Chapter 278. King of Hell (1)
They had more people.
But the situation favored us.
Kang Yujin, who had defeated Christina and risen to become the strongest human in the Material Realm.
Daji, a demon who had lived for three thousand years and wielded powerful sorcery.
And me, who had gained tremendous strength through the Holy Grail.
The strongest human.
The strongest demon.
The strongest Constellation.
All three of us were gathered here.
Even the Constellations surrounding us couldn’t recklessly attack.
"..."
Joo Minha fell into thought as he watched us.
No matter how intelligent he was, there was probably no easy way out of this situation.
Kang Yujin, the person Joo Minha trusted most, was on our side.
And Joo Minha’s greatest weapon, his Awakening Skill [Disruption Barrier], was hardly effective against either me or Kang Yujin.
“Joo Minha, just surrender.”
Kang Yujin glared at him.
“If you surrender here, I won’t do anything too harsh.”
"..."
“I don’t want to fight you.”
Even as he said that, Kang Yujin had his fists clenched and was radiating fighting spirit.
If Joo Minha refused to surrender...
Kang Yujin would rush him without hesitation and subdue him in an instant.
“It seems all of you are misunderstanding something.”
Joo Minha finally spoke in his usual calm voice.
“Do you truly believe merely being ‘strong’ is enough to oppose him?”
“What?”
“If brute force were enough, Count Monte Cristo and his companions wouldn’t have fallen so easily.”
Joo Minha raised one hand.
“It would have been better if all of you had simply submitted...”
“Kang Yujin! Subdue him!”
The moment I saw Joo Minha move, I shouted urgently.
Kang Yujin had sensed something was wrong too.
He was already charging toward Joo Minha.
But...
“Those who defy God...”
“should fall into Hell.”
Just before Kang Yujin’s hand reached Joo Minha...
everything stopped.
Kang Yujin failed to grab him.
Daji and I froze as well.
Something unknown is spreading through this entire area...!
I couldn’t tell whether it was magic or something else.
Some incomprehensible force had unfolded around us.
This was exactly the kind of situation where Joo Minha’s [Disruption Barrier] would normally be useful.
Unfortunately...
this time, Joo Minha was the enemy.
I can’t resist this...!
Even drawing out the Holy Grail’s power was useless.
Before Joo Minha’s cold gaze...
we were swallowed by a deep darkness.
When I opened my eyes...
I was lying in a wasteland.
Where is this...?
This wasn’t the Arctic region where we had been.
A dry, dark-red plain stretched endlessly ahead.
There wasn’t a single tree.
Not even one blade of grass.
The sky was dark too.
Not because of clouds.
The air itself seemed dirty.
It doesn’t look like an industrial zone.
Dust storm? Volcanic region?
As I looked around in confusion...
Kang Yujin and Daji, who had also been lying on the ground, slowly got up.
“This place...”
“What happened?”
They looked around, equally confused.
“Daji, do you sense anything?”
“Let me see. This place...”
Daji frowned and concentrated.
“There’s no life force coming from the ground at all.”
“And I can’t sense even the faint traces of magic power that should naturally exist in the air.”
“Even a desert wouldn’t be this barren.”
“Then what is this place?”
“Sense-wise, it feels somewhat similar to when I was sealed in Korea.”
“But preparing an area this large through magic or sorcery just to seal someone would be unnatural.”
Even the space inside Golden Horn’s gourd hadn’t been this vast.
“Then what happened?”
“Were we teleported somewhere else on Earth?”
“In all my three thousand years, I’ve never seen a place this barren.”
“Maybe this is...”
Daji frowned.
“A completely different world from the one we lived in.”
“A different world?”
“Joo Minha said it earlier.”
“That those who defy God should fall into Hell.”
"...!"
Could this really be...
Hell?
“Wait.”
“My body feels perfectly fine.”
Kang Yujin checked himself all over.
“My heart’s beating.”
“I’m breathing.”
“I can still draw up my internal energy.”
“And the magic power and spiritual energy I absorbed from Christina are still inside me.”
“Then we must have come to Hell while still alive.”
“Does that even make sense?”
“Don’t you have to die and become a soul to go to Hell?”
“No.”
“Not necessarily.”
I shook my head.
“There are plenty of myths and legends where living people enter the afterlife.”
In ancient times, people often believed the realm of the dead was physically connected to the living world.
That was why stories of living people entering the afterlife and returning were common across mythology and legend.
Even in Greek mythology alone...
heroes like Heracles and Orpheus had entered the underworld while alive.
“What the hell?”
“So we really got dropped into Hell while still alive?”
Kang Yujin sounded dumbfounded.
“How could Joo Minha do something like that?”
“This probably wasn’t Joo Minha’s power.”
This had to be Taigong Wang’s power.
If Taigong Wang was a transcendent existence capable of influencing several worlds...
then perhaps sending us to Hell wasn’t impossible.
“Still, if this really is Hell...”
“something feels strange.”
Daji looked around.
“Shouldn’t Hell be crawling with sinners?”
“Yeah... maybe we landed somewhere on the outskirts?”
Kang Yujin looked around curiously too.
Don’t tell me...
I remembered hearing something from several Constellations.
That the various afterlives that once existed might have merged together...
or disappeared entirely.
Could this be...
Just as that thought crossed my mind...
a voice spoke.
“Yes.”
“That’s correct.”
"...!"
I spun around at the unexpected voice.
A man was standing there.
“Huh?”
I was confused.
At first glance, he looked completely ordinary.
But the moment I saw his face...
I couldn’t help being shocked.
Because...
he had exactly the same face as me.
“T-Two Nameless Kings?!”
“Why are there two of him?!”
Daji and Kang Yujin stared at us in shock.
“Calm down.”
The ‘other me’ spoke coldly.
“My body is incomplete, so I cannot properly take form.”
“That is why I borrowed this man’s appearance.”
“What...?”
“As you suspected, this place is indeed Hell.”
“It is a place where a ‘soul’ that cannot take form in the Material Realm may once again assume a form resembling its living self.”
Watching his expression...
I felt a strange sense of familiarity.
I had definitely seen that expression before.
Back when we were luring Ha Mina out.
When Yang Jian transformed with Belial’s cooperation...
“Don’t tell me...”
It was unbelievable.
But there was only one explanation.
“Are you Lucifer?”
Lucifer.
The strongest demon who had once ruled Pandemonium.
Originally the brightest angel...
who rebelled against the one absolute God and started a war.
The ‘Demon King’ who captivated countless beings...
including Belial, Bael, and Ha Mina.
“Yes, Nameless King.”
Lucifer nodded...
with my face.
“I have been residing within you all this time.”
“It is only after arriving in this dying Hell that I can finally face you directly.”
Then Lucifer gave a faint laugh.
“Fate truly is impossible to predict.”
“I thought I would remain asleep like this until I eventually disappeared.”
“But now such an opportunity has appeared.”
“I suppose I should thank Joo Minha.”
“It feels strange talking in the middle of nowhere.”
“My old residence is not far from here.”
“I’ll guide you there.”
Still not fully understanding what was happening...
we followed Lucifer.
Before long...
a gigantic city appeared.
But the city had completely collapsed.
It looked as though it had been abandoned for hundreds of years.
Lucifer led us toward an enormous building in the center.
It resembled a Greek temple.
But its scale was greater than any ruin that existed on Earth.
Still...
like the rest of the city, it was half collapsed.
Could this really be the original Pandemonium?
Originally, Pandemonium referred to the grand hall of all demons.
Its name was derived from the Pantheon, the Roman temple dedicated to all gods.
According to Milton’s Paradise Lost...
the demons cast into Hell mined resources from the barren landscape and used them to construct Pandemonium.
“Hmm.”
“This area should do.”
Lucifer glanced at the magnificent throne located at the very back.
Then he sat on a collapsed pillar nearby.
He gestured for us to sit as well.
“Where should I begin...?”
“What are you most curious about?”
“First... I’d like you to explain yourself.”
Talking to Lucifer while he wore the exact same face as me felt extremely strange.
“You have all heard my name before.”
“I am Lucifer.”
“The fool who lost control of his own power a few years ago and destroyed himself.”
At the time...
the Crusader Order, the largest Contractor organization in Europe, gathered every holy relic and artifact possessed by the Vatican and constructed a gigantic magical ritual.
Their goal was to stop Lucifer, ruler of Pandemonium, who had invaded Europe.
They planned to make Lucifer’s enormous energy go berserk...
forcing him to destroy himself.
Humanity suffered catastrophic losses in the process.
And afterward, the other Demon God-class demons were able to occupy most of Europe.
But...
Lucifer ultimately failed to withstand his own power.
His body shattered completely.
“My flesh, spirit, and soul were all torn apart.”
“If left alone, every fragment should eventually have disappeared.”
“But when I became aware again...”
“my soul was inside an existence called the Nameless King.”
“Then were you watching everything from inside me all this time?”
“No.”
“I was half asleep.”
“Though I could vaguely understand what was happening around me.”
“So coming to Hell is what fully awakened you?”
“Correct.”
“This is, after all, a place meant for the dead.”
That made some sense.
The Lucifer soul present here was not one hundred percent intact.
Coming to Hell had allowed it to manifest...
but because it remained incomplete, it couldn’t recreate Lucifer’s original appearance.
So it had borrowed my form...
the one it had been with all this time.
Honestly...
it still felt incredibly strange.
“Now then.”
“I should explain the situation here.”
Lucifer looked around.
“As you can see...”
“Hell has completely perished.”
“Why?”
“Because all of you crossed into the Material Realm?”
“We invaded the Material Realm ten years ago.”
“A world this vast could not have been reduced to ruins in only ten years.”
“Then why...?”
“Hmm.”
“You truly know nothing about this.”
Lucifer rubbed his chin.
“Originally, Hell was an unimaginably vast world.”
“But now...”
“everything except this surrounding region has already disappeared.”
“What?”
“Bael, Belial, and the others never knew this either.”
Lucifer looked around with complicated emotions.
“Ten years ago...”
“I sensed that Hell was beginning to collapse.”
“That is why I decided to lead Pandemonium in the invasion of the Material Realm.”
“What a pathetic sight.”
“Grand Preceptor of the Golden Whip.”
“Divine Child of Three Heads and Six Arms.”
Joo Minha looked coldly at Wen Zhong and Nezha as they struggled back to their feet.
“If either of you had been capable of subduing the Nameless King...”
“I wouldn’t have needed to use Taigong Wang’s ‘authority.’”
“What... did you do?”
A voice came from nearby.
Golden Horn, the ‘traitor,’ had been bound along with his younger brother by several Constellations.
“Where did you send the Nameless King, Kang Yujin, and Daji?”
“I told you.”
“Those who defy God should fall into Hell.”
“You really sent them to Hell?”
“Yes.”
Joo Minha existed in this world as a higher-grade ‘agent’ than Nezha or Wen Zhong.
Because of that...
he could use part of the authority currently possessed by Taigong Wang.
“So you would be wise not to cling to pointless hope, Golden and Silver Children.”
Joo Minha looked coldly at Golden Horn, who had betrayed Taigong Wang for the Nameless King.
“Hell will completely disappear before long.”
“And there is no way to escape from it.”
"...!"
“They will remain trapped in Hell until it perishes with them.”
The Nameless King.
Kang Yujin.
Daji.
None of them would ever appear in this world again.
