The pillars, little by little, collapse under the tortuous impact of the enormous demonic sword.
The rubble passes in slow motion before my eyes.
A glimpse of what was once Demon King Baahl's terrifying dungeon is now presented as a destroyed house.
The vine roof collapses on us both, but not even the rain of rubble over our heads stops the Demon King from advancing towards me.
I see him covering his head with his wings, preventing him from being crushed by small gravel.
Not that mere pieces of stone were enough to defeat or even knock down and stop that monster.
Baahl uses a dash skill against the walls and me.
It was the same skill he had used moments before in the battle between the last humans and the last demons.
Now he was trying at all costs to kill me.
"The last human standing."
The debris of the wall in front of me, pierced by the demon's stiffened body, is shot towards my face.
I see my arm being engulfed in primordial fire and, from the bluish fire, a construct of a carbine appears in my hands.
The gun's shots are precise and accurate.
Not even the best blacksmiths in humanity could have made a firearm as powerful as the one my Battle Technique gives me.
The debris shrinks in size as I fire at it, destroying it even more.
My eyes, using the [Battle Technique: Eagle Eyes], keep following the movement of the boulders that fly at my face, trying at all costs to hit me in some way.
I, however, managed to destroy them.
A cloud of dust appears soon after. I can't see most of the bodies on the ground, much less the Demon King.
"Where…?"
I think, stuck in my thoughts, looking for him.
From the dusty cloud, a huge black shadow advances towards me once again.
The dust dissipates in the blink of an eye.
The great crystalline sword hits me with a 180 degree turn.
I barely have time to react and use the [Battle Technique: Ancestral Mark] to defend myself.
A few milliseconds less and I would have lost both arms.
Maybe even half my body.
The impact of the great sword propels me backwards like a powerful ball of fire.
The walls are destroyed as I pass through the layers of stone that made up the castle.
Walls, ceilings, pilasters, statues. Everything in the path I was thrown is destroyed.
The corpses of demons and humans are torn apart before the impact of the sword and my body.
When I finally stop, I realize I've been unconscious for a few seconds.
I was trapped in a wall, outside the castle.
Had that blow been that powerful?
When we had defeated Baahl the first time, it had not been an easy task.
To tell the truth it was impossible. All of the last thirty-six remaining humans died in the battle.
The smell of my companions' guts, urine and blood was still present in my nostrils.
I peel off the bricks, staggering through the demonic garden.
The gray trees, the purple grass, the burnt leaves.
A true horror book scenario.
Hell on earth.
I felt my heart palpitating rapidly, the tachycardia was uncontrollable.
If I did not die at the hands of Baahl, my heart, in the process of disintegration, would finish the job.
Kneeling on the lawn, I put my hand on my chest.
I just needed to hold on a little longer. All that mana just needed me to assimilate it into a single attack powerful enough to kill that bastard.
Baahl emerges from inside the castle majestically, flying with his wings and landing in the burning garden.
He rests his sword on the scorched earth, walking slowly, dragging it toward me.
"Is this what the last of your race has to offer? Is this the minuscule power of the one who bears the ancestral mark? What was the point of all this sacrifice, human?!"
I hear him exclaim, mocking me and my friends.
"You know, maybe I'll see you again in hell. No, I'll definitely see you there. I will torture you every day, every second, for all eternity."
He continues with the mockery.
He is just over 200 meters away from me.
I just need to assimilate some more mana. Just a little more. Just a little more…
"I just need to hit him one last time… I just need more mana… I, I…"
My body begins to disintegrate.
Looking at my palm, I see a few fingers turn to dust.
It was the effect of excess mana in its final stage.
I was going to die one way or another.
"Whatever!"
I cried out, thinking that if I were going to die, I should kill the one who brought misfortune to this world.
Battle techniques begin to fail.
Excess mana makes skill transformations turbulent.
I cannot use any other battle techniques other than the Ancestral Mark.
This is regrettable. I could have used Diora's poisons right now or the Dragon Prince's claws to hold him back a little longer.
Finally, after a long forty seconds, Baahl is standing in front of me.
I don't need to lift my head to notice his frightening smile.
But the moment he retrieves his sword, in the split second he becomes distracted by the thought of killing the last human being on that planet, I rise.
I rose triumphantly, jumping on his sword and pushing what was left of my legs and my only arm, which was in the process of disintegration.
His reaction is one of surprise and, in that split second, fear.
If a demon dies on its own, such as by absorbing mana beyond what it is capable of handling – just like we're both doing – the same demon returns to hell.
But, if a demon is killed by a human or some other living being, that demon can no longer return to hell.
In other words, that demon is dead forever.
This is why most demons would rather commit suicide than fight someone more powerful than them. That's how they managed to beat us.
My hand reaches his face.
He drops the sword, trying to pull me with his own hands.
As he rips my body in half and my guts spill like a blood-engulfed waterfall onto the lawn, I finish the spell.
"Primogenitus Ignis: Explode!!!"
My body is enveloped in energy, what remains of my organs along with my body begins to swell with mana.
In the same way, Demon King Baahl fills with energy.
"YOU…! YOU…! HUMAAAAANNNN...!"
Before he can finish his sentence, a huge explosion of mana happens.
What's left of the two of us is sucked like a whirlpool into a huge ball of mana that lights up above the sky, sucking in everything around it.
The garden, the castle, the corpses on the ground, the forest that surrounded the wall. Everything within a radius of twenty kilometers disappears without a trace.
A nuclear power.
"I… I, I died."
My consciousness dissipated into the darkness that surrounded me after erasing any trace of the existence of the demon and me.
"I, I killed the Demon King."
I thought, feeling my hands.
Wait… my hands?
"Where…? Where am I?"
I feel my body rebuilding itself in the midst of darkness.
Suddenly a light fills the void.
"Hello, Qoran."
Says the enlightened entity.
"Can we talk?"
I was before 'God'.