[Arts]
An acquired technique even rarer than an Ultimate Skill in this story.
A privilege reserved for Heroes alone, a power that, depending on the user's will, could destroy even those who had reached the ultimate realm.
Since it was the kind of technique used as a trump card, a final resort, I had been training for it ever since my days in hell, all to obtain [Arts].
Because the only way to acquire [Arts] was through effort known only to oneself.
But the power of the [Hero's Egg] hidden inside me, along with the vast magic power I possessed as a reincarnator, couldn't be fully contained within a Unique Skill.
Of course, now that I had obtained the body of a hermit and evolved into the Ultimate Skill [Ru-Lawather][Sword Emperor Heavenly King], I could contain those powers almost perfectly.
But ironically, that became the problem.
[Hero's Egg] and [demonic magic power]
Those two opposing powers couldn't mix evenly. Every time they came into contact, each tried to devour the other.
It was an extremely difficult power to handle, dangerous enough that one wrong move could make me self-destruct.
But there was a way, and I managed to grasp it, however imperfectly.
To pour only [one kind of power] to the absolute limit.
That much was possible.
If the two powers couldn't mix, then why not squeeze one of them to the utmost extreme and leave no opening for the other to interfere?
That was what I thought, and so I tried to use the power I had as a demon.
To make use of the inspiration I had gained on the battlefields of hell.
Crack...
The demon's swordsmanship, which had been painting the beast pure white, came to a brief halt.
A very short instant, not even a few seconds long.
But for the beast, it was no different from its final chance.
#@&%^#@^^@$)%^!!!
Right after that came a ruinous charge, shooting forward like a meteor.
A mindless rush with no proper will, no [Will], came barreling closer and closer, filling the demon's vision.
"......"
At that, the ash-gray demon raised his beloved blade, the [Sword of the Conqueror], straight toward the sky.
Without attempting to defend, much less attack, the demon merely gathered the magic within himself.
@(#&$^@)_&#...?!
A sudden chill sharpened all five senses and made the nerves stand on end.
[Will] so close to killing intent that it seemed almost alive wrapped itself around the mindless beast.
Feeling every hair on its body stand up and its skin turn pale, the beast froze in place like stone.
@^#$@&^?!!*
A beast devoured by instinct.
Because only instinct remained, it understood.
That the being before it had built up a rank far beyond its own.
Its instincts screamed that it had to run this instant.
But before its [Reason] vanished, the last [Will] it left behind seized the beast's escape.
A dead end.
Its own reason had ended up blocking its own ignorance.
Ash-colored magic gradually gathered around the demon, who stood in utter silence.
Ruuuumble...
The magic drawn out to its limit soon whirled like a dance and compressed itself into the demon's sword.
Feeling that, the demon let out a heated breath.
"Haaah—"
With blue eyes, he perceived the [world].
.........
Ash-gray.
Ash-gray, burning like flame.
The demon's symbol was ash-gray.
As if expressing his power, that ash-gray mixed from black and white was [him].
But not now.
At this moment alone, he was [void].
Void, empty nothingness, something that could not even be recognized as black or white.
That was the method of nothingness the demon had conceived.
.........
What the demon recalled was a battlefield.
The battlefield of hell where the Red King and the Black King had fought in the past.
A battlefield of nothingness that had remained without collapsing even after all space had been severed.
When the demon first engraved that sight into his eyes, he had wondered:
What would happen if the space between body and soul were [severed] [artificially], like [that]?
The demon did not abandon the realm that even five of the [Primordial Demons] had given up on.
He sublimated that question,
made that scene his ideal,
and at last arrived at an answer.
And the result of that was—
[Arts]
"[Black Heaven, Nether's End]."
That was his weapon.
.........
[Black Heaven]
The space that had been filling with white sword strikes inverted into black.
And a vast darkness spread out like the night sky.
A technique of possibility so profound that even Demon Lords could not measure its limits.
Before that contradictory sight, the mindless beast went mad trying to flee.
In the end, the beast even burned away its lifespan to create more magic.
But inside the darkness that spread so calmly, it was useless.
Just as the stars etched into the night sky look like tiny points, the mindless beast trapped in that darkness was no more than a tiny existence.
Resistance itself was meaningless.
Whoooom...
At last, the demon slowly lowered his arm, and the ash-gray blade shone like a moon.
[Nether's End]
Like a dream bestowed by the night sky, a sword that brings the end of life together with darkness.
The demon's descending blade touched the ground—
—and it was decided.
KWAHHHHHHH—!!!!!!!!
An ash-gray moon rose together with the darkness, completing the polar night,
and the sword defied the laws of the [world], twisting perception itself.
The magic power that shattered space so thoroughly it erased the boundary between [form] and [mental image] raged violently,
went beyond the limit,
and smashed the Arbiter's barrier apart.
True to its name, [Black Heaven, Nether's End].
The demon's sword that ended all life beneath a pitch-black sky.
The swordsmanship that had begun in white gradually changed to black, and when it finally reached the sword's end, it became nothingness.
.........
That black sword, rampaging as if it would erase everything within its domain, completely annihilated the mindless beast without leaving even a trace behind.
It was, truly,
a stage that expressed the ultimate limit of monsters through battle.
"""""............"""""
The Demon Lords watching the battle could only stare in shock.
At this very moment,
[Report. The Unique-grade weapon [Sword of the Conqueror] has evolved into the Legend-grade weapon [Overlord Black Star].]
Because another Hero, and another myth, had just been born.
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