After a short pause, Serius tried to pull his spear out. As he put some power into his arm――

――What’s this.

He finally noticed that something was wrong with the situation. He couldn’t――pull his spear out.

――...No way…

「It can’t be that he’s still alive――」

The spear had penetrated into his heart. His face was looking down and his neck flopped down as his body continued to be crucified in midair. Even so,

「――!」

A shockwave could be felt from inside the spear. He gasped and opened his eyes wide as he looked over at Merea’s face. The white hair was dropping down and covering the face so Serius couldn’t see his expression.

However, in the next moment,

For, but a moment, he saw that pure white hair turn 『jet black』.

It happened right after that. From the roots of Merea’s hair, 『black coloured』 insect like things could be seeing wriggling up and overflowing.

The movement of the blackness looked a little like watching liquid move around and that blackness steadily encroached on Merea’s white hair.

Finally, his hair turned completely black.

At the same time that happened, Merea’s hand twitched.

Serius felt a chill run down his spine.

――This is insane.

It was a chill that he couldn’t ignore. He even felt like his body froze over.

That man was, Still alive.

Unconsciously, he felt like his body was grabbed all over. Even though he wasn’t tied up, even though the other side was the one who wa tied up――even so, he couldn’t move an inch.

Then,

◆◆◆

「――My heart, isn’t over there」

◆◆◆

A voice could be heard.

Serius quickly looked back at Merea and saw that there was an extremely cold expression on his face.

As if he had chosen to extinguish all his emotions, in the current situation it even felt quite eerie and was definitely a frightening expression.

「Heart――No way――」

Serius suddenly recalled the information of a certain demon lord.

In order to hunt demon lords properly, he had beat a large amount of information into his head.

In the information that Mūzeg had collected over a long period of time of the former demon lords and of the former heroes, he recalled a certain one.

――The〈Heart of the Death King (Acht Cyrus)〉...!

He recalled the name of the man who had 『the heart that did not exist』.

The man who was known for never having been killed by taking a wound.

There were rumors that maybe the heart of the man, who calmly came back from the battlefield even though he had his heart pierced, did not actually exist.

Mūzeg had, of course, demanded the secret to that but the Death King (Acht Cyrus) easily shook off the pursuers from Mūzeg and had disappeared.

Since it was known that he definitely didn’t have eternal youth, it was hypothesised that he probably died of old age.

The moment that his brain brought that information out of its own, he felt convinced.

――This man has inherited 『that』...!

「Not to mention, my body will revive」

〈Resurrecting Body of the Life King (Myuzel Blue)〉 More information flashed through Serius’ brain.

――Wait, when the hell did this guy tear apart the threads of light?!

He suddenly noticed that Merea’s right hand had already escaped from the restraint of the light threads of the puppet king.

Even though they are supposed to be threads so strong that normal physical strength could do nothing to them.

Even though it was a situation where if it was forced, the thread might just dig into the arm and amputate it instead――

――Did he amputate it?

An instant. In the single instant that Serius was concentrating on Merea’s change in hair color, he probably 『threw away』 his arm.

No, he threw it away and instantly regenerated it.

As proof, he could see a lump of flesh lying at Merea’s feet.

「What’s with that regeneration speed――?」

Even if he had the〈Resurrecting Body of the Life King〉there was a limit.

Though that demon lord definitely boasted an insane regenerative ability but it shouldn’t have been this quick.

This regenerative ability wasn’t normal. It’s possible that he even surpasses that demon lord.

――How did he do it…?

There was no way that he could know how it was done.

However, at any rate, right now he――

Serius finally started to get over the paralysing effect of the chill he felt earlier and could finally move his body a little so he tried to pull the demonic spear out.

However,

「Urgh――Let my, spear go――」

With the right hand that had regained its freedom, Merea grabbed onto the shaft of the spear that was stabbed into his chest. His actions clearly said that he wouldn’t let go of the spear.

Even when Serius exerted all his strength, he couldn’t even make the spear budge a little. At that time, Serius started to realise that the Merea in front of him is completely different from the Merea from earlier.

Leaving Serius be, Merea started moving.

「――」

He purposely let his left hand dig into the thread and after it got cut off, he regenerated it.

Seeing that from close up, Serius couldn’t help but think of Merea as something other than human.

The fear that he had felt towards Merea before he had met him.

In the current situation, he once again felt a fundamental fear at Merea’s 『unfathomable strength』.

Merea stretched his, now free, left hand towards Serius.

The jet black hair was obstructing his hair and was hiding a part of the terrifying red eyes but, Serius noticed that those pupils were divided vertically like a demon’s eyes.

「――『That’s enough』」

While stretching his hand towards Serius’ face, Merea whispered quietly.

◆◆◆

「〈Fury of the Violent God (Curza Catastrov)〉――〈Encapsulation of the Four Gates〉」

◆◆◆

「!! ――Caligula!! Open your mouth!! Shoot the white light cannon!!」

When Serius heard Merea whispering those words, he felt the strongest chill he had ever felt and immediately let go of the demonic spear.

He immediately lost any margin to be bothered with something like that. Alarm bells were constantly resounding inside his head.

As if to run away from the black haired Merea, Serius took distance from him and immediately ordered his red dragon.

The red dragon Caligula followed Serius’ orders and raised its body and faced towards Merea on its back as it opened its mouth.

From inside that mouth, the practitioner corps that had already prepared their technique formation appeared and,

「〈White light cannon〉!」

They shot the technique at Merea from close range.

It will definitely hit, or so the captain thought.

However,

「――!!」

Just before the white light hit the body of the demon god, the captain noticed a technique formation appear at an insane speed between Merea’s body and the white light cannon.

◆◆◆

Even so, Merea’s body was blown away.

Even though the techniques competed and he avoided taking a direct hit but he was still blown away.

The point where he finally stopped was unexpectedly at the point where his comrades were waiting.

Due to the inertia, Merea started falling diagonally down.

The demon lords below him were nervously waiting for the black haired Merea to fall down.

「Oi oi oi! That’s an insane way to return! Damn, catch him!」

While watching Merea who was falling down, Salman gave directions to the people around him.

However,

「Oh?」

The moment after he started falling down, the six wings of wind sprouted out of his back and his body slowly floated.

The demon lords could do nothing but watch speechlessly while Merea slowly descended to the ground.

They were, Elma, Marisa and Aiz.

「Merea!!」

「Merea-sama! That spear is――!」

When they noticed that there was a spear stabbing through Merea’s chest, Elma’s and Marisa’s faces became deathly pale.

The fact that his hair had turned black was something that they couldn’t care less about.

However, Merea restrained the two with both his hands.

「I’m fine」

As he spoke, Merea quickly pulled the spear stabbed into his chest out and in the next instant, the wound closed up.

Without showing much of a reaction to that, Merea took the demonic spear that he had just pulled out and,

「Hasim」

Threw it towards Hasim who was slightly farther away.

「I’ll give this to you. In consideration of the lives of those old men」

「Ah ahhh, I owe――you one」

Hasim received the spear while on horseback and even while feeling the weight of object in his hands, he couldn’t help but stare at Merea with his mouth half open.

「Merea-sama...your hair is――」

Marisa finally noticed the change and asked Merea.

「I don’t really know why but, whenever I try to use the power of the〈Violent God (Curza Catastrov)〉 I end up like this. He went on about the quality of the soul or something but what Curza was talking about was rather difficult and I couldn’t really understand it well」

「Wha, what name did you just take?」

「――〈Violent God (Curza Catastrov)〉」

Marisa knew that name well.

〈Marisa Catastrov〉.

No matter what she tried to hide, that name was――

「Have you, met with my ancestor――?」

「Ah, ...I have. I didn’t really plan on keeping quiet about it but, I couldn’t really find the right timing to bring it up. Sorry for keeping quiet about it till now」

The name of her ancestor who had become the source of the title that Marisa now had.