all gone now. Instead, an acrid, black smoke blanketed the sky, and a person hovered over it like it was their background.
The man wore a black robe that gave off a dreary feeling and held a staff with bloody red jewels attached to it. Both these items were full of individuality and could capture anyone’s attention instantly, but the most noticeable characteristic was his appearance. He had white hair and a beard, but they were only recognizable as such things because they were attached to a person’s face. Rather than body hair, they looked more like rotten spider webs.
He had deep wrinkles, blank eyes, and like he never had cheek fat since he was born, his skin clung to his bones. Even the hands that were holding his staff looked like a mummy’s. Overall, he looked like a piece of leather that had been sloppily hung over a skeleton. A child would have immediately burst into tears at the sight of him, and Zich also extremely disliked the man’s appearance.
“Old man! I told you to at least fatten your face up the next time we see each other! I even gifted you some meat last time. How long are you going to live with that kind of face?”
The Demon Lord of Magic whom Zich called ‘old man’ twitched his eyes uncomfortably. He moved his colorless and cracked lips. A raspy voice rang out. “You mean the rotten orc meat with hydra’s poison? I can’t understand your nasty personality for giving me such a gift!”
“You are way too old to be still picky about your meals, old man. Just by looking at your face, it’s obvious that you can’t even afford to eat something like I gave you. Besides, let’s have some consciousness and not take a jab at each other’s personalities. It’s a fact that you and I are both rotten to the core.”
“My personality is at least better than yours!”
“Hahaha! Old man, that’s the funniest joke I’ve heard recently. I didn’t see you that way, but you are quite a humorous person.”
“You just want to believe it’s a joke. No matter how rotten I am, it’s true that I at least have a better personality than you. If you gather up all the humans in the surrounding countries and ask them, they will say the same thing!”
“You are delusional to the point it’s making me pity you. Did you already get dementia, old man? Every human in this world knows that my personality is better than yours!”
“You are the one who is getting dementia! Such a pity when you are so young. And the fact that my personality is better than yours is known not only by all humans, but all the elves in the Adrowon forest too!”
“Even the dwarves agree with me too then!”
“All species in this world think I’m better!”
“Even the dragons who disappeared from this world would think that I am better!”
An incredibly childish argument passed between two Demon Lords, the epitome of fear and terror in this world. However, if anyone watched them, they wouldn’t have been able to laugh at them. In contrast to the childish insults that came out of their mouths, the destruction they created was beyond terrifying.
Craaash! The Demon Lord of Magic’s fire formed a giant crater. In the center of the crater, a small magma puddle formed.
Craaaash! The blades that Zich shot out made a small canyon. The canyon’s rough shape made it seem like an enormous giant had forcefully split the ground.
“You rat bastard! The way you keep running doesn’t match your title at all! How could a guy like you gain the title of the Demon Lord of Strength!”
“I never asked anyone to call me something like that! Why are you holding me responsible for what somebody else just started calling me on their own? Moreover, you and I care about rules as much as leftover breadcrumbs. Isn’t it embarrassing for you to insult me about such a petty little thing?”
“Do you not have any pride as the Demon Lord!”
“I would rather swing my sword one more time rather than grow something like that!”
Craaaash! Their two attacks clashed again. Black smoke and ashes danced in the air and devastated their surroundings.
“And who did you say was only running away, you damn old fart!”
Whooosh! Zich swung his sword. There was a massive gust of air, and both of them stretched out their hands and released mana simultaneously.
“Ugh!” The Demon Lord of Magic immediately moved his body up. Even though he could easily evade the blow from Zich’s sword, the mana that Zich let out grazed the bottom of his feet. Moreover, Zich’s mana seemed to have a will of its own as it tried to coil around his leg like a snake. The Demon Lord of Magic quickly floated up and escaped.
‘This troublesome brat!’ He glared at Zich. Since Zich mainly used a sword, most people thought he used only his sword to fight, but what was really terrifying about Zich was not his swordsmanship. ‘What’s really terrifying about him is his limitless amount of mana and his ability to perfectly control all of it.’
Just having one characteristic like that would make him a difficult opponent, but he possessed both of these characteristics. Moreover, these two factors complemented each other perfectly and created a synergistic effect.
‘Moreover, he’s also far above average in other skills.’
Swordsmanship, hand to hand combat, combat sense, etc. Even though the Demon Lord of Magic made fun of Zich by saying that the ‘Demon Lord of Strength’ was wrongly attributed to him, he thought there wasn’t anyone who fit the Demon Lord of Strength title better than Zich.
‘But that’s all there is to it.’
Regardless of Zich’s title as the Demon Lord of Strength and how he was regarded by people as the strongest Demon Lord, he was also a Demon Lord. The Demon Lord of Magic began reciting his incantations again. The earth shook, the wind blew, and flames burned up.
‘What is this?’ Zich narrowed his eyes as he saw his chaotic surroundings.
The fiery flames and the frantic winds looked ominous.
“You must have prepared something big!” Zich shouted with a loud voice, but the Demon Lord of Magic paid no attention to him and continued his incantations.
Zich was sure that the Demon Lord of Magic was preparing one of his most powerful attacks. Zich pursed his lips and scanned his surroundings. He was already surrounded by fiercely moving flames, winds, and rocks. Zich quickly threw a few attacks towards the Demon Lord of Magic, but his opponent blocked all of his attacks.
“Die, Zich Moore!” The Demon Lord of Magic finally activated his magic.
Fire, wind, and rock came flying towards him. Just one elemental attack could easily kill a human, but three elemental attacks came rushing towards him. Although Zich had a lot of different experiences, it was his first time seeing magic like this.
‘Triple elemental combination magic.’ Zich clicked his tongue.
The Demon Lord of Magic really lived up to his name. In the first place, the number of magicians who could use three elements could be counted on one hand. Moreover, most of those magicians also used one element as their main and the two other elements as support. Of course, the magic that the Demon Lord of Magic mainly used was fire magic. However, this just meant that he enjoyed using flame magic the most, and he was just as proficient in using other elemental spells.
On the other hand, even if a mage could use three different elements, combining them was a completely different story. In order to combine different elements, a mage needed to consider the correlation and the balance between the different elements.
The magic in front of Zich also followed the same principles. If the wind was too strong, the flames would be swept by the wind and disappear. If the flames were too strong, the rocks would melt and the wind would be destroyed by the rising air current. If the rocks were too strong, the wind wouldn’t be able to lift them up properly and the force of the rocks would weaken. A mage had to find the perfect balance where the different elements could be combined to create the highest and lowest power.
On the other hand, if someone found the weakest point of this magic’s synergy, this magic was surprisingly easy to destroy, especially for Zich who had extraordinary control over his mana.
‘But I can’t find it?’ Despite Zich’s excellent vision, keen senses, and good sense of mana detection, he couldn’t find any part of the magic that was unbalanced.
“Are you trying to find my magic’s weakness!”
Even with a fierce whirlwind all around him, Zich could clearly hear the Demon Lord of Magic. The Demon Lord of Magic seemed to have amplified his voice with mana. He continued to shout, “There’s no weakness! Do you know how much time and effort I put into this spell?! When I first made it, the strength of the wind was weaker than the other elements so its balance with the earth element was off, but I fixed that a long time ago!”
‘Really, that old fart loves to talk.’ Zich grumbled inside and fixed his grip on Tornium.
He could feel intense magic pressing down on him, but his eyes were calm.
‘I definitely can’t see a weakness.’ Zich admitted this. This spell had a very high level of completion. ‘But that’s all there is to it.’
A tremendous amount of mana came out of Zich’s body and gathered in Tornium. Zich glared at the magic in front of him. ‘If I can’t see its weakness, I can just crush it with my strength!’
Crassssssh! Zich’s swing let out an enormous amount of mana. The sky vibrated and the earth seemed to shatter. In front of this power, even the great Demon Lord of Magic vanished without a trace.
* * *
‘Yeah, it was that exact expression.’
While recalling the Demon Lord of Magic’s face when he first destroyed ‘Inferno,’ Zich looked up at Walwiss. He could see Walwiss’ shocked and horrified face. The Demon Lord of Magic’s face from the past and the current Walwiss’ face seemed to overlap with one another.
“H-How could…”
Zich had precisely found the weakness of Walwiss’ magic and nullified it. Walwiss looked at Zich as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. However, Zich didn’t answer Walwiss’ question and quickly ran over the Jaewick mansion’s walls.
“Stop!” someone cried from a distance.
Zich thought, ‘It’s Orland Dwayne.’
And soon enough, a sharp attack came flying towards him. Even though it was a very sharp and precise attack, it wasn’t much of a threat to Zich since he had been dealing with Walwiss so far.
Tap!
Zich didn’t even evade the attack and caught it with his bare hands.
‘It’s an ice spike.’
It was an attack from Orland. Several more attacks came from behind; they were attacks from Orland and Wayne. Walwiss soon came to his senses and began casting spells again. However, Zich successfully evaded all their attacks and disappeared into the city’s darkness. In the end, he left behind three men with hollow expressions and a completely demolished yard.