The sensation of being pulled forward hit me, and I jumped back instantly.
Even that was close, so I planted my sword in the ground to brace myself.
The pulling force was immense.
The troublesome part was, it was getting stronger with time.
I looked at the Demigod.
A hole had formed in his ruptured torso.
That hole was sucking in subspace.
Looking closely, the Demigod's skin was torn outward and bleeding.
He was gradually sinking into the hole.
The Demigod was using his own body as a catalyst to maintain the spatial distortion.
Even destroying himself, he was forcing the suction.
(I was likely corroded by miasma, so he concluded spatial magic wouldn’t work on me)
This was truly the Demigod's final gambit.
He was draining his last strength to see through my killing blow.
I unleashed a volley of lightning bolts and fireballs at the Demigod.
However, they were all sucked into the hole.
The hole continued its suction as if nothing had happened.
Cracks were forming throughout the subspace.
Under the strain of the suction, it was on the verge of breaking.
If caught in the collapse, I wasn't sure I could survive unscathed.
I also tried binding magic, interference through spatial magic, and even forbidden spells, but all were nullified.
That hole was incomparable to any spatial magic I'd encountered before.
It was safe to say it was something entirely different.
It was close to an innate ability permitted only to demigods.
He had risked his life to activate it, and it showed.
I had a premonition that if I were dragged in, I would not emerge unscathed.
That said, I couldn't simply leave it be.
If it continued to drain the sub-dimension like this, the hole would eventually begin affecting the original world as well.
I couldn't even fathom how much damage would occur before the demigod perished.
It was certain this was no threat I could afford to ignore.
(We have to stop it here.)
Steeling my resolve, I pulled my sword from the ground.
My body floated in midair, drawn involuntarily toward the demigod.
(—Please, lend me your strength.)
Knowing that even a prayer was not something I was permitted, I nevertheless thought it with all my might.
The spatial hole, which swallowed all things, was now right before my eyes.
Timing my strike perfectly, I flashed my keepsake sword in a single arc.
My full-power slash cleaved through the hole without any resistance.
In that instant, the pulling force weakened.
The two severed halves of the hole were canceling each other out.
I deliver the killing blow.
My heirloom blade pierces the demigod's heart and springs upward with vigor.
The blade exits from the heart, up through the shoulder.
"A...argh..."
The demigod lets out a sound.
Its clouded eyes stare at me.
The cracked eye gazes this way as well.
No emotion can be discerned within.
It simply sheds a single tear.
Following the sword's trajectory, the demigod's upper body splits vertically.
With this, the hole's suction resumes.
The hole begins consuming the demigod's flesh preferentially.
My finishing strike seems to have sent it completely out of control.
The demigod's gushing blood immediately flows back into the hole.
Flesh and bone tear away with audible snaps, turn inside out, and vanish into the hole.
The demigod's mass diminishes, gradually losing its human form.
I watch the entire process.
Eventually, the demigod is entirely swallowed, leaving only the hole.
With the caster's death, the hole's sustaining power rapidly weakens, its duration drastically reduced.
This subspace will be drained completely, but it should not be able to advance into the original world.
Though I had witnessed a brutal final end, the objective was achieved for now.
(I need to escape as well…)
Even though I had defeated the demigod, it would be no joke to be killed along with it as a companion.
Fortunately, the method of escape had already been devised.
I activated spatial magic and swung the spell imbued upon the heirloom sword.
The slash tore through space, prying open a rift within it.
However, it immediately began to repair itself and close.
I dove through the gap, leaping outside the sub-space.
My lower body, which hadn’t made it in time, got caught in the fissure.
Unable to resist, my body was severed, and I rolled across the ground in a pathetic heap.
It would have been a fatal wound for a living being, but I was undead.
I regenerated my lower body using miasma and just barely made it.
(That was… cutting it close.)
I slowly stood up.
Dawn had arrived over the wasteland.
Consequently, I was bathed in the morning sunlight, and my body ached.
It felt like salt being rubbed into fresh wounds.
Though, for me now, that was a trivial matter.
I looked around.
Not a single trace of the demigod remained; it had all vanished.
No vortex appeared.
No particular anomalies were sensed; only a desolate wasteland lay there.
(He is undoubtedly dead)
The demi-god had fulfilled justice.
Reflecting on it now, he was a fearsome individual.
While I could not agree with his radical conviction, his determination to uphold his justice was undoubtedly genuine.
Yes, the demi-god desired world peace.
His broad objective must have been the same as mine.
(Why have we walked such different paths?)
I ask myself this, but there is no need to think it through.
What the demi-god and I have seen is different.
I, for one, struck down a colossal evil alongside her, and witnessed the world that lay beyond.
The demi-god, in contrast, had seen nothing yet.
He was in the midst of executing justice.
This gap is vast and impossible to bridge.
Having learned that mere justice was insufficient, I resolved to become immortal evil.
One might call it a compromise.
Knowing this was not the optimal choice, I could not abandon the path of world peace.
So I chose to be thorough from another aspect.
In that regard, the demi-god consistently labored for the sake of justice.
He believed in people.
He thought that if he could just destroy the evil standing before them, the world would move in a better direction.
It was a blindingly bright resolve.
One he could never embody now.
It was like looking at his former self.
The Demigod must have been full of regret, but from my perspective, he was happy.
Because he never had to learn that his own convictions were wrong.
He died as one who stood against evil, without ever tasting true despair.
In the annals of history, the Demigod would be spoken of as a tragic hero.
That was surely his wish.
I know.
The Demigod, deep in his heart, sought recognition for his deeds.
He went so far as to issue a formal declaration of war and propose a duel at a specified date and time.
If he only wanted to kill me, there would have been no need for such theatrics.
There were countless opportunities for assassination.
He didn't take them because he wanted to leave his name for posterity.
The Demigod wanted to become a hero who saved the people.
That desire was, in no way, a bad thing.
It was the irreplaceable wish sought by a nameless mage.
He sacrificed his own body to challenge the enemy of the world.
It could truly be called noble beyond measure.
(My polar opposite now, I suppose.)
I look upon my skeletal frame, rotting in places, and laugh bitterly.
I felt something stir in my chest.
It was probably not self-loathing.
This must be envy.
I had harbored no small amount of admiration for the demi-god who died as a hero of justice.
(All this exists because of past choices.)
I have made many mistakes.
If even a little something had been different, perhaps things wouldn't have turned out like this.
Maybe there was even a future where I never became the Demon King.
But regretting it now is pointless.
The reality is, I must go on living in the present.
There is only one path I must walk.
To remain an indomitable evil that conquers all justice.
That is all there is to it.
For someone prone to worry, this clarity is a relief.
And so, I killed the demi-god.