Chapter 61: He Is a Deity (01)

When the imperial historian finally decided to pick up the pen and chronicle the legends of this vast land, this ancient, towering, and majestic castle would undoubtedly be written into the epic of the ages alongside this forest thick with thorns.

A castle that had belonged to the Demon Kings through the generations.

Built of black gold stone, irrigated with fresh blood, and paved with white bones—a fortress that had once graced the poems of wandering bards.

Its spire stood like a butcher's raised cleaver, cleaving the deep purple and crimson twilight into two. As the hand of the giant clock on the bell tower ticked down to the next mark, the cleaver suspended high above finally found its moment and plummeted with a crash—

The heavy toll of the bell rang out, startling countless birds and beasts into flight from the deep woods.

Faintly, the scorching sun that had burned the thick clouds retreated from the trees, and the golden-red at the edge of the sky plunged into the bottomless black forest. At the very last instant of the chiming bell, the deity who ruled the sun closed their eyes and mercilessly withdrew the remaining twilight from the spire of this magnificent castle.

In the pitch-black and silent night, a cat-like, faint sobbing came from the lowest depths of the castle.

"Wuwuwu... Father and mother are still waiting for me to come home for dinner..."

"It's too terrifying... It's the Demon King... It's the Demon King! He wants to kill us and sacrifice us to the evil god!"

"God of Light above, I swear by the honor of my family, I have never consorted with the wayward girls of Siva Town to get the trendy vine tattoos in the city, nor have I ever flirted with the scoundrels at the tavern. Even my hemline has always been below my knees. Why have I encountered such a calamity now?"

"Wuwuwu... Yes, yes, even if retribution is due, it should be Jessica from next door who goes to the tavern to carouse every day. Why is it that when the end comes, it is us innocent and well-behaved ordinary citizens who must die?"

In the cellar of the castle, dozens of girls huddled together, shivering. Most of them were dressed in crude cotton and linen, still unable to snap out of the panic of being abducted. The single candle in the cellar burned with a flickering, precarious flame. By this dim and cramped light, one could vaguely see the surroundings piled high with blood-stained withered bones and gold scattered everywhere.

Even though this place was strewn with the gold that countless alchemists of ten thousand years ago had yearned to refine, it could not conceal the terror brought to the girls by those slender, delicate skeletons piled like mountains alongside torn hems of skirts and blood-stained undergarments.

Amidst the sounds of weeping and grievance, a girl in a pink puffy dress opened her sea-blue cat-like eyes and looked around.

Her skirt was already stained with dust and blood, and her sandy-golden hair was slightly disheveled. However, the crushed-gold necklace around the girl's neck and the exquisitely crafted lace edges on her skirt all proclaimed her extraordinary identity.

Though there was panic in the expression of this Persian-cat-like girl, her every movement seemed imbued with a natural nobility.

"Alright, stop crying!"

Finally, she could no longer help but speak up, interrupting the weeping inside the cellar.

The silence, previously filled by the girls' sobs, finally revealed its dull and oppressive true nature in this breathing space. They stopped crying one by one and looked toward the beautiful girl with the sandy-golden hair.

"The Demon King is shameless and dissolute, worshiping evil gods like a heretic. No wonder their followers are dwindling day by day, forcing them to hunt everywhere for fresh sacrifices to enhance their magic. They did not hesitate to break the non-aggression pact and abduct innocent maidens, which is ample proof that they have reached the end of their rope and are recklessly committing such acts of self-destruction!"

The blond-haired, blue-eyed girl took a deep breath and looked around.

No one uttered a sound.

The girl who spoke was so breathtakingly beautiful, her skin flawless. The gown she wore and the jewels embroidered upon it—though they had never seen them before—were clearly of the new styles found only in the cities, the kind of rare jewels only prominent noble families could afford.

This was an undeniable noble lady.

For non-human races to abduct and slaughter commoners in the border villages was hardly groundbreaking news, and it was precisely the royal family's and the temple's indifference to such matters that made the boundaries between humankind and non-human races in the borderlands increasingly blurred.

There were also no small number of people who, in order to survive, sacrificed their souls to the Demon King.

Seeing that no one refuted her, the blond-haired, blue-eyed girl felt somewhat reassured and continued with ringing conviction: "Yet precisely because the evil god condones a rabble of heretics to wreak havoc in the mortal world, the divine radiance bestowed by the gods to protect the world appears all the more precious."

"And I am a theurgist of the Glanxi Academy of Divine Arts, a princess of the Kingdom of Nord. Should this shameless Demon King dare to defy the will of the God of Light and lay a hand on me, the First Knight Order of Nord and the Feather-Badge Legion of the Glanxi Academy will never let him off lightly!"

Della's expression was haughty, her tone resolute, yet the trembling fingers and pale cheeks at her sides betrayed that her mood at the moment was not as calm and rational as she appeared.

These pitiful girls were huddled together in a panic and could hardly perceive Della's forced composure. But hearing words like "Kingdom Princess" and "Glanxi Academy of Divine Arts" filled their hearts with genuine respect and trust for Della, and for the first time, the thought arose within them—"We are finally saved!"

"That's wonderful! The God of Light has manifested; she's a student of the Glanxi Academy!"

"The Kingdom of Nord will surely punish this heinous Demon King!"

"It's a princess! We're saved! I saw her holding tightly onto a magic wand earlier, and I knew this girl must be different from us commoners!"

The cellar, which had previously been dead and lifeless, sparked a glimmer of vitality once more at the mere mention of divine arts.

Humanity was weak, yet forced to contend for territory with the dragons, demons, and other races. Fortunately, the deities who wielded the myriad laws were merciful, each drawing forth a wisp of divine power to broadcast across the mortal realm in search of their respective messengers. This was how frail humanity managed to flourish amidst wolves and tigers.

Thus, royal power everywhere existed and continued by attaching itself to divine power. Among the divine powers, the four supreme deities—the God of Light, the God of Darkness, the God of Thunder, and the God of Ice—reigned supreme. They ruled over the pantheon, each commanding tens of thousands of followers and protecting humanity's prosperity for thousands of years.

As the symbol of divine power in the world, the Glanxi Academy was the only institution on the Nobi Continent independent of all kingdoms and directly governed by the four supreme temples. It had long enjoyed a prestigious reputation, and the students it admitted were invariably the royalty and nobility of various kingdoms or those with rare divine bloodlines.

The girls chattered and discussed for a moment, then cast their eyes full of hope back upon Della.

Faced with dozens of trusting gazes, Della took a gentle breath, stepped back, and gripped the hand of the girl standing beside her who was dressed in dark blue clerical robes.

As a second-year student at the Glanxi Academy, Della was merely a seventh-class theurgist. However, the Demon King who had abducted them could rival the professors of the Academy well-versed in the divine arts of light. If she had possessed any ability to fight back, how could she have possibly fallen to this state?

The girl at Della's side was also trembling slightly.

Yet she gritted her teeth and, suppressing her fear, stepped forward to speak: "The princess and I were training in Bull-Head Village in the southern Kingdom of Nord. This Demon King disguised himself as a noble young lord who had been gravely injured in an attack by stray mutated magical beasts, lured us into a secluded place, and then seized the opportunity to abduct us. We were unconscious for only a short time, and the place where we lost consciousness was on the border of the Kingdom of Nord. North of Bull-Head Village lies the capital of the Kingdom of Nord, south of Bull-Head Village is the Kingdom of Josefov, and to the east is the peace-loving Elven race. From this, it can be deduced that his destination must have been the Black Thorn Forest in the west, which is precisely the haunt of the Demon Race."

Her gaze fell upon the withered bones outside the candlelight.

These skeletons were, without exception, those of petite maidens.

"In the Black Thorn Forest, there did indeed pass down a lineage of Demon Kings through the generations. Ten thousand years ago, they used gold to lure alchemists into sacrificing their souls to the demon gods. Later, alchemy declined and the gods descended, causing this Demon King lineage—which excelled in illusionary arts—to lie dormant for a long time. By chance, they discovered that compared to alchemists' desire for gold, the loyal and pure souls of young maidens could grant them incomparable power."

Everyone gasped, their complexions turning pale. The more timid girls were nearly reduced to silent sobs of fright.

"The current generation of Demon Kings is exceedingly fond of beauty and most adept at false affection. He selects only one bride from among the numerous maidens each time. If the bride does not suit his fancy, he sacrifices the maiden's bones and blood to the evil god and selects the next."

Speaking of the topic she was most well-versed in, the girl who had been in a panic just moments before grew increasingly calm in tone: "But you need not worry. Now that Princess Della has lost contact, the knightly orders and feather-badge legions of the Kingdom of Nord will surely come to our rescue. If you wish to survive, all you need to do is smear the mud from the ground onto your faces, mess up your makeup and hair, and make yourselves look as ugly as possible."

"As long as you endure this first wave and wait for the knightly order's rescue, you will have a ninety percent chance of survival."

This girl was named Lill. Like Della, she was a second-year student at the Glanxi Academy. She loved reading biographies, anecdotes, and magical epics of various races, earning her the moniker "the walking encyclopedia."

At the end of the Glanxi Academy's spring break, Lill and Della had decided to sneak off to the Second Adventurer Alliance to join a mercenary corps and experience seven days of adventurer life.

The mercenary corps leader had seen all kinds of clients and instantly recognized that the two delicately dressed, elegant young ladies came from extraordinary backgrounds. As it happened, the corps's resident theurgist was returning home to visit family, and the task at hand was not difficult, so taking along these two lively young theurgist girls was no trouble at all.

Yet the mercenary corps had never encountered two such stunning young ladies, nor had they anticipated that beauty could sometimes invite catastrophic misfortune.

As soon as Lill spoke, the girls in the cellar sprang into action.

They smeared mud onto their faces, pulled off their hair ties, gathered up their long hair, rubbed it hard against the mossy, muddy walls, and then clawed their hair into bird's nests with their hands. One brave girl even tremblingly picked up a small, sharp bone and carved streaks of blood across her own cheeks.

Della lifted her skirt and, with Lill's assistance, removed the layers of puffy tulle petticoats, changing into a lightweight outfit retrieved from the backpack she carried.

"If you hadn't told them, you... you certainly wouldn't have caught the Demon King's eye."

Lill looked around and finally couldn't help muttering into Della's ear: "Well, this is great. Now that everyone is ugly, it just makes you stand out even more."

Della's beauty was simply too extraordinary. Even though Lill applied layer upon layer of grey-black pasty substance onto her delicate, smooth cheeks, those azure eyes still shone like sapphire gems.

"I am a theurgist, after all."

Della forced a smile and twitched the corners of her mouth: "Hey, did you see the trusting looks they gave me just now?"

Lill opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but stopped.

"Theurgists inherently have an obligation to protect defenseless commoners. The moment we hold the magic wand, this is our unshakable mission."

Della suppressed her wildly beating heart, clenched her fingers, and tried to act nonchalant as she said, "Besides, as a princess of the Kingdom of Nord, I once received the blessing of Bishop Caesar of the Lairui Temple, and even my royal father said I am bound to have exceptionally high luck in the future."

Lill shook her head helplessly.

To follow a mercenary corps boasting a Tier-2 archer and a Tier-2 brawler, take on the simplest introductory commissions, and ultimately have the misfortune of getting separated in the forest and captured by the Demon King—

There was simply no way to spin that as having super-high luck.

However, they knew full well that this talk of "super-high luck" was merely a playful remark meant to lighten the mood.

As the only daughter of the Kingdom of Nord, Della held a ring that had once witnessed a divine miracle. Crafted personally by the temple and infused with a wisp of divine power from generations of bishops, it contained an immensely rich element of light. Rumors claimed it could purify all things. If any genuine danger arose, Della was the sole girl in the cellar capable of surviving.

This was the survival strategy Della had devised for everyone.

Just as they were conversing, Della noticed a dark figure stirring gently in a corner untouched by the candlelight.

The cellar was built spaciously, yet only the area around Della was illuminated by the candlelight.

A chill permeated the place; when first thrown into the cellar, it was somewhat tolerable, but as time passed, the thinly clad girls had naturally drifted closer to this meager candlelight. Consequently, Della had preconceived that all the girls had gathered around the flame, forgetting that there was still someone curled up in the corner who appeared to have been unconscious for a very long time.

That was a slender silhouette.

She seemed to have been curled up in the corner for so long that her movements in rising were extremely stiff, resembling someone unconscious for decades who suddenly awoke to face limbs whose muscles might have atrophied, making her look thoroughly unnatural.

The moment the girl in the corner of the cellar stood up, the flickering candlelight softly brushed across her cold, aloof features.

Della covered her lips, unable to help stepping back in astonishment.

This was a girl of breathtaking beauty.

Just standing there, with the faint candlelight illuminating her uptight, slanted eyes, she reminded Della of a field of black thorn trees under the moonlight.

They unhesitatingly stretched forth their thorns, blending their pitch-black branches with the silvery moonlight, and from the deep night displayed to all living creatures with haughty detachment the cold moonlight pierced upon every single thorn.

What startled Della most was that the girl possessed pitch-black, dense hair like perpetual night and crystal-clear eyes like obsidian.

A flawless blackness—the symbol of the God of Darkness's most favored follower.

The sound of footsteps pattered down from above the cellar.

Della's expression shifted, and she was about to cry out loudly, but Lill clapped a hand over her mouth, forcefully dragging Della back into the shadows.

"Shh."

Lill glared fiercely at Della and made a silencing gesture.

The heavy iron door above, which had remained firmly shut until now, emitted a creaking groan.

A beam of light poured down the long staircase connecting the cellar to the surface.

A smiling, handsome young man dressed in a swallowtail coat and polished leather shoes walked slowly down.

He carried a tray of candles in his hand, bearing not the slightest resemblance to the terrifying Demon King of the girls' memories. The young man was tall, his emerald-green eyes gentle and steady, with a subtle, elusive smile playing at the corners of his lips, making him exceptionally approachable.

"Oh, my dear maidens."

His voice was deep and magnetic: "Please forgive me for capturing you here in such a rough manner, but everything I have done is simply to find a bride willing to spend the rest of her life with me."

"Perhaps you imagined the Demon King as ugly and terrifying, but apart from possessing a long lifespan and power difficult to control, I crave true love just like any ordinary person."

A faint rustling came from the darkness.

The young man gazed at the candlelight in his hand, his brow furrowing slightly into an expression of troubled distress: "Love is faithful and singular, so I can only select one prospective bride from among you and see whether she can pass my trials to prove her love for me is as pure and unalloyed as a diamond."

"Equally, if a certain dear and lovely maiden passes my trials, I shall have no choice but to slay all the other maidens to prove to my sole bride that my love is likewise unalloyed."

"Fair enough, is it not?"

He flashed a malicious smile.

Della's teeth chattered as she silently prayed that no foolish girl would actually believe the Demon King's clumsy rhetoric.

Della had attended lectures specifically detailing Demon Kings at the Glanxi Academy. One type of Demon King fed on "souls," mastering a class of advanced mental-type arts capable of preying upon human souls. Yet not everyone's soul was effective for a Demon King; only souls harboring a profound, heartfelt loyalty to the Demon King could provide them with immeasurable power.

In the past, quite a few girls had believed the Demon King's claims, fantasizing that they could pass his love trials and become the sole rightful mistress of this ancient castle. Yet the deeper they "loved," the more fertile nourishment they became for the Demon King.

Fortunately, all the girls in the cellar remembered Lill's admonition, striving to shrink into the darkness where the candlelight could not reach.

Except for the girl who had just stood up.

As the Demon King stepped off the final stair, he found himself locking eyes with the girl.

Her eyes were dark and bright, and the flicker of candlelight caught in her pupils transformed into the watery moonlight upon the rocks.

What a daring girl.

A smile involuntarily curled the young man's lips.

He walked slowly up to the girl, bowed with utmost gentleness, and extended a hand in invitation: "So, would you be willing to be my one and only bride?"

The girl stared fixedly at him.

Under the Demon King's gaze, those eyes grew clearer and colder, like frost on a pane of glass being wiped away bit by bit to reveal an originally translucent and sacred world. It was only then that a bystander might realize the frost-covered glass was not a single pane, but a collection of sharp-edged glass shards.

It felt as though the slightest touch would slice open a finger and leave behind a trail of blood.

Such a remarkably beautiful pair of eyes.

Even the Demon King could not help marveling inwardly.

Because she had gone without water or food for too long, the girl's voice was hoarse and dry, yet one could still discern her original aloof tone.

"Alright," she blinked her eyes and replied, "With all my heart."