Chapter 456: Second Hokage
Because neither Roy nor Sparda knew what the situation on the other side of the channel was, they did not rashly rush in.
After all, an ancient angel had come out of the channel earlier. If this channel connected to Heaven over there, then Roy and Sparda would really be poking a hornet’s nest if they broke in like this.
“How long will this channel last?” Roy asked.
“Don’t worry. It’ll last for a long time!” Sparda put his sword on his back. “It’ll exist for about ten years. Then it’ll disappear for a while as the twin worlds move away from each other. When the twin worlds come close next time, it’ll appear again, but the location of the channel might not necessarily be here.”
“That’s good!” Roy put Frostmourne away and spread his hands. “Now, we need to study what we should do next.”
“Mundus must die! The worst outcome is to seal him for thousands of years!” Sparda said worriedly, “This isn’t because of the enmity between him and me, but because I have a bad feeling that the cooperation between Mundus and Balder might lead to a huge disaster in both worlds.”
“The Eternal War?” Roy asked.
“It might not just be the Eternal War…” Sparda pondered. “Let me tell you this. At first, I secretly snuck back to the Demon World and planned to take revenge on Mundus, but after coming to the Demon World, I found that Mundus was sending his subordinates to search for the spatial channel to the twin world. Thinking back to when Mundus disappeared for a while more than two thousand years ago, I realized that he had been to the twin world. He might have had an encounter with some powerful existence on the other side that I don’t know. Later, he was sealed by me and could not leave the Demon World, so in these two thousand years, he could not go to the other world again. And now, just before he was about to remove the seal, he ordered people to search for the spatial channel with such great fanfare. That must be because he wanted to go to the other side again, or to contact the other side…”
Roy nodded. This deduction was very reasonable.
“Back then, the demons won the war between the angels and demons in this world, and we occupied this world. When the angels retreated, they found the opposite twin world and stationed there, so the two worlds happened to have demons occupying one and angels occupying the other…” Sparda recalled as he spoke. “After the angels retreated, due to the existence of the spatial channel, although there were no more large-scale wars between the two sides, there were still sporadic battles. In particular, after human civilization began to develop in the other world, these sporadic battles became more frequent. But most of the time, demons were summoned to the other side. These summoned demons were often the stronger ones of the Demon World. Some of them returned alive, while others were purified and killed in battle with angels.”
At this moment, Dante, Vergil, the recovered Nero, Julia, Benia, Sareth, Cassandra, Fat Tiger, and Cerberus had already rushed back. They gathered around and quietly listened to the conversation between the legendary demon swordsman Sparda and Roy. After hearing this, Sareth could not help but interrupt. “So that’s how it is. No wonder when I was wondering why there were no angels in this world, Dante told me that the angels of this world went to another world… At that time, I thought he was saying that the angels were all dead…”
Dante laughed and rubbed Sareth’s red hair hard, causing Sareth to kick his calf.
Sparda nodded and said to Sareth, “Yes, I told Dante and Vergil when they were young. I didn’t expect them to remember…”
“The ones who summoned demons are the Umbra Witches you mentioned, right?” Roy rubbed his chin with his demon claws.
“Yes!” Sparda nodded. “I’ve also responded to the summons and went to that world once. Unlike the human world here, there has always been a theory about the trinity of light, the human world, and darkness there. Light refers to the Heaven established by the retreating angels, the human world refers to the main worlds where humans live on both sides, and darkness refers to the Demon World on our side. They even established a world model for this. This trinity theory is very popular, but in fact, the humans there have never seen this world with their own eyes. This trinity theory is actually an ideology brought over by the retreating angels. They are spreading their doctrines of holy light and creation over there.”
“Spreading doctrines? Like when that ancient angel appeared? It should be quite difficult for them to spread their doctrines, right?” Roy guessed.
“Indeed. You saw the appearance of that ancient angel earlier. In fact, the so-called ancient angels are not as benevolent and holy as the legends of certain worlds. Because in the beginning, these ancient angels were born in the war with demons, so their appearances and forms evolved to adapt to the cruel needs of war. Among these ancient angels, there are even those that look like ancient four-wheeled war chariots. Don’t be surprised when you see them in the future…”
“Hmm… I can understand!” Roy nodded. “In ancient times, humans had not been born yet, and angels naturally couldn’t spread the faith of holy light, so there was no need to consider the needs of human aesthetics. Is that what it means?”
“That’s right. Those beautiful angels are all the new generation of angels. The same is true for demons. How could ancient demons look like they do now? At that time, ancient demons looked like animals such as goats, or rather, fierce beasts…” Sparda pointed at Roy. “You look like a new generation demon, and insect-type demons like me are usually between ancient demons and new generation demons. We are considered transitional demons.”
The so-called ancient angels and ancient demons did not refer to their age but their race. Even if an angel or a demon was born in recent years, if their appearance and form were the same as ancient angels or ancient demons, then they were still an ancient angel or ancient demon.
“Do demons also need to spread doctrines?” Roy asked curiously.
“Of course. Don’t you know?” Sparda pointed at himself. “I am an example!”
Roy immediately remembered. Isn’t that so? Sparda is worshipped as a savior in the human world. Worshiping a demon as a god is naturally spreading faith.
In fact, it was more than that. Nowadays, demon worship could be said to be a common occurrence in human worlds. The reason for this phenomenon was very complicated and cumbersome to explain, but no matter what, it was a trend, or rather, the direction of the general trend.
“There shouldn’t be many ancient angels and ancient demons still living, right?” Roy asked.
“Yes, it can even be said that they are very scarce!” Sparda nodded. “Precisely because these ancient angels were born out of the need for war, their methods are different from that of new generation angels. Their emphasis is on allowing those who obey to live and killing those who disobey. This radicalness has caused their preaching in the other world to be very unsuccessful. They can only rely on the light clan, the Lumen Sages, to help them expand their influence… And because of this radical method of the ancient angels, it has led to the dark clan, the Umbra Witches, fighting against them.
“The Umbra Witches summon demons from the Demon World and use the power of demons to fight against the Lumen Sages and angels!” Sparda explained. “It’s precisely because of the confrontation of the Witches that the balance between light and darkness in that world has been maintained. This has also made the angels hate them. Therefore, they have long been instigating human believers to hunt the Witches. After all, although the ancient angels look a little ugly, the warmth of holy light power is still attractive to humans…”
“That Balder, you said that he is the last Lumen Sage. What’s going on?” Roy asked.
“Probably a few hundred years ago, when I was still wandering between the human world and the Demon World, I went to the other world at that time by chance,” Sparda said. “And I happened to experience the greatest war between the Lumen Sages and the Umbra Witches. I’m not too sure about the cause of this war, but in that war, the Witches were lucky to win. The Lumen Sages lost and were killed until only one remained. That is Balder. He is the wielder of the ‘Right Eye of Light’ of the Lumen Sages!”
“The Right Eye of Light? What is that?”
“It’s… a kind of divine artifact!” Sparda deliberated over his words and answered, “Correspondingly, there’s the ‘Left Eye of Darkness’! These two things come from Aesir, an extremely powerful Archangel on the side of Heaven during the Antiquity War!”
“Archangel?!” Roy was shocked and gasped. “You mean there’s an existence at the Archangel level in the other world?”
Julia, Benia, and the others were also alarmed when they heard this, and they were whispering in their heart that they fortunately did not rashly chase after them…
“Don’t worry. Listen to me slowly!” Sparda waved his hand. “The history of the Eternal War in these twin worlds is far longer than you know. Don’t tell me you really think that the Eternal War here is just our group of demon lords fighting for thousands of years?”
“Okay, I won’t interrupt. Continue!” Roy spread his hands helplessly.
“The Antiquity War refers to a period of time about ten thousand years ago. It might be traced back even further. In other words, it was probably more than twenty thousand years ago!” Sparda said. “Demons don’t have the habit of recording history, so many demons in the Demon World have no idea what happened during that time… During the Antiquity War, the strongest force on the angels’ side was Archangel Aesir! Although his name isn’t as resounding and widely spread as Archangels like Gabriel and Michael, he is as powerful as them!”
“How many wings does this Archangel Aesir have?” Roy suddenly asked.
“Six. Why are you asking this?” Sparda asked curiously.
“It’s okay. Continue!” Roy did not explain and shook his head to signal him to continue. But he could not help but think that Sparda was referring to the demon-king level clones of Gabriel and the others when he said that Aesir was not weaker than them…
Now that Roy understood the true situation about clones, he knew that, just like demons, there should be another level above Archangel in the angel camp. It corresponded to the Deadly Sin Demon King level in the demon camp. Roy did not know what to call it for the time being, but since Archangel Aesir was six-winged, it was highly likely that he was only at the demon king level.
Because… the Gabriel and Raphael whom Roy had encountered so far were both such six-winged clones. The power level of these clones was at the demon king level…
Sparda did not know what Roy was thinking. He continued, “The strongest power on the angels’ side was Aesir, and the strongest power on the demons’ side was an equally powerful golden demon named Argosax! And Argosax was the ruler of all demons at that time! Mundus can only be regarded as the second ruler…”
Second ruler? So Mundus is a second hokage?