“Are those your final words?” Asked the Demon King.
“Not particularly. I like talking. Although mainly I like complaining. Before this ends let me ask you a question. Your seem too specialize in the unarmed skill like Alice here since you have those claws. From my estimation you seem to have around 30 ranks in that skill. How many ranks do you think Alice has in her skill?”
“Really? This is how you wish to end it? I suppose I’ll humor you this one time. Given the amount of time she has had to practice her skill she would have around 12 ranks in that skill. Hardly enough to challenge me.”
“Did you hear that Alice? He thinks you have 12 ranks.”
She didn’t respond because she was too busy curled over in laughter. She was beginning to choke she was laughing so hard.
“You see.” I said, “This battle is barely worth having for us. We have long since surpassed you. I was worried you might be somebody actually dangerous but it turns out you were just a fool. I’ll let the foolish Demon King in on a secret. Alice’s unarmed skill is rank 73.”
“What is that? A joke? Because I’m not laughing.”
“You aren’t supposed to laugh. You are supposed to die.” With that I drew my blades and with my flash step I was in front of him. He was strong and had the reaction to block with one of his claws. He used his other to attack me but my second blade intercepted it.
I smiled at him. “You see, I have a secret that I never told you. I’m a filthy cheater.” Certainly that talent was cheating, something that made me and Alice impossibly strong. More than anybody we had faced.
With his arms distracted I brought my knee up into his chest. A dirty trick that he hadn’t expected. His chest was tough however so he was only push back a little bit from the impact.
“Pitiful.” He said and then his form began to glow as he activated several buffs. This time he attacked me with fury and powerful blows. I stepped back slowly while parrying with my swords. Then there were cracking sounds as the blades began to break under his powerful fury. When with one blow one of them broke and then the other in a second blow.
I leaped backward tossing the swords to the side.
“You were bragging a moment ago.” Said the Demon King, “Where is that bluster now?”
“Bluster? You can’t tell that I’m still just playing with you?” I reached toward my back and pulled out the next weapon. A small axe. “Did you know that I had the Monster Smith job, it lets me craft all of these weapons.” I moved the axe up and down, “And this weapon is a bit special, one of my more recent creations. Nothing like those previous weapons.”
“Playing with me? Your boring jokes continue.”
“I guess I just need to show you then.” And with that we leaped at each other. Our attacks clashed in the air before we both landed. There was a sharp howl in pain.
The Demon King was clutching one of his arms. The one that had tried to block my axe. Instead I had split his arm in two. In my other hand was a small round shield, make from the shell. It had some scratch marks from where he had hit it but the durability was still at the maximum.
“It looks like your buffs weren’t enough to protect you. Or were those offensive buffs?” I said nonchalantly. “I assume you went through some kind of trial just like I did to quickly raise your level? Although I expect that you were too cowardly to risk your own life when doing that.”
With a quick flick of my wrist I removed the blood from my axe. Then I took a combat pose once more. “How about we finish this? I’ll show you the true monster that you have created.”
The Demon King’s eyes smoldered. He must have been activating some new skill or talent. I could feel the heat radiating off him. His arm that I had split has already regenerated, it seemed he did have some actually dangerous skills.
“All right then.” I said, “I guess I will become serious too.” A gladiator is their weapon and all weapons were the gladiator. My weapon glowed, I glowed, we were the same.
For the first time there was fear in the Demon King’s eyes, an uncertainty that he would win.
Indomitable, Undefeatable, the king standing in the center of all. All his foes lay dead.
“I have changed my mind. You are both worthy of being my generals.”
I am destruction and nothing will escape. The world will shake and change before me for I am chaos.
“Actually, no you can be the new Demon King. Please don’t kill me. Forgive me.”
“You are the only person that I can not forgive.”
I raised the axe, and brought it down. It contained the full weight of my skills and my jobs and my hatred for this person. Alice, sensing the storm, leaped up into the box the the demon king had previously been in.
Then I brought down the axe, committed regicide. And the entire colosseum collapsed around me from the force of the destruction.
Nothing survived of the former demon king.
I felt the sun for what felt like the first time. Above me was a large broke section of the ceiling. I was looking up toward the sky. We were free.
The box that Alice had retreated too had also collapsed. However she just pushed her was free from the stone rubble and stared around the ruined colosseum.
“Wow, you really did a number on this place? Do you think I could create this much destruction if I tried?” She jumped down to join me on the floor.
“This much? Probably not. This kind of destruction is the special feature of my Chaos Originator job. But I’m sure you will be able to do this much too with a little bit of practice.”
Her dark crimson eyes stared intently at me, “I know I told the demon king that I wasn’t going to fight you but right now I really want to try it. I haven’t been able to let loose at all. I want to see if I am as strong as you.”
I laughed a little before saying, “We can have our match later. Right now there is something more important to do.”
“Oh, right! We should get going then.”
There might have been an exit out the back of the viewing box but that route had collapsed so we had to get through the hole in the roof. It was quite a large jump but the two of us were skilled at doing those kinds of jumps so we were able to escape through the hole fairly easily.
As we reached the top Alice stopped to say, “Oh, we reached level 87 from that fight. I wonder where I should spend my skill points on.”
“You should probably save them. Since we won’t be getting into big battles anytime soon.”
She nodded, previously we had keep some of our skill points in reserve to spend if we had gotten new job ranks unexpectedly. Honestly given how hard the Demon King actually turned out to be we could have saved a lot more of those points.
As we stood on the roof of the colosseum we could not see too much honestly. The place seems to have built at the bottom of a valley. There trees surrounding us. The colosseum was built into the ground so only the roof was visible from the surface and that was mostly hidden by the trees. A secluded place.
“The top of that mountain looks like a good place to get our bearings.” I pointed to the peak that was closest too us. In a previous life it would have seemed like an exhausting journey but the two of us made it to the top in less than an hour. We ran the entire way without tiring.
From the top we were able to get a good view the land around us. Mostly mountains and forests. As I was scanning the scenery looking for civilization Alice said, “Oh, your title changed.”
“Huh, your right. It looks like I’m now a Demon Lord. I guess I didn’t quite qualify to be a Demon King. Although it seems that you are still listed as just normal Demon.”
“Ahh, now I regret leaving that fight to you. I want to be a Demon Lord too.”
“If we fight another Demon King then I’ll make sure you get to fight them.”
“Thanks Jack!”
I pointed off toward one of the further valleys. “Look, that looks like a town doesn’t it?”
“Oh, so close! I expected one to be farther away.”
“Humans like to expand into any place they can. I am not too surprised that it exists this close to a Demon King’s lair. Actually I doubt they even know that the Demon King was that close.”
“I’m excited. You have told me all about towns and I am looking forward to it.”
“Well this looks like just a small town so I don’t know it will have everything we want but it is a bit exciting.”
“I’m drooling already. Do you want to race there?”
“No need to rush. It doesn’t look that far away. Plus you and me racing will probably do terrible things. Best to leave that for later.”
Still even though we didn’t race we did run the entire way there. For the non-demon me that I remember this would have been impossible. Several hours of a full run, leaping through the trees. But for the current me this was a light exercise, a slow jog.
We arrived at the town at 5pm. It was a quant renaissance looking town. A rather nice with farmers and townsfolk wandering around.
At least until they started screaming and running away from us.
“Jack, they are running away from us.”
“I’m not too surprised. We are demons and super high level. I did kind of expect this.”
“But, but, but, what about…” She trailed off looking dejected.
“Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. Look, the inn is just right over there.” I pointed and before I had finished she had flashed stepped into the inn. The screams began in the inn too. While she was clever in many ways she really had very little common sense.
I walked over there myself taking my time to look at everything. Sure everybody was running but they would calm down eventually. I pushed myself through the door. Alice had taken a chair and was looking around expectantly.
I looked around at the people who were cowering in fear.
“Who is in charge here?”
Everybody was silent. That was a problem. I stepped up to the counter and looked down at the person hiding behind it. “You.” I said down at him. He looked up hesitantly. “Are you the person in charge here?”
The man stammered, “The Duke, the Duke is in charge.”
“No, no, no. I don’t care who is in charge of the area. Who is in charge of the inn?”
The man stammered, “Me, I’m in charge of the inn.”
“Good,” I pointed over to Alice, “You see she is really hungry and we want you to make your best food and deliver it to us. Two plates. Can you do that?”
“Food, you don’t mean…”
“Just normal food. Just treat us as normal travelers. Nothing more.”
“Food, I’ll get you your food. It will be out quick.”
“Thank you.” I smiled at the man.
Then I walked over to the table that Alice was sitting at. “I placed the order. Now all we need to do is wait.”