Chapter 243: Master Strategy
"..." All of us candidates for the throne began to be moved to the battlefield. The battlefield area is a forest with black trees, a place called the [Demon King’s Valley], a location where all fights between the children of the demon kings tend to happen.
The sky here is gray. Even during the day, with the sun hot, the sky here remains gray, making it impossible to see the sun, but it’s not exactly dark. The ground is also dark gray.
I’m dressed in a black dress, while I’m wearing my mask, which is white and contrasts well with my dress. It’s the same mask I used when I was an adventurer.
Eve is wearing light black plate armor. She’s wearing the black mask she used when she was an adventurer with me. The battle will take place in the Demon King’s Valley in a very controlled manner.
With rules. The first rule is not to leave the combat area, which is the entire forest. If you leave, you lose. This is to prevent excessive damage to the continent. Actually, the appearance of this forest is precisely the fault of these fights.
Another rule is that no one starts near anyone else; everyone is positioned at the edges of the forest. So you have to wander around, searching through magic, but the place has such a high density of Hikishin that it’s hard to find anyone through magic.
"It seems we’re arriving at our point, Evelyn-sama," Eve says, her hand on her sword.
"...Yes... we’re arriving." The special carriage begins to stop at a spot in the forest. There’s a white platform with a circle drawn in the middle. I get out of the carriage and step onto the platform.
The circle immediately turns red. The fight begins when the circles turn green, because that means everyone has reached their correct points.
"Evelyn-sama, where is your little army?" Eve asks curiously.
"It’s a bit far from here, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll control them from afar anyway, using the puppets’ vision as if it were my own." I take a deep breath, knowing I have this advantage.
Luckily, Augustus’s blessing can’t be used here. Because even though Augustus could force people, they are still real people, so his blessing was nullified by the rules.
Laplace’s blessing isn’t that great either. It’s powerful, but it’s easily the second least useful, above only Augustus’s blessing, which loses any use, although Augustus’s Domain works well, since his Domain creates clones of people and is considered a direct power.
"Eve, I need you to prepare, because as soon as this starts, things are going to get chaotic." I say, taking a deep breath. I stare at the circle on the ground; by its color, it indicates that 5 people are already on top, only one is left.
"I’ll be with you and protect you at any moment, Evelyn-sama, don’t worry." Eve speaks while I stare at her mask. I can feel her determination even if I can’t see her face.
"Of course..." I have a crazy plan to force the fight to an even more intense level. I mentally prepare myself for what’s to come.
"Evelyn-sama, how exactly will this work? Can you explain it to me now?"
"Sure. The fight works through rules. I won’t tell you all of them, but what matters is knowing that the fight only ends when there’s only one victor left."
"If you lose a fight, it’s up to the winner’s choice to decide to spare you or kill you. You can’t give up, and there are no ties. So if you get into a fight with someone, you either win or you run away until you lose them to recover."
"If you’re spared, you’re out of the fight and can’t return, losing your chance at the throne..." I look down, seeing the light begin to change color.
"Eve, there’s no time to explain the rest. Just know that this fight could last weeks, maybe more. However, I’m going to speed it up a bit." Eve looks confused, but as soon as the color turns green, I stomp the ground hard to create a base and start releasing magic.
The amount of magic is so immense that it completely covers the entire forest for the first 3 to 5 seconds, and quickly all my siblings notice what I’m doing. In 5 different points in the forest, magic surges with an absurd density, with very small time differences.
We are all raising our Domains at the same time, however, instead of just expanding them to capture an enemy, we are expanding them to cover the entire forest.
And I knew they would fall for this bait. The larger a Domain, the more magic it consumes. However, my Domain, unlike the others, doesn’t have such a high cost because it’s not good for combat or abstract; it’s a more physical Domain, well-defined and simple.
The entire forest area is covered by a giant black dome. The magic is so strong that outside the barrier, it breaks, and trees, rocks, and animals are flung away.
The Domains overlap and begin to merge. Everything is darkness before the form slowly starts to emerge. What was once a black forest becomes a white tiled floor like ceramic, an obvious mix of Lucien’s Domain floor with Esther’s Domain floor.
The entire place is completely flat, a change that surely arose because of Laplace’s Domain, which is flat. The sky gains a pastel pink tone mixed with large red squares like curtains.
A mix of my Domain with Marie’s Domain. The trees of the place mingled with the Domain’s scenery itself, but the shape of the trees became like thousands of giant swords thrust into the ground, which I judge to represent Augustus’s Domain.
On the horizon, a large solid black wall is visible, with giant red curtains and a grandstand in front of the curtains. The grandstands have the design of Lucien’s arena stands, but they are made of wood like those of a theater.
While the walls that limit the space are clearly my stage. The entire Domain area gained many aspects of my Domain because I expanded first with a 5-second advantage, allowing me to gain more space.
The sky gains some static white cracks that are obviously representations of Esther’s Domain, which is totally white and empty. The scenery is complete, suffocating chaos from so much emitted magic.
For a normal demon, staying inside here would be guaranteed death from Hikishin poisoning, but for us who own the Domains, the effect is greatly reduced.
However, since there are 6 Domains, the advantages of each Domain were reduced to less than 10% of their original power, and this does exactly what I wanted. Everyone is spending an extreme amount of magic without being able to enjoy almost any benefit.
And I know, Lucien and I are the only ones who have Domains that, being physical, don’t spend more Hikishin after being raised, while the others, who have abstract Domains, constantly spend magic to maintain the shape of the place.
"Haa... Haaa..." I pant, exhausted. Regardless that I don’t spend more magic now, I expanded a Domain the size of a kingdom.
"Evelyn-sama, are you alright?" Eve asks, catching me in her arms.
"I-I’m fine... just a little tired..." With the little advantage my Domain provides me, I can hide without difficulty.
"Eve, carry me to the edge of the Domain, near the grandstands." I’ll stay hidden over there. With these Domains active, tracking becomes impossible. I’ll let them finish each other off while I wait and use the 30 thousand standard puppets to tire my siblings out even more.
"..." Eve picks me up in her arms and starts running, leaping between the cables of the swords that form this forest of swords. The Domain is nauseating, so chaotic. Just looking at the sky seems like a vision you’d see at the end of the world.
"Evelyn-sama, some of the swords are made of candy," Eve says as I look at one of the swords she stepped on and broke.
"Hahaha, I imagine that’s Marie’s fault; her Domain is with sweets." I say, smiling at that. It’s chaotic, but it undoubtedly has its funny touch. Probably everyone will soon notice that the Domains are a bad disadvantage, but they won’t be able to deactivate them.
Because for each Domain deactivated, the other Domains gain more power. So deactivating your Domain is exposing yourself too much, creating a weak point they don’t need.
’Esther and Marie have an absurd amount of magic, so both should be able to maintain their Domains for a long time without so many problems. Now Augustus and Laplace, both could last a week at most, and that’s without counting the expenditure they’ll have in fights...’ This will cause a fight that could last months to not even last a few days.
None of them would use their Domain at the start, but with my tactic, I cowardly forced everyone to use their Domains. They didn’t know whose was the first Domain, so they needed to act on impulse since they couldn’t detect the magic properly.
’But undoubtedly they’ll soon notice that the first Domain is mine, since it’s the most visible among all the others.’ I cling to Eve, letting her carry me while I start moving the puppets.
I can’t help but smile. I caught everyone with this move. If you raise a Domain inside an already active Domain, your Domain comes out weaker and with less power. In other words, if you want to tie, you need to create it at the same time.
They would have known the raised Domain was mine if they had waited to see, and if they had known it was mine, they wouldn’t have activated theirs because I’m the weakest. But they didn’t want to risk it, because it could have been Esther’s or Lucien’s Domain, which would give them absurd advantages.
They risked everything and failed because I led them into error. And that’s hilarious. The one who was the family failure tricked everyone simply by playing the craziest cards possible on the table and bluffing.
I manipulated everyone’s threat perception, expanding my Domain to the largest possible size so everyone would think whoever was raising the Domain was powerful. Esther would be so proud of my intelligence if she weren’t, for sure, getting filled with hatred for having been deceived.
I can’t say I feel proud, but I feel... satisfied. Satisfied to have control, at least once in my life. I knew, I always knew this plan would work.
Because I predicted my siblings like pieces on a board. From the moment the second Domain was raised, everyone was forced to raise theirs too. The only way my plan could fail was if no one raised a Domain.
But we have Augustus. That paranoid boy would never stay still. I’m sure he was the first among my 5 siblings to activate his Domain. I knew he would do that, and when he activated his, it triggered a cascade effect where everyone activated theirs in sequence, like domino pieces.
"..." That’s why I’m satisfied, even though my "heart" is pounding wildly. Because I managed to create such a brilliant plan that I deceived my 5 siblings, all intelligent and powerful people, but who fell behind because they underestimated their failure of a sister too much.