I Swear I'm Not a Demon Masquerading as a Human

Chapter 60: Lance's Hellish Performance

The dimly lit stage was bathed in brilliant beams of light, resembling stars ignited against the night sky. As the Poet of Boundless Love placed a hand over her heart and bowed gracefully, the stage lights dimmed, and a melody began to play.

At the back of the stage, Lance played with incredible focus. His fingers caressed the keys as he began the movements of the "Overture to Hell."[1] Meanwhile, at the front of the stage, the Poet wore a wild, unrestrained smile as she sang with her ethereal, heavenly voice.

The four judges in the audience frowned fiercely, their eyes darting across the stage as expressions of dissatisfaction and impatience began to appear on their faces. This overture was not powerful, so it was not what they had wanted to hear.

Yet, just as they were struggling to fathom this student's intentions, Lance played the keys with his left hand while his right hand, as if by magic, rapidly produced and immediately activated a series of Spell Cards!

They were all from the Flawed Healing series, radiating an aura of restoration and rebirth. Without a moment's hesitation, Lance poured his full strength into channeling these healing spells directly onto Blighted Toxicant. This was a classic case of using a potent remedy to treat a deep-seated, chronic ailment!

"Aaaah!!!"

An endless surge of agony erupted within the Blighted Toxicant. Before anyone could even react, he began to convulse violently, as if ensnared by a frenzied serpent, and a blood-curdling scream tore from his throat. The sound echoed through the theater and instantly engulfed the entire hall.

The Poet's enchanting melody resonated across the stage, yet the music struck like a venomous snake, piercing deep into Blighted Toxicant's ears. His screams intensified as a tidal wave of agony was unleashed, and he lost all ability to maintain his composure or rationality.

"You!" The voice of the presiding examiner rang out from the side of the stage. He had intended to stop Lance, only to realize that the Demon Eye monitoring the proceedings showed no reaction.

Although he was surprised, he instantly understood what was going on. The magic Lance had cast was not offensive in nature, nor had it inflicted any actual damage.

However, what followed made it impossible for the presiding examiner to maintain his usual composure. Everything changed so rapidly, so quickly that not a single demon present could immediately grasp how the unfolding catastrophe had come to pass!

"Stop! Quick, stop!! Spare me!!!"

Blighted Toxicant wailed with a harrowing intensity, like a beast being torn apart in the dead of night. This agonizing shriek carried a psychic assault far more potent than anything the demons present could muster. The students acted as if they had been struck by a massive electric shock. They clutched their heads in a frenzy and trembled as they endured a mental onslaught that pushed them beyond their limits.

There on the stage, the Poet stood bathed in the spotlight, singing with abandon. Her melodious voice drifted through the theater, standing in stark contrast to the instructor's wretched wailing. Her sweet voice, however, brought no relief. Instead, it amplified tenfold the bitter anguish caused by Blighted Toxicant's psychic attack on the students.

The demon students could take no more. Their own wails and howls echoed through the classroom like the cries of ghosts. Their minds began to unravel, and their eyes clouded over and darted wildly as if they were all descending into madness.

These new sounds acted like a malicious curse, feeding upon and tormenting one another, repeatedly stimulating and magnifying the agonizing dirge filling the theater. Students driven to even greater depths of suffering unleashed their own tortured cries, creating a feedback loop of agony that, like an avalanche, instantly transformed the theater into a living hell.

Lance had merely dislodged a single small stone to set the classroom's mechanism in motion, but the resulting vicious cycle, gathering momentum like a boulder tumbling down a mountain, was now unstoppable.

Weaker demons like Bakar were already foaming at the mouth and convulsing in their seats, yet, the sheer agony would snap them back to consciousness, only for them to join the chorus of harrowing screams once more. Meanwhile, Hyperion clamped her hands tightly over her ears and buried her head between her knees, silently reciting prayers to the Goddess.

Had she not prepared herself to steady her mind against the Poet beforehand, she, too, would likely have lost her sanity by now. At the side of the stage, the department head, previously the picture of suave composure, was utterly shaken by this hellish scene.

His face drained of color, turning paper-white in an instant. His once-upright posture faltered, and the hand he used to steady himself against the wall trembled violently, as if he were on the verge of collapsing. His eyes were wide with terror, unable to comprehend the reality unfolding before him.

"What are you doing?" The teacher's voice rose to a shout. He had fully grasped the gravity of this performance.

Lance, sitting at the back of the stage, acted as if he hadn't heard a thing. He continued to play the instrument. He even had the composure to explain the physics behind it, speaking as if to himself, "In nuclear fusion, if temperature, pressure, and time all reach a certain threshold, the heat generated is sufficient to sustain the reaction and trigger further fusion. This phenomenon is known as a self-sustaining combustion."

His voice was calm and resonant, like a poet reciting verse. Lance remained serene, apparently unaffected by the chaos engulfing the theater. His eyes were fixed solely on the piano keys. His ears heard nothing but the melody.

The teacher's voice grew shrill. "W-what on earth are you talking about?!"

To him, Lance sounded like he was spouting bizarre, terrifying jargon, words that defied all understanding.

Lance earnestly explained, "This is the fruit of my studies and the artistic concept behind this performance."

Once self-sustaining combustion was achieved, nuclear fusion continued indefinitely, without the need for further energy input. He glanced around the theater, sensing that the pressure within the hall was already sufficient.

He had just over a minute of time left to freely wield his magic. If he could use that window to crank up the temperature, he might just achieve a true state of self-sustaining combustion.

At that point, even if Lance stopped playing and did nothing or even recalled the Poet, this place would remain trapped in an eternal, self-perpetuating loop. It would continue until the four music mentors and all the demon students had their minds burned to a cinder and lost consciousness.

Only then would this nuclear fusion of hellish music finally come to an end. He was confident that the performance, from the emotions and cheers of the demon students to the visual and auditory effects, and even the chaotic, intoxicating atmosphere as everyone drifted into slumber at the end had fully met the four mentors' prior requirements.

"That should satisfy everyone, right?" Sitting at the piano, Lance looked up and surveyed the room. Seeing the four music instructors clearly enjoying themselves, he felt a sense of great accomplishment.

1. Overture to Hell likely refers to Carl Binder’s overture of the 1858 "Orphée aux enfers" operetta by Jacques Offenbach, commonly translated in English as "Orpheus in the Underworld" or "Orpheus in Hell." The overture itself doesn’t contain any vocals, but there’s nothing stopping the Poet from improvising. ☜

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