Diablo had no reason to allow any enemy soldiers to escape in the first place.
After receiving the order from Rimuru, Diablo merrily strode onto the battlefield. Following the signs of Krishna that he had detected, he discovered the enemy’s command tent and took a look inside. Then he was accosted by Bernie and Jiwu, but since he had no intention of letting any Empire soldiers escape, he quickly opted to deal with them on the spot.
They were much stronger than he thought.
Well, well, well… Even with my unique skills tuned to maximum, these two remain unaffected? But it appears their powers are borrowed from someone else. They are unbalanced, you could say—I doubt they’ve actually awakened to any of these abilities. And if they haven’t, I can still work with this.
Despite his slight puzzlement, Diablo was still reliably in command from start to finish as he dispatched the two Single Digits.
Misha, who came over in a hurry once she saw what was going on, quickly revealed that she was working for Yuuki. Rimuru had a tacit agreement to fight alongside Yuuki, and Diablo would never go against his will, so he let her go free.
But were those ultimate skills they had? I still resent how much Guy bragged about his to me long ago, but perhaps this is worth investigating…
Diablo was never one to shy away from any chance to become stronger—and here, too, he abandoned all self-restraint. If he found something effective, he’d take advantage of it; that’s how the demon was. But despite this newfound interest in ultimate skills, he didn’t lose sight of his mission.
Returning to the Empire’s camp, he easily made his way inside, invoking End of the World to take the lives of anyone he saw. He worked quickly, indiscriminately, and without any hesitation or concern as he slaughtered them all.
Caligulio was now screaming in front of Diablo. It made the demon chuckle a bit.
The commander had now surpassed all limits of the human body. Maybe he had the potential to do this all along. By this point, he was well past Enlightened, his energy growing higher and higher.
Awakening out of sheer despair, eh? It looks like his sense of guilt is bringing him to a higher level. And that makes him much more worthy to fight me.
For most of his existence, Diablo had little interest in gaining strength. But now he thirsted for it—all so he could be a helpful servant, or tool, for Rimuru, the lord who he served. In his mind, a tool was meaningless unless it could prove its usefulness to its master. Needless tools had no value in existing, as far as he was concerned. That was why Diablo never fielded any of his own servants. He always preferred to live alone, rather than put up with a bunch of incompetents below him.
Along those lines, Diablo never forgot his own ambitions to become stronger, more capable. And fighting someone as strong as this was an opportunity like none other for him.
As Caligulio heard what seemed like a distant scream, he awoke. Power coursed through his veins, a ferocious power like none he had ever experienced. Overwhelming, he thought. The answer, despair, and terror from having his friends killed became the key to shattering his own limitations—and this, right now, was exactly what Emperor Ludora was anticipating from him all along.
He actually said it to Caligulio in person once: “I have high hopes for you.” Caligulio had never forgotten that day. He thought His Majesty meant that he’d become an army commander and serve the Empire with value—but he misinterpreted the emperor’s words.
This was it. This was it the whole time. His Majesty, Emperor Ludora, wanted me to awaken!
And when he realized that, he understood. Everything that had happened to him up until then really was meaningful.
Caligulio was no longer just Enlightened—he had become a Saint. Every cell in his body blended together, his spirit surpassing his physical form. He could easily tell that his body was being remade; transformed. The power was tremendous, on par with an awakened demon lord. And now that he was awakened to it, he realized just how incompetent he had been until now. Not just him—everyone. With this now at his fingertips, the entire Armored Division seemed like a bunch of cheap toys. The Empire’s military, as it stood now and before, never had a chance of beating Veldora, nor any demon lord.
“I—I was such a fool…”
“Keh-heh-heh-heh-heh… You’re exactly right.”
“But now… Now I swear I’ll make up for all my mistakes!”
The moment he shouted that, a shining suit of divine armor wrapped itself around his body. It was God-class armor, handed down from the time of ancient gods and gifted to him from the emperor. Only the Marshal and the three commanders were allowed to use this armor, which served as proof that its wearer ranked among the Empire’s very best. Now, at long last, it had recognized Caligulio as its true master.
“You’ll pay for this, demon! I’m gonna mow you down!”
“Keh-heh-heh-heh-heh… It would hardly be fun otherwise.”
The two sides glared at each other, and the final battle began.
Exercising the limits of his power, Caligulio sent out a full-throttle strike to start. His fist, protected by a gauntlet, was a deadly weapon in itself, capable of smashing through almost any material in this world. The tip of his fist exceeded the speed of sound, not even leaving an afterimage as it traversed the realms of mythology. The shock wave it produced shattered any physical being’s defense, destroying its very molecular bonds—and the spirit inside his fist could pass through the heart’s barrier and damage one’s astral body, letting him kill any spiritual life-form.
Caligulio knew Diablo’s name. He was one of Rimuru’s Big Four, and his real identity was an evil demon. That, and—incredibly enough—the report he saw claimed he was now a Demon Peer, something that existed only in legend before. He had previously scoffed at the Imperial Information Bureau’s investigations, but he could believe every word of that dossier. If two Single Digits challenged Diablo and died, that made him a truly fearsome adversary.
But all his fear was now gone.
He’s a horrible demon, I’ll grant you that—but now I can take him. With this power, I can defeat anything—True Dragons, demon lords, even Heroes!
If you awarded a score of one to a person of average strength, the physical ability of someone designated A rank would be at least ten. For a high-ranked magic-born, it was close to a hundred; for an Arch Demon, they’d notch up 140. A demon lord would probably be at least three hundred, and while a True Dragon was impossible to measure, estimates pinned it at over a thousand. Now, Caligulio realized, his own power was in the quadruple digits as well—a world that only a Saint could ever reach. And that wasn’t all. He was wearing God-class armor, mythical gear whose energy was comparable to his own.
It was more than enough to be able to destroy a Demon Peer. He was convinced of that, and it wasn’t hard to see why.
“Hmm… A tad disappointing.”
But his killer fist was lightly brushed away by Diablo.
“No!”
“Oh, do you have a question?”
“Why—why are you still unharmed?!”
That one blow should’ve been able to destroy any demon. Seeing him unscathed was simply ridiculous. He refused to accept it.
“Why? It’s simple. You don’t have the skill level required to handle that power.”
The awful truth was delivered as casually as the day’s weather.
“The skill level?”
“Yes. It’s quite a pity for me, too. It was too early for you to fight. If this is how things are, the duo from before were more powerful. They both boasted ultimate skills, albeit borrowed. If you had awakened to this power sooner than now, this would’ve been a much more exciting battle… But alas.”
Fruit needs to ripen before it tastes sweet. Diablo was lamenting the fact that he picked this one off the tree far too soon. But all this was an insult Caligulio was too loath to admit.
“God dammit! Don’t you belittle me, you demon bastard!!”
He could shout all he wanted, but the situation was already grim. Caligulio understood that. He knew he couldn’t beat the demon in front of him.
But what piqued his curiosity was the secret of the Single Digits’ power Diablo just inadvertently revealed. They were the strongest fighters in the Empire, handpicked by Emperor Ludora—and the emperor must have been the one who lent them their ultimate powers. Diablo described them as borrowed, not acquired through personal effort, and that was exactly why they didn’t work on him.
If you didn’t have insight into the essence of power, and how to make it your own, then all the strength in the world was meaningless. It was as true for Caligulio as it was for the dead Single Digits. As Diablo put it, he was fighting too soon—a reality he couldn’t deny, no matter how much he wanted to.
“Aaarrrrggghhhh!!”
There was no winning this. He knew it now. But even so, he’d still try with everything he had. He had to retaliate, at the very least, or else all this was for naught. He had to deny that at all costs, and so he challenged Diablo to a truly reckless battle.
But by now, it barely even counted as a fight. For Diablo, who had correctly assessed Caligulio’s current abilities, it was little more than a procedure. Even the God-class armor and all its mighty force couldn’t be fully utilized by Caligulio as he stood now. The armor had accepted him, but they still weren’t at a heart-to-heart level of communication yet. God-class gear had a will of its own, and there simply wasn’t enough time to build a relationship and have this armor truly recognize him as its true master. A tool only had meaning if you could use it well; there was nothing sadder than a tool without a user who could bring out its full potential.
So Caligulio, the last surviving member of the imperial invaders, was defeated, unable to even make Diablo fight him seriously—and with that, his soul was reaped.