#1206 The Demon King’s Big Family Reunion 

I’m utterly bewildered.  

One moment we’re just messing around with a game of catch, and the next we’ve somehow shifted to conspiring to killing someone’s father. 

The Demon King declares out of nowhere that he’s going to murder the Great Demon King. 

I mean, if that finishing move actually lands, there’s no outcome other than death. 

The Demon King Flame-Slaying Dark Dragon Shot. 

It sounds like a knock-off, but it’s legitimately his original miracle ball.  
He infuses the thrown ball with alchemy, coats it in black fire, and hurls it like a speeding bullet, incinerating everything around it on impact. 

You can’t see it at first glance, but at the heart of that writhing dragon-like flame is the ball itself.  
Look there... a little scorched crater where a massive boulder once stood, with the ball just sitting in the ash... 
The terrifying thing is that it doesn’t burn away... 

“Father, the show’s over. Now, you’ll be on the receiving end of that miracle ball.” 

That’s literally the same as saying “drop dead.”  
He probably doesn’t mean it personally, but still. 

Great Demon King Baal stares at the ruins of the farm and asks... 

“Zedan, is there any benefit from doing this?” 
“Of course there is one, Father. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have summoned you here. As Demon King, and as your son, I must reach a new level. This is a rite of passage I must endure!” 

Even saying it sounds crazy. No human body could survive that move.  

Maybe he learned it from Junior and Norito’s miracle ball tricks, but those kids were toddlers. 
When an adult Demon King channels full power into a “finishing” move, well… It’s bound to finish someone off. 

Somebody has to stop this, and I’m the only one who can.  
I was just about to interrupt them when... 

“Very well.” 

Lord Baal actually agrees before I can speak up. 

Why?!  
Wait. Baal was the previous Demon King, right? Does that mean he can actually withstand the explosive pitch?! 

“Heh, unlike you, I was more of a scholar-king than a warrior. I hardly ever set foot on the battlefield. I can’t match the martial prowess of the warrior-overlord who conquered the Human-Demon War. If I take your full power, I’ll be smashed into dust.” 

So, he can’t? 
What’s with his calm, collected attitude, then? 

“But this life of mine, which should have died in a coup, has finally found its purpose. You say this experience will propel you to new heights. If my sacrifice serves that goal, then living this long has been worthwhile.” 

He’s getting all philosophical now.  
What is it with this Demon King family? 

“Come to think of it… Zedan, I never did a single fatherly thing for you.” 
“…?!” 
“I could make excuses—favoring your other siblings, our clashing personalities—but maybe you, of all my children, have been the most filial. You kept this foolish Demon King alive long enough for him to be forced to recognize your worth.” 

Baal sounds almost sincere.  
Have I been wrong about him? I’ve only met him a handful of times, so his true nature remains a mystery. 

“Normally, to justify my usurpation, you’d have every reason to malign me, to slander my name. Yet you did the opposite. You didn’t kill me, gave me the title of Great Demon King, secured my position after abdication, and even restored my reputation.” 
“I understand that Father’s support of arts and culture was an essential policy to enrich the Demon Kingdom. It was just horribly mistimed. An utterly disastrous timing, actually.” 

Sure, civilization and culture are crucial for people to live fulfilling lives.  
I’m not against government promoting the arts, though I can think of other priorities. 

“I’ve finally realized that I’ve never repaid you for everything you’ve done. I’ve wasted so many years. I’ll use this life for your sake. If that upholds my dignity as a father, it’s a small price to pay!” 
“Father… I accept that spirit fully! Then brace yourself for my Demon King Flame-Slaying Dark Dragon Shot!!!” 

A new wave of black flames surges from the Demon King’s mighty arm. 
There’s the ball, right at its core. 

If that lands dead-on, it could wipe out even a level-twenty monster in an instant.  
Lord Baal certainly counts as that. 

Is this to be his final heroic stand?! 

“Ah. Nope. Can’t do it. I’m scared!” 

Miraculously, Baal twists aside at the last second and dodges clean.  
The miracle ball whistles past and slams into the field behind him. 

“Hey, hey, Lord Baal! You said you’d catch it, but you totally didn’t!” 
“Well… when it was right in front of me, I actually thought, ‘Yeah, this will definitely kill me.’ Then I froze up in fear...!” 

Clearly, he moved just fine.  
His dodge was so elegant that I half-expected we’d slipped into some cosmic dodgeball match. 

“Father!” 

A vibrant voice calling out to one’s father. 
But it wasn’t the Demon King’s voice calling out to Lord Baal. Instead, it was the Demon King himself who was being called such. 

“Goetia…” 
“While I was practicing the merfolk’s hidden art, Anemone Stance, that King Arowana taught me, I witnessed an incredible blast tearing through the farm. I came to investigate its source.” 

That’s… awfully on-the-nose exposition. 

“Father, you were on the farm too? And Grandfather was with you? What were you doing there?” 
“Well…!” 

Demon King Zedan had been striving, in his own modest way, for Goetia’s sake—but couldn’t bring himself to admit it. 

“My grandson… your father wanted to grow stronger for you.” 
“Grandfather?” 

Lord Baal straightens up, looking every bit the dignified ruler again, as if he’d never flinched in fear a moment ago. 

“I wished to be a proper father to my children. He even sought guidance from someone as useless a parent as myself. An endearing trait, perhaps, to be so earnest yet so misdirected.” 
“Huh? You learned from Grandfather? The same one your tutors called ‘war criminal,’ ‘artistic tyrant,’ and ‘cubist in the head’?” 
“Guh…” 

Lord Baal had always been the target of scathing commentary. 

“…Hmhmhm. The fact that Zedan felt so cornered he wanted to learn from me speaks volumes. Grandson, look kindly on him. He’s already overwhelmed just by doing the job of Demon King.” 

Lord Baal defends the Demon King. 

“Zedan, don’t get hung up on formality. If you can’t figure out how to be a dad, just have fun together. That’s how I was with my children. It wouldn’t hurt for you to learn from this incompetent father of yours.” 
“Father…” 

Lord Baal even manages a poignant sign-off, wrapping things up neatly... 
As expected of the one who survived a coup without exile or execution. He’s a master of survival...! 

Just as the conversation seems to settle...! 

“Let’s all play catch together, hooon.” 

The goddess of destruction bursts in.  
The lethal half-sister, Princess Marine, joins the fray. 

“M-Marine...?!” 

Goetia, still stiff around his half-sister, freezes solid. 
However... 

“Ohh, if it isn’t Marine! You came here too?” 
“Grandpa, long time no see, hooon.” 

As any grandpa, Lord Baal melts at his granddaughter’s greeting. 

“Father? You know Marine?!” 
“Of course. I see her at my retirement manor every week. We’ve become great friends.” 
“Every week?! You never mentioned that!” 

Zedan gapes at the news. 
So, she’s been making solo trips to Grandpa’s place all along? 

“I also learned from Grandpa. Then I just had to see if it really worked. If I’m curious, I investigate right away!” 
“Guh!” 

Marine’s empirical approach hits poor Goetia like a truck. 

“Playing with Grandpa taught me wit and humor. I’ll bring that to our game of catch, so watch, Grandpa, Papa, Brother!” 

The little girl readies her ball in front of three generations of her family. 

“Black Ball, hoooon!” 

The ball that was thrown shrinks rapidly, compressing tighter and tighter until it’s smaller than a grain of rice, a grain of sand, a molecule, an atom...smaller even than a subatomic particle...until finally, it became a mass of supergravity that swallowed even light itself, appearing as a pitch-black sphere. 
A micro black hole, basically. 

“I mixed up ‘hole’ and ‘ball’ in ‘black hole!’ It’s a pun! I thought I’d make people giggle a little, hooon.” 

…Well, if a black hole actually formed, no one would be smiling. 

And so, Demon Princess Marine, in a stroke of comedic genius, invented a miracle ball and ended up creating an actual black hole. 

How does one even make a black hole, anyway? That part remains a total mystery. 
But the fact that she managed something so far beyond imagination proves she’s a natural-born genius. 

The entire farm nearly got swallowed up and erased by the micro black hole. Fortunately, Letasreit happened to be passing by and instinctively crushed it in her hand, saving the day.