Demon King and Hero

Volume 4 Chapter 4

Another one from Yuria's point of view

***

"Wha, what the hell!"

The man, no, demon who had been trapped by chains in the center of the magic formation just seconds before, was here holding my hand.

"Don't overdo it. Your life is mine. Don't do reckless things."
"Let go! If that blows up, we're all going with it!"

I was going to die anyway. The best case scenario was that my life alone would be sufficient.

As I steeled my resolve, the aura around my sword grew brighter.

'That's right. I am the Guardian of Azure Flames, Yuria the Hero!'

It was when I had grit my teeth and was about to knock away the demon king's hand.
Whack.
"What are you doing!"
I need to concentrate, damn it!

The demon king aimed for my forehead again with the hand that he had used to flick my forehead just now.

"It hurts!"
"It was meant to. I believe you're mistaking something; your life belongs to me."
And then he grinned.

"I'll deal with that."

"You're the powerless one, what are you saying!"

The demon king didn't reply to my words, but stared at the black-robed man that collapsed on the ground.

"Doesn't something seem odd?"

"Wh, what do you... mean..."

Looking at the man, whose flame of life was just about snuffed out, the demon king grinned evilly.

"If I was truly powerless... How would I have run away when you lot were at your peak?"
"What are you saying?"
"That's the point. You managed to lose me when your organisation was stronger, but you managed to capture me when your forces were weakened. You get what I'm saying?"
"You mean..."

The grinning demon king turned to look at me.
"Yep. It's true that I am weak. And I do sometimes feel embarrassed when I'm compared to other demon kings, but that's between demon kings."

He turned back to the now-appalled man, and said,

"Even if I look like this, I am still the ruler of ten thousand evils. The master of darkness. It's not like I can't undo a simple human dark magic spell."

The demon king stretched a hand out towards the ever-increasing dark mass and said,

"Undo technique. Activate circuit. Revitalise. Accessing code. Codename, 'the one who dreams.'"
With that, an enormous demonic aura radiated out from the demon king. An aura that even I felt powerless in front of.

"Devour."
Right underneath the dark mass, an unfathomably deep abyss formed.

"Greed."

And from that... a black hand.

The hand took that mass, which could have blown us all up, and swallowed it down into the abyss.

***
(TLN: Back to a third person perspective.)

"How's that, did I do good?"

The demon king grinned, looking at Yuria.
"Ye, yeah..."
The stunned Yuria turned to look at the still-open abyss.
As if it was still hungry, it felt like it would lunge at her with an open mouth at any time.

"Activate technique. Stop circuit. Undoing code."

The demon king said as he saw Yuria's face, and as soon as his command finished, the demonic aura vanished and so did the abyss.