TBR CH176

The Demon King’s Castle was essentially the Abyss Demon race’s stronghold.

Outside the central palace where the Demon King resided, seven territories were divided among seven Demon Dukes. To confront the Demon King directly, players had to find a relatively safe infiltration route.

The seven lords were respectively titled Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and Lust.

Unlike Demon King Kriesmeier, they were not invincible, but neither were they irreplaceable. The Abyss Demon race was a cruel and strange species; every one of them flowed with violent and battle-thirsty blood. When a lord was killed, his former followers would rush to devour his flesh and blood, consuming his mutilated soul, like hyenas swarming a lion that had just breathed its last on the savannah.

Among them, the one whose strength was most perfected would inherit the deceased’s crown.

In Abyss, even if a player achieved the first kill of a current lord, they generally wouldn’t choose to stay and join this mad struggle. In fact, many players, in order to face the Demon King in their best state, would try to curry favor with the lords through shortcuts.

For example, sacrificing a skeleton apple to the Gluttony Lord would grant safe passage;

Or, having your game character spend a night with the Lust Lord, but one had to be very careful…

The method Roland used belonged to none of the above. After all, before him, no purebred animal player had reached such a high level. The limitations of their race and the difficulties in communication often trapped them permanently in the newbie village. When a black cat stealthily slipped into the Demon King’s Castle, no proper demon would seriously consider it an opponent, right?

Although the low-level demons wanted to tear everything they saw to shreds, for some reason, this black cat was particularly cunning, always slipping away from their grasp like butter sliding in a hot pan, escaping without a trace.

Roland quickly moved through the Demon King’s Castle. His amber eyes sometimes blinked gently, taking in some of the rather disharmonious scenes within the Demon King’s Castle with his peripheral vision. Abyss‘s age rating was probably due to this. Abyss demons had no moral bottom line, only indulging their desires. Any emotional bond was fragile and easily broken.

Archmage Roland was proficient in magical zoology. Many species had strict hierarchical divisions; high-tier species were more developed than low-tier ones in both power and emotion. But this was not the case for Abyss demons.

The cruelty of high-tier demons was merely more refined than that of low-tier demons. When feasting on the souls of their own kind, they knew to add a pinch of rose salt.

This explained why the Archmage was initially contemptuous of such a race.

Roland solved about ten Abyss demons and three relentlessly pursuing Hellcats (their teeth indeed looked grim) during the black cat’s stealth mission. To his surprise, some of the higher-ranking demons ignored the black cat and walked past it. Even if the prey was minuscule, Abyss demons shouldn’t let it go so easily, let alone in such an unusual situation.

His fingers on the keyboard subtly paused for a moment, pondering the key factor behind this situation.

The next moment, someone grabbed the black cat in the screen by the scruff of its neck and lifted it.

The black cat’s perspective immediately began to slide, accompanied by a dizzying spin. Roland quickly halted his fingertips on the skill bar, intending to conjure his staff the next second to give the demon in front of him a dizzying spin as well, but then he suddenly saw a dialogue box pop up.

“Is this what you called an anomaly?”

A lord-level demon scrutinized the black cat, which was glaring at him with wary amber pupils. “Wait, this does seem to be the cat that was with the master last time—it didn’t secretly run out of the demon palace, did it? How troublesome. His Majesty’s tastes are always different from ours, and he has no shapeshifting ability. Why does such a fragile creature favor him?”

The Lord of Lust looked at the black cat before him with discerning eyes.

The black cat pricked up its pointed ears in displeasure.

Roland’s fingertips, which had been touching the item bar, silently rose again. Well, a great demon king with Kriesmeier’s personality obviously wouldn’t have the patience to explain to other lords how he had been deceived by a black cat disguised as a player, and the black cat’s previous experience of parading through the demon streets clearly helped.

“Never mind,”

The Lord of Lust unenthusiastically moved his hand away. “After all, it’s just a substitute for that human, and who knows when it’ll die. Just clean it up and send it back to the master.”

Roland, in front of the screen, blinked, barely resisting the urge to bite him.

The black cat was thus logically brought to the Lord of Lust’s territory and there underwent a thorough cleaning and grooming. In this territory, there was no shortage of means of embellishment and grooming, but these means were still a bit much when applied to a black cat. The black cat’s fur was fluffy and soft, emitting a violet scent, and it even had a black bowtie tied around its neck.

Then, it was stuffed into a large gift box and transported all the way to the Demon King’s palace, enduring bumps along the way.

Before entering the dungeon, Roland truly hadn’t expected to finally arrive before Kriesmeier through such a… shortcut. However, when the Archmage saw the gift wrapping paper with the black cat printed on it and the silver ribbon, he found that he actually quite appreciated this aesthetic, so he decided not to quibble with the other party.

At this moment, the perspective shown on the computer screen was merely a faint glow filtering through the gift wrapping paper.

The Demon King’s palace was the only unguarded place in the Demon King’s Castle; only Demon King Kriesmeier walked alone there.

Through the dome of the grand hall, the already meager daylight cast only a tiny, faint silver light. One hundred and one never-extinguishing silver candles illuminated the hall, which was laid with crimson carpets like faded blood, and the throne was composed of countless skulls, their bones pale and grim, not overly polished, still starkly standing, all martyrs of Kriesmeier’s ascent to power.

These scenes were actually not reflected in the eyes of the gift-bearing demons.

They merely placed the gift box on the steps before the demon palace, bowed their backs to the autocrat behind the heavy doors, stated their purpose, and then silently retreated.

At this point, all that could be done was to quietly wait for the Abyss’s ruler to open the gift wrapping, because it had a magic seal that could only be opened from the outside—the Lord of Lust hadn’t even considered the possibility that the black cat might starve to death inside if Kriesmeier never opened the gift—this was almost a tragedy within reach, because the Demon King indeed did not appear.

But luckily, the tragedy would ultimately not materialize.

Roland double-clicked the item bar. The black cat’s tail coiled a few times, wrapping around a staff inlaid with a moonstone. Almost the moment it touched the staff’s light, the magic sealing the gift suddenly burned away like paper touched by fire, completely incinerated within a few seconds.

Two black ears cautiously pushed open the wrapping paper, followed by a pair of amber pupils. The black cat elegantly overturned the box. Expensive-looking silk ribbons slipped from the top of the gift box onto the black cat, merely a different form of excessive packaging. The black cat lifted its chin and shook its beautiful fur, sneezing from the scent of violet cleaner.

Next was to make himself at home, Roland thought. Adopting the mindset of a black cat might not be so bad after all.

But the next moment, the palace’s obsidian-carved doors suddenly opened. Demon King Kriesmeier appeared behind the doors, like a profound, vintage oil painting, and the gloom behind him only further highlighted the subject of the painting.

He was exceptionally pale, exceptionally contemptuous, narrowing his dark golden eyes at the “gift” still entangled with ribbon on the floor. He stopped dangerously, his footsteps halting, while the “gift” was completely unaware of the presence of danger, and had not learned its lesson from the last encounter, even looking up at him and letting out a happy “meow.”

“You…”

He uttered the first word in a low voice and summoned his scythe, “Demon Eye,” into his hand.

Without any preceding context, Roland clearly realized that Kriesmeier’s emotions had suddenly transitioned seamlessly from calm to rage. Something burning like magma surged in his dark golden pupils. His gaze lingered on the black cat… no, on the staff the black cat had coiled with its tail, and a terrifying, sharp edge, like direct provocation, emerged in his expression.

“Give it to me,”

Kriesmeier’s voice was grim and violent: “Leave his thing, give it back to me.”

The next second, all the surrounding scenery abruptly collapsed, fading in color. Only the Demon King remained vivid in the picture. The background music exclusive to the Demon King’s battle, deep and tragic, began to play in Roland’s headphones, cellos and organs weeping in unison. As a player, he had triggered this unavoidable battle and was instantly teleported to the center of the palace.

The Demon King’s sharp, dark wings landed on the ground, neatly folding, directing thousands of the most dangerous, arrow-like parts towards the ignorant challenger. The scythe’s blade was like a dim crescent moon, crossing a few strands of silver hair that fell across his chest. Slowly wielding the blade, death advanced with heavy steps, hermetically shattering all escape routes for his opponent.

This was the highest stage of Demon King Kriesmeier; few players had survived to this stage. Those fortunate enough to witness this scene also had their health bars reset to zero within a second or two and were teleported to the respawn altar.

Yet, what had activated this stage of the Demon King was merely a black cat.

—It seemed there was no retreat.

Roland, in front of the screen, was utterly focused. His dark hair fell slightly, partially obscuring his vision, but his fingers showed no sign of leaving the keyboard, moving dazzlingly fast. Roland’s fingertips rapidly swept across one skill key after another, crisp tapping sounds echoing in the empty room.

He was merely sitting in front of the screen, separated by a thin display, yet his expression was as if he were personally present in the battle.

Every keybind was committed to memory, every subtle mechanism for awakening magic was meticulously laid out in the Archmage’s mind. The Demon King’s unavoidable scythe was about to touch the player’s data-formed body, yet Roland’s complex maneuvers had, until this moment, produced no noticeable reaction on the screen.

But, the next second.

The tip of the staff suddenly burst forth with the light of stars.

Cleansing all darkness, a pure and profound brilliance. Light itself was also a weapon. Kriesmeier’s scythe had almost touched the black cat’s fur but could not advance further; instead, it was forcefully pushed back a few steps from the front.

The Demon King’s dark golden pupils showed intense surprise, and even denser stars were gathering in the palace’s gloomy dome.

An unavoidable situation was not difficult to resolve, because avoidance was not Archmage Roland’s style in the first place.

He chose a thorough and exhilarating offense.

There are no eternal wars in this world.

There will always be a cessation, for example, when Demon King Kriesmeier’s waist-length silver hair was illuminated by the silent law of the stars. He pressed his shoulder, restraining his trembling under that pure white light, and supported himself with his scythe as he knelt on the ground, raising that dark golden pupil, his eyes gazing gloomily at the slowly approaching black cat.

In Roland’s headphones, the symphonic BGM at this moment seamlessly transitioned from melancholy to passionate, as if an epic poem that involuntarily made the listener’s blood boil. The fated solemn notes symbolized the imminent appearance of the first player to defeat Demon King Kriesmeier in Abyss.

This would be a sensational, explosive piece of news.

The immortal Demon King would become history, and the prophecy of legend would be declared invalid.

Kriesmeier seemed uninterested in any of this. He didn’t even seem very interested in his own life or death. Until now, the massive wings behind him still rose and fell with his labored breathing, facing the newcomer in their sharpest form, while at the same time his fingertips strained forward:

“Give… it back to me.”

Roland reacted for a moment before realizing that Kriesmeier wanted to touch his staff.

“You can’t,” Roland muttered to himself, facing the computer screen. The black cat meowed at the Demon King. The amber-eyed youth did not relax his tense body even slightly due to the clear situation. “Kriesmeier, you…”

He stopped speaking.

The Demon King’s power could only be known by fighting him. Suddenly entering the Demon King’s battle, one first had to face Kriesmeier’s tricky Abyss magic. While anti-magic couldn’t prevent the Archmage from casting spells, it very effectively prevented Roland from accessing the potion option in his item bar, so much so that only now, as the Demon King’s edge gradually dimmed, was the item bar’s lockdown lifted.

What appeared before Roland’s eyes was a potion concocted overnight by Miss Hilda, the chief apprentice of the Mage Tower.

He didn’t hesitate; he clicked to use it.

The black cat stopped one step away from Kriesmeier. Its amber pupils silently gazed at the Demon King, causing the Demon King to momentarily waver again. This was a tremendous humiliation, the humiliation of being deceived, a humiliation carved into his soul. Remembering that human only made him feel a dark, cold emotion named hatred burning in his heart.

—Long ago, a human once told him: “To mix love and hate, this is the nature of the Abyss Demon race.”

—Later, that person changed the subject: “But Kriesmeier, you are a miracle.”

Demon King Kriesmeier had never thought he would have a day of defeat, but perhaps the moment he met Roland, it was destined that he would one day be defeated by a human in a dim twilight. It was a pity, however, that the one before him was not the person to whom his love and hate were tied, but a despicable thief, an existence from another world who called himself a “player.”

Why did the other party possess such formidable strength, and why could they use Archmage Roland’s long-lost magic?

Kriesmeier didn’t dwell on these thoughts. Disappointing himself a second time was already foolish enough, let alone hundreds of times. At this moment, he strained to keep his breathing steady. His dark wings, which had obscured the sky, now dimmed. The power that sustained them had already flowed away into the starlight. After the wings dissipated, the Demon King’s figure was unprecedentedly pale and solitary.

There was no confusion in his eyes, no rage, no contempt.

When facing death, Abyss demons often retained only their deepest desires. Most demons’ desires were for power; they pursued power their entire lives, massacred their own kind, and then became stepping stones for others.

And Kriesmeier’s gaze remained fixed on the staff coiled by the black cat’s tail.

He never cared what the black cat was like. It didn’t matter if it foolishly crawled out of a gift box, it didn’t matter if it was wrapped in silver ribbon, and it didn’t matter if green bubbles inexplicably appeared around it now.

But the staff belonged to that human.

That staff should be his.

Kriesmeier’s fingertips were almost able to touch the staff. The dying Demon King’s expression was cold, only the very center of his pupils glowed with the heat from the moonstone embedded in the staff’s tip. Then, as if a rare dream of the demon race had suddenly descended upon the Demon King, Kriesmeier’s palm pressed against the scythe’s hilt, becoming icy cold along with the dark metal, but then he suddenly raised his eyes.

“You can’t,” Roland said softly.

In the bottom left corner of the screen, a small speaker icon flickered, indicating that the player’s voice was faithfully transmitted into the game. “I’m talking about you, Kriesmeier. Ending our battle like this is unacceptable. Letting yourself get into such a state is truly terrible.”

The black cat’s furry tail swayed. Then, the staff behind it emitted another kind of light, not sharp, but extremely gentle and encompassing. It was the Church’s healing magic, but after the Archmage’s modifications, it also worked on demons—though if the Church knew he had altered magic in such a way, it would surely provoke fierce opposition.

After the previous battle, the black cat Roland controlled now had only a threadbare sliver of health left. However, he didn’t care much about his own health; most of the light was still pouring onto the Demon King.

Then, the black cat picked up the staff it had coiled with its tail, placing “Nova” next to the Demon King’s hand.

With the cold clang of the staff landing, he continued: “Although this is my own item, if you want my staff, that’s fine.”

Kriesmeier lowered his eyes, not picking up the staff.

His voice was like unmelting frost:

“Roland.”

“Mm,” Roland—the black cat before him—spoke: “It’s me.”

Starlight shone on the Demon King, this time rapidly mending all the damage inflicted before. His long silver hair looked beautiful in the dim environment, but the broken horn on his head was ugly and exposed in the empty hall due to his kneeling, self-supporting posture, its fractured surface showing dried blood.

Roland barely managed to keep his voice calm. His right hand moved from the keyboard and pressed on the desk, his fingertips already pale.

The Archmage from the other world slowly began:

“I originally thought I would lose this battle. A cat’s body is in no way as effective as my own, so I couldn’t guarantee that all spells would have the same power as I remembered. But—what have you done to yourself, Kries? You should be very aware that your power is constantly diminishing. Those old scars, they show signs of being reopened.”

However, the Demon King seemed not to have heard these questions at all. He simply stared at the staff by his hand, then as if losing interest in it, shifted his gaze back to the talking black cat.

“Why did you leave,”

Kriesmeier turned his dark golden pupils to it, but it was as if he was looking through it at the other person on the other side of the screen. “Why did you come back again? If you’re going to leave again, you shouldn’t have saved me, because as long as you appear before me, I will do everything I can to kill you. I have already prepared an inescapable prison for you for all eternity.”

The Demon King’s voice was violent and cruel, like a threat.

But Roland chuckled softly. Not just his voice; the young man on the other side of the screen silently curved his lips, his amber eyes shimmering with some wet emotion,

“Because I’ve been thinking about you too, just as you have. I love you very much, and I won’t compare feelings of admiration with you. You are a miracle. Kries, I never intended to leave without a word. When you wanted to find me, my only wish was to be found by you.”

He then made the black cat go forward and rub against the Demon King’s hand. The fluffy, warm touch clearly reached the Demon King’s hand. Kriesmeier, whose strength was gradually recovering, clearly knew that the animal’s fur in his hand was messy, its breathing erratic, and that merely insignificant power could kill the most fragile of creatures.

Kriesmeier’s fingertips twitched. The Abyss Demon’s instinct roared wildly for slaughter.

But he never moved further.

He allowed the black cat to intimately stay within a distance close enough to trigger his defensive instincts, forcing himself to cruelly doubt every word the other party said, but this also meant considering the possibility of believing. He was silent, his aura gloomy, and his dark wings once again flickered into existence behind him.

Kriesmeier had imagined many scenarios for his reunion with Roland. They might begin with a battle, but all would end in death. He had imagined the Archmage’s body gradually stiffening and growing cold, imagining dissecting the human heart, extracting the ribs from it, and then considering whether to kiss him.

But he hadn’t expected that after the smoke of battle cleared, he would begin conversing with a cat.

The Demon King was silent for a while, then suddenly said: “…I always knew you were alive.”

The rumors on the Mirar Continent were that the Archmage was dead, and the killer was none other than Demon King Kriesmeier. The only one in this world who could kill Roland was indeed the Demon King, so Roland couldn’t have truly died. This was a very simple truth. But for those involved, this point was often not so easy to see.

“Then,” Roland’s voice also paused before resuming, “You used forbidden magic, drawing upon your Abyss Demon soul as an

incantation.”

Under the ceaselessly pouring starlight from the dome, Kriesmeier closed his eyes tiredly. The black cat stood in his palm, which made him know he should remain vigilant, yet he couldn’t help but cup his fingers together. His attitude was essentially acquiescence. Acquiescence that at some point, he too had inevitably felt a bone-chilling coldness at the possibility of the Archmage’s death, and then used the worst method to confirm it.

The flesh and soul of Abyss demons possessed the power to track their enemies.

Life or death.

—The answer to the question would only bring forth more questions, such as: love or hate.

Neither of them spoke. After a long while, Kriesmeier allowed the black cat to climb up his wrist, eventually holding it in his arms. Then, a cold, golden illusion gradually flowed from his fingertips. Like a melting sun, some metal, under the Demon King’s power, tamely began to solidify, forming an unbreakable cage.

Then, the cage, painstakingly formed, was shattered the next instant by the creator’s will.

Kriesmeier seemed to split into two selves, fighting each other. His sharp nails dug deep into his palm:

“I can’t truly keep you locked up, can I, Roland.”

It was unrealistic to fantasize about imprisoning the continent’s greatest mage. Now there was an additional reason: the other party had become a black cat or something even more troublesome; it wouldn’t even bleed, it would merely dissipate before him.

But Kriesmeier desperately wanted to grasp something at this moment. The violent and greedy part of his blood was burning fiercely. He feared he might accidentally strangle the black cat the next second. Losing something by his own hand was better than losing it at the hands of another.

He didn’t pose the question as a question; he already had the answer in his heart.

Kriesmeier knew that this scene now differed from his imagination. Abyss demons should not hesitate or waver. Demon King Kriesmeier’s evil reputation spread throughout the Mirar Continent; the name itself conjured images of something violent, cold, and terrifying.

“No.”

However, Roland said, “No.”

The atmosphere was too heavy; the BGM in his headphones had long since stopped. Besides the howling wind through the empty palace, no other sound could be heard. Roland made his tone sound somewhat lighthearted, like a joke, but also spoke with an undeniable madness:

“Didn’t I say that you are the only partner I will ever acknowledge in this life? When I said that, it meant I was already willing to entrust my life to you. This is a special situation, Kries; you must endure for now. I remember you said before—hm, you said you wanted my ribs as material for ‘Demon Eye.’ I will do my best to fulfill that wish.”

He said this as casually as he would say to Kriesmeier, “I’m sending you a birthday present.”

The Demon King’s pupils contracted slightly.

“One day I will kill you.”

Kriesmeier raised his eyes, which seemed covered in layers of frost, and prophesied.

“My honor.”

Roland’s voice sounded almost immediately after his words fell. “But before that, I will tell you everything that happened. Kriesmeier, do you want to listen?”

The silver-haired Demon King remained silent, not answering immediately, but slowly loosened his tightly clasped knuckles.

He then held the black cat in his arms even tighter.