NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1
Chapter 1: The Tyrant's Departure Ceremony
Demons.
Hungry souls wandering the forsaken lands.
No one knew where they came from.
Some said the demons were byproducts that spilled out from the Demon Realm, where all beings suffered. Others reviled them as the ones who bore the sins of the Jewel War during the Mythic Age.
But there was one indisputable truth.
As of today, suddenly, he had become the Demon Lord who led all demons.
♣
“Lord Credos.”
A voice pierced his ears through the haze of his thoughts.
It was calm and cold.
At that call, Kim Jangcheol, a graduate student at Korea University’s College of Agriculture, flinched and looked up.
And thus, he came face to face with it.
“The legion is ready to depart.”
“……”
Someone was walking toward him with deliberate steps. Black hair. Eyes dark and tinged with a red glow. The transparent glasses covering them made him seem all the more frigid. His expression matched.
It was a familiar face, though they had never met before.
Unfamiliar only in real life.
He had, in truth, seen this character countless times.
‘Zephyros.’
Kim Jangcheol dug into his memory.
The notorious game Paladin of Blood.
Its full title, Paladin of Blood.
The one who served the final boss of that game—Credos.
In other words, the Demon Lord's adjutant.
And now that very adjutant, Zephyros, was calling him "Credos." Approaching with measured steps, kneeling on one knee, even delivering a formal report.
“Everyone is waiting for the Demon Lord.”
“……”
Kim Jangcheol gulped unconsciously.
Was this real?
He was the Demon Lord?
Credos, of all people?
Honestly, it was absurd.
If someone had seriously told him an hour ago, “You’re going to become the final boss of the game you're playing right now,” he would’ve immediately looked up the number for a psychiatric ward and casually shown it to them.
But this was a hard fact, a real situation—reality itself.
Even if he wanted to deny it, he couldn’t.
The air was far too vivid.
The immersion was just like reality.
Even Zephyros's clearly cold and courteous tone as he addressed him.
“I shall escort you to the Hall of Destruction.”
“…Very well.”
Kim Jangcheol fully grasped the unprecedented situation he had found himself in. If they found out he was a fake, things would get ugly. There was no telling how Zephyros and the other demons would react. No—maybe, deep down, he already knew.
‘They’ll probably cut me down the moment they find out I’m a fake.’
That couldn’t happen. No matter what, he had no intention of letting things get to that point. That was why Kim Jangcheol rose from the Demon Lord’s throne, trying his best to appear natural.
Ssshhk…
His movements felt awkward.
Of course they did.
This wasn’t his normal, human body. This was the body of the final boss of the game, the Demon Lord Credos—level 666, no less.
Naturally, walking smoothly wasn’t as easy as one might think. Every bit of his body’s balance felt foreign. It was going to take some getting used to.
‘…Hoo.’
He had to avoid the disgrace of stumbling.
He couldn’t risk getting exposed.
He walked with careful attention.
And followed behind Zephyros, who led the way.
Whether fortunately or unfortunately, the corridor wasn’t long. As they neared the end of it, the sounds of shouting grew louder. No—more overwhelming.
KUUWOOOOOOOH—!
A blood-colored sky, veiled in clouds.
A massive legion of demons gathered.
Roars and shrieks of ecstasy.
The sky trembled. The ground quaked.
Standing at the end of the corridor, on the balcony overlooking the Hall of Destruction, Kim Jangcheol felt a suffocating sense of pressure. The kind that made the fine hairs all over his body stand on end. Or perhaps it was fear. Facing the countless demons he’d only ever seen in-game—now all at once, in the flesh—was a shock far more chilling than he could’ve imagined.
But Kim Jangcheol didn’t panic. At least on the outside, he pretended to remain calm, burning with the sheer will to survive as he observed the demon legion lined up before him.
And then it happened.
“With today’s great invasion—we end our hunger!”
A demon at the head of the legion roared, its entire body wrapped in blood-red tendrils and pulsating veins. The fierce voice scraped like rusted iron. The being raised a jagged greatsword, entangled in thick, throbbing vessels.
Kim Jangcheol recognized him at a glance.
‘One of the Four Great Demon Generals—The Prince Who Drinks Blood, Asurat. Level… 534.’
The memories came flooding back the moment he saw him.
Naturally so.
He’d fought that bastard countless times while playing Paladin of Blood. The same went for the other members of the Four Great Demon Generals.
“A tragedy born of barren land where nothing could grow! The agony of surviving by devouring our own kin! We will turn that wretched history into nothing more than words recorded in the past!”
A cold and ringing voice struck the army like a whip. A female demon clad in armor of ice stood tall, with four icy blades protruding from her back.
‘That one… Cold Monarch, Sirgi of the Absolute Zero Frostfang. Level 531.’
Kim Jangcheol’s eyes narrowed as he sifted through his memories.
That wasn’t all.
“Tear the humans apart! Grind the elves down!”
“Let’s make them all our food!”
The middle-aged demon with wings of black mist spread wide was none other than the Archduke of Fog, Hartok. Standing beside him like a towering mountain of muscle was the Black Boulder Tyrant, Baal.
‘Their levels were 555 and 539…’
The overwhelmingly powerful Four Great Demon Generals who had endlessly tormented him in the game. Seeing them now in real life, the vivid, bitter reality hit him like strong, dark espresso — pounding against his spinal cord like powerful salmon swimming upstream. It came with an even deeper sense of regret.
‘How… did I end up like this?’
He had simply tried to live diligently, clinging to survival.
He had just been trying to earn a degree, no matter what it took.
Suddenly, his life in Korea came to mind.
He had been poor, but he had dreams.
Carrying those dreams, he entered the Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences at Korea University. He gave it his all the moment he got in. Those around him recognized his efforts. Thanks to that, he quickly became the ace of the lab.
Back then, everything still seemed good.
At least until he learned what it truly meant to be the “ace of the lab.”
“……”
If someone had told him in advance, he would’ve taken caution. He would’ve been more careful. That being the ace of the lab simply meant being the professor’s top slave.
It had been strange.
He couldn’t understand it.
He did all the work.
He put in all the effort.
But the professors took all the credit.
It was unfair.
Yet there was no one to whom he could vent.
Day by day, his spirit deteriorated. No recognition, no rewards. He couldn’t bring himself to quit, not after everything he had invested. But if he kept running forward, the end still seemed nowhere in sight. He felt like he was going insane.
Maybe that was why.
Why, when a junior who had quit the lab and fled gave him an old gaming console, it became his only and faint lifeline. And why he became absorbed in the only game installed on it: Paladin of Blood.
“……”
To be honest, it wasn’t even a good game. No — to be precise, it was a total failure of a game.
Was it because it wasn’t fun?
Because the system was clunky?
No, none of that.
There was only one reason Paladin of Blood had flopped.
‘It was the failed difficulty balance.’
It was hard. Vomit-inducingly hard. It went far beyond the realm of what any average person could handle. It made a bit of a splash at launch, but players dropped out one after another. So few people stuck with it that even reaching the first ending was a rare feat.
But... that was exactly why he liked it.
‘Because every time I beat a boss, imagining it as that professor bastard made me totally immersed.’
The professor bastard who stole all the research achievements.
The professor son of a bitch who wouldn’t even review his thesis.
The professor bastard who made him act as his wife’s personal driver for Pilates, and even forced him to disguise himself as a friend of his son—who was in the military—just to drive him for visitation during leave.
He challenged the bosses while picturing that son of a bitch’s face. He kept going, getting sliced to pieces and dying over and over again, but he never stopped. And each time he finally took one down, he felt a surge of unspoken dopamine erupting within him.
Like that, he became increasingly obsessed with the game—a game with a difficulty so brutal that no one else would even glance at it. In between his graduate school life, carving out even his eating and sleeping hours, he threw himself into it completely. And thanks to that, at last, he achieved what was likely a world-first: clearing the game 19 times.
‘Right after that, when it asked if I wanted to start the 20th run… I just picked “YES,” that’s all.’
The TV screen had flashed as if exploding in light.
He’d lost consciousness.
And when he came to, he was like this. In this situation where he had become none other than Credos, the final boss of the game.
“……”
So then—was he supposed to be happy? To welcome the fact that he had become the strongest demon in a game infamous for its cruel difficulty? A Demon Lord with a staggering level of 666?
‘No.’
Kim Jangcheol shook his head.
This wasn’t something to celebrate. Not at all. Today, as the demon army roared in the midst of their invasion of the human world, only he knew what fate awaited them in the end.
‘If this invasion continues as is… at this rate, I will… I’ll definitely die.’
Kuwaaaargh—!
The thoughts were driven out by the roar of the demon army. The cheers of anticipation as they looked forward to the invasion of the human realm. And now that he really looked, it wasn’t an unfamiliar sight.
It was the first scene from the game’s grand opening intro.
‘This war… it must be stopped.’
Over the image of the frenzied demon army, a familiar next scene surfaced in his mind—one he had seen countless times.
…Fwoooosh!
The grave of the Paladin, shrouded in darkness.
The faint glow seeping through the cracks of an abandoned coffin.
Its lid was opening. A strong hand would soon grip the coffin’s edge, receiving the world’s first light. A determined upper body would rise from within. And with a resolve to annihilate the Demon Lord Credos, that body would open its eyes.
‘Once this war begins… that guy will come for me… and I’ll be killed. Without fail.’
Ding-dong!
[You are now starting your 20th playthrough.]
[Your playable character,
…The illusion of a game start message echoing in his ears. A hallucination. Or perhaps, a vivid and chilling certainty.
“……”
He couldn’t let that happen.
He didn’t want to die helplessly.
He absolutely refused such a miserable ending.
He wanted to survive.
And to do that, he had to make sure he never caught the eye of the protagonist he had raised to the extreme—an over-ripened monster of a character.
That meant…
To secure a happy ending, one where he could say, “And so, without ever starting a war, I managed to appease the hungry demon army and the dissatisfied Four Great Demon Generals, and lived a long, peaceful life, untouched by the Paladin’s wrath,” he had to…
“Hear me, forces of the Demon Lord!”
He shouted.
Toward the army.
With resolve in his heart.
At his cry, the legion’s cheers fell silent. A chilling hush settled over the vast Hall of Destruction. All eyes turned to him, awaiting his next command.
“I, Credos, hereby command all demons!”
The eyes of the army burned red.
Their hearts pounded wildly.
They were ablaze with the joy of invasion.
They longed for days of slaughter.
They thirsted for blood.
And now, in this moment, they all looked up at him.
“From this moment on…”
He proclaimed the only solution he could think of—the one that would let the demons survive, that would let him survive, that would ensure they wouldn’t all be dragged into the protagonist’s path and end up doing the Seven-Star Eel Ascension Dance of Annihilation.
“…we will cancel the campaign and begin farming!”