Akuma sat in the Ikigai fortress with an adviser. At the same time, King Alexander and Sir Albert were discussing the future of Sisyphu.

  “How many did we lose in taking this fortress?”

  “We lost a thousand men. We should have lost many more, Lord. It seems like the gods are with us.”

  “The gods have never been with us, Inugami. They told us that back in the second Demon & Human War.”

  “Maybe they’re making it up to us.”

  “Maybe… Did you find the body of the Devil named V?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but the number of bodies makes it rather difficult to find him.”

  “Don’t worry about it; it was foolish of me to believe that beast could be killed so easily.”

  “My lord, you talk about him as if he really were the Devil himself.”

  “It seems as if he is.”

  “He doesn’t even have magic powers. I think the three heroes would be of more concern. They did kill a rather large sum of that thousand.”

  “Have I ever told you about the first time I met this man named V?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Let me tell you the tale now. It all started in this shitty bar in Weltschmerz.”

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  “My lord, you really should have let others do such things.”

  “What is a King to his people if he doesn’t put himself at risk? I could not put something so important and dangerous as studying an enemy to another.”

  “Milord, you are too reckless.”

  “Maybe I am.

  Where was I?”

  “Weltschmerz.”

  “Right. When I entered this bar, this drunken man looked at me up and down. He lit my cigarette with some odd device—something not of this world—then passed out at the counter. He talked in his sleep and woke up in a cold sweat.”

  “Sir, I still don’t know why you see this man as such a danger.”

  “I guess I should tell this story abridged. After the two of us left the bar, a little bit later we heard a scream. We both came running and found a body. There was a message written in blood: We follow in a whorehouse. He seemed to realize something and rushed back to the alley. I found that the body was no longer there. In short, we found two other clues and ran up to a church. That's where we found a man who called himself a mad god.”

  “A Mad God?”

  “Yes, and this is where I’m bothered by him the most. This Mad God told V he would need to see every horror of man to see this girl. V says, "Sure," without blinking. Now I’m not sure what that Mad God meant by all horrors of man, but when I saw him once again in the sky.

  I didn’t see the eyes of a man.

  I saw the eyes of the Devil himself.

  A mix of righteous hellfire and the grief of hundreds of thousands to that of billions of people.

  That's why he bothers me more than those so-called heroes, or whatever they call their selfs. They may be powerful, may be able to kill hundreds, but this man, this man.

  They aren’t him. He will one day be known throughout this world.

  And the world will be horrified.”

  Akuma looked around the half-burned war room he was in, wondering about the man who called himself the Devil.

  Ally to enemy. Man to Devil.

  Akuma wondered if V was even real or if he was death itself—a bad omen.

  Remembering the Mad God—and V—dragged Akuma back to that hellish night.

  Thinking about the words that burdened his soul, that scarred his mind.

  “This rhapsody will only end in ruin due to one man's tune.

  The dead will pile up.

  And you will be damned before the curtains are drawn.

  That is the truth.”

  The words rang through his mind like a cannon firing.

  The ringing in the soldiers’ ears.

  The horror of the dead, their limbs scattered across the killing fields.

  Had he led his men into a massacre?

  Was he just some fool trying to change fate itself?