The demon ‘sliced’ through its convex belly. A head popped out from between the halves of its belly, like ripe flesh popping open. It looked exactly like the demon, except it was covered in an unidentifiable fluid. The creature that had emerged from its belly looked more like a clone of the demon than its offspring.

Perhaps that description was correct. As the newborn straightened its bent limbs, it quickly transformed into the exact same shape as the demon, even down to its bulging belly.

Not breeding, but cloning. The new creature’s convex belly split open, repeating the same process as before. Split, born, split, born, born…….

By the fourth iteration of the maddening scene, Van realized why the mysterious demon was roaring so confidently.

“When the hell did this happen…….”

When the demons began to ‘clone’, the exact time was unknown. But they had stealthily and swiftly increased their numbers while Yeohwan and himself waited for morning. The evidence was everywhere.

Van abandoned his bag, scooped Cadel into his arms, and began to flee without hesitation, following the path he’d mapped out last night.

‘There’s no time to fight.’

They needed to get to the village. If they didn’t defeat them here, the demons would follow them to the next village, but it didn’t matter. As long as he could heal Cadel, no, Yeohwan. He didn’t care if a few villages were wiped out. Yeohwan would freak out if he heard, but this was the kind of guy Van was. This was the kind of person who would repeat his foolish acts of devotion over and over again.

“Hyaaat!”

The demons were not about to let Van and Cadel escape. Sufficiently outnumbered, they charged, confident of victory, as if knowing they were wounded.

One sent another flying, and the two in front of them hurled their flying companions forward once more. Fired with such speed, the demons clung to Van’s fleeing back, calves, and thighs.

“Damn it……!”

A searing pain shot through him, accompanied by a scream. He didn’t have to look to know what they were doing. Van kicked the ground with force, using the recoil to shake off the demons. But it didn’t matter, the demons behind him didn’t stop replicating as he ran.

It was only when his legs were reduced to rags that he decided that the only way to reach the village safely was to exterminate the abominations.

“…….”

He laid Cadel on the ground at the top of the hill, then stood with his back to him. Blood soaked his pants from the bitten leg. The feel of the cloth clinging to the gaping wound was bitter.

His sweat-streaked face glared murderously at the demons gathered at the bottom of the hill. They were already reveling in the fact that they’d cornered Van and Cadel.

A cacophony of curses rose from his mouth. The demons’ self-satisfaction made him feel like he was about to collapse in a heap of blood. Van couldn’t even handle one of them properly, leaving Yeohwan on the ground. Did this make sense?

‘I shouldn’t have been here.’

Garuel should have been there, he could have healed Cadel’s wounds in no time. No, it should have been Lydon. He could have traveled to his comrades in a traveling magic circle, or flown through the skies to dispel the demons. It should have been Lumen. He could travel to the village so fast they couldn’t keep up. What about Yozen? He could have slaughtered them all without a second thought. He would have killed every last one of them, and then carried Cadel at his leisure.

Yeah. That was why he shouldn’t have been confident here. He was f*cking weak. He was useless. Even as everyone else grew stronger, he felt like he was always one step behind. He wasn’t enough. He did one stupid thing after another that got eaten up by his own power. Even now, in the end, because of that stupid ‘rampage’. He had hurt Yeohwan, and Yeohwan had needlessly drained his strength to protect him.

“Pathetic *sshole…….”

In a fit of self-imposed rage, Van raised his greatsword to the sky. In an instant, his eyes reddened, and an expansive aura gathered around the hilt.

In a fit of self-imposed rage, Van raised his greatsword to the sky. In an instant, his eyes reddened, and an expansive aura gathered around the hilt.

If there was a silver lining, it was that he had collected no shortage of blood in Yeohwan’s absence. There was enough blood for his new greatsword.

[Blood Flow Sword the 2nd form – River of the Dead]

He hadn’t gotten to the top of the hill for nothing. Van was going to wipe out the demons gathered below. He would strike again and again, until there were none left to replicate. His eyes flashed ferociously with rage.

* * *

“Why does time go by so slowly?! What kind of game world doesn’t have a fast-forward mode?!”

Meanwhile, Cadel, who had paid for the success of the [Ignition Bullets], had fallen and entered the ‘nothingness’. All around him was blackness, and the only thing he could see was the familiar system window.

「Weakened bonds between body and soul. Recovery mode is activated.」

「Recovery progress: 74%」

「Time remaining to complete: 2 hours and 11 minutes」

If Kunra were here, Cadel would be begging him to do something about it. A transmigrator without a backbone is powerless.

‘Did Van get away safely?’

By now, Van would be exhausted from carrying his fallen body like a sack of luggage. What if he ran into another demon who had survived the attack? Hours of pointless worry reared its ugly head again.

“If only I knew who the f*ck those bastards were!”

It was his first time facing an enemy he had never faced before. Cadel wonder if the outcome would have been different if he had had time to think clearly. Cadel sighed deeply as he ran a hand through his wild hair.

“At least I didn’t get any sudden quests or anything like that, which would have been a pain in the ass if I had to deal with it all the way through.”

The system even had the good grace to not ask him to deal with the mysterious demons in the form of a quest.

So as long as they could get away, they were good to go. As soon as he recovered, he’d have to go to the village and call for his comrades, or he’d have to see how his body felt and try his hand at traveling magic.

Cadel was trying to keep his anxiety at bay with these thoughts. A new system window popped up with an unnecessarily cheerful chime.

「The will of the knight ‘Van Herdos’ knocks on the wall of fate.」

「Knight ‘Van Herdos’ ’ limit breakthrough quest begins.」

「In case of failure, the limit breakthrough quest disappears. Knight ‘Van Herdos’ died.」

“……What? What breakthrough?”

It was the second awakening quest for Van, a quest that Cadel had never thought of, a quest that couldn’t possibly exist.

* * *

The fifth [River of the Dead].

Van drew on all the blood he had stored up. He used the blood of the demons and his own. The aura was already overflowing. It was spiraling out of control.

But there were still demons in front of him. Even though the trees of the mountain had been cut down and the ground was muddy with blood. They threw themselves at each other, managing to keep one alive, and that one, like an undying cockroach, hastily replicated itself. It laid countless eggs, one after the other.

“Haha…….”

There were gasps of disbelief. No matter how many times their comrades were taken out, the demons stood their ground. It was as if they were waiting for Van to exhaust himself and fall. It was as if they were waiting for Van to run out of strength, and then they’d time his collapse so they could eat him.

Van almost wanted to clap his hands for their tenacity.

“……What the f*ck are you going to do, you *ssholes?”

His eyes went white and he was back again. He’d been on a rampage for months, and he knew it was a harbinger of a rampage. Perhaps the strings of reason had already been tattered by the time he’d chosen a pointless fight over flight.

But Van forced himself to keep his eyes open, to keep his wits about him, because of the man behind him. If he lost his mind here, he couldn’t protect Yeohwan. The mere thought of it made his blood rush through his veins, and he could feel his distant consciousness racing back into place.

The aura that enveloped him spread out like a fog. Uncontrollable forces surged through him. When a berserker became the target of uncontrolled power, he became a puppet of the aura. This overflowing power had to be harnessed somehow. Unfortunately, he didn’t have enough blood to draw upon.

Should he try to wound himself again? Or should he take Yeohwan and find a place with more monsters? The options were narrow and shallow.

‘……Wake up. You’re the only one who can save him here and now.’

He despaired that it was he and no one else who should be here, but no amount of despair could change the reality.

Even if he was weaker than the rest of the Knight Order, even if he was worthless, even if all he had was a miserably blind love. If he wanted to save his commander, he must fight for that love.

“I said I’d be your knight. I want…… to protect you.”

His new relationship with Yeohwan was to begin like this.

* * *

The demon’s name was Gelika. His real name in the Demon Realm was ‘Gelika the Infinite’. He lacked the strength and intellect of other Higher Demons, and was far less intelligent. Yet he was able to wear his dark red wings with pride. It was because of his proliferative power and appetite.

Gelika devastated any land he touched. A single one could spawn hundreds, even thousands, of clones, devouring all life around it. Some of the demons of the Demon Realm claimed that such Gelika was the core power of the Demon Realm.

Gelica was the same way. He was short-thinking and ignorant, but he knew his strength. He trusted his clones, and he was confident of victory. Until a few moments ago, when he had withstood wave after wave of blood.

“Hyaash―!”

To the tiny Gelika, it was like a typhoon: a gale of winds from a wide-spreading aura that shot up into the sky at once. In the red whirlwind that swept all around them, the Gelikas held onto each other to steady their flailing bodies.

As one gust passed, one of the barely centered Gelikas let out a startled cry. He pointed to the sky.

The once-blue sky had turned blood-red. As if a thin membrane had been drawn over the sky, an aura surged upward, engulfing even the clouds. The Gelikas’ movements became tumultuous as the ominous scene hinted at a great catastrophe.

“Haast!”

“Hayaa―!”

Hundreds of thoughts jostled in their tiny brains. They should bite the aura’s owner right away, run away from the bad aura, or rush to multiply for defense since only one of them needed to survive.

After some deliberation, Gelika decided to cut them open.

More, more, more. Once they started, there was no end to their proliferation. Unless every last one of them was killed, they would never die.

The crimson pupils focused on the growing mass of Gelika, which grew by the second. Watching their every move, Van slowly let go of his emotions. He let go of the killing intent, the bloodlust, the anger, the impulse to tear them apart right now.

Emptied of everything, the only thing left in his heart was Yeohwan’s presence. The tough innocence that remained even when he emptied himself of everything.

Emotion was all he had left, and Van raised his sword, clinging to the one emotion that would never dry up in his long wanderings.

And then the aura that had been so still and silent across the sky began to move, condensed energy gathering at the tip of his sword, and the hilt glowed red.

The mass of aura coalesced. The coalescing red energy soon cast an enormous shadow over the ground where he and the Gelikas stood.

It was like a full moon in broad daylight. It was an ugly mass of instinct, spat out by an energy that greedily ate away at its master’s sanity. The great red moon echoed with a low resonance.

Hot, eager eyes gazed at the moon in the sky. The foul aura, searing and blazing as if dipped in infernal fire, was unmistakably his.

“It’s very…… beautiful.”

He muttered incoherently, and with a short exhale, brought his greatsword down.

[Crimson Moon Banquet – Crimson Zone]