The battle with Demon World was particularly fierce.
The Eight Great Demon Kings matched strengths with the Five Dragon Generals.
Dragon God-sama and Demon God were also equally matched.
We were no longer in perfect fighting shape, and Dragon God-sama was wounded.
We could no longer destroy a world with just the six of us.
Even though we intended to walk the path of peace…
Yet Dragon God-sama plunged us into total war.
He called upon all the Dragon Warriors and brought the full force of Dragon World to bear.
Of course, all the demon world’s fighters came to meet them.
Dragon Warriors could win by force, but demon fighters win by numbers.
It’s an even match.
Dragon Race invaded.
Although we devastated several cities, the demons were numerous and tenacious.
Unable to land a decisive victory, we withdrew.
Then the Demon Race retaliated, launching a counter offensive against Dragon World.
Because of the unique topography of Dragon World, the demons’ offensive faltered, so they also retreated and left behind their share of destruction.
Such back and forth fighting raged on for years.
I command the Dragon Warriors from the front line.
Dueled the Eight Great Demon Kings countless times.
Necros Lacrosse had been strangely absent for the entire war.
A missing member of the Eight Great Demon Kings.
Did they hold him in reserve, or was he preparing to attack when we least expected?
I had no clue of his whereabouts.
The war raged for decades.
The necessity of war begets technology advancements.
During the course of the war, we the Five Dragon Generals developed many new magic and technologies.
Dora-sama created spirits using summoning magic.
To counter magical attacks from the demons, Szilard invented barrier magic.
Chaos forged magic swords from the bones of demons.
Maxwell developed Dragon Gate as a method to weaken demonic power.
A revolution in magical knowledge, relentlessly thrown into the battlefield.
Of course, the demons were no slouch either.
No, while there were many idiots among the demons, there’re also wise ones.
They invented many magic to counter the Dragon Race.
A beam of light that can instantly vaporize dragons, magic spears that amplifies the wielder’s power, poisons that corrode the victim in a painful death.
Many unique techniques were created, through methods unknown to us.
It was total war, with the apex pinnacle of technology and magic.
Much of them were lost.
Those endless battles, like a bottomless swamp, would stretch for eons.
However, even such a war reached a turning point.
What do you think was the end result of so much technological advances?
Population decline.
For Dragon Race and Demon Race both.
It’s the natural consequence of war.
Demon Race and Dragon Race were both resilient people.
At the beginning, there were few casualties on either side.
Two armies colliding head-on, numbered in the tens-of-thousand each, yet only a couple deaths on either side.
It was a small miracle.
But as technology slowly advanced, the casualties mounted.
The Dragon Race’s tombs were filled with the names of those fallen in the battlefield.
Too many have died, let’s stop this war!
Wars among the Human Race would often end this way.
But neither the Dragon Race or Demon Race would ever consider it.
The turning point was something else.
We were troubled by our decline in fighting strength.
It was the injuries to Dragon God-sama and the Five Dragon Generals that forced us into total war in the first place.
As our numbers declined, we fell into a precarious situation.
Then Human God suddenly appeared.
Popping up from behind as usual, he said,
“The Eight Great Demon Kings are appearing on the frontline more often lately. If you defeat and reduce their numbers, you can turn this war around.”
“We won’t be having such a tough time, if only it’s so easy.”
“If the Five Dragon Generals all gang up on a Demon King, it’ll be no different than an ordinary monster hunt.”
Five Dragon Generals were the strongest warriors of the Dragon Race.
We always fought alone.
It wasn’t necessarily out of pride or honor.
Simply there was never a necessity otherwise.
Dragon Generals could always defeat every enemies single-handedly.
A blind spot.
When I spoke to the others of this, they all wore bitter expressions.
But with how the war had progressed, it dawned on everyone that special tactics were necessary to turn the tide..
So they accepted my suggestion.
We provoked one of the Eight Great Generals, lured and isolated him…. Then all five of us attacked at once.
No enemy that could withstood the full might of the Five Dragon Generals.
That Demon King died, astonished and in despair.
In this way, one by one, we eliminated the Eight Great Demon Kings.
Without them, the demons lost their momentum and the Dragon Race pushed back.
Yet even in the end, Necro Lacrosse did not show...
Finally, Demon God appeared on the frontline.
When he spotted us, Demon God began to grow in size.
5 meters, 10 meters.
A hundred, a thousand, his growth continued unabated.
Only when his head pierced the clouds, and his feet were the size of walls did he stop.
At the same time when he stopped, eyes appeared everywhere on his body.
The eyes caught sight of the Five Dragon Generals… and engaged us in battle.
You may assume that giants in stories were lumbering beasts.
But not Demon God.
He still moved about in his usual swiftness.
He fell upon us, with punches the size of mountains and kicks like falling meteorites.
It was too much even for the Five Dragon Generals.
Even when we dodged a punch, we would be blown for tens of kilometers away by the aftershock.
There was too much of a power gap between gods and generals.
We were not his match.
It was then I truly realized the power of gods.
If I had fought Beast God, Sea God, or Heaven God, it would have been an one-sided slaughter as well.
Luckily, if Demon God appeared, Dragon God-sama would not stand on the sideline either.
Dragon God-sama, who had been preserving his strength until this moment, appeared in Demon World in perfect form.
The final duel began.
I was worried.
It wasn’t that I don’t think Dragon God-sama could defeat the mountain-sized Demon God.
But the wounds he suffered in other worlds had yet to heal…
However, it seemed that I worried for nothing.
A golden light shone from the Dragon God-sama’s body as he began to move faster than light.
Demon God’s punch and kicks had difficulty connecting.
On the rare occasion when they did land, it was Demon God that was blown away.
Dragon God-sama was overpowering.
But when a body part of Demon God was blown off, it would immediately regenerate. Demon God would launch into another attack, so Dragon God-sama failed to gain an upper hand.
Every blow between the gods was accompanied by roaring sounds, making our skins crawl no matter how far away we were.
With a slight delay, the shockwave came and blew us away.
But we witnessed their battle anyway.
We couldn’t look away.
It was the fourth time I witnessed a duel between gods.
Each was a terrible catastrophe, of world-shattering destructions.
This battle was unusually long.
Dragon God-sama’s unrelenting destructive power failed to break Demon God.
Neither could Demon God strike a decisive blow against Dragon God-sama.
Thus they attacked and defended, for ten days, twenty days.
Nobody could approach them.
All watched from afar like we did.
A fight that could go either way.
But Dragon God-sama was the victor.
After exactly one hundred days.
A divine light suddenly poured out from below the giant Demon God’s feet.
It didn’t immediately register for me what was happening.
But as the particles of light streamed out, it dawned on me.
It’s a magic circle.
A magic circle, the size of continents, was under Demon God’s feet.
I couldn’t see how Demon God looked from a distance.
But from his gestures I could tell he didn’t expect it either.
He never thought Dragon God-sama would pull off something like this…
Demon God’s body began to rapidly collapse, starting from his feet.
Because of his size, from the distance it appeared as if a mountain was slowly weathering away.
It’s hard to tell whether it was quick or slow.
After the light subsided, Dragon God-sama returned.
Holding a small jewel in his hand.
"Dragon God-sama!"
We rushed to him.
Dragon God-sama was covered in wounds.
In addition to the wounds received from other gods, Dragon God-sama had nearly exhausted all of his Dragon Touki in the battle against Demon God.
So weakened that I no longer sense the usual divine aura around him.
With Dragon God-sama looking near collapse, the Five Dragon Generals were all terrified.
“Oh no! Dragon God-sama, for the time being, let’s hurry and return to Dragon World!”
“Mmm...”
We lent a shoulder to the Dragon God-sama, who could only moan in response, and flew.
Then Dora-sama suddenly turned around.
Beyond her were the terrified demon masses, petrified by the death of their god.
And the world collapsing around them.
Indeed, this world could not withstand a battle between gods either.
Seeing all this, Dora-sama tossed the jewel toward me.
“Laplace. You stay and witness Demon World’s end.”
"... Yes!"
Witness the end of a world.
Is it a courtesy?
In both the Sea and Heaven World, someone remained to witness their end.
Of course, it’s not mere courtesy.
There’s also the responsibility of finding Lunaria-sama’s murderer before the world’s total collapse.
Even though I barely did anything the first time, at Beast World.
It couldn't be helped.
You would freeze too, watching a world end.
It was too shocking a scene.
To witness something as vast as a world collapse.
Like the flow of a great river, an unstoppable end that you can only standby and watch.
Irreversible.
The demons are a strong race, but as the world collapses, nothing can be done.
Like people of the other worlds, they all tried to flee in every direction.
But after a while, they all collectively move toward one.
The legacy to another world.
Yes, Human God made his move again.
It’s a shocking sight to bear… but after witnessing it so many times, I had become resistant to it.
I flew about the collapsing Demon World to complete my mission.
I was looking for someone.
Necro Lacrosse.
Even at the end, one of the Eight Great Demon Kings never appeared.
He was also a close associate of Kirisis Calisis.
If we met, maybe I could learn something useful.
Why wait until now to find him?
Because there was no way for me to come to Demon World.
I had long returned Beast God’s jewel to Dragon God-sama.
I couldn’t even think to petition him.
Because I already bore the responsibility of inviting those criminals into the Dragon World.
Even if I suggested it, Dragon God-sama probably wouldn’t permit me to go.
As a result, I never had a chance to meet Necro Lacrosse again.
"Hmm?"
After flying for a while, I spotted something.
The largest city of the world, the Demon Capital Daileck .
The biggest castle, Demon God Castle Gaileck.
The castle was ablaze.
The castle that shouldn’t burn, was engulfed with an unusual, black flame.
What insane individual would set fire to the residence of a god?
I found that suspicious and approached the castle.
However, with the smoke thick in the air, I couldn’t find the entrances.
Therefore, I landed on the grounds.
Before, I always entered from rooftop, so it was an unusual sensation to stand before the front gate.
Several guards were fleeing from the castle as I landed.
When they spotted me, they screamed and ran away.
Walking away from them, I headed inside the castle.
It was tremendously hot inside the castle, with many demon corpses littered about.
But the heat did nothing to the protection of my Dragon Touki.
I looked about the castle that was engulfed in flame.
Of course, no one remained in the burning castle.
The glorious Castle Gaileck was deserted.
I couldn’t find the arsonist, he must have already feld.
Thinking so, I left the castle.
Then, we met.
A six-armed black giant emerged from the stairs leading to the basement.
"Huh!"
Necro Lacrosse.
Just the person I was looking for!
“You!”
The face I haven’t seen for so long looked rather thin.
Could immortal demons lose weight?
He had a baby in his arms.
"Laplace! Please... let us go!”
Before I could respond, Necro Lacrosse continued, hiding the baby behind him.
"I know why you would betray us! But this kid knew nothing! The child is innocent!”
For a moment, I couldn’t comprehend his words.
I have betrayed them?
"What are you talking about?"
“What am I talking about? The one that murdered Kirisis Calisis and engulfed the worlds in the flames of war... was you, Laplace!”
“Wait, Kirisis Calisis was murdered? When?”
“What’s the point of pretending..? You plotted the whole thing!”
“I don’t know what you are talking about! Tell me, Necro Lacrosse, exactly how did Kirisis Calisis die?”
I listened to the visibly agitated Necros Lacrosse about the circumstances on their side.
Everything started the day Kirisis Calisis returned to Demon World.
Necro Lacrosse didn’t know the precise reason, only that she was allowed to return for a while.
Demon God nodded at his wife’s words and did not inquire further.
Kirisis Calisis was near childbirth around that time, so everyone assumed the Dragon Race had allowed her return in consideration.
Kirisis Calisis gave birth to a healthy child.
The birth of an immortal demon is rather unusual, even their physique remained unchanged during pregnancy. But that’s a bit of a tangent.
Shortly after giving birth, Kirisis Calisis was found dead.
Demon God went on a rampage, searching for the criminal.
Fortunately, this criminal left behind a trail of evidence.
Silver hair and scales.
Remains of a Dragon Race.
That night, all the Dragon Warriors stationed in Demon World had disappeared.
It's a story I've heard somewhere before.
And it proceeded as expected as well.
Dragon Race did it.
Laplace, of the Five Dragon Generals, took revenge on the demons.
But here the stories diverged.
Upon hearing the story, Necros Lacrosse strongly rejected the accusations from the other Eight Great Demon Kings.
Laplace would never do such things.
Rather, it’s probably a plot, planting evidence to incriminate the Dragon Race.
We should calm down and investigate further.
The Demon Kings did settle down, and was about to engage the Dragon Race for details.
It was just then news of the destruction of Beast World at the hands of the dragons came.
At the same time, the suspect of Kirisis Calisis’ murder was captured, a Dragon Race.
Under intense torture, the man testified, “I was ordered by Laplace, and Necro Lacrosse was also an accomplice.”
Necro Lacrosse was quickly captured and imprisoned.
Necro Lacrosse turned rather depressed.
Incredible how much faith he had in me.
Even if he feared that I might take revenge for his past transgressions.
After that, Necros Lacrosse didn’t know about the situation in Demon World…
Well, the story ended the same.
Demon Race chose to fight and engaged with Dragon Race in battle.
Necros Lacrosse could only wait in his pitch-black cell.
However, when Demon God died, the world began to crumble, so he knew something terrible had happened.
He managed to break free and escaped outside.
When he saw people fleeing in every direction, he hadn’t figured out what’s going on yet, only realizing that the castle was set on fire.
A black flame.
Seeing that strange flame, Necros Lacrosse realized that the newborn demon child was still in the castle.
Fearing the worst, he rushed into the castle and the baby’s room. As he feared, no caretaker remained with the child.
So he took the child with him to escape, and that’s when he unexpectedly met me.
"..."
“I feared you were the cause of everything, but I can see from your face that you’re truly innocent.”
“It wasn’t me.”
So much information left my head swirling.
If everything he said was true, then we were framed.
By who?
For what?
At least, Necros Lacrosse’s wasn’t lying.
He’s a man who could tell no lies.
He doesn’t have the brains to make up a story like this.
“I’d like to talk in detail, but I have to keep this child alive. If you’re truly not hostile… please, let us go.”
“...”
I slowly slid my body aside, letting them through.
Demon God’s child.
When he grows up, anyone would expect him to become Dragon God-sama’s enemy.
But I couldn’t stop them.
After listening to Necros Lacrosse’s circumstances, it’s impossible to take the life of that baby.
We already destroyed their world under false pretenses, to kill the child in fear of revenge was not righteous.
“Head to the teleport shrine. The path to the Human World is open.”
“Thanks! I owe you one…!”
And Necros Lacrosse was gone.
In his bosom a baby too young to open his eyes.
And I returned to Dragon World.
Burying the information I gained from Necros Lacrosse deep in my heart.
Thus, Demon World collapsed.
The battle with Demon World was particularly fierce.
The Eight Great Demon Kings matched strengths with the Five Dragon Generals.
Dragon God-sama and Demon God were also equally matched.
We were no longer in perfect fighting shape, and Dragon God-sama was wounded.
We could no longer destroy a world with just the six of us.
Even though we intended to walk the path of peace…
Yet Dragon God-sama plunged us into total war.
He called upon all the Dragon Warriors and brought the full force of Dragon World to bear.
Of course, all the demon world’s fighters came to meet them.
Dragon Warriors could win by force, but demon fighters win by numbers.
It’s an even match.
Dragon Race invaded.
Although we devastated several cities, the demons were numerous and tenacious.
Unable to land a decisive victory, we withdrew.
Then the Demon Race retaliated, launching a counter offensive against Dragon World.
Because of the unique topography of Dragon World, the demons’ offensive faltered, so they also retreated and left behind their share of destruction.
Such back and forth fighting raged on for years.
I command the Dragon Warriors from the front line.
Dueled the Eight Great Demon Kings countless times.
Necros Lacrosse had been strangely absent for the entire war.
A missing member of the Eight Great Demon Kings.
Did they hold him in reserve, or was he preparing to attack when we least expected?
I had no clue of his whereabouts.
The war raged for decades.
The necessity of war begets technology advancements.
During the course of the war, we the Five Dragon Generals developed many new magic and technologies.
Dora-sama created spirits using summoning magic.
To counter magical attacks from the demons, Szilard invented barrier magic.
Chaos forged magic swords from the bones of demons.
Maxwell developed Dragon Gate as a method to weaken demonic power.
A revolution in magical knowledge, relentlessly thrown into the battlefield.
Of course, the demons were no slouch either.
No, while there were many idiots among the demons, there’re also wise ones.
They invented many magic to counter the Dragon Race.
A beam of light that can instantly vaporize dragons, magic spears that amplifies the wielder’s power, poisons that corrode the victim in a painful death.
Many unique techniques were created, through methods unknown to us.
It was total war, with the apex pinnacle of technology and magic.
Much of them were lost.
Those endless battles, like a bottomless swamp, would stretch for eons.
However, even such a war reached a turning point.
What do you think was the end result of so much technological advances?
Population decline.
For Dragon Race and Demon Race both.
It’s the natural consequence of war.
Demon Race and Dragon Race were both resilient people.
At the beginning, there were few casualties on either side.
Two armies colliding head-on, numbered in the tens-of-thousand each, yet only a couple deaths on either side.
It was a small miracle.
But as technology slowly advanced, the casualties mounted.
The Dragon Race’s tombs were filled with the names of those fallen in the battlefield.
Too many have died, let’s stop this war!
Wars among the Human Race would often end this way.
But neither the Dragon Race or Demon Race would ever consider it.
The turning point was something else.
We were troubled by our decline in fighting strength.
It was the injuries to Dragon God-sama and the Five Dragon Generals that forced us into total war in the first place.
As our numbers declined, we fell into a precarious situation.
Then Human God suddenly appeared.
Popping up from behind as usual, he said,
“The Eight Great Demon Kings are appearing on the frontline more often lately. If you defeat and reduce their numbers, you can turn this war around.”
“We won’t be having such a tough time, if only it’s so easy.”
“If the Five Dragon Generals all gang up on a Demon King, it’ll be no different than an ordinary monster hunt.”
Five Dragon Generals were the strongest warriors of the Dragon Race.
We always fought alone.
It wasn’t necessarily out of pride or honor.
Simply there was never a necessity otherwise.
Dragon Generals could always defeat every enemies single-handedly.
A blind spot.
When I spoke to the others of this, they all wore bitter expressions.
But with how the war had progressed, it dawned on everyone that special tactics were necessary to turn the tide..
So they accepted my suggestion.
We provoked one of the Eight Great Generals, lured and isolated him…. Then all five of us attacked at once.
No enemy that could withstood the full might of the Five Dragon Generals.
That Demon King died, astonished and in despair.
In this way, one by one, we eliminated the Eight Great Demon Kings.
Without them, the demons lost their momentum and the Dragon Race pushed back.
Yet even in the end, Necro Lacrosse did not show...
Finally, Demon God appeared on the frontline.
When he spotted us, Demon God began to grow in size.
5 meters, 10 meters.
A hundred, a thousand, his growth continued unabated.
Only when his head pierced the clouds, and his feet were the size of walls did he stop.
At the same time when he stopped, eyes appeared everywhere on his body.
The eyes caught sight of the Five Dragon Generals… and engaged us in battle.
You may assume that giants in stories were lumbering beasts.
But not Demon God.
He still moved about in his usual swiftness.
He fell upon us, with punches the size of mountains and kicks like falling meteorites.
It was too much even for the Five Dragon Generals.
Even when we dodged a punch, we would be blown for tens of kilometers away by the aftershock.
There was too much of a power gap between gods and generals.
We were not his match.
It was then I truly realized the power of gods.
If I had fought Beast God, Sea God, or Heaven God, it would have been an one-sided slaughter as well.
Luckily, if Demon God appeared, Dragon God-sama would not stand on the sideline either.
Dragon God-sama, who had been preserving his strength until this moment, appeared in Demon World in perfect form.
The final duel began.
I was worried.
It wasn’t that I don’t think Dragon God-sama could defeat the mountain-sized Demon God.
But the wounds he suffered in other worlds had yet to heal…
However, it seemed that I worried for nothing.
A golden light shone from the Dragon God-sama’s body as he began to move faster than light.
Demon God’s punch and kicks had difficulty connecting.
On the rare occasion when they did land, it was Demon God that was blown away.
Dragon God-sama was overpowering.
But when a body part of Demon God was blown off, it would immediately regenerate. Demon God would launch into another attack, so Dragon God-sama failed to gain an upper hand.
Every blow between the gods was accompanied by roaring sounds, making our skins crawl no matter how far away we were.
With a slight delay, the shockwave came and blew us away.
But we witnessed their battle anyway.
We couldn’t look away.
It was the fourth time I witnessed a duel between gods.
Each was a terrible catastrophe, of world-shattering destructions.
This battle was unusually long.
Dragon God-sama’s unrelenting destructive power failed to break Demon God.
Neither could Demon God strike a decisive blow against Dragon God-sama.
Thus they attacked and defended, for ten days, twenty days.
Nobody could approach them.
All watched from afar like we did.
A fight that could go either way.
But Dragon God-sama was the victor.
After exactly one hundred days.
A divine light suddenly poured out from below the giant Demon God’s feet.
It didn’t immediately register for me what was happening.
But as the particles of light streamed out, it dawned on me.
It’s a magic circle.
A magic circle, the size of continents, was under Demon God’s feet.
I couldn’t see how Demon God looked from a distance.
But from his gestures I could tell he didn’t expect it either.
He never thought Dragon God-sama would pull off something like this…
Demon God’s body began to rapidly collapse, starting from his feet.
Because of his size, from the distance it appeared as if a mountain was slowly weathering away.
It’s hard to tell whether it was quick or slow.
After the light subsided, Dragon God-sama returned.
Holding a small jewel in his hand.
"Dragon God-sama!"
We rushed to him.
Dragon God-sama was covered in wounds.
In addition to the wounds received from other gods, Dragon God-sama had nearly exhausted all of his Dragon Touki in the battle against Demon God.
So weakened that I no longer sense the usual divine aura around him.
With Dragon God-sama looking near collapse, the Five Dragon Generals were all terrified.
“Oh no! Dragon God-sama, for the time being, let’s hurry and return to Dragon World!”
“Mmm...”
We lent a shoulder to the Dragon God-sama, who could only moan in response, and flew.
Then Dora-sama suddenly turned around.
Beyond her were the terrified demon masses, petrified by the death of their god.
And the world collapsing around them.
Indeed, this world could not withstand a battle between gods either.
Seeing all this, Dora-sama tossed the jewel toward me.
“Laplace. You stay and witness Demon World’s end.”
"... Yes!"
Witness the end of a world.
Is it a courtesy?
In both the Sea and Heaven World, someone remained to witness their end.
Of course, it’s not mere courtesy.
There’s also the responsibility of finding Lunaria-sama’s murderer before the world’s total collapse.
Even though I barely did anything the first time, at Beast World.
It couldn't be helped.
You would freeze too, watching a world end.
It was too shocking a scene.
To witness something as vast as a world collapse.
Like the flow of a great river, an unstoppable end that you can only standby and watch.
Irreversible.
The demons are a strong race, but as the world collapses, nothing can be done.
Like people of the other worlds, they all tried to flee in every direction.
But after a while, they all collectively move toward one.
The legacy to another world.
Yes, Human God made his move again.
It’s a shocking sight to bear… but after witnessing it so many times, I had become resistant to it.
I flew about the collapsing Demon World to complete my mission.
I was looking for someone.
Necro Lacrosse.
Even at the end, one of the Eight Great Demon Kings never appeared.
He was also a close associate of Kirisis Calisis.
If we met, maybe I could learn something useful.
Why wait until now to find him?
Because there was no way for me to come to Demon World.
I had long returned Beast God’s jewel to Dragon God-sama.
I couldn’t even think to petition him.
Because I already bore the responsibility of inviting those criminals into the Dragon World.
Even if I suggested it, Dragon God-sama probably wouldn’t permit me to go.
As a result, I never had a chance to meet Necro Lacrosse again.
"Hmm?"
After flying for a while, I spotted something.
The largest city of the world, the Demon Capital Daileck .
The biggest castle, Demon God Castle Gaileck.
The castle was ablaze.
The castle that shouldn’t burn, was engulfed with an unusual, black flame.
What insane individual would set fire to the residence of a god?
I found that suspicious and approached the castle.
However, with the smoke thick in the air, I couldn’t find the entrances.
Therefore, I landed on the grounds.
Before, I always entered from rooftop, so it was an unusual sensation to stand before the front gate.
Several guards were fleeing from the castle as I landed.
When they spotted me, they screamed and ran away.
Walking away from them, I headed inside the castle.
It was tremendously hot inside the castle, with many demon corpses littered about.
But the heat did nothing to the protection of my Dragon Touki.
I looked about the castle that was engulfed in flame.
Of course, no one remained in the burning castle.
The glorious Castle Gaileck was deserted.
I couldn’t find the arsonist, he must have already feld.
Thinking so, I left the castle.
Then, we met.
A six-armed black giant emerged from the stairs leading to the basement.
"Huh!"
Necro Lacrosse.
Just the person I was looking for!
“You!”
The face I haven’t seen for so long looked rather thin.
Could immortal demons lose weight?
He had a baby in his arms.
"Laplace! Please... let us go!”
Before I could respond, Necro Lacrosse continued, hiding the baby behind him.
"I know why you would betray us! But this kid knew nothing! The child is innocent!”
For a moment, I couldn’t comprehend his words.
I have betrayed them?
"What are you talking about?"
“What am I talking about? The one that murdered Kirisis Calisis and engulfed the worlds in the flames of war... was you, Laplace!”
“Wait, Kirisis Calisis was murdered? When?”
“What’s the point of pretending..? You plotted the whole thing!”
“I don’t know what you are talking about! Tell me, Necro Lacrosse, exactly how did Kirisis Calisis die?”
I listened to the visibly agitated Necros Lacrosse about the circumstances on their side.
Everything started the day Kirisis Calisis returned to Demon World.
Necro Lacrosse didn’t know the precise reason, only that she was allowed to return for a while.
Demon God nodded at his wife’s words and did not inquire further.
Kirisis Calisis was near childbirth around that time, so everyone assumed the Dragon Race had allowed her return in consideration.
Kirisis Calisis gave birth to a healthy child.
The birth of an immortal demon is rather unusual, even their physique remained unchanged during pregnancy. But that’s a bit of a tangent.
Shortly after giving birth, Kirisis Calisis was found dead.
Demon God went on a rampage, searching for the criminal.
Fortunately, this criminal left behind a trail of evidence.
Silver hair and scales.
Remains of a Dragon Race.
That night, all the Dragon Warriors stationed in Demon World had disappeared.
It's a story I've heard somewhere before.
And it proceeded as expected as well.
Dragon Race did it.
Laplace, of the Five Dragon Generals, took revenge on the demons.
But here the stories diverged.
Upon hearing the story, Necros Lacrosse strongly rejected the accusations from the other Eight Great Demon Kings.
Laplace would never do such things.
Rather, it’s probably a plot, planting evidence to incriminate the Dragon Race.
We should calm down and investigate further.
The Demon Kings did settle down, and was about to engage the Dragon Race for details.
It was just then news of the destruction of Beast World at the hands of the dragons came.
At the same time, the suspect of Kirisis Calisis’ murder was captured, a Dragon Race.
Under intense torture, the man testified, “I was ordered by Laplace, and Necro Lacrosse was also an accomplice.”
Necro Lacrosse was quickly captured and imprisoned.
Necro Lacrosse turned rather depressed.
Incredible how much faith he had in me.
Even if he feared that I might take revenge for his past transgressions.
After that, Necros Lacrosse didn’t know about the situation in Demon World…
Well, the story ended the same.
Demon Race chose to fight and engaged with Dragon Race in battle.
Necros Lacrosse could only wait in his pitch-black cell.
However, when Demon God died, the world began to crumble, so he knew something terrible had happened.
He managed to break free and escaped outside.
When he saw people fleeing in every direction, he hadn’t figured out what’s going on yet, only realizing that the castle was set on fire.
A black flame.
Seeing that strange flame, Necros Lacrosse realized that the newborn demon child was still in the castle.
Fearing the worst, he rushed into the castle and the baby’s room. As he feared, no caretaker remained with the child.
So he took the child with him to escape, and that’s when he unexpectedly met me.
"..."
“I feared you were the cause of everything, but I can see from your face that you’re truly innocent.”
“It wasn’t me.”
So much information left my head swirling.
If everything he said was true, then we were framed.
By who?
For what?
At least, Necros Lacrosse’s wasn’t lying.
He’s a man who could tell no lies.
He doesn’t have the brains to make up a story like this.
“I’d like to talk in detail, but I have to keep this child alive. If you’re truly not hostile… please, let us go.”
“...”
I slowly slid my body aside, letting them through.
Demon God’s child.
When he grows up, anyone would expect him to become Dragon God-sama’s enemy.
But I couldn’t stop them.
After listening to Necros Lacrosse’s circumstances, it’s impossible to take the life of that baby.
We already destroyed their world under false pretenses, to kill the child in fear of revenge was not righteous.
“Head to the teleport shrine. The path to the Human World is open.”
“Thanks! I owe you one…!”
And Necros Lacrosse was gone.
In his bosom a baby too young to open his eyes.
And I returned to Dragon World.
Burying the information I gained from Necros Lacrosse deep in my heart.
Thus, Demon World collapsed.
