The Demon Kings Cowardly Vessel - Chapter 295

Juin stared down at him for a while. He then offered a hand and said, “You are not. I told you earlier, Luca and I saw that you could transform. While we don’t know why you can’t do it normally, or why you can’t remember it, but you are not damaged. Maybe there’s something that’s blocking your transformation. Whatever it is, I will help you overcome it.”

Wolfe stared into Juin’s eyes, and he could see the conviction in his black eyes, which seemed even blacker than before, of which the glowing magma around them seemed to appear from within.

And a foreign word appeared in his mind.

Retsam…

Wolfe’s eyes flashed as the word appeared in his mind again. He had been hearing this word for a while now, but he could not find the meaning of it. And with it, the urge to submit to Juin was undeniable.

It was a feeling that he could not understand, and his claws extended out, digging into his palms.

“Wolfe, did you hear me?”

“Retsam…” Wolfe muttered.

“What?” Juin raised a brow. Wolfe seemed to have said a foreign word earlier. Seeing that Wolfe merely stare at him, Juin continued, “Wolfe, I will make sure that we go back to Earth alive. If you don’t take my hand now, I’m going to pull it back, because I’m feeling tired leaving it out like this… It’s just a symbol, so you can just imagine my hand is there there, and–”

Wolfe suddenly woke up from his trance, and after a while, he nodded and took Juin’s hand. He was terrified of flames and heat, but he was also afraid of living here forever. Atlantis was not a good place for a land-based shapeshifter like him.

When he stood up, Juin smiled at him and handed him another Rank B non-weaponry item, a pair of shoes that would allow him to walk on water.

“This is…” Wolfe mumbled, “Am I joining the circus?”

Juin thought about it for a while before saying, “Put that on, I will give you something else.”

…

Meanwhile, what Juin did not know was that Hades’ body stirred slightly upon hearing the word “Retsam” earlier… And another hairline crack appeared on one of the chains as his red eye opened and glowed eeriely.

If Lucifer were inside, he might have been able to sense the crack, as well as the flow of power. But no, he was outside with Juin. Thus, the only one who noticed was the fairy. The little fairy had been flying around, completely bored out of its mind, when Hades suddenly appeared in midair and stared at nothing in particular.

…

After strapping on the items on them instead of keeping them in their bags or pockets, the three teenagers stood at the side of the volcano opening.

Truth be told, all of them were nervous.

“Let’s… go?” Juin suddenly felt a little uncertain. He was about to take a huge risks with the lives of others, so naturally, there was a little discomfort knowing that he might bring them to their deaths.

Wolfe gulped as he looked at the boiling pit of magma below. “I-I guess…?”

“One question…” Luca suddenly said. “Do we activate our soul shields when jumping down?”

Juin and Wolfe turned and looked at him in unison.

“When our soul shields are up, it enveloped even the items on us. What if the thing down there couldn’t sense the aura in the items because of it? The things that we threw in earlier did not have any forms of shields.”

Hearing his explanation, Juin fell into deep thought. He seemed to be fighting internally with himself as his expressions kept changing while he ran through different thoughts. All of a sudden…

“What the…” Luca’s and Wolfe’s eyes went wide open.

Juin had suddenly slapped himself, much to their surprise, bringing thoughts of whether this guys had finally gone cuckoo from the stress. After all, in their knowledge, he was the only one who had never been put through this kind of life and death situation.

So, what Juin did next kind of surprised them.

They watched as he stood up with much difficulty. And with his legs still shaking to the point that he had to put a hand on Wolfe’s shoulder, he gulped and patted his c.h.e.s.t with his other hand. “I gah… I mean, I’ll go.”

Luca looked at him from top to toe and back again. He then sneered, “You can’t even stand properly, or even speak. How are you going to do this?”

“Re…” Juin cleared his throat and told himself to be braver. He then looked at Luca and said with a much stronger conviction, “Regardless, there’s no one who can do better than me in this situation, is there? So, I will go first.”

He then stood at the edge. After taking a few deep breaths, he activated his soul shield and enhanced them until it was at Enhanced Flame Shield. He then glanced at his teammates one last time before jumping in.

At first, his mind was filled with all sorts of scary thoughts, such as him being burned alive by the magma should it fail. But after a few seconds, he told himself, “I’d probably be burned alive before I could feel the pain… right?”

“10… 9… 8…” He counted down. He was getting closer and closer to the pool of magma. Glancing back, Wolfe and Luca were now looking more like the surrounding rocks instead of two human figures in his eyes. He then looked back down at the magma.

And the heat itself did not bother him much.

“Something’s wrong…” Juin thought nervously. By estimation, he had less than 6 seconds left, but he did not see any diagram appearing on the wall of the volcano. “F*ck! 4, 3… F.U.C.K!”

In the last few seconds, with mere inches between his head and the pool of magma, he completely removed his soul shield, taking a gamble with his life. The moment he did so, he could feel the burning heat, and when he was hit by the flying burning rocks, it hurt really bad. It hurt worse than the time he accidentally touched a burning iron.

He swore he could smell burnt skin amidst the horrible rotten egg smell.

“Juin! Activate your shield!” Lucifer yelled. He had been flying down with Juin the whole time.

However, his words went to deaf ear. Juin wanted to save himself, but he had to make sure of the right way to get the attention of the creature.

Covering his eyes with the inner side of his elbow, he then prayed that if this was the end, then for this to be a quick, painless death. “I’m sorry, Lucifer! I can’t help you!” he murmured, feeling bad for abandoning Lucifer just because he wanted to be a hero. But he brought everyone into this, and he felt responsible.

“JUIN!!!” Wolfe shouted when he saw that Juin had removed his Enhanced Flame Shield, while Luca looked on worriedly, his hands grabbed onto the straps of the bag so tightly that they cut into his palms.

“0.” Juin thought with his eyes still closed and tightly pressed against his inner arm.