Demon Lord: Erotic Adventure in Another World - Chapter 677

Chapter 677: Alone in the Maw [1]

“It’s like an ancient ruin.” Nerim’s voice bounced off the walls as her torch flickered in the air.

Asmodeus followed beside her while inspecting the runes engraved into the walls in a strange sequence. ‘I can’t read them but…’ Some runes spoke of gods, and their warriors… with images that resembled the Arbiters.

“Strange, the images depict a story, do you know what it means, Nerim?”

He couldn’t decide if these were oracles or prophecies about the future, or speaking of past events on the mainland.

“I don’t know.” She responded with a blunt but honest answer. As a mermaid-kin warrior, she likely wasn’t that connected to the religious history of this continent. Which meant Asmodeus could only keep trying to understand.

“Don’t worry about it, let’s keep going.”

“Mm…”

Monsters appeared every so often, but they weren’t like above.

The Taken and the strange silver metal didn’t exist this deep; the enemies were mostly spiders and corpses, which wore tattered robes in an ancient style.

Asmodeus cut down another zombie. Its purple blood sprayed across the floor as Nerim’s spear impaled a spider against the wall with a band.

She looked back while yanking it free. “The mural, it’s changed! Ryuji, come look at this.”

He followed her excited voice, rushing to her side with his eyes shimmering with a gold light. Because the dungeon limited his strength, his ‘Divine Eyes’ used more aura than they usually did, exhausting him faster.

“What is this?”

Asmodeus widened his eyes.

The image shocked him greatly, not because of some grand gesture, but because of the drawing itself. ‘Why is Lumeria painted in a ruin in the mainland!?’ It showed countless people celebrating with a dark figure standing on the throne, his appearance like a monster with horns and sharp black armour.

‘Me, right? This is me…’

Around him were several beautiful women. But the number shocked him, because there were three more women than he had married.

What convinced him the most were the two figures, etched in gold, descending from the sky; their figures matched the Arbiters.

Beneath the runes translated to: The Creator’s Judgment.

“This mural is strange, I don’t think it’s about the mainland… but.” Nerim’s voice drifted off into the darkness as she walked along the wall. As she did, the images changed, and the Arbiters fought the great evil.

Then the women around the great evil perished.

All the people who worshipped him also perished…

And in the end.

The Demon King knelt on the ground all alone and impaled by hundreds of golden spears in the final image on a pair of stone doors.

‘…’

Asmodeus swallowed, his throat dry as if he swallowed needles and cotton. He bit his lip, feeling the pace of his heart increase when seeing all the women fall. His heart pounded, and his mana became unstable.

“Haa… wait, let’s not open the door yet.”

He knew gods existed in this world, and that prophecies and other lives weren’t something foreign to him. ‘I’ve already failed to save them in the past.’ Those memories remained close to his heart, but this felt different.

It wasn’t like the ones who drew this carried ill will towards him or wanted to hurt him. They purely just wanted to leave a record of what they prophesied or saw.

“Hmmm, isn’t this the demon king’s story?” Nerim tapped her lips while inspecting the massive mural.

Inside the darkness, Asmodeus sat on a broken pillar while drinking water, the cold liquid snapping his mind back to reality and the current situation. “What makes you think that?”

The pretty mermaid turned back with a smile. “Ah, I just heard rumours when visiting the capital. They say that he forced several women to marry him at once.”

“Forced them?”

“Yeah, he forced an elven princess, the women from the human kingdoms’ royal line all become his wives and even the beastkin from the south!”

Asmodeus remained silent and took a moment to arrange his thoughts. ‘This is how I am being rumoured in the mainland!?’

“Do you really think he forced them?”

He couldn’t help but defend himself.

Nerim tilted her head while tapping her lips, but she shrugged her shoulders in the end. “Well, I don’t think it’s that bad, and if there are so many women marrying him. Then I’m sure there’s something good about him?” Despite her last sentence sounding more like a question than a conviction, it settled Asmodeus’s heart slightly.

“I see, that’s a good point.”

‘Why am I getting so serious? Let’s just clear the dungeon.’

Countless questions were lingering in his mind, but the important thing was to escape this place and head back to where Logan and Zahir were to help clear the dungeon. However, he felt unsettled by the murals in this strange cavern beneath the dungeon.

The door was at least six metres wide and made of pristine white stone with faint luminous green veins through the surface. “It’s like a strange marble.”

“The surface is soft, like a pearl.” Nerim stroked the surface, which made the veins glow.

“Wow, this is quite pretty.”

Asmodeus and Nerim stopped focusing on the walls and mural instead, trying to figure out how to escape. When they touched the wall, it shone, and beside the doorway were two poles with pale white crystals in baskets at the top.

“How do you think we get out, Nerim?”

“Hmm…”

The pair sat beside each other on a stone pillar, eating the rations that Logan had divided at the start of the journey.

“We’ve tried touching the walls, using magic on them…”

“Those lights, do we need to light them somehow?”

Nerim chewed on her bread while listening to Asmodeus’s suggestion. She focused on the lamps beside the doorway, then turned to find others. But there were only two in the room. “They resemble the wards at my village…” She added before swallowing the bread whole and stepping closer to the lamps.

“Do you know how to work them?” He asked because he knew little about the Mermaid-kin, other than that they lived near the ocean and had high water affinity.

She looked back at him for a moment before quickly turning away with a slight blush on her cheeks as she nodded. “I know, but it’s something I’ve never been good at.”

“Oh, care to explain?”

“Why would I tell you about our secrets?”

“Don’t you want to escape?”

“Tsk!”

Nerim’s gills fluttered as her scales began to brighten into a vibrant blue hue. Asmodeus chewed the jerky in his mouth with a faint smile. ‘Her emotions make her scales colour much deeper.’ It was something he spent the past hours learning about; the colour and shade depended on the emotion.

Joy and happiness became bright blue.

Embarrassment had a deep blue and red blush.

Anger and aggression made them switch to a dark purple shade.

“I-I’ll do it but please turn away!”

“Ah, is that all?”

She hugged her body and glared at him, but when he saw her scales weren’t purple, but a mixture of deep and bright blue with a red blush on her cheeks. ‘I see.’ With the positive emotions, he didn’t need to worry about her running off.

“Please.” Nerim bowed to him while clenching the edge of her outfit.

He turned away, raising his hand slightly as a silent gesture of trust. “Go ahead.”

Behind him, the sound of clothes and buttons unfastening echoed in the silent cave, then the zip and creak of leather as they fell to the ground. ‘???’ Soft slaps sounded on the ground as she moved in his mind’s eye.

“You’re not looking right?!”

“Nope. I wish I were, though.” He answered honestly.

“Shut up!”

The way she changed in atmosphere and attitude was likely because of her comfort growing, then a sound trickled into his ears.

A playful sound of water, splashing like children throwing rocks into a river.

‘This is probably her steps… is she dancing?’

That’s when the sound of water grew louder, rushing through stone, and a low hum vibrated beneath his feet. Nerim’s voice became a whispering chant in an unknown tongue; the sound of her low, deep voice rising several octaves to a spine-tingling melody shocked Asmodeus, and he turned his head naturally.

In the darkness, a goddess was dancing.

Wild blue waves of water splashed over her body, leaving glowing markings, similar to runes but a completely unfamiliar language. Asmodeus glanced at her body, examining every limb and part as her leg lifted and curled, like a ballerina.

Each time the water splashed, the walls illuminated with a turquoise light and the white crystals dimly glowed.

“Beautiful…”

Scales wrapped around most of her body with a faint tattoo covering her exposed skin, and her alluring voice resembled that of the fabled sirens who could enchant even the gods.

Her song became passionate, full of emotions as she twirled.

Then their eyes met.

“!!!!”

Nerim’s eyes shone with a blue hue as they widened, while her entire body’s scales became deep blue, yet she continued her song and dance.

The white crystal poles began to glow. First dimly, then bright enough to wash the chamber in soft aquamarine light. Runes across the marble door shimmered and rearranged, flowing like molten silver until they formed a spiral sigil.

A heavy click reverberated.

‘It’s working!?’ Asmodeus thought while fixated on the beautiful dance.

The sigil on the marble door rotated, the green veins pulsing faster. Dust fell from the ceiling as unseen mechanisms stirred after centuries of silence.

But then the humming shifted.

Asmodeus’s head snapped toward the mural.

The last mural showing the demon king impaled faded and soon was replaced by another… the Demon stood tall, and before him, a blue coloured female with scales appeared.

However, in this new mural, the women and people were alive.

“Wait…” he muttered, stepping forward.

The light from the poles began to twist inward, drawn to the marble seam. The door split slightly, and from within, a cold breath seeped out, and the walls all began to shine brightly, illuminating the darkness.

In the pale green cavern, Asmodeus heard a voice.

[You cannot escape what you’ve begun… but altering fate depends on your efforts!]