Demon Lord: Erotic Adventure in Another World-Chapter 741: Dangerous Existence

Asmodeus felt a sudden pain in his mind, as if something stabbed his brain with a sharp blade. He staggered as countless overlapping voices whispered in his mind, while the blazing eye of Grundig focused on his.

Kill the woman beside you.

She is bad news.

Cut her throat and tear her apart.

’!?’

The piercing noise spread through his mind, forcing him to stagger back. A soft hand grasped him, but. His vision twisted and became strange with a deformed image; Nerim’s hand transformed into slimy, disgusting tendrils that slithered up his arm.

"What the hell is this!?"

Kill her!

No matter how much he tried to ignore them, Asmodeus found the voices growing louder and louder. He bit his tongue, sinking his teeth so deeply that blood started pouring down his chin to no avail.

Despite the stabbing pain, the voices didn’t fade.

Instead multiplied.

They crawled through his skull like insects, chewing at thought, at instinct, at identity. Every breath felt wrong, heavy, as if his lungs no longer belonged to him. His knees buckled, boots scraping uselessly against the floor while the world tilted and warped.

Kill her.

She will destroy you.

She is going to betray you!

His vision became like a fractured pane of glass.

Asmodeus watched as the inn stretched and folded, its face melted into distorted masks that resembled eldritch horrors. The sound of swords clashing became distant, changing to the sound of bells ringing.

Everything changed as he drowned beneath the wet whispering pressed directly against his mind. His heartbeat pounded without rhythm, causing a feeling of nausea that left Asmodeus feeling dizzy.

’This is wrong...’

The beautiful face of Nerim looked foul, like an undead abomination.

His hand twitched at these thoughts.

For one terrifying instant, his fingers wanted to move toward Nerim.

"Ghh...!" He choked, teeth grinding so hard his jaw screamed. Blood rushed from his torn tongue, dripping onto the floor, but even that pain felt dulled, twisted and smothered by the bizarre presence gnawing at him from the inside.

Yield.

Again, something tried to tear him apart from within, a foreign power.

However, there was no method of resisting.

He could only suffer the agonising pain, but then... while lost in the cloudy dark, Asmodeus’s mind gathered a single thread of clarity.

The energy was from the Abyss.

So, the moment he realised this point, his struggle stopped instantly; he closed his eyes and spread his arms with a deep breath. The foul stench of Nerim’s rotting body, her disgustingly slimy touch, faded for a moment.

That moment was enough for him to take action.

The whispers faded.

He accepted the corrupting energy!

Inside his body, the abyssal shard, which grew larger after absorbing the lich’s energy he defeated over a week ago. Instead, he opened his abyssal shard, letting it swallow the twisted purple and pink energy like a dragon’s maw.

The voices immediately changed, screaming as something dragged them inward and tore them apart. The energy and voices suffered in a maelstrom of pressure before being consumed. Asmodeus straightened his spine and let out a low growl as black veins slithered beneath his skin, which spread through his entire body.

Asmodeus took a deep breath, examining the chaotic room as his eyes cleared.

Then he snapped to look at Grundig. "...Nice try."

Across the room, Grundig’s confident smile remained unchanged as his lips twitched.

’Interesting.’

The old dwarf’s orange eye flickered and burned steadily, unfazed.

Around Asmodeus, the twisted reality unravelled and rushed back all at once. He glanced at Nerim’s pretty face, filled with concern, and smiled.

"Sorry."

He ignored the chaos and cupped her soft cheeks, letting his abyssal energy flow through her body and seep into her divine shard. It wasn’t just flirting, but he’d learned something from clashing with that strange eye of Grundig.

’Abyssal energy can hinder Divine arts and power!’

Clang!

"Lad, could ye help!?" Logan cried out as he held two blades above his face, using his black hammer, while sweat poured down his cheeks.

’Ah?’

Asmodeus then noticed the situation. Steel faced black iron. Tables lay overturned, splintered into kindling. Blood coated the floor and walls as mercenaries clashed with guild members in tight, brutal exchanges. Both sides fought with skill and determination, but the numbers were on Grundig’s side.

Asmodeus swayed his body, gathering all his magic and power into his limbs, the thick black hide coating his body as he planted his foot firmly.

Thud!

Like a bomb, he shot forward with axe in hand, cleaving the air without grace, only poor power and ferocity.

On the staircase, Lun had drawn a short blade, a thin blade with a copper glow, lashing it out like a whip to keep the attackers at bay. "Logan!" She called his name before Asmodeus appeared in her vision. "Eh?!" She gasped at the sight of him. He shouted out loud and ripped through the bodies of four of their attackers in midair using his axe.

Splatter

A rain of blood cascaded from above. Logan’s eyes opened wide as he jumped up and down, pointing at Asmodeus with an excited voice. "That’s my boy!" He slammed his mace into the crotch of another shadow, sweeping upward with a smooth motion.

Thunk

"Argh."

Despite the sudden change, Grundig remained calm, without moving or changing his expression. He watched his men slaughtered by Asmodeus. While Lun, Logan and Nerim killed the others with the loyal Bronze Blade troops.

’Why does he look so calm?’

Asmodeus couldn’t help but doubt the situation and knew Grundig held a hidden card. Yet he didn’t draw his weapon, nor did he move or act as if the situation required it.

He watched the chaos like a craftsman observing a forge, head slightly tilted, the abyssal eye scanning movements, reactions, and fear. His mouth curved into a thin, satisfied line.

"You endured longer than expected," he said calmly, voice cutting through the noise.

Grundig’s voice felt like ants crawling over one’s skin. Asmodeus couldn’t help but shudder while stepping in front of Lun, Logan and Nerim. With his troops dead, this situation should be over, but Asmodeus could feel it.

It wasn’t over.

His bizarre ability and eye.

Because he could summon Abyssal’s voice, which could use human language.

Even Mephisto struggled to speak properly when he became corrupted by the Abyssal energy, transforming into a deformed, fallen god. It was thanks to Alan’s existence that even a sliver of his mind remained until the moment of his death.

’What does he have planned?’

The inn fell into an uneasy half-silence.

Bodies lay scattered across the floor, blood pooling between shattered tables and broken mugs. The surviving Bronze Blade members regrouped instinctively around Lun and Logan, breathing hard, weapons raised. Nerim stood close to Asmodeus, water magic coiling tightly around her arms like restrained serpents.

"Lun." Grundig’s low voice echoed, causing the young dwarf’s shoulders to shudder, before he smiled, revealing his dirty yellow teeth. "You’ve surprised me this time."

Asmodeus narrowed his eyes, studying his opponent.

Though he would love to crush him here, that strange, unstable manifestation could wipe out the entire city if it collapsed.

’Dirty old men, they never play fair!’

"You never expected these men to win, right?" Asmodeus kicked one of the fallen mercenaries, his expression clouding.

"Hahaha!" Grundig’s hearty laugh revealed the truth. "True, young man. There was no chance to win here, even though I know not to fight against the grand protectors hiding in the darkness, waiting for me to make a move!"

Suddenly, a flicker of light appeared on either side of Grundig as two people appeared.

Two dwarves, a male and a female, with snow-white hair, flashed like ghosts. They held their curved daggers at Grundig’s throat, their bodies moving so fast even Asmodeus whistled in appreciation.

"As expected, you old crones are still alive!"

Neither of the two dwarves spoke; they remained frozen in place.

Grundig showed no fear, no surprise.

He just tilted his head and reached into his pocket.

He held a bronze pocket watch shaped like a shield, humming to himself as he lowered it. "Of course, these fools were bait." His gaze drifted to the corpses without a shred of regret. "People are simple to replace. Opportunities are not."

No matter what he faced, that pulsing orange eye caused a sense of danger to Asmodeus; he wanted to walk through this world and act as if nothing could stop him. But if he ignored the clear tingling across his skin, he’d be a complete fool.

The air became tense and thickened.

Asmodeus felt it immediately; something about Grundig’s smile changed a pressure not on his body, but on the space around them.

BOOM!

The anti-magic field upstairs warped, distorting before it fizzled with a sudden pop. It was almost as if something overwhelmed its abilities, and the next moment, a loud explosion tore through the entire building.

And this was the moment Grundig stepped forward. He appeared to shift through the air like a wraith, standing beside the portrait of Lun and her family and snorted.

He took something from the damaged wall, then, through the massive crack in the roof, a giant scaled maw, teeth the size of a child’s arm, large glowing eyes and leathery wings appeared.

"A wyvern!?"

"The Red Wyvern!?"

Grundig laughed softly as the wyvern roared, its heat washing over the shattered inn. He stepped onto its back without haste, the abyssal eye burning brightly.

"Enjoy your little victory," he called down. "This was never the stage."

His gaze locked onto Asmodeus.

"We’ll speak again at the auction."

With a single beat of its wings, the wyvern rose and vanished into the sky.