Chapter 124. That Time The Genre Temporarily Switched To Body Horror
After watching the disgusting newly born demon king, Cedric paused for a moment before he began screaming.
“Holy shit!” He couldn't say anything else upon watching the sight that shouldn't exist anywhere.
[Holy shit!]
The System also sent a surprised message soon after.
“I honestly just brought these giant ant to help the dwarves increase their level. Who could've guessed they'll somehow became responsible for the birth of two demon kings. The giant ant queen and whatever this weird thing is.”
Cedric groaned, “Once I've finished this demon king, I should seriously consider destroying these ants for good.”
[That’s a good choice. This kind of abomination is truly too disgusting.]
Cedric kept watching the demon king, wondering whether to tell Catherina to kill it outright or let her wait while he asked Elisa for reinforcements.
At last, Cedric decided first to check the demon king’s level.
Activating his Divine Sight, Cedric stared at the demon king.
[Life Level: Peak Level 4
Potential: Upper Level 2]
“It’s at peak Level 4?”
Cedric began considering, “Catherina is now at Upper Level 4. So, if I equip her with some Divine Item, she should be able to handle it, right? The divine item that shrink her is also still active, so the small tunnel shouldn’t be a problem for her.”
While thinking, Cedric is constantly observing the demon king.
When he found the demon king was slithering toward the direction of a densely populated dwarven city, he immediately made a decision.
Cedric opened the store and started another shopping spree.
Spending 300 GP, he purchased a Level 4 Fire Lance and a Level 4 Earth Lance that he sent toward Catherina.
Because the demon king is currently underground, Cedric felt that other elements, except for earth and wind, would be less effective or may even endanger Catherina’s team.
Grabbing the [Divine Intervention: Word], Cedric sent a message to Catherina
[The demon king is born. It’s located deep underground, and you can find it within the giant ant’s underground tunnels. Take these two weapons, each containing three full-power attacks from blessed at peak Level 4 with earth and fire elements respectively. Use them wisely.]
Catherina took the weapon as she led her teammates, including a few other elite elves and dwarves who were at least a Level 3 blessed, into the giant ant tunnels.
To ensure she or her teammates won’t receive unnecessary loss due to the demon king’s unnerving appearances, Cedric also sent an image of the newly born demon king to every member of Catherina’s teams.
Some of them immediately paled and vomited when they saw its disgusting shape. Even Catherina trembled when she saw it.
Still, she tried hard to push away her disgust by hypnostizing herself, ‘I’ve spent dozens of years just for this moment. I couldn’t get nervous at this final moment.’
Except for Catherina, those dwarves and elves that were too affected by the demon king’s appearance finally dropped out of the advancing team, leaving seven elves and nine dwarves on the advance team.
Under Cedric’s guidance, the remaining elves and dwarves led by Catherina navigated the complex ant tunnels and gradually approached the demon king’s location.
While overseeing Catherina, Cedric also divided his attention to send a message to the leader of the dwarf council factions.
[Prepare to evacuate all dwarves from Grey Coal City. The demon king is advancing toward the city through the giant ant’s underground tunnels.]
Then, he remembered how the demon king somehow knew the closest densely populated area and sent an additional message.
[Evacuate them to Elisa’s city while ensuring the refugees do not get too close to other cities. If passing through a city becomes absolutely necessary, evacuate that city as well.]
Cedric suspected the demon king might have a way to detect the most populated areas, so he planned to lure it toward Elisa’s location.
As long as it entered Elisa’s territory and her attack range, Cedric believed the combined forces from Elisa and Catherina could defeat the demon king without much problem.
The dwarves' council immediately started a meeting and quickly made their move.
Thanks to the internet plant that’s been spread throughout the elven city and some of the dwarves cities, the dwarves quickly contacted the representative of the Grey Coal City.
While the Grey Coal City’s representative did their best to evacuate the dwarves, Catherina’s team slowly drew closer to the demon king’s location. Soon, they arrived at the spot where the demon king had passed by.
They knew right away it was a tunnel the demon king had passed through because it was covered in sticky mucus that had seeped into the walls, ceilings, and floors.
After seeing the disgusting image of the demon king they hoped to forget, they immediately recognised that the mucus must be the liquid that had leaked from it.
The team moved cautiously through the slick tunnels and soon heard a wind that sounded like mournful wails.
As they got closer, the wailing grew louder until they finally saw a wall of flesh made of mutilated, barely discernible corpses that were attached to each other.
Just like the picture Cedric sent them, the wall of flesh is riddled with many holes that are dripping liquid as it squirms forward.
After seeing the demon king in person, Catherina and the others quickly prepared their battle plan.
Given that they’re currently in an underground tunnel, they couldn’t use any large-scale attack that could cause it to collapse, or use fire-based elements that were too strong, for fear of burning the oxygen in the tunnel.
Luckily, after the widespread use of magic, the group has also prepared some casting materials, so the fire element blessed could still contribute to the battle.
Once their preparation is ready, everyone begins their probing attack.
First, the level 3 wind element blessed targeted the wall of flesh as they summoned several invisible wind slashes.
The slashes hit the demon king and successfully left a scratch on its back, cutting some limbs and flesh that fell to the ground.
But soon, the demon king squirmed and touched the dropped flesh that immediately got reattached.
Seeing such a sight, the team gulped.
***
Inside the Divine Space, Cedric has observed the first contact between Catherina and the demon king.
When he saw how the demon king easily recovered from the probing attack dealt by Catherina’s team, he rapidly used Past Observation and soon realised something.
“It seems like an unbeatable boss with infinite regeneration. But, it’s regeneration actually isn’t infinite. Everytime it wanted to attach a part into its body, it’ll consume some NE.” Cedric soon concluded, “Does this means as long as the demon king is killed before it could recover its NE, it’ll finally die?”
Cedric revealed his findings to Catherina’s group.
Upon learning of it, they changed their combat plan to shatter as many body parts of the demon king as possible.
This time, everyone prepared their casting materials and combined their power to fire a massive wind blade that shattered into several smaller wind blades upon contact with the demon king.
Feeling its body severely injured, the demon king appears enraged. It emitted a loud wail that sent everyone into a sudden, piercing headache.
Before the headache subsided, the demon king launched another attack. From the gaps in its body that continually released wailing sounds and unknown liquids, it expelled compressed air aimed at Catherina’s team.
In response to the demon king’s counterattack, the team members quickly followed their plans.
Amidst the headache, the earth element blessed forced themselves to activate their ability to summon several layers of earth wall that separated their position from the demon king’s.
Many explosions sounded as the wind bullet shot by the demon king hit the earth walls that the blessed had just raised.
The sheer impact from the demon king’s wind bullets caused part of the wall to reveal a gap, which the earth element blessed continuously strengthened.
The demon kings only stopped shooting wind bullets after a whole minute had passed.
Once a few more seconds had passed, the earth element blessed opened a slight gap in the earth wall and saw that the demon king continued moving away.
They cautiously followed after it and attacked once more.
This time, they sent two Level 3 water element blessed to shoot high-pressure water. Then, a Level 3 ice element blessed froze the water that had seeped into the demon king’s body through the gaps that existed all over it.
Finally, Catherina does a blitzkrieg attack on the frozen body part.
Like a lightning flash, she almost instantaneously stood in front of the wall of flesh that constituted the demon king.
With her divine strength blessing, every single one of Catherina’s punches caused the frozen body part to shatter into pieces.
When the demon king started squirming, she dealt a final attack with all her strength before quickly retreating.
The decision proved correct as the demon king successfully thawed its frozen body the instant Catherina retreated.
Feeling its lost body part, it released another wail. The prepared earth element blessed quickly raised several stacks of earth walls that once again blocked the tunnels.
Yet, the expected wind bullet didn’t arrive. Instead, the earth element blessed felt a constant high-pressure jet of water continuously bombarding their earth wall and eroding it.
“The demon king has used a different attack method. It seems to be continuously shooting jets of water instead of bombarding us with wind bullets.” One of the earth element elves shouted.
Before the earth wall collapsed, a dwarf with a Level 3 ice-element blessed power came forward.
At the same time, the others prepared their material to cast ice-element magic and help the dwarf stop the water.
The instant the wall collapses and spews a lot of water, the dwarf has finished activating his ability.
Instantly, the water froze into a wall, but a dangerous creaking sound continued to come from it.
The dwarf said while continuously spraying ice mist from his hand, "I don't understand how that disgusting thing manages it. But the water pressure is too high, and this ice wall won't hold. Moreover, the water pressure keeps increasing every second."
Catherina said, “Let's retreat for now, we'll continue our attack from another tunnel. Even if we successfully defended this attack, attacking the demon king inside a half flooded tunnel is definitely a bad idea.”
Everyone agreed, and after casting three ice magic and several layers of earth wall to block the water, everyone retreated.
Midway through their retreat, the wall they had previously erected had fallen, and the ground under them was flooded with water as tall as their knees.
They kept moving to higher tunnels until they reached a tunnel that wasn't flooded.
While they're walking, Cedric also replays their battle against the demon king.
“I've checked it and the NE inside the demon king has indeed decreased after this skirmish.” Cedric muttered.
“The underground is simply too disadvantageous for Catherina’s team. Especially with the power the demon king has shown during the fight.”
From his observation, Cedric found a shocking fact. the demon king can actually use water element and wind element blessed power to a certain extent.
The wind bullets it shoots and the water that flooded the corridor are definitely the result of its blessed power. There’s no other way to explain how the demon king could continuously shoot water that’s several times its body mass.
“In the underground tunnel, it's water element power is definitely the most annoying and dangerous.”
“Guess, I should told Catherina to mainly focus on decreasing as much NE from the demon king as possible. The final battle can only be done on the surface. At that time, I'll gather as many high level blessed to beat it together.”
Having made his decision, Cedric told Elisa and the dwarf council to gather their armies around the Grey Coal City, which seems to be the demon king’s current destination.
He also then focused his attention on the Crystal Cube world.
Inside the giant ant’s tunnel, Catherina's team is busy drying their clothes with the help of a fire element blessed who touched everyone's wet clothing to dry them with heat.
As someone, or specifically some dragon that didn't need to wear any clothes, Catehrina is just resting when she saw Cedric's message.
[From now on, start using a guerrilla tactic and try to weaken the demon king as much as possible without causing danger to your team. I've gathered support that'll assist you in fighting against the demon king once it emerges from underground.]