Chapter 180 : The War Begins (10)
“What I’ve done?” Leo’s lips curled into a cold sneer. “You act as if this was all my doing. I suppose that’s easier than facing the truth: two of your sons have thrown their lot in with the Demonkin.”
“…What?”
The Emperor’s breath caught in his throat. He repeated the word, but it was a dry, rasping sound.
What did he mean?
Two?
Another of his children, a pawn of the Demonkin?
“No,” he choked out, shaking his head in frantic denial. “That can’t be…!”
Leo’s gaze flickered to the severed head of the second prince, lying discarded on the throne room floor. “How do you think we made it this far?”
“That was you, you bastard…!”
“Disable the capital’s wards?” Leo let out a dry chuckle. “How could I, a Demonkin, have slipped past the Empire’s most sacred defenses? No, I simply marched in with the others. Through the open gates, at our leisure. The one who tore down the wards… was my dear second brother, lying right over there.”
“…Ah.”
The Emperor’s world fractured. It wasn’t enough that his long-lost third son had returned as a monster; his second had betrayed everything.
He wanted to deny it, to scream that it was a lie, but he knew his second son’s bottomless greed.
No, perhaps he had known all along. Deep down, he’d recognized the rot in the boy’s character. He was more than capable of orchestrating this. The Demonkin must have promised him the throne.
The fool. To think they would ever honor such a promise.
“…You foolish boy.” The Emperor exhaled, and the air in his lungs felt like ash.
What did it matter that he was a hero of the Great War? He had failed utterly as a father. His firstborn was all that remained, and there was no guarantee he would even survive this war.
“Kkhh…!”
A sharp pain lanced through his side, and the Emperor stared at Leo through a haze of agony.
His son clearly intended to kill him, but he was in no hurry. This was vengeance, slow and deliberate. He wanted to inflict as much pain as possible before the end.
“Why?” The question finally escaped the Emperor’s lips.
It was the one he should have asked from the start. But in his desperate refusal to believe, he had never asked for a reason. How could he have been so foolish?
“Why have you turned your back on your people?” he roared, a final surge of imperial fury in his voice.
Leo’s face twisted into a grotesque mask of rage. “I turned my back on them?”
A vast wave of demonic energy erupted from him, coalescing into the shape of a monstrous, malevolent deity.
“Who ostracized me for being born to a foreign mother? Who murdered my wet nurse and tried to kill me along with her?”
“Kuh, that was the House of Duke Praha—!”
“Don’t feed me that bullshit!” Leo bellowed. “That old man may have delivered the final push, but it was the Empire that drove me to the brink of death my entire life.”
CRACK—BOOM!
Leo unleashed the demonic effigy, bringing the towering figure of shadow and malice crashing down upon the remaining royal knights.
“Ah!” The small Demonkin at his side, shaped like a child, let out a frustrated whine, as if Leo had just smashed a favorite toy.
But Leo paid him no mind, his magic tearing the knights to shreds.
Squelch!
Thud. Thud. Thud.
“As of today, the Empire is erased from the map,” Leo declared, his voice ringing with chilling finality. “And upon its ashes, a new empire will rise. Under the blessing of the Demon God. So—”
His grip tightened on the Emperor’s throat.
“Gggghh!” the Emperor groaned, his vision tunneling.
And then, a cold whisper in his ear.
“—rest well, Father.”
Crack!
A sharp snap echoed in the sudden silence. Leo had broken the Emperor’s neck.
The Second Great War between humans and Demonkin had just seen its first, decisive victory.
* * *
The news of the Imperial Capital’s fall hit us like a battering ram. There was no time to waste.
I was preparing to leave before the messenger had even finished his report.
I couldn’t afford to rest and recover my Aura. Any further delay, and the other continents would be annihilated.
“Captain, a dispatch for you.”
Lancelot approached, handing me a sealed letter. It was the intelligence on the Demonkin I had requested just hours ago.
To deliver it so quickly… Lexa and Al Fortia’s information network was as ruthlessly efficient as ever.
Rustle.
I broke the seal and unfolded the letter. My eyes scanned the contents.
…The Demonkin forces are stronger than anticipated.
The dispatch detailed their armies’ current locations, their numbers, and the overall state of the war. And then, the line I dreaded.
…All Twelve Nobles have made their move.
Or rather, the seven who remained. My unit and I had seen to that.
Two were still dormant, but that hardly mattered. The situation was critical. Even with only five active, each one was a powerhouse on par with Pepia. Worse, there were undoubtedly nobles of a higher rank among them.
That meant we would have to repeat a battle like the last one several more times.
Can we even win this?
The thought was a cold knot in my gut. I bit my lip, the metallic tang of blood doing little to ground me. Hope felt like a luxury we couldn’t afford.
It took four Grand Masters to bring down one of the Twelve Nobles. What if we had to face two at once? It would be a complete and utter wipeout.
Currently, there are only five Grand Masters in the world.
Myself, Roxen, and the original three. If a single one of us fell, the war was lost. And Roxen hadn’t even fully ascended to the rank, which only added to my worries.
“…This is insane.”
I slapped my own cheeks, hard. The sting was sharp, a welcome distraction that cut through the rising panic.
No. Wallowing in despair won’t save anyone. Think.
It wasn’t as if I had a brilliant solution, but there had to be something, some straw to grasp at. I read through the dispatch again, my mind racing.
Then, an idea sparked.
Mindscapes.
Master’s and Enoxia’s Mindscapes were a last resort. But what about mine and Roxen’s? The Grand Duke had used his to annihilate Pepia. If we could awaken ours, they should be enough to defeat the Nobles.
So, our priorities are awakening our Mindscapes and increasing the number of Grand Masters.
As for new Grand Masters, a few names came to mind.
Lea, the continent’s heralded genius. Kai, the Slayer Incarnate. Even Lancelot, whose sheer diligence might just push him over the edge.
Mihaila was a prodigy, but her power was divine, not Aura-based. Unless she received a direct blessing from the Goddess, her growth had a ceiling.
Mihaila provides support from the rear. The others fight on the front lines.
The thought of putting Lea on the front lines was unsettling, but if we lost this war, the only path left for humanity was extinction. Better to have her on the battlefield—after she reached the rank of Grand Master, of course.
For now, the most urgent task was getting them to that level.
I’ll have to find a way.
I carefully folded the dispatch, tucked it into my coat, and closed my eyes, organizing my thoughts.
Just then, Lancelot returned.
“Captain, everyone’s ready. Are we leaving now?”
“…Yes.” I let out a slow breath and nodded.
It was time to step onto another battlefield.
* * *
At that same moment, in a marquis’s estate deep within the occupied Imperial Capital, laughter echoed endlessly.
The air was thick with the scent of spiced wine and cloying perfume. Courtesans danced while men with the hollowed-out eyes of debauchees draped themselves over velvet cushions.
Servants, some no older than children, moved like ghosts through the haze, all of them clad in silks that clung and revealed.
At the center of this grotesque tableau, the Marquis bit into a grape held to his lips by a trembling hand.
“War certainly does a fine job of clearing the refuse from the streets,” he drawled, his wrinkled hand roaming over a woman’s body.
And among them, a lone figure stood apart. A woman, dressed in the most beautiful clothes and adorned with exquisite makeup, her head bowed.
The Marquis’s lecherous gaze fell upon her. He chuckled, a cold, grating sound. “What are you doing just standing there? You’re not thinking of defying me, are you?”
“…No, my lord.”
“Good. That’s how it should be.” The Marquis cackled and raised his wine glass. “You are the daughter of a duke, after all. Isn’t it only natural for you to serve your husband?”
“…”
The woman bit her lip, hard enough to draw blood.
She was Hera Artezia. The Jewel of House Artezia, they had called her. The most beautiful woman in the Empire.
Now, she was just another one of the Marquis’s playthings.
The thought was a shard of ice in her heart. Even if it was her family head’s command, the humiliation was a living thing, coiling in her gut.
Nevertheless…
…I have to endure this.
Hera forced herself to breathe. This wasn’t for her father. It wasn’t for love, or out of resignation.
This was for revenge.
To take revenge on the ones who had broken her, who had turned her into this toy… for that, she would endure anything.
Louis Berg. And my own father.
Hera clenched her jaw, her eyes flashing with a cold fire. She would kill them both. No matter what it took.
Hadn’t she promised it? A chance for revenge. A power far greater than any her father’s sycophants could ever dream of.
To receive that power, the woman had told her, she must keep the Marquis pleased.
I just need power. Just power…!
Hera’s gaze fixed on the Marquis, venomous and calculating. Then, forcing a smile into her eyes, she sank into his embrace.
“So the bitch finally knows her place!” the Marquis roared with laughter.
And so the night in the marquis’s estate wore on.
Through it all, carried on the night air from beyond the estate’s walls, came the unending screams of the capital’s citizens.