Chapter 167 – The Meaning of Strength (7)
“Unbelievable. A nuclear warhead…”
“Location, where is it?!”
The world, already turned upside down, was flipped once more. The nuclear war that everyone feared and struggled to predict had come not from a mad dictator or a crazed terrorist organization, but from a monster intent on invading a single country.
“We have to stop it!”
“Calm down. How do you plan to stop missiles flying in all directions?”
Upon hearing this news, Aria fell into a panic, while Takilas scoffed and brushed it off.
“But if this continues, a nuclear war will happen!”
“No matter how foolish they are, they aren’t going to retaliate with nukes.”
Takilas clicked her tongue and shook her head. She knew the current situation; the chances of retaliating with nuclear weapons after launching one were low. If they launched a nuke at Razak, it would only result in the deaths of tens of millions of civilians, not to mention Razak could just move to another territory and invade from there.
“Still, once that nuclear bomb is launched, it’s bound to cause massive damage.”
“…”
Of course, there was nothing they could be certain about at this point. The nuclear missiles were already flying toward their targets, and those without the capability to intercept would have no choice but to take the hit.
‘Thought it might be fun facing an enemy with a new type, but it’s just getting more annoying.’
Takilas’s eyebrow twitched.
When she first learned of Razak’s existence, she found it intriguing. Incredible evolution and adaptation abilities strong enough to overcome Holy Power.
She thought maybe Razak could be the worthy opponent she had always wanted, and she definitely wanted to fight.
However, Razak’s chosen method was not a duel but war itself. Even if she had great power, most of it was focused on killing enemies, not on winning wars.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Shia flinched at the strange gaze Takilas was giving her.
‘Something seems different, but no. The angels watching the Demon Realm wouldn’t abandon their posts just because a saint crossed over.’
Takilas lost herself in thought as Shia felt uneasy, but had she been able to read Takilas’s mind, she would have been horrified. In an instant, Takilas genuinely considered summoning the Demon King’s army to sweep the area away.
However, that thought was ultimately dismissed. For Takilas, it was like setting fire to the house of the angels just to catch the flea that was Razak.
“Who is the highest person we can contact? Call that person quickly.”
“Contact, contact for what…?”
“I’ll stop a few of them. Tell him to take care of the rest.”
With that, Takilas left those words for Aria and took off into the sky.
“Ugh! Just how high do you plan to go?!”
“Higher.”
Unleashing her magical power without restraint, Takilas became a projectile, splitting the sky at an incredible speed. Finally, when her velocity surpassed the speed of sound, Ren’s screams were drowned out entirely.
And she arrived at a place that transcended greenery into the realm of darkness. Looking down at the blue Earth beneath her, she smirked.
[I can see them. Adorable little missiles.]
Her eyes began to glimmer red as they spotted missiles being launched from silos and spreading across the world.
‘C-Can I intercept them all from this distance?’
[Razak probably thought his plan was clever. But no, I’m not going to fall for his tricks until he properly faces me like that Smalillian idiot.]
Ren, astonished, had no time to calm down as Takilas began to transform.
It was a transformation that transcended the simple final awakening of a magical girl. The Demon King, having reached the level of a transcendent being, revealed her true form.
Her abdomen split open, revealing a gigantic eye. Her limbs ignited with black magic and transformed into colossal tentacles.
‘Ugh, ugh…’
Ren could merely hang on and shut his eyes tightly. The being that emerged was a huge tentacled monster with a single eye. However, this was not the true form of Takilas.
Just like Asmael, who descended upon the Earth, Takilas now opened up all the power she usually kept suppressed to show her original form.
[It takes time to unveil oneself. How bothersome.]
The gigantic tentacles moved. The thickness of these tentacles equaled that of a giant building. The size of the eye in the center of her body was comparable to a small village.
Takilas extended her tentacles toward the Earth. The target was the nuclear missiles that were still hurtling through the air.
Those massive tentacles, slicing through the atmosphere at an incredible speed, instantly transformed into magical energy and flew off over thousands of kilometers.
*
“It’s not good. At this rate, at least 50% will explode on the ground!”
“What the hell…”
With no advance warning, missiles were launched toward places that had gone into a state of emergency, and people were screaming in a mad dash to evacuate. But thanks to the missiles aimed at major cities—the easiest targets—people couldn’t properly evacuate.
Especially for countries lacking the power to detect or intercept them due to energy shortages, despair was unavoidable.
‘Am I really going to die from a nuclear blast?’
He sighed at the sight of people densely packed on the streets trying to escape. He could enter a nuclear bunker, but what good would that do? A nuclear strike in the capital would lead to the deaths of countless people, and the rest of the citizens wouldn’t tolerate this incompetent leader surviving alone.
“You, you have to escape now!”
“No. I refuse to leave. How could I abandon the people…?”
Now he could also see it—the nuclear warhead gliding down from the sunset toward the city. He had tried desperately to intercept it, but his country’s air defense could not shoot it down.
“It’s falling.”
The warhead in the distance was on a collision course with the city. He gritted his teeth.
“…Huh?”
But at that moment, the surroundings turned dark as something flew behind the nuclear warhead at an incredible speed.
“Wh-What the…”
The panicked crowd fumbled around. Coming down from the sky, the translucent thing looked like a marine creature’s tentacle. And it was enormous.
“The, the warhead has stopped!”
It wrapped around the nuclear warhead. The still-flaming warhead seemed frozen, unable to move even a little bit, trapped by the tentacle.
As hundreds of thousands of people looked on, the tentacle that had descended from the sky vanished at a speed matching its arrival.
“How is this possible…?”
Many who had narrowly escaped death displayed the same reaction, staring blankly into the void, unsure of what had just happened.
[All taken care of.]
The nuclear warhead wrapped up in the tentacle was swiftly pulled out of the atmosphere. There must have been dozens of them.
And Takilas hurled them far away into space. The warheads exploded immediately after being thrown, but Takilas remained unscathed even close to where the nuclear bombs detonated.
“Ah, I feel refreshed going back to my original form after so long.”
“You…”
Now transformed back into her magical girl form, Takilas re-entered the atmosphere. Ren, who had been perched atop the broad plains of Takilas’s body, was still astonished as he returned to the small girl’s head.
“How did you become a magical girl according to Chief Yuria?”
“I said I would do it.”
In a much more relaxed state, she flew back to where she had begun. There were still warheads left unhandled, but they were already intercepted and vanishing from the sky on their own.
“I don’t get that. With that level of power, why do you struggle like this? You could end this war in your own way…”
“Unless you experience it yourself, you wouldn’t understand. To transcend something means that you longed for it that much. But other aspects aren’t automatically fulfilled. It can create imbalance instead.”
“Other aspects?”
“I reached this place through struggle. I wanted to become stronger and I eventually achieved it. But that doesn’t mean I only desire destruction and slaughter. I… wanted to protect. The moment I became the Demon King, I had to defend everything I possessed.”
She smiled wryly. Despite becoming the king of the Demon Realm, inherently the Demon Realm was ‘the enemy’ that should be crushed by the hero’s hand. She chose another path to protect herself and the Demon Realm.
“Of course, the biggest reason was that I just wanted to have fun without a care. And to tell you to end the war with that power? Are you really thinking about using a cannon in your house to kill a bug?”
Before long, she had landed back on Earth, and Aria was rushing over breathlessly.
“…Bugs should die like bugs. But at least it should serve as a warning. Don’t mess around.”
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