SCREECH!!

The moment the demon's cry pierced his ears, Deathbringer's fading consciousness snapped back. This was not a situation where he could afford to pass out yet.

"..."

He slightly lifted the wooden board crushing him and checked his surroundings. Whether a building had collapsed or not, all four sides of him were filled with what used to be a building.

SCREECH!

"..."

Fortunately, he was covered in building debris and wasn't caught by the demon. That didn't mean the building debris formed a structure that would put his life in danger, either.

Thanks to the fact that only a wooden board—likely a ceiling—covered him, he was able to protect his body perfectly intact.

Whether it was because the building was only three stories high or because he was on a higher floor of the collapsing building. Regardless, it was a stroke of heavenly luck.

"It hurts..."

The problem was whether this heavenly luck applied to the Meister as well... Deathbringer felt a pain in his arm after thinking that far.

When he groped it with the hand he could move while curling his body up, it felt damp with blood. It seemed a piece of debris had lodged into his shoulder.

"Damn it..."

Was it a wound sustained in the process of being crushed by the building? If so, it was a rather fortunate level of injury.

Around that time, a piece of memory suddenly flashed in Deathbringer's mind.

The reason this building collapsed wasn't because of the demons. It collapsed because the bombardment device exploded simultaneously with the attack.

And the one closest to that bombardment device was...

"Ugh."

At that moment, a low groan could be faintly heard.

It was nearby.

"Hey, are you alive?"

There was no answer to the whispered question. Instead, the vicinity shifted slightly. It didn't seem like the demons had touched it while causing a ruckus.

Then was it the Meister? Was he buried underneath? No, it didn't seem like he was buried. It looked like he had also been luckily crushed only by a few pieces of debris that made up the ceiling.

Still, if he was pierced anywhere, there was a high chance of bleeding to death, so.

He shifted his body in worry. SCREECH! If not for the demons still roaming outside, he might have gone out.

"... Please just go away."

However, despite his wishes, the demons only circled in the air above. He didn't know if they had smelled blood or sensed the movement.

They simply showed no signs of retreating.

It was a damned situation.

He needed to quickly dig the Meister out, and he had to bind the bleeding in his shoulder or do something about it, but he couldn't do anything until those demons retreated.

The one who had merely preserved his life for the moment, still in danger, ground his teeth.

CRASH!

But ironically, what saved him was the same kind of demon. A pitch-black fire flared up indiscriminately from the other side, visible through the wooden boards and building debris. Thunder and lava did the same.

Startled by the commotion, the demons screeched and spread their wings to fly up. Looking at the direction, it seemed they were making a run for it.

CRASH!

But it was understandable. The sight that followed was absolutely not of this world.

"Fuck, is that a fight...?"

Deathbringer, who was about to quickly leap out and find the Meister, clamped his lips shut.

"Erasing a drawing with bread would be less cleanly done than that."

In the past, when the Boss drew a picture, he had seen him erase a few wrong lines with bread.

At the time, he only thought things like 'That precious bread', but... now it seemed that was rather better.

Damn it, those crazy demons were erasing the buildings that had risen on the earth as if erasing a drawing with bread. With a single gesture, the fragments of whatever had filled the earth would vanish, leaving only remnants behind.

At this rate, if that thing changed direction toward here, they would die without even leaving a trace.

Deathbringer shuddered at that miserable imagination and searched for the Meister. He knew well that there were many deaths in the world where corpses couldn't even be recovered, but he still didn't want a death that wouldn't leave even a handful of bone ashes.

"Damn it, your luck is quite decent too."

Deathbringer's hands moved the board and a few stones that were crushing the Meister. The unconscious Meister only had his legs slightly pinned and didn't seem to have sustained major injuries.

"Why won't this move...!"

He struggled to move the thing crushing the Meister's legs. However, whatever structure it had formed, the building debris pressing down on his legs wouldn't budge.

The piece of cloth he had temporarily tied around his wound to stop the bleeding turned even redder.

"I don't know when the demons will come..."

CRASH!

Fuck, I shouldn't have said anything.

He slowly turned his head with the anxiety that he might have jinxed it. RUMBLE. Even at that moment, the ground shook, letting him know that something was continuously plummeting.

"... What."

They were all butchered demon corpses.

Deathbringer's legs momentarily lost strength as he stumbled backward.

"Damn it..."

He subconsciously crawled back, backward, waking the Meister lying next to him.

"Hey, wake up."

It was an act half-driven by instinct. Waking the Meister wouldn't solve the situation, but... at least the end of his life wouldn't be lonely.

"Fuck, we're going to die..."

CRUNCH.

In front of that Deathbringer stood something similar to a human, yet incredibly featureless.

It was the entity that had carved up and killed all the flying demons, and despite such actions, it didn't feel like an ally at all. Honestly, to the point of doubting if it was even a living being.

"Ugh..."

But what on earth was the Inquisitor held in its hand? The moment Deathbringer was flustered by the unexpected entity, it reached out a hand.

Black energy dripping like melting wax wrapped around Deathbringer's entire body like vines. It was the same for the Meister.

The building debris crushing the Meister's legs was gnawed by suddenly blooming black flames and vanished entirely.

"This crazy..."

Should I resist? But my whole body is tightly bound, making it impossible to even pull out the impure sword.

The moment Deathbringer was about to despair, wondering if this was the end, his vision suddenly shook violently. It was because the entity holding him suddenly launched forward.

The tremendous speed he couldn't experience ordinarily made his entire body feel pressure, while at the same time causing his insides to churn, provoking nausea.

Gray, black, red, white. His rapidly changing vision made it hard to even distinguish his surroundings.

"What the!"

A good while later, when the shaking stopped and his vision somewhat stabilized.

A familiar voice entered his ears. But to respond, his body, which had been thrown to the ground, prioritized dry heaving far too much.

After throwing up a few times, he barely managed to look around.

The first things that caught his eyes were the humans sprawled on either side of him. The Inquisitor and the Meister were sprawled out, unconscious.

"... Fighter Boss."

What was even more surprising was the Berserker sprawled face down right next to the Inquisitor. Covered in blood and motionless, his heart sank for a moment.

"D-Demons are..."

SLASH!

While he staggered and crawled toward the Berserker, the unidentified entity that had brought them here butchered most of the surrounding demons with a single gesture.

It was a gesture that saved those dying from confronting the demons, but whether that was truly its only intention was still unknown.

Looking at how many people were crushed under demon bodies or swept away and killed together due to the inconsiderate attacks, that much was clear.

It was true that the temporary damage caused by this was less than if the demons had kept living, but... could they really consider it an ally?

SWISH.

Deathbringer, who had barely confirmed the Berserker's survival, turned his questions back to that matter. If it wasn't an ally, they were all bound to lose their barely saved lives, so it was only natural.

He looked at the unidentified entity while protectively wrapping around the one he hadn't been able to take care of the most—and thus felt the most guilty about.

But before he could even open his mouth, his back suddenly felt lighter. It was because the nuisance of a longsword, which he hadn't been able to leave behind anywhere due to the situation, had passed over to the other party.

Realizing that fact half a beat late, Deathbringer's eyes widened.

"That's—!"

It's an item for the Demon Knight. The moment he was about to shout that, the opponent who had taken the sword plunged straight into the shadows.

No, could that even be called a shadow?

The moment it submerged into the flames of demonic energy pooled like a shadow, the demonic energy shrank like water draining into a small hole and quickly disappeared without a trace.

"It vanished..."

He truly didn't know what was going on.

"You there!"

"That damn grandson...!"

Until the two Great Sages came running from afar, Deathbringer had to remain like that.

* * *

...!

The moment the attack that swallowed even sound swept the area, Mammon was at a loss for words at the surging shock.

Was this the flashing strike that killed Gluttony, Beelzebub?

["It's a good thing he isn't in his prime...!"]

There was such a difference between seeing it and experiencing it directly. It was a flame he had admired for being ecstatically beautiful, but after experiencing it firsthand, he felt only a bleak emotion, regardless of beauty or ugliness.

["What's wrong, looking like you're scared."]

Of course, since it took a lot of demonic energy, the other side wouldn't be able to spam it either. He hadn't seen him use the flashing strike many times when fighting Beelzebub, either.

However, at this moment after facing the flashing strike directly, Mammon made a judgment.

If he got hit by this properly, regardless of the gap in demonic energy, he would simply die. The fact that his entire body throbbed even after he defended by consuming double the demonic energy the other side used proved it. It was a truly shudder-inducing power.

["Wouldn't you be scared if you were me?!"]

["Well... I've killed every single bastard who scared me!"]

Yeah, of course he had.

He was someone who had used any means necessary to reverse the situation and kill both Asmodeus, who had treated him as a pet human and tormented him, and Beelzebub, who had tried to hunt him down for invading his territory; what could possibly scare him?

To him, even fear would be nothing more than firewood to fuel his own flames.

Mammon recalled the entity that had been angry at everything in the world even before gaining the name 'Wrath', back in the days when he was called Deception and Trickery.

If he could return to that time, he wouldn't have observed him with a clone, but would have gone directly with his main body and killed him.

It was a belated regret.

SLASH!

But it was already too late.

Now that the fight had started, he had to defeat him. Because Mephisto would never let him live, and Satan would also not forgive him.

["Right... Then I should do the same!!"]

However, if he won, all the wealth of hell would be given to him. That became the driving force that moved him.

He would win.

At Mammon's gesture, the masses of land soaring from all directions erupted lava like active volcanoes. It was a mass that covered the sky and tightly filled the empty air.

They were things meant to block Mephisto's approach while inducing the consumption of his demonic energy.

Sharp attacks cleaved the lava a few times. It had no great effect.

Unless he was going to consume demonic energy to burn away the lava, slashing through magma, which was close to a liquid, had no meaning.

["Tsk."]

["What's wrong! Looking like your attacks aren't working!"]

Seeing Mephisto swing in vain a few times like that, Mammon also gained confidence.

It might be different if it was his main body, but in that state, Mephisto's attacks wouldn't reach him.

He extinguished the black fire with overwhelming mass and relentlessly crushed the area with a lava puppet. With lava sweeping in by the hectare rather than the are, even Mephisto had no proper countermeasure and simply had to pull his body back.

The city that had drawn seawater into every canal was now buried in lava.

SLASH!

Of course, Mephistopheles was not someone who would just sit there and take it.

Ratel, which had taken the form of a sword, melted down, and demonic energy dug beneath the ground in time with Mephisto's foot stomping the earth.

CRACK!

Shattered and thrust upward into the form Mephisto desired by his demonic energy, the earth served as a shield to block the incoming attack.

CRASH!

And from beyond that flew a massive blast that pulverized everything into pieces. Taking advantage of the blocked vision, he had fired spiraling flames in a straight line.

He could withstand this much. At Mammon's gesture, the giant that rose from the lava blocked it and fired back a similar attack in reverse.

An attack fired by condensing only pure demonic energy melted and cleaved the earth, sweeping through the spot where Mephistopheles had been.

TAP.

Of course, Mephisto, who was merely human-sized and fast on top of that, wouldn't be hit by this. Knowing that, Mammon launched consecutive offensives.

Dozens of rocks slammed into the earth, making the ground surge like waves, and the magma that had half-submerged the city splattered in all directions.

SPLASH!

["Too slow."]

Since when? Mammon plunged his body into the lava in a panic while frantically building up his power.

Before the lava could raise thorns in all directions, a crimson flame swept past the area like a flash of light, annihilating everything in that spot. Having barely pulled his body back, Mammon's nape turned cold.

SLASH!

However, Mephisto's attack was not over yet.

A sword strike came in from the opposite side of where Mephisto's main body was. If he listened with his six ears, he could tell its true identity was an intricately constructed puppet.

Meaning that Mephisto's damn sword, Ratel, had taken the form of a living creature and bared its claws.

["You use your sword in such a dirty way!"]

["That's a compliment. You know?"]

BOOM! BOOM! The black flames buried amidst the magma acted as embers to cause an explosion, and Mammon watched as Ratel melted down and returned to its master.

CRACKLE! RUMBLE!

Mephisto wasn't completely at ease either; he was continuously consuming demonic energy to block the lightning bolts indiscriminately crashing down around him.

["You've started fighting a bit dirty too. That bat bastard would be pleased if he knew!"]

Floating a veil of flames above his head, Mephistopheles drew out a blade—Ratel—from his palm.

Then he kicked the ground hard enough to make a BOOM, instantly closing the distance to Mammon.

SLASH! In a flash, dozens of pitch-black trajectories were carved into the empty air.

SPLASH!

However, as for demonic energy, he still had a lot left.

At the very least, if he plundered the Magic Tower that had entered the range of his influence, it would even be possible to replenish the demonic energy he had used.

Keeping that point in mind, Mammon hid his body in the lava and pulled back.

Then he summoned and poured out lava hundreds of meters wide. No matter how fast he ran forward, backward, left, or right, he couldn't dodge this.

["Such a petty trick."]

Knowing that, Mephisto also gave up on evading. He knew that Mammon was using tricks to exhaust his demonic energy, but he had no particular countermeasure.

He transformed Ratel into a ring shape and floated it near him, gathering his demonic energy.

SPLASH!

The tsunami-like lava engulfed him.