Genius Blacksmith's Game

(Summon Gremory)

Active Skill

Mana Cost: 300 per second

Cooldown: 3,000 minutes

Effects:

·You can summon the demon Gremory.

·However, the demon Gremory is under no obligation to be loyal to you.

·The demon Gremory may kill the summoner.

·You may cancel the summoning at will.

It was the power bound to Gremory’s Ring, which Gremory had dropped.

Ordinarily, it should not have been usable on Floor 10 of the Tower of Honor.

The Tower of Honor makes it difficult to summon any kind of being.

It had only been absurdly overpowered because he had Kkoko, who could make that possible.

But even if summoning itself was impossible in the °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° Tower of Honor, there were still various things there that could make it possible.

The most representative of them:

[Scroll of Unwritten Law. 150,000 Honor Points.]

It was a parchment that could break the unspoken rules of the Tower of Honor.

However, anything ridiculous or irrational was still impossible.

150,000 Honor Points...?

The price was outrageous too.

But he had felt the need to buy it.

The great archdemon Gremory.

Ordinary users have no idea how terrifying she really is.

That was why, when they saw just how powerful she was, and that simply cutting off her limbs was not enough to deal with her, they would be thrown into shock.

That included the holy knights, the priests, and Pope Karsel.

That was why.

He had to break her momentum and present a possibility to those fighting on that battlefield.

That possibility was this summon.

*****

What kind of being was a great archdemon?

The demonic race had, from the beginning, existed as a species far above humans.

And among such beings, the great archdemons were entities revered almost as gods.

At times, the great archdemons appeared in the human realm to amuse themselves.

Bored out of their minds, they would sometimes release the many restraints they had bound upon themselves just for that one amusement.

They were beings far too superior.

Because they possessed everything and had grown bored of everything, they needed amusement even if it meant experiencing hardship.

Yes, like a drug humans took.

Like touching something even though they knew it was harmful.

That amusement was watching bug-like humans gather in swarms and dare to fight back.

And that amusement also lay in the pleasure of making the greatest among humans—legends, heroes, kings—drop to their knees and grovel.

But today.

There was one human.

Hyun...

The human who had recreated Babylon, which the evil god Baal had once feared enough to cast into hellfire to annihilate.

The human who had taken that weapon, which had originally blown away 70% of a great archdemon’s power, and brought it to a more complete state through his own strength.

And beyond that.

Gremory’s long-laid plan.

Though she tried not to show it, Gremory was flustered.

She remembered the promise she had made with him.

She had sworn to destroy his Atlas, and Hyun had declared that he would become king.

But he had failed to become king.

Of course, that was because her resurrection had come far sooner than the promised time.

Yet deep in one corner of her heart, there had been a more primal reason why Gremory had descended even faster than planned.

...Because I was afraid you might actually become a real king.

That was the true feeling Gremory had hidden away.

But he had possessed power worthy of it.

And when she awakened, he had succeeded in cutting off her arms and legs, yet he was not there.

So—

she had felt relieved.

A devil had felt relieved.

And yet...

KRAAAAAAGH—!

The madly fluttering sweep of his clothes.

Eyes that had grown firmer after crossing even more lines of death than before.

And—

[You are one marked by Gremory’s Brand.]

[You encounter one marked by the Brand.]

[Insight is activated.]

[What he has accomplished flashes before your eyes like a lantern parade.]

In the span of merely a few months.

Hyunsoo had become the father of nearly twenty thousand troops.

And beyond that, the latent aura of “goodness” belonging to the Saint King was stirring within him.

And the level of the one who had once been nothing more than a brat had now reached 444.

But he was not a mongrel who could be measured by level alone.

If he crafted something outstanding, he devoured the stats for himself and monopolized the titles.

By crossing numerous roads of death, he had become someone who in truth stood above even that level.

And because he was equipped with unbelievable artifacts, he possessed power that could not even be compared to what he had back then.

But Gremory—

while sealed, had within that prison devised various means to counter Babylon.

Naturally.

What they had achieved in the first place had only been cutting Great Archdemon Gremory once with Babylon, then sealing a great archdemon left with a mere 10% HP.

And just as expected, the bastard was indeed holding Babylon.

And there was a way to deal with one who wielded Babylon.

Make him attack before he swings it, and make him lose the sword.

It was not difficult.

There was always a brief opening before a skill could activate.

At minimum one second, at most around two and a half.

But that was more than enough.

Her finger pointed at the bastard staring at her with gallant momentum.

The one who had once been the Legion Commander of Illusions.

The Legion Commander of Illusions had originally possessed at least enough power to protect her own body.

And that power had been one of Ares’s few true one-hit-kill techniques.

[Demon’s Breath]

[Demon’s Breath causes an explosion inside a single target’s body, dealing 1,200% damage.]

It was beyond a mere one-hit-kill technique.

In actual terms, it was on the level of one of Hyunsoo’s Ultimate Techniques.

A damage amount equal to 1,200% of a demon’s power.

And the fact that the explosion occurred inside the body meant it could kill even an ordinary legend in a single blow.

She thought the bastard’s body would soon be blasted to pieces, but—

[Absolute Invincibility]

[For 4 seconds, you ignore all damage, and intangible blades strike enemies 4 to 7 times for normal damage.]

KRAK, KRAKAKAKAKAK—!

An unknowable intangible force cut Gremory five times.

Five wounds were carved into her body.

And then—

BWOOOOM—

Gremory had believed the explosion had begun inside his body.

But he was under the protection of Absolute Invincibility.

And the power of the Overlord, who had once cut down a devil, was protecting him as well.

This was a power that activated with a 13% chance.

[Overlord]

[All damage is completely ignored.]

[Rarely, it exerts triple damage and returns it to the enemy once.]

BWOOOOONG—!

Gremory looked down at her chest.

The place where the explosion had occurred.

Because it had not happened in Hyun’s chest, but in her own.

“KHUHEEEEEEEEEEEK!”

A sound shrill enough to tear a devil’s eardrums spread through every corner of the tenth floor of the Tower.

She had detonated her own power within herself, and now screamed as she was swallowed by the agony of her whole body being torn apart.

BWAAAAANG—!

Hyunsoo kicked off and swung Babylon.

SKRRAAAAAAAAAASH—!

And once again, as Gremory was seized by the agony of having her body cut diagonally apart, broken gasps of pain burst from her mouth.

“Uh, uh... uhhhhgh!”

And then—

he pulled out one Twin Dragon Sword and stabbed it into her left breast.

THRUUUUNK—!

“KYAHAAAK!”

Watching her body bend like a bow, he pulled out the second Twin Dragon Sword and stabbed it into her right breast.

“KYAHAAAAK, KYAHAHAAAK!”

Hyunsoo drove force into his back foot and shoved the two-meter-tall great archdemon into the wall.

KRAAAAAASH—!

Gremory was stopped by the wall behind her.

The two Twin Dragon Swords had pierced through her back and even penetrated the wall as well, leaving her writhing there, skewered in place.

Gremory, shedding tears of blood, could not be killed by something this trivial.

“KIHYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAK!”

She mocked him.

But—

“Wait. It’ll be ready soon.”

Hyunsoo shot back instead, smiling with arrogant confidence.

Gremory’s gaze settled on a certain sword resting atop the anvil behind him.

Even she, while in her sealed state, had learned this much.

He had been preparing a sword called the Four Tiger Sword.

She too was a devil, and overflowing with knowledge, so she knew of the sword that had once slain a “calamity.”

However—

...?

That sword... is not the Four Tiger Sword...?

As she looked at that sword, which overflowed with some unknowable gallant force, and wondered—

“Get lost already. I’m busy.”

Those were his final words of mockery to the very end.

Those words made Gremory feel the most miserable of all.

I—

I, a great archdemon—

I, who kill humans as mockery!

“Cancel summoning.”

With his sneering face as the last thing in her sight, she was drawn back into another space.

“I’LL KILL YOUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!”

Ordinarily, when overwhelming rage comes first, one does not feel pain.

The instant the summoning was canceled, absurd pain wrapped around Gremory’s entire body.

Meanwhile.

Only a few dozen seconds had passed since Gremory vanished.

“Now all the pieces fit together. It appears that Gremory, who appeared during the fall of Goyard, was summoned by the user Hyunsoo.”

“It seems that in a moment of crisis, the user Hyunsoo summoned her—but if he truly possessed such an incredible power to begin with, then how many seconds could he possibly have sustained it?”

The viewers let out hollow laughs too.

“Still, Hyun’s a good guy. Looks like he died to Gremory in their place just to save his vassal.”

“Agreed... he summoned her and died to Gremory instead...”

“A true lord... through and through...”

It did not take long for them to realize those words had been a misunderstanding.

“What is that?”

One out of every five people in the world watching TV felt the hair on their arms stand up at a commentator’s words.

Up in the sky.

Something had suddenly begun to fall.

At first it had been as small as a dot, but when the camera zoomed in, viewers across the world were shaken.

That being.

Because the pain had come crashing in late, the devil screamed a tearing shriek.

“KHUHEEEEEEEEEEEEK!”

It was shocking to see her—her body appearing as though it had been cut exactly in half just moments earlier, with clear severed surfaces dividing her lower and upper body—

now screaming and thrashing in agony while skewered through the chest by two greatswords.

And what the commentators said proved everything.

“W-Was Hyun really this strong?”

They had not known about Babylon.

And they had not known about the Overlord’s Armor set.

Someone said,

“Wait... is it actually possible for him to kill a real devil?”

And someone else pointed out why it was impossible.

“She’s... recovering...”

That was indeed the case.

Gremory’s body falling from the sky.

The first sign was that the body that had been split in half was joining back together.

The second was that users could see monsters’ HP bars, and her HP bar was visibly refilling.

And the third—

“This is an opportunity, yet it is not. In the blink of an eye, Gremory’s recovered HP has reached 25%. Since devils recover quickly, and considering the current state, it is more practical to think of it as around 35%. The problem is that everyone here is already exhausted.”

“A being capable of shaving 35% off Great Archdemon Gremory’s HP? In my view, there is no such being present here.”

“There may be one outside. But what must be understood is Demon Descension, which activated the moment Gremory appeared. Even if it is not displayed in the system, it is controlling entry from outside to inside.”

“You must remember that Gremory’s level is above 600, and there are even records saying that when resurrected, a devil briefly transcends even its own limits.”

“And that is not all. The moment Gremory appeared, the members of the Calamity Church became absurdly stronger. The members of the Ares Church are no longer a match for them. So on top of everything else, they still have to deal with those cockroach-like Calamity Church bastards.”

“We do not know by what method the user Hyunsoo turned her into that wreck, but just take a look.”

The commentators were not merely trying to pick at Hyun.

They were not distorting anything.

The moment a commentator distorted the truth, they would be dogpiled and kicked out.

Their job was to provide viewers with accurate information and relay the present situation.

“Those two Twin Dragon Swords stuck in Gremory’s chest—one is the buff-type, the other is the attack-type. Why do you think they are stuck there?”

It was certainly strange.

What fool would stab a monster with his two most precious artifacts?

“That means he was just that desperate. Hyun was so desperate that even after stabbing the Twin Dragon Swords into her, he could not pull them back out. Of course, they will soon return according to the artifact protection function, but it shows how frantic he was.”

“Hyun’s mind must have gone blank. I’m not criticizing him. If I had seen that devil in front of me, my legs would have gone weak too.”

Soon they expected it.

That the two Twin Dragon Swords would dissolve away and return to the user Hyunsoo.

But then—

“Huh?”

“Why aren’t they returning?”

“???”

The whole world voiced its confusion.

At that moment—

Step. Step.

In that place sunk in silence and bewilderment.

Where Great Archdemon Gremory, rolling back her eyes and choking, gradually let out a breath of relief—“Haaaa...”—as her recovering body stabilized.

A man in a robe walked forward.

“......It’s been a while.”

The man pulled the Twin Dragon Swords out of the devil’s body.

THRUUUUNK—!

“KYAHAAAAAAAK!”

The furious cry of the devil became a gust of wind that tore back his hood.

FWAAAAAAH—!

The one who revealed himself.

The wielder of the Twin Dragon Swords in both hands, acknowledged by all of present-day Ares as possessing absurd attack power.

One commentator shouted,

“I-I can’t believe I’m seeing this combination!!!?”

That was right.

The one who had just appeared—

“It’s Bahalaaaaaaaaaaaa, wielding the Twin Dragon Swords!”

Across the whole world, the number of viewers began to surge.