Return of the Sword God-Rank Civil Servant novel Chapter 579

KWA-BOOM!!

I swung my sword again.

At that moment, the Shock Wave built into Heracles’s Club activated and triggered a violent explosion.

Lucifer was driven far back.

His sword was unharmed.

But just because the sword was fine, did that mean the swordsman was safe too?

No.

Not only was the hand gripping the sword scorched, but so was the rest of his body.

Lucifer’s eyes widened in apparent shock.

How could he be producing this kind of power?

With a smile deeper than before, I said,

“After trading blows with you a few times, I realized something. Among demons, Pride might actually be the strongest. But paradoxically, it might also be the weakest.”

- You speak of something impossible.

“Impossible? I’m a very realistic person, you know. And honestly, you know perfectly well what I’m talking about right now, don’t you?”

My smile deepened even further.

It had to.

Once any being reached a certain level, they became keenly aware of both their strengths and their weaknesses.

One of Lucifer’s eyes twitched.

Right.

There was no way you wouldn’t know.

You didn’t become a Demon King by winning a card game, after all.

“So the moment you brought me in here, this became a game you can never win. That’s not all, either. The moment you lose to me, you’ll be raising your own grave inside your own domain.”

- You do run your mouth for quite a while.

Lucifer denied it.

His expression was endlessly cold and scornful.

Which was exactly why I couldn’t help smiling.

The very fact that the smile had vanished from his face was proof he was tense.

‘The demon of Pride getting tense? That’s about as classic a death flag as it gets.’

I foresaw my victory.

No, I had no choice but to be certain of it.

Because, just like I said before, the moment he brought me here, every possible move led to a checkmate that ended in my victory.

And there were plenty of reasons for that.

Not just reasons, either, but solid grounds that only made that certainty stronger.

‘The first reason I have to win: he isn’t some overwhelmingly powerful existence.’

After exchanging several blows with him, I realized Lucifer was not as strong as I had expected.

In particular, he wasn’t some absurd monster that made your palms sweat the way boss monsters from other major gates did.

Of course, that didn’t make him an easy opponent.

But after destroying Gluttony with Soul Cleave, I knew this was manageable.

‘Second, he personally drew a sword and declared he’d match himself to my level.’

This was the clearest reason of all.

Because the biggest blind spot of the demon of Pride was that the prouder he became, the stronger he became—but if his opponent wasn’t afraid of him, the demon of Pride didn’t actually explode in strength all that much.

Because Pride itself required a powerful conviction that he would be stronger, and conviction without a foundation was more fragile than it looked.

‘It’s a difficult area, and an easy one, all at the same time.’

Of course, the opponent couldn’t simply meet the demon of Pride with baseless confidence of his own, either.

Emotional energy wasn’t the sort of thing you could fake with a few expressions and a couple of lines.

That was why it seemed easy and yet was difficult.

Because it wasn’t nearly as easy as it sounded to hold absolute confidence in front of a stronger opponent.

‘Especially if that opponent is a Demon King.’

But he had made a fatally serious mistake.

He had openly declared that he would fight me as a swordsman, on my terms.

That was the decisive mistake.

Because when it came to sword fighting, I had the kind of boundless confidence that made me feel like I could beat anyone.

‘Except for one person.’

And that one person was obviously Sword Demon.

In all my life, I had never seen anyone who handled a sword better than that man.

But this bastard, who didn’t normally even use a sword, had picked one up just to crush me with sheer presence.

From the perspective of someone who actually worked in the field, how pathetic was that supposed to look?

‘The moment he gets pushed back and drops the sword, the game is over.’

He had picked up the sword out of arrogance, but the moment he later felt his life was in danger and put it down, that would be no different from admitting he was being overwhelmed.

And once that happened, the demon of Pride would fall into the trap of his own self-imposed restriction and end up weakening himself.

I ran my tongue once across my lips.

“Then let me learn a move or two.”

I closed the distance with him again.

KWAANG!!

Every time our swords collided, I triggered the Shock Wave effect from the club option.

Each clash set off a huge explosion, and Lucifer kept looking more and more unsettled, like this wasn’t the kind of sword fight he’d expected.

“What? Surprised? This isn’t the kind of sword fight you thought it’d be?”

- Hardly.

Look at this bastard, still pretending to be relaxed even now.

Though your hands look awfully busy, don’t they?

At some point, he started doing it too, detonating demonic energy every time our blades collided.

Wow. Look at Lucifer, full of fighting spirit.

He’d already copied that much.

But that wasn’t all he copied.

Those cold, razor-sharp eyes of his gleamed, and as time passed, he started reproducing my swordsmanship exactly.

KWA-BOOM!!

I triggered another Shock Wave.

This time, I packed in quite a bit of true demonic energy and set off a much larger explosion, sending Lucifer flying back again.

Resting the Blood Sword on my shoulder once more, I said,

“Hey, Western Demon King. Why don’t you swallow your pride and give up on sword fighting, even now? Looks like you’re trying to imitate my swordsmanship, but keep that up and it’s going to end very badly for you.”

- Why? Are you getting nervous because I’m executing your swordsmanship perfectly?

“Perfect? Hahahaha!”

The word “perfect” made me burst out laughing for real before I even realized it.

Ah, seriously. This bastard was killing me.

Why are you this funny?

Still letting the aftershocks of laughter linger, I said,

“Must be because you’re Pride. You keep going on about perfection at the drop of a hat. If you’d said that in front of my master, you’d have been cut into eight pieces already.”

- I can sense the impatience in you. Your tongue keeps getting longer.

“Impatience?”

At that, my expression went cold.

Then I dismissed every buff I had wrapped around myself and said,

“Then how about we fight using nothing but pure swordsmanship, no tricks? If you manage to leave even a single scratch on my body with swordsmanship alone, I’ll admit defeat and hand you my head.”

- What? Hahahahahaha!

At my offer, Lucifer threw his head back and laughed so hard his throat showed.

The demon of Pride loved wagers like this.

When an opponent showed strong confidence, breaking them after that was what tasted sweetest.

- Fine. I’ll grant your request.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify