The Demon King's First General
Chapter 101: One of Those Eight

Chapter 101: One of Those Eight

"They have their reason for putting us here; time will come and they will free us from this place," the woman answered.

Her gaze at the snake monster was filled with unyielding faith in the deities.

Then Zeno took a step forward and spoke with a heavy tone.

"Everything has its own reason; even the simplest form of matter has its own purpose for existing. However..." He paused and let out a smile before continuing his words.

"They all differ in nature. If I may ask, this reason you’re talking about, where does it fall between good and evil?" He said while looking straight at the woman’s eyes.

"Of course, it’s definitely a good reason. It’s just that as lesser beings, we failed to understand their line of thinking for putting us here in a few millennia," the woman replied, staring back at Zeno’s eyes.

Afterward, she noticed the little cube dangling at the man’s left ear, and her eyes widened. Then she let go of the paddle before leaping backwards and yelling without averting her eyes from the man.

"Tencent! How dare you bring a demon here and not just a simple demon!" She said.

Her wings opened up, and the light from the lamp she was holding flickered before blades made from light materialized at both sides of its rod. Then another light came out at the top of its neck; it continued to grow longer and stopped after becoming the shaft of a two-handed waraxe.

Meanwhile, Zeno’s smile even turned wider, while the snake monster felt shocked upon seeing the psychopomp’s actions.

"What are you talking about?" Tencent asked.

He was in a complete dazed and clueless about the woman’s words.

"How dull did your senses become not to recognize that man? Open your eyes, foolish snake!" The woman shouted again, and she swung the axe in the swamp.

It caused the water to rise, and a blade of energy that splitted into three flew straight towards Zeno.

’I’m sure of it, that thing! It had several souls prisoned inside, and there’s only one demon race that can store souls,’ she thought while waiting for her attack to reach the silver-haired demon.

However, without moving an inch from his position, Zeno raised his right hand and stopped one of the blades of light. Then he clenched his fist, which shattered it into pieces while the other two blades passed through his side, destroying several trees on their respective paths.

"Those frail hands have so much power hiding within," Zeno uttered.

Then he pointed at the red dice hanging from his ear.

"So being a psychopomp makes you see what’s inside of this," he added, still smiling like a menace.

"Soul devourers were annihilated from this world! Who are you?" The woman exclaimed, showing no concern after seeing his attack get blocked with ease.

"There’s no need to state the obvious, and I already told you who I am," Zeno replied.

Then he let the black dice spin on his palm, and as soon as it stopped spinning, it landed on the surface with five white dots facing up toward the sky. Afterward, he ran to the surface of the water, dashing towards the woman while a jet-black scythe appeared at his hand.

"Don’t kill her!" Both of Tencent’s heads shouted.

Though what he heard earlier from the woman kept circling inside his mind,

’Soul devourers? Is he one of those binge-eating demons? However, like what that psychopomp had said, the entirety of their race were massacred even before the war of reclamation," he contemplated, trying to search every part of his mind, and after a few seconds, his whole body began to shiver in fear.

"T-That... that explains why Anreajh was killed in just a moment’s glimpse! H-He’s one of those eight!" He exclaimed with the lowest tone possible, afraid to be heard by the demon and suffer the same fate as his fallen comrade.

. . . . .

"Hey! Do you have any other weapon?" Royle asked after deflecting a thick vine moving towards him to pierce his chest.

"I-I only have this machete and a d-dagger," the Ruby-class mercenary replied after raising his sword and cutting a twig coming from his side.

They were in an intense battle against the vicious tree monsters in the swamp. It all happened a few moments ago when they were trying to find the demon and the snake to regroup with them.

The Ruby-class mercenary accidentally tumbled and lost his balance. The next second, he grabbed one of the vines before falling into the water.

Afterward, a sudden change occurred as the tree monsters stopped laughing and the moving vines turned into whips before striking them from all directions.

"That will do! Throw it to me!" Royle yelled.

And upon hearing his shout, the mercenary pulled the dagger out of his waist and threw it at the man.

Royle kicked the twig upward and caught the short blade. Then he cut his hair at shoulder level.

"Much better now," he uttered.

The next second, with just the dagger in hand, he sliced through every monster that came to him.

"If my spear were here, you guys would be nothing but chopwoods!" He exclaimed.

Meanwhile, the duke was busy pulverizing each of the monsters into dust. With his every punch, they were obliterated into nothingness. However, they kept regenerating no matter how many times Jez destroyed them.

"This will be endless," Jez uttered as he looked at his two companions.

He saw that Royle was experiencing the same regarding their enemies while the Ruby-class mercenary was fighting for his dearest life. Afterward, not that far from their location, the group saw a huge blade of light.

"They are in there! Follow me!" Jez commanded.

Even though he didn’t feel the energy from either of the two, he believed that any fighting inside the swamp would lead them towards the snake and Zeno.

Jez opened a path for them by pushing the monsters into their sides, and after a few minutes of running, they arrived at the place with the demon pointing a jet-black scythe at a woman sitting on the water.

She was bleeding while catching her breath; both of her arms were missing, yet her eyes had not a single ounce of sadness or fear from within.

. . . . .

A while back, the battle between the silver-haired demon and the psychopomp took place. The two of them exchanged blows after blows, the blade of the scythe clashing non-stop into the waraxe bits.

They were at a complete stalemate, but everything changed when Zeno started to fight using the rest of his weapon arsenal.

Due to the sudden changes of the demon’s fighting style, the woman’s almost perfect defense began to show weakness.

"Oh, you failed to anticipate that as well," Zeno uttered as he landed a direct hit at the woman’s back through a dagger’s blade.

The psychopomp gritted her teeth but turned around as soon as she felt the pain and struck the demon with all of her strength, but all that he hit was just the man’s silhouette as he vanished in that instance. Then she felt a heavy kick land on the right side of her abdomen.

Without further ado, she opened her wings to stop her momentum and regain her composure. However, two jet-black arrows were hurled in her direction and pierced her wings at the same time, making her experience excruciating pain.

’Now, it’s a bow!’ She thought while reaching for the projectile to pluck it out.

But the moment she averted her eyes from the demon and took a look at her wounds, the arrows on her wings disappeared, along with one of her arms that was holding the waraxe, which made her sit on the water. It was cut off from her body, and upon looking up, she saw the demon looking at her as if he were bored.

"As long as you’re alive, losing a few limbs won’t matter; is that right, Tencent?" Zeno asked, then hung the scythe on his shoulder.

"Like I’ve said, even if you kill me, I won’t abide by your bidding!" The woman exclaimed while holding the wound where her arm was previously located.

However, the moment she finished her sentence, another splash of blood gushed out of her body. Her remaining arm fell into the water as the demon slashed his scythe at her.

Then Zeno pointed the blade’s scythe at the psychopomp; he even used it to raise the woman’s chin a little bit.

"Kill me! You will regret doing this to me!" She said, despite her hopeless situation and grave wounds. She showed no signs of fear or sadness.

"The deities will take revenge for what you did to me!" She added.

"Should I be afraid of them?" Zeno replied, chuckling.

Then he retracted his sycthe, and sat down to match the woman’s eye level.

Meanwhile, Tencent was frozen behind Zeno; he wanted to stop the demon, but he felt that it was troublesome to do so, knowing who he really was.

. . . . .