When Ren Kuroda's words rang out—and the pale middle-aged man named Valentine was openly called out and challenged by name—the man had little choice but to stand up.
After all, he currently held the title of one of the Ten Demon Lords. If he allowed himself to be provoked by a so-called "wild" Demon Lord and did nothing in response, it would only bring shame to the name Valentine that he carried.
However, just as Valentine was about to rise from his seat, the silver-haired maid standing behind him suddenly reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.
"That's enough."
Her voice was calm, yet it carried a quiet authority.
"He probably figured it out long ago. That's why he deliberately chose you as his opponent among all the Demon Lords here."
She stepped forward slightly.
"Yes, I am the real Demon Lord—Luminous Valentine."
"But as for your challenge…"
She gave Ren a faint, elegant smile.
"I refuse."
"If I were to pick an opponent, I'd much rather face that slime over there."
Her crimson eyes flicked briefly toward Rimuru.
"After all, there's a small misunderstanding between us that needs to be settled."
"As for you…"
Her gaze drifted toward Milim, who had been temporarily set aside.
"If you keep ignoring Milim and insist on challenging someone else instead, she might get angry, you know."
Having said that, the true Demon Lord—the Queen of Night, Luminous—calmly returned to her seat among the Demon Lords, completely unconcerned by Ren's provocation.
But the moment he heard her words, Ren immediately knew something important.
His plan to change opponents had just gone up in smoke.
If it had been anyone else, they might have dismissed Luminous's simple attempt at stirring trouble between them.
But the person involved here was Milim.
And while Milim might be a Demon Lord, her intelligence and her overwhelming strength were clearly not proportional.
On top of that, she had the personality of a stubborn child.
So now, thanks to Luminous's one little remark, Milim had already come to the conclusion that Ren was abandoning her—his "friend"—just to go play with someone else.
In other words…
In her mind, Ren had instantly become a two-timing jerk.
"Ren! Let's continue the fight!"
Milim raised her fist excitedly.
"Don't worry, I'll go easy on you!"
And so, in the end, nothing changed.
Ren's opponent… was still Milim.
Meanwhile, on Rimuru's side of the battlefield, things had already wrapped up.
Once Rimuru learned that Milim had never been under Clayman's control in the first place, he wasted no time finishing the clown off.
Even though Clayman, in a final desperate act before death, sacrificed his body and soul to forcibly awaken himself—
It made no difference.
Facing Rimuru, who was also an Awakened Demon Lord but possessed vastly greater magicule reserves, Clayman couldn't even make a ripple.
After only a few exchanges, he was completely devoured by Rimuru's ultimate skill:
"Gluttonous King."
And at this point, none of the Demon Lords present cared about the fate of someone as third-rate as Clayman.
Because the battle on the other side had already captured everyone's attention.
A long sword and a massive greatsword clashed violently.
A shower of sparks exploded into the air, and the surrounding space itself began to show signs of cracking under the pressure.
Milim now held the Demonic Sword: Tenma, pressing forward with overwhelming strength.
Step by step, she was forcing Ren—who gripped the blessed blade Kamiyori—onto the defensive.
Despite her small, childlike appearance, Milim was a descendant of dragons, and her magicule reserves were terrifying.
Even though Ren possessed monstrous physical strength himself, he found no advantage whatsoever in their clash of blades.
The massive Tenma sword continued to push Kamiyori downward.
Under the crushing pressure, Ren's boots sank deep into the ground.
Guy's castle had been magically reinforced.
The very floor beneath them was comparable to a high-grade magical artifact.
Yet even so, the violent impact from their battle began to crack the surrounding walls.
Spider-web fractures spread outward from Ren's feet, which had sunk into the ground.
The entire floor seemed on the verge of collapsing completely.
Before that could happen, Guy—watching from outside the barrier—simply clapped his hands once.
Clap.
In the next instant, the space around them shifted.
The battlefield was instantly relocated.
The castle vanished.
In its place appeared a vast area surrounded by endless darkness, while the ground and surrounding landscape were filled with rivers of flowing magma.
Just by casually clapping his hands, Guy had activated a massive spatial transfer spell, moving everyone present to a completely different environment.
The feat alone was proof of the terrifying strength possessed by the "Dark Emperor," Guy Crimson.
But Ren didn't have the luxury of worrying about things like that.
Because he could clearly feel it—
Milim's magicule output was still increasing.
Every single second.
Rimuru wanted to go over and help Ren.
However, Luminous had already anticipated this.
She stepped forward and intercepted him before he could move.
Part of the reason was simple revenge—she hadn't forgotten that Ren had just exposed her true identity earlier.
But there was another reason as well.
The nation under her rule, the Holy Empire of Ruberios, had its own complicated tensions with Milim's Monster Federation.
Luminous might be a Demon Lord, but she was also the true ruler of the Holy Empire of Ruberios—and the divine figure worshipped by all its citizens as the Goddess Luminous.
A Demon Lord… worshipped as a god by a religious nation.
It sounded absurd.
Yet it was completely true.
In fact, many of the beings known as Demon Lords were not necessarily threats to the world at all.
Take Luminous herself.
She controlled the church, maintained the stability of the western nations, and often acted as a mediator between them.
Then there was Ramiris, the Labyrinth Fairy and former Queen of Spirits—essentially the most good-natured member among the Demon Lords.
If she hadn't intervened to stop the battle between Milim and Guy in the past, the entire world might have been destroyed by their clash.
The giant race's homeland—destroyed during that same battle—had eventually reconciled with Milim only because Ramiris mediated between them.
Even Guy himself—the Primordial Red known as the Dark Emperor—had originally been nothing more than a demon duke obsessed with pursuing strength.
But after suffering a crushing defeat at the hands of the creator god, Star King Dragon Veldanava, he had been ordered to become a Demon Lord and help protect the world.
Later, when Milim went berserk after her beloved pet Gaia was killed, Guy fought her in order to uphold the promise he had made to Veldanava.
That clash lasted seven days and seven nights, until Ramiris intervened and mediated between them.
And that event ultimately led to the birth of the first three Demon Lords.
In short…
These so-called "Demon Lords" were not necessarily villains.
In fact, many of them had done very little evil—and sometimes even protected the world.
Back to the present.
Rimuru had been stopped by Luminous, and the two of them soon began fighting as well.
The clash between "Lustful King" and "Gluttonous King."
Their battle looked intense on the surface.
But both of them were clearly holding back.
Meanwhile, Ren and Milim's fight was heading in the complete opposite direction.
From the very beginning, the battle between them had only grown more and more intense.
Milim discovered that no matter how much power she increased, Ren somehow kept enduring it.
And once she got fully caught up in the thrill of the fight…
She completely let loose.
The earlier promise that she would "go easy" on him had already been thrown out the window.
As for Ren…
He honestly wished their battle could be like Rimuru and Luminous's—just a symbolic exchange of blows.
But against Milim, that was impossible.
He didn't have the luxury of holding back.
Even while fighting with everything he had, Ren was still the one being suppressed.
Milim's enormous Tenma greatsword swung down again.
Ren barely avoided the strike.
The blade slammed into the ground—
And the star particles gathered along its edge exploded outward.
The earth instantly split apart.
The shockwave from the slash sent a wave of cutting energy tearing across the battlefield—
And the sword strike's aftershock split a massive volcano behind Ren clean in half.