The vast heavenly castle.
In the audience hall, where rows of white marble pillars stood tall.
Angels with pure white wings filled the hall to its limits.
Among them, those bearing three pairs of pure-white wings—massive and powerful—ten in number, those with jet-black wings—three in total—knelt at the very front.
The thirteen Seraphim-class "Apostles of the End."
Unlike Dieno and the other
However, among them, two radiated a surging, barely-contained emotion that betrayed something akin to human will.
Kagari and
As expected, their power far exceeded what they had possessed before, and their existential values appeared to have risen dramatically.
Their master had yet to appear.
They had gathered upon receiving the summons, but the appointed time had not yet arrived.
Not every last one of the million-strong angelic army had assembled—only the upper-tier angel commanders had gathered so far—but even so, the hall was suffused with a divine aura so overwhelming it could only be described as sacred.
In the silent hall— "You know, Dieno… I had no idea you served that person."
Kagari whispered softly.
Dieno answered awkwardly.
"Would've been kinda hard to tell you. I'm a 'Watcher,' remember? Going incognito is standard operating procedure for my role."
Kagari nodded in understanding.
"So you lost, I hear? Is Rimuru the Demon Lord's subordinates really that troublesome?"
She posed the question she was most curious about.
Rimuru, the Demon Lord with whom her grudges ran deep. While the Demon Lord himself was occupied fighting Kagari and the others, Dieno's assignment had been to neutralize the labyrinth's combat forces.
This had been a secret pact between Yukki and Dieno—one Kagari had not been told about.
Dieno had infiltrated the Eight Star Demon Lords and operated as a "Watcher."
His objective was surveillance from the top—to embed himself among the Demon Lords, the force capable of opposing the angels, and gather intelligence. That was Dieno's mission.
And so that Piko and Galatia could handle the groundwork while Dieno secured a prominent position, the three conducted their investigation without ever stepping onto the public stage.
The three Fallen Angels had been deployed for a special assignment: to survey the mortal world.
But there was a reason Dieno had begun his activities.
In principle, the only one who could command angels was Emperor Rudra—the sole recipient of the Ultimate Skill "King of Justice," transferred from
However, his willpower alone had been insufficient to move the Seraphim-class beings.
Which meant he had never even noticed Dieno operating in the shadows.
And yet, Dieno had entered into a secret pact with Yukki.
As if drawn by some invisible force, he had met Yukki and become captivated by the "power" the boy wielded. Before long, Dieno had begun obeying Yukki's commands.
He couldn't clearly articulate the reason, but it was probably— "He's not just 'troublesome.' It was no laughing matter whatsoever.
The strongest fighter in that labyrinth is unquestionably stronger than me. I'll admit I was fatigued from consecutive battles, and maybe I underestimated the opponent a little…
But they toyed with me without even showing their full strength.
—And on top of that, it looks like some of them are on the verge of becoming Awakened Demon Lords.
Don't give me that look! If our positions were reversed, you'd think the same thing and react the same way, so…"
Dieno answered wearily.
Seeing his manner, Kagari realized he was dead serious—not joking in the slightest.
"Spineless. Just crush them! Don't you worry—I'll smash them to bits myself!" Vega boasted.
*(Must be nice, being that stupid…)* Dieno thought it but didn't say it. There was no point.
Kagari let out an exasperated sigh, while Piko and Galatia furrowed their brows in displeasure.
But their silence wasn't because they had nothing to say—it was because they, too, understood that nothing they said to Vega would make a difference.
Vega's outburst returned the room to silence.
Kagari contemplated Dieno's words.
She herself had absorbed a Seraphim's power and significantly increased her strength. Furthermore—unknown to anyone besides Yukki—she had undergone her own Demon Lord awakening.
Having poured ten thousand souls into the seed of a Demon Lord.
As an Awakened Demon Lord, and as one who had absorbed the power of a Seraphim, she had acquired the Ultimate Skill "King of Domination."
With its absolute authority over subjugation, she had been granted the title of one of the "Four Fiendish Heavenly Generals" by Yukki.
The four strongest among them—collectively called the Four Fiendish Heavenly Generals.
Dieno was one of them, her equal. Vega was another. The fourth remained unknown, but…
She suspected today's assembly was meant as that person's introduction.
Setting that aside for now, she continued her thoughts.
Dieno—her equal.
He himself had declared this was no laughing matter, and that he had been thoroughly outmaneuvered.
The opponent was certainly not one to be underestimated. And yet…
Kagari struggled to suppress the delightful anticipation welling up from the depths of her heart.
The immense power she now possessed.
She had a premonition that the chance to test it would come any moment now.
And then…
*Just you wait, Leon. Next time, it'll be your turn to cry!* Kagari continued her thoughts while wrestling down that dark thrill of anticipation.
Was she truly weaker than Dieno right now? No. She was absolutely certain that was not the case.
Even if the opponent had outplayed Dieno, Kagari believed she could win.
After all, her power now surpassed even that of an Awakened Demon Lord.
She was confident that even Demon Lord Leon would be no match for her.
Kagari continued her reflections as she quietly awaited Yukki's arrival.
Vega did not think.
He simply waited for orders.
He had gained power.
By experiencing death, he had peered into an even deeper abyss of this world.
He had devoured the Seraphim, making their power his own.
Simultaneously, he had felt the fragments of every ability he had ever acquired fuse together and strengthen.
Defeat had given him power.
The incarnation of power that erupts without restraint—that was Vega.
A being created by Yukki, one who had incorporated and fused various abilities, complementing one another until Vega had evolved into the ultimate combat organism.
He had acquired the Ultimate Skill "King of Evil Dragons."
It concealed destructive capabilities that utterly overwhelmed any existing skill.
That this power had awakened in someone incapable of considering restraint was nothing short of a catastrophe for the world. Or perhaps it was precisely because Vega relied on nothing but force, without a single thought, that he had been able to acquire it at all.
In any case.
Vega waited. For the command to descend upon him.
All he had to do was annihilate whoever stood before him.
Dieno hung his head and reflected on the current situation.
*How did it come to this?* He asked himself over and over, but no answer came.
Long ago, he had received his assignment from that person and descended to the surface world.
He didn't think he had possessed anything resembling a self back then, but at some point, he had realized he was capable of independent thought.
He had asked his colleagues Piko and Galatia, and it seemed they had all developed self-awareness around the same time.
Exercising that power had been a hassle, but Dieno needed to become a Demon Lord, so he had relied on
To corrupt a holy attribute into a demonic one.
Ramiris alone had been capable of the secret art of attribute transformation at the time, so he had asked her to perform it.
His two colleagues had no need to fall, yet for some reason they accompanied him and became Fallen Angels as well. *What a bunch of oddballs,* that had been Dieno's impression.
Even after his master vanished, Dieno had continued his watch.
He needed to witness the outcome of Gi and Rudra's battle, and his loyalty to his disappeared master had not disappeared either.
He had believed that someday, his master would return after an eternity had passed.
And then, the meeting came.
At a single glance, he recognized that soul's brilliance.
Dieno finally understood—his master had returned.
But the master himself seemed constrained in some way, unable to move freely.
So Dieno continued his "Watcher" duties as before.
He knew a friend was troubled, so he lent a hand here and there out of kindness while continuing to live life on his own terms.
Things had been fine up to that point.
His returned master had given him only one instruction: cooperate with a boy named Yukki.
The problem was the failed assault on Ramiris the other day.
He had felt some resistance—she was a benefactor, after all—but it had to be done to neutralize the labyrinth.
That labyrinth was an unmistakable threat, and the powerful beings within it could not be left unchecked.
Since eliminating everyone inside was impractical, targeting Ramiris—the one who created it—was the logical course of action.
That said, he had never truly intended to kill her.
He had planned to seal her in eternal slumber.
But that effort had ended in failure.
And beyond that…
On his regenerated right arm, a blue butterfly mark had been engraved.
No matter how he looked at it, it could only be some kind of restriction-type ability—a curse or something similar.
No wonder she had so easily allowed his escape. He wanted to let out a deep sigh.
Right after that operation, his true master had awakened.
He was overjoyed, but at the same time, the prospect of reporting his failure left him with a heavy heart.
If only it had been Yukki on the other end…
He could have reported with a grin: *My bad, I messed up!* While he had been deliberating over the report, things had gotten out of hand—that was his own fault, wasn't it?
In the end, Dieno's anxieties proved correct.
*"Yo! How ya doing, Dieno-kun?"* That voice—the one more irksome than any demon's, the one he least wanted to hear—reverberated inside his skull.
*(Oh crap—it really was that kind of ability!?)* No matter how he tried to dispel it, the blue butterfly mark wouldn't budge.
It shone even more beautifully than when first applied, glowing as if to prove the ability had taken root.
He concealed it with a bracelet, but that only masked the appearance—the mark's presence was unmistakable.
*"Rimuru?"* *"That's right—you guessed correctly. It's me, me."* *"What do you want? I'm busy here…"* Dieno asked, even as the unwanted voice echoed through his mind.
*"Well, it's a simple matter, Dieno-kun.* *Apparently you picked a fight with me?* *I can overlook the labyrinth infiltration, but I hear your friends targeted the city. Normally that would be unforgivable, but I'm willing to turn a blind eye this time."* *"Seriously!? What's the catch…?"* *"Simple enough. You're on Yukki's side, right?* *Yukki and I are going to have it out in a full-scale war, so I need you to do nothing.* *I considered having you act as a spy, but your information would be completely unreliable.* *And you'd probably feel conflicted about betraying him."* *"Huh? You're not going to forcibly extract anything from me?"* *"I could tell if you're lying, but what good does that do if you change the content afterward?"* Dieno understood what Rimuru was getting at.
If the information was altered after being obtained, there would be no way to counter it.
He had seized the power of life and death over the distant Dieno, but it wasn't enough to restrict his actions.
Planning a large-scale military operation based on unreliable intelligence would be suicide.
So Rimuru was telling Dieno to do nothing—that is, continue being a freeloader, as before?
But wouldn't that defeat the purpose?
*"But that doesn't benefit you at all, does it?"* *"It does. Just keeping you out of the fight reduces the enemy's combat strength…* *The biggest advantage is having you as a point of contact. I want to be able to reach you if anything urgent comes up during the war.* *Whether the other side—someone trying to annihilate the world—would agree to negotiate is another question entirely, though—"* *I see,* Dieno conceded.
The Demon Lord Rimuru was going to play this straightforward.
He intended to win. He would use Dieno when the time came to issue a surrender demand.
Dieno thought the Demon Lord was endlessly, hopelessly naive.
Or perhaps that was precisely what Rimuru wanted him to think…
But he understood that even if they were losing, Rimuru would never accept their surrender. He couldn't imagine Rimuru would rely on Dieno for that.
*"Fine. I'll accept your terms.* *I'll stick to my surveillance role as much as possible. That enough for you?* *Oh, right—could you apologize to Ramiris for me? That would really help."* *"Huh? Apologize to her yourself. She was practically foaming at the mouth, saying she's going to test all forty-eight of her ultimate techniques on you."* *"There aren't forty-eight! She can only do a dropkick!"* *"Don't know, don't care. That's what she said. Consider yourself warned."* *"Heh. Got it. See you around."* *"Yeah, see you."* *See you, huh.* For the first time in a while, Dieno recognized the genuine, deep amusement that had settled in his heart.
And then he buried his face in his hands, realizing what a mess things had become.
Dieno harbored absolutely no intention of betraying his creator and true master.
But he also understood that honestly reporting everything as it stood would likely result in nothing more than his own annihilation.
What a troublesome situation.
But— *(Oh well. It's not like I'm particularly useful anyway.* *In fact, the more seriously I work, the weaker I seem to get.* *He literally told me not to work, so this is exactly what I wanted!)* With the relentlessly positive, utterly unmatched laziness that defined his thinking, Dieno reached his conclusion.
His expression lightened, becoming bright and carefree once more, and he settled in to await his master's arrival.
That positivity was the truly terrifying thing about Dieno.
The time came.
A solemn bell tolled, and the doors swung open.
Walking serenely toward the throne came a young boy, accompanied by a single celestial maiden.
The boy was Yukki—no, the other Yukki who resided within Yukki.
The celestial maiden was a stunning beauty with long, silky silver hair cascading down her back. However, her face was utterly devoid of expression.
She was a beautiful woman with a visage like a Noh mask—exquisite yet emotionless.
When Yukki took his seat, the celestial maiden naturally assumed her position at his right side.
"Raise your faces!"
A clear, commanding voice rang through the hall.
At that signal, all those assembled rose to their feet and formed ranks in unison.
"Hello, everyone. It's been a while. I see some of you are meeting me for the first time.
I am the one who houses the Soul Core of the Star King Dragon Veldanava within my soul.
Yukki and I are one and the same soul—rarely, we possess two Soul Cores in a single vessel.
For now, it's my turn, so I'll be relying on your cooperation. Please call me Velda—not Yukki."
With that, Yukki—or rather, Velda—began to speak.
When Veldanava had married Rudra's sister Lucia, he had renamed himself Velda-Nava. Therefore, he had no objection to announcing himself under his true name.
And now, the true master had descended upon the heavenly castle.
The vast audience hall was engulfed in rapturous waves of divine aura, generated by the angels' will-less celebration.
Their true creator had returned after an eternity.
As Velda had declared to Demon Lord Rimuru, he intended to settle everything through a Great War.
That was his final judgment, and the will of the Creator who had resurrected him.
It was easy to imagine that this would be an unprecedented large-scale war.
He did not know his own true identity.
He was the Will of Evil—one who desired the annihilation of the world.
He had wandered through countless worlds, and after an eternity, he had taken root in Yukki's soul.
When Yukki had just started elementary school, his parents had been killed in an accident—head-on collision with a truck driven by a drowsy driver. They died instantly. And it was at that moment that Velda had awakened.
It could be said that Yukki's own desire to see the world destroyed had awakened the Will of Evil.
Years had passed since then. Whether his return to this world was coincidence or inevitability, he could not say.
Through the Ultimate Skill "King of Creation" that Yukki had acquired at that time, Velda had reconstructed the fragments of his missing memories and forged an unshakable will.
The Will of Evil had, at that moment, once again recovered his memories as Velda.
However, that power had been too great for the young Yukki.
The newly awakened Velda had consumed the majority of that power to regress the Ultimate Skill "King of Creation" into the Unique Skill "Creator."
And they had coexisted in mutual benefit ever since.
According to his memories, his true identity was Velda—the Soul Core of the Star King Dragon Veldanava.
The vast majority of the dragon's soul power had been passed to his daughter,
What remained—the dregs—was him, Velda-Nava.
But was he truly Veldanava? Or was he merely a will awakened within a Skill—the Will of Evil and nothing more?
That question had always resided in Velda's heart.
The Star King Dragon Veldanava had perished, and Velda remained.
Could the current him still be called the Star King Dragon? The answer was no.
He was a husk that had once lost his power, and he was nowhere near his former peak.
But none of that mattered. His power was intact, and the "King of Justice" he had transferred was already recovered.
Moreover, Velda possessed the restored Ultimate Skill "King of Creation."
His objective was simple and clear.
To revive Lucia. And to confirm whether he was truly the Soul Core of Veldanava—the one who had truly loved Lucia.
He would destroy the world as many times as it took, cycle through as many souls as necessary, to call Lucia's soul back.
Over and over, world after world, until at the end of that endless path, he could reclaim her—that was his deepest wish.
He would gather the fragments of her soul and recover her Soul Core.
The probability of success was infinitesimally small by all rational measure—but the answer had come back that it was not zero.
Then he simply had to execute.
Yukki, his host, shared the goal of world annihilation. That was why they had formed a cooperative relationship—an equal partnership.
Now it was Velda's turn. Until he wished to switch, Yukki would remain sealed in the depths of the soul.
And so, with the dormant Lucia's body and a Seraphim implanted within it, he had restored her to her living form.
He had transferred the "King of Justice" into the lifeless, puppet-like Lucia.
The "King of Justice"—an ability with properties close to the Will of Evil—had once been consumed by Velda, and in doing so had developed a will loyal to Velda alone.
It was the ideal choice to serve as guardian of Lucia's body.
As long as Velda's love for Lucia endured, not a single scratch would touch her body—no one would even be able to lay a hand on her.
Lucia's original Ultimate Skill, the "King of Knowledge," had apparently been lost upon her death.
Incidentally, the "King of Oaths"—the Ultimate Skill that Veldanava had held in trust when transferring the "King of Justice" to Rudra—had also been lost.
Their souls had been completely shattered and scattered across the world. It was likely because Velda had been reduced to just a Soul Core that he had been able to revive at all.
Restoring Lucia to life—something the Star King Dragon Veldanava might have accomplished with ease—was no simple matter for the current Velda.
First, he should recover his abilities.
The Ultimate Skill "King of Knowledge"—which would someday, somewhere, come into existence—had to be obtained at all costs.
There was no need to rush.
He had infinite time and an inexhaustible lifespan.
At the end of the world's destruction, Lucia would surely be waiting for him.
Velda reconfirmed his reason for existing and then surveyed the angels before him.
Beings he himself had once created.
Summoning required enormous energy and produced only ephemeral, quickly-dispersed armies of destruction.
But this time, he had done everything without consuming his own energy—even granting the angels physical bodies.
Preparations were complete.
Thirteen Apostles of the End. And one loyal guardian warrior who had served Velda faithfully.
These fourteen would become Velda's most powerful subordinates.
At their head: Lucia.
Within her dwelled
Following her—the Four Fiendish Heavenly Generals, the four strongest.
Kazalim, formerly of the Demon Lords—Kagari.
Vega, whom Velda and Yukki had created together.
Dieno, an old subordinate.
And him, the guardian warrior.
The Fallen Angels Piko and Galatia were nominally under Dieno's command, but they would be assigned to attend to Lucia's needs.
The remaining seven were the Seven Angels of Punishment.
Squad leaders who would lead the angelic armies as independent units.
These were the seven strongest souls from among Yukki's subordinates, resurrected using Seraphim.
Headed by an assassin named
A force more than sufficient to annihilate the world.
The angels listening to Velda's speech bore no expressions.
But they felt supreme joy in obeying their creator's commands and eagerly awaited his orders.
The day the great war would begin was fast approaching.
Madama Miranda could not be revived—her soul had been shattered beyond recovery.