Chapter 559
"Since the beginning of this war," Arachnae explained, "the Empire’s forces have never dared to spend a full night on ground we have truly claimed. They push, they fall back, they fortify in their clean-dug trenches. But the ’Angel’s’ elite, they now sleep on the very ground we have sown with despair and madness."
"They have built their fortresses on our territory," the Succubus Lord purred, a chilling smile spreading across her lips. "They believe themselves safe. But their very sanctuary is a weapon against them."
"Precisely," Arachnae affirmed. "The corruption of the land subtly, inexorably, preys upon their minds. It gnaws at their resolve, whispers doubts, magnifies fears. It turns comrade against comrade, blurs the line between reality and nightmare. They won’t anticipate this, for it is not a direct attack, but a lingering malaise. And it is already at work."
Arachnae’s idea resonated with a sinister elegance that appealed to the more cunning demons. While the Tunneling Beasts would create physical chaos, this subtle, mental assault would erode the enemy’s cohesion from within.
"My proposal," Arachnae stated, its voice gaining a chilling confidence, "is to amplify this natural effect. We will focus our innate psychic essence, infuse the ground around their new ’fortresses’ with a more concentrated psychic poison. We will seed their dreams with terror, twist their thoughts to paranoia. It will weaken their resolve, slow their reactions, and make them question their leader, their comrades, even their own sanity, long before our main assault."
The Pit Fiend, initially skeptical of anything that wasn’t a direct charge, now nodded slowly. "A war of attrition, then. Not of bodies, but of minds. While the Low tier demons strike their rear, this... this mental erosion will soften their core."
"It requires no great movement, no massive energy expenditure right now," Arachnae emphasized. "Just a focused, continuous permeation of the adjacent land. It is a siege, not of walls, but of the very will."
The demons came to agreement to immediately act on this, this tactic was soemthing that would be continously applied as long as the elite army of the army made their home on the corrrupted lands, they would slowly wear them out.
The other demons exchanged glances. This was a form of warfare they understood, one that played to their inherent strengths of manipulation and corruption. It could be enacted immediately, subtly, without drawing undue attention or risking their own forces.