Imp to Demon King: A Journey of Conquest

’Ridiculous!’

The thought echoed through Bahamut’s mind as he stomped down. His clawed feet dug trenches on the plaza’s tiles, his thighs bulging to support his colossal frame.

His body instantly froze mid-fall, the whips drawn at his heel snapping like threads. Weakling trying to outsmart him? A few had tried—none had survived. And he would teach the pitiful demon, the furies, and Eris, while reminding Tiamat herself that schemes were useless when the power disparity was wider than the two ends of the cosmos.

Space rippled behind his back, the very air crackling as it began to straighten. His golden eyes locked on Garduck, his assessment changing. Not a mortal—a demon king who had bypassed the enthronement ritual.

Though he didn’t know how it could be possible, it was the only explanation he could think of. After all, Garduck had endured his punch, and his shattered arms throbbed, bones cracking back into place.

"Not..."

BOOM

As his head stabilised and his lips parted, a blazing white arrow exploded in front of him and engulfed his vision. He felt a trace of moisture evaporate from his eyes as the flames attempted to crawl beneath his scales and devour his flesh. The searing heat.

"Solar flames." With a groan as if annoyed by a mosquito bite, he exhaled upward.

The flames twisted in resistance for a heartbeat before scattering.

Bahamut’s eyes instantly locked on the archer standing on the other side of the portal. His composite bow still pulsed with liquid solar flames, but the golden armor, white hair, and earrings caused his eyes to narrow into slits.

Kavacha and Kundalas... The son of Surya allied with demons again? Another fool who couldn’t learn from his mistakes. Chaos would never triumph.

He raised his foot over Garduck, engulfing him in shadows. From beneath, he heard the demon’s defiant provocations.

"Come on, you brute! You’ll break yourself on me before I yield!"

And he sneered. "How quaint. Even shattered, you still bark. Let’s see if your spine matches your tongue." His foot whistled, air currents swerving between his claws.

A split second before impact, a golden two-edged axe flashed from the portal, wielded by an imposing black-haired man. At its command, the plaza tiles beneath Garduck liquefied, charging around him and solidifying into an adamantine shell the instant the foot crashed down.

The shell fit the curves of his foot perfectly, causing the impact to shove it several kilometers down instead of shattering it.

And again, he muttered, "Ninsun’s son, too? Did he forget everything he had learned after Enkidu’s death?"

Before the question could linger, the archer—Karna—fired another blazing arrow. It soared overhead, then exploded in the middle of the sky.

Confused, he frowned as the flames swirled into a milky white replica of the sun that shared its properties at its zenith. Then, he shrugged and raised his foot again. Even if the shell preserved the demon, the impact against the ground must have worsened his wounds. Another strike would end him once and for all.

"Three strikes, then you die with your little triumph."

Skree-AW

A hippogryph’s shrill caw shattered his declaration. An immaculate cuirass, decorated with dark flourishes, shone beneath the artificial sun. The man’s blond hair ignited into milky white flames, his long sword melting into a stream of sunlight. Yet, today, not only one shone over him, but two.

The stream coalesced into a broader base covered in all the forms of the sun. It then stretched into two thin, razor-sharp edges covered in scalding arcs.

"Go, friend, and prove your blade truly surpasses Excalibur." Karna lowered his bow, smiling through the sweat drenching his face, while both suns filled Gawain’s every cell with impossible energy.

Unable to contain it, shrouded in streams of vapor and distorted air, he roared. "A dragon can’t be a god. I refuse your order." His blue eyes ignited like twin suns as he thrust toward Bahamut. "Burn them down, Galatine!"

At his command, the scalding arc crackled toward the sword tip, gathering into a ball of blinding photons. It erupted almost instantly into a scalding beam as broad as Bahamut’s upper body.

The dragon god’s eyes widened for the first time, but that’s all he could do before the light crashed against his torso.

A suppressed, guttural wince escaped his lips as he felt the heat sear through his scales. They softened, enough for his skin’s surface to burn. Even worse, the continuous impact forced him to lower his foot and back a few steps before he stabilised himself.

He clenched his jaw, questions rumbling through his mind.

Unlike Garduck, he sensed Gawain’s mortality. Yet, the man broke one of the universe’s rules—speed, encroaching on the divine. A heresy no god would forgive, much less him.

Eyes narrowed, he shoved his palm in front of the beam, then clenched his fingers into a fist, snuffing the light with a loud sizzle. Then, his voice echoed, void of mockery and cold. "Do you think these ants amuse me? Your cowardice bores even the stars, Tiamat. I will break them, then break the sky to reach you."

Golden mana flared into a spinning halo behind his wings as he glared at Gawain. "Your strike is faster than light, but my speed goes far beyond."

As his words hung like a prophecy, his figure simply vanished from everyone’s visions. Everyone but a man.

He leapt with the fluidity of water, his spear and golden shield drawing sparkling arcs through the sky—just as Bahamut’s claws were about to rip Gawain and his hippogryph to shreds.

CLANG

The large shield clanged against the claws, the three-fold rim rattling in protest. The depictions of the cosmos at its center, the cities of mortals at peace and war, pastures and oceans trembled under the colossal pressure.

Bahamut expected the man’s arm to explode into a bloody mist even if the shield endured. Yet, all he saw was murky water pouring from the man’s pores.

It coated him, rebuilding bones and muscles as fast as he destroyed them. And those calm eyes... this spear... The proud son of Thetis sided with Chaos, too?

No, that was far beyond the point. Achilles’ agility resounded almost as loudly as his name, but to match him? Preposterous!

He gritted his fangs, frustration building within him—especially since this happened just after his challenge to Tiamat.

"Then I’ll end you both in one breath!" His mouth snapped open, and his throat bulged, the scales around it whitening.

In its depth, Achilles saw energy rage like magma about to erupt into a strike dozens of times more powerful than Gawain’s. Yet, his eyes remained as calm as usual. Rather, the illusion of calmness was brought by his assimilation of the Styx’s source. The murkiness only served to hide the boundless rage searing through his marrow.

The reason? He had slept through Adam’s conquest of the fairy woods and missed the kleos! During this war, he had to ensure his name would resound the loudest!