Stray

Parish Sherman, a Knight of Judgement, who specializes in spying was in poor shape.

In the destruction battle against the Abyssal Church headquarters, he personally ignited his flesh, and used his body as coordinates for the army. This spell was extremely dangerous. Fortunately, the Church of Silence sunk to the ground and the remaining Abyss worshippers were easy to clean up— The battle went smoothly and didn’t require long-term guidance. He barely managed to save his life before it completely burnt to a crisp.

As one of the few seriously injured and the only guide, Parish received a generous award.

He had been recuperating for more than two years, perhaps affected by the rumored “miracle of the God of War”, his originally hopeless body returned to its peak state perfectly, and he just happened to catch up with the expedition.

However, unlike those guys who weren’t firm in their beliefs, Parish didn’t intend to believe in any “God of War”. Even if there was such a gentle miracle, it was definitely a blessing from Zenni.

But when he first recovered, there was always something unclear in the depths of his mind. It felt like he hadn’t slept well the night before or had forgotten something irrelevant.

In the past two years, as a member of the Knights of Judgment, he naturally glanced at the information of Tumbleweed. Whenever he saw Alban’s Queen, Ann Savage, and the notorious “Knight of Ash” Oliver Lopez, the feeling of forgetting something became stronger.

Not to mention Ann Savage, Parish always had a strange intuition— Oliver Lopez may be a clever liar who deliberately misled public opinion. The notoriety circulating among him always made him feel that something was off.

However, a little sense of inconsistency wasn’t enough for Parish to leave his job and obsessed in finding out. Now that the opportunity had come, perhaps on the way of a smooth march, he could observe the situation of Tumbleweed more carefully.

Having said that, it was a shame.

Before Parrish turned his gaze from the back of Godwin’s head to the leader of Tumbleweed, he couldn’t help but lament quietly in his heart.

Since Adrian Cross’ apostasy, the position of the Chief Justice of the Knights of Judgement had been vacant. The strength gap between the candidates was very small, and the infighting between the various factions had been stirred up. Now several candidates were acting very actively as nominal “lieutenants”.

Pope Quinn turned a blind eye to the vacancy of the position in the past two years. It wasn’t as if the matter couldn’t be solved quickly. Parish simply suspected that this old man had decided to watch a good show and look for the opportunity to sort out the scattered power accumulated in the Laddism Church for hundreds of years.

It would be great if Godwin Lopez’s faith was firmer.

At least for now, it seemed that regardless of strength, reputation, or image, even if it was just an honorary title, Godwin was more suitable for that position than all the candidates in the Laddism Church.

If it weren’t for the past two years that Godwin Lopez’s enthusiasm for the Laddism Church not only didn’t increase but actually decreased, even Parish himself would want to try and lobby for that great Hero.

Godwin rode his white horse quietly, his dark red cloak blowing in the wind. The orange-red halo of the holy sword, Breaking Dawn, spread through the air, and it easily defeated the magic golem that was stuck in a ball, that didn’t seem to have any life.

They were made of black shadows sticking stones together. From the edge of this dead city to the center, they writhed and fell in increasing numbers from the stone wall that was seemingly glued together.

To be fair, normal intermediate demons were better to deal with— Living things at least had a minimum of fear and a little temperament of life. At the moment, these terrible assassins didn’t even need to breathe.

There was no fixed form. They could easily pretend to be part of the huge dead city, slowly crawling out of any nooks and crannies.

Fortunately, this wasn’t a desolate and empty ruin, but a maze of stone forests. These things were useless and was crushed in great quantities inside this space. For warriors with sufficient experience, as long as they made good use of the terrain, the magic golems weren’t enough to become a deadly threat.

But as long as they were still moving forward, these things would continue to come.

Even if it was okay to deal with it at first, compared to the tireless stones, the flesh and blood would eventually become exhausted.

It seemed that Godwin’s and the one-eyed dwarf’s judgment was correct. This expedition was completely unsuitable for a prolonged war.

Horizon’s deputy captain, Warrior Victor, quickly received instructions to lead the human elites to disperse these slow-moving enemies and ensure that the vanguard formation of the expeditionary force wouldn’t disperse.

It was rare for the chief mage of Horizon not to control the formation with the deputy leader.

At this moment, Debby Light seemed like she was a scout. Her chestnut horse almost overtook Godwin several times, and Godwin had to helplessly call her back to his side.

The elves dexterously got into the gap, and the rain of arrows amplified by a magic array firmly nailed the squirming darkness to the ground. The one-eyed dwarves set up a defense, smothering the advance, while the dragons simply regained their form, and used their claws directly that was painted with erosion charms, and trampled without mercy.

In the human team, the sound of metal and stones colliding and spells exploding were endless. Compared with the sudden bloody rain and wind, and the screams that cut through the air, this dull suffocation was even more unbearable.

Parish breathed slowly and released a small group of insect bugs with crystals embedded in their abdomen to the southeast, vigilantly watching the feedback of the crystals in his hands.

Everyone was busy, except for Oliver Lopez not far away.

The leader of Tumbleweed didn’t even draw his sword. He rode leisurely on a black horse and was talking to the girl with braided hair sitting sideways on the back of the goat. His eyes were full of smiles unique to men in love.

His own idea that “Oliver Lopez wasn’t that bad” was ultimately an illusion. Parish gritted his teeth.

An endless golem army surrounded them, and the terrifying pressure of the nineteenth generation Demon King was in the distance. The entire army was straining every nerve in the shaking dead city, and he didn’t even dare to breathe unnecessarily yet this bastard still had the mind to flirt with women.

It wasn’t just the lives and deaths of unrelated people; the leader of Tumbleweed obviously didn’t even care about his own companions.

After all, not far away, the giant snake demon that made people tremble on both legs roared loudly. Its stout tail swept across the dead city, and the smoke from the collapse of the stalagmites was like the smoke of a forest fire. Cross, the apostate, was using power that he didn’t know where he stole from, trying to use strong light to limit the demon’s actions.

The giant snake straightened its body and crushed it hard on the ground causing the ground to tremble.

The dull sound climbed up along the boots and rushed straight to the head. Parrish stopped observing Oliver Lopez, vigilantly lowered his body’s center of gravity, and moved to the other side of the team, until the giant snake disappeared from his vision.

Oliver Lopez straightened his waist at this moment, no longer posing as if he was idle and had that indolent look. For some reason, Parish always felt that he looked a little nervous.

In the next second, a sudden changed happened.

The sky above his head was still dark, and the flying illuminated demon skull suddenly accelerated its speed of shuttling between the stalagmites.

The cold sand under people’s feet turned into grass and stone roads, and the temperature suddenly rose by a lot. The chill around them was no longer so unbearable.

Without warning, the dark dead city was resurrected.

The black stones were like shrunken grass that regained moisture, gradually expanding, becoming flat, and possessing a regular shape. Immediately, bright-hued paint and tiles diffused from the flat surface, forming buildings well-known to all races on the surface.

Giant trees that shouldn’t have existed here rose from the ground, and buildings belonging to various races and styles blended strangely and harmoniously. Looking in the limited light, it looks like the most prosperous cities on the surface had been cut out of small pieces and then cleverly mixed together in one place.

But the more familiar the scenery became, the more obvious the horror caused by the darkness above the head and the floating skull.

Parish, the Knight of Judgment, swallowed quietly, drew out his sword, and scanned around vigilantly.

Something wasn’t quite right… It was too… quiet?

The moment he realized this, Parish back exploded in hot sweat and drenched the lining of his armor.

The giant snake being handled by the two villains of Tumbleweed was behind the expeditionary force was supposed to be struggling, but at this moment everything was silent. The figure of the nineteenth generation Demon King, should have been a good distance away from them…

The Demon King wasn’t where he should be.

They were distracted by the appearance of their hometown transformed from the dead city and made a fatal mistake.

Less than a second after the change was over, overwhelming magic pressure bombarded down causing the Knight of Judgement, who wasn’t weak himself, to suddenly vomited a mouthful of blood. The huge head of a strange beast stretched out from the darkness not far away, and that head alone was half the size of the original body of a dragon.

Its sharp fang was a thick as a bell tower flickering in the darkness and the cold, emotionless eyes tightly locked on the expeditionary army that suddenly looked small compared to it. The dark scales were glossy and thick, and the edges roll over with streams of light. Parish was a little unsure whether his sword could even pierce the scale armor.

The facts were worse than they thought.

They had been completely and utterly reckoned with.

That giant snake and this city was definitely part of a trap— The nineteenth generation was undoubtedly an insidious and smart demon. After being disturbed by the giant snake, they subconsciously believed that it was the Demon King’s guard, thinking that the Demon King would obediently wait for them in the middle of the city as was in the legends.

Most likely it was a conspiracy when the Demon King of this generation deliberately imitated Ulysses’ aura two years ago. It wasn’t to show off its strength, but to lead them to make a wrong judgement, thinking that it was comparable to Ulysses.

Parish had never been in contact with Ulysses, but as far as he remembered Ulysses’ information, the new Demon King in front of him was more than ten times larger.

…And Ulysses had destroyed the surface elites four times…

We’ll die here.

Instinctive thoughts came out of the bottom of his heart uncontrollably. Under the impact of the seemingly boundless magic pressure, Parish trembled for a long time.

And he wasn’t the only one. The Knight of Judgement was pretty sure he heard a few desperate sobs.

Only two people returned from the last expedition, and Oliver Lopez killed one of them. At present, the only one with expedition experience was Karapan of the Mooney Sect. Most people didn’t know how it felt to face the master of the Abyss…

It was pure, unadulterated terror.

As one of the Knights of Judgment who were loyal to the gods and had a firm faith, Parish couldn’t even spare a thought for prayer or remorse.

This time it was still Godwin Lopez who moved first.

Like all the heroes in religious legends, the leader of Horizon seemed to be missing the feeling of “fear”.

With the strong light of a magic array, the white horse stepped on the illusory array, and at the behest of the owner, he rushed directly towards the terrifying beast in front of him…

Accompanied by the admiration that almost made him cry, Parish finally recovered from the state of horror to immobility, and subconsciously turned his gaze in a different direction to the other Lopez.

Only the figure of the girl with the braided hair was left on the black horse.

He didn’t know when, but Oliver Lopez disappeared. Most likely he saw that the situation had changed, and the odds of winning were small and unprofitable, so he slipped away quietly.

Fuck Oliver Lopez.

Parrish completely abandoned the inexplicable tolerance, cursed from the bottom of his heart, and then set up the formation with the vanguard team around him.

The palms of his hands were full of cold sweat, and the illuminated defensive formation finally allowed him to breathe again. The follow-up expeditionary forces quickly came, and the formation was constantly being replenished.

Under the leadership of Godwin, the expedition against the nineteenth generation Demon King officially kicked off…

No one noticed a gray parrot sneaking past in the dark.

“Ramon! …Oh, so you plan to walk over.”

Bagelmaurus stopped in the air on a stone road in the fantasy realm, raising its voice in joy.

“Well? How was my performance just now?”

“Very impressive.” Oliver raised his arm, let the parrot stop on his wrist armor, and poked the fluffy parrot with a smile.

“Cross and Dylan took a detour to go first. They’re already getting ready.” The gray parrot used its beak to groom its feathers skillfully. “Godwin has also made his move… If it weren’t for finding a peaceful place to stop, my body would’ve found you sooner!”

“It’s fine.” The smile on Oliver’s face was getting stronger. “I know the way.”

On both sides of the stone road were sweat-inducing streetlights— They were both old and new, and the styles were from many civilizations of different eras, but they all emitted a cold white light.

Like a scene in a nightmare, they lit up one by one, as if to show him the way.

“Bah,” the parrot spat in dissatisfaction. “I don’t care about you anymore! The great Lord Bagelmaurus is ready to go back to the goat. Anyway, Telaranea will bring it back to the surface, right? ……Tell me, you didn’t eat all the almond cookies while I was away.”

“Don’t worry, there are two bags left.”

“Oh.” Bagelmaurus raised its head arrogantly. “Then I’ll go first.”

“See you on the surface.” Oliver flicked its head lightly.

Soon, he was alone again.

At first, Oliver took advantage of people being distracted by the illusions and directly opened up a space tunnel, and quickly broke away from the team. Although he couldn’t move in an instant like Nemo, he could also figure out an efficient and safe way for himself.

But as the nostalgic aura was right in front of him, Oliver couldn’t help but slow down, choosing to move forward slowly with his feet.

Holding the Rest in Peace tightly in his hand, Oliver stepped on the stone road step by step. This twisted road that made people’s hair stand upside down seemed to have no end, but it made his heartbeat faster and faster.

Finally, the road came to an end, and the lights stopped turning on.

This was the center of the dead city, and the open space that had been deliberately delimited was orderly and empty. In the subtle light shed by a skull, a figure stood quietly in the middle of the clearing.

When he was still a dozen steps away, Oliver stopped.

Rough black robe, broken staff. In front of him, the real Demon King raised his eyes full of smiles.

“Good evening, Ollie,” he greeted casually.

Oliver’s lips trembled slightly, and he should have responded equally as casual, but the long-standing thoughts were thicker than he had imagined.

After a long silence, Oliver licked his dry lips and finally opened his mouth: “Nemo, considering the need to ensure the integrity of the ring. Before I give you the ring—”

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask you to dance for a song?”

The knight, who was no longer human, didn’t stretch out his hand. He raised his sword, and the gray mist suddenly swayed, full of fighting intent.

“Of course.”

Nemo’s voice was also full of laughter. As soon as the staff was raised, countless dark shadows rose from under his feet heading straight towards his lover.

“…I’ve been waiting for two years, Ollie.”

The author has something to say:

Fighting but actually flirting!

————

Ollie: (≧ω≦) I’m going to see Nemo!

Debby: (≧ω≦) Yes, big brother is coming home!

Godwin: I tried my best. I really can’t get up. I really tried my best… With these two guys next to me, there’s really no tension! _(:з”∠)_

————

Ollie: (≧ω≦) I’m going to see Nemo!

Tela: …Shut up.

Kinky Thoughts:

Reunion!!! I’m so happy for them!