TBR CH174

Demon King Kriesmeier was adept at slaughter, skilled at using his scythe “Demon Eye” to cut down any challenger who dared approach him into shattered pieces. However, he was truly unskilled at dealing with an overly proactive black cat.

The black cat tried to burrow into his arms.

The black cat jumped onto his tea table, skillfully avoiding the apple tea.

The black cat nudged his hand with its furry head as if urging him, and only then did Kriesmeier realize he still held the donut it had just given him. Hilda, sitting across the table, watched with trepidation as the Demon King seriously examined the pastry in his hand for a moment, then actually took a bite.

The tea party continued. Indeed, the witch suspected that the world was somewhat abnormal, but there were indeed three people and a black cat gathered around the tea table. Even the female knight awkwardly joined them—given that Hilda had ordered her to obey her “savior,” meaning herself, and not to immediately go looking for the warrior who had pushed her forward.

“There’s actually another girl,”

The female knight said, head bowed. “That person said she had no magic and bringing her out would be ridiculed, so she’s waiting for us in the nearby forest. Can I… can I use the communicator to call her too?”

Hilda looked up at her: “Go ahead.”

She then infused magic into the teapot in front of her, and the teapot began to boil more tea on its own.

This spell was an early invention of her master.

The Archmage of the Star Tower was present himself, happily watching everything. Besides saying, “I’m here to find Kries,” when he suddenly appeared, he hadn’t spoken any other valuable words.

Hilda listened in despair for a long time before realizing that when the black cat meowed with its belly exposed, its meows truly had no additional meaning.

The Demon King looked inscrutably at the black cat that jumped onto his lap. The scythe “Demon Eye” lay mere millimeters from his hand. The dangerous aura radiating from the Abyss Demon race instinctively kept all living beings at a distance, but this black cat was different.

It was very fragile.

Kriesmeier’s fingers moved slightly, as if to grasp the black cat’s exposed throat, but when his fingertips finally landed on the black cat, it turned into a gentle caress. Its fur was dry and soft. This animal, as black as night, had two amber eyes and a living, beating heart.

A phantom of the past suddenly appeared before him.

At that time, he and the Archmage had an argument—one of those foolish quarrels common between lovers, mainly about whether Roland should keep a cat in the Demon King’s Castle.

The Archmage logically listed a hundred benefits of black cats, and if Kriesmeier hadn’t stopped him, he would have continued. The Demon King, on the other hand, tried his best to make him understand that if there was any place less suitable for pets than the Mage Tower, it was the Abyss Demon race’s stronghold.

“But I saw a cat when I arrived,”

The Archmage argued, “I remember it was in the territory of the Gluttony Lord. We had a slight unpleasant conflict then, and before I knocked him out with ‘Nova,’ I heard a cat’s meow.”

Kriesmeier was unmoved: “That’s a specialty of the Abyss, a Hellcat with three heads, a pair of horns, and a mouth full of dense, white fangs.”

“Kries,” Roland gave him that pathetic look, “Kriesmeier…”

The Demon King almost couldn’t maintain his solemn expression. But this was a serious matter; he couldn’t let Roland get away with more. He paused, then said dryly: “Besides these reasons, I also don’t want you to keep anything.”

“Are you going to say—”

“Am I not enough?”

Kriesmeier said, “If you like fluffy black creatures, you can touch my wings; if you like horned cats, I have those too; and as for feline vertical pupils, they’re no different from my eyes. If you really like tails, I can try to grow one. In short, you don’t need to look at them, just look at me.”

The Demon King then looked alertly at the human in front of him: “Why are you laughing?”

“Uh,” Roland blinked, “Kries, you’re a little too cute.”

He unhinderedly accepted Kriesmeier’s words, even though any outsider would judge that the Demon King had absolutely nothing in common with a cat, and certainly could not be associated with the word “cute.”

On the contrary, Roland was indeed more like a cat, mainly reflected in the Archmage’s erratic personality and irresponsible behavior—changing from fighting the Demon King to cohabiting with him, this matter was quite reprehensible.

“Alright,” the Archmage leaned in and kissed the Demon King. “Given that your words just now pleased me greatly, I agree that there’s no need for any new presence between us. However, my dear lover, if one morning you find me gone without a trace, and there’s a black cat with amber eyes on your pillow, don’t be too surprised.”

Roland was a universally known prodigy in magic; shapeshifting was naturally not beyond him.

…But on the morning he finally disappeared, Kriesmeier searched the entire world and couldn’t find that black cat.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden weight on his leg, but the memory was inherently fragile and easily shattered.

The Demon King lowered his dark golden eyes, reflecting the black cat that finally found a gap and jumped into his arms. The black cat settled itself properly, and also raised its amber pupils to look at him. Both eye colors held different degrees of bright luster; they belonged to the same color family.

As if completely unafraid of the Demon King’s name.

Kriesmeier realized he was finding it increasingly difficult to control his violent thoughts. He raised his hand and slowly stroked the black cat, his long, pale fingers repeatedly brushing over the soft fur on the black cat’s neck. This was a somewhat peculiar creature, but he had found many such black cats, and he had essentially searched everywhere he could.

None of them were right. None of them.

The black cat’s appearance destined the Demon King to either particularly favor it or particularly hate it; in any case, intense emotions. The love and hate of the Abyss Demon race were inherently intertwined; the deeper the love, the harder it was to control the desire for destruction.

Too similar.

The closest one yet.

The tea was boiling, and the ceramic teapot began to spin on its own, automatically refilling each guest’s cup on the table.

The sweet apple scent filled the air. Hilda felt the scene before her become increasingly absurd. Her master was now temporarily residing in an animal’s body, flesh and blood, more fragile than ever, and had even put away his staff when he arrived.

Although she firmly believed her master was invincible…

But that was a staff crucial to any mage.

She tried to subtly hint to her master with her eyes that the other side was dangerous. Yes, they might have had a past, but Roland had been gone for ten years. Now, Kriesmeier probably only wanted to kill him. Every time the Demon King’s fingers gently brushed the black cat’s faintly rising and falling throat, Hilda felt a shiver down her spine.

A suffocating silence enveloped the tea party table.

The Demon King gently stroked the black cat in his arms, occasionally sipping his apple tea. The only pastry he had touched was the donut the black cat had brought him. He also showed no intention of speaking. The witch suspected that the Demon King simply didn’t know what a tea party usually entailed.

Well, in that case—

“Your Majesty, Demon King,”

The witch chose a safe title and bravely broke the silence, “Out of… well, my own curiosity, may I ask a question? If you could see Master right now, I mean, if you could, how would you react to his return?”

When Kriesmeier raised his dark golden eyes and looked coldly at her, Hilda immediately began to regret asking such a foolish question. However, just as the internal danger countdown began in her mind, the black cat in the Demon King’s arms tilted its head and nudged his robe, causing Kriesmeier to shift his gaze.

“I will kill him.”

Behind the Demon King’s calm words lay something more terrifying that one dared not ponder. “His ribs will become the last material to forge ‘Demon Eye,’ binding him to me forever.”

This sentence made the previous silence suddenly feel even heavier.

Even the female knight, who had been sitting quietly with her head bowed, looked up in slight surprise. Hilda’s heart grew even more uneasy. Her master seemed to love the other, but a shattered mirror was hard to mend, and broken teacups couldn’t be pieced back together to host guests. Now, in his presence, Kriesmeier spoke such heartless words; even if her master had been optimistic before, now he should…

Now he should…

Hmm?

The black cat in front of them could even be described as elated. It happily meowed several times at Kriesmeier, then began to try to clamber onto the Demon King’s shoulder, not very gracefully, while still in his arms.

The Demon King probably hesitated for a few seconds too, allowing the black cat to succeed, and its fluffy cat fur suddenly brushed against the side of his face.

Kriesmeier’s hand, which he was about to raise, suddenly stopped.

He stated to Hilda, without giving her any chance to refute: “I’m taking this cat with me.”

“Oh,” the witch said vaguely, but the potion for animals to speak hadn’t been concocted yet. She then saw the black cat squatting on the Demon King’s shoulder, looking down at her and blinking.

Hilda thought in despair, Anyway, this isn’t something she could decide. What if Master gets cut down by the Demon King the moment he leaves? Besides, Master seems to be enjoying himself greatly. “As you wish.”

As soon as she finished speaking, the Demon King and the black cat disappeared from her sight.

Only a faint afterimage of dark feathers remained in the air.

At this moment, the pure gold bracelet on her wrist once again began to vibrate.

Hilda sighed softly, then looked up at the female knight and said, “It’s a young lady, very small, seems a little shy… That’s the girl, right? This morning has been quite a muddle, but at least our tea party can restart now.”

“—As for the topic of conversation, let’s make it ‘Terrible Love Lives.'”

Roland’s fingertips danced, producing light tapping sounds. Kriesmeier spread his dark wings, and then “Abyss” spent a few seconds loading new content. The colors on the screen brightened again; they were now in the Demon King’s Castle.

This was the entrance to the Abyss.

Thousands of years ago, demons were sealed in the lightless abyss, so their distortion was completely traceable. No resources, no reason, no emotion—it was hard to say what kind of existence finally crawled out of the abyss. The world considered them cruel and terrifying.

And Archmage Roland?

He believed there was a cold beauty within them.

Roland curved the corner of his lips in front of the screen. He watched Kriesmeier walk calmly through the Demon King’s Castle, while those around him lowered their eyes, daring not to look at the king finally chosen by the Abyss, avoiding contact with those dark golden, condescending eyes. But those who should see still inevitably saw—

A black cat perched on the Demon King’s shoulder.

This scene was so absurd that the lower-ranking demons along the way lowered their heads even further, fearing Kriesmeier would silence them.

As a black cat, Roland quickly assigned himself the role of a femme fatale, tapped the keyboard, and let out a soft, weak meow. Now, even the demons on the scene who had intended to pretend they had no eyes heard a cat’s meow.

Kriesmeier seemed to pause for a moment, but still indulged the black cat and continued forward.

They drew closer and closer to the final palace. Even separated by a screen, Roland suddenly felt a sense of returning, of things settling. The Abyss Demon King’s ultimate lair was a very familiar place to him—both as a former enemy and as a later intruder.

He had once considered it home.

The concept of “home” was not about the duration of stay, nor the comfort of the building, but about who was waiting inside.

Roland preferred to describe himself and Kriesmeier as being in passionate love, so everything here had its meaning. During his time in the palace, the Archmage had left various ingenious small designs in the gloomy palace that could express love.

For example, opening the palace gates would reveal…

Roland had almost forgotten that a screen still separated him, forgotten that everything before him was not within his reach, but a world composed of countless data within a glass. His amber eyes reflected various colors. Kriesmeier paused briefly before the palace, then reached out—

Roland couldn’t help but show a hint of a smile, but that smile suddenly froze the next second.

A bold, enlarged warning abruptly appeared on the screen:

“Player level has not met the standard. Illegally entered the Demon King’s Castle dungeon. Due to insufficient level, the player will be forcibly ejected in thirty seconds. Player, please note; player level has not met…“

The black cat’s body suddenly seemed to lose its footing and fell, only to be caught by the Demon King.

The Demon King’s dark golden eyes looked at it, confused and struggling, suddenly revealing an ineffable emotion. The black cat on his shoulder was clearly a visible, tangible entity, yet it began to flicker inexplicably. In that flickering moment, Kriesmeier seemed to see his hands empty, nothing there.

Roland blinked blankly in front of the screen.

He hadn’t anticipated “Abyss” having such a mechanism; exploiting loopholes was not advisable. But he should have realized it sooner, because he was very intelligent, but his emotions had clouded all his thoughts. He wanted too much to go with Kriesmeier.

However, it seemed that his impulsiveness would only make the situation worse.

The black cat’s color grew paler and paler. Kriesmeier slowly reached out, as if wanting to grasp him, yet hesitated in the air, uncertain. The Demon King, noble as the Lord of the Abyss, commanding the entire world’s darkness, had countless challengers fall beneath his scythe, yet his fingertips at this moment even trembled slightly.

He whispered:

“So that’s it… a player. Why would I think you were like him? You’re just like them.”

Roland, on the other end of the screen, stared at him fixedly, without blinking.

The black cat, within the screen, stared fixedly at him, at Kriesmeier, but those beautiful amber eyes lacked the charm of the person the Demon King remembered.

Even so, the Demon King’s fingertips finally touched the flickering black cat. A flash of fiery red light passed over his fingertips, and Roland strangely felt the tremor from the other side of the game.

“I’m sorry.” Roland’s voice was light. “I was too eager.”

Kriesmeier’s hand paused slightly.

Roland’s voice from his end of the screen could at most translate into a few faint meows on the other side of the screen. But as if hearing Roland’s apology, the black cat’s fading suddenly ceased, and its previously scattered body once again solidified into a physical form.

How magnificent was the power of the Abyss Demon King? Kriesmeier, beautiful in his power, pure force surging at his fingertips, directly contending with the various constraints that formed the game.

He won.

The white text before Roland also seemed to shatter into countless dust, as if completely broken. Even the game’s BGM stopped, and the headphones were so quiet that Roland could even hear the Demon King’s breathing.

Kriesmeier wearily lowered his eyelashes.

Everything seemed to have settled, witnessing an impossible war, with the rules of the world shattered for it. Such an existence now stood on the screen, surrounded by overwhelming darkness. He slowly lowered his eyes, looking at the “black cat” that was finally indistinguishable from a black cat again, the gloom in his eyes startling.

The previously light and pleasant atmosphere was gone, if it could even be called light and pleasant before.

Roland suddenly found it hard to resist the urge to touch him. His fingers nervously pressed down, accidentally hitting the keyboard. The black cat happily meowed again, exposing its belly to Kriesmeier. The black cat in the game could only express a few emotions, unable to convey any more complex feelings. Roland had thought it was enough, but it was far from it. It was never enough.

He lifted his hand from the keyboard, his fingers once again touching the screen. A little cold.

…If only he could hug him.

The Archmage had always believed himself omnipotent. Sudden death, mysterious rebirth, two worlds inexplicable by common sense—all these. He dared to go alone to the Demon King’s Castle to confront Kriesmeier, the world-destroying Demon King who had just emerged from the Abyss. He also dared to explore new rules bit by bit in a completely unfamiliar world. Everything happened too fast for him to fully grasp, yet he handled it methodically, until that recent reunion.

In Roland’s memory, just a few mornings ago, Kriesmeier would still groggily hold him and then complain about accidentally flattening his hair.

But now, Kriesmeier was incredibly lonely.

It was ten years of loneliness, the loneliness of an entire world, the loneliness of all vows falling empty. Teaching the Abyss Demon race how to love was an incredible achievement, which made abandoning him seem crueler than anything. Kriesmeier hated his abrupt departure, hated his unknown whereabouts, hated that he had left an eternal mark on the Demon King’s long life.

The Abyss Demon race forged weapons from the blood of their beloved, because love, in their eyes, was inseparable from destruction and consumption.

But for Roland, this was another form of confession.

His Kriesmeier.

A string of virtual data, a creation of another world.

Roland’s fingernail pressed against the screen, and as the pressure increased, a small, multicolored light spot appeared on the screen. He immediately retracted his hand as if electrocuted, because this screen was the only window connecting the two worlds. Roland squeezed his amber eyes shut. The image of himself on the screen had, at this moment, been temporarily freed from the rules’ constraints by the Demon King’s cheating-like power.

But he knew everything would soon turn to dust.

He didn’t even have time to pull out his staff, “Nova,” from his inventory.

The next second, Roland saw a blood red screen appear, with settlement-like red text slowly rising from the black cat’s body. Its health bar was instantly wiped clean, and the black cat dissolved into countless white data fragments, dissipating before His Majesty the Demon King.

The black cat’s unusual actions had caused the Demon King a moment of hesitation, an ineffable glimmer of hope. Then, upon realizing it was a player, the Demon King wielded “Demon Eye” and struck him down. Kriesmeier was that kind of person; he forcibly freed the black cat from the game’s mechanics, only to personally kill the despicable deceiver.

“Wait for me,”

Roland spoke to the screen that would never respond. “I’ll be back for you soon.”

On the screen, Kriesmeier’s figure gradually faded. The Demon King of the Abyss’s final gaze on Roland was like eyes covered in layers of frost and snow, cold, dark gold, looking down disdainfully at the person on his side of the screen, just as the Demon King looked at every challenger.

The loading page reappeared before Roland’s eyes. He swallowed a silent sigh in his throat.

Then,

A black cat was refreshed once again at the initial forest’s summoning altar.