Rostar Ignatius, of a race known as the Dragonkin—a hybrid born from the fusion of divine dragon species and humans as part of experimental research.
That was the identity Yazuki once held in another world.
Now that he had partially released his true nature through transformation and arrived in a sub-realm nearly identical to reality, he finally saw the mighty dragon he once created—Icarus.
At that moment, he roughly understood why Icarus was able to act without his command, and why its true objective was to kill him.
Had Icarus gone berserk? No—that couldn't explain the targeted intent to kill him.
The real reason was that Icarus, as a weapon of slaughter designed to eliminate gods, dragons, and countless other beings, had absorbed too many souls. Although their bodies were destroyed, some souls didn't fully perish.
Many had been tainted and corrupted by the dark power he symbolized—perhaps they fell to corruption unwillingly, driven by resentment.
Day after day, those lingering souls absorbed the evil energy produced by the world. After countless years, their cumulative hatred and killing intent began to erode Icarus, fueling its will to murder him.
In a way, Icarus had become the vessel for that grotesque amalgamation of twisted souls. Sensing his presence, the creature had crossed worlds to hunt him down.
But how had Icarus managed to traverse worlds? Yazuki didn't believe Icarus could pass through the absolute Voidstorm. If Ikaros could locate this world, why did he—its creator—fail to find it after so many attempts?
There were too many unknowns.
Perhaps after his departure, that other world underwent massive changes. The Voidstorm surrounding it might have stabilized, allowing both realms to drift like galaxies and eventually make contact after countless eons.
After all, it seemed like he had been gone a very long time. He judged this from the visible rust on Icarus—signs of wear that took far more than thousands or tens of thousands of years to form.
It hinted at an ancient slumber.
But why had time passed so differently in that other world compared to here? That was likely due to the influence of the Voidstorm.
Another mystery: how did Icarus sense him? The answer lay in the power source embedded within Icarus —a half-dragon pearl formed from Yazuki's own physical energy at the time. The other half resided in his Demon King's Ring.
Heh. He could feel it now—the twisted consciousness born from countless fused souls was craving that other half.
"Come then. Let's hear your delightful screams of agony."
He spoke with a tinge of cruel pleasure, as the electric glow in his lightning-scarred eyes slowly faded to normal.
At that moment, a beam of red light shot through the air, trailing like the tail of a long comet. It streaked from one side of the sky to the other, vanishing precisely where a woman had just escaped this world.
The end of that beam aligned perfectly with his lightning-scarred eye.
Black ash floated from his body—the remnants of several angelic feathers that had burned to cinders. Just to prevent that woman from escaping her punishment, he had expended more of his power than anyone else.
Most of his strength had been wasted on the collapsing dimensional barrier. He had miscalculated. If he had reduced his power, he could have passed through the mirror barrier instead of breaking it with sheer force.
The shattering caused the dimensional wall to collapse suddenly, draining most of his energy.
Still, that last trace of power should be enough to give her a brief taste of hell.
Honestly, the first enemy he dealt with had formidable purifying abilities—perfectly suited to counter a Demon King.
If that opponent had divine protection and better physical durability instead of being a glass-cannon magician, they might have matched him in his Dragonkin prime.
"Die die die %...￥...#...."
That was the defeated wail of the hybrid soul within Icarus. Now, Icarus had transformed completely, its body extending countless cannons, turning into a literal fortress of war.
"Activated the Uranus System, huh?"
As he finished speaking, Icarus's body, covered in glowing magic runes, began charging energy in those cannons.
"ROOOAARRR!!"
With a thunderous roar that scattered the clouds, over a hundred beams of death energy tore through the sky. The newborn sunlight was consumed entirely, plunging the world back into a suffocating darkness.
"You—You've got to be kidding…"
"That monster…!"
"D-Defend yourselves!!"
At that instant, the responding heroes gasped, some even fleeing in pure panic—S-class elites among them. Each of those death beams emitted energy on par with forbidden spells—and there were over a hundred of them.
The opportunists—those waiting to swoop in at the right moment or to claim the spoils after others had done the hard work—were now frozen with fear.
No one had anticipated the dragon wreathed in darkness to be this overwhelmingly powerful.
Chaos broke out. Some abandoned their companions to flee, while others stood petrified, awaiting destruction.
But… those hundred-plus death beams weren't aimed at them?
Confusion spread.
All the beams converged on a single point—on the otherworldly Demon King who stood like a dark god.
What was going on? Those who knew Icarus's origins were even more bewildered. Wasn't that weapon created by the Demon King himself?
They couldn't understand it. But it didn't matter—so long as they weren't the targets.
And the one being targeted—calm and unshaken—was the Demon King himself.
As he faced the oncoming assault, he crushed a newly acquired object—the Dimensional Cube—and poured billions of volts of electricity into it before hurling it forward.
The moment it landed, it hovered in midair and began to glow, spilling out a dazzling, prismatic light like a heatless rainbow.
Simultaneously, all the death beams—each potent enough to rival top-tier celestial magic—converged on that point.
They swallowed everything, ripped apart the earth, vaporized the ground, triggered minor tectonic shifts, launched massive sandstorms into the stratosphere, and sent entire mountains flying.