Chapter 180……………………………………………..
At first, I thought it was an earthquake.
The ground shook violently, making it almost impossible to stand.
But soon, I realized the cause as I saw the fortress walls rising from the ground.
This tremor wasn’t a natural disaster—it was the building itself changing.
Before long, the walls, which had barely been taller than an adult man, grew high enough to block the sky, and the main gate shut firmly.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Monsters trying to enter the building slammed against the walls and gate, producing dull, continuous thuds, but it was futile.
Flying monsters tried to bypass the walls to enter.
“Keieek!”
But with a series of ear-splitting explosions, they fell to the ground one by one.
Something gleaming shot from the turrets along the fortress perimeter, taking down the monsters in sequence.
The turrets moved on their own, though no operators or functional cannons should have remained.
“Idel! What did you do?!”
Liena spun around to glare at me.
I, still dazed, looked at the staff the statue was holding.
Now that I thought about it, I remembered what Duke Cassius had told me when I borrowed the orb.
The first head of the Cassius family had left the orb as a guardian for Cassius.
‘So this is what “guarding” meant?’
Perhaps the first head intended for their descendants to return here from human lands, leaving the orb in anticipation.
For me, it didn’t matter much.
The important point was that no more monster reinforcements would arrive.
The enemies we had to face now were only the monsters that had always been inside this building.
From my rough estimate while living here, there were about forty monsters.
Even a few more wouldn’t be a problem—Lucy alone could handle them.
“That’s the cause?!”
At that moment, Liena, her face fierce, dashed toward the statue.
She probably intended to remove the orb from the staff, so I blocked her path.
“Step back.”
I assumed a stance ready to release divine power at any moment. Liena hesitated and stepped backward.
“Idel, snap out of it! I’m trying to save you from that man!”
“Again with that line? You’ve always tried to harm Terence under the guise of protecting me.”
“This time it’s different! You’ve truly been brainwashed!”
“That’s your mistake. I haven’t been brainwashed.”
“Then explain why you believe you aren’t the real Idel!”
“Well… I can’t explain it right now…”
I answered absentmindedly, but something caught my attention.
Camellia, who had been behind her just moments ago, was no longer visible.
The moment I noticed this, I gripped the statue’s staff and released divine energy with all my strength.
“Kraaaah!”
A painful scream preceded the appearance of a massive, blackened lizard.
Camellia had used its ability to hide and had tried to touch the orb stealthily.
“Clever move, Liena.”
From the start, she had engaged me in conversation to distract me, intending to achieve her goal through Camellia.
Honestly, I was a little distracted by Liena’s words.
Who am I? How credible was Liena’s claim that I was the real Idel?
But now wasn’t the time to dwell on such questions.
“Yes, Idel. You probably resent me now, but later, you’ll understand me too.”
Liena averted her gaze from me, looking down to command the monsters.
“Hey! Open the main gate! Even if they can’t get in from outside, you can open it from the inside!”
A reasonable judgment.
A fortress is meant to protect allies from external threats, not to trap them inside.
Most likely, the gate could be opened from the inside.
But unfortunately for Liena, Lucy, with her back to the gate, was raining fiery lightning down on approaching monsters.
The monsters nearby alone weren’t enough to overwhelm Lucy.
Seeing her plan fail, Liena bit her lip and looked at me.
“…Sorry.”
An unexpected apology.
“I didn’t want to go this far for your sake either, but there’s no choice. Try not to watch what’s about to happen below.”
Moments later, she shouted at the Shadow still confronting Terence.
“Shadow! Don’t hold back! Kill him immediately, and eliminate the Divine Beast too!”
I asked Liena,
“…You were holding back?”
“Yes. I didn’t want you to suffer psychologically if he died, so I told him to spare the life if possible. But now, I can’t hold back anymore.”
Once again, she commanded the Shadow:
“Finish him! Shadow!”
Her face exuded complete confidence in her subordinate’s victory.
But as time passed, Liena’s confident expression began to waver.
“What’s happening?! I said you don’t need to hold back!”
Even as she shouted, the Shadow continued its fierce battle with Terence, showing no dramatic change.
Actually, there was a change—its movements had gradually slowed.
“S-slow… why is it…?”
Now Liena could see it too.
“My apologies, then.”
I spoke to Liena, who couldn’t yet grasp the reason.
“Actually, the Shadow wasn’t holding back at all.”
“What? That… what do you mean?”
At that moment, a strange sound grabbed our attention.
“Kiiiit!”
Terence succeeded in severing the Shadow’s left arm with his sword.
He didn’t hesitate and plunged to its left side, swinging relentlessly.
He intended to prevent the Shadow from regenerating its left arm.
“Impossible! It was definitely injured before!”
Liena couldn’t believe her eyes seeing Terence, who seemed unharmed.
‘Thanks to someone’s invention.’
I smiled, thinking of the parrot safely observing from its hiding place.
Terence hadn’t come through the Warp Gate with only a sword.
His journey to rescue me must have been long and arduous.
“You could say he practically raided my lab. Of course, he brought plenty of money too…”
Even timid Kais expressed surprise at how well-prepared Terence was.
For example, his clothes—appearing as a normal shirt and pants—were artifacts with durability comparable to armor.
He also carried potions that drastically boosted recovery for a period of time.
‘When did he even drink that while being attacked by the Shadow?’
Remarkable, indeed.
Thanks to Terence’s meticulous preparation, the tide of battle shifted in his favor.
“Kiiik!”
The Shadow fought fiercely even with only one arm, but soon lost its right arm as well.
Terence drove the Shadow against a wall, raising his sword for the final strike.
“No!”
As he swung to cleave the Shadow in two, Liena screamed in disbelief.
“This can’t be! It’s impossible! How can the Shadow, no matter how strong, fall to a mere human…?”
While Liena struggled to accept reality, something began pouring out of the split Shadow.
It was a bundle of rope—extremely long.
Endless rope spilled from within the Shadow.
“That’s…”
Liena, staring blankly, suddenly remembered what it was.
“The artifact you gave back then?!”
I confirmed silently that her memory was correct.
That rope had once restrained Hershiso and was the invention of Kais, used on the Shadow at my request in the private palace.
But unlike before, my purpose now was not to bind.
“Surely the Shadow absorbed it. How is it still inside?”
I answered briefly.
“It’s there because it was absorbed.”
“No, that’s impossible! Objects absorbed by monsters decompose and turn into nutrients!”
“This was developed to capture monsters. Naturally, it’s made of a special material to resist decomposition by monsters.”
“Ugh… still, this doesn’t make sense. This must be why the Shadow went crazy. How did this happen?”
“Figure it out yourself. I don’t see a reason to explain everything to you.”
The principle was simple: the rope extends to match the body of the captured target.
In other words, it extends until the target is fully restrained.
The Shadow absorbed the rope. So what happens inside it?
Since it’s in contact with the Shadow’s body, the function doesn’t stop.
It just keeps extending, using the Shadow’s absorbed mana as energy.
It can’t restrain the Shadow fully, but it can cause inconvenience.
Anything inside that continues expanding will inevitably hinder movement.
‘If the Shadow had destroyed the rope initially, this wouldn’t have happened.’
But, as usual, it absorbed it, causing this outcome.
“Now then.”
I watched Liena carefully.
The Shadow was incapacitated for the moment, but not dead.
As the so-called strongest monster, its vitality was persistent.
To finish it completely, I needed to descend and use my divine power.
I had intended to settle things with Liena quickly to do so.
“…Who are you? The one who awakened me.”
A chilling sensation swept over me, and immense magic surged behind me.
Turning around, my heart nearly stopped.
The bronze statue, cracked in several places, was moving.
“I’ll ask again. Who awakened me, Gaius, the king of demons?”
Not a mere statue, then.
Its terrifying magic triggered an alarm in my mind.
‘Danger. If this one turns against us, we have no chance.’
Terence had nearly exhausted himself fighting the Shadow, and Lucy was not fully at her peak.
Demons originally worshipped the Evil God. The king of demons could easily become my enemy.
‘What to do? What to do? What to do?’
No solution came to mind.
As my vision blurred and the sky turned bright yellow, the demon king spoke again.
“Strange. One holds Cassius’s symbol but carries Miella’s aura. The other seems to serve our god, yet appears hostile toward the one with the symbol.”
He tilted his head, looking alternately at me and Liena.
“Which of you is Cassius’s descendant?”
Suddenly, a thought struck me.
‘Could it be… if I claim to be Cassius’s descendant, he’ll side with me?’
Without hesitation, I raised my hand and shouted confidently.
“I am the heir of Cassius, Idel Cassius!”
