Chapter 105
“You need a unified voice. You need the political and cultural power to change the minds of the ignorant, indoctrinated masses. You have to reshape their very concept of reality.”
Rimuru swept his gaze over the assembled monsters, a dark, brilliant smile curving his lips. “It requires struggle. Yes, there are human magi capable of killing an Ancestor. But they are just as scattered, paranoid, and divided as we are. Their blood feuds and conflicting dogmas are infinitely more tangled than ours.”
“And what if we still cannot match them?” Ortenrosse demanded, his voice lowering dangerously.
“If two Ancestors aren’t enough to break their lines, we bring three. We bring four.” Rimuru stared dead into the White Wing Lord’s eyes. “The Dead Apostle Nation I envision is an empire where every single Ancestor is united under one absolute, collective goal. Not a flimsy paper treaty between a mob of backstabbing hypocrites.”
“Hah. I chased that exact same naive dream centuries ago,” Ortenrosse scoffed bitterly. “It failed.”
“Just because you lacked the competence to pull it off doesn’t mean I will.”
“Arrogant brat!”
“Maybe I am.” Rimuru didn’t back down an inch. He met Ortenrosse’s blistering fury with absolute, freezing calm. “I am not underestimating you, Ortenrosse. But whether you want to admit it or not… give me a single century. I guarantee I will reach your peak, and I will rival your entire empire.”
Rimuru offered a razor-sharp, utterly fearless smile. “You can tell me I don’t have the time. You can tell me I’m biting off more than I can chew.”
“But open your eyes, Ortenrosse. Look at the world as it actually is today,” Rimuru demanded, his voice echoing off the obsidian walls. “The era is shifting under our feet.”
“You claim humanity is a threat not to be underestimated, yet you completely ignore the fact that humanity itself has fractured. They are walking down two entirely irreconcilable paths.”
“You are terrified of the magi, but the magi are a dying breed. They are rotting in their ivory towers. What truly terrifies me is the technological dawn breaking over North America.”
Rimuru let out a short, dismissive scoff. He watched Ortenrosse’s heavy brow furrow. “You’ve spent centuries staring at the European chessboard, completely blind to the rest of the globe. The Mage’s Association? The Holy Church? Please. Give them another decade or two, and they’ll be struggling just to keep themselves from drowning in the tide of modern science.”
Suddenly, the aggressive cadence of his voice smoothed out into a deadly, captivating calm.
“But that exponential explosion of the mundane masses? That is our greatest untapped opportunity. These ordinary humans, the livestock we’ve spent millennia looking down upon, are seizing control of the planet’s narrative. And do you know what they crave more than anything else? What they desire with an unmatched, ravenous desperation?”
“Power. And time.”
A sinister, bloody light began to pool within the eyeholes of the Oni mask. Every Ancestor at the table instinctively sat up a little straighter.
“I converted the entire population of Cornwall into vampires,” Rimuru declared, letting the weight of the atrocity hang in the air. “But can you guess the most amusing part?”
“They didn’t scream. They didn’t fight back. They stared directly into the abyss of hell, and they willingly, eagerly threw themselves in.”
“It was the ultimate, undeniable proof of the absolute nobility and supremacy of the Dead Apostle bloodline!”
Behind the mask, the corners of Rimuru’s mouth curled into a dark, cynical smirk.
Showtime.
Since the dawn of human history, there had never been a weapon more effective for inciting the masses than pure, unadulterated radical supremacy.
If Ortenrosse wouldn’t bow to reason, then Rimuru would just hijack the White Wing Lord’s own extremist ideology. To convince a fanatic, you don’t argue with them. You validate their deepest, darkest convictions. You find their weak point, and you apply massive, overwhelming leverage.
Rimuru let the fanaticism bleed into his voice. He sounded like a zealot possessed by holy fire.
“Tell me, Ortenrosse!”
“We are immortal! Our physical parameters, our intellect, our sheer biological superiority dwarfs that of the primates! So why the hell are we the ones scurrying in the dark like rats?!”
“Because of their numbers?! Then we simply turn their numbers into our subjects! Because of human willpower?! I assure you, faced with the intoxicating promise of eternal life, their fragile wills crumble instantly!”
Rimuru slammed a hand onto the table, leaning in close.
“Ortenrosse.”
“Do you want to remain the petty King of a few thousand rotting corpses, hiding in the shadows of a fractured faction?”
“Or do you want to rule over millions? Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions? Do you want to be the Grand Duke of a global empire, standing above billions, second only to the Queen herself?!”
…
It was a masterclass in demagoguery. And like all great propaganda, it was built on massive, glaring omissions.
Rimuru conveniently ignored the fierce resistance of human institutions. He hid his own true identity. He painted a glorious, bloody utopia while completely burying the apocalyptic risks.
He preached that the changing era was fatal to magi, deliberately omitting the fact that the death of Mystery was infinitely more fatal to Dead Apostles.
He glorified the viral, unchecked expansion of the vampire race, while conveniently ignoring the fact that global Mystery was a finite resource. He didn’t mention that the ghoul-to-vampire conversion rate was actually abysmal, or that attempting to convert the globe would just result in a planet of mindless, starving zombies.
He highlighted the benefits and hid the costs. It was the oldest salesman trick in the book.
A seasoned, paranoid leader like Ortenrosse should have instantly started reverse-engineering the pitch, poking holes in the logic and looking for the hidden traps.
But so what if he tries?
Beneath the mask, Rimuru’s eyes were pools of bottomless, glacial calculation.
The world is full of brilliant people. So why do brilliant people still fall for scams? Is it because they’re secretly stupid? No. It’s because when a lie aligns perfectly with a person’s deepest, most desperate desires, confirmation bias takes the wheel. People will actively, aggressively ignore every logical red flag just to keep believing the beautiful lie.
Ortenrosse considered himself a creature of absolute rationality. Yet, hearing Rimuru validate centuries of his own suppressed ambitions… the ancient vampire swallowed hard. A terrifying, brilliant light erupted in his crimson eyes.
“You… you truly are cut from the exact same cloth as me.”