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By all rights, tonight should have been a moonless night.
Yet, a dazzling light bathed the sky, making the surroundings as bright as midday. The ground shook with a violent tremor, and the unending roar of thunder made it feel as if the world was coming to an end.
The local townspeople looked up at the night sky with apprehension, many of them offering desperate prayers.
"Mommy, look! There's a person in the sky!"
"That can't be... but wait, you're right. If there is, then what you see must be a god, sweetie. He’s protecting us from this terrifying disaster. Come, let’s pray that he keeps us safe."
The mother took her young child's hand, knelt on the ground, and clasped her hands together in prayer.
In the child's eyes, the figure of a boy could be clearly seen, emitting a brilliant radiance from both hands.
The light released by the boy collided with another silhouette, and a thunderous roar echoed across the heavens once more.
"—!?"
Blown back by the force, Beal righted himself in mid-air while keeping his eyes locked forward.
In that brief interval, the boy facing him—Lloyd—was already activating his next spell with a perfectly calm expression.
A torrent of dazzling light, pitch-black meteors, and blades of shimmering ice and flame sought Beal out in a relentless, infinite barrage.
Beal parried some and dodged others, closing the distance to Lloyd with brute speed.
"Hah! Hahaha!"
With a roar, Beal drove his fist toward Lloyd's midsection.
A heavy, low-frequency thud resonated as Lloyd was sent careening into the high atmosphere. He ascended until he pierced the clouds, reaching a height where the color of the sky itself began to shift before he finally came to a halt.
Without a moment's delay, Beal circled around above Lloyd to deliver a follow-up strike.
A sharp, flashing kick tore through the very air where Lloyd stood.
"Hm!?"
But there was no sensation of impact. The image of Lloyd faded away; the true body had already slipped inside Beal’s guard.
Exhaling a short breath, Lloyd’s entire frame surged with Ki and mana, all of it funneled into his fist.
For a fleeting second, it seemed as if the silhouette of a girl in exotic clothing appeared behind him.
"—Hundred Flowers Fist: Consecutive Flowers."
A flurry of punches, each wreathed in Ki and mana refined to the absolute limit, hammered into Beal.
Even as he took dozens, then hundreds of consecutive blows, the Demon King let out a howl.
"Too weak!"
Beal intercepted the barrage by swinging his arms with reckless abandon.
It was pure violence, a display of raw mana devoid of any refined technique, yet the sheer weight and sharpness of his movements struck down the Consecutive Flowers.
Back and forth they went, exchanging fists and kicks while occasionally interjecting long-range magic.
Their movements were so rapid that they left countless afterimages in their wake, making it appear as if multiple versions of the two combatants were fighting all across the sky.
The sounds of impact echoed through the otherwise silent void.
In this thin atmosphere, where no living creature could survive, Lloyd remained active by deploying his Magic Barrier, while Beal, being a Magic Body, was unaffected by the environment.
"Hmph. I'm growing bored of this brawl."
Muttering to himself, Beal channeled his mana into his fist.
A minor increase in power would be easily blocked. Therefore, he simply needed to strike hard enough and fast enough to shatter any defense.
As he drew breath, a massive amount of mana was compressed, focusing onto a single point on his fist.
The surrounding space distorted under the pressure, and his fist was dyed a deep, abyssal black.
The charge took less than a second, but for Lloyd, whose physical capabilities were pushed to superhuman levels by his Mind's Eye and Martial God Arts, it was a massive opening.
Conditioned by his daily training, Lloyd’s body moved almost purely on reflex.
As he lunged forward, Lloyd generated the Radiant Armament: Spell Formula Giant Blade.
Countless Spell Formulas were etched along the length of its ten-meter blade.
—Dangerous. Sensing the power instinctively, Beal tried to leap backward, but he found his retreat blocked by 'something.'
It was a rock. More accurately, it was a meteorite Lloyd had summoned from the depths of space.
—Star System Large-scale Magic: Heavenly Star Impact.
With Beal pinned against the massive, mana-infused meteorite, the giant blade swung down.
"Langris Style Greatsword Arts: Ogre Rock Cut."
This was an adaptation of a technique originally meant to deliver a powerful slash to an opponent forced to carry a heavy boulder on their back.
Lloyd brought the sword down on Beal, whose escape was cut off by the massive stone created through Large-scale Magic.
Slash! Slash-slash-slash-slash!
A series of slashes carved into Beal, who had nowhere to go.
With every strike, the meteorite cracked, shattered, and was eventually reduced to fine dust.
"Heh... not bad... but to think this level of—!?"
Having lost his footing and been tossed into the air, Beal faced yet another follow-up.
An even larger Radiant Armament: Spell Formula Giant Blade—the absolute pinnacle of the form.
The Sword of Light, held high in a supreme overhead stance, was brought straight down.
The single strike cleaved through the layers of the atmosphere, generating a cataclysmic torrent of air.
Beal plummeted, swallowed by the vortex of the draft.
After a long, long fall, he impacted the earth like a falling star, leaving a single trail of light in his wake.
An explosion roared as the ground split open.
A fissure extending hundreds of meters appeared, swallowing the nearby rocky mountains and causing a portion of the coastline to sink beneath the waves.
Despite the impact that had literally reshaped the terrain, Beal remained largely unhurt. However—
"Nngh...!"
A groan of agony escaped him. Beal’s eyes widened at the sound of his own voice—a sensation he was experiencing for the first time in his existence.
"...Heh. This is truly difficult to believe."
A smile of pure delight spread across Beal’s face.
Demons were the apex of the Demon World’s ecosystem, the ruling class.
And Beal, the King who made them all kneel, was the strongest being from the moment of his birth.
To say nothing of those around him, he possessed an overwhelming power that had no equal in the entirety of the Demon World—yet Beal himself had known only loneliness and emptiness.
All life is born to be compared with others.
By species, by generation, by location; as enemies, as allies, in competition—life is a constant state of comparison from birth until death, sometimes even transcending time itself.
This was especially true in the Demon World, where strength was the only metric of value.
Yet, because Beal had been born with such colossal power, he had never even been able to gauge the true extent of his own strength.
He had no friends, no masters, and no enemies. Eventually, Beal had turned his hopes toward the world outside.
But even after crossing the continent, he had failed to meet a single worthy opponent. In his profound disappointment, he had fallen into a long slumber.
"...I have spent thousands of years yearning for a strong foe, but I never imagined we would meet in a manner like this. I can see it clearly—your mana, your rare talent, and the unimaginable amount of training you have endured. It is truly marvelous that a member of such fragile humanity could produce a warrior of your caliber! Fuhahaha!"
Beal laughed loudly as he looked up at Lloyd descending from the heavens.
"You are the first to ever entertain me to this extent. However, no matter how much power you possess, even you cannot maintain it forever. Surely you are nearing your limit? But I shall not stay my hand. Entertain me until the very end—"
"Hey."
Lloyd cut him off.
"I don't really care about any of that... but tell me, when are you going to get serious?"
Lloyd tilted his head slightly, and Beal flinched.
Indeed, Beal had been intentionally suppressing his power.
Just as a man might injure his own fist if he punches a wall with all his might, power that is too immense can destroy its wielder.
Having never released even ten percent of his strength before, Beal had never needed to consider such a thing.
But now, his release rate was at seventy percent. Every time he exerted himself, his Magic Body creaked, showing signs of imminent collapse.
He felt the danger of releasing any more power. For the first time in his life.
"To think you saw through it. Something even I was barely conscious of... Hmph. How absurd."
The smile vanished from Beal’s face.
The fact that he, who had lived his life wanting nothing more than a serious battle, was hesitating when it was finally before him was a joke that Beal did not find funny at all.
Fury toward himself bubbled up, burning through his body and soul.
"Haaaaah...!"
He exhaled a long breath, releasing his suppressed mana.
Mana particles that had no place to go burst and crackled like dancing sparks.
The expanding mana was compressed again and again, enveloping Beal’s body as an even higher-density Magic Body.
Finally, he was filled with more than enough power.
"Kaaaaah!"
With a spirit-shattering shout, Beal unleashed his full strength.
The release triggered a monstrous gale that flattened the ground and pulverized the surrounding stone.
One hundred percent. Due to the total release of his power, Beal’s skin was fissured, with cracks appearing across his form.
Beal stood wreathed in a torrent of explosive mana that seemed to pierce the sky. Looking down at him, Lloyd let out a small, interested "Huh."
"...I have kept you waiting, Lloyd. From this moment on, you face my true self."
"Okay."
The moment Lloyd nodded, Beal’s fist buried itself deep into his stomach.
Shards of the shattered Magic Barrier scattered into the air, vanishing as they fell.