Reverse Dungeon

The demons shrieked as they took flight. Their shadows shrank, twisting into bats, and melted into the darkness.

But the arrows curved as if alive and struck them down.

THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!

The Western Demon Duke instantly snatched one of the bats and held it up in front of himself.

The bat became a living shield. Arrows riddled its body.

Instead of blood, thick black smoke poured from the demon that had transformed into a bat. Its demonic energy swallowed the World Tree’s light, weakening the power of purification.

“You prepared well. Like a rat.”

The Western Demon Duke sounded almost admiring as he spread his cloak.

The black cloak split apart into dozens of bats, scattering through the air like smoke.

His subordinate demons had been rendered useless.

But creatures like that had never been the real threat.

The Demon Duke was a complete monster all on his own.

The smoke spilling from the demons and the smoke released by the Western Demon Duke became indistinguishable. People coughed and teared up in the acrid haze, unable to tell where they were supposed to shoot.

“Lord Ian! What should we—”

The man froze mid-sentence.

His eyes went wide. His skin turned white as paper.

The shadow that had crept up behind him burst into dozens of bats, then rapidly took the shape of a gentleman in a black cloak.

The Western Demon Duke, Belial.

He drained the man’s blood in an instant, reducing him to a bloodless mummy. Even then, the man did not die. He only murmured, “Ah... ah...”

Goosebumps rose over Ian’s skin.

FLAP!

The Western Demon Duke vanished again.

Now the cave was wrapped in darkness, with only the faint glow of the World Tree remaining.

Screams rang through the smoke. The sound of blood being sucked away. The dry collapse of bodies shriveling into mummies.

“Aaaaaah!”

A soldier, driven mad by fear, began firing arrows wildly into the air.

“Stop!”

“Don’t shoot this way!”

“You lunatic!”

Louise shot an arrow through the man’s hand and made him drop his bow.

The next instant, the man who had lost his bow became a mummy.

Thud!

And it did not end there.

The mummies began to twitch.

Then they started to rise.

Sema, who was standing beside one of them, noticed first.

He screamed in horror.

“The mummy’s moving!”

“...?!”

People liked Sema, but they did not fully trust what he said. They turned toward him, confused, trying to understand what was happening.

Sema screamed again.

“!”

The water spell struck the mummy head-on, but it did not stop crawling toward him.

“Aaah! Aaah! Help me! What is this?!”

One by one, the soldiers who had been turned into mummies rose on their shriveled limbs and staggered toward the living.

Fear took root in everyone’s hearts.

And fear was the environment demons loved most.

“Uah... aah...!”

“I want out! I want to get out of here!”

Ding!

[James has fallen into the status effect ‘Despair’.]

Ding!

[Joseph has fallen into the status effect ‘Despair’.]

Those with lower loyalty began to lose their minds. They thrashed and screamed, desperate to flee the cave.

“Lord Ian!”

Only those with high loyalty remained in place, waiting for his orders.

Ian knew what they were asking.

‘Is it still not time?’

One chance.

Just one.

Ian had told the soldiers that they had to create that single opening.

Keith’s HP was almost depleted. He could not fight for long.

They had to give him a chance to land a decisive strike. A chance to deliver a fatal blow to the demon.

Ian and his soldiers would have to make that happen.

Grrrrr!

Contacca, transformed into a wolf, slashed his claws through the smoke. His claws, brimming with feral energy, tore through the wavering shapes of the bats.

“You—!”

While Contacca bought them time, the others reformed their lines.

Momisia had brought a special cart she had built with her own skilled hands. It was packed with arrows enchanted with the skill.

If Ian cast on those arrows, their effect would be maximized.

Her hands were covered in blisters. Sweat drenched her forehead.

She had made them for this moment.

They had endured this long to create this opening.

Rattle!

“Lord Ian!”

She shouted.

“Well «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» done!”

Ian took the cart, which stood nearly as tall as Momisia herself, and infused the arrows inside with .

Whoosh—!

A warm breeze seemed to brush over their heads.

A hush settled over them, like sunlight descending.

Light filled the piled arrows.

“Here!”

Louise continued shooting arrows to support Contacca’s diversion until his fingernails cracked.

Ian threw the first bundle of arrows to him, then shouted to the others.

“Shoot the smoke! That’s not just smoke! It’s demonic energy!”

If they dispersed the demonic energy with purification arrows, they could weaken the demon’s power.

Against lesser demons, the effect would be even stronger. It might even stop the mummies from moving.

The people aimed their arrows and fired all at once.

As the smoke scattered, the mummies that had been trying to bite their neighbors hesitated.

The swarm of bats could no longer maintain its shadowy form and was forced to reveal itself.

Each bat was part of the Demon Duke’s body.

The soldiers were not skilled enough to hit them cleanly, but that was enough.

Enough to make dealing with the werewolf a nuisance for the Demon Duke.

“You pests!”

The Demon Duke turned his attention to the human giving orders to those pests.

The human who had escaped with Keith and hidden him somewhere.

Had he not been conspicuous from the very beginning?

The Demon Duke decided to deal with that troublesome human first.

And that was exactly what Ian had been hoping for.

‘How do I catch him?’

Belial’s abilities were teleportation and vampirism.

Teleportation allowed him to transform into a bat and move a short distance instantaneously. Vampirism was exactly what it sounded like: he sucked the life force out of an opponent and restored himself with it.

In simple terms, it turned his enemies into living potions.

And as a Demon Duke among vampires, Belial possessed a special version of the skill.

His vampirism had an additional effect.

It could revive those whose life he had drained and turn them into his slaves.

‘He had another weird ability too, something useless in combat...’

Ian could not remember it.

Memorizing trivial skills like that was a waste of brain space.

In any case, all of Belial’s abilities were troublesome, but teleportation was the worst.

To damage him, they had to pinpoint his location first.

But his mobility was so overwhelming that it left them no chance to attack.

Above all, Ian himself had no way to deal a fatal blow.

Catch him several times and beat him down?

Ian could not do that.

The Demon Duke was not an opponent they could defeat as they were now. Ian’s forces were inferior in attack power, stamina, and equipment.

‘An opening and enough attack power.’

At minimum, they needed both to kill the Demon Duke.

But Ian was not worried about the second condition.

They had Keith for that.

The same was true for the opening.

‘One critical strike is enough.’

Keith’s class was Holy Knight.

He had an overwhelming advantage against all demons.

Just one chance.

If they could seize that one opening, Keith would do his part.

Because he was that kind of hero.

So all they had to do was create the chance to attack.

From the very beginning, Ian had moved conspicuously on purpose, making himself irritating enough for Belial to want him dead.

No one else could do it.

Ian had to be the bait.

Because Ian was the only one who could purify himself after being struck by Belial’s skill and avoid becoming a mummy.

It was a strategy he had devised after watching Keith heal himself.

Belial transformed into a bat and dissolved into smoke. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Then he appeared behind Ian.

The moment Belial’s fangs sank into his neck, Ian thought:

‘Got him.’

“Now!”

A golden knight descended from the World Tree.

His movements were faster than arrows and quieter than breath. His white armor reflected the World Tree’s light in a blinding radiance.

He had waited so long.

Every scream had torn at his heart.

He existed to protect people, not to watch them be sacrificed for his own safety.

But Ian had given him an order.

Hide there.

Wait for the opening.

He had to obey.

He had always been a knight who followed orders. He did not trust his own judgment.

Because he was an unreliable being.

The only being he trusted was God.

He believed that the Pope’s commands were God’s will, and so he had obeyed without resistance, even when those commands drove him to exhaustion.

But this command had been more painful than any other.

His heart hurt.

Even so, he believed he had to obey this person’s order.

It was the first time someone like Ian had ever commanded him.

And now, the opening had come.

From above the World Tree, a path of light carved downward.

The knight with the holy sword pierced the Demon Duke’s heart.

Thunk!