[Woah~ Long time no see, Demon King!]
Doomguard walked toward him with a smile on his face.
KangWoo frowned.
'Move your face.'
He had a muscular body that was over five meters tall. On top of that, he had an appearance that really fit the name “demon”. Seeing Doomguard smiling like that was like looking at a scene from a horror movie.
"So... how is it going?"
[Haha! Hell's always the same. Hmm, although, recently, demonic monsters have been wandering around more than before.]
"Demonic monsters?"
[Yes. Ancient demonic monsters like the halcyon are expanding their territory.]
Ancient demonic monsters…
It was a name they used to describe self-conscious demonic monsters like the halcyon, volcatus, or ouroboros.
They were beings that created their habitat and lived there. They were known for not leaving their territory.
"The ancient demonic monsters have started moving?"
[Yes. Balrog is investigating the exact reason right now.]
"Hmm."
KangWoo nodded, but he wasn't that interested.
'Are they after the position I left behind?'
He thought about it for a while but soon shook his head. Either way, it was something from the Hell of Nine Skies.
He was already busy enough thinking about stuff happening on Earth.
[Wh-what are you doing, Mr. Doomguard?! Bring death to that weak and lowly human...]
Balzac stepped forward and shouted. Doomguard's expression distorted.
Fwoosh-!
Crack-!
[Cough?!]
Balzac fell to the ground after being punched.
[Weak and lowly human? Be careful with what you say, bones. This person is my, Doomguard's, owner and Hell's king.]
[H-Hell's king?]
Balzac looked at KangWoo with his mouth wide open.
His teeth hit each other as if he couldn't believe it.
[Hmm?]
At that moment, Doomguard's expression hardened. His body started to become blurry.
"What's wrong?"
[It seems like the summoning duration is over.]
Doomguard turned around while making a disappointed expression.
[Then, Demon King, I'll be going! I'm going to tell Balrog you're doing well~!]
Doomguard waved his hand while laughing.
Although he might’ve looked like a charismatic leader in front of his underlings, he was famous for acting cutely like a well-behaved dog in front of its owner.
He looked so happy that even Balrog had pointed that out to him a few times.
"Tell him not to come here."
KangWoo said in a serious tone.
Doomguard bowed and began disappearing through the fissure from where he had appeared.
"..."
There was a heavy silence.
He could see Balzac moving his eyes in all directions while trying to understand what was going on.
Balzac tried to think of the relationship between the being from Hell he'd summoned through the ‘Blood of an Evil God’ and the human in front of him.
No, there was no need to think about it too deeply.
After all, that being from Hell had called that person the 'Demon King.'
Then he had only one choice left…
Balzac slowly began walking toward KangWoo.
He wasn't stupid enough to not know what he had to do in that situation.
[OH!! Great Demon King!]
'Huh, what's wrong with this bastard?'
Balzac’s attitude had visibly changed.
Balzac knelt down and pounded his head to the ground.
[From the first moment I saw you, I knew you were the King of Devildom!]
'But you didn't.'
[How could I not know the energy of the one that rules over Devildom?]
'You didn't.'
[I wouldn't raise my weapon toward the owner of the Devildom. See? My hand doesn't even have skin.]
'You don't use a weapon in the first place. How dare you try to play tricks.'
Balzac's attitude reminded him of what had happened in the Andras Guild.
KangWoo couldn't help but laugh after seeing how his attitude had changed after realizing he was the Demon King who ruled over the Hell of Nine Skies.
[To think you'd accept me as an underling!! I, Balzac, feel like I'm about to cry because of happiness!]
'Stop shitting yourself.'
Obviously, because he was a skeleton, he couldn't shed tears.
Ting-
[The loyalty of your Summoned Monster has increased.]
[You can force him to do things, although it can't answer extreme commands like 'Kill yourself.']
The message window opened.
Leaving the process aside, it seemed like Balzac had sworn loyalty to him.
"Well... Okay, I understood."
KangWoo held his forehead.
"Oof. Oof. KangWoo, what happened?"
Echidna, who had been fighting the death knights, turned her head in confusion.
The 12 death knights Balzac had summoned were kneeling on one knee toward KangWoo.
"Everything turned out okay..." He said while making an uncomfortable expression.
* * *
Just taking into consideration the result, Balzac had surrendered to him, so he was right when he said that everything turned out okay.
'But rather than that…'
There was something more important than Balzac at the moment.
"How did you summon a being from the 9th hell?"
"9th hell? Ah... Do you mean the Devildom?"
It seemed like, on the Ernor Continent, they referred to the Hell of Nine Skies as Devildom.
'So that means...'
KangWoo stroked his chin.
It didn't matter what name they used.
'It seems like the Hell of Nine Skies isn't only connected to the Earth but also to the Ernor Continent.'
There was a chance it was also connected to numerous other worlds.
If the worlds were completely separated, there wouldn't be an entity like the Gaia System with a function to block invaders from foreign worlds.
KangWoo nodded and kept talking.
"Can you summon a being from the Devildom?"
If that were the case, he didn't need to wait for the Demon Cult to summon a demon.
It was an issue he could solve by using Balzac to summon a demon.
[Ah... No, I can't.]
Balzac shook his head.
[The reason I was able to summon a being from the Devildom was thanks to the effect of the Blood of an Evil God. Without its effect, I cannot even dare to summon a being from the Devildom.]
"Tsk."
KangWoo clicked his tongue in disappointment.
He thought that, instead of roaming around searching for prey to hunt, he'd be able to live a stable and comfortable farm life, but it seemed like things never worked as he wished.
"Who's that Evil God?"
[Evil God Lucifer. He's a being similar to the root of every evil that exists on the Ernor Continent.]
"Lucifer...?"
Lucifer of Arrogance…
It was the name of one of the seven archdukes that had lost against KangWoo.
'Is it a coincidence?'
A short thought crossed his mind. He shook his head. There was no way it was a coincidence.
'How did he get reborn?'
Numerous possibilities crossed his mind.
KangWoo narrowed his eyes.
'There's a possibility.'
It wasn't that he'd completely killed the archdukes. Their souls had escaped to Hell's Equipment.
If Hell's Equipment existed and their souls were inside of them, it wouldn't be impossible for them to be reborn.
Those were the seven Hell's Equipment he'd used to return to Earth from the Hell of Nine Skies.
If. just like he'd returned to Earth, one of Hell's Equipment entered the Ernor Continent…
'There's a chance that Lucifer was reborn and was being called the ‘Evil God.'
Just like Earth, Ernor Continent's basic forces were weak compared to the Hell of Nine Skies.
He knew that just by seeing that Balzac was called Demon King and how much he praised the Devildom.
If Lucifer was reborn in a world like that, he had no doubt he would be considered a god-like being.
'But…'
He still had some doubts.
"You said that Lucifer was the root of all evil. Right?"
[Yes.]
"When did he get to the Ernor Continent?"
[I'm also not sure about that. The only thing I know is that it was a long time ago...]
"Hmm."
KangWoo frowned.
'The timeline is weird.'
It had been only half a year since he’d returned to Earth.
Even if a piece of Hell's Equipment had dropped into the Ernor Continent, the timeline didn't match.
"..."
He kept thinking.
…Although not for too long. The result was already there. He was, at the moment, just trying to understand the process that led to that result.
'The timelines got entangled.'
He wasn't sure if that was something that happened only in the Ernor Continent or if all of Hell's Equipment returned to more distant pasts than KangWoo.
The only thing that he was sure of was that the time between the dimensions didn't match.
'The Hell of Nine Skies connected with a world of 10 thousand years previous.'
The demons from the 9th Hell knew about KangWoo.
That meant that Earth had been connected with the Hell of Nine Skies ten thousand years in the future when KangWoo was active.
It was obvious that the timeline had gotten messed up from that alone.
"Damn."
His head became messy. KangWoo leaned his back against a tree and organized the information inside his head.
'That's not what's important at the moment.'
The important thing was that Lucifer had reincarnated, and he should consider the possibility that the other archdukes had also reincarnated.
"Wait..."
KangWoo was thinking about it with a troubled expression when his eyes suddenly shone.
'Shouldn't I be able to absorb the souls of the archdukes?'
His new Attribute, 'Reaper of Souls.' By using that, maybe he'd be able to get in his hands on the souls of the archdukes he hadn't been able to devour with the Authority of Predation.
'I'll have to gather more information first.'
He still didn't know if all the archdukes had been reborn or if it was only Lucifer.
Not only that, but Lucifer wasn't on Earth.
He couldn't stay still, but it wasn't like he didn't have time.
"Then, where on the Ernor Continent is Lucifer?" he asked Balzac, who was lying on the floor.
He raised his head.
[I'm not sure about that.]
"I see."
He nodded.
Even if he knew where Lucifer was, since he had no way to cross to the Ernor Continent, there was nothing he could do about it.
'Also, if Lucifer has recovered his old strength…'
With his current strength, he had no way to win against him.
'I'll have to also think about the worst possible outcome.'
He had to consider the possibility of fighting the archdukes again.
'It isn't that the thing I have to do will change…'
He just had to keep doing what he'd been doing until that point. He had to keep devouring and getting stronger.
He had to recover his old strength from when he used to rule over the Hell of Nine Skies.
'No…'
KangWoo clenched his fist.
After awakening as a player, a new desire ignited in him.
A territory he wasn't able to reach even in the past…
The desire to reach that plane burned his throat.
'Slowly.'
He controlled the burning desire.
He didn't have to move quickly. If he hurried things up, he could make a mistake.
KangWoo slowly opened his mouth.
He had another doubt before going back.
"Then, why didn't Lucifer take control of the Ernor Continent?"
The archdukes were strong.
Taking into consideration the average strength of the people that lived there, there probably wasn't anyone capable of stopping him.
To rule over or collapse…
One of the two things should have happened.
"KangWoo, that's because of Heaven's archangels."
Because he kept asking only Balzac, Echidna pulled his sleeves while making a sulky expression.
KangWoo tilted his head.
"Archangels?"
"Yes. It wasn't something recent, but a story from myth. They said that, to block the Evil God's actions, archangels descended from the Heavens."
"Heavens..."
Since the Hell of Nine Skies existed, it was understandable that an opposite world existed.
"Are there also angels on the Ernor Continent?"
Echidna shook her head.
"No. After the battle against the Evil God, they disappeared, and the archangel also hid."
"I see."
It seemed like he wouldn't need to consider angels for the moment.
Since Lucifer was also hiding, he still had time.
'I more or less understand.'
It would be better if he heard the rest of the information in Korea.
"Let's go back. Ah, Balzac, do you have a magic that lets you hide?"
Balzac looked like a white skeleton.
[Of course! I, Balzac, can melt down into the shadows and rule over the dark...]
Crack-
[AAGGHH!! M-my skull!!!]
It seemed like he could still feel the pain, so he screamed.
"Balzac, I told you not to talk like that."
[U-understood.]
KangWoo turned his body.
At that moment, he clapped as if he'd remembered something.
After discovering that Balzac could feel pain, he began wondering about something.
"Oh, yeah. Can you do things like eat?"
[Eat...?]
"Yes. Well, although it looks hard."
[Ah. It's not like I need it, but I can eat. If the food enters my body, I can take it apart from the inside.]
Balzac pointed to a black space that was in his throat.
KangWoo's eyes shone.
"Woah. Then can you also taste things?"
[Although a bit faintly compared to a human... I can taste… But why are you suddenly asking me this?]
Balzac tilted his head in confusion.
KangWoo smirked and put his arm on his shoulder.
"Let's go."
[Where…?]
"To eat kimchi stew."
[What's a kimchi stew?] Balzac asked while his eye sockets shone with a yellow light.
KangWoo patted his shoulder.
"You're going to figure it out soon."
Do you know the taste of kimchi stew?
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