I dispatched of the remaining demons inside the castle and ran towards the entrance of the throne room. I had blown through four of the five floors of the castle with ease, but my swift progress was then put to a screeching halt.
Standing in front of the throne room's door were Ketus' most elite troops; his personal guards: the basilisk Endora, the 4-armed warmonger Eve, and the Self-Proclaimed God of War known as the Cyclops Evenkell. Endora's fangs seeped a corrosive poison that would paralyze anything that it touched, Eve's battle-axe had the power to destroy entire buildings, and one punch from Evenkell would have enough power to tear off your limbs.
These three gargantuan monsters have plagued the kingdom for years by decimating entire legions, killing scouts and survey troops, and kidnapping and subsequently killing innocent women and children. The epitome of scum.
"So it seems a human managed to make it past our defenses." Evenkell's laughter echoed throughout the large room.
"Hah! Only one?" Endora's ivory scales trembled as he laughed.
"What a shame," Eve lifted up her steel battle-axe and rested it on her shoulder with a large thud. "I thought we'd get to kill more."
"You wanted me to bring more? Hah," I shouted towards the three giant monsters. "I am all that is needed to kill Kestus' minions."
Endora's right eye bulged with rage. "Minions? You call the mighty guard of Kestus mere minions?"
"What's wrong Endora? I'm just speaking the truth because after all," I looked over at Eve. "You're all weak."
I was a good thirty feet away from them, yet I could feel the hostile aura emitting from all of them.
'All according to plan.'
Even though I had called Eve weak, which was her trigger word, Endora was the first to completely succumb to his rage.
"Damn you Human! I'll tear your limbs asunder!" Endora roared as he slithered towards me, his mouth opening, revealing his corrosive fangs.
'Bingo.'
"DIE." He closed the gap between us in a flash and lunged at me with his fangs bared. Endora's attack was blisteringly fast, but fortunately it was also very predictable. Thus was the fate of those engulfed by rage—they tend to neglect logical thinking.
I easily side-stepped at the attack, "Too slow." I gloated. I watched Endora sail past me and time seemed to slow down. As his face passed mine, our eyes locked together. His blue reptilian pupils stared at me, his wide-eyed gaze asking the one question his mouth couldn't:
How did you evade my attack?
My response?
I smiled at him. A purely sadistic smile.
He had fallen for my bait, and now, the rest of the castle guard would suffer because of his arrogance.
I wanted him to know that.
I lifted up my sword and with one swift stroke, sliced at his neck. Endora landed on the ground next to me, but I paid no attention to him.
After all, he was already dead.
With a look of surprise embedded on his face, Endora's head slowly slipped off his body and landed on the ground with a loud thud, the body following in suit a few seconds later.
The two remaining gargantuan monsters looked on in shock as blue blood seeped out of the headless corpse and onto the floor. Endora, the mighty snake that could wipe out entire armies, was defeated in one single slice.
I wiped off the blue blood from my face, a savage grin embedded on my face. These cowards hid behind their king and sent millions of their own kin to die on their behalf. They weren't going to get off easy, and I was going to savor every second.
"So, the rumors of a speed-swordsman ravaging our forces are true." Eve tightly gripped her battle-axe in rage.
"After this fight, I'll send the King and Queen a present with your bloodied head inside."
I smirked. "Let me see you try."
I lifted up my blood stained sword and pointed it at Eve and Evenkell.
"Come."
With that, the two of them charged at me simultaneously. Eve lifted up her battle-axe and viciously swung it at me, which I loosely parried with Ewingar and ducked under. While temporarily out of her vision, I glanced upwards and saw something very interesting. The handle of her battle-axe was made from Elysian Wood.
'Heh. You really should've brought a steel axe, Eve.'
I jumped upwards and arched my arm in the air high enough to reach her axe and swung as hard as I possibly could and swiftly cut through the axe's handle. Eve stepped backwards in surprise and let go of her broken weapon. I landed on the ground and tried running towards her while she was defenseless, but Evenkell chose that time to intervene.
"Die!" With a cry he raised his fist and threw a punch at me. I stopped running and jumped backwards, narrowly dodging his powerful left hook.
"Tch."
I ran backwards, slicing at Evenkell's hand a few times before looking for the corpse of Endora. As Evenkell slowly pursued me, I found Endora's severed head a few feet in front of me and sliced off one of his fangs. Poison spewed out of the cut I made and coated the tip of my sword like paint.
"Why are you running away? FACE ME." Evenkell bellowed as he leapt towards me.
As he flew through the air, I couldn't help but pity the personal guards. If they had just faced me together instead of 1-on-1, they would've won. No matter how strong I was, I could never beat them 3-on-1. Endora's speed when he was calm was even too fast even for me, so I couldn't beat them in that aspect either. In the end, Endora's reckless attack was the sole reason for their inevitable loss.
If Endora never died, the fight would have been much harder to win, but his death gave me access to the most powerful weapon in the room—his poison.
Right when Evenkell landed on the floor his death was sealed. He swung his fist at me, but instead of running away, I lifted my sword and plunged it deep into his knuckle.
Evenkell's punch was so strong that it was said that not even mountains could withstand its might, but as soon as my blade made contact with his fist the mighty punch stopped dead in its tracks. Evenkell looked on in confusion as he desperately tried to move his arm. Only when the light green color of Endora's paralysis poison bulged out of one of his veins did Evenkell realize what I had done.
"ARGH," Evenkell yelled in a distorted voice as his body started to stiffen. "Damn coward, resorting to such trickery to defeat me."
"I can't believe I just heard that come out of your mouth, the person who used to hold innocent families hostage just to lure out and kill scouts." I said with a laugh.
I watched as the green paralysis poison crept up his body until Evenkell was completely paralyzed. I kicked out his legs and he fell face-forward onto the ground.
"For a self-proclaimed God of War, you were quite the let down."
With Evenkell unable to respond, I walked up to his head and pierced a hole through his neck with my sword. Green blood gushed through the wound, yet Evenkell's body couldn't even spasm. As he bled out, all I had to deal with was Eve, whom without her weapon was completely useless. I found her standing in front of the doorway holding the pieces of her broken battle-axe in both hands.
"You'll never get past me." Her voice was shriller than earlier, but that was warranted. After all, I had eliminated the other two so-called "unkillable demons" with ease. I started to walk towards Eve to finish her off, but the moment I took a step forward the door Eve was guarding viciously swung open.
Instantly, the aura of the room changed. A cold gust of wind blew past me as the being that I had been chasing for months finally showed himself to me. Standing in the middle of the doorway, clad in dark-steel armor with black horns and crimson wings that let off cinders, the Demon King Kestus had arrived.