"This time, stick your neck out."
The voice echoed in his ears, and Flauros turned to reveal his true colors.
A skeletal leopard's face, a mane of dark flames, and eyes that burned like sulfurous fire.
<'2nd Corpse' Flauros>
Danger Rating : S+
Size: ?
Found in: Serpent's Womb, Deep within the Gate of Destruction
-Also known as 'Second Corpse'.
One of the Ten Plagues, the natural enemy of mankind, incomprehensible and unkillable.
"I will turn the water into blood."
– The Ten Commandments 10:Top –
The Second Corpse Flauros. The Lying Leopard.
A being who held the second highest position among the protagonists who led the Age of Destruction.
The prey that Vikir had set as his ultimate goal for this battle was there.
…Flash!
Eight teeth bit into thin air.
[Huh!?]
Flauros jumped back in horror.
With the Original Uroboros destroyed by Grenouille, he had no weapon to fight against Beelzebub.
Huuug!
Flauros took a deep breath and released a poisonous fog on an enormous scale.
Red death, an ominous mist that turned the water red, spewed out from Flauros's mouth.
However.
[Hack hack-]
The baby Madam that popped out from behind Vikir sucked in all of the red death evil spirit that Flauros spat out with a single inhalation.
[Did you see that damn spider!]
Flauros gritted his teeth and sprayed even more Red Death, but to no avail.
This was because five women appeared on Madam Baby's back.
"Vikir-nim!"
Camus, Aiyen, Dolores, Sinclair, and Kirko. Dolores, the foremost of them all, cast a spell over Vikir.
White holy power erupted, burning away the red death.
The priests of the Faithful launched a massive counterattack.
Madame Baby's descendants also gathered together and began to eat the Red Death.
The Red Death evil spirits that had been rampaging across the battlefield were gradually being consumed by the enemy, the spiders of the Black Mountains, and the priests of Faithful Quovadis.
Without the Original Uroboros, no more Red Deaths were being produced, and the end was slowly coming.
The water mist cleared, revealing Flauros's bewildered form beyond.
Vikir is right behind him.
A chance for a stroke of luck was not to be missed.
…jjeojeog!
The 4th Form, deployed as quickly as possible, sliced deeply into Flauros's chest.
One could see the beating heart peeking through the smoothly cut ribs.
After that, numerous attacks were launched.
Camus' fireballs and giant iron skewers, Aiyen's heavy arrow, Sinclair's golden golem, and Kirko's magic sword, Asmodeus, bombarded Flauros in quick succession.
Flauros's body tattered in the flames.
On top of that, Vikir's 8th Form Black Sun had already sealed off every direction Flauros could escape.
Flauros began to grind his teeth as the situation came to this.
[...If it weren't for that damned Grenouille, how could he doubt my word?]
Flauros wondered inwardly how Grenouille could have recognized the lie that was his power.
Vikir, of course, did not feel the need to answer the question. He didn't even know the answer.
jjeog- deng-geong!
Both Flauros's left and right arms were torn off.
Vikir dug his fingers into Flauros's heart and said.
"I told you not to underestimate this world."
Every cause and effect he had ever encountered. The totality of organic things.
The gigantic wheel of cause and effect they created would not be easy for even the most powerful demon to deal with.
And here is a pilgrim who has walked the hardest and loneliest thorny path of all, one that has been rolling since the wheel of asceticism was very small.
Vikir. The Regressor. A hound who went through another life in the underworld.
It bites at the nape of its prey's neck, even beyond the ends of Hell, even beyond the bending of time.
Puugk-
A fountain of blood erupts from Flauros's neck.
Vikir shoved the Baalzebub into Flauros' neck and twisted it with all his might.
wadeudeug!
The sound of tearing through the hard pelt and snapping the tough muscle fibers within.
Furthermore, the heavy, dense bones broke apart, and all the bundles within were ripped out.
Chwaaaag-
By the time Vikir pulled out Beelzebub, Flauros's neck and body had already been separated.
Flauros, who had completely melted into Hobbes' flesh after so much time, had to be beheaded before he could even get his spirit body out of his body.
…Thud! deguldeguldegul-
Flauros's head rolled on the floor.
A bizarre appearance, with Hobbes' face and Flauros' face mixed together.
For a being who had caused both an Imperial civil war and a two dimensional race war, his words were quite hollow.
"...."
Vikir stared at the sliced demon on the battlefield.
Although there were still a large number of poisonous soldiers remaining on the battlefield, they had lost their leader and were dying out on their own.
The ragtag group, stomping each other to death, were like straw men to Marquis de Sade and Major General Orca.
As soon as the Tochka Alliance gained momentum and launched a counterattack, the poisonous soldiers crumbled.
A struggle of all against all. It was the demons' value of life.
The remnants of the Leviathan's forces, too, had been forced to do as they were told.
In the language of solitary beings with no concept of kin or companions.
One man with a brain tried to rally the poisonous soldiers, who still constituted the overwhelming majority.
[Bite the troops! After retreating, regroup... kugh!?]
Thomas, the second son of the Leviathan family, rolled on the ground with an arrow in his neck as he led the remaining troops in retreat.
Bianca's arrow, followed by Tudor spears and Sancho's axe.
"Piggy's enemy!"
"I will never forgive you!"
"I will not let one of you go!"
The fall of the Leviathan.
Starting with the death of Hobbes de Leviathan, who was like a symbol, the display of extreme poisonous dark master rapidly collapsed.
The giant poisonous soldiers begin to lose their minds and go on a rampage, and the minions are rapidly weakening.
Vikir looked down upon the scene and realized that the long war was coming to an end.
[...huhuhu.]
If it weren't for a muffled mockery from the ground.
Where Vikir turned his head was the head of Flauros.
Like Andromalius before him, Flauros was still alive, with only his head remaining.
But Vikir hadn't let his guard down.
"Demons kill."
Always on the edge of action. A hunter always ready.
Flauros spoke in a humorous tone to Vikir, who was immediately raising his killing intent.
[Relax, you can't kill me anyway].
What nonsense. There's no point in playing to the opponent's tongue when the game is already won.
Knowing that one must be careful with demonic tongues, especially Flauros's, Vikir saw no reason to stop his sword.
But. Flauros's words that followed were enough to make even a man with steel veins and a furnace heart stop in his tracks.
[The moment you kill me, the 'Age of Destruction' will arrive.]
Not one of those gathered here truly knew what the Age of Destruction was.
Except for Vikir.
Flauros continued to click his tongue, knowing that only Vikir would be the one to talk.
[Before battle. I twist my lifeline, the cord of my life, long and tight, and tie it to the rings of the Gate of Destruction. If it were to break, the gates would naturally open].
The Demon World. The Oil World. The Gate to Polar Hell.
Vikir remembered well the day it opened.
The coming destruction, the approaching apocalypse, the sum total of all these terrible things, the world of human and demons.
[Do you think you are the only one who laid a trap for the future? In fact, if that's the case, this one is one step above.]
"...."
A cold sweat runs down his face. His hands were trembling, even if only slightly.
Flauros is a demon who specializes in deceiving others with lies. Should he believe anything Flauros says now?
... But what if, just what if, this is not a lie?
What if killing him really does open the Gate of Destruction?
Even at this very moment, as Vikir pondered, Flauros was slowly vaporizing his body.
It seemed like he was planning to turn into the red mist of death itself and run away.
[Didn't I tell you from the beginning that your efforts would be in vain?]
Flauros said with a wide grin.
The smile that was in full bloom was thick with malice that could not be hidden.
Tsutsutsutsuts...
Flauros's body grew paler and paler.
In just a few seconds, he'll be completely gone from this place.
Kill him here and now, or let him escape, that was the question.
At a crossroads where neither option was acceptable.
Sereung-
Vikir drew his sword.
To be deceived or not to be deceived.
Now was the time to make a decision.