"He was my only son, Alexander, Emperor of the Chaos Empire" Adone said as he looked at the man on the throne solemnly.
Only then did Kael notice that the man on the throne was surrounded by a large number of humanoid creatures, some had pitch-black eyes, others had serpent-like tails growing from the back and few were similar to humans but Kael was sure they were not humans at all.
They were discussing something in a completely different language but Kael was able to understand it clearly after some time that they were ministers of Alexander's court discussing the military actions of the kingdom.
"So you can tap into your bloodline memory of the Chaos Ancestors, not bad" Adone complimented before he continued to explain, "Bloodline memory of the Chaos Ancestors is the knowledge that every member of the Chaos demon race passes down to the next generation."
Alexander, who was silently listening to the reports of ministers while sitting on the throne suddenly stood up and rushed towards Kael Strider, before he could even blink his eyes Alexander passed through his body without any resistance what so ever.
"What was that?" Kael asked Adone.
"These are the memories that I have awakened in you so that I can see my people one last time and explain to you, your responsibilities as well" Adone said before snapping his fingers again.
It felt like he crossed an endless tunnel at a speed very close to that of infinity. He flew past the space filled with nothing but darkness, the light seeping into this space from such a long distance away slammed into him in an instant. After the blinding light dissipated away... Kael was greeted by the immense spectacle laid out before his eyes – no, below him.
"Oh, my god...." was the only thing he could utter.
An army consisting solely of innumerable monsters stretched far beyond the scope of vision below him, with a few humanoid monsters supervising. From where he was, to all the way beyond the horizon. Countless monsters completely covered the ground until there was no uncovered patch left.
In all honesty, that was one hell of a terrifying sight to behold. If only a few of these monsters came to Earth, humanity wouldn't have a chance in hell at winning against them. Just from seeing this, he felt his innards tighten as if he was having indigestion.
"Hold on... Where is this place, anyway?" It couldn't have been Earth. He could see thin, tall, and bizarre-looking rocky outcroppings jutting out from here and there, on these reddish-brown dried up plains where not even a single blade of grass grew. This was a completely foreign landscape that he had never seen before. His eyes could catch the sight of the reddish-brown ground, those strange rock formations, and then, the great army of monsters standing on top of the said ground.
Kael shifted his gaze over to these monsters. This disparate gathering of monsters of different species was busy looking up and waiting for something to happen.
"What are they all looking at?" Kael followed after their gazes and raised his head to the sky above. And then... he discovered it.
"…..!!"
He saw a pure white lake, quietly floating high up in the sky. No, it was not a lake. He mistook it for a lake because of its sheer size, it was a curtain of light. This curtain of light was blocking up the orange sky beyond it.
"Orange sky is it.....?" Seeing the color of the sky that should not exist, he became doubly sure that this was not Earth anymore. In a world that was not Earth, something major was about to happen between the monsters and that black hole.
"This is hell and those monsters below are the cannon fodder of armies of various empires in hell with some demon generals supervising them" Adone finally commented while looking at the scene below.
Kael unconsciously swallowed his saliva upon hearing this. Trapped within this eerie silence, his nervousness also increased as time went on.
"CRACK!"
What came out of the curtain of light were soldiers decked out in silver armor, with pure white wings attached to their backs. These silver-armored angels poured out of the curtain of light like agitated bees rushing out of the disturbed beehive.
"Angels! Are they Angels?" Kael asked the question with an obvious answer.
Adone nodded as he silently watched the war below.
While monsters covered the entirety of the ground, these angels in turn utterly blotted out the sky. It was truly a spectacular sight. Kale couldn't stop admiring this incredible view.
The monsters, however, thought rather differently. They began howling at the top of their lungs upon seeing the silver-armored angels covering the sky and began bucking around in agitation. He didn't even have to be a genius to figure out what would happen next.
It was a war.
"Swahhh-!!" The flying angels became silver drops of light and descended to the ground below.
As it turned out, there was more than one curtain of light in the sky.
There were several of them, and angels poured out of them one after the other. Monsters on the ground versus the angels in the sky!! The two groups, clearly burning with hostile intentions against each other, soon collided just above the ground.
A battle of indescribable scale and proportion unfolded next.
"ROAR…!"
The beastly roars of the monsters shook the land below.
And
"Vuoooo…!"
Horns being blown away by the silver-armored angels thunderously resounded out. Weapons collided with other weapons, the sounds of armors shattering noisily rang out.
The beastly roars soon morphed into screams and pained groans. The ground below was steadily being dyed the color of blood.
The superiority in this battle was established very quickly. The silver-armored angels were very powerful.
These guys easily sliced off the necks of the monsters that were strong enough to rip high-ranked Hunters apart with their bare hands. Such powerful beings had formed a massive invading group, so perhaps it was only inevitable that the monsters were being swept away. The balance was tilting noticeably in their favor.
Even then, silver-armored angels continued to pour out of the circular curtain of light non-stop. The waves upon waves of silver angels came crashing forward as the incoming tide, erased all traces of living monsters off the dry plains in no time at all.
"Kuwahk!"
"Kiehk!"
The war began as a fierce clash between the two forces, but has now descended into a blood-soaked massacre, instead. The swords and spears of the silver angels knew no mercy. Because of that, the number of monsters decreased quite rapidly.
Kael watched this scene of the horrifying monsters being killed off with little to no resistance and was overcome with a puzzling mixture of emotions.
'Am I mourning all those angels who lost their lives to these monsters, or am I feeling rueful for monsters being massacred just like that....?' Such trivial thoughts remained in his head for only a short while.
The truly extraordinary event only happened afterward, with the complete annihilation of the monsters mere moments away...
The silver angels of the sky that violently pushed their enemies back suddenly stopped moving one at once.
"What's going on? Could they possibly have developed a sense of pity for these monsters now, of all times? But there was just no way. If they do, then they shouldn't be gripping their weapons even tighter like that."
They were gripping their weapons so hard, in fact, their hands were beginning to tremble noticeably, too. On top of that, the emotions filling up the faces of these silver angels were as far from the ones of compassion as you could get. No, they were filled with terror.
Their collective gazes were focused in a certain direction. And that was somewhere behind him. Kael suddenly had a hunch. He felt that something extraordinary was about to happen behind him, one amazing enough to overturn this situation on its head.
However, his gaze didn't immediately look behind him, but instead, to the ground below. On top of this reddish-brown land, a black mist was spreading out.
This mist rapidly spread beyond the blood dyeing the land red, as well as the mountains of corpses.
"Ah...!"
"Ah… Ahh…!"
…..
As the mist sped past underneath these corpses, mysterious screams could be heard. Screams that no one could tell where they were coming from.
A powerful chill ran down Kael's spine immediately. He slowly, agonizingly slowly, turned his head around to take a look. There he found an impressive knight covered in jet-black armor from his head right down to his toes.
From this knight, and the horse he was riding on, the black ghostly strands of energy continuously rose up. Kael could think of only one person when looking at that black knight.
"Alexander," he muttered unconsciously.
Whether it was the silver-armored angels from the sky, monsters below, they all forgot to breathe and simply stared at this Emperor of Chaos Empire.
Every single gaze within this battlefield was now looking at only this black knight.
The Emperor glared at the Angels in the sky, before extending his hand out as if he wanted to grasp something.
Kael could see the sight of the silver-armored angels wince as they started to back away in fear. The intolerable stillness that stifled one's breaths pressed down on the shoulders of every single being under the heavens.
And soon... The Emperor's solemn voice shattered that stillness.
"Devour"