"The Authority of the Arrogant Savior? How?"
Originally, the Authority of the Arrogant Savior had belonged to Harvey Draker.
But that authority had already passed to Zeke.
For Harvey Draker to use the Authority of the Arrogant Savior again made no logical sense.
At that moment, something flashed through Zeke's mind.
"Twisted Causality."
Though he couldn't grasp the principle, Zeke speculated that it had somehow invoked the authority Harvey West once possessed through twisted causality.
Whether his guess was right or wrong, what mattered now was that Harvey Draker had reclaimed the Authority of the Arrogant Savior.
Harvey Draker glared at Zeke, his crimson eyes gleaming.
"Zeke Draker, you must have thought you'd trapped me, but it's the opposite."
Tststst—
As he finished speaking, crimson energy coiled around Harvey Draker's hands.
"This place will be your grave."
The crimson energy he summoned rose into the air, taking the form of two eyes.
A massive, blazing demonic eye stared down at Zeke.
Ziiiiiing—
The moment the demonic eye activated, black flames erupted where Zeke stood.
Roarrrrr!
Wherever the demonic eye gazed, black flames hotter than the fires of Gehenna—a hellish realm of the demon realm—burst forth, surging toward Zeke.
Zeke unleashed the elemental sword's Chamber of Wind Power against the encroaching black flames.
Whoooosh!
The wind from his sword blocked the spread of the black flames, but the demonic eye ignited more fire.
Zeke pressed forward, deflecting the flames while advancing toward the eye.
But the relentless black flames swirling from all sides showed no sign of weakening.
In the meantime, Harvey Draker levitated into the air and approached the massive wall bearing the statue of the elder dragon.
He reached out toward the Black Star clutched in the dragon's mouth.
Seeing this, Zeke shouted at Harvey Draker.
"Harvey Draker! Fall back! You'll regret it!"
Ignoring Zeke's warning as he slashed through the black flames, Harvey Draker extended his hand and seized the Black Star.
Harvey Draker smirked.
"My victory, Zeke Draker."
Clutching the Black Star, he attempted to absorb its power into his body.
Trapped in the black flames and hindered by the demonic eye, Zeke could only watch as Harvey Draker drew in the Black Star's power.
Soon, the Black Star's energy seeped into him.
Tststst—
Feeling the immense draconic power surging within, Harvey Draker's face twisted in ecstasy.
"This is it."
By receiving the heart of the sacred dragon from Arthur Draker and undergoing consecration, he had gained a complete physical form capable of remaining in the phenomenal world.
But that alone wasn't enough.
He craved a greater power to fully supplant the Authority of the Arrogant Savior.
"With the heart of an elder dragon, I can wield the strength I've always desired." Savoring the tremendous power flowing into him, Harvey Draker smiled in satisfaction.
But then, a chill ran down his neck.
"What's this?"
His survival instincts, honed from years in the shadows, had suddenly triggered.
He whipped his head around, glancing at Zeke Draker, trapped and unable to escape the black flames, before realizing something.
"Zeke Draker also possesses the Authority of the Arrogant Savior. In fact, his is stronger. Yet he's letting himself get overwhelmed without using it?" He finally understood the unnatural sensation he'd felt earlier.
Instinctively, he released the Black Star from his grasp.
Crackle!
Dark currents surged violently from the Black Star.
Harvey Draker stared at his hand, which had held it.
Then, something astonishing happened.
Tststst—
Black shadows coiled around his hand, seeping into his body.
"Urk!"
He hurriedly invoked the Authority of the Arrogant Savior to block the invading shadows.
But it was too late.
Tststst—
The space where the Black Star had been rippled, and Zeke appeared.
The Zeke below, slashing through the black flames with his sword, had been a clone fused with an illusion.
In his final moment of haste, when his plan unraveled, Harvey Draker had failed to see through Zeke's ploy and fallen for it.
Only now did he realize that the black shadows emanating from Zeke's body were enveloping him.
"You already stole the Black Star!"
Zeke offered no reply, but Harvey Draker's guess was correct. After receiving control of Rʼlyeh from Innocent, Zeke had summoned all the golems in the city and positioned them to block Baron and Harvey Draker.
In that time, he had arrived first in the stone chamber, attempting to retrieve the Book of the Lion.
But neither the stone chamber nor this hidden space contained the Book of the Lion— only the sealed Black Star.
Zeke had used that to set a trap for Harvey Draker.
Realizing he'd been played, Harvey Draker bellowed.
"You dare!"
He lunged at Zeke with a roar.
But the shadows coiling around his hand burrowed deeper, restraining his movements.
At the same time, a crimson blood eye manifested on Zeke's forehead as he controlled the shadows.
Woooong!
The blood eye linked with the shadows, probing into Harvey Draker's mind.
Harvey Draker desperately resisted Zeke's mental assault.
His eyes glowed crimson as the Authority of the Arrogant Savior activated.
Kugugugu!
The "Re-Creation" of the Authority of the Arrogant Savior triggered, crowning his head with a bony diadem.
A sinister aura emanated from the bone crown, beginning to block the shadows invading his body.
What Harvey Draker had summoned was one of the Arrogant Savior's treasures: the crown of the cursed kingʼs skull.
Forged from the skull of a king who met a tragic end in a vanished world, buried in the demon realm's shadows for millennia, it condensed resentment and curses into a powerful artifact.
With the crown's power, he barely held back the shadows and blood eye, but Zeke's assault didn't end there.
Tststst—
Lilith emerged from the shadows behind Harvey Draker.
She unleashed her authority of seduction directly at him.
Woooong!
Caught off guard by Lilith's sudden seduction from behind while focusing on Zeke's power, Harvey Draker faltered.
Woooong!
The great whore's seduction, which even demons couldn't escape, struck him fatally.
"Urgh!"
He hadn't anticipated Zeke relying on such mental attacks, leaving him without a proper counter.
Then Zeke extended his left hand, summoning the chains of Solomon.
Clangclangclang!
Exploiting the opening from Lilith's authority of seduction, Zeke soon bound Harvey Draker head to toe in chains.
"Zeke Draker! You bastard!"
Regaining his senses too late, he strained against the chains of Solomon.
He even tried using the Authority of the Arrogant Savior to dissolve his bound body and reform elsewhere, but Zeke revealed his divinity first.
Kugugugu!
As Zeke, who had truly absorbed the rank of the Arrogant Savior, unleashed his power, the authority flickering around Harvey Draker rapidly subsided.
Soon, he could no longer wield the twisted causality, and the Authority of the Arrogant Savior vanished from his body.
"Gah!"
The backlash of defying nature made Harvey Draker vomit blood in agony.
Tststst—
Returned to his dragonkin form, he was fully restrained by the chains, unable to move an inch.
Blood trickled from his mouth as he glared at Zeke.
"Zeke Draker..."
Zeke approached and activated the blood eye again toward him.
Woooong!
The shadows seeped into his body, and the blood eye's power delved into his brain.
To scour his mind for information on Arthur Draker.
Ziiiiiing—
Zeke pushed the blood eye to its limit, but he found no data on Arthur Draker in his thoughts.
"Either deliberately erased... or sealed deep within."
Zeke gazed at Harvey Draker, whose eyes had lost focus, then decided further effort was pointless. He withdrew the blood eye and secured him not just with the chains of Solomon but also with additional restraints.
He turned back and approached the elder dragon statue.
Instead of the black stone in its mouth, he reached toward the heart.
Crackle!
His hand plunged into the statue, unleashing a fierce mana storm.
When he withdrew it, a brilliantly shining black gem rested in his palm.
"This is the real Black Star."
He had found the true one, but as Harvey Draker said, absorbing another in his current state might cause his body to explode.
Zeke stored the Black Star in his inventory for now and descended back to Harvey Draker.
Grasping the chains binding him, he slowly opened a gateway to his unique domain.
Woooong!
With all of Rʼlyeh under his control, his will alone parted the way to the real world.
Thud!
Dragging Harvey Draker into the real world, Zeke searched the stone chamber for traces left by the high table.
"As I thought, the Book of the Lion called to Baron."
The demon king sealed in the Book of the Lion was drawn to intense desires.
Thus, Zeke had predicted that Baron, obsessed with creating a world for the Drakers, would succumb to the demon king's temptation.
From the high table's traces, he pinpointed the direction of the Book of the Lion's hiding place.
Zeke looked down at the mentally subdued Harvey Draker, then enveloped him in shadows and stowed him in the darkness.
Though securely bound, he couldn't predict when he might recover and escape.
"I must ensure the Book of the Lion doesn't fully fall into Baron's hands."
Following the high table's trail, Zeke sped toward where the Book of the Lion was sealed.
*
"Crazy! What is this place?"
Nabu and Nigel rode their flying carpet, enclosed in a circular barrier, descending into the ocean depths.
The underwater city of Rʼlyeh had a surface like any land above, but below, it was fully submerged.
Baron, drawn by the Book of the Lion, had plunged unhesitatingly into the flooded lower levels of the tower.
Unable to let him escape, Nabu and Nigel followed, delving into the pitch-black depths of Rʼlyeh.
To their astonishment, beneath the tower lay an even vaster sunken city.
The majestic ruins, as if the entire metropolis had sunk long ago, left Nabu and Nigel speechless.
Though they had visited Rʼlyeh multiple times for high table meetings, they had no idea such a space existed.
Then Nigel spoke to Nabu.
—Nabu, he's heading that way.
Baron had summoned an outsider-species magical beast from black substance and rode it toward the sunken city.
Snapping out of their awe at the sight, Nabu and Nigel steered their flying carpet to pursue him.
The crumbled buildings of the sunken city loomed like a massive sea monster ready to swallow them.
Peering into the darkness, Nabu suddenly felt an eerie sensation.
[Come.]
Nabu was startled at the voice whispering in his ear.
"What?"
Nigel grimaced and said to him.
—It's his voice.
Nabu realized what she meant.
"The Book of the Lion. The voice of the demon king sealed within."
Only then did he truly grasp that they were heading toward where the demon king was imprisoned. But at that moment— Kugugugugu!
A massive whirlpool erupted in the underwater city, rapidly engulfing everything around.
Nabu and Nigel's flying carpet was caught in it.
—Damn it! Nigel! Hold on!
Kwaaakwakwakwa!
Before they could react, the colossal whirlpool swept everything away in an instant.
When it subsided, nothing remained in the deep sea.
Only the silent, ruined underwater city stood guard in its place.