Debuff Master - Chapter 1119
Chapter 1119
Thud, thud, thud…
Michael walked steadily toward Lucifer, and there wasn’t even a shred of fear in his footsteps.
“Hahaha… Hahaha!” Lucifer, now back on his feet, laughed in disbelief as he stared at Michael walking toward him without a single wing on his back.
“What are you even thinking, Michael? Don’t tell me you actually believed that the fake Demon King could achieve the Divine Demon Vessel Fusion and gave him your wings? Nobody else has accomplished that,” Lucifer scoffed.
In truth, no one else had ever succeeded in completing the Divine Demon Vessel Fusion.
Why?
It was all because completing the Divine Demon Vessel Fusion required one to unify two polar opposite forces in existence— divine energy and demonic energy.
To merge the two completely incompatible energies into one form of energy was something both angels and demons had concluded to be impossible.
In fact, the only one who managed to achieve the Divine Demonic Vessel Fusion in existence was the Creator.
The Creator was a being who had ten white wings symbolizing divine power and ten black wings representing demonic power. He was the living embodiment of the Divine Demonic Vessel Fusion.
“Have you forgotten about Ariel and Lilith?” Lucifer asked, bringing up an incident from long before the rebellion against the Creator happened.
Back then, Archangel Arial and Demon Lord Lilith shared a forbidden love, and from that union, a hybrid child was born. However, the child born with celestial and demonic blood was a dangerously unstable existence.
The moment the child was born, the divine energy and demonic energy within them fought each other, leaving the child’s body fragile and their mind broken.
Eventually, the child was unable to control the colliding energies within and lost their sanity. The child transformed into a monster and could no longer be called an intelligent creature.
In the end, the child was discarded. They were eliminated alongside Arial and Lilith when they were purged from the Celestial Realm and the Demon Realm.
“Divine Demon Vessel Fusion cannot be achieved. Even that hybrid beast couldn’t withstand the collision of both energies and became a beast, yet why do you think that vermin will somehow pull it off?”
“I believe in him. He’s always been the one to accomplish what everyone else considered to be impossible.”
“Tsk… This is pathetic. You’ve fallen so far that now you even dare to smear dirt on our Father’s face.”
“I’ve committed no blasphemy, Lucifer.”
“Do you really think so? Only our Father is capable of achieving the Divine Demon Vessel Fusion, yet you’re claiming that vermin is capable of doing the same. Is that not blasphemy?”
“I don’t see it that way.”
Michael knew that debating about it any further with Lucifer was pointless. Even though they were brothers and spoke the same language, their ideologies differed too much, so they could never really connect.
It was nearly impossible for them to have a proper conversation about anything.
Still, Michael continued to debate with Lucifer for one reason and one reason only—to buy Siegfried just a few more seconds.
He needed to stall Lucifer and buy enough time for Siegfried to complete the Divine Demon Vessel Fusion.
Lucifer was aware of this, too, but he was not bothered by it in the slightest.
In his eyes, Michael was now no more than a fly. He was an insect he could squash whenever he wanted to. In fact, he could now kill Michael with just a glance.
However, he didn’t do that, and he was also not flustered at all.
Why?
It was all because he genuinely believed that Siegfried had no chance of succeeding with the Divine Demon Vessel Fusion.
“I get it, Michael. You’re so desperate that you’re reaching for even the flimsiest of hope, no matter how absurd it is. But I’ve had enough of this. It’s time to die,” Lucifer said with a smirk as he stretched out his hand.
Wooong!
An intense wave of energy flew in a straight line toward Michael.
‘I believe in you, Siegfried. Please, save this world,’ Michael thought as he stared at the wave of energy coming toward him.
He closed his eyes. He had no regrets or lingering attachments to this world, as he had been living since the dawn of creation. He had lived through eons.
Dying now did not scare him at all. However, if there was one thing he regretted, it was the fact that he couldn’t restore his fallen brethren to their original, pure form.
Unfortunately, there was nothing more he could do.
Thus, he accepted his fate and decided to place his final hope in Siegfried.
Boom!
The energy blast struck Michael right in the center of his chest, blowing a massive gaping hole in him.
Thud!
Michael collapsed to the ground.
The former Chief Archangel, who had thrown everything away to protect the world from his fallen brethren, was now facing the end of his long, near-eternal life.
Until the very last moment, he displayed the true qualities of an angel.
The star, one so noble and radiant till the very end, had finally met his demise.
***
Lucifer walked past Michael’s cold corpse and made his way toward where Siegfried lay.
He didn’t even spare a single glance at Michael.
Brotherly affection? Such trivial emotions had long stopped existing in him.
What drove Lucifer now was a seething desire for revenge against all the mortals in the Middle Realm, and more than that, his hatred for his Father, the Creator.
‘How long do you plan to stay silent, Father? I’m about to destroy everything You have created. Does it not matter to You if every single one of Your creations are destroyed? Will You still remain silent by then?’
Snarling inwardly at the Creator’s silence, Lucifer walked, intent on ending Siegfried once and for all.
Just then, two figures appeared and blocked his path.
“Stop right there, archangel.”
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Belial and Metatron suddenly appeared and stood defiantly in Lucifer’s way.
Having somehow taken care of Gabriel and Seraphiel, they hurried over to help Siegfried.
“Tsk… Do you really think just the two of you can stop me? You’re just mere demon lords,” Lucifer sneered, not sounding amused by their appearance.
The difference in power between the Chief Archangel and a demon lord was vast. The gap between them was so big that a fight between them couldn’t even be called a real fight.
Thus, it was only reasonable for Lucifer to find Belial and Metatron blocking his path to be laughable. Of course, both Belial and Metatron were fully aware of that. Still, they knew that they had to stop Lucifer, even for a second, no matter what the cost would be.
Demon King Siegfried was still incapacitated, and someone had to stall for time until he recovered. Belial and Metatron had to put their lives on the line to stop Lucifer.
“I’ll grant your wishes since you’re so eager to die,” Lucifer said icily. Then, he flashed an ominous grin and stepped toward Belial and Metatron.
***
Meanwhile, Siegfried was doing everything in his power to absorb the divine power that Michael had passed on to him.
“A-Arghhh…!”
Absorbing the divine power was an excruciatingly painful task. The sheer volume Michael had passed on to him was immense, and the concentration of the energy was incredibly dense.
Siegfried was using the skill of the Lord of Despair, Gluttony, to absorb the divine power.
[Gluttony]
[Type: Support Skill]
[Effect: Allows the Lord of Despair to absorb a huge variety of energies and empower himself using them. An energy that cannot be absorbed will be stored or released.]
[Cooldown: N/A]
In addition, Siegfried was now using Primordial Force, the origin of all forms of energy, so he had no issue embracing the divine power.
And that was not all…
Siegfried had already become both the founder and high priest of the Church of Heroes, as well as the Demon King, so he had long since possessed both divine power and demonic power in his body.
Moreover, his metamorphosis at Deus’ hands allowed him to become the first being since the dawn of creation to house both divine power and demonic power in his mana hall.
All of those factors allowed him to absorb the divine power that Michael had passed on to him. However, Siegfried did not merely stop at absorbing it—no, he took it a step further and began to blend the divine energy into the Primordial Force in his mana hall.
Just like how the energy resources Siegfried was using had fused with the Primordial Force upon his ascension to the realm of Grandmasters, the divine power that Michael had passed on to him was being fused with it as well.
Unsurprisingly, all of this was exactly what Deus had mentioned before.
“Your mana hall was reconstructed when you became a Grandmaster. And as a result, all your previous energy resources fused into one.”
“Did you really think it was a good idea to mix every type of energy resource in your mana hall like some pot of stew with random ingredients? If I had not modified your body beforehand, your mana hall would have shattered a hundred—no, a thousand times over from those energy resources colliding against each other.”
“Primordial Force is the origin of all things. It’s the very embodiment of willpower. That means it can transform into any other energy. Now do you see it? You’ve taken your first step on the path of becoming truly invincible.”
Siegfried was once again awestruck by the depth of his master’s teachings.
Ding!
Then, a notification popped up in front of his eyes.
[Alert: Would you like to achieve Divine Demonic Vessel Fusion?]
[Alert: Be warned that the laws of causality strictly forbid this power’s existence in the Middle Realm!]
[Alert: You will permanently lose access to the following skills in the Middle Realm — Demon Lord’s Descent & Demon King’s Descent!]
[Alert: Divine Demonic Vessel Fusion can only last for 1 hour!]
[Alert: You can never use this ever again afterward!]
[Alert: Will you still proceed with the Divine Demonic Vessel Fusion?]
[Yes/No]
Siegfried hesitated.
Why?
It was all because losing the ability to use Demon Lord’s Descent and Demon King’s Descent would be a huge blow to him, as he would lose a significant amount of power.
Still, he had no other option.
If he were to refuse to achieve the Divine Demonic Vessel Fusion, defeating Lucifer would be impossible, which meant the end of everything.
Once Lucifer won this war and brought ruin to the world, BNW would shut down.
‘I’m already a Grandmaster. I don’t need to rely on the Demon King’s powers anymore. I’ll just keep growing after this and obtain absolute power… The power of invincibility.’
Siegfried was not satisfied with merely being a Grandmaster, not after witnessing Deus’ power. The power bestowed upon him by Deus held limitless potential, which meant that his growth potential couldn’t even be measured at all.
He just had to keep growing stronger, and he would one day surpass the power of the Demon King, and sooner or later, he would reach true invincibility, just like Deus.
While it stung hard to give up those skills, it was not a dealbreaker for him. Not to mention, the notifications stated that those powers would only be unusable in the Middle Realm; there was no mention of it disappearing entirely.
In other words, Siegfried could still rule the Demon Realm as the Demon King without any problems.
‘Survival comes first before anything else,’ he thought.
If the world were allowed to end, BNW would shut down. It’d be a tragedy where Siegfried would lose all of his beloved NPC companions, and even the player, Han Tae-Sung, would lose his career as well.
In that case—
[Input: Yes!]
Siegfried pressed the YES button without hesitation.
To protect those dear to him and to keep playing the game he loved, he decided to do what had to be done.
[Alert: Entering into the state of Divine Demonic Vessel Fusion!]
[Alert: 60 seconds until transformation is complete!]
[Alert: 59 seconds!]
[Alert: 58 seconds!]
Just then, Siegfried started transforming. His existing form as the Demon King began to evolve into a body that simultaneously exuded both divine powers and demonic powers.
It was a body that had not existed since the dawn of creation, and it was a body that exuded the power of omnipotence.
“…!”
Lucifer was toying with Belial and Metatron when his face stiffened upon sensing a strange surge of energy.
“Could it be…?” he muttered, his eyes filled with utter disbelief. The energy radiating from the direction where Siegfried was located… its nature was eerily similar to that of the Creator’s, which he once witnessed during the dawn of creation.
