Chapter 273: The battle to defend the Demon King's continent

Chapter 273 - The battle to defend the Demon King's continent

As Cuatro sailed through a sea of white clouds, Vandalieu squinted his eyes, observing the continent that had become visible in the distance.

"I can't see without enlarging it a little," he said.

He produced a tentacle of the Demon King and an eyeball of the Demon King popped out of its tip to magnify his view.

He could finally see the continent in detail... the continent that the Demon King Guduranis had first invaded and turned into the base for his army.

He couldn't see its overall size or shape, but he could see the nearby waters and coast in detail, and beyond them as well.

"This is... I don't know if I should say it's more ominous than the Demon Continent, or if I should say it's more messed up..." Vandalieu murmured.

"What does it look like? Hey, can you see the ruins of the Demon King's castle? Strong-looking monsters or a Dungeon would be nice as well," said the 'Sword King' Borkus.

"According to legends, there are temples dedicated to the worship of evil gods under the Demon King's command, spawning grounds for monsters that defile the sanctity of life, and circular arenas where dreadful rituals were conducted. Can you see them?" asked the 'Divine Spear of Ice' Mikhail.

"More importantly, can you see any familiar spirits of evil gods or gods of Alda's forces, my lord?" asked Bone Man.

"I guess maps from a hundred thousand years ago won't be of any use after all?" said Privel.

It seemed that they felt an adventurer-like sense of curiosity towards the new continent, as well as a desire to fight against powerful enemies.

"Alright. It's difficult to describe in words, so I'll explain visually," said Vandalieu.

Two tentacles sprouted from his back, and more eyes of the Demon King appeared at their tips, as well as one on the back of his head. They emitted light from their pupils, creating an image of a very strange land and sea.

"Whoa! Is this some kind of illusion technique or something?" asked Borkus.

"You haven't seen this yet, but Van-kun has done this before. He's creating an image using the eyeballs and luminescent organs of the Demon King. He's apparently showing us exactly what he's seeing," Privel explained.

"But this image is three-dimensional, like an illusion technique, is it not...?" said Mikhail.

"It's a three-dimensional image. This consumes more Mana than projecting an image onto a wall, but it's easier to understand the continent's terrain this way," said Vandalieu.

The three-dimensional image, which had been created by projecting multiple images from different directions, had little movement. Thus, it was less intense than the footage of the battle between the evil god and Borgadon's reincarnation that Vandalieu had projected in Alcrem.

However, it showed the bizarre features of the Demon King's Continent in detail.

Its coastal waters were mixed with various colors such as a venomous-looking purple and a dirty-looking green, and countless pillars of water were rising from the surface before disappearing again; it was more like a forest made of seawater than a sea. There were also extremely cold patches of sea, where masses of drift ice and icebergs were swimming around as Ice Golems.

There was a desert, a forest, and a rocky mountain lining the coast next to each other, but a fierce sandstorm raged in the desert, the forest was filled with a black mist, and lava flowing from the mountain.

Privel seemed disappointed by this. "I came with you because I thought I might be useful since it's a sea journey, but it looks like being on land will be safer. I think landing on the continent directly would be better than trying to get ashore from the sea," she said.

"Seems that way," agreed one of the Four Dead Sea Captains, the one who had captained the pirate ship. "The lava's dangerous, so let's wait for the sandstorm to die down or clear a part of the forest to get down."

With that, he turned to give orders to the crew, but Vandalieu stopped him.

"No, the continent itself looks dangerous, too. I'll zoom in," Vandalieu said, enlarging the image.

The eyeball on the end of his tentacle was already a meter across in size.

The image focused on the desert, forest, and mountain in order.

Beyond the sandstorm in the desert, an enormous monster that Borkus and Mikhail had never seen before was dancing.

"It's huge. At least ten times as big as me, so quite the big one," said Borkus.

"Wait. It seems that this monster is already dead," said Mikhail.

The thirty-meter-tall large monster in the three-dimensional image was not actually dancing. It was being tossed about by the sandstorm, with pieces of its flesh being torn off and scattered around.

"Jyuuh, I see. It seems that the sand of that desert is actually a countless number of tiny blades. If those fly around at high speeds, even an enormous monster will be shredded alive," explained Bone Man, who used a similar method to attack his enemies, although on a different scale. "That large monster must be at least Rank 7. For such a monster to be shredded to death helplessly, an ordinary adventurer or knight would turn into a mist of blood in less than a minute. Jujuoh..."

"I-It seems that we shouldn't try to land in the desert. Cuatro will be turned into sawdust," said the former pirate ship captain.

With a noise that sounded like the creaking of wood, Cuatro agreed.

"Then let's go for the forest. Poison and disease don't do anything to Undead, after all," said Princess Levia.

"No, that black mist seems to be a curse," said Zandia, who had been observing the forest in silence.

"Huh?! A curse?!"

Zandia had noticed that the black fog being radiated by the forest's trees was not a physical vapor, and believed that it was a curse.

"It's moving against the wind. I'm not sure whether it's that the trees are monsters that are giving off the curse, or whether the hatred of the Demon King's army from over a hundred thousand years ago still lingers there. But curses affect us Undead, so I think we shouldn't approach it carelessly," Zandia said.

Contrary to popular belief, curses and hexes affected Undead. Poison and diseases did not affect Undead because they were already dead, but curses were effective whether their victims were dead or alive.

However, whether they were harmful to Undead or not depended on the type of curses and hexes they were. For example, a Zombie afflicted with a curse that caused its victims' bodies to rot would decompose in the blink of an eye, with even its bones crumbling to dust. However, a curse that brought disease upon its victims would have no effect.

Thus, there was a chance that the Undead, including Cuatro, would be unaffected by the curse being radiated from the forest's trees, but... they couldn't simply charge in, due to the possibility of that not being the case.

As for the lava, it was not erupting out of the rocky mountain... it was flowing in reverse, back into it. For some reason, it seemed that the pools of lava scattered around the mountain's surroundings were being sucked up into its peak.

It seemed that the laws of gravity were distorted around the mountain; in the image Vandalieu produced, monsters that resembled enormous snails could be seen falling and tumbling upwards towards the mountain's peak, being sucked into it along with the lava.

"... That's really bizarre. This place is a lot weirder than the Demon Continent," remarked the former pirate ship captain.

"Jyuuh. The entirety of the Demon Continent, its surrounding waters, and even the skies above it have all turned into Devil's Nests, but... they were still mostly what you would expect from ordinary Devil's Nests," said Bone Man with a nod.

Devil's Nests were regions that were contaminated by corrupted Mana... otherwise known as Miasma. They were inhabited by many monsters, and Dungeons would form in them. But their environments were usually the same as other natural environments, such as forests, valleys, mountains, and deserts.

However, heavy amounts of Miasma being present from the very beginning would result in things like extremely cold Devil's Nests covered in ice in the middle of a desert, and ordinary grasslands and forests would become more corrupted over time to become grasslands that were exposed to constant lightning strikes and forests covered in thick mists.

The Demon Continent had many such Devil's Nests, which resembled the floors of Dungeons, but the Demon King's Continent was even more dangerous and bizarre than those.

It could reasonably be said that the entirety of the continent had turned into one enormous Dungeon.

"Has it been this way since the Demon King was still alive?" Vandalieu wondered, asking nobody in particular.

"No, it was not this extreme back then," replied the Evil God of Labyrinths Gufadgarn, appearing nearby from a tear in space. "The Demon King Guduranis's army, including myself, invaded this continent and, under his orders, we stained the continent with the Mana that humans call Miasma to change it to a comfortable environment for ourselves. However, because we needed to create and breed the monsters that served as our servants, we had to suppress the contamination to some degree."

Guduranis and many of his servants were from the Demon King's world, whose environments were vastly different from other worlds - especially worlds with environments like Lambda or Earth. An environment that was comfortable for them was a harsh one in which the creatures they gathered from this world to turn into monsters could not survive.

"We only made changes that would genuinely distort this world's laws of physics in the spaces we resided in," Gufadgarn continued. "These were the places spoken of in legends, such as the Demon King's Castle, the fortress of the Demon King's army, and the temples of the evil gods."

"I see. Legends describe evil gods and such as repulsive and many other adjectives to the point that it becomes repetitive, but... this place was one that nobody would think was of this world," said Mikhail, who had been a hero of the Mirg shield-nation while he was alive.

The Four Dead Sea Captains and the Undead crew nodded in agreement.

On the other hand, the 'Saint of Healing' Jeena and the others who were from inside the Boundary Mountain Range were blinking in confusion at Mikhail's remark.

"Were the legends really that repetitive? I thought they were worded kind of plainly," said Jeena.

"Jeena-dono, I believe that you have heard legends that are told in Vida's faction, and some parts of them are different from the legends I know of," said Mikhail.

"Ah, I see. Vida separated from Alda after the Demon King's defeat, after all."

The people living in the Boundary Mountain Range and the Demon Continent were Vida's believers, whom she had brought with her after separating from Alda, and the descendants of the new races she had created.

Some of these races had been born with an evil god as one parent, so the expressions used and the way they were portrayed in legends were naturally different from those in human societies.

"Then, the current state of the Demon King's continent is a result of it being abandoned for over a hundred thousand years after Guduranis was defeated, and becoming contaminated from within places like the Demon King's castle?" Zandia asked.

"No, Zandia. After Guduranis's defeat, Bellwood, Farmaun, Nineroad, and the rest of us destroyed places such as the Demon King's castle so thoroughly that not a trace of them remained, so that is not possible," said Gufadgarn.

"So that not a trace of them remained? That's quite extreme," said Privel.

"We did this to exterminate any remaining powerful monsters that may have been hiding inside them, and to prevent them from being used by the remnants of the Demon King's army that escaped, such as Hihiryushukaka and Ravovifard," Gufadgarn explained. "There were no non-combatants in the Demon King's army, and the continent was stained with the blood of the many gods and people who fought there, and it was in such a state of ruin that no ordinary creatures could live there, so there was no need to hold back."

In addition to that, the Demon King's army's stockpiles contained almost nothing that would be of use to humans, so the fact that there would be no resources that would be of use was another reason for the gods to not hesitate to destroy these places.

There were the stone materials of the buildings and the edible monster meat, but... these were not valuable enough to justify the labor needed to move them from one continent to another.

... The surviving population of the world was only three thousand, so their existing stockpiles were sufficient, and stone and monster meat could be readily acquired from nearby.

"Then why in the world is it in this messed up state?" Privel asked.

"Unfortunately, I do not know," Gufadgarn replied. "I suspect that it is because unlike the Demon Continent, where Zantark and the other gods and Vida's races such as the Maryujin and the Kiryujin were, there was nobody to cull the monster population and suppress the corruption."

"... I can see how important hunting monsters is," said Vandalieu, nodding as he stared at the Demon King's Continent once more.

However, all he could see was harsh and bizarre environments, and there wasn't a single man-made object to be seen... not even a settlement of demi-human monsters.

"However, the biggest problem is that it doesn't look like we will be able to go ashore from the sea or land anywhere. If we search for the place where the goddess is sealed away from the sky above the continent, we'll probably end up having to fight endless swarms of monsters... because we'll stand out, after all," said Vandalieu.

"I suppose there's no choice but to go around the continent and look for somewhere that looks safe?" said Zandia.

"If there's no other choice, then how about you go down with a few people to help protect you, then make a Dungeon that we can use as a base, Your Majesty-kun?" suggested Jeena.

Vandalieu considered this suggestion for a moment, then nodded. "Let's do that. Even if we don't find a place we can approach from the sea, figuring out the shape of the continent will give us a clue as to where to search. After that, if we use a Dungeon as our base, it'll be hard to find."

If Vandalieu put Cuatro in the Demon King's Shadow or Gufadgarn used her teleportation spell, they would be able to set sail at any time.

"Then let's get going! By the way, are we going north or south?" asked the former pirate ship captain.

"... Let's go north, then," Vandalieu replied.

He had a feeling that south would be bad luck. Reminded of the reincarnated individual Asagi Minami, he decided to go around the Demon King's Continent starting with the north side.

TLN: 南/minami is the Japanese word for "south."

Perhaps this was a bad choice, or perhaps they had been noticed from the time Cuatro came into view of the shore. As Cuatro sailed across a sea of clouds, a whirlpool appeared on the surface of the sea far below, which was outside the Devil's Nest around the Demon King's Continent.

Neither Cuatro nor Vandalieu would have taken notice if it were just that. After all, a whirlpool on the surface several thousand meters below would not hinder them at all.

"Steep turn," said Vandalieu, noticing a reaction from 'Danger Sense: Death.'

The Four Dead Sea captains sprang into action immediately.

"S-steep turn! Starboard!" one of them shouted.

Cuatro gave a creaking groan.

In the space where Cuatro had been just a moment ago, a large pillar of water... a tornado shot up from the sea, sucking up a torrent of seawater with it.

"Damn it! We attacked from your blind spot; how did you notice?!" said an angry voice.

From within the tornado emerged an Elder Dragon that was even larger than Cuatro. It had a long, slender body, the kind that was often seen in the cultures of Earth's Asian region.

The intensity of its presence was far greater than that of Fidirg, the Dragon God of Five Sins, or Luvesfol, the Raging Evil Dragon God.

"But I will not let you escape!" shouted a Colossus that was clinging to the Elder Dragon's leg, leaping nimbly into the air. "Take this, my lightning of judgment!"

He thrust a fist forward, releasing a lightning attack from it.

"They're not wasting any time! I'll cut you down, ancestor!" shouted Borkus, swinging his great sword that was made of fragments of the Demon King, releasing a slashing shockwave.

However, the lightning and his shockwave passed straight through each other, continuing on their paths to their respective targets.

The Elder Dragon let out a surprised shout as it and the Colossus twisted their bodies to avoid Borkus's attack, cutting off the Colossus's stream of lightning.

"Curse you! How impudent, you feeble, unwanted descendant!" the Colossus shouted.

"If it's lightning, then it's my time to shine!" said the Evil Schwarz Blitz Ghost Kimberley as he appeared.

With the 'Wind-Attribute Nullification' Skill, he acted as a shield against the lightning.

As lightning was a part of the wind attribute, even the lightning of a Colossus didn't affect him at all.

"It won't work on -" Kimberley began saying triumphantly, but his words turned into a scream mid-sentence.

"Kimberley?! Why are you screaming?!" shouted Orbia.

Kimberley let out a series of short groans as he was shocked by the Colossus's lightning attack, but as it had been interrupted by Borkus, Kimberley was quickly freed from it and able to get back next to Orbia.

"I don't know why, but it hurt like hell," said Kimberley. "What in the world is that?!"

Even though he was supposed to be able to nullify lightning, he had clearly taken damage.

"It is likely that he combined that lightning with Mana of an attribute other than the wind attribute. Though I'm not sure if he has simply mixed it with another attribute, or whether it's something like the holy attribute or 'Radiant Life' spells, which are special versions of the light attribute that are effective against me and Vampires," said Vandalieu.

"They can do that?!" Zandia said in surprise.

"They probably can. That's an Elder Dragon and a Colossus... gods like Tiamat and Talos," said Vandalieu.

One parent of the Titan race was a Colossus; Colossi were considered to be more proficient at wielding their physical strength rather than difficult spells and special abilities.

However, it was well-known that they were able to create many applications of magic of the attribute they were most proficient in.

"Vandalieu, I have remembered. These two are -" Gufadgarn began, trying to tell Vandalieu the identity of this Elder Titan and Colossus.

"That can come later," Vandalieu said, interrupting her.

The Elder Dragon and Colossus were regrouping and preparing to attack once more. Borkus and Mikhail were attacking with shockwaves produced by their martial skills, but because their enemies were keeping their distance and because they were so much larger, these were not of much use.

Cuatro was neither charging or attempting an escape, it turned its side towards the Elder Dragon and Colossus.

"Port side cannooons! You're uuuuuup!" one of the Four Dead Sea Captains shouted.

The cannons on the side of Cuatro's deck... The cannon-type Demon King Familiars, showed their faces.

"Here we go," they said, taking aim.

"FIIIIIRE!" one of the captains yelled.

With a thundering noise, the cannon-type Demon King Familiars fired their shots.

The Colossus snorted. "Do you think that toys created by Zakkart would work on -"

He seemed to know what cannons were, but had apparently decided that they were simply larger versions of the ordinary firearms that Zakkart had once created in the past, and attempted to continue his attack while ignoring the projectiles.

"Y-you fool! Avoid them!" the Elder Dragon shouted.

But the cannons' projectiles struck the Colossus before he could react.

"What are these? Eggs - ?!"

The projectiles were cannonball-sized eggs. However, they did not contain a yolk and white.

The moment their shells broke, the Demon King's blubber that filled them ignited in an enormous explosion, sending the Demon King's horns and pieces of the Demon King's crystals within them scattering into their surroundings, and the Colossus was engulfed in the roaring flames.

However, he was still a Colossus. He withstood the explosion produced by the cannonball-eggs created by the Demon King's oviduct, and emerged from the smoke.

"Curse you!" the Colossus groaned. "Doing such foolish things -"

"FIIIIRE!"

The cannons fired their egg projectiles again, and the Colossus was once more engulfed in roaring flames and smoke.

"Radatel!" the Elder Dragon shouted as his companion, now burnt black, fell towards the sea. "This is why I warned you so many times not to let your guard down!" he cursed.

"You're one to talk," said Vandalieu's voice from beyond the smoke.

Two beams of pale blue light pierced through the smoke. The Elder Dragon immediately twisted his body to avoid a direct hit, but the side of his body was burned and the tip of his tail was severed, and he fell towards the sea after Radatel.

Vandalieu, who had fired beams of light from enormous eyeballs of the Demon King attached to the ends of his tentacles, exhaled before turning back to Gufadgarn. "So, can you please continue?"

"Yes. The one who created the enormous pillar of water was Radatel, the Colossus of Lightning, grandson of the Colossus God Zerno, and one of the sons of Brateo, the Colossus of Roaring Thunder. The Elder Dragon was Zvold, the Great Vortex Dragon God, grandson of the Dragon-Emperor God Marduke and one of the sons of Madroza, the Great Ocean Dragon God," said Gufadgarn, naming the gods and their lineages. "A hundred thousand years ago, during the battle between Vida and Alda, they took Alda's side and fought against us. As for their rankings as gods, if you consider the great gods such as Alda and Vida as the top of the upper ranks, and semi-great gods such as Talos and Tiamat to be among the lower range of the upper ranks, then Zvold and Radatel are somewhere around the middle or the lower range of the middle ranks. However, because they are demi-gods with physical bodies, they are able to wield their full strength, unlike the God of Thunderclouds Fitun who inhabited a vessel. Thus, they are more powerful overall than Fitun was when you fought against him, and I believe you should consider them to be a great threat."

"I see. It seems that Alda sensed our movements and put them here to keep watch," said Vandalieu. "But it's a good thing that there are no human settlements nearby, unlike when we fought Fitun."

The Undead crew began murmuring amongst themselves. They knew that they had been heading towards the legendary Demon King's Continent, and that they might be involved in battles against monsters that were as powerful as gods.

However, the continent had lookouts positioned around its coast. It didn't seem that it would be possible to avoid further attacks from the gods of Alda's forces.

But Borkus, Mikhail, and Bone Man's eyes were filled with the fiery desire for battle.

Borkus chuckled. "Let's do this, then. Guys who call us Titans 'unwanted descendants' are no ancestors of ours!"

"Battles against the gods... So, I finally have the opportunity to atone for my sins," murmured Mikhail.

"Juooh, this is an opportunity to present feasts to our lord! And it is the perfect chance to see whether we are powerful enough to face the gods!" said Bone Man.

"Well, seeing as the Elder Dragon and Colossus had to dodge and repel Borkus and Mikhail's martial techniques, I don't think it's impossible for us," said Jeena, analyzing the battle that had just taken place and believing that attacks of their strength would work against gods.

"If they were ineffective, they would have just ignored them rather than dodging them," Zandia agreed. "The other problem is the distance, I suppose. Wouldn't it be best to have more flight-assistance-type Demon King Familiars made?"

"But are we going to be searching for the sealed goddess while fighting Colossi and Elder Dragons the whole time? I don't think that's a good idea. The Elder Dragon and Colossus that fell into the sea just now aren't dead, are they?" said Privel.

"What?! They're still alive?! Let's get down there and finish them off!" said Borkus.

But Vandalieu shook his head. "I considered pursuing them, but there was a reaction from 'Danger Sense: Death.' And it seems that it wouldn't be a good idea to make a hasty move from here."

"Huh? What do you mean by that?" Borkus said, seeming confused.

As if on cue, Colossi and Elder Dragons who were not Radatel or Zvold, as well as enormous beasts and fish that had a divine aura about them, came from the sky above and from the sea, forming a loose circle around Cuatro.

There were over ten of them, and it seemed that they were being led by two particularly large Colossi.

"Radatel and Zvold... Those inexperienced youngsters, getting ahead of themselves!" one of them said.

"You are getting ahead of yourself as well, aren't you, Brateo?" said the other. "We planned for all of us to gather and launch a surprise attack together, did we not? Not even a third of us are here!"

"Shut up! If you're going to complain, do it to Sirius, since he's the one who told us that the boy's still on the Bahn Gaia Continent! If you don't want to fight, then just go back and guard the seal! The sky doesn't suit you, Gorn!"

They were arguing, with a hostile atmosphere between them. It seemed that this situation had been unexpected for them as well.

"Who knew that this many gods would come out at once... What are we gonna do, kid?!" Borkus asked, looking at Vandalieu.

"If they weren't bluffing, then it seems that there are at least three times more enemies than the ones here now, so... let's look for an opportunity to get away. The problem is where we can escape to, but..." said Vandalieu, looking around at Cuatro's surroundings.

If they returned to the Bahn Gaia continent with Gufadgarn's teleportation, then the voyage to the Demon King's Continent would have been in vain. As Vandalieu looked for a place to make an escape to, he saw one of the Devil's Seas, a patch of sea that was mixed with liquids of venomous-looking purple and dirty-looking green colors.

"That way," Vandalieu said. "There's a being there that's calling us... or to be more precise, calling me."