God-Tier Enhancement: My Upgrades Never Fail-Chapter 248: Episode _Thug of Light and Darkness (5)

7.

The bad blood between Aria and Grokile dated back hundreds of years.

It began with the story of the Five Heroes, who appeared like a comet when the demons first began invading the continent. Casualties were piling up, and people were starting to think the continent might truly fall into demon hands. By that point, it was already the mid-stage of the demon invasion recorded in the chronicles. The problem, of course, was that the “mid-stage” to the very end still spanned decades.

In any case, Grokile had crossed over at the very moment the Five Heroes appeared and dramatically pulled the continent back from the brink. At that time, he had been under power restrictions.

He spent decades clashing with the heroes, taking damage, and fighting on. In the final phase, when the demons had been pushed back to the point of being almost completely expelled from the continent, he met Aria. She was one of the many Celestials summoned by the Pope of that era, who was himself one of the Five Heroes.

It wasn’t as if he had wanted to meet her. He was just one of many demons trying to flee and find an opening to slip back into the Demon World. Aria, who was roaming around trying to kill even one more demon, happened to discover him.

Naturally, when they ran into each other on that metaphorical narrow bridge, they both immediately checked their surroundings. They weren’t the upper-rank beings they were now; they were both mid-rank, so it was only natural to see if either of them had reinforcements.

Fortunately, once they confirmed that there were no other demons or Celestials nearby, they sized each other up.

’Can I win?’

’He looks manageable...’

As it happened, both of them felt confident they could win.

So, without much in the way of words, they clashed.

In a meeting between a man and a woman, one might expect talk of affection, or that after rolling around together in a secluded forest, fighting to the death, some strange feelings might arise. They had no such nonsense. They simply fought with every ounce of strength they had.

They fought, and in the end, Grokile won.

It had been an extremely long, grueling battle. They had used every dirty trick they could think of and brought out every trump card they had. He was in the middle of a retreat and had no intention of losing to some rookie Celestial, so he truly fought with his life on the line.

Maybe he was also bitter about the demons being driven off the continent. He might be retreating, but it wasn’t because he was weak. He wanted to prove that.

With that desperate determination, he finally knocked her down, climbed on top of her, and savored the demons’ victory.

“Bwahahaha! As expected, you’re just a weak little Celestial bitch! To think you’re lying here pinned under a demon who’s so exhausted he can barely lift his weapon!”

Normally, he would have killed her on the spot.

But Grokile didn’t. It wasn’t because he had some other plan; he was simply, purely elated.

He was so resentful about having to retreat like this. He had fought so hard for decades, and now, instead of hearing that the demons had been beaten back by some damned god, he had to listen to mockery about how they had tucked their tails and run because of humans.

He wanted to vent that humiliation before he left. Even if he went back to the Demon World, he wanted to be able to say, at least for himself, that he hadn’t returned with nothing but shame.

“Hmph! In the end, you’re just a dog of the retreating demons!”

She remained silent.

But even that desire wasn’t enough to satisfy his urge to see the Celestial’s abasement in the face of death. Aria had been that kind of Celestial, even back then.

Grokile’s face twisted into a scowl.

“Insolent Celestial wench. I may be going back to the Demon World, but before I go, I’ll leave you with a humiliation you’ll never wash away for the rest of your life.”

She did not respond.

There was no need to talk about humanity or any such thing between them. Appealing to emotion was pointless; they were the kind of beings who could brawl just because they happened to be breathing the same air. In fact, in many of the battles that took place on the continent, the focus had been less on killing the enemy and more on leaving them with lasting humiliation. After all, for demons and Celestials who had crossed the Gate under restrictions, death was not annihilation but a return, unless something extraordinary happened.

Grokile was thinking along the same lines. Killing the Celestial in front of him wouldn’t change anything. Aria returning to the Celestial Realm wouldn’t suddenly swing the war in favor of the demons, whose defeat was already all but certain. It would just be helping her get home a little faster.

With that in mind, he decided and immediately put his thoughts into action. That was the kind of race demons were.

He froze.

However, Grokile’s intentions did not fully come to fruition.

He had spent too long fighting Aria. Celestials were approaching from the distance.

Grokile had two choices: flee as he was and safely return to the Demon World, or accept the risk of death and vent his anger.

Grokile chose the latter.

He couldn’t carry out the vile act he had been considering, so instead, he bit Aria’s waist.

An indelible mark.

It might not have had any particular meaning, but in any case, that was where the rift in their feelings toward each other began.

And hundreds of years later, they met again.

As an upper-rank demon and an upper-rank angel.

In a pure state, without any restrictions on their power.

Even after centuries, sparks were bound to fly.

“Is my mark still on your waist, Celestial bitch?”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Settling what we left unfinished back then, in front of all these spectators, sounds like fun. Bwahaha!”

“Hmph. Then again, remembering how you pathetically begged for your life at our youngest’s feet... perhaps reminding you of that day isn’t such a bad idea.”

“You Celestial wench!”

“Your breath stinks. Just what I’d expect from the Demon World.”

After a brief exchange of taunts, their figures vanished.

BOOM—

Their attacks collided.

Even a single exchange unleashed a tremendous shockwave.

They gritted their teeth against the impact.

The shock was palpable.

It was a clash on a level neither the demons nor the special forces could dare to enter.

They all backed away, watching each other warily.

It was the only sane choice.

If they jumped in trying to “help,” they would be blown away in a single hit.

And was there anything dumber than dying because you couldn’t read the room?

Those who had come to shine on the main stage of the war were now mere spectators.

*

BOOM!

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

“Man, they’re really going at it.”

“Is it alright to just leave them be? One of them could actually die.”

“If that happens, then that’s their fate.”

Even from this far away—well outside the battlefield proper—the ground shook from the racket the two were making. Han Simin clicked his tongue.

Despite Kardian’s concern, he didn’t particularly care if someone got hurt or died.

This was a strange attitude for Simin, a man who despised losing or having anything of his taken.

Simin dismissed her concern with a simple explanation.

“I already told Squeaker. If it looks like one of them is going to die, he’s to break up the fight and keep them alive.”

Kardian remained silent.

“They’re family now, after all. If they have something to get off their chests, they should do it and move on. I can’t just sit here watching them growl at each other forever, always walking on eggshells. That just makes things awkward for the people stuck in the middle.”

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

Judging by the sound, it seemed less like she was worried about the people in the middle and more like she had simply let them fight so she could go do her own work in peace. The wise Kardian, however, did not voice such thoughts.

“You are right. Whether human, demon, or Celestial, pent-up grudges only get in the way of work. I merely asked because I was worried your precious Gold Dragon might be injured.”

A trailblazer of social grace!

A model example of someone who had racked up forty-one praise points!

At Kardian’s honeyed flattery, Simin’s shoulders squared proudly as he accepted it without hesitation.

“You don’t have to worry. I already told him he can spend as much Gold as he needs if things get dangerous!”

When it came to compliments, he had no concept of modesty.

And he didn’t stop there.

“Of course, those two bastards will be the ones paying back every last bit of Gold he spends. It’s their fight that’s costing me money, after all.”

Kardian was speechless.

“They’re an upper-rank demon and Celestial. No matter what, I can make money off them somehow.”

Kardian could find no words.

’How unsettling.’

This exchange gave Kardian a new insight.

She still couldn’t fathom the depths of the human called Han Simin, but she had at least reached the point where she could read his intentions from his words and expressions.

’He’s more afraid of the Gold Dragon spending Gold than of a demon or Celestial dying.’

And she was certain of one more thing.

’He really might sell a demon or a Celestial to humans just to make money.’

As for how to sell them, a dragon who had lived for thousands of years could think of hundreds of methods off the top of her head.

The resulting shame would be something even a demon or a Celestial would struggle to endure.

All she could do was click her tongue and offer a silent prayer.

’Just let them trade a few blows and tire themselves out.’

8.

The rabbits couldn’t care less about the war, the fate of the continent, or any of that crap.

They simply wandered around, shaking down any humans they ran into, ambushing monsters, and, on the rare occasion they encountered a black mage, checking their guts first.

That was how they’d made their money.

Most of it was junk, of course, but they steadily collected glittering gold coins and jewels. Whenever their bags were about to overflow, they would return to the Rich Territory to drop everything off.

Because of this, the rabbits’ path was completely erratic.

They were like a flock of sheep, following any large group of people they found.

Though calling them a flock of sheep felt a bit too generous, given how thuggish they were. The point was, they chased people without any particular destination in mind, and before they knew it, they had arrived at the battlefield where the black mages and the Continental Army were fighting.

It was the result of one coincidence piled upon another, though the probability of such an event had admittedly increased.

After all, if a large group of people on the continent was on the move, there was an eighty-percent chance they were heading for the battlefield.

In any case, the Rabbits arrived and discovered a paradise.

“Kkyu kkyu kkyu!”

Items were strewn all over the outer edges of the battlefield.

There’s no rule saying fights have to happen only within the main war zone.

In the chaos of battle, some people drifted away from the front lines, while others clashed while maneuvering strategically around the perimeter.

These were the traces they left behind.

All things that would turn into money if you picked them up!

Yet in the middle of a war, no one had the leeway to stoop and gather such things, so they lay scattered on the ground, slowly being forgotten.

Once the war ended, they would eventually be recovered. But not now.

If you weighed yourself down picking up scrap metal only to get stabbed for it, you’d only have yourself to blame.

So the rabbits got to work.

There was so much that it seemed their individual magic pouches wouldn’t be enough, so they started by grabbing the small, shiny things first.

Even then, there were so many items that the ninety Rabbits struggled to gather them all.

They didn’t need to worry about running out of things to pick, even after being selective. The battlefield stretching before them was proof that what they saw now was just the beginning—a mere drop in the bucket.

Countless people and monsters were tangled together, so it might have been dangerous, but the Rabbits didn’t worry about such things.

Han Simin had not raised them to think that way.

“Kkyu kkyu!”

After all, hadn’t they spent more than half their lives recovering items?

This kind of battlefield.

They were used to it.

And slipping in to snatch only the items while everyone else was busy killing and being killed?

That was the Rabbits’ specialty.

After much wandering, the Rabbits, too, joined the battlefield.

*