The Holy Man of Another Century Gospel

Chapter 276 Sacrifice
Despite being mentally prepared, Eric was still startled by the old demon king's sudden resurrection.

He raised his slashed hand as calmly as possible to show that he was the demon king he had awakened, and that he should spare his life in any case, considering that he had given him new life.

Then Eric realized that his hand had somehow healed, and he hadn't even had time to cast the spell.

The Demon King suddenly spoke.

They seemed to be speaking a demonic language, which Eric couldn't understand.

The old demon king quickly realized this and switched to an ancient language to ask, "Human, or elf?"

Eric glanced down at the stone coffin array. This thing even has a race identification function?
“Half-human, half-elf,” Eric replied in an ancient language.

"Why would a half-human, half-elf appear in my tomb?" the old demon king asked again.

“We were teleported in,” Eric said, briefly explaining what happened before and after the teleportation, but omitting the fact that they were being chased by demons at the time.

The old devil seemed to be thinking about something.

He woke up still lying motionless in the sarcophagus, and suddenly looked at Eric: "Don't you want to tell me more?"

Eric paused for a moment, then quickly replied, "What do you want to know?"

The old demon king raised a hand and stretched it towards his head, "All of them."

For some reason, Eric couldn't muster the slightest thought of resistance; he simply watched as Eric reached out his hand.

"—Eric!"

He suddenly opened his eyes.

The real cold enveloped him again, and then he found himself lying in the stone coffin, almost on top of the Demon King.

Natalia lay beside the sarcophagus, watching him with a tense expression.

"Are you ok?"

"……what happened?"

From Natalia's perspective, his actual actions differed greatly from what he believed.

According to her, after he climbed up to bleed, he suddenly collapsed.

She couldn't see him from below, and her calls went unanswered, so she had to climb up herself to wake him up.

"...When you came up, I was lying in the sarcophagus the whole time?" Eric asked incredulously, while Natalia nodded firmly.

Eric raised his hand and saw that the wound on his palm, which had seemed to have healed in his previous view, was still bleeding. He quickly used divine magic to stop the bleeding.

At that moment, a soft sigh came from the side.

The ancient demon king inside the stone coffin finally opened his eyes.

“We were just communicating on a soul level, half-human, half-elf, which is more efficient.”

Seeing that the Demon King had truly awakened, Natalia was terrified and swayed slightly.

Eric immediately caught her to prevent her from falling from the height of more than ten meters.

“It would be even better if you could have given me a heads-up beforehand,” Eric said to the Demon King.

“Look at me.”

Eric instinctively looked up. The Demon King stared at him, then frowned after a brief silence. "Your soul..."

Eric immediately realized that this old devil was trying to ambush him again.

He flipped out of the sarcophagus and jumped back to the ground twice. Natalia jumped down without him having to say anything and was caught by him.

“Eric…” Natalia looked uneasily at the stone coffin above.

"Let's take it one step at a time." Eric put her down and reassured her, "Although we don't know his current state, he probably doesn't intend to kill us."

Natalia pursed her lips and nodded.

As the two were talking, the suspended fragments that made up the spiral staircase suddenly began to shake, and then flew back to the stone coffin one by one, reattaching to it.

During this process, the stone coffin was also slowly descending.

When the stone coffin landed, the last fragment returned to the stone coffin.

The old demon king still lies in the stone coffin.

“Give me a hand, young man, half-human, half-elf,” he called to Eric outside.

Natalia immediately shook her head at Eric, who reassured her, and then said, "As long as you don't try to control me in the way you just did."

“I promise you,” the Demon King said.

Eric went over and helped the Demon King up.

The Demon King, who had just awakened, looked somewhat weak. After standing for a while, he sat down on his stone coffin.

"Half-human, half-elf..."

"—I have a name, Your Majesty the Demon King, my name is Eric."

“Eric,” the old demon king looked at Eric, “tell me, what time is it now?”

“At the end of Gaia’s 731st year,” Eric replied.

The Demon King was silent for a moment, then said, "So, I have been asleep for over six hundred years."

“Everyone thought you’d been dead for over six hundred years,” Eric said.

The Demon King remained expressionless and uttered a sound that was difficult to decipher.

After a brief silence, he looked at Natalia, whose face was full of vigilance, and asked, "So, you humans now control this continent?"

Natalia didn't speak, but it was basically understandable. After all, she was a member of the imperial family, and her education from a young age included ancient languages.

“A year ago, that would have been true,” Eric answered the Demon King’s question. “Now, it’s about 50/50.”

The old demon king looked over and quickly understood what he meant.

"Has a new Demon King emerged among the demon tribes, capable of unifying all the tribes?"

"It seems the Demon King is also aware of the state of the entire demon race after his death," Eric thought to himself.

"That's right."

The old demon king sat on his stone coffin, lost in thought.

Eric and Natalia exchanged glances, communicating their next choice with their eyes.

Natalia's intention was to have the Demon King open the stone door to the tomb—if he could—and then let him enter a true slumber.

Eric told her to calm down and see how things went first.

“If offering you a little blood can bring you back to life, why has Your Majesty been asleep for so many years?” Eric asked, pulling the Demon King out of his past memories.

The old demon king glanced at him and then said, "Latercomer, what legends have you heard?"

“The Demon King died suddenly, and no one could govern the various demon tribes, so they fell apart,” Eric replied.

"'Sudden death'... The truth is that my second life ended normally, but because the designated sacrificer did not appear when everything was ready, I was unable to continue into my current third life," the Demon King said, glancing around his tomb. "Now it seems that this was a premeditated betrayal."

“Humanity has already avenged you against the traitors,” Eric said.

The old demon stared at him for a while.

At this moment, Natalia spoke in broken ancient language: "You just mentioned 'sacrifice,' what price would someone pay for offering their blood to resurrect you?"

The old demon king looked at her, then at Eric, "The price is the permanent loss of freedom."

Eric and Natalia's expressions changed, but since they had both made some kind of preparation before the operation, the price seemed to be within an acceptable range. The Demon King was obviously not finished speaking.

“You will receive the most stringent protection,” the old demon king said to Eric, “and the best treatment, all to ensure the longest possible lifespan for you, because my life is equivalent to yours.”

Eric paused, narrowing his eyes. "So, if I die, His Majesty won't survive either?"

The Demon King shook his head. "This is half of it." Natalia's face turned cold. "If you die, Eric will die too?"

The Demon King nodded slightly.

Eric's reaction was much calmer than Natalia's. "Besides that, what other impact does it have on me?"

The old demon king looked at him again, making no attempt to hide anything.

“After the sacrifice, I should be able to easily control your soul, and my will will be your will… But your soul is not pure; it is mixed with too many parts that I have never understood or even seen, as if it had never existed in this world… You resisted the Demon King’s will.”

Eric was silent.

What the Demon King was referring to was probably a part of his soul from another world in his previous life.

"It seems you know what that is," the Demon King said, looking at him.

Eric did not admit it, but said, "Let's get back to the connection between His Majesty and me. According to His Majesty, if you want to continue your life, you must make preparations in all aspects beforehand. In other words, if you don't have time to make such preparations, this death will be a real death."

The Demon King did not deny it, "The offspring born of humans and elves, even if they do not have a lifespan of three hundred years, should still far exceed that of ordinary humans. I think I have at least a hundred years to prepare."

“I also hope I can live as long as possible, but given the current situation, it’s questionable whether I can live for even a few more days,” Eric said. “If His Majesty cannot open his own tomb, then he can now prepare for a true eternal rest.”

The Demon King looked down at his sleeping stone coffin. "Those traitors didn't destroy my body, but hid me here, which shows that they still have fear in their hearts and are prepared for the day when I will return. Leaving here is not difficult."

Eric speculated that the speed at which the demon race collapsed and split after the old demon king's death exceeded the expectations of those who betrayed him. So much so that before the dead could return as king, his tribe was overthrown by other demon tribes, and the old demon king was completely forgotten, lying there for more than six hundred years.

However, Eric breathed a sigh of relief when he said leaving this place was not a problem.

Soon, another question came to mind.

"Was that meteorite that could teleport you to this cemetery also left behind by the demons?"

The Demon King thought for a moment, then looked at the stone coffin beneath him. "The meteorite you mentioned was originally part of this stone coffin; it was dug out from the middle of it. Of course, it was indeed originally a huge meteorite... They actually used this as my coffin."

The Demon King muttered to himself, seemingly lost in thought.

Eric and Natalia both glanced at the hollowed-out section in the middle of the sarcophagus, which was indeed only slightly larger than the meteorite beneath the Star Origin Academy.

“I discovered something similar to you humans and realized that this meteorite could be used for teleportation. So I dug out a portion and had it sent to the distant southern part of the continent. After experimenting, I found that a large amount of magic and soul power is needed to initiate teleportation over such a distance.”

The Demon King paused, looked at the two of them, and casually said, "Once fully charged, it should be just right to teleport you two here."

Eric and Natalia exchanged a glance, their faces turning pale.

Rusdy wasn't teleported to another place; rather, his energy ran out, and he couldn't teleport at all.

The Demon King noticed their unusual expressions and waited until they came to their senses before speaking: "I have answered many of your questions. Now it is your turn to tell me what the continent is like now."

Eric took a deep breath and replied, "After His Majesty's people were defeated, humans ruled this continent for more than five hundred years. Now, the demons, under the leadership of the new Demon King, have made a comeback and are rivaling humans. They have already regained almost a third of the continent... This has only happened in the last year."

The demons advanced with unstoppable momentum, while the old demon king remained indifferent.

"What is the current Demon King's name, and which tribe does he come from?"

“The Demon Lord’s name is Latrell,” Eric replied. “He comes from… the Guqi tribe.”

Natalia turned to look at him.

She knew the name of the Demon King Latrell. Back in Lutia, the messengers sent by the Demon King would always mention things like "My King Latrell." But she had never seen any intelligence report mention which demon tribe the Demon King came from.

The old demon king thought for a moment, "Never heard of this tribe... It seems a lot has happened within the demon race in the past six hundred years. Does the Eguna tribe still exist?"

Eric glanced at him. "That was one of the three major demon tribes that were first completely wiped out by humans more than five hundred years ago."

That was the old Demon King's tribe, and it was also the tribe that suffered the most damage and was the first to perish after the Demon King's "sudden death" due to the internal backlash from within the Demon Clan.

The old demon king had clearly foreseen this outcome and said nothing.

Eric then answered many of his questions related to the demon race, until the old demon king asked him about parts he himself didn't know the answers to.

"You fight against the demons, and you don't even understand something like this?"

Eric couldn't tell if he was asking a genuine question or being sarcastic, but Natalia's expression turned quite unpleasant.

"The demons have only returned to the human race's sight in the last six months or so," Eric said. "If it weren't for the two of us, that time probably wouldn't have been enough for His Majesty to even turn over in his long dream."

The old demon king could sense his emotions but was not offended.

"We can go out now."

He stood up and tried to take two steps forward, slowly but steadily, like an ordinary old man.

Although this "old man" is over 800 years old, he looks only in his forties or fifties.

Eric wasn't enthusiastic enough to help him walk, and Natalia was even less likely to lend a hand. The two of them watched as he gradually adapted to the body he had been lying in for over six hundred years, and his steps became more and more steady.

Finally emerging from the main burial chamber, the old demon king stood at the entrance of the passage, glanced back, and let out a long sigh.

"We've only just left the main burial chamber; we still have a long way to go, Your Majesty," Eric reminded him.

The Demon King glanced at him and continued forward.

As he walked past the corpses in the tomb passage, he asked what the purpose of placing these corpses there was.

“Why don’t you go and ask your own people who made the decision?” Natalia said abruptly.

The Demon King said that she seemed to harbor considerable hostility towards him.

“Just because I had a pleasant conversation with Your Majesty doesn’t mean we should ignore the deep-seated hatred between humans and demons,” Eric said. “Especially since Your Majesty brought this blood feud upon us.”

The Demon King expressed his understanding and then expressed his appreciation for Eric's composure at this moment, hoping that he could stay in the Demon Realm and serve him.

"Is Your Majesty worried that I'll die before I even leave the Demon Realm?"

“This is also something we have to consider,” the Demon King said.

“I care about my own life more than His Majesty does,” Eric said.

“What a contradiction.” The Demon King walked along the tomb passage in his own graveyard. “I have recovered to the point where I can threaten you with your life, but the price is my own life. And the purpose of my threat is to protect your life.”

Eric and Natalia followed behind, saying, "I'm also very sorry to have put His Majesty in such a difficult position, but we have no other choice..."

Eric paused suddenly, then turned to Natalia: "We made a mistake. Before the sacrifice, we should have dragged the Demon King's corpse to the stone gate and tried it. Maybe pressing a handprint would have opened the gate."

Natalia frowned. "It's too late to regret it now."

The two talked as if no one else was around, without even thinking about controlling their voices. The Demon King, who was walking in front, heard everything clearly and said, "No need to regret it, the Death Demon King will definitely not be able to open the door you mentioned."

"What if? There's no chance to verify it now." Eric sighed regretfully.

As they passed through the passageway outside the side hall, the Demon King asked what was inside.

"His Majesty's crown and robes. There are also two side halls in front, where His Majesty's weapons and armor are placed."

The Demon King only wants his own weapon.

Following him to the first side hall, the black longsword that Eric and Natalia couldn't lift was easily taken up by the Demon King.

"Does Your Majesty's sword have a name?" Eric asked.

"Soul Devouring".

The Demon King raised his longsword and stared at the blade for a while. "This sword can absorb the souls of those who are killed, so one needs a certain level of soul control to wield it."

Eric stood below the platform, looking up at it as well. "The soul power that His Majesty collected back then has now all fallen into the hands of the new Demon King. There is also a human soul researcher who is helping the new Demon King to study and utilize that power, and has even made considerable progress. This has had an effect on the unstoppable advance of the demon army."

The old demon king turned to look at him, and with a wave of his longsword, a black mist spread out, almost enveloping the entire platform.

Eric pulled Natalia back a few steps, and the Demon King's voice came from the black mist: "Eric, you think my appearance will cause the demon race to split again, which is why you're not as resistant to me as the one beside you. But have you considered the situation outside, where the Demon King submits to me?"

“We can’t just submit to you after meeting you once, can we? Aren’t we all demon kings?” Eric looked at the black mist. “We need to each gather a group of people and fight it out first.”

After a brief silence, the Demon King laughed for the first time since he awoke.

For humans, the most terrifying time for demons is when a demon king emerges who can unify all tribes.
For the demon race itself, the most terrifying situation is when two such demon kings appear within its ranks at the same time.

(End of this chapter)