Alexander looked around, searching for something that could give him a clue to his attacker's location.
But he couldn't see anything, not even a small disturbance in the air.
"Show yourself, coward!" Sylvie demanded with a broken cry.
The glow she emitted had diminished, her tiny eyes were tearing up.
This wasn't how it was supposed to be.
Alexander had already mentally prepared himself for the possibility of losing a companion, but he didn't expect to lose them all before the fight against the demon king.
"Show myself?" a chilling voice then echoed. "Why would I make myself visible to you? Wouldn't I lose my advantage that way?"
Alexander and Sylvie felt chills hearing it. It was a hoarse voice, like a whisper, but loud enough to make the castle walls tremble.
The blue and purple flames of the torches danced in a macabre dance as the dusk light began to disappear.
"B-because it's a dishonorable tactic," Alexander responded with a trembling voice.
He still held Mei's cold body in his arms. It was so frigid it seemed like her soul had been ripped out.
"I see..." the voice responded with a guttural tone.
Suddenly, a black mass began to materialize on Aleida's back, as if it had always been there.
That mass began to take on color as if someone had started painting an invisible canvas.
Black tentacles began to reveal themselves around Luna's body. These were the culprits that had twisted her limbs.
The woman, still with a hint of life in her eyes, understood.
All this time, it wasn't Azoth that was clouding her vision, but the demon king's own immaterial body.
"Good God," Alexander exclaimed with an expression of defeat when the creature revealed its true form.
A gigantic shapeless mass of darkness, tentacles, and eyes that stared at him with a chilling curiosity.
It was a mass of liquid darkness that writhed with disgusting and repulsive movements.
The more you observed it, the more hypnotized you became by its twisted figure.
It was as if the fusion of all blasphemies and sins had crystallized into a single being.
"W-what are you supposed to be? What the hell are you!?" Sylvie screamed with a broken voice.
Her voice didn't just hide fear and horror, but also anger, as if the fact that such a being existed pissed her off.
As if she couldn't accept it.
"Me? I am the demon king, the one destined to face the hero," the creature responded. Each time it said a word, a mouth opened on its body and pronounced it.
Each mouth spoke with a similar but different tone, so alike that you could only notice if you were aware it was speaking with different mouths.
"W-what's that supposed to mean?" Alexander responded, his expression reflecting immeasurable terror.
He had faced all sorts of dangers to get here.
Goblins, orcs, wolves, spiders, dragons, among others.
However, all of that was familiar to him. They were beings that appeared in tales and stories.
But this entity was beyond all fantasy or reality.
"I don't know either," the creature responded calmly while its eyes blinked rhythmically.
Its entire body writhed like a living mass.
"That's it! Alexander, stop wasting time! Deal with that thing while I use [resurrection] on the girls," the fairy exclaimed while pulling the boy's ear.
That was Sylvie. She always intervened when Alexander froze up.
He always reconsidered, but now it was different. Now his mind was broken.
"What am I supposed to do!? Did you see it!? That appearance is worthy of a final phase! Not an initial form! How am I supposed to face that thing?! Where do I even attack it!?" Alexander shouted, his voice agitated and broken.
He had lost all faith. That thing had killed his group too easily, and it felt confident enough to reveal its form.
Sylvie, however, was too stubborn to give up now, and she proved it by slapping Alexander.
Her small hands were strong enough to make the blow sting.
"Stop crying like a little girl! You can't giv—"
But then Sylvie was interrupted. The thing had decided to speak.
"Is my form perhaps an inconvenience?" the creature asked. As it did, its body began to vibrate. "Perhaps I can adopt a more convenient form."
That mass writhed. Its entire body began to gather at a single point.
Sylvie and Alexander watched, paralyzed, hypnotized by such a grotesque scene.
A disgusting liquid and viscous sound accompanied each movement, but soon that sound ended.
"How about now?" the voice said. Its tone was now more childish and inexpressive.
Sylvie was left speechless, while Alexander's gaze darkened.
He slowly set Mei on the ground, then gripped his sword tightly and unsheathed it.
The silver blade was so polished it turned the pale torchlight into a gleaming radiance.
His hands squeezed the sword's hilt tightly beneath the imposing golden star-shaped guard.
"Not only did you kill my companions in a cowardly and vile way, but now you dare insult me?" the boy asked, with contained fury in his voice.
Sylvie couldn't help but be surprised at seeing Alexander's reaction.
He rarely got this angry. He was always a boy who worried about not appearing irascible.
However, now he had exploded.
"I don't understand, is there a problem with my form? I thought you didn't like how I looked before," the creature responded, genuinely confused by the hero's reaction.
Alexander glared at the demon. He couldn't help but feel the anger growing in his chest.
That creature had adopted an anthropomorphic form, like a three-dimensional shadow.
However, that wasn't the problem, but rather its shape. It was identical to him, as if he had given life to his own shadow. Yet Alexander knew it wasn't him.
He had read many stories. He knew what kind of games villains used.
That demon had adopted the form of his brother to play with his feelings.
Or at least that's what Alexander believed.
"No more games, [Cruel Sun]," the boy said as golden flames began to materialize around him, gathering in a gleaming sphere above his head.
Sylvie grew serious.
When Alexander stopped holding back, he became a monster.
The demon king would fall today.