The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1221
Chapter 1221
Boom! Boom!!
A deafening explosion echoed through the air.
Unlike Shardran, who had been knocked out by a single strike, Reina charged head-on against the two attackers with a calm expression.
Threatening attacks ricocheted through the brightly lit, massive sinkhole.
Meanwhile, Davey hurled Hellfire at the emperor indiscriminately while maintaining his cold smile.
Boom! Boom!
“
Graaaagh!!!
” the emperor screamed in agony, resisting desperately. Yet with his current strength, he couldn’t withstand Davey’s assault.
He struggled in a way that left him trapped in place. Noticing this, a strange thought sparked in Davey’s mind, so he threw another blast of Hellfire.
Boom!!
“
Graaaagh!!!
”
The emperor didn’t dodge—no, he couldn’t have even if he tried.
At the same time, Davey put on a chilling smile.
‘So he hasn’t completely encroached the real emperor’s heart yet. He must be forcefully holding it together through that throne.’
“Hey you. You can’t dodge, can you?”
His laughter made the emperor’s expression twist. He angrily shouted, “Stop him!!”
One of the two Executioners fighting Reina instantly rushed toward Davey, but Reina wasn’t about to just let that slide.
“Let me take some of your power.” She took a significant amount of divine power from him. Like a saint praying for a miracle, she recited some ridiculous prayer and siphoned his power.
“I’m your divinity, you could at least pray properly. Who prays like it’s a joke?”
Whether she heard him or not, she continued to pull power from him as she pleased.
Fwoosh!
At the same time, the wings on her back flared up, expanding rapidly as her power exploded. Her body then blurred for a moment. In what seemed like an instant, she drove Longinus into the shoulder of Stobel Barsha, pinning him to the wall.
“
Gah!
”
“You're really weak,
huh?
”
“Y-You monster...”
Davey frowned as Reina glanced over and spoke to him, “
Aah...
This is bad. I think I’m getting addicted to this.”
Half of her wings had turned black. He knew something was clearly wrong with the divine power she’d borrowed from him.
The change had started without warning, and Reina seemed to be subconsciously influenced by it. Her attacks had become more brutal, and she was looking down at her opponent, which was quite unlike her usual self.
“I really don’t like this place.”
Davey was fine, yet Reina was being affected by his power. Either way, he decided nothing good would come from staying there too long.
“
Graaaagh!!
”
Despite the relentless agony from the Hellfire’s burning, the emperor couldn't get up and run. He writhed and thrashed, yet couldn't escape, which only intensified his suffering.
“
Ahahahah!
” Off in the distance, Reina continued to attack as if enjoying the moment, leaving Stobel Barsha unable to respond.
Desperate, the emperor rapidly summoned abominations from the corrupted ground. However, they too were torn apart as Behemoth, who had been silently watching, entered the fray.
It seemed even the emperor couldn’t fully utilize his power. His furious expression made it clear he was on edge.
While the Hellfire wasn’t weak, to someone whose vitality had been amplified to the extreme it was more torturous than fatal.
Perhaps that was why the bastard finally resorted to something truly low.
His voice suddenly changed to pained and desperate, screaming, “
Urgh!!
Stop! Please, stop!!”
“Wait. Emperor?” Davey raised an eyebrow in suspicion, asking quietly. The emperor’s expression reverted to normal.
“
Guh. Hah. Haaah.
So, you finally noticed. That’s right—the more I suffer, the more the soul of this body’s original owner suffers too. Knowing that bombshell, will you still continue to attack?”
In other words, the emperor’s soul hadn’t died. It was still bound to the body. The more Davey hurt the body, the more the emperor’s still-living soul, imprisoned by the demon, suffered.
Not satisfied with using the core as a hostage, the bastard had taken the emperor’s soul hostage too.
When Davey paused his attack, the creature staggered and flashed a twisted smile. “
Khuhuhu.
So, what will you do? If you want to keep attacking, I won’t stop you. Just remember that every blow you land tortures this foolish human’s soul even more.”
Davey could sense the presence of another soul within the creature.
Killing it was impossible, as it was linked to the heart of the continent. Torturing it into letting go wasn’t an option either, because of the hostage soul.
For those driven by a strong sense of justice, it would’ve been a checkmate.
“
Ahahahaha! Hahahaha!!
Divinity! The power of a monster! This is truly fascinating. Truly entertaining!”
Sitting on the throne, the creature reached out. From the corrupted, violet ground beneath him, a single tentacle stretched out and wrapped around Davey's arm. It then began to devour his power.
“I will consume your strength entirely. I am the Demon of Gluttony, and your power shall become mine!”
As the creature greedily pulled at his power, Davey let out a dry chuckle. “Sure. Go ahead and take it.”
The bastard had made a lot of preparations, yet clearly knew nothing about Davey.
The demon sucked out a massive wave of his power in an instant. The creature shouted in ecstasy as it absorbed his strength, “
Ahh.
This power is incredible! Far too immense for any mere being to possess! Once I consume it all, I’ll use the power of this place to become a god! A true god of destruction!”
Reina’s eyes widened as she offhandedly stabbed a sword through an Executioner’s heart. “What are you doing, Davey?!”
Despite her fierce outcry, Davey didn’t resist. It was almost as if he were daring the creature to take even more power.
From the outside, the situation looked incredibly dangerous. It was laughable to Davey, since the bastard didn’t realize that his power couldn’t be controlled by anyone else.
The power he devoured through Predatory Assimilation resonated with Davey alone. Anyone else trying to use it would only bring it back to square one. The inevitable result? Overwhelming hunger and madness.
“
Gah?!
What is this?! Stop! Stop coming in! Damn it!!” Panicked by the overwhelming force flooding in, the creature tried to cut off the absorption. But the power refused to listen, already set in motion.
“
Graaahhh!!
Damn it!! I said stop!!” the bastard screamed, twisting in agony at the unimaginable pain and chaos.
The demon wouldn’t die, since he was linked with the world’s vitality, but the unthinkable pain shattered its mind nonetheless.
Realizing the situation had become catastrophic, he chose to abandon everything. He dumped the stolen power into the heart of the continent and severed all connections before attempting to flee in disgrace, not getting far.
“
Ugh. Huff. Huff.
” Collapsed on the floor, gasping in pain, the bastard glared up at Davey. “You insane bastard! The world will collapse even faster from this...”
“Oh, that? You really didn’t know?” Davey had already started reclaiming the stolen power. “That wasn’t some external source of power—it’s all a part of me. Reclaiming it is no big deal.”
As Davey pulled every ounce of his power back from the heart of the continent, the bastard's face twisted in disbelief.
In the end, all he’d done was sever his own vitality—the very link he’d forged between himself and the heart over countless years.
“Y-You son of a—!!” He finally lost all reason. The creature unleashed a massive surge of power and shot toward Davey like a flash of light.
Boom!!
Davey instantly reached out and deflected his attack. The formless shockwave blasted apart the walls of the massive sinkhole, shaking the entire area with a violent tremor.
“I’ll kill you!! I’ll tear you to pieces!!” The bastard launched a ferocious assault, not caring that his own body was warping and deteriorating. He charged with overwhelming power, yet Davey deflected all of his attacks with an expressionless face.
That bastard held the advantage in initiative. His onslaught grew fiercer as well as sharper. It was even astonishingly precise.
However, the more he attacked, the faster Davey could see his vitality dwindle. Just as his observations suggested, the demon’s body visibly began to crack and break apart.
The effect rippled straight through to the Executioners who had borrowed his power.
“
Gah.
Your Majesty... My body...”
Despite holding tremendous power, they were collapsing like ticking time bombs. Reina left them behind and approached Davey. Half of her wings had turned black, yet she seemed to still be holding onto some shred of reason.
“Can you do something about this? I feel like I’m about to lose it and destroy everything...”
Davey forcibly withdrew the power he’d lent her.
Her wings began turning white again. The darkness slowly faded away until it vanished completely.
“
Haah. Haah.
It feels wrong. This place... it doesn’t work the way I expect it to... You’re fine, but I’m the one falling apart.”
Though the space looked like nothing more than a natural landscape, Davey couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something deeply unnatural about it.
“But... Why is he like that?” Reina murmured, staring at the bastard as he deteriorated on his own. What she found surprising was that Davey hadn’t even done anything fatal to him. It was all his own doing.
“
Grghhh.
”
“He was dying from the beginning, then he recklessly pulled more power than he could handle. On top of that, my power accelerated his internal collapse even further.”
Whether it was the host body’s lifespan, or the demon’s own, didn’t matter.
The important thing was that the bastard had been dying from the moment Davey first encountered him. That was probably why he’d been so desperate to find the black slime.
“The divine beast... Give me the divine beast!!”
On top of that, he had even wanted the body of Princess Myurin. Realizing he couldn’t last much longer in the emperor’s body, he must’ve been searching for another host to buy himself more time.
Once even that backup option had been taken away, his only path to survival had been to fuse the vitality of the heart of the continent—something he had parasitized for ages—into his own.
However, after his reckless greed nearly shattered his mind, he gave up and fled at the brink of collapse.
As Davey silently watched the bastard crumble all on his own, the desperation in his eyes began to fade, like the last flickers of a dying flame.
He trembled violently as he forced himself to speak, “What... What the hell are you holding inside you...?”
Davey didn’t answer.
“
Hah!
My plans... hundreds of years... thousands of years... and in just a few days...” he muttered in disbelief. His eyes had gone blood-red, burning with hatred and rage. “I won’t go down alone—I’ll take you with me!”
He forced out the last of his strength and drove one of his hands into his own heart.
Crunch!!
Then, he ripped out his pitch-black heart and raised it high above his head. “Devour it, Heart!! Consume my heart and rampage to your fullest!!”
It was just a scream. A dying man’s last, desperate act. He was falling apart as his life came to an end. His words came from the brink of collapse, but something in Davey told him that the pointless curse wouldn’t be the end.
Even now, the massive heart of the continent continued to beat, sending out ominous pulses. The sound felt unmistakably foreboding.
“Will it be okay?”
“Hell if I know.”
.
!
Chapter 1221
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