The Devils Evolution Catalog. The Devils Evolution Catalog 1-200

Mo Ke, a middle-aged good-for-nothing-loli-loving shut-in sage/wizard found himself in the unlikely role of a hero one day when he decided to take an uncharacteristic stroll outside of his lair on Valentine’s Day. Under the glaring headlights of an oncoming truck (Truck-kun), he dove into the middle of the road to save the love of his life, a random loli, and his nemesis, a random pretty boy, in the process heroically sacrificing himself for the two brats.

With the knowledge that he did something productive for once, he passed away into the darkness only to find himself reincarnated into a different world. A world of swords, magic, devils, elves, a host of other fantastical races and of course, humans.

Join Mo Ke as he embarks on a journey born of jealousy, desperation, determination and stupidity, to evolve, find his lost pee pee, finally return home and destroy the world with an army of devils???

My parents died early, but fortunately for me, they left me a significant endowment and I was able to live my life peacefully. They had used their savings to purchase a 5 storey building near the street entrance.

Each floor had an area of 90 square meters, enough for an apartment with a few bedrooms in it. Furthermore, this building was located next to the downtown area so it was a decent rental business.

With the income from being the landlord, I led a decadent life consisting of video games and movies. As for girlfriends...there's lefty and righty. Plus, my computer had gone through a thorough inspection; it's definitely a girl.

It's been a long time since I've watched a romance anime from the island country...should I give it a shot again? Meh...I'll just read a manga instead. Just gotta find that loli manga…

Perhaps it's because of my older age, but my body seems to be experiencing a second growth spurt. I've grown fat recently; but really only a little. This is definitely not just me saying so. I'm not morbidly obese. I'm 165 cm tall and my weight is not even 140 kg. I'm not THAT fat.

As a multi-class Wizard/Sage, I'm not at all conceited about it, despite my obvious qualifications. I just don't understand how a qualified person such as me, who not only possesses a house but even a computer too, could still be single.

This isn't just me bragging, but my video gaming skills are top notch. Whether it's LOL or Monster Huntsman, my dextrous hands are top notch. Are those rich/handsome men even as remotely impressive as me? Of course not! I have an ELO rating of Diamond in LOL. All those damned girls just don't get my charms.

I'm not sure when it started…but I've become a good for nothing, manga-reading, video game-playing, otaku. This was probably due to my comfy lifestyle. The rent from this building allowed me to live a life where I did not have to work at all. It wasn't a wealthy lifestyle, but it wasn't poor either.

Honestly, I wasn't so decadent before. I used to have dreams….grand dreams. I wanted to become a pro LOL gamer, lead my team out of Asia and conquer the world! However, as I aged my reaction speed slowed, and now Diamond is my limit. I had no choice but to give up on my dream.

Without any relatives or offline friends, my life could only be described as a disaster. This doesn't mean that I wished to change it; I've had enough of society. Right after I graduated from high school, I went job hunting. However, those jobs just didn't suit me.

In the real world, if your colleagues didn't like you or if you threatened their interests, they would go to any lengths to slander you in front of the boss. Take for example the very first job I took. It was a privately owned photography studio. My colleague was the branch manager of that studio.

Branch manager might sound impressive, but she was a worker and manager at the same time. This was because she was the only one working in that branch until I started working there. I was assigned there to learn on the job for a week.

Once, I caught her stealing from the cash register. However, a week later I was fired from my job. The reason? The boss heard a report that said I bragged about opening my own photography studio in a year...

No matter how stupid I was, there was no way I would be so open about such a thing. This wasn't a thing you could randomly talk about. Besides, I didn't even plan on opening a photography studio!

After getting fired by that studio, I entered a small advertising firm. My first job assigned to me was to move floorboards. Don't ask me why an adve

My next job was at a newly opened cement factory. It was originally a quality assurance position, but because a relative of the boss didn't want to be in charge of the warehouse, I was thrown there. What's worse was that they waited for me to clean up that abandoned office before furiously snatching the keys away from me as if I had done something wrong.

The story doesn't end there either. At my new post, all the unwanted jobs were dumped on me. No matter whether it was procuring supplies at dawn or taking charge of the delivery men, it was all done by me. These were supposed to be done by another person, but it had all been dumped onto me. I just don't understand why I am such a weakling. A submissive weakling that gets bullied at every turn.

There was a time when I had seriously considered killing that man, but the penalty for doing so was the firing squad. I still had a lot of games to play, manga to read, and anime to watch. Being dead would definitely be a hindrance.

To me, society is like the plague, something to be avoided at all costs. Since I still had a means of living, I chose to run away and ended up becoming a shut in.

At one point, I could've gotten married. About 10 years ago, I had a girlfriend. One that really liked me. We met in the first year of middle school. She was the one courting me, but I fancied someone else at that time.

At the age of 25, I felt that I should consider getting a girlfriend and get married, so I decided to propose to her. She was truly shocked as knelt down and proposed. As I grabbed one hand, her free arm reflexively shot up to cover her mouth as if she had just heard a miraculous piece of news.

Actually, I'm only a little dense; I know that she still loved me. After all these years, despite our lack of contact, she must've still loved me. Otherwise why would she steal my first kiss when I was 24…

How should I say this? If your girlfriend was out till 11 in the night, would you send her home? Normally you would, wouldn't you? But she wouldn't allow me to. I didn't even know where she stayed. Whenever we went on a date, she would introduce me as her brother to her friends. There were even times when I called her apartment, and a man's voice came from the other end of the receiver…

It felt like I didn't know her at all. She kept all her thoughts to herself as I continued brooding upon this. Soon I stopped looking for her. Given time, she noticed this as well.

A short while after our breakup, I learned that she had gone to a different city. Judging by her Weixin friend's group, she seemed to be leading a happy life.

No one needs me. Outside of videogames, I no longer have a reason to live. However, today is Valentine's day. It is another Valentine's day without a valentine but I've had enough! No games today, I'm going out.

With my mind set, I threw on a coat and walked down the stairs. As I left, I said hi to the aunt who rented the first floor from me for her convenience store. Under her disdainful gaze, I left my home with my head lowered. Even after walking for 100 meters, her gaze still burned on my back like a branding iron.

Why is everyone looking at me with such strange eyes? I made sure to shower before I left. My clothes are fresh, my teeth are brushed. Even if my shoes weren't clean, no one should be able to see it in the darkness of night.

As I continued the adventure outside of my room, a seemingly endless stream of lovebirds walked past me. Argh! How vexing! I'm painfully aware that I'm single so you don't have to rub it in my face!

F*ck! I almost tripped on something. As I turned my head back, I saw the culprit; a brick. Damnit...even you're bullying me. Why am I so unlucky...It's fine even if I'm the only one left in my household. It's fine even if I'm not needed. Even not having a girlfriend is fine. But even a brick is bullying me!? I just wanted to take a walk outside. What have I done wrong?

Just as I was about to take revenge on this dastardly brick, I was interrupted by a couple of kids fighting. It was a boy and girl chasing each other. From the looks of it, both of them were 10 years old. The boy was chasing the girl, their feet unknowingly carrying them towards the center of the road.

This was a remote area and didn't often see traffic. A little fight was usually not a big deal but today was an exception. Just in front was a truck careening towards them, its headlights illuminating the road ahead like a pair of luminescent pillars heralding the impending tragedy.

The two kids were scared stiff by the truck's sudden appearance and stared dumbly at it; their feet glued to the ground. Due to my nearsightedness and the darkness, I couldn't see if the truck driver was aware of the two kids. However, it was safe to assume he wasn't as the truck had no sign of slowing down or braking.

The onlookers merely screamed in horror but no one stepped out to save them. They couldn't do so either. They were simply too far to reach them. The only one close enough was me. What should I do? Save them, of course!

I dashed out and flung the loli to safety. Now there's only that pretty boy. Well… as long as the loli is safe, that pretty boy can go kill himself for all I care...Then should I leave him to die? No...if I had planned to do so, I wouldn't have flung the loli away.

The truck was approaching ever closer by the second, its monstrous pressure weighed heavily on me, causing my chest to tighten. It was too late to run away so I gathered every ounce of strength I had and kicked that boy to safety.

Actually, my brain had already started hallucinating. I imagined that I had woken up once more in the hospital's emergency room. The doctor said there was no hope but I suddenly latched onto his coat like a person who had faked his death and pleaded with him. [I feel that I can still be saved].

Truth be told, perhaps this was for the best. I was the only one left in my house, I had no reason to live and no one needed me. Dying was perhaps a blessing. No one would bully me...no one would stare at me with those eyes...I would no longer have to face this complicated human society…

Plus, I'm just a 35 year old worthless otaku. Using my life to save a couple of 10 year old kids was a truly worthwhile trade. My life was pretty much set and I couldn't do any good for society by living. But those two brats were different, they still had future. I only hope that they learnt their lesson and never messed around near the road again. It isn't everyday that an idiot will run out to save you.

As I thought about their bright futures as scientists, doctors, policemen...the kind of people who could contribute to society. I finally felt at ease. That's right. I'm just a self-indulgent fool. A fool that just wanted to be needed by someone. Even if it cost me my life, it was worth it.

Weixin : China's version Whatsapp. Just a chatting app with a myriad of features which include but isn't limited to payment services and video game integration.

A vast blanket of white hung heavily over the scenery. The white fog suffocated every corner of my eyesight; swallowing, erasing, eradicating everything in sight. Was I dreaming?

The next time I regained consciousness, I found myself in an unknown house. It was a simple house like the ones you would see in a village, littered with wooden furniture all around. The white hospital bed was now replaced by a simple mattress lying on a wooden bed frame. I felt the warmness of a hug as I laid there in a daze.

“Where am I?” was the first thought that came to mind as my eyes slowly opened. However, I didn’t have much time to consider that question before a pair of warm hands cradled me up to someone’s chest.

My eyes blinked and then squinted in an attempt to make out the identity of the hands’ owner. It was a handsome blond youth of around 20 years old, sporting a choppy layered hairstyle. He wore clothes made of a low grade cloth material similar to linen. However thanks to his handsome face, he didn’t look like a peasant.

What did he say? Sounds like a foreign language. This is kind of depressing. Boy, with 35 years of age beneath my belt, I’m your senior. Show me some respect will you? If you are going to communicate with me, you should at least use Mandarin.

The man continued speaking in that damnable foreign tongue while his arm swooped into my blindspot. The next moment, I was hanging upside down in the air by my left leg. With my new airborne position, I finally caught sight of the person who was hugging me on the bed.

It was a long blue haired lady who was at most 20 years of age. She laid there, hair plastered to her face, a drained look upon her. However, her sickly countenance did nothing to hide her charms. She was a beautiful lady with an attractive oval face and a milky white complexion. If you asked me, she was better than Miss Sola Aoi and Miss Ran Asakawa combined...Wait that’s not right...I definitely didn’t know any Sola Aoi or Ran Asakawa! [1]

My butt was definitely facing that boy so only he could spank me...Wait, why did I get spanked? Where is this place? Isn’t this Earth? And why am I so small? I’m a freaking 35 year old Wizard/Sage!

My memory stopped at the point where the truck sent me flying so I wasn’t aware of what happened in the interim. Did those two brats get saved? After flinging and kicking them that far, the truck shouldn’t have been able to hit them right?

But why am I a baby? Hmm...well this isn’t too bad either. At least I’m not dead, and with a fresh start to boot. But this family seems kind of poor. Their house was made of wood and they are still using oil lamps. Don’t tell me this is a farming village...

My parents were a couple of normal people who spent their lives doing normal things like hugging me, housework, hugging me etc. etc. My dad, Morran, was your average hard-working handsome male farmer. He left at the crack of dawn and came back exhausted after a day of working the fields.

The couple loved to sandwich me while sleeping. Perhaps it was due to Rhona’s recent childbirth, but neither of them were worried that I had that sort of interest. Thanks to that, I got a little excited...No wait, I’m not excited, I was anxious. Anxious that those two potatoes would roll onto me while sleeping and flatten me.

I had already settled on a name I wanted: Mo Ke. In order to retain my naming rights, I would call out [Mo ke, Mo ke, Mo ke] whenever I was in front of Rhona.

As for this young couple, they had a lot to learn. However, educating them would come later. After all, I’m still a baby. Since the heavens have given me a second chance, ending up as a lonely loser is not an option. I must set up my own harem! Using my two lifetimes of memories, I will create the greatest empire in history!

While they were inexperienced as parents due to their young age, they truly cared for me and treasured me. This was the first taste of parental love that I had not experienced in a long time.

That man was a 190 cm giant clad in a set of leather armor. He was older than Morran by several years but still maintained a dashing appearance. He had a messy red mane of hair which made him look like Qiao Feng. [2]

This man was known as Roscar. He used to be a mercenary but was now an intrepid hunter. He was Morran’s best friend so upon receiving Morran’s letter, he came over just to see me. The thick calluses on his hand were apparent to me even through my clothes as he hugged me. He was clearly a martial arts practitioner. If I had to give him a rank, he would be an elite mob in a video game.

As we sat down for lunch, they began recounting an encounter they had while travelling here. In order to get here, they had to make a trip through the mountain pass. During this trip, they were set upon by bandits. These bandits were most likely the private army of the local lord. Nicole sat beside them, eagerly listening to Roscar recount the tale. At her side, Anna was picking out the bones in the fish for the children. Nicole said she wanted to let her little brother have it so she speared it and held it to my mouth.

As I hesitated, Anna laughed and told her that babies my age still can't eat fish. She had no choice but to eat the fish herself with a disappointed look on her face. However, she recovered instantly and began pinching my cheeks energetically. If it had been a normal baby, he would have cried by now. But not me! Getting bullied by a loli was a form of enjoyment. So unlike the worried gazes the two mothers threw at me, I didn't mind one bit. In fact, I used this opportunity to suck her finger.

Both of them were childhood friends who used to live in the same village. However, Roscar was able to activate his fighter’s aura and that set him on his path to being a mercenary. Morran on the other hand, failed to do so and ended up as a farmer. Thankfully, he was good looking and managed to snag a beauty like Rhona. In a sense, he was a winner in life as well.

However, unbeknownst to my young excited self, Roscar’s visit was a portent to our tragic fate. This wasn't his fault, though. It was the fault of those damned soldiers pretending to be bandits. And that lord for allowing them to do so.

The bandits chased away by Roscar didn’t give up; they were merely biding their time. The army possessed expert trackers who could easily track down Roscar. They did just that, quietly tracking him to our home. In the dead of night, they snuck into our home and killed Morran, Anna and Rhona.

However, this was the limit of their sneak attack. They were able to kill the three of them as they did not know martial arts. However, Roscar was different. The moment he detected something was wrong, he alerted Nicole. She grabbed me and went into hiding in a nearby closet. It was a small closet but thanks to our small sizes, we managed to fit in snugly. As we hid in the closet, Nicole watched the scene unfold while quietly sobbing and her hand covering my mouth. The assailants slew Morran, Anna and Rhona in an instant.

Roscar howled sorrowfully into the air at this sight. In the dead of night, the fighting raged on as thunderous clashing of weapons mixed in with occasional screams, echoed in the air. By the time the closet door opened a few minutes later, a blood-drenched Roscar stood before us. His normally white sleeveless shirt and shorts were dyed red with blood. His sword was chipped from all the fighting and was dripping blood as he stood there panting heavily.

As he had just slain the invaders singlehandedly, the stench of death was still heavy on him. It was as if a god of war stood before us at this very moment.

“Anna……” A sharp clang echoed in the air as his sword arm lost its grip, causing his blood stained sword to fall. Shortly after, his body followed suit. He fell to his knees, face contorted with sorrow and rage as the battle adrenaline finally faded. He was on the verge of mental a collapse…

I guess this meant my parents were truly dead? Well it’s alright. While they were my parents, we had only interacted for about half a year. I’m not sad at all. I don’t understand why my eyes were slightly warm nor did I understand why there was something flowing from them…

“How...how is this possible…” As the grief-stricken Roscar looked at my tears, his body received a jolt of shock as if he had just witnessed an impossible scene. He stammered as he forced out these words: “Kid...so you felt it too…”

Of course I knew they were dead! While it had only been a short five months...while they were younger than me by at least a decade, they were sincerely looking out for me. They were my parents. Without them, I wouldn’t exist. And now, because of you...they are dead. DEAD! Tell me how am I not supposed to be upset!

I desperately tried to clench my fist and bear the sorrow, but my tiny fists simply did not possess such a strength. Just the act of doing so made me tired…

Perhaps my action had given him strength as he reached out and carried me. The metallic stench of blood wafted into my nose as he did so forcing me to sneeze. Roscar immediately returned me to Nicole’s arm.

“We should leave. Those greedy bastards must not find out that we are still alive…” Without giving it a second thought, he immediately rose to his feet and grabbed a torch and tossed it. Time slowed down as the torch flew towards the cold, lifeless bodies of my parents. I didn’t even have the time to grieve or to lay them to rest before the cruel flames of reality engulfed them, taking with it my home and my short but happy family life.

My home was located in a remote corner of the village so we had no neighbors. This conflagration should remove all traces of the battle. No one will ever know of what happened here; of the assailants nor of my family...

We ran throughout the night until we finally reached the borders of the kingdom. The frontier areas were chaotic and far from the draconic rule of that lord. This was the perfect place to hide out due to its safety.

On our journey, we met with bandits several times. Some of them were soldiers pretending to be bandits and some of them were mercenary bandits. Of course, there were bandit bandits as well.

Over these past few days, I had come to understand several things. The first of which was where we currently were. This was the kingdom of Tarnia and we were in the frontier village of Chaique. Roscar's plan was to settle down in this village, and so he hired a few villagers to build a two storey house near the forest.

The next thing I learnt was the combat job system in this world. Combat classes could be broadly categorized into these two branches: Warrior and Mage. Both of these branches had several subclasses within them.

For example, in our encounter with the bandits, we faced several sword wielding warriors known as a Swordsman and several Thieves. The subclass Thief was a unique subclass which fell under a separate branch as well, despite being a warrior. This was due to their unique fighting style.

On top of these two subclasses, there were the Shieldbearers who wielded an enhanced shield as their primary weapon, and there were the Magisters who trained in both magic and martial arts.

The Mage branched possessed many subclasses as well. A commonly known subclass were the Elementalists. They specialized in elemental magics such as Wind, Water, Fire and Earth.

There were the Arcanists who used pure mana to inflict both physical and magical damage; the Illusionists who specialized in illusions and also the Alchemists who specialized in creating tools to support combat.

Each class had a ranking system which ranged from One-Star to Ten-Star. An example would be Roscar who was a Four-star Swordsman. Each star level had its own unique requirements. For example, to advance to a One-Star Warrior, not only did you need to be familiar with your weapon of choice but you also needed to possess Aura Perception.

What is aura perception you might ask? Aura Perception is the ability to perceive the Fighter's Aura inside one's body. This is one of the prerequisites for strengthening one's body with Fighter's Aura. This was also the reason why Morran could only be a farmer for life.

A Two-Star Warrior required you to activate the Fighter's Aura within yourself and make it flow. Kinda like the Internal energy you see in those wuxia novels.

In order to advance to Three-Star, one had to be able to wrap one's body in Fighter's Aura. In other words, to materialize your Fighter's Aura as an external defensive force.

Four-Star Warrior had to be able to project their Fighter's Aura, like the Sword Qi used by martial artists in wuxia novels. Four-Star Warriors were able to project their aura in a ranged attack which meant they now had range capabilities.

Compared to Warriors, Mages had a simpler star system. It was usually based on one's mana levels and spells. One simply had to pass the examination set by the Mage's Guild and attain the corresponding star level certification. Apparently, this came with a ton of perks as well. However, mages were a rarity. On our journey, we only met a few mages. They were the ones clad in long robes and always seemed to be in a hurry.

Five days later, our new home was built. Truly an impressive work attitude; these villagers hired by Roscar not only built our house but also all the fu

Every day, Roscar would go for a hunt in the woods while Nicole did the housework. Due to her tender age, she could only perform simple housework while the Roscar had to take care of the rest. Part of her duty was to look after the baby aka me. While she wasn't the best babysitter, she was conscientious and made sure I didn't starve to death.

As I slept, she would gently place me in the cradle before heading outside to practice. The method to initially activate one's Fighter's Aura was actually pretty simple : train until you're half-dead and then meditate. Essentially, training to enter the One-star realm was mainly comprised of training your body and trying to perceive the resulting aura.

Perhaps it was due to her innate talent or perhaps it was the shock from losing her mother, Nicole successfully rose to a One-Star Warrior on her fifth birthday.

As for me, I'm at the crawling stage. After pretending to fall asleep, I would crawl to the doorway and spy on Nicole training. That was the first time I realized that the humans in this world had a different strength level than a normal Earthling.

But first, regarding our dear loli. The five years old Nicole wore a white set of training clothes and sported a twin ponytailed hairstyle that was definitely not flashy. She had inherited the brilliant red hair of Roscar which made her flowing hair that much more beautiful. With oval face and rosy cheeks, she was super cute! Definitely a first-rate beauty when she grows up!

Nicole was practising with her wooden sword on her usual practise target: a wooden dummy. With a precise swing of her arms, her wooden sword sliced through the air and landed on the dummy's head with a resounding thud. She immediately followed this up with another swing. Thud after thud resounded in the air as she continued; her strength apparent for all to see.

After ten more swings, she was ready to make her move. Her feet pressed down onto the soil as she gathered energy into her legs. With a short shout, she took to the air and swung her sword down onto the wooden dummy's head.

A cracking sound could be heard traveling through the air as the dummy's head caved in. Meanwhile, her sword being similarly made of wood, did not fare any better. It had snapped in half with one end still in her grasp while the other flew off into the distance…

Was she always this powerful? Shit, should I continue fondling her loli boobs the next time she hugs me? No wait...they are all accidents!

"Aura Perception! I've attained Aura Perception!" She shouted as she gazed at the broken sword in her hand. She flung her arms into a banzai as she screamed while leaping for joy. As she tossed her broken sword, her gaze fell onto a baby crawling out. The loli swooped down and picked me up in a tight hug.

"Little Ke, I've done it. Your big sis has gained Aura Perception! Your big sis is a warrior!" She screamed in my ears as she furiously kissed me.

Don't get me wrong...being hugged by a young beauty was definitely enjoyable, but aren't you a little too passionate...my face is full of your saliva! However, I've got to admit, the scent of a loli mixed with the pungent smell of her sweat is pretty nice…

...I'm definitely not sniffing her like a pervert. I'm just admiring and praising her scent. Let's make things clear, I'm not a lolicon. Those loli mangas you saw in my computer were there because of a virus.

As night fell, Roscar got the shock of his life when he heard that Nicole had gained Aura Perception. As a comparison, Roscar gained his at seven while the youngest recorded human to gain Aura Perception was four. For Nicole who had gained hers at five, could only be considered a rare genius.

Pfft, It's just Aura Perception. What's so great about it. This baby is a thoroughbred transmigrator. Just you wait and see, once my hack ability activates, I'll surpass you in no time. Which reminds me...when will I awaken my super powers? Even a XXX system is fine with me. I'm not a picky guy.

"Has Little Ke been a good boy today?" As he ate his grilled beef, Roscar stretched out and ruffled my hair, ruining my clean, combed hair. Hmph! I turned my head away to avoid his hands. However, this didn't have the expected result; he laughed and pinched my face, stretching it. "Kid, your old man just wants to pinch you and you won't even allow me! Are you trying to rebel!?"

With a fork in her left hand, she slapped his wrist with her remaining free hand. Roscar retracted his hand and complained in a slightly resentful tone. "Just because you've gained a little brother, you don't want your dad anymore?"

"..." She grimaced as she heard this. The metallic fork in her started shaking as she applied pressure on it. Just as I thought it would snap, she snapped at Roscar, "Dad, you better not take your joke too far!"

Due to our tender ages, Roscar was worried about our safety so he didn't venture too far to hunt. Most of his spoils were rabbits, foxes or other similar animals. There were definitely magical beasts in this world. They were animals who could fire off magic like mages and were mostly found in the depths of the forests. They rarely ventured into the out edges.

Roscar had the ability to hunt these magical beasts, but because of the two of us, he had to limit his hunting time to under a day. This resulted in a low income for our household. It was just enough for us to accrue a bit of savings after paying for our necessities.

The days passed by peacefully. Nicole continued her daily training and her strength grew day by day. As for me...I'm still waiting for my old grandpa to awaken. I wonder what will he teach me when he awakens…I want my mythical, long lost, ancient techniques from the age of gods and demons…

Before my second birthday, of my own accord I started practicing with a wooden sword at the training dummy. While I had a lackadaisical personality, the deaths of Morran and Rhona were forever burned into my mind. In this world, powerless people were like ants waiting to be stepped on by the strong. For a 37 year old soon-to-be Sage like me, I knew all too well the dog eat dog world of human society. So at the tender age of 3 I've decided: I will grasp my own fate!

Time flew by once more, five years have passed since my last monologue. It seemed like only yesterday that I was reading my loli literature; now my body had shrunk and the world, a completely different one. These few days were relatively uneventful. Grandpa was still missing, my XXX system still hasn't appeared and my super powers were still zilch.

What's worse is that I've yet to awaken my Aura Perception… In other words, after spending 8 years in this world, I'm still a helpless chicken waiting to be slaughtered.

Damnit, damnit, damnit! No matter how many I hacked at the wooden dummy, the wooden sword wasn't able to leave a single a wound on it. By now, the 12 year old Nicole was able to have her Fighter's Aura flow within her body and had smoothly advanced into a Two-Star Warrior.

Seven years… It's been seven years and I'm still stuck at this stage… To think I even thought about setting up a grand harem and counting Nicole inside it. What "I no longer wish to see anyone close to me die"...at this rate, I can't even protect myself...

"Die!" I channeled all my frustrations into a reckless swing down onto the wooden dummy. However, not only was it unscathed, the force even rebounded back onto me. My sword was sent flying by the rebound...yes...my wooden sword had left my hands.

"Just DIE!" Don't think about anything, just train. As long as I can perceive my aura, everything will be fine. As long as I can advance into a One-Star Warrior, everything will be okay. Since my sword was no longer with me, I channeled my obsessions into my fist and punched. However, the result was...the wooden dummy was still unscathed while my fist was injured instead…

"Ahhhhhh…" I'm a goddamn transmigrator. Eight years! How could I not have any chance encounter within these long eight years. Wheres Grandpa...where's my hack ability, my superpowers… I screamed in my heart as I rained down upon the wooden dummy with my fists and feet like a madman.

"Little Ke! Don't torture yourself." Before I could react to the voice, a pair of clean, warm arms wrapped around me in a tight hug. Nicole's alluring scent wafted into my nose.

Nicole was already 12 years old by now, a mere 4 years older than me. By now, she had grown into a lovable teenage girl. With her brilliant red pony tails, lovely face and pure disposition, she would at least score a 95/100 in every area. If this was Earth, she would at least be at the level of Fan Bingbing.

As she grew ever more beautiful, my sense of inferiority grew. This was a darwinistic world. If you are weak, you will become food for the strong. Just like Morran's death...like Rhona's or like Anna's...Only by being strong can you prey on others. A world built upon natural selection… If Roscar was a six or Seven-Star Warrior, those imposter bandits wouldn't have dared to take revenge on him. They might have even tried to recruit him.

Due to girls maturing faster than boys, Nicole was a full head taller than me. Each time I faced her, I felt like I was under a lot of stress. To be honest, I really wanted to make her the first member of my harem, but with the way things are standing right now...forget harem...I'll have to thank the heavens if my wife wasn't stolen by someone else.

"Little Ke has been working too hard lately." She gently treated my fist as she consoled me. She was always such a serious girl. No matter what she did, she always gave it her all. Because she was so serious, she tends to be a little dense about things happening around her.

Mhm, it's not that painful anymore. In order to allay her concerns, I replied to her in a bratty tone, "I just want to protect Nicole!"

"...Silly boy, we are here for you. Both big sis and dad." She lightly rapped my head as she said. With a gentle smile on her face, she teasingly played with my face, molding it into different expressions. "Little Ke just has to be protected by us."

You must be kidding me. This uncle has lived for 35 years. Plus the 8 years in this world, I've lived for 43 years. Heck, I'm even older than Roscar! How can I call you big sis! Though, I won't mind if it's on the bed.

Grandpa : In a lot of Chinese web novels, the main character will receive guidance/techniques/ help from a disembodied spirit possessing him/her. Usually, this spirit is an old man but there are exceptions.

While Chaique was located in a remote corner of the kingdom, its forests were full of game due to its proximity to the frontiers. As a result, there were a lot of villagers who relied on hunting for a living. Out of these hunters, Roscar was the undisputed champion among them. His strength had risen to a five-star warrior's level about three years ago.

Five-star warriors could extend their fighter's aura to their weapon, boosting its penetration power. Usually in a duel between four-stars, a number of their aura attacks would cancel each other out. This is where wrapping your aura around your weapon came in handy, the aura would clash with your opponent's aura, expanding it. The weapon would then be able to penetrate your opponent unhindered.

To put it simply, a four-star warriors' aura could only be used defensively in a clash of auras. While five-star warriors could use their aura offensively as well.

This section of the world was known as The Human Realm of Westerra. On top of Tarnia, there were several other human kingdoms as well. Out of these, the three largest kingdoms had risen to the rank of empire. Their territory sizes were at least 10 times the size of Tarnia's land. As a comparison, Tarnia was the size of Qin Shi Huang's Unified China.

On top of these human realms, there existed several non human realms as well. There were the reclusive nature-elves in the southern forests, the beastmen in the north, the half-beastmen in the west and the mysterious merfolk of the endless seas in the east. Deep below the ground were the troggs of the Underdepths. Below the world of the troggs, were other strange creatures roaming the region known as The Black Chasm. Most of these creatures possessed a monstrous level of strength. As for the last member of the fantasy cliche races, the dwarves, their settlements were scattered around the world.

As for the appearance of these races, the beastmen were similar to the catgirls seen in mangas from a certain island country. Half-beastmen closely resembled a certain green skinned race from a popular online game; definitely not a cute race.

Essentially, humans were surrounded by a variety of unique races. Thus, the human kingdoms were under constant pressure which led to a focus on nurturing strong warriors and mages.

In order to do this, each kingdom founded a specialized school to train these future talents. Their only requirement was for you to be gifted. As long as one was gifted, they were guaranteed tuition in these schools. This was a hefty investment, but one which was necessary to ensure the continued dominance of the human race.

In most cases, a child would be sent to these schools once they achieved aura perception. A rare genius like Nicole was highly sought after by the various schools. She would be instantly accepted into any school she wanted, and on top of that, special treatment would be given to her. This could include free tuition, scholarships, personal tutors and even magic tools.

However, Nicole chose not to do so because of me…she said she wanted to wait until I had awakened my aura perception before leaving for school.

This wait costed her 7 years and the result was that I still didn't awaken my aura perception. Being a warrior m ight just be a pipe dream for me. Damn it! I'm a transmigrator for heaven's sake. Where is my hack ability! Where's my grandpa! Did you get yourself killed or something?! Damnit damnit damnit f*ck!

My sword continued hacking away in an erratic barrage of anger and frustration but the dummy remained as unharmed as ever. The wooden dummy flashed me a crooked grin, silently taunting me with its lifeless eyes.

I'm not sure when it began but my composure had slowly eroded over these few years. At the beginning, I thought that as a transmigrator, I would get a hack-like ability and breeze through this alternate game-like world. However, reality was as merciless as it was plain. I did not gain any superpowers...I'm just a normal person.

Normally this would not be a problem in a peaceful world like Earth, but this is an alternate world! A world where you could be killed by a group of 'bandits' in your sleep!

Being powerless meant only one thing: you are trash. With my current strength, life in this world would be tough. I just can't bear to enter a relationship with Nicole with such a fate waiting in store for us.

I did consider starting a business but I was just a damned otaku in my past life. Even if I possessed some business knowledge, this wasn't Earth. There's no guarantee that your hard earned money would be safe from soldiers, gangsters and robbers.

Roscar was definitely strong but not to the point where he could take on a country single handedly. If we got into a conflict with some corrupt lord, he could simply dispatch a couple of five-stars and a hundred soldiers to wipe us out.

There's simply no other way but to train myself; train until I could perceive aura and then obediently head off to warrior school to learn and build contacts. Only after graduating will I have the basic ability to protect myself. At that point, it would be much easier to enter the service of a random noble family or army. Alternatively, being a mercenary was possible as well.

"There's still the path of a mage if you can't make it as a warrior. Once Dad has saved up enough money, Little Ke can join a magic academy."

This was what Roscar had comforted me with all these years. But things aren't that thing simple. The fees at the magic academy aren't on the same level as the warrior school's. A normal warrior school required a yearly tuition fee of 50 gold coins or 500 silver coins.

The magic academy on the other hand, was different. There was an upfront fee of 500 gold coins right at the start of the term. This was just the basic fee too. I still needed to get my magic staff, magic rocks and other magic materials. If I had to make a comparison, raising a mage was the equivalent of raising 20 warriors.

And this was just the bare minimum! The Bare Minimum! If you wanted to provide a good foundation, a beginner's staff alone would set you back over a thousand gold coins...this wasn't even in the same league as a warrior.

I tried multiple times in the past, to persuade Nicole not to waste her time on me and just head off to warrior school. But she would merely shake her head and say to me while pinching my face, "Little Ke isn't there, Big Sis will be lonely."

Because of me...Nicole couldn't go to school. At this rate, she will miss her growth period and never climb to the peak of the warrior class.

Because of me...Roscar had to hunt for magical beasts day and night. He wanted to provide the very best for me and send me to the magic academy. In truth, I had underwent an examination a few years back but the results weren't too good. But Roscar still didn't give up. "One or two failures don't mean much. As you are willing to work hard, I believe that no one is destined to always fail."

This fact haunted me as I passed the days. I had even considered running away from home several times, but when I thought about them potentially scouring the forests for me in a frenzy; I just couldn't bring myself to do so.

Today's mission was to buy some of our favorite food and wine. This was the third day since Roscar left on a hunting trip so he should be back any time now. Knowing this, Nicole gave me a gold coin and got me to bring some food home to celebrate his return.

A gold coin had the purchasing power of 100RMB on Earth so the most I could buy from a tavern was some meat dishes and some cheap wine.

As I entered the tavern, the sour stench of a drunkard rushed into my nose causing me to cringe reflexively. I was an otaku in my previous life so I had never gotten drunk to the point of beating my wife...because I never had a wife…

However, before I could turn around and leave, an arm reached out and clasped down onto my shoulders, rooting me in place. Look's like it's too late to leave.

"Look who we got here, it's Mo Ke." This slurred voice came from a 20 year old piece of trash known as Yalid. As he said this, he forcefully turned my body around to face him and stared at me with a sinister glint in his eye. Another sour breath of air wafted into my nose as he spoke up once more, "Haha, just as I was thinking about my beer money, Master Mo Ke shows up in the nick of time!"

Usually I would try my best to avoid these hooligans, but if I failed to do so I would bring out Roscar's name to ward them off. However, this time things were slightly troublesome.

They were drunk. Their drunken state rendered my usual threat useless as their clouded minds could not process the potential consequences. Instead, this threat only angered them further.

"Don't think you're all that just because you have a hunter as your father!" *bam* A foot connected with my chest and knocked the wind out of me. Before I knew it, I was on the ground. My chest ached from the heavy blow, rendering me unable to get up. *bam* Another foot landed on me. This time, it was on my face. The nauseating smell of Hancock's feet wafted into my nose as my facial features were being flattened into the ground by the forceful stomp.

I wanted to fight back but my body was reeling from the severe pain; it felt like my organs were being crushed. I hugged my stomach as I doubled over both in pain and in an attempt to shield myself.

"If you had given us the money earlier, you wouldn't have had to suffer; you stupid brat!" He fished the gold coin from Nicole out of my pocket and stashed it. With a whistle, he signaled to his buddy to continue beating me. Kick after kick landed on my back and face as I laid helplessly on the ground. Each kick was not just a kick on my body but a kick to my heart as well.

A suffocating pressure grew in me as each blow landed squarely on my body. Even a couple of trash could beat me half to death...I've had enough of this helpless feeling! I must fight back! Fight back!

As I steeled my resolve, my hands drifted to the dagger hidden at my waist. Seeing my chance as he lifted his leg, I whipped it out and stabbed. It was a stab filled with my anger and resolve, but it was also just a simple stab. It was the kind of attack that could be easily avoided by a One-Star warrior.

Thankfully, Hancock never once saw me as a threat so this simple stab unerringly bit into its target. However, this was the first time I've used a weapon to injure someone. Furthermore, due to my wounds and this attack being an unplanned counterattack, its effect was less than expected; only a tiny gash could be seen at the point of impact.

I've injured a person… In the past, the most I've ever done was beat up a goblin; this was the first time I've injured a real human being…

It was always Nicole standing up for me whenever I was bullied. This was truly the first time I've hit someone. On Earth, hitting someone only meant prison and this fact was still deeply ingrained in me. Even as my mind was celebrating my successful counterattack, I was also picturing the scene of a policeman locking me up...

This ended up costing me dearly, as I had missed the best opportunity at striking these two while they were stunned. They quickly recovered, especially Hancock. His eyes were like the eyes of an injured beast; the flames of anger and hatred burned in them, threatening to engulf me with his gaze alone.

In that moment, a mental image of a gorilla superimposed itself onto him as he howled at me. He's going to kill me! Run, I've gotta run!

I didn't waste another second as I turned around and ran. Hancock wasn't able to catch up to me with his injured leg but Yalid was a different matter altogether. With his one-star warrior strength and reflexes, he was able to pounce on me a few seconds after I turned around. With one arm, he held down my shoulder and with the other, he clamped down onto my wrist like a vice, trying to disarm me.

The strength of a one-star warrior was simply too much for an eight year old kid like me to bear. With a single squeeze, it felt like my wrist was about to break. I was forced to let go of the dagger.

Having lost my weapon, he was free to do with me as he pleased. With a casual toss, he flung me onto the ground once more with a loud thud. I tumbled on the ground in pain as my head recovered from its heavy landing. The toss had left me dazed with my knees and shoulders severely bruised to the point of feeling numb.

"Damned brat! You dare to injure me?!" Hancock howled as he hobbled towards me step by twisted step. However, I barely heard his curses as my head had been severely concussed.

I might really die here. I finally got the chance to start a new life...only eight years...I haven't accomplished a thing yet...am I going to die now?

"Stop!" An elegant voice rang out across the street, halting Hancock in his tracks. A tiny silhouette appeared in front of me in a flash, blocking him. Despite only being able to see her back, I knew who it was. Nicole had arrived.

"You guys dared to pick on Little Ke...I swear I'll never let you guys go!" A fist punched through the air and sent Hancock flying. This was the punch of the two-star warrior, Nicole. While two-stars were only able to activate their internal Fighter's Aura, it was enough to boost their strength.

Hell can be split into three levels: Purgatory of trials, Gehenna of Ice and Abaddon of Sins. Purgatory was covered in flames and only devils could live there. On the other hand, Gehenna and Abaddon were freezing cold. If one wasn't thoroughly prepared for the cold, even your piss would freeze before it landed on the ground.

Abaddon, the last of the trio, was the most mysterious of them all. Its perimeters were covered in a pitch black miasma. I had attempted to penetrate this barrier several times but I ended up getting lost. In the end, I had no choice but to retreat…

I did not know how long my unconscious state lasted, but by the time I woke up it was dawn. The first sight that greeted me was the tiny head of Nicole and her delicate back. to my bed was Roscar, seated on a wooden chair, his head resting on the table nearby.

My body protested as I gingerly got off the bed. Thankfully, there wasn't any internal bleeding or fractures. It was mostly external injuries.

Thinking about those two beaten to a pulp brought a smile to my face. However, this was merely a mask for my discomfort. I was painfully aware that it wasn't my own strength that accomplished it. If I had the strength, taking revenge myself would definitely be more appropriate.

Just like if Auntie Anna was in trouble, Roscar would definitely kill that troublemaker. But if it was reversed, the powerless Anna would've ended up like me, defeated. Thankfully I didn't end up like them, dead. Only the powerful Roscar lived, Anna, Morran and Rhona all died.

Underneath his shaggy mane of bed hair was a piercing pair of eyes that could scare anyone witless. However, as his gaze turned towards me, the fire in his eyes went out instantly; leaving a sense of warmth and happiness.

"Son, your old man was worried sick about you!" These words had barely left his mouth before he rushed over to give me a bear hug.

"No way." He gave me a solid pat on my back once...twice…thrice... He finally stopped after 10 pats. "Your old man has already taken care of those two beasts. The next time you see them, just beat them up. If they dare to retaliate, I'll break their legs."

This stirred up a mixed bag of feelings in me. Should I be happy or disappointed. "I was sure you would cripple the two of them."

"That's only because of Sarla interceding on their behalf. He is the head of security here and to some extent represents the lord after all. Some respect has to be given."

At this moment, Nicole woke up as well. I guess this was to be expected, given the ruckus Roscar made. The first thing the loli did upon waking up was to pinch my ears. "Little Ke you shouldn't have retaliated, you should have just let them take the money. Big Sis will make them pay for it later with interest."

"That's right, you should have just tolerated their slight since you are still powerless." Roscar made his opinion clearly known with that sentence. He was in agreement with Nicole. As he put me down, he ruffled my hair and said:

"Just remember the people that bullied you, and you can take revenge on them once you have grown stronger. If you can't wait that long, you can get us to help. If it hadn't been for your big sis tailing you in secret, by now you would have been…" By the time he finished consoling me, my blue hair had turned into a miniature bird nest.

Being powerless is truly unbearable. My grand dreams of crushing my enemies and dominating the world were just that...Mere dreams of a weakling.

I guess I simply did not have the talent for Aura Perception. As for getting my magic tested once more...I didn't hold much hopes for it. This wasn't like an entrance exam: if you failed once, you can retake it next year after another year of hard work.

Talent was something decided at birth. If you were talented, you would always be talented. If you were talentless, even dying on the training ground was a possibility. Fairness never existed in this world…

"Little Ke, Big Sis is back!" She shouted even before she got to the front door, her excitement apparent for all to see. She had just finished shopping for groceries.

Nicole looked as stunning as ever as she waved at me, her brilliant red hair flowing in the wind behind her. However, it wasn't her that caught my attention this time. It was the person behind her. It was a blonde teenager, 16 to 17 years of age. He had a short clean cut head of hair that neatly framed a rugged but handsome face. He wore the typical combat uniform of a warrior school which complemented his dashing looks.

As soon as he spotted me he walked up to me. He patted me on the shoulder as he said, " It's been a while Little Ke. I heard from Nicole that you've been pushing yourself too much recently."

"Mhm. I heard about that too. Roscar seemed to have given them a severe beating. I heard they are still lying in bed recovering."

"Sares have you had your meal yet? If you haven't had it yet, you should join us for dinner. There's enough for all of us." As she said this, she raised her grocery basket. A strange look which I had never seen before crossed her face as she said, "I seemed to have bought too much food. If you don't help us finish it, Little Ke and I might stuff ourselves to death."

"Great! It's almost time for dinner; I'll go prepare some food...Oh right, we are having beef tonight." Having received the answer she wanted, she ran into the kitchen with a definite spring in her step.

As Nicole skipped off, the mood turned cold instantly. I didn't like Sares at all. He always seemed to give off that impression of falseness, but this merely stayed at the level of a conjecture; he hadn't anything wrong yet.

From Nicole's previous performance, it was clear as day that she liked him alot. What I didn't know was whether that was the kind of fondness that one shows towards an idol, sibling or a lover. I guess this was the real reason why I hated him.

Sares was 16 years old this year and was the sole son of Chaik Village's sheriff, Zarah. He had awakened his Aura Perception at 6, raised to the level of two-stars at 10 and now, he was a three-star warrior. His subclass was a swordsman and he specialised in large swords; the type that was taller than a person and extremely wide.

These swords were classified as heavy weaponry and boasted tremendous attack strength. Whether it was humans, magical beasts or golems, large swords were able to take a chunk out of them.

As a result, this subclass tended to have the main offensive role in a adventuring party and also had a secondary function as a defender. Large sword users were known for their astonishing strength. In a fight with an equivalent three-star warrior, a large sword user would have a much easier time breaking through their opponents fighter's aura.

...I really did not like him because Nicole liked him. I know I am just being envious of his power and of his relationship with Nicole but I can't help it. Why am I, a transmigrator, without any hack abilities, without a grandpa, without any superpowers or even any magic talent...I don't even have Aura Perception.

As a talentless hack, my dream of a harem will forever remain a dream. If you won't give me any special abilities, why did you have to throw me into this alternate world. You could have just let me reincarnate on Earth once more. I could have led a fruitful new life.

During dinner, the two of them had a merry time, full of laughter and joy. However, I could only sit at the side mutely; I wasn't able to butt in at all… It truly felt like Nicole was slowly disappearing from my life. After dinner, she sent him home. Judging from the time taken, she must've sent him all the way to his doorstep.

Sares came over again on next morning, at the break of dawn. We were in the midst of practice when he arrived. As usual, I was still unable to perceive my aura while Nicole was on the verge of breaking into three-stars. As for that guy, he was at the level of three-stars two years ago.

Ever sharp eyed, Nicole spotted him right off the bat and eagerly approached him. Her intentions were clear: get him to join our practice.

"Yeah, I discovered that the bottleneck is starting to loosen. I wanted to ask my Dad but he's not home so I have to bother you."

"If that's the case." He maintained his signature smile and accepted her request: "I'll just give you a simple lecture on the differences between the two levels."

Sares nodded at the two of us and continued: "As you know, one-star requires Aura Perception while two-star requires awakening one's aura. Actually, both of these levels can be grouped together. As long as one practiced hard enough and possessed the talent to awaken Aura Perception, advancing into the two-star realm was only a matter of time. However, three-star is a different matter."

"Three-stars required one to have a talent in radiating and wrapping aura around one's body. This level is similar to one-star in that they both required talent. If one didn't possess the requisite talent, no amount of hard work will ever matter."

Sares' views on talent wasn't a new one. I had heard it multiple times before from different sources, and each time it left me battered. However, no matter how bleak things might seem, I still persevered.

"This…" He glanced at my anxious eyes and Nicole's worried face before giving a dry cough. "Actually, this isn't always true. I've heard of a miraculous treasure which can awaken the aura perception of a talentless person. After his perception is awakened, he can train his aura like a normal person. I've also heard of a heaven-defying treasure which can temporarily grant a person the power of a seven-star."

"What's that treasure!? Does it truly exist!?" At this point, Nicole sounded even more anxious than me as she grabbed his arms and pressed him for answers: "How do I get such a treasure?"

"There are various kinds of treasures like this. The most common among them was called an Elemental Core. It's extracted from the basic structure of the different elements. However, to produce such a core would at least require a six-stars…"

Six-stars! I guess Roscar can't help me with this since he's only a five-star warrior. Plus, treasures like these aren't easy to obtain. Buying them would be a lot easier.

"The only place you can obtain such an item is at the auction houses. Each time, it costs at least a thousand and most of the time, you couldn't obtain one without spending at least 3000 gold coins."

On the surface the whole conservation looked like it was just about fighter's aura, but couldn't she have just asked Roscar? No matter how you cut it, a five-star warrior was a lot stronger than Sares.

Roscar returned and he brought back his spoils for the day, a three-star magical beast called 'Bladed Ursa'. From a distance, him carrying the corpse of this bear merged forming the strange sight of a man/bear hybrid walking towards us.

This goes to show how strong warriors were in this alternate world. Just take that bear for example, it weighed in at an astonishing 500 kg, but Roscar was able to lug it home without breaking too much of a sweat!

Think about it. The strongest weightlifter on Earth could only lift a total weight of about 500-600 kg and that was just a stationary lift...

I have a confession to make. When I found out that I had no no talent in perceiving fighter's aura, I had seriously considered going the route of "transmigrator bringing his tech skills to bear in an alternate but backward world". However, this was easier said than done and reality was never like those novels.

Guns weren't easy to make. Explosives were easier but they weren't able to break through the aura layer around a three-star warrior. Investing so much time just to beat a bunch of one-star and two-star weaklings seems kind of pointless. What's more, there was no guarantee that it would even work...

"Yo. Sares, you're back." Roscar greeted them as he entered the house. After exchanging a few pleasantries, he noticed the kid, me, pouting at a corner and came over.

I came up with a random excuse and glossed over the question. I wasn't tired at all. It was just that the gaze he threw at Nicole and Sares worried me. That was the gaze of an old man looking at his son-in-law…

"Tired? Well you should go take a break." As he said this, he dumped the 500 kg bear onto floor, kicking up a dust cloud. He casually turned towards Nicole and said, "Nicole, go make some food. I'll just leave the spoils here; It's been a long time since I've seen this kid. I want to see how much Sares has improved."

"Dad must be hungry after all that work. I'll fix something up right now. Sares, you should stay for a meal as well." She threw down her wooden sword and left for the kitchen without even throwing me a glance.

"Sares come over and let's spar." He grabbed a large sword from the warehouse and tossed it over to Sares as he said this. As for him, he drew the broadsword on his back. Broadswords were wider and longer than short swords. Their hilt was also long enough for one to wield it as a two handed weapon.

Due to their usage, they could be considered an exotic type of weapon. They didn't have the destructive power of a large sword nor the speed of a short sword but instead offered an average between the two types. Its users tended to be the all-rounded type. Whether it was a solo or group fight, these swordsmen were the hardest to deal with.

"Of course we have to fight. No food for you if you don't." As he gripped the broadsword with two hands, he gave a flourish and took up an all purpose stance. "If you don't come at me, I'll have to make the first move."

"Alright alright...we'll spar." Sares shook his head as he smiled helplessly. He focused himself and readied his sword, easily lifting it up into a combat stance. "Here I come!"

"Watch yourself." Sares charged as he said so. With a swift step forward at the end, he swung his large sword forward with the full force of his charge, the sword sundering anything that stood in its path. His plan was to suppress Roscar with his superior force.

"Interesting." Roscar grinned and readied his broadsword. He raised his sword at the last moment possible and with a twist of his wrist, deflected the incoming large sword to his side. Sares' flank was exposed and open to counterattack from his faster sword. However, Roscar retreated a few steps back instead and put up a defensive stance once more. "Again!"

"Alright." Sares wasn't satisfied with this outcome either. He had clearly lost after that strike. If this was a battlefield, he would have received a fatal blow already. Furthermore, the fact that Roscar took his large sword head on and deflected it meant he lost terms of power as well.

While he was used to being bullied by Roscar since young, he was also a genius from birth. He was the premier genius in Chaik village and even in school. Winning was a part of his nature.

Whether it was facing the envy of his seniors or the praise of his juniors, all these only fed into his nature and pride...Perhaps it was because of this that he was unable to accept being defeated so easily. His life was just too smooth sailing.

Sares attacked once more as he activated his aura layer. This was the first time I've seen his aura layer. It was like a golden cloud wrapping around his body, forming an ever-changing defensive layer.

The color of one's aura represented its element. Yellow represented earth, blue represented water, white represented ice, black was darkness, red was fire, green was wind and silver was lightning.

Once a warrior reaches the level of three-star, his aura element was revealed. Each element had its own advantages. Sares' earth element gave him superior endurance, defense and power. This was why he chose the large sword and was also why he could bring out the full potential of this sword.

"Finally getting serious? Too bad it's still not enough." In the face of this furious strike, Roscar maintained his relaxed stance, neither attacking nor defending. The large sword careened through the air, closing the gap in an instant, its edge clearly visible at this distance. However, just as it looked like it would connect, Roscar disappeared in a flash, easily dodging the strike.

By this time, the momentum of his large sword could not be stopped. It crashed into the ground with a loud explosion, the resulting cracks spreading out like a spiderweb.

"See you." With a casual smack of his broadsword, he dispersed Sares' aura and sent him flying. Sares tumbled back several meters, his sword still stuck into the ground at his previous position.

However, this pathetic thought was immediately banished. If I didn't have any strength, how could I defend myself from other people? By relying on Roscar or Nicole? I guess I could survive by depending on them but is that even considered living? Was this the kind of life I wanted? No. I must work harder. Even if it was just to become a baseball for Roscar to smack around, I must work hard!

I don't know why but seeing him getting smacked around fills my heart with positive energy. At this rate, I might just be able to activate my aura perception…

"Hahaha, not bad. As expected of an earth aura layer. Hardy as expected." He helped Sares to his feet and patted the dust off his shoulders. "You aren't injured right?"

The reality of their power disparity was thoroughly beaten into Sares at this point. As he accepted Roscar's help, he could only smile bitterly. "I'm alright. If uncle Roscar didn't hold back his strength, I wouldn't even be able to stand up."

"Don't be so modest. I'm already a five-star warrior while you are just a three-star warrior. Just based on your experience with aura, I've long surpassed you."

"Mhm." Roscar didn't answer Sares but left him hanging. "Do you know why there's an insurmountable gap between a five-star and a six-star?"

"That's right. Six-star warriors are known for their strengthened bodies. Simply put, you didn't need much talent to rise from five to six-stars. You only needed to reach the breaking point in order to advance."

Once one had become a two-star warrior, his aura would flow around his body and slowly strengthen it up to the level of five-stars. By then, one's body would would have been strengthened to an astonishing level. Just from the way Roscar could lug a 500 kg corpse around so easily, one could easily see how strong a five-star could get.

Rising to six-stars had a transformative change on one's body. It was said that a six-star's lifespan was increased by 50 years when they advanced.

As a comparison, a normal person could live up to 100 years but a majority of them only lived up to 90. By 60 or 70, one could just keep a coffin handy in their storage. A 50 years increase was massive. It could be counted as a type of evolution.

Roscar was in such a state. His body was continually getting stronger. By the time he was ready to advance to six-stars, a one-star's attack would have no effect on him.

As a 16 year old three-star warrior, Sares was definitely a genius. Furthermore, he was a Chaiksman through and through. Not to mention he had a kind and just personality. Roscar's fondness of him was fully justified but this did not stop my heart from plunging into the depths.

Roscar was in a really good mood at this point. His grin reached up to his ears as he said, "I have question for you. Do you like our Nicole?"

"Nicole is this village's ...no, she is the most beautiful girl I've seen. Even the girls from school couldn't compare to her...I...I."

"Time to eat." Looks like Nicole's done cooking. Nicole stood by the door as she called out. She then turned to the sulking kid in the corner and asked , "Little Ke? Didn't you leave to rest?"

"Hahahaha. Did watching us spar make you feel frustrated?" Roscar patted my back as he consoled me. "Don't worry. Once your old man has saved enough money, Little Ke can attend the magic academy. Haha. This Bladed Ursa is pretty valuable."

"Little Ke just has to work hard and I'm sure he will succeed." Nicole clearly thought I was just frustrated so she came over to console me. But I really did not want to see her face right now…

Attitude towards Humans: Eats them if they aren't to her liking. If they are to her liking, play with them and then eat them. Premium quality men are kept alive.

I love Nicole, from the moment I met her, I've loved her. While that initial love was mostly the lolicon in me talking, but as the years passed, I fell in love with her. I was the daily recipient of her tender loving care. No matter what it was, she was always the one who did it for me. Whether, it was feeding me when I was young, bathing me, washing my clothes...all of it was her. She was truly a major part of my daily life.

She was the world's most caring older sister. She was a genius who could reach the peak of a human warrior. She was a one in a million beauty...No matter how you looked at it, she was flawless. A perfect existence.

As for me? I'm sure you already know; I'm nothing but a talentless piece of garbage. A piece of trash that couldn't even protect a gold coin. The only thing I was good for was holding her back and getting in the way of others...since that's the case, there no point in me staying.

Under the cover of night, I left. My only companions were a backpack and my weapons...I left. My head never turning back, not even once. I knew that if I did that, I might never take another step forward. That's why I had no choice but to leave in a hurry.

My mind was full of conflicting emotions as I recalled the past few days. Nicole's care for me, Roscar's care for me. Then there was that dinner...their care for Sares, Roscar's question to Sares about Nicole… I'm thinking too much about this. I've got to pick up the pace.

With that in mind, I continued my aimless wander through the forest. As time passed, I began to feel that I was completely lost; my lack of experience outside clearly showing. In the past, I was merely an otaku. In this life, I was about the same. I rarely ventured outside. This wasn't a safe world for children after all. One misstep and you might find yourself on some slave trader's caravan as a pitiful slave.

Time passed, and I felt that I had covered a significant distance. Even if I turned back, there was no way to go back home. By now, the skies were pitch black. My heart pounded in fear with every step I took in the darkness. Perhaps I shouldn't have left home after all. But it was just too painful...why did they have to focus their attention on Sares…because I'm a burden? Or is it because I'm trash…

As I thought about this, my body shivered reflexively as a chill ran down my spine; my hairs standing on end. Even a slight breeze would scare the living daylights out of me given my current condition.

I'm scared but I don't want to go back. At this moment, I was just like a kid throwing a tantrum at no longer being the favorite son. I forcefully held back my fear and continued on. Thankfully, it was a relatively uneventful trek. Other than my occasional encounter with the boogeyman of the forest, the owl, nothing scared me…

As I continued my aimless trek, the sun began to rise. I sat down on a nearby rock and took a break. I had some money from daily savings. It was meant to help me start a business but it had now become my travel budget. Without a destination, I could only try to stretch this budget as long as I could. If I met a bandit on the way, I could only pray he let me live in exchange for this sum of money.

The plan was to continue on till I finally grew tired of traveling or was just too tired to move. At which point, I would make a pit stop in a village.

Sounds pretty miserable, but wasn't this how the main character in those wuxia novels got a fortuitous encounter? Eight years have passed and I still had no Aura Perception, hack or grandpa. Hopefully, it's just that my fortuitous encounter hadn't come as yet. Perhaps this trip will be the start of my new life.

The eight year old me, with a 43 year old soul, pressed on towards the rising sun, a new hope in my heart. My aimless journey began once more and stopped once more. After an hour of trekking, I stopped for a meal of bread and water.

After that pit stop, I set off again. As I stood up and patted the dust off my butt, I heard a faint voice echo in my head. It sounded like a cry for help.

Should I reply? How do I reply? What if it's a trap? But if I don't go, this itch will never be scratched...I guess I'll go check it out.

Having decided on a course of action, I began to gear up. I equipped a small iron-plated buckler on my left hand and a 60 cm short sword on my right. Perhaps it was due to the influence of I'm MT, my first choice of equipment was a shield and sword. This was my plan, to become a Sword and Shield Warrior if I ever awakened my Aura Perception.

After another 10 minutes of trekking, I suddenly spotted a strange red creature running past me. I immediately took up a defensive stance, but this creature merely ignored me and continued on. In a blink of an eye, it had disappeared. I wasn't able to catch a proper glimpse of it before it vanished into the bushes.

While I was slightly surprised by this, I continued on, my curiosity growing even more. That creature reminded me of a devil. But if that was a devil, shouldn't it have pounced on me right away. Why did it ignore me? There's definitely something going on.

I picked up my pace once more. After 10 minutes, a chaotic clamoring echoed in the air. From the sound of it, it was coming from right in front of me. I crouched down and and entered a shrub. From my bush, I spied a bunch of green figures a short distance away.

The tallest among them didn't reach 1.5 meters and they all had an emancipated stature. They had a face that even a mother wouldn't love and wore matching grass skirts. They wielded a bunch of crude weapons ranging from wooden clubs to rusty blades. These were goblins!

They numbered around a thousand strong and formed a goblin army. However, these dimwitted demi-humans weren't capable of maintaining a proper formation, so calling them a horde would be more accurate. On the outer edges of this horde were a bunch of dead goblins and those strange red creatures. Even the red creature I met on the way here was lying dead in that pile.

From my vantage point, I spotted a strange purple-haired loli in the middle of the horde. They were surrounding her. She looked to be around 10 years old and wore a white princess dress covered in flower embroidery. From a single glance, one could tell that this wasn't something a normal person could wear. Her long flowing hair framed a lovely oval shaped face with a seductive pair of red lips and flawless white teeth as well. She looked like a little immortal from those Chinese novels.

She sat weakly atop a large rock with a grim look on her face. Beside her were over a hundred devils protecting her. These devils had a similar physique as the goblins but were slightly stronger. They were the same as the red creature I saw previously. It was called a small imp, and it reminded me of those small green imps you saw in a certain MMO made by a certain company named after a snowstorm.

These small imps possessed the combat strength of a normal adult human and were commonly found in Purgatory. They were the of the lowest tier in the devil world and had a status akin to a human peasant. They were also the original form of all Greater Devils.

Within these 100 small imps, there were 10 of them that were particularly large. This was the evolved form of the small imp. It was known as the large imp.

The devils formed a protective ring around the loli and faced off against the goblins. In the distance were some sporadic groups of imps rushing towards the loli. These were her reinforcements, but in order for them to reinforce her, they first had to break through the ring of goblins.

This was the beginning of the battle between the two races. The devils wanted to get in while the goblins wanted to block them. Their clash was inevitable and was a prelude to the upcoming bloodbath.

The goblins' garbage grade weapons barely had any effect on the small imps, so the imps had the advantage in a solo fight. But these goblins had an overwhelming numerical advantage. If one wasn't enough, then what about two? What about five or even ten!

Most of the time, each small imp had to face goblins on all four sides. This resulted in them only being able to kill around two goblins before getting swarmed to death.

In the distance, I saw a goblin face off against a charging small imp with his wooden spear. It connected with the imp but it barely penetrated its hide before it was stopped. Having been injured, the small imp flew into a frenzy and charged headlong into that goblin, trying to claw him to death.

However, another was lying in wait behind that goblin. This hidden goblin surprised the imp with a wooden club to its head, stunning it slightly. At its side, another goblin wielding a blade fragment saw an opening and charged at the imp, his target, its head.

However, this imp was merely faking its weakness. As it saw the goblin charge at it, it flashed a toothy grin full of fangs. Ignoring the blade fragment, it reached out with its claws and latched onto the goblin biting down on its neck.

"Ahhh…" The goblin's screams slowly faded as the imp's fangs sunk into its airway. Soon it was tossed away like a ragdoll by the imp.

The imp's cruel methods terrified the surrounding goblins and they began retreating. It was at this moment that a burly goblin stepped forward. It wielded a buckler and a short-sword. From its equipment, it was probably the head of these goblins.

The goblin pushed aside its terrified comrades and howled at them in an unknown language. At which point it turned its attention to the imp. Its mouth revealed a taunting smile that could only be found in a intelligent lifeform. It adopted a phalanx-like stance and charged at the imp.

This well-geared goblin was clearly different from its fodder comrades who could only rely on numbers. It was much stronger than its comrades and its gear was obviously pieced together from the remains of human adventurers. In terms of combat strength, it was at least at the level of an adult human.

The imp was of a similar level, but it didn't possess a weapon which put it at a minor disadvantage compared to the goblin. Furthermore, it was still besieged by the other weaker goblins. It wasn't long before a victor was crowned.

This was merely the fight of one imp. There were similar fights happening throughout the battlefield as the imps tried to breach the ring. Only the large imps were able to successfully breach the ring and rush to the loli's side.

However, this wasn't all. As time passed, more and more devils joined the fight, and soon the goblin horde was the one being pressured.

Goblins were similar to gnomes in that they loved to kidnap beautiful humanoid females. These females then faced the terrible fate of being a reproductive tool for the goblins. This was because the children born from a stronger female were much stronger than the ones born from a female goblin. As a result, goblins, gnomes and other similarly inferior races adopted the custom of kidnapping humanoid females to boost their races strength. This was common knowledge.

I wasn't particularly interested in this custom. Instead, I wanted to know more about that purple haired loli. She actually had the ability to tame these devils! How did she do that!?

As time passed, more and more devils threw themselves at the goblin encirclement, tilting the battle further in the loli's favor. The goblins knew instinctively that they couldn't drag this on any further and split the horde into two. One detachment to block the incoming devils while the other attacks the loli and her devils.

This was my very first encounter with a large scale battle. While it was just a low level battle between one-stars, it was still amazing. Even with my vast experience with large (movie) battles, the sheer scale of this battle still shocked me.

From a high vantage point, it looked like a tidal wave of red ants had crashed into an ocean of green ants. The ants furiously tore into each other, littering the battlefield with corpse from both sides.

In spite of the grand melee happening around her, the purple loli still maintained her passive condition sitting atop her rock. Even the horrific injuries of her bodyguard devils failed to move her into action.

Based on my vast (movie) battlefield experience, this loli should be a novice on the battlefield. If she had ordered her bodyguards to charge at the same time as the devils on the outside charged the perimeter, the goblin encirclement would have collapsed. However, she did not do this. Which only meant that she was either inexperienced or was stalling for time.

Soon, the number of reinforcing devils started decreasing; all the surrounding devils must have already arrived. The strength of the devils were plain for all to see, and while the goblins vastly outnumbered them; their numbers were still manageable to the devils. This resulted in the battle reaching a precarious stalemate.

Both sides continued their bloody battle with no victor in sight. The goblins who had lost their weapons used their claws, teeth and whatever they could find to fight. Periodically, one could see some devils picking up the goblin weapons as well. The battle had truly reached a feverish point with no sign of abatement. The devil's superior abilities were countered by the goblin's cooperation as the devils only relied on their personal valor and prowess instead of coordination.

This stalemate raged on for another two more hours. By this time, the number of participants had dwindled significantly. The battlefield was a field corpses and mutilated parts, with a river of blood running through this red and green mess. With the goblin boss just having been bitten to death by a large imp, the battlefield was reduced to a group of 7 goblins with varying injuries facing off against a half-dead large imp and the mysterious loli.

The remaining goblins were on the verge of fleeing, the vicious death of their boss still fresh in their stupid minds. Their fear had made them ignorant of the large imp's numerous injuries.

They were creatures who only dared to attack when they had sufficient numerical advantage. The large imp was aware of this point so he made a show of strength by fiercely bellowing at them. However, even within a stupid race like the goblins, there were bound to be one or two geniuses. Or perhaps goblins who were just too consumed by the urging of their lower half.

A goblin dropped the wooden club in his hand and slowly picked up the curved blade of the goblin boss as if doing so granted him the strength and the status of a goblin boss.

Apparently, it really did. The newly crowned goblin boss barked a few commands at his comrades and the other goblins merely hesitated for a while before charging at the large imp. This sudden display of courage stunned the large imp. He did not expect them to continue fighting back. However, this surprise only lasted a while as it soon turned into rage. He grabbed the front most goblin and while ignoring the attacks of the other goblins, savagely bit the goblin to death as he bear-hugged the poor thing in place.

However, this was the last of the large imp's strength. While their comrade was being bitten to death, the remaining goblins wildly attacked the imp. Finally, one of their wild strikes got lucky and hit the deepest wound on the imp's back. The wound was deep to the point where one could probably hear its heart beating while standing nearby. As the lucky goblin drove his wooden spear into the imp, it penetrated its back piercing into the heart, dealing a fatal blow.

Suddenly, that mysterious voice rang out once more in my head. Perhaps it was due to the proximity, but this time it was a much clearer voice: [Please save me...]

Even though I was a damned otaku in my previous life, who sporadically read some strange books. Those were merely books! In the end, I'm part of the pure love faction…Wait, why did I bring in my babies?

"Hey, you damned bunch of green shorties. Look over here!" I shouted as I jumped off my tree perch and rushed towards the loli. It was at this moment that the large imp finally collapsed to the ground. Ignoring the countless corpses in front of me, I charged headlong into the goblins, clanking against my shield with my sword while screaming at the top of lungs: "Hey scrubs, look over here."

My taunt skill seemed to have worked as they all turned their attention towards me. They definitely did not understand human language, but I guess some gestures and words transcended the racial barrier. By this time, I was a mere 10 meters away from the closest goblin.

One of the benefits of dying and reincarnating into a new body was my improved eyesight. I was no longer that nerd using a pair of magnifying glasses as spectacles. At this distance, I was able to see the unusual behavior of that loli. She sat atop her rock with her eyes shut and her body shivering as if she was under great pain. From the looks of it, she was severely injured. While it wasn't serious enough to kill her, if she was captured by the goblins...perhaps death would have been better. Either way, I'm already here and I fully intend to save her.

Roscar brought me into the forest to train and my opponent then was a goblin. I was hesitant to strike at first, but its horrific stench and deformed looks left me disgusted and soon I was going toe to toe with that goblin. In order activate my Aura Perception, I imagined him as those damnable colleagues from my past life and charged. After an epic fight with the goblin, I finally won. The result? I gained a large amount of XP and even gained a level.

The goblin boss pointed his curved blade at me and muttered a few garbled sentences. Upon hearing this, the goblin who stabbed the imp to death hesitated a while before he began slowly approaching me. Was he trying to test my strength? No wait, he's trying to capture that loli at the same time.

As the spear goblin faced off against me, a pair of deformed goblins reached out to the purple loli, their aim clear; to secure the reproductive tool.

With my buckler raised, I charged the spear goblin. My fierce charge seemed to have had an effect on this goblin. He hastily stabbed out at me with his spear, the anxiety apparent in his eyes. I easily deflected that light stab with my buckler and continued my charge. By now, I was a mere two steps away from his unguarded body. With a swift stab of my short sword, I pierced his chest!

With that, I only had 5 more goblins to contend with. My body was shivering at this moment but not from fear. It was excitement! It had been a full year from my last encounter with a goblin and yet my body still had such a visceral reaction to this kill.

I wonder where did this violent side of me come from? Perhaps it was from being repressed so much in my previous… Well, it doesn't matter. Five more to go.

With a kick to the corpse, I withdrew my short sword from the goblin's body, a stream of blood spraying onto my face. Damn, this sucks. But with the battlefield so saturated with blood and gore, I was already accustomed to the stench of blood.

Seeing me kill that goblin with ease, the goblin boss barked a few more commands. The pair of goblins who were about to capture the loli fell back. To them, the loli was as good as theirs. They only had to take care of their new obstacle, me.

The howling goblin boss led the newly reunited goblin team in a charge towards me. He took the head of this charge in a show of bravery to the four survivors behind him. The remaining goblins were covered in wounds from the previous battle. In a solo battle, they wouldn't pose any threat at all. It was merely a matter of numbers. This was the first time that I've faced five opponents at once.

As we met face to face for the first time, the goblin boss swung his curved blade out at me. However, I was already prepared. My buckler in hand, I blocked that swing.

Based on this initial clash, it was obvious who came out on top. It was 'the me' who had practiced tirelessly for seven years. I made use of this opportunity to lunge at the goblin with my buckler.

The buckler crashed into the goblin's head and knocked him onto the floor. It seemed to have knocked him out. I immediately to tried to follow this with a killing blow, but the trailing goblins counterattacked and stopped me. A pair of steel barbed wooden spears stabbed out at my feet and head. I hastily dodged the spear to my feet and blocked the other with a raise of my buckler and swing of my sword.

The short sword sliced through the air in a metallic flash, cleaving through the necks of these two goblins. A spurt of blood filled the air as their lifeless bodies crumpled to the ground.

Just as I prepared to face the two incoming goblins, a burning pain shot through my left leg. It was if the world collapsed at that moment as my body suddenly lost its balance and toppled. I barely had time to register this shocking change before I had to roll away to dodge an incoming attack. I tried to stand up but my left leg didn't listen to me...No, that's not right. It wasn't that it didn't respond, it was simply not there!

The goblin jumped to his feet at this moment with an evil grin on his face and his bloodied blade waving in the air. So he wasn't knocked out. He was faking it!

This despicable fellow faked his unconsciousness in order to avoid my attention! Taking advantage of my distraction, he quietly crawled up to me and sliced off part of my left leg. It must've been a truly sharp blade for it to slice through flesh and bone so easily.

Losing my balance in the midst of battle had serious consequences for me. The other two goblins immediately took advantage of this and lunged at me; fully intending to finish this wounded dog off.

Metal clashed against wood as my buckler deflected the goblin's wooden club. However, I wasn't able to counterattack due to my crippling injuries. The other goblin followed his partner's attack up with a stab of his rusty short sword. Its target, my lower abdomen. I mustered whatever energy I could and kicked my body off the ground with my remaining leg, dodging a fatal stab. However, this did not mean that I dodged it completely. The short sword penetrated my right thigh as it stabbed into the ground.

"Die!" My sword shot forward in a hate-filled stab. The goblin who had just nailed me to the ground wasn't able to react in time as he got skewered through the heart, the deformed smile on his face forever frozen in time.

There was barely any time to celebrate this kill as I felt a rush of air near me. Soon, I felt a dull pain in my head as the breath was knocked out of me. A goblin had struck my head with a wooden club. Thankfully, it wasn't a heavy hit and I managed to resist the urge to faint.

With a swing of my left arm, I smashed my trusty buckler into that goblin's nose, bloodying his face. I wanted to continue my attack but couldn't do so. The loss of my left calf and being nailed to the ground on my right thigh, severely restricted my movement. In a decisive move, I flung my short sword at the club wielding goblin, piercing his chest…

The last remaining goblin stared at me with its green eyes, a myriad of emotions apparent within them. Hatred, anger, reluctance and fear… He did not dare to approach the me who was currently shieldless and swordless. Instead of the word cautiousness, cowardice and weakness suited him more at this moment.

He turned to the expressionless loli once more. Shortly after, he bent down and picked up a rock and tossed it at me. In the end, he was unable to resist the lure of this reproductive tool and chose not to flee.

Goblins were a intellectually impaired demi-human race. This meant that their choice of weapons were usually restricted to the level of a caveman from earth. To a caveman, the rock was a commonly found weapon of mass destruction.

While it was merely a simple rock toss by the goblin, it was a fast and accurate one. It flew unerringly towards my head, never once veering off course. Without my mobility, I was essentially a practice dummy for the goblin. I immediately blocked that rock with my arms but it was soon followed up by another rock…

Attitude towards Humans: How about it? I'll give you money for your soul. It's a loooot of money...Still no? Well then I'm gone, just stay poor for all I care (leaves).

Since you are smart enough to know to use a rock to attack from a distance, then you should at least know how to switch your targets right? Is there a f*cking point in constantly targeting my head?

All the rocks were caught by me before they caused any damage. If he had just targeted my lower half, I definitely would have had trouble catching those.

Well, thanks to his stupidity, I'm now able to fight back. As I threw the rocks back at him, the goblin's eyes opened wide in surprise.

He did not expect a cripple like me to fight back, and had to use his blade to knock it away. Seeing it fail, I added another rock to my attack. He batted it away once more but didn't have time to block the second rock and got hit on his left shoulder.

In the meantime, I tried to pull out the sword that was nailing me down but failed to do so. There simply wasn't enough time to pull it out. Furthermore, the sword had penetrated too far in. That attempt had sent waves of excruciating pain crashing through my body, making me to break out in a cold sweat and causing my legs to go soft.

Seeing me try to pull out the sword made him panic. My lack of mobility was his biggest advantage. Once he lost it, the fight would swing back in my favor. He finally gave in to his worry and decided to engage me in melee combat. Clenching his teeth, he charged me with howl, his blade flourishing in the air.

He leveled the blade with my neck and prepared to slash at it while charging. This was it. This was the moment I had been waiting for. I calmed myself down and drew out the two daggers I kept at my waist. One clashed against the oncoming blade while the last one stabbed at the goblin's heart.

Time slowed down as the dagger closed in on his chest. Just as it was about to finish him off, the goblin retreated a step backwards. The attack had failed. My loss of blood had caused my attack to lose its decisiveness, and this coupled with the natural short range of the dagger meant that it only grazed his chest.

My heart sank to the depths of hell as the shortie backed away even further. His close encounter with death had thoroughly shaken him. He immediately circled around me and tried t o attack my blind spot.

Looks like nearly dying had knocked sense into his dense head. Too bad, this only doomed him even more. I was aware that my short range was my biggest weakness so I specifically trained in a throwing dagger skill. While it was definitely unable to hit the goblin when he was throwing rocks at me, a mere three meters was well within my effective range.

The goblin was caught off guard once more by my decisiveness. He did not expect me to go all out with this attack and was barely able to raise his blade in time to block a dagger. With the blade tied down by the first dagger, the second had a clear shot at the goblin. It flew unerringly into his lower abdomen.

I had completely forgotten about the sword stuck in my leg. It viciously tore into my leg as I tumbled, sending another wave of pain crashing through me once more.

The goblin lowered his head in disbelief and stared at the dagger sticking out of his stomach. He knew he was done for. With a last burst of energy, he took the last charge of his life…

A minute later, he was dead but I would soon follow him. In that last desperate attack, he managed to slash my chest and even my face. Thankfully, they weren't deep but they were deep enough for me to abandon my last bit of reservation.

Haha...worrying about taste at this time, I guess even in death, I'm still the same old me...I guess, I'm going to die again. I wonder if this time, I'll fall into an eternal slumber or will I reincarnate into a different world? Thinking about it, I'm kind of looking forward to it. I'm cheap aren't I? My life is so cheap.

My left leg was gone, my right thigh was nailed to the ground and my chest was so cut up that I couldn't get up. Every second was a living hell for me as I waited for my impending death.

This body won't last much longer… As I lay there, the bloody stench of the battlefield filled my sinuses. Painful...It stinks...Is this the battlefield that I was looking forward to? A meaningless battle where no one won.

Nicole, what are you doing right now? Roscar, did you know that I've left home? Sares, you'll treat Nicole well won't you? I have so much I want to say to all of you...I really didn't plan on dying...but now, it looks like I have no choice…

My mind was a complete mess at this moment. My entire life flashed before my eyes as I laid there. All the regret, the pain and reluctance seemed to have numbed the burning pain wracking my body. Even my body knew it was pointless to feel any more pain.

After an indeterminate amount of time, the purple loli finally moved. Her unmoving silhouette had been so firmly etched in my mind that I initially thought it was merely a trick of the light.

She slowly raised her head and lifted her eyelids, revealing a cold expressionless pair of eyes. Paired with her regal purple hair, they gave her an aura of nobility. As her eyes opened, a pair of purple wings sprouted from her back in an angelic display of feathers and purple light.

The loli surveyed her surroundings with her signature passive look. In her eyes, the blood and gore might as well be roses in an ordinary garden.

As if right on queue, a gentle breeze blew past the battlefield, gently lifting up her white princess dress. A light indescribable fragrance wafted through the air, wiping away the stench of blood surrounding me.

Such a perfect face. So much better than the lolis living in my 100gb hard disk… Ahem, I mean she is really pretty, even prettier than Nicole… No wait, Nicole is the best! Ah...even on my deathbed, I'm thinking of such nonsense. She's like an angel but how could an angel be affiliated with the devil? Purple wings...must be a fallen angel.

The loli slowly made her way towards me. From the looks of it, she hadn't recovered much. Every two steps she took was followed up by a hobble. In order to balance herself, she had to flap her wings periodically. Looks painful...I wonder what's so important that she was willing to endure this pain to approach me.

Perhaps it was due to the excitement of having a loli approach me, my pain had mysteriously vanished. Even my mood had improved considerably; all that talk about death disappeared with each step she took. If my death could save such a cute loli, it was worth it!

It wasn't long before the scent of that loli filled my nose. Ahh...so intoxicating. Being able to die while sniffing this heavenly scent was a kind of a blessing as well. After all, I didn't reap any benefits from my previous death and instead saved a damned pretty boy. I bet those two will end up as lovers in the future…

"No…" Regret? Why would I have any regrets? My death was already a done deal, what's the point of regrets. Besides, how could I stand idly by and watch such a cute loli get kidnapped by a bunch of goblins!

She stood there stunned, unable to comprehend my chain of thought. Perhaps, she thought that the loss of blood had rendered me unable to speak too much, so she stooped down by my side. Her milky white arm reached out and rested lightly on my bloody forehead.

[It's alright. I guess it's my fate to die here. Did you know, I actually had a family. But my existence was only a burden for them so I chose to run away from home. This was my first day. Who knew I would meet you today...is this heaven's will? Dying to save a loli...I guess it really is my fate. Oh right, what happened to you? How did you end up here?]

[Haha, so you failed. That's pretty funny. I didn't expect such a cute girl to have such a clumsy side to her. So cute… But you must be more careful the next time around. Don't make anymore mistakes. You got lucky this time when you met me. The next time you might not be so lucky.]

"While it's not possible for me to fulfill them now, once I've escaped from this predicament, I'll help you fulfill it. Money, land, women...no matter what it is, I'll get it for you."

[Hah...anything huh...if you had said this to me before I was injured, I probably would've proposed to you in the heat of the moment. Haha. I'm kidding. This might be our first meeting, but I can imagine how esteemed your status must be. There's no way you would fancy a piece of trash like me. Well, what should I wish for?]

An expected reply came out of her mouth as she unexpectedly lowered her head. "If I had my full powers or if we were at home…"

[Honestly, I only have one simple wish: remember me. Don't ever forget about me. Tell me: "You were very helpful." That's all I need.]

[In that case, Yi Yi, will you please remember my name. If you forget about me, then that means that there are no more traces of my existence in this world. Actually, my biggest wish is to be recognized, to be needed. I just wanted to be a useful person...I don't want to be powerless weakling...a burden...I'm tired…]

"You...were very helpful. You were the one who saved my life and you have my deepest gratitude for that. You aren't a worthless piece of trash...If it wasn't for you, I would've chosen to destroy my soul…"

An image of Nicole and Roscar frantically searching for me flashed through my mind as I my consciousness slowly faded. They should be looking for me right? They should be desperately looking for me right?

...It's despicable of me to say so but I don't regret running away from home...because Yi Yi was saved...at least I did something useful before dying...being needed...is truly a blessing…

Soon after, a flat buzzing echoed in the surroundings of the loli. Its source, the crystal pendant on Yi Yi's chest. It was shaped like pair of devil wings and had a blood red hue throughout; clearly an item connected to the devils. As expected, the vibration of the crystal was soon accompanied by a devil's voice.

The tripled iced loli remained as frozen faced as ever as if a talking pendant was the most natural thing in this world. "Fudina, can he still be saved?"

"I'm aware of that. Humans are always like that. One moment they aren't satisfied about their power and another moment later, they aren't satisfied that someone else's wife is prettier than theirs. At times, they are unsatisfied with their current wealth...The point is they are greedier than Mammon's race..."

"I think Mo Ke still wanted to live in the end." She curtly interrupted Fudina's ranting and fell silent once more. Her icy face betraying nothing as usual.

"That's why humans are such strange creatures. They want to live on no matter the cost, but are willing to risk their lives to protect another; even if that person is a stranger. They might have accepted their deaths but their body still latches onto their will to live, desperately struggling for naught."

Fudina brushed off her brusque comment and continued, "Haha , either way this ending isn't too bad, though that human died in the end."

"He's the first person to help Yi Yi without asking for anything in return. He's also the first person to unreservedly risk his life for Yi Yi."

"In a sense, he did indeed hold nothing back." After a deliberate pause, Fudina continued, "B ut why do I get the feeling that he was seeking death."

"..." Fudina fell silent at her request. After a moment of deliberation, Fudina spoke up, "You shouldn't...with your current magic power...saving him isn't as easy as you think."

This warning fell on deaf ears as she persisted once more, but instead of talking she bent down onto Mo Ke's body, her pink lips almost touching his nose. She opened her mouth slightly and inhaled. A wispy column of mist rushed out of Mo Ke's nose like a pair of translucent snakes coiling around each other as they ascended into her mouth.

As more and more of the fog gathered in her mouth, it slowly formed a sphere. Once it had fully stabilized, she spat the sphere out onto her hand.

The sphere was roughly the size of a lychee and had a face imprinted on it. It was the face of a slumbering Mo Ke. In middle of this sphere was a solid mote of light that was slowly leaking away on its outer edges. As the light dissipated, the outer edges became more translucent by the second. This was Mo Ke's soul slowly dispersing due to the loss of its protective body. A normal human's soul was simply too weak to survive without a body. This was why ghosts were a rarity in this world.

Souls filled with a deep hatred before dying were an exception to this rule. These souls had a high chance of becoming vengeful spirits because their deep seated hatred would help stabilize the soul, while simultaneously feeding it by absorbing the hatred in the world. This applied to strong desires in general. However, whether it was hatred or strong desires, Mo Ke possessed no such thing so he could not stabilize his soul. Given time, his soul would disperse into nothingness.

"With the heavens and earth as my witness, I do hereby swear upon the highest echelons of Purgatory. I, Yi Yi, as one of the candidates for the throne of the Demon King of Pride accept this person as my fiancee…"

"Hey hey... I don't want to enter a guy's soul...I'm only 500 years away from forming a new body…I'll have to pass on this...don't make me do this…"

"Protect him well. I will aid your revival at the right time." The pendant's words were ignored once more as she lowered it carefully onto Mo Ke's soul without seeking Fudina's consent.

"Fine, since you said so, I'll help this fellow just this once. With the power of the Chaos crystal, reincarnating a human is hardly worth mentioning...it's just...I would have to sleep for a while." Seeing that he had no say in this matter, he resigned himself to his fate. "However, I can't guarantee he will be able to survive in that place…"

"...Fine, I got it. *Sigh*...I'm just so unlucky. Hopefully this little brother will be fortunate enough to survive until I awaken."

As Mo Ke's soul came into contact with the Chaos crystal, the crystal slowly liquefied and seeped into his soul. It wasn't long before Mo Ke's soul had a faint red hue within it. It was initially a faint almost pinkish red hue but soon darkened into a dark red akin to blood.

As the crystal did its work, the blood around the battlefield began consolidating at one spot. The red liquid began coagulating and started flying around in a purposeful manner as if it was the ink on an artist's brush. Soon, an intricate blood formation was formed on the ground.

Yi Yi took a step forward and gently pressed down onto the magic formation. In that instant, the ground within the formation seemed to have been torn asunder. Fiery tentacles which could have only come from the depths of hell, sprouted out of the cracks and instantly reduced Mo Ke's body to ashes upon contact.

Roscar got up early to train as per his daily routine. What struck him as strange was the absence of a certain boy who would usually be up and training in the yard by now.

He was probably tired… As he told himself this, Roscar chose to continue his aura training until Nicole called them for breakfast. However, when the time for breakfast came, Mo Ke was still nowhere to be seen as if he wasn't even in the house.

"Little Ke, it's time for breakfast." She knocked on his room door and entered the next instant without waiting for a reply...The room was empty.

Her heart started pounding as a strange look crossed her face. She had a bad feeling about this as if something terrible was about to happen. She scoured the room and quickly found the letter left on the table by Mo Ke. She dashed out of the room and immediately brought the letter to Roscar. The two of them swiftly opened the letter and read its contents. It didn't explain why he wanted to leave but merely stated that he wanted to take a trip outside.

Roscar left Nicole some instructions and immediately dashed out of the house. He frantically combed the village and soon came upon the tracks left by Mo Ke. He was an experienced hunter after all, tracking an eight year old was easy for him. He followed the trail closely, through its various twists and turns. Half a day later, he finally came upon the battlefield of the goblins and devils.

The battlefield was devoid of anything other than the stench of death emanating from the corpses littered about. He quickly got down to the grisly work of flipping through each individual corpse, his mood visibly affected by the implications of this situation. After an extensive search, he only found a short sword engraved with a name and a buckler.

As for that blood formation, he only knew it had to do with devils and nothing else. As he brought back what he thought was Mo Ke's relics, he was greeted by the sight of an anxious Nicole. By her side, was Sares dutifully comforting her.

It was a sea of darkness around me. The only things linking me to reality were the sounds of waves crashing against the coast and the suffocating feeling I was experiencing. Is it a lack of oxygen?

I tried to get a feel of my surroundings by waving my limbs around, however, I soon encountered resistance. It was thin and hard but not overly hard. My first impression of it was a wall.

As I pondered these questions, I continued struggling around within this enclosure. Each time I slapped the wall-like structure, it echoed back a dull sound.

As time passed by, breathing became more and more difficult. At this rate, I will suffocate to death if I do not break out of this enclosure soon.

It would be an utter disgrace if I died before figuring out the situation. Don't tell me I reincarnated once more? I guess it's possible. I reincarnated from Earth into an alternate world so what's stopping me from reincarnating once more?

With the assumption that I had reincarnated again, I increased my efforts to break out of this enclosure. I tried a variety of methods to escape, such as increasing the strength of my attacks and continuously attacking the same spot. Soon the wall relented and cracks began forming at the spot I attacked. As the spider web of cracks spread, beams of red light began to fill my sight.

I guess this isn't the western human realms huh… My curiosity only intensified as soon as I realized this fact. I doubled down on my attacks and soon a large hole was formed in the wall. My oxygen-deprived self immediately stuck my head through the hole and took a deep breath of fresh air.

The sounds of waves crashing filled my ears once more but this time, it was much clear er. As I looked around, I discovered the identity of that wall; it was a red eggshell-like material. Behind that egg was a blood red sea crashing onto an equally eye catching blood red coast paved with gravel.

I swung my head around to locate the source of that 'crack', and noticed several other egg-like objects around me. Some had already hatched while others quietly laid there, wobbling from time to time. Among them was an egg which had just hatched and from within it came a small imp.

However, reality begged to differ as I looked down. It was a pair of skinny, scaleless and crimson hands, equipped with a sharp set of claws; a small imp's hands. My legs were a similar glossy red...I guess I'm really an imp……...NOOO! At least turn me into an esteemed race like the fallen angels! Can I get a reroll…

I've no idea why I react so strongly whenever a serious situation arises but becoming a devil is actually not that bad. At least I'm alive and I could slowly evolve my way into a greater devil...who knows, I might even be able to make it back to the human world and find Nicole and Roscar.

However, does time here pass at the same rate as the human world? Or is it like those Chinese novels where a year here is equivalent to tens of years in the human world. By then Nicole would be a granny with a whole herd of Nicolettes and Nicholases...or maybe it's not even possible to return!

Who's making all that noise...oh, it's my stomach. Well, I guess now's not the time to be thinking about such things. First, I've gotta secure some food.

I picked up a stone and smashed into one of the unmoving eggs with the pointed side of it. As expected of a weapon of mass destruction! The eggshell barely stood a chance and cracked after two hits. An actual devil's egg...not those fancy smancy deviled eggs from Earth, but an actual devil's egg! I'm getting excited just thinking about eating it.

As the eggshell broke apart, a stench of death wafted into my nose. With a quick glance inside, I immediately lost my appetite...I guess calling it a devil's balut would be more appropriate. I think I'll give this a pass!

As I left behind the blood sea, I headed towards the outer edges of the beach. It was uncomfortable walking barefooted at first, but thankfully my feet were no longer the fragile feet of a human. Even stepping on a sharp rock was only a minor discomfort. It was just a matter of getting accustomed to it.

The blood sea slowly faded into the distance as I continued on my path. Soon the sounds of battle crept into my ears, piquing my curiosity. I quietly made my way towards the source and found two small imps furiously fighting. Each of their attacks were aimed solely towards each other's weak points, their objective clear; to murder the other party.

The battle soon devolved into who could strangle the other to death first as both their hands wrapped around each other's neck. As the razor sharp claws bit into the exposed neck, blood dripped down their hands.

A minute later, one of them laid dead on the floor while the other was severely injured. The survivor was barely able to breathe at this point and would likely die a moment later. I approached them out of curiosity but as soon as that survivor spotted me, a frenzied look crossed his face. He roared at me and tossed the nearest rock he could find at me.

The rock seemed to be unusually effective as it impacted the imp's chest with a loud cracking sound. Its body convulsed momentarily before falling still, his head tilted to the side with his eyes wide open. Dead.

Hmm? I seemed to have inhaled some kind of soul after killing that imp. The spectral form of that red imp struggled desperately as its misty body rushed into my nose and mouth. I hastily covered them both but it was useless; the soul passed through my hands and into my body.

However, that disgust was soon replaced by a welling sense of power and curiosity. As the soul dove into me I felt a warm rush of power in my body. My stomach was no longer growling and after testing out my punches, they seemed to have grown stronger.

As for the other imp that died earlier, its soul did not rush into my mouth. It must've been consumed by that survivor or perhaps it simply dissipated. If killing a monster allowed me consume its soul as nourishment, haven't I turned into one of those RPG characters who kill monsters to raise their levels!?

Woah...this is awesome! I finally have a hack-like ability...However where did this ability come from? And why did I end up in this strange place after dying in the human world?

A multitude of questions to answer but none of them were important right now. For now, filling my stomach took precedence and that means it's time to hunt for some small imps.

Other than small imps, this place was filled with even more small imps. The little scamps engaged in a deadly battle royale where the victor ate the loser's corpse, gaining the right to live and grow stronger in the process. As for me, I'll pass on consuming their corpses. As for their souls...don't you even think about escaping my clutches.

Soon, I found my second group of prey. It was a pair of small imps currently engaged in a battle with each other. My trusty sword and buckler were gone so I had to rely on a pair of rocks as my weapons. While these were very primitive weapons, they still packed a punch with my current arm strength. This was even more so if I threw them in a dart-like fashion with the pointed edge targeted at the enemy.

In a remote corner of Purgatory, beside a pile of rocks, these two imps battled to the death. They had a frenzied look in their eyes similar to the other two imps I met earlier. I guess they were newborn imps as well; driven into a frenzy by their hunger.

It was a vicious fight where every strike left a bloody wound on the other. Soon, the fight devolved into a brawl where they grappled with each other as they fell to the ground, kicking and biting.

Taking advantage of their fight, I sneaked towards them. After reaching the optimum range, I broke into a running charge and threw both my rocks at one of the imp's head. It rushed through the air and crashed onto the imp's head causing it to bleed.

Kid, I'm sorry about cheating your feelings...I picked up another rock and tossed it towards that silly imp without a trace of remorse on my face…

After absorbing their souls, not only had my hunger been sated significantly, my body brimmed with power as well. As for those two corpses...truth be told, as I laid eyes on those two corpses, a strange feeling crept up on me…

My hunger did not fade completely and instead the thought of eating those two corpses slowly entered my mind… This wasn't normal. I didn't plan on eating these corpses but my body had the urge to consume their flesh...previously, I did not experience this urging when I had just broken out of the egg…

In the end, I prevailed over the hunger. After all, I'm not a true devil; I could not stoop to that level just for power. However, an interesting idea came to me.

I placed the corpses next to a conspicuous looking boulder and climbed atop the boulder with a rock the size of a head tucked underneath my arms. I laid down with my trusty weapon of mass destruction ready by my side. The trap had been set and now I just had to wait for the prey.

10 minutes later, a small imp found the corpses and rushed towards them. Since I was near the blood sea, this was probably a newly born imp. With its low intelligence, the thought of this possibly being a trap had never crossed its mind.

The imp took a sniff of the corpse before surveying its surroundings. Having checked that its flanks were clear, it bit down on the left arm of the corpse. Delicious! That was the expression I saw on its intoxicated face. This was probably the first meal of his life and it was someone of his own race! However, this would also be its last.

The rock descended from the heavens, smashing his head in a horrific explosion of brains and gore, dying my face with blood and cerebral fluid.

Balut - I'm not sure if it's appropriate of me to show a picture of it here so I'll just say: go see the wiki. It's a type of street food from the Philippines. I've never tasted it before and if you have, I don't want to hear about it...

Consuming souls was an innate ability of devils. To them, the more tortured the soul was before dying, the more delicious it was. This cruel reality was common among all the devils in hell. Eating the souls of their own race in order to strengthen themselves was how they survived in hell.

I once saw a large imp eat its young...as for why it did so, I had no clue. Perhaps, it was a requirement for evolving or perhaps it had just gone mad. Or maybe, it was simply hungry...or just thought it was fun…

The actions of a devil are beyond the understanding of us human beings just like how you will never know what kind of dream your cat has while sleeping.

However, things took a turn for the worse as the bait finally attracted the attention of a hulking large imp. It was burlier than a small imp its arms and legs were thicker and it was at least a head taller.

The large imp swaggered towards the rock, drawn by the scent of the dead imps. It wasn't long before he noticed the seven to eight corpses beneath the rock. Without a second thought, he charged at the corpse pile and frantically munched on the corpses like a ravenous monster.

As I laid atop the rock, I stared at the rock in my hand before gazing back at the large imp, a conflicted look on my face. If it had not been for the battle I witnessed before dying, I might have already sprung my trap like a fool.

I clearly remembered in the face of that goblin horde, only the large imps were able to break through their encirclement. Despite the large amount of small imps that charged at the horde, not a single one of them survived. The difference in power between the two was plain for all to see.

This difference not only came from a difference in power, large imps had a much higher endurance and defensive strength. Furthermore, they possessed a ferocious desire for battle that the small imp couldn't compare to.

It was precisely why I did not attack him. I wasn't foolish enough to take him with a mere rock just because I had the main character halo on my head. If I did that, I would've been ripped to shreds and eaten…

I've gotta admit though, this fellow can really eat. I've been waiting atop this rock for 2 hours now and he's still going at it. He was really planning to finish all the imps!

During these two hours, there were a number of small imps who approached this spot but were immediately scared away by the glare of the large imp. Every one of them ran away with their tails between their legs to look for their mommas.

I guess he's pretty strong...even though he just looks like a one-star piece of crap to me. Ahem, I seemed to have no right to say this though, being a zero-star piece of crap myself.

With a casual pat on his stomach, the large imp finally finished the corpses and instead of leaving, laid down on the beach and dozed off…

Just as I was brooding over this, a group of small imps stumbled upon the large imp. Unlike the other imps I've encountered, these three weren't fighting with each other but were instead sneaking up on the large imp. It wasn't long before they were right next to him.

The three little scamps muttered a sentences that sounded like an eagle chirping. Perhaps it was due to my reincarnation into an imp, but I was actually able to understand what they were saying. I got slightly bored as their conversation dragged on. However, I was able to get the gist of it. They were discussing their plan of attack.

A slightly smarter imp had the bright idea of using rocks. He knew that the rocks were harder than his fists so he grabbed a piece of rock. He made a hitting motion with this rock to signal to his companions to arm themselves. Before long, each imp was armed with their own weapon of mass destruction.

The leader imp gestured the usual 3 2 1 countdown with his fingers as they prepared their attack. As the last finger went down, the three of them simultaneously smashed their rocks down onto the large imp's head.

Unfortunately, the results weren't as expected. Instead of a mess of blood and gore, the three rocks had only caused three bumps on their large imp's head...

Having been smacked on the head thrice, no matter how thick this large imp was, he would've felt something. His eyes shot open as he gently rubbed the bumps on his head. Suddenly, he noticed the three small imps around him.

Lower ranked devils were essentially retards when they were just born. As such, they did not know how to lie. Seeing that their plan failed, they nervously glanced at each other and without a second thought, two of them turned tail and ran. The remaining imp foolishly thought his allies were going to join in a head on fight so he charged at the large imp with his trusty rock in hand.

The large imp stared dumbly at the two scamps running away, completely ignoring the brave little fool in front of him. *smack* His head was hit by the same rock one more time but it was still as pointless as before.

Having expended a significant amount of brain power, the large imp finally managed to squeeze out a complete sentence as he roared. With a swift scoop of his hand, he grabbed the small imp and bit down, his monstrous teeth tearing through the small imp's neck in an instant. However, by this time, the other two imps had already ran off into the distance.

I was left speechless by the sight before me. The sight of that large imp eating those 7 to 8 corpses was already disgusting enough, I didn't want to see him munch down on another...Didn't you just had your fill of imps?

However, his eating speed wasn't as fast as before. Perhaps he wasn't hungry. After consuming half of the imp, he stopped. I originally thought he was finally full but this thought was soon proven wrong as I spotted a group of small imps charging towards him.

As I looked at the approaching imps, I spotted two familiar faces. While small imps pretty much looked identical, I was still able to make out the identity of the two imps leading the pack. They were the two potatoes who ran away.

The small imps formed a circle around him as soon as they approached him. As for the large imp, he was still nonchalantly chewing on the imp as he stared at them. To him, they were merely food who offered themselves up to him.

He set out a resounding bellow in a show of superiority. This was an intimidation tactic he often employed to scare away small imps. It was usually very effective however he had severely miscalculated. His pea brain simply wasn't aware of the fact that these 10 imps were all the imps he had scared away previously with said tactic. They met up with the other imps and banded together against him.

They had a radically different approach from all the other imps Mo Ke had encountered so far. Despite, their roughly equivalent strength and independence, they chose to form a large party in order to defeat this large imp.

A large imp was naturally an expert at fighting, having fought his way up from a small imp. He had the confidence of an expert. To him, whether it was ten imps or two, it was all the same; he would face them with a disdainful look on his face.

Seeing his intimidation fail, the large imp got slightly impatient and flung the corpse in his mouth at one of the offending imps in a show of dominance.

The unfortunate imp was sent flying by the corpse and crashed onto a rock. The little scamp grunted a few times as he tried to get up but ultimately failed. His head had been severely injured and would require some time before he could recover.

The large imp's confidence was further boosted by his successful attack and raised his head proudly, roaring in laughter. As he did so, bits and pieces of his previous meal spewed from his mouth and splattered around his body. He truly looked like a devil from hell.

However, this large imp was doomed to be disappointed once more. He had assumed this display of superiority might finally deter these imps but instead they were further riled up by this.

The little scamps dog piled the large imp as they roared. They latched onto his legs,hands, neck and whatever empty space they could find, biting and clawing. The large imp swayed momentarily before he collapsed under the combined weight of the 9 imps.

In a short span of ten seconds, the large imp's body was riddled with gaping wounds and covered in his own blood. His normally fierce face began to show signs of suffering.

By the time the small imps were done attacking, there wasn't an intact piece of flesh left on the large imp. He laid there limply like a ball of meat, moaning miserably.

However, it was at this moment that the imps decided to stop attacking and instead distance themselves from each other. They stared at each other with a multitude of expressions flashing across their faces.

I don't know from where it began but by the time I saw the fight start, the entire group was engaged in a deadly brawl. I sat atop my comfy rock watching the spectacle unfold before me. How exciting...all that's missing is a box of popcorn.

It was a truly gruesome battle. Each of the small imps were evenly matched and none of them were armed. Blood and gore splattered in the air as they fought with their claws and fangs in a primitive battle to the death.

By now, the imp count had dwindled to five and an unusual stalemate had occurred. Because this was an odd number, one of the imps would be left without an opponent.

Having been here from the start, I was clearly aware where this fifth imp had come from. He was the imp that was downed by the large imp's first attack. As he watched his comrades kill each other, he laid there impatiently waiting for his body to recover. By the time his head recovered enough for him to move, he practically leaped into the melee.

Idiot! If it was me, I would wait till the very end before getting up. That way, I would only have to fight one small imp before getting the large imp all to myself.

However, just as the movie was nearing its climax, two of the imps in the face-off suddenly fell. Soon after, its miserable screams filled the air.

I immediately turned towards that imp and found the culprit. The mastermind behind this murder was the large imp we had all left for dead!

Amazingly, this fellow didn't die from his wounds but instead feigned his death and quietly watched the imps battle it out while he recovered. Seeing the five of them stop fighting, he became unbearably anxious.

As they say, haste makes waste. Apparently, this not only applied to humans but to devils as well. The small imps' anxiousness to turn on each other ended up giving the dimwitted large imp a chance to turn the tables on them. As they were busy staring at each other, the large imp had silently crawled over and in an instant grabbed the legs of two of the imps. With a quick smash and bite, he took care of the two of them with his superior strength.

Now, there were only three small imps left. The large imp had regained the upper hand and he was aware of this fact as well as he grinned devilishly at the imps.

The scamps were thoroughly shaken by this turn of events and were momentarily stunned. They did not know whether to retreat or fight to the death.

Large imps were a lot stronger than small imps and this one especially so. He was probably one of the stronger large imps out there. For all I know, he was at the peak of his tier and could breakthrough at any moment.

As for the three small imps, their combat prowess were definitely lower. If....no....there's no need for ifs, as those imps immediately turned around and fled in different directions.

Seeing their frightened expressions, the large imp finally breathed a sigh of relief as he released his domineering facade. He flipped his body around and quietly laid on the beach, with his eyes drawn out in a grin as if he was thoroughly enjoying himself right now.

With the added force of my freefall accelerating my attack, my ordinary rock smash gave me unexpected results. What would've normally been a concussion at most had instead smashed the large imp's head into pieces, killing him.

The large imp's soul leaked out of the its dead shell and rushed into my nose, filling my body with a warm sensation similar to a comfy fireplace. I closed my eyes as I savored the sensation of being in a virtual hotspring.

The sudden sound of footsteps echoed in my ears, interrupting my reverie. I immediately opened my eyes in alarm; the depths of Purgatory weren't a safe place after all. Before me were the three small imps who had ran away.

Hah hah hah! So you guys are back! Well, this one has gotten strong so you guys had better wash your necks and wait for your impending doom…Shit, there's an uninjured imp among them...Can I really take the three of them on?

With that settled, I flourished my newly acquired weapon of mass destruction and put up the most intimidating pose my skinny body could muster.

Evolution Tree: Small Imp, Large Imp, Head Imp, Demon Child, Flame Demon Child, Infant Illusion Demon, Illusion Demon, Greater Illusion Demon

Attitude towards Humans: Those who are more handsome (beautiful) than me are all dead. However, your ugliness leaves me envious as well

Atop the sandy beaches of Purgatory, a lone figure plodded on. It was a small imp covered in wounds and judging by his intermittent hobbling, a very tired imp.

An imp like him could only be described as the perfect prey for the denizens of Purgatory and this was proven once more as he got ambushed by a member of his own species. The imp swaggered from behind his rock into plain view as soon as he confirmed the injuries on his prey.

The injured imp finally noticed the newcomer and turned around in panic and ran. With a giant stride, he took off like the wind, his previously injured facade dissipating with the wind as well.

Staring at the back of the escaping small imp, I jumped out and shouted at him in an exasperated voice. Thankfully, No.2 only ran a few more steps before hearing me. He suddenly recalled the plan we discussed beforehand and changed directions towards us.

However, the newcomer imp immediately realized we were comrades and beat a decisive retreat. His tiny back faded into the distance as he ran further and further away…

Behind me, two more small imps walked out. One of them was similarly wounded while the other was perfectly uninjured. Like a pair of monkeys, they mimicked me in openly reprimanding No.2…...

Remember when I had killed that large imp? There were three small imps who appeared shortly after. I originally wanted to kill them but those three potatoes bent the knee before I even had the chance to lift a finger….

And so, I came to possess three subordinates. While they were each dumber than the other, I didn't despise them as a result of that. Like the kind and caring person that I am, I sheltered them and gave them succour. Furthermore, I even went through the trouble of giving them each a well thought out name: No.1, No.2, and No.3.

On a separate note, the severity of this potato's injuries were all faked. His performance could only be described as oscar winning. If this was Earth, he would've been an A-lister in hollywood. Too bad, he's stupid and couldn't even lure the prey into the right direction…

I led No.1 and No.3 to our new hiding spot while No.2 went off to bait more imps. No.2 looked at me with a slightly pitiful expression as he rubbed the tiny bump on his head as if to say he's too hurt. However, I would have none of his crocodile tears. In the end, he obediently went off to be the bait.

Two minutes later, No.2's running figure entered our sights. Closely behind him was another small imp. He did it! He ran in the right direction!

In the front there was only one imp but ten meters behind it was another group of six small imps...Jesus, are you trying to get me killed!?

The beach was littered with several rock pillars which we quickly hid behind. Soon, No.2 joined us in hiding behind the rocks. Following closely behind him was the imp from the first group.

Just as this thought occurred to me, the six imps ran past us as well, ignoring the fact that No.2 had simply vanished from their sights. Their dimwitted brains could not comprehend the implications of No.2 suddenly disappearing and was focused solely on chasing that red butt who was slowly fading into the distance by now…

Just as well, I didn't intend on ambushing these six imps. We only had four members on our side and two of them were even injured, putting us at a numerical disadvantage. While they had all gotten stronger from consuming that large imp, No.1 and No.2 were still injured and were unable to fight at 100% of their power. Given this situation, retreating was the best option available.

However, before I could give the order to retreat. That idiot No.3 had a lapse of sanity and rushed out at the leading imp of that second group. As he collided with his target, they tumbled onto the ground violently. The imp who had been ambushed had no time to react before his head collided with a nearby rock.

As expected of an SSS ranked rock, the small imp was knocked out after that collision, allowing No.3 to chomp down on his neck unopposed.

No.3 was the only uninjured one who ate the large imp's flesh so the strengthening effect on him was especially pronounced. His body was brawnier than the other two and naturally possessed a higher strength. To him, ripping a normal imp's throat to shreds was as easy as breathing.

However, No.3 did not finish off his opponent. After confirming that his opponent was incapacitated by his bite, he got up and glared at the other five. He roared at the five imps who were still stunned from his sneak attack, his mouth dripping with fresh blood.

Seeing that No.3 had temporarily stunned the other five imps, I ordered No.1 and No.2 to attack. Upon receiving this order, they fearlessly charged into the fray and pounced on their respective targets. As for me, I charged one of the imps, with two rocks waving in the air.

With three of the five imps being taken by my subordinates, the remaining two enemies turned towards me. However, before I could retaliate, one of them was bravely intercepted by No.3. With an additional imp to deal with, this battle heated up quickly. As they say, two hands are less than four, and No.3 was quickly forced into a defensive posture. Thankfully, it didn't look like he was about to fall.

On the other hand, No.1 and No.2 were unexpectedly fearless as well. They swapped injury for injury as they relentlessly clawed and bit at their opponents.

Being the smart little imp that I was, brute strength was beneath me. Naturally, my fighting style was more technique based. After all, all those years training under Nicole and Roscar weren't just for show. With the skills gained from my tireless training, even a pair of rocks could be turned into a pair of makeshift daggers, with deadly effect.

A small imp's techniques were limited to a clawing attack and bites. From time to time, they might throw in some kicks and headbutts, but ultimately all of these were inferior to my human techniques. With a flashy flying kick, I sent my opponent flying and followed up with a relentless rain of strikes until he was unable to move.

By now, No.1 and No.2 were in a precarious position, especially No.2. He had several close calls with his neck nearly being bitten at one point. Just as my eyes fell on him, he was sent flying by a kick and fell to the ground with a thud. It was a severe blow. His body was riddled with injuries prior to this and with this kick, his wounds opened up once more and blood streamed out of them.

I didn't dare to tarry any longer. I swiftly rushed to his aid, ambushing his opponent with my trusty rock. With a single smack of my rock to his head, his body trembled as his eyes rolled back. That strike had nearly knocked him out.

However, I wasn't done yet, *smack smack smack* I unleashed the raw destructive power of my rock upon his head another three to four times. Soon, his head was nothing but a bloodied mess of brains and cerebral fluid...disgusting.

Having killed my opponent, his red soul was absorbed by me. However, the effects were significantly less. I only felt a tinge of warmth from this kill. It seems like I've reached a bottleneck.

With the enemy dead, No.2 finally had time to recover. He threw me a worshiping look before rushing off to help No.1. With the combined might of these two scamps, their opponent turned into a living punching bag.

As for No.3, his situation had deteriorated since I last saw him. While he was stronger than No.1 and No.2, he was still just a small imp. If he was facing a single small imp, he would have trounced his opponent, but he was facing two instead. Given that he wasn't a large imp yet, facing two at once was difficult.

I rushed forward and ambushed one of his opponents, injuring him. With the pressure on him significantly reduced, No.3 had no trouble suppressing his sole opponent. By now, our victory was a given and within a minute, the battle ended. Outside of some light injuries, it was a complete victory for us with zero casualties.

With the battle over, the three little scamps anxiously rushed to collect their prizes; the corpse of the dead imps. As for the souls, they were absorbed by me long ago.

Prior to this, an event happened that corrected some of my misconceptions. I learnt that absorbing souls wasn't some hack ability given to me, but was instead an innate ability of devils. Even the puny small imp had the ability to store souls.

These six imps were probably part of a team. While I did not know who their leader was, judging from their actions, they definitely had one.

If I was right, this meant that the other small imps were beginning to form teams. This also meant that any solo imp would now become the target of these teams. An alliance of small imps wasn't something to scoff at. Given enough members, even a large imp had to prostrate himself before them.

As my subordinates had their fill, I chose to distance myself from them. I still had some reservations regarding cannibalism. Or perhaps, I should say eating humanoids. Furthermore, gory sights such as this made me uncomfortable so I averted my eyes whenever I could.

It wasn't long before I spotted an interesting sight. As I distanced myself, I spotted that imp who had ran away at the start, peeking at us. As our eyes met, that fellow actually tried to run.

He probably wanted to wait till both our parties were severely injured before jumping in to reap the benefits. Unfortunately for him, we had an overwhelming victory.

That small imp had definitely intended to run away. However, after taking two steps, it mysteriously stopped. As he turned around to face me, his knees fell to the ground...damn it, he kneeled…

The addition of No.4 didn't cause much of a stir among our group. Err...perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he was bullied the moment he joined us. He seemed a lot more timid and immediately turned into a punching bag for his three new seniors to help digest their previous meal. After a round of hazing, he knelt down to show subservience.

After another round of bullying, they finally got bored and let him go. As the four of them stood in a corner talking, they pointed at me from time to time. A moment later, their peaceful conversation turned into a slight scuffle as No.4 started showing signs of rebellion. No. 1,2 and 3 immediately renewed their bashing, however, it didn't seem to be working.

After a while, I could no longer stand the sight of them hitting No.4 so I walked over to stop them. Seeing me step out to save him, he immediately hugged my leg and refused to let go.

His action caused the other three imps to stare at him, their eyes wide open. A look of envy and hatred clearly visible in each of them…

Did they get into an argument? Weren't they getting along just fine? I don't get it...well I'll just leave it to them to settle it among themselves.

I was worn out after such a busy day, and in-fighting was the last thing I wanted to deal with. After sternly warning them not to fight, I led the team away from the blood sea. As soon as we came upon a cave, we scoured the insides. After confirming that it wasn't too deep nor was it dangerous, I ordered the four scamps to stand guard at the cave entrance while I rested.

Purgatory did not have a day and night cycle. It was eternally day here. However, the clear blue skies were instead replaced by a dark red sky. Once you're tired, you rest. Once you're hungry, you hunt for food. This was the lifestyle of a devil living in Purgatory. A life filled with fierce competition and murder.

Is this the life for me? Can I adapt to it? No matter the answer, I've decided to live on. Perhaps I've really received the favor of the heavens; perhaps I could immediately reincarnate whenever I died. However, this wasn't an excuse for me to give up whenever I encountered adversity. This is why I must try my best to live on…

As I closed my eyes, my mind began drifting off. The silhouette of Nicole appeared before me. She seemed to be looking for me...I wanted to tell her that I'm fine, that I'm okay. But my stretched out hand merely passed through her shoulders…

Nicole stood in front of the doorway in a daze, her eyes fixated on a wooden dummy in front of her. As Roscar looked at his daughter standing there with luggage in hand, he sighed. He was just as upset as she was. These seven years, he had treated Mo Ke as his own flesh and blood even to the point of favoring him over Nicole.

This was an atonement of sorts for him. If it hadn't been for him, Mo Ke's parents would not have died those seven years ago. Even after all these years, the guilt still latched onto him, unwilling to let go. Even though the casualties that day included his wife, his guilt didn't ease one bit.

Nicole was probably the same as him, she treated Mo Ke as her little brother and was willing to do anything for him. Both of them had feelings for him in some form or another....If only things had not progressed as such…

Mo Ke was extremely intelligent for his age and was acutely aware of things around him. As such, he had a maturity that other children didn't possess. The fact that he wasn't his real father was probably known to him all along. He probably loved Nicole as well...although the fact that an eight year would know anything about love seemed absurd.

Actually, whether or not he knew about love was secondary. What mattered was whether he knew how to be jealous; whether he could be driven mad by envy…

The owner of this voice was Sares. He had just arrived and after politely greeting Roscar, he turned towards Nicole and asked that question.

"You're here…" Nicole looked at him with a complicated expression on her face. She wasn't stupid. She had long figured out that Mo Ke's decision to leave had something to do with Sares, but she just could not recall any time when the two of them had an argument.

Roscar was in a similar situation as well. Because of Mo Ke, he became slightly resentful of Sares even though he knew full well that it wasn't his fault.

After failing to locate Mo Ke, Roscar continued searching around the surrounding areas of that battlefield; he felt that that battlefield was extremely suspicious. This was due to the fact that he found Mo Ke's weapons there, but didn't manage to find his body. He theorized that Mo Ke had either been eaten or kidnapped. Out of the two, Roscar leaned towards the latter.

Because of this, Roscar decided to search around for more clues. If it was possible, he wanted to find a mage who could use Devil Arts or people similar to a demoness. These sorts of people were ostracized by the general populace and were thus extremely difficult to find.

As for Nicole, Roscar decided to send her off to Warrior School. Once she got stronger, she could aid him in the search for Mo Ke. Of course, what he really wanted was for her to be able to help him before she graduated. an

Sares had initially taken the search very seriously as well but as time passed this changed. He was a very logical man. He knew that blindly searching for Mo Ke was pointless so he suggested to Roscar to let Nicole attend Warrior School. He had even offered to send a recommendation to the school to allow Nicole to enter as a special student.

Special students enjoyed various perks while attending Warrior School. This included free tuition, free lodging, personal tutors and even specialized weapons…

One can only imagine how gifted one had to be in order to enjoy these perks. Special students could be counted as the geniuses among geniuses.

As she stood there with Mo Ke's wooden sword in hand, and her backpack on her back; she teared up. This was the last time she could see Mo Ke's wooden sword. She turned to Roscar and said in a low voice, "Dad...I'll leave Little Ke to you...once I've become stronger, I'll join you in searching for him…"

"Mhm, leave this to me." Roscar confidently replied with words that he himself did not believe. He slapped his chest and wore a "I'm dependable" look on his face as he continued, " Nicole, you got to study hard as well. Only by becoming strong can you accomplish more in the future. As for Sares…"

Roscar turned to look at the confident young man who stood there with his chest puffed up. After a period of awkward silence, Roscar finally managed to force a smile onto his face as he said, "I'll leave my daughter to you."

"Don't worry, I'll take good care of Nicole." He flashed his confident sunny smile at the pair, but this didn't seem to catch on with the father and daughter. Sares's smile faltered slightly but he still said, "Mo Ke is a lucky boy, I'm sure he's fine. Finding him is only a matter of time. Even when I was young, I knew he was a smart boy…"

"Sometimes, being smart is useless…" Nicole teared up further as she stroked Mo Ke's wooden sword; as if this was her long lost brother. "A lot of times, being clever is useless...if he encountered bandits...should I pray that he was kidnapped and sold off as a slave…?"

"Sla...slave…" Sares could only smile awkwardly as he continued to comfort her. "All that about being slave...seems a bit much...for all you know, Mo Ke isn't in such dire straits…"

After waking up, my head was still slightly groggy. As I swayed around, my head bumped into a rock, waking up me instantly. I looked at my hands once more.... red skin, sharp claws...

My stomach growled as usual, signalling its dissatisfaction. I stood up and continued with my daily ritual of visiting the washroom before training...but there's no toilet in Purgatory.

Does this mean I have to dig a hole? Er...wait a minute, I only ate souls last night and that...shouldn't have any waste product right?

Hold on! I didn't take a piss either...my pee pee! Where's my pee pee!? Pee pee where are you!? I haven't gotten to use it yet...why is it gone…

It was at this moment that No.1,2,3 and 4 rushed into the cave. They probably heard the ruckus from when I woke up and came in to check. The four stooges surrounded me with their pitiful gazes. Ah...I get it...I get it, you guys are hungry too aren't you?

As for my pee pee, I can think about that later. The most important thing right now is to secure some food, otherwise, these subordinates of mine might just rebel. As I led them to the cave entrance, I immediately noticed that something was off. How should I say this? It seems like the water level has risen!

Strange, when I went to sleep yesterday we were at least a few hundred meters away from the blood sea. However upon waking up, the sea of blood seems to have risen right up to our doorstep. Some of the waves were even beginning to reach our feet.

Along the way we met several other small imps fleeing from the blood sea as well. Some of them were alone while others moved in small groups. Whenever we met with groups smaller than us, we killed them.

Our group was five man strong which counted as one of the larger groups we've seen so far. As such, most small imps avoided us, saving us a lot of unnecessary trouble. The exceptions were groups who had similar numbers or even larger numbers than us.

I had given an order to those four scamps to capture any lone imps they found and force them to serve us. If they resisted to the bitter end...then just end them.

For some strange reason, the latter scenario rarely happened. Nearly all the imps we captured, knelt down without much hesitation and begged for mercy. As such the plan to recruit more small imps went smoothly. In merely half a day, the number of subordinates swelled to 12.

The moment we hit the two digits range, I shifted our focus to hunting. The rule was as always, the souls belonged to me while the corpses are to be shared amongst the rest.

I have no way of confirming this but the food intake of these scamps seem to be growing. Plus, they seemed to be undergoing some sort of transformation each time they ate. Especially No.3. He was the strongest among them and also had the largest appetite. He even changed the most. At this rate, he might be the first to evolve into a large imp.

We are currently situated at the edges of the blood sea. The devils here are extremely numerous with the most common type being small imps and the strongest being large imps. As for the reason for this...it's probably because the sea is moving.

If this sea did not move, the small imps who hatched earlier could just prey on the newborn small imps. As time passes, these small imps would only get stronger and stronger while the imps who were born later would be relegated to the status of cattle. In a situation like this, no matter how hard you tried, you can't beat those who were born earlier.

As the source of all life in hell, the blood sea definitely did not want to become a breeding ground for trash. While I do not know if the sea possessed a mind of its own, the fact that it moved is proof that it didn't want this to happen.

Because of the sea moving, the devils who were threatened by the sea had no choice but to distance themselves. As a result, the devils who were born earlier would gradually leave this region. As for living in the sea...there's a legend on earth that the sea was the source of all life and that humans were born from the sea as well. However, have you seen any humans being able to breath underwater?

As if to prove my theory, another wave crashed onto the coast. With it, came several round objects and a few small imp corpses. Those round objects were none other than devil eggs.

It was extremely obvious now. The blood sea would give birth to devil eggs while the waves would wash them ashore. Small imps would hatch out of these eggs and begin hunting around the coast. After realizing that the sea moves, they would distance themselves in order to protect themselves. After which, the next batch of devil eggs would be washed ashore.

If that's the case, the sea's expansion should have a limit otherwise the entire Purgatory would become flooded. However, I will probably never know what that limit was. In order to save himself, I have to leave this zone as soon as possible. Who knows when this sea might suddenly decide to drown me in my sleep…

Speaking of which, shouldn't we have encountered some large imps by now? Ah...speak of the devil...that seems to be a large imp ahead…

On my side, our numbers came out to 13. Our numbers were definitely superior but the other side had a large imp. This tier of devil could easily suppress a bunch of small imps. In a one on one fight, a small imp couldn't last more than 10 seconds.

"Hey you. That's right, you. Get over here and let me have a look." When he was 10 meters away from me, he pointed his finger at me and shouted overbearingly, "Get your ass over here!"

Once a small imp evolves into a large imp, their intelligence will experience a boost which also increases their communication abilities.

Which reminds me, this large imp doesn't have any boobs or a pee pee either. Is he a male or a female? But since he's trying to catch me, I guess 'its' a female? Also, how do devils have sex? I'm kinda curious now.

"Brat, you dare to disrespect this great one!?" The large imp was taken aback by No.3's rudeness but soon recovered and roared at him, his finger raised. "You're dead!"

No. 1, No.2 and No.4 were slightly slower than No.3 in coming to my aid. They arrived with the rest of the imps only after the large imp had declared his intent to fight.

No.3 bravely stood in its path, hoping to stop his charge with his enhanced muscles. However, the two imps weren't on the same evolutionary level. The large imp clearly had the strength advantage and this showed as he sent No.3 flying with a ram of his body.

An imp quickly reacted to this momentary opening and clawed at the large imp's shoulder, drawing a line of blood as he did so. The large imp winced and grabbed the imp by reflex. Feeling flesh, he brought it to his mouth and bit down on the small imp's throat while tearing away.

My knowledge of the large imp's prowess was renewed once more. The previous large imp took 10 small imps to take down. The large imp in front of me was definitely stronger than the other and needed our full attention.

No.1, 2, and 3 were definitely my strongest followers. No.4 was a tagalong. Because he joined us earlier, he got more benefits and was stronger than the other small imps.

The five of us circled around the large imp and struck at the five imps behind. The large imp tried to stop us but was blocked by my other imps. 7 vs 1. Even if they couldn't win, they could at least stall him.

As always, No.3 was the first to charge ahead, and in a few swipes severely injured a small imp. No.1 and 2 weren't too shabby either. While they weren't as fast, they still managed to suppress their opponents in a short amount of time. No.4 on the other hand, had a weaker showing, he only managed to eek out a draw.

My opponent was a small imp as well. Against him, I brought out my partners, Rocky and Stony. With Stony in hand, it was as if I had my buckler back as I blocked his claws with my rock. In a clash of rocks and claws, the rock was definitely harder.

After a few clashes, the imp teared up as his claws began to break apart. I immediately took advantage of this slight opening and attacked. In a blinding flurry of rocks, I smashed his head apart.

By now, No.3 had taken care of his opponent as well. He relied on his superior strength to surprise his opponent. By the time the imp discovered the strength disparity, it was too late to dodge. With a swift kick, he knocked his opponent to the ground. He grabbed his opponent's head and viciously slammed it against the floor. With each slam, a sickening crunch could be heard along with a spurt of blood.

No.1 and 2's situation was pretty good as well. Even without help, winning was only a matter of time. As for No.4...he was suppressed by his opponent; his body covered in wounds from the battle.

When I sent those seven scamps to stall the large imp, I was fully prepared to lose all of them. However, things didn't turn out as badly as I imagined. Out of the seven, five of them were dead. One of the surviving imps was playing dead by the side while the other was desperately holding on.

His situation was rapidly deteriorating by the second. By the time we turned to the large imp, he had just torn an arm off this brave imp. As for the other imp, he was still laying there with his head tilted and his tongue sticking out…

Of course, the large imp didn't get out of this scuffle unscathed either. He was covered in claw and bite marks. The blood on him was as much his enemies as his own.

I threw the rock in my hand in a dart like manner at the large imp's head, stunning him slightly. His grip loosened and that brave imp fell to the ground with a thud. The brave imp grasped his throat as he coughed violently. Looks like he had been severely injured.

No.3 howled as he rushed forward. With the momentum of his charge, he dove at the large imp's side and tackled him to the ground. However...that direction seems a little…

The brave imp who stalled that large imp was put out of his misery by the combined weight of No.3 and the large imp slamming into him.

As the two wrestled on the floor, their hands at each other's throat, No.1,2 and 4 rushed in to help him. The four scamps piled onto the large imp, immobilizing him.

Upon seeing our side gain the upper hand, the other imp stopped faking his death and jumped onto the large imp's back, furiously biting.

By now, our victory was decided. However, heaven had a different plan in store for us. The large imp suddenly flipped his body right onto No.1. He knew that he's finished so he might as well take one more down with him. He wrapped his hands around No.1 and tried to bite him, all the while ignoring the frantic attacks of the other imps.

No.3 desperately pulled the large imp's neck back to stop him from biting No.1. The others continued clawing at the large imp in hopes of saving No.1.

Meh, I guess he's dead. He had only been with me for a day...but why did I feel a tinge of sadness...I guess in the end, it was because he was my subordinate. No one would be happy about their subordinate dying.

As the surviving imps gathered the souls for me, a set of footsteps echoed from the distance. The burly silhouette of a large imp entered my sight. Behind him was ten small imps…

I guess when it rains, it pours. Will this newcomer try to capture me to &@$! me as well? Is he even gay? Is my body...that much of a devil magnet?

I signalled to my imps to stop working and get ready to run however these dimwits misunderstood my intentions and instead stood in front of me.

"No, this lordship is merely a lowly slave to your alluring silhouette and your resolute soul." The large imp bowed with his right hand swept in front of his chest like those noblemen from medieval times. His face seemed to radiate: 'I'm not like that pervert who tried to $&,? you on the first encounter.'

He continued explaining in his weird accent, "From the first time this lordship laid his eyes on you, he knew that you were a noble existence. One that didn't stoop to eating the lowly flesh of a small imp."

This was a stunning revelation. He actually knew I only ate souls. As for that alluring silhouette and resolute whatever...I'll accept the latter as for the former, I'll pass on it.

"Usually, the leader of the group would first consume the corpses. However, you chose to gather the souls instead...this one has confidence in his judgement."

"To be honest, I had intended to wait till both sides were severely exhausted...However, the moment I laid eyes on your purity and determination...this one was hooked. No matter what, you have to accept this one's protection."

His offer of allegiance left me in a conundrum, I didn't put much stock in the words of a devil. After all, multiple sources (manga/anime) agreed, a devil's words are not to be trusted.

"Ahh, get up first. There's something I need to clarify. Just because my pee pee is missing right now, it doesn't mean that I'm a female. I'm a bonafide male devil and I'm not interested in a homosexual relationship so please give up."

In the face of my solemn announcement, his lordship got even more excited. I got goosebumps just from his excited stare. Suddenly, he jumped to his feet and prostrated himself once more, "You are the most unsullied existence in Purgatory...However, rest assured, even if I can't be your companion, this lordship will always protect you. So please accept this one's pledge, Master!"

"No matter what, let me make this clear, I absolutely won't perform any intimate acts with a man. I am not gay. I'm absolutely, positively, not gay. Absolutely."

In this way, I recruited a bunch of new subordinates. One of them is even a large imp who referred to himself as his lordship. Regarding this potato, I named him Big 1.

Big 1 personally harvested all the souls and offered them up to me while the other scamps under me divvied up the corpses, including No.1's.

After finishing his share, No.3's body experienced an evolution of sorts. Simply put, his muscles became firmer, his strength increased and his height increased. He could probably become the first among my small imps to evolve into a large imp.

Excellent, just keep on eating No.3. If possible, eat till you become stronger than Big 1. I just couldn't bring myself to trust Big 1. His allegiance was just too unexpected and it seemed suspicious.

Even if he wasn't planning anything, being loved by a large imp was...I wouldn't want to do it with a female large imp let alone a male one like Big 1!

Big 1 could be counted as a well connected devil. He knew a lot more about this area than me. For example, I did not know the blood sea was circular in shape. I also didn't know that if you ran in the opposite direction of the tides, you would eventually reach the entrance of the upper levels.

As for what was beyond that entrance, the answer I got was "I have no idea". All the devils who entered the upper levels never came back.

According to the rumors, the tide will eventually engulf this entire level so any devil who stayed behind will be drowned. Initially, I didn't believe this theory. If all the devils either died or were unable to return to this level, where did all these rumors come from.

Later on, Big 1 brought me to his temporary base. It was a giant rock. Around it were smaller rocks arranged in a circular fashion surrounding the larger rock. On that giant rock, was a line of strange scribblings...Fine, they were the letters of the devil language.

The letters talked about the reincarnation system of devils. It said that this was the lowest level of Purgatory and that tide happened once this level's population hit a certain number. After which, it will start to engulf this level.

It took 13 human days for the sea to engulf this level after which it will retreat back to its original spot and await the next spawning season of the devils.

Big 1 offered 17 small imps to be my subordinates. Including the four imps who were still alive after that harrowing battle, I now had 21 small imps under my wing. With the combat strength of our group, we should be able to sweep through this floor, right?

The schedule is kinda tight right now so I'll have to skip out on resting. We still have to make it to the entrance of the upper floor.

As we made our way across this floor, the devils we encountered were enslaved or killed. While we had some losses along the way, it was still a net gain.

After five days of journeying, our small imp numbers swelled to 35 while our large imp count rose to three with the addition of two more large imps namely, Big 2 and Big 3.

A problem soon arose where our consumption rate threatened to overtake the amount of food(imps) we encountered. As such, I decided to stop enslaving more devils and just killed anyone I met, even the large imps.

It was now the seventh day of our journey, we managed to kill a few dozen more small imps and a large imp. By now, Big 1 and the other named subordinates were used to harvesting souls for me to consume. With each consumption, I felt my evolution approaching ever closer. As my body transformed, a strange refreshing fragrance wafted through the air.

Damn it, what's with this strange fragrance. Brother's a bonafide boy. Get your act together my dead body! Wait...don't tell me...don't tell me... I've become a girl…

An anxious voice rang out in the distance. This was soon followed by the sound of footsteps closing in on us. A large group of imps which consisted of four large imps and over twenty small imps, came into view.

By this time, my subordinates were already preparing the defences. Big 1 led Big 2 and Big 3 to the front to shield me. On my flanks, were No.2 and No.3. As for No.4 and Mr. Faker aka No.5...as always they were guarding my butt from sneak attacks.

After these seven days of journeying, No.3 was undoubtedly the biggest small imp among the group. He was on the precipice of breaking through, and as such should be able to handle a large imp as long as he had some small imps as support. As for the actual large imps, they should each be able to handle a large imp by themselves.

In terms of numbers, we naturally held the advantage. Before the enemy completed their charge, the scamps behind me were already in a defensive formation around me. The sight of over 30 imps moving, while not as grand as a thousand cavalrymen racing across the battlefield, was still a sight to behold. For the lowest level of Purgatory, we were definitely a top tier power.

This was proved by the reaction of the enemy as they saw our full numbers. Seeing our numerical advantage, they showed signs of wavering. Soon after, they completely gave up on attacking. The four large imps signalled to the small imps to retreat and soon retreated as well.

Seeing them slowly retreat, I breathed a sigh of relief. With our opponent's numbers, even though we would definitely win, it would've come at a terrible price. Them retreating was definitely the best outcome.

As the final devil disappeared from my view, the stress was completely lifted off my shoulders. This bloodless confrontation had caused me a great deal of stress despite neither side coming to blows. This stress caused my body to emit that strange fragrance once more…

Having seen the fate of Big 1, Big 2 and 3 changed their minds about approaching me and stood there; a conflicted look on their faces.

"Keep moving, we need to reach the upper floor entrance as soon as possible." I said as I forced myself to calm down. The matter of my gender has to be put aside for now. What we really need to worry about is not getting drowned by the blood sea. "Also, No.3 will get an extra portion of food from now on."

That group actually had one more large imp than us. With the expanding blood sea, the amount of dry land will decrease as time passes. Soon, all the devils will be squeezed into an ever-shrinking territory. By then, the number of large imps we encounter will increase as well. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a field of large imps especially since we are clearly near to the entrance.

After another two days of marching, we finally reached the end point of the blood sea; which is the upper floor entrance. Nearby, there was a rock which stated in devil language that there was more than one entrance and one merely had to find one.

The entrance in question was a tunnel in the shape of a fierce devil's face carved out of the cliff face in front of us. It was a realistic carving with the usual features such as a nose and a pair of eyes. The hole was inside a devil's mouth crowned with a set of razor sharp fangs that looked like they could close in on you at anytime, shredding any unfortunate soul it came into contact with.

In order to reach this entrance, one had to climb a thirteen step high flight of stairs which was comprised of 10 meters long, 7 to 8 meters wide and half a meter tall steps. And right at this moment, these stairs were filled countless devil guards…

Originally, crossing through the entrance was a simple affair but who knew, not every devil was a dimwit. There were those who came to this place early on and decided to guard the entrance. Their motive was obvious, to eat anyone who tried to enter the tunnel.

Thankfully, the situation wasn't dire yet so there was no need for us to rush into that blockade. However, this was only true for three more days. After three days, the blood sea would have washed up to this area. At that time, we would have no choice but to charge into that blockade of deadly devils.

From this hillside to the entrance was a 300 to 400 meters long stretch of road. The amount of small imps and large imps waiting in ambush along this road was uncountable. How strong would the head devil have to be in order to command so many devils? Don't tell me it's a two-star head imp!

What to do...wait, since the other party made such an obvious attempt at blockading the entrance, then there should be other groups who were roaming around here as well. They couldn't all have stupidly charged into that blockade!

"No.2, No.3, No.4, No.5, I need you guys to lead a scouting party with those scamps inside. See if you can find the other devil parties. Once you do, report to me immediately, do not engage them."

No.2 and No.3 immediately responded and led their team away. No.4 stood there wringing his fingers and as for No.5...his face clearly said he didn't want to go.

Recently, the matter regarding my missing pee pee and my impending sex change...or could just be my devil nature, seemed to have made me more trigger happy with my fists and kicks.

The captured small imp immediately knelt down upon seeing me. As he prostrated himself, he slowly made his way towards me, and even wrapped both his arms around my left leg. Then, he stuck out his tongue...is this the so-called "bootlicking" I heard so much about?

No.3 immediately sent a flying kick towards the little captive. He tumbled through the air several times before ramming into No.4's legs; finally stopping. As for No.4...he received a jump scare.

Just as I pondered this puzzling situation, No.3 swaggered up to the captive and kicked him several times shouting, "You dare to lick our Master's leg with your dirty tongue. You lowly piece of trash!"

Don't tell me bootlicking is some kind of taboo in Purgatory? A derogatory action? Ahem...well no matter what, my foot was just licked by a devil. Even if I wore shoes, I still wouldn't want to be licked unless it was by a beautiful girl. Even more so since I'm not wearing any shoes.

"I haven't even licked Master's leg before, how could I let you lick it! Even if it needed to be licked, it would be me who licks it, you shameless scumbag!"

Following No.3 and Big 1's nonsense, the other devils began clamoring as well. Their goal, to procure the right to be the first to lick my feet.

Following a round of intimidation, the captured small imp happily agreed to bring us to his boss. After around ten minutes of walking, we met the group who tried to attack us two days ago. The group which had four large imps leading them.

"Don't worry, we aren't here to fight." I said as I stepped out of the shadow of Big 1 and onto the center stage. While they were recovering from the shock, I pointed at the cliffs and continued:

"I'm sure you've already seen the despicable scum blocking us from our common destination over there. They are definitely out to kill us and consume our flesh and souls. I had originally planned to charge into the blockade, but changed my mind in the end because of their immense numbers. If it was just us alone, attacking them would be suicidal. However, I'm sure we aren't the only ones having trouble entering that tunnel. I plan on gathering everyone, and with our combined might, break through that blockade! Are you guys willing to join me?"

"..." The boss scratched his head. He looked at us before turning towards the stairs and said in a deep, low voice: "Why aren't we the ones leading you?"

To be honest, I didn't want to fight either. If we really came to blows it would've been a pyrrhic victory for us. Without our numbers, how are we going to break through to the upper floor entrance? Don't forget, there was only three days left before the blood sea engulfs this level.

However, in order to subjugate these devils without fighting, I had to show them my tough side. If I falter here and let them take the reins, what awaited us was.....I really can't imagine a scenario where we wouldn't get into an argument with these muscle headed imps right as we combined forces.

On the other side, the large imp was stuck in a dilemma. He wanted to defeat me, but he knew that even if he won, what awaited him was merely death at the stairway.

Just as we entered this awkward stalemate, a domineering voice echoed from above us, "Since you guys have no way to decide, let me decide for you!"

Everyone present immediately turned their heads towards the source of this voice. It was a one-eyed large imp standing atop a mound of rocks. As the winds blew around him, his scarred visage painted a truly imposing picture.

The one-eyed large imp was clearly enjoying the attention of our parties as he excitedly displayed a posture which screamed: 'Look at me, I'm so powerful!' In accordance with his previous grandstanding, he leaped off the mound and tripped as he landed…

After his magnificent fall, the large imp awkwardly stood up and coughed, "Ahem, excuse me, my left eye is blind so I didn't see that rock. I thought it was flat ground."

"Me? Haha, just call me One-eye." The one-eyed large imp pointed his thumb at himself as he said so. In a boisterous voice he said, "I'm looking for people to ally with. Let's join hands everyone and head towards a brighter future together! Under my leadership, we'll head towards victory...Hahahaha…"

What's with this chuuni like behaviour...did he grow up reading japanese shonen manga? No wait, Purgatory has no internet, god damnit!

"Be...hind me..." The one-eyed large imp turned and looked. There was no one. He stood there stunned for a moment before bellowing, "Get out here now! All of you. You dense bunch of idiots."

"Boss, you are the one who told us not to come out without any orders given." The source of this voice was a slightly skinny large imp. He led a large group of devils out of the shadow of the rock mound. Hmm? He's missing a finger on his left hand. Is he going to introduce himself as Nine-finger? Just like his boss.

His fingers aside, Nine-finger led a large army of devils which amounted to over a hundred. Their large imps alone, numbered eight. With One-eye and Nine-finger counted inside, it would be ten.

The appearance of these two stunned the crowd. I was so stunned that I forgot to get angry. Don't tell me these two idiots are here to perform a comedy skit? But that army behind them…

One-eye swept his gaze over both of our groups and began to speak. But he was interrupted by his sidekick with a nudge of his shoulder. He turned towards him and stared intently. "Boss, that's some high class goods over there."

"I'm aware of that." With his grandstanding interrupted before he began, One-eye stared at his sidekick with his brows furrowed and pretended not to hear him.

There's no point pretending...and what high class goods...damn it!? What the heck happened to my body!? Why do all the devils stare at me with such a weird look on their faces?

Nine-finger's 'whisper' was clearly heard by everyone present. This included Big 1 and the others. Big 1, 2, 3 and No.2, 3 immediately stepped in front of me and surrounded me in a tight protective ring. As for No.4 and No.5...they were planning to step slightly forward but after comparing One-eye's body with theirs, they chose to defend my butt in the end.

One-eye flashed what he thought was a dashing, but was actually extremely hideous, smile at me: "Don't worry, even though you are really pretty, what's more important is getting into that tunnel…"

How infuriating! Why the heck did all these Purgatory devils treat me as a beautiful female devil. What's more, it was the kind of beauty who brought calamity to their city and country. This devil is a man! The kind whose fists can support a person standing on them and whose shoulders can support a race track. An iron-blooded man! It's just that my pee pee took a vacation. There's no guarantee that he won't come back!

"Mhm, I've definitely given it a thorough look through." One-eye's sole eye gave me the x-ray treatment as he looked over my body. Shit, I got goosebumps again.

"I know that, you don't have to remind me!" He smacked Nine-finger on the head before turning to us with a satisfied look on his face: "Let's continue our talk about an alliance."

"I feel that this alliance should be led by our boss, he's the strongest here and is definitely able to lead us all to a glorious future!" Just as One-eye finished his sentence, Nine-finger rushed forward with his bootlicking. After finishing, he asked in an ingratiating tone: "Boss, did I say it correctly?"

"Applause!" Nine-finger took the lead in clapping. The others slowly joined in dribs and drabs, despite not knowing what applause meant…

"Thank you, thank you. Thanks for all the support…" One-eye cupped his fists in a showy gesture of appreciation. He raised his head as he did so, a satisfied look on his face.

After his round of bootlicking, he finally remembered that he had something important to say. "In that case, Boss should be the one to lead our charge into the entrance. Any objections?"

Nine-finger reverted back to his role as a court jester and coldly said: "Because we are larger than you. If you don't listen to use, we will bash you to death."

"If you guys are the ones in charge, I'll back out of this alliance." It's time to bring this comedy to an end. It's a matter of life and death right now. Rather than wasting time on this nonsense, I rather use the time to find new alliance members.

Seeing me flare up, One-eye immediately changed his statement: "Alright, alright. This pretty...man, may I know what you plan on doing after backing out?"

The veins on my forehead were about to burst at this moment, but I had no choice except to ignore that damned adjective of 'pretty'. If it wasn't for his superior numbers, I would've murdered him already.

"Pretty...man, why aren't you willing to ally with us? I'm very strong and can protect you guys. What's wrong with being commanded by me? Isn't obeying the strong the natural instinct of our race?"

"It's because you are brainless! BRAINLESS!" Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. I pointed at my brain as I shouted: "Pure strength isn't enough right now. You need to have brains!"

"There's at least a hundred large imps guarding that entrance, not to mention the hordes of small imps. If I let you take command, you will definitely charge headlong into that blockade with us in tow."

"Have you ever thought of leaving some reserves behind? Do you know how to grow stronger off battles? Have you ever considered that there might be a Head Imp leading that horde? Or even a Demon Child!?"

This was the first time I've ever vented my anger after reincarnating into Purgatory. It has hardly been two weeks since I've arrived here, but Purgatory just rubs me up the wrong way. Everytime I look at the red viscous sea water, I have this strange itch in my throat. I wanted to spit at it but nothing came out.

I had to endure these potatoes beside me messing around. On top of that, I had to witness numerous cruel scenes of imps killing each other. And those weird stares that these bunch of homosexuals keep giving me… I've had enough. I want to return to the surface. Back to the western human realms! No matter what, I want to return home!

"Beautiful, dazzling, noble, determined, resolute, fearless, saintly..." In the face of my anger, One-eye suddenly knelt down, his sole eye tearing up. His eyes blinked furiously as if I was radiating light at the moment.

"I...I...I think I've fallen for you…" One-eye threw me a worshipful look as he continued kneeling. "You are just too perfect, I...I...you must accept me as your subordinate…"

What the heck! I know I should be happy that someone is swearing their allegiance to me, but why do I feel like I just swallowed a hundred flies!

Middle School Year Two syndrome: That feeling you had in middle school where you suddenly feel your mangekyo sharingan awakening but those adult plebs don't understand how much of a genius you are for doing so.

Within these two days I recruited all the devils that I could. By now, devils from all over had gathered near the entrance to the upper floor. Their expressions were a complex mix of emotions as they looked at the horde guarding the stairs.

Because of this, I was able to recruit the majority of the devils seeking to breakthrough. Only a small portion were mad enough to try and enslave me, but they were swiftly killed by Big 1 and the others.

The food we gained from fighting was mostly given to the small imps who were about to evolve, like No.3. The rest were given enough to sate their hunger. This was originally met with resistance by some devils, especially the more powerful large imps.

Initially, I tried explaining to them but the outcome wasn't as expected so I had to rely on One-eye and the others to suppress them. Thankfully, there were no deaths or serious injuries although Nine-finger wasn't happy about losing out on potential food.

As expected, No.3 evolved on the second day of our alliance. Coincidentally, I was there to witness his evolution. His muscles started bulging and his bones started enlarging themselves. His body in general got bigger. In a few minutes, the process was complete and No.3 had evolved from a small imp into a large imp.

Judging by their appearances alone, large imps were larger versions of small imps without any other defining features. However, the difference in strength was an entire tier apart.

Large imps were able to take on anywhere from five to nine small imps depending on their power. An example would that large imp who killed No.1.

Under this feeding scheme, No.3 wasn't the only small imp who evolved. Another eight more imps evolved within these two days, bringing the total number of large imps to over 60. Unfortunately, this still wasn't enough to face off against the horde guarding the stairs. We needed at least 150 large imps to win against them.

We were definitely at a numerical disadvantage but I had a plan. Do you know why humans were able to dominate Earth? Tools. That's why!

I had long considered making weapons but Purgatory was poor resource wise, lacking metals or plants. Furthermore, we barely had any time to do so while we were rushing here.

However, now was a period of preparation. I ordered the imps to scavenge around the area for materials. Chief on the list were the larger bones from any devil corpse they could find. While a bone spear wasn't possible, grinding these bones into a club or staff was definitely we could do.

While we were out recruiting, Big 1 was in charge of the weapon making. The process was really simple so as long as the imps had the materials, making them was easy.

Just as we finished recruiting on the second day, No.4 ran onto the scene. He made his report as he panted heavily; its contents were within my expectations. "Master, a group of devils we haven't recruited are charging up the stairs."

As such, Scar-face decided to provoke us, me to be exact. As for what he said, it was the same old crap. I didn't feel like taking his crap so I summoned all my subordinates while stalling for time.

After our group assembled, Scar-face became apprehensive after taking a count of our numbers. He wisely chose to retreat. He continued wandering around and judging from this report, he must've recruited more forces.

Devils were all a bunch of brainless idiots. Their brains contained two things: eating and muscles. Making a suicidal charge up the stairs was definitely a possibility.

Scar-face was known for being a martial expert. The reason he was called Scar-face was because of the spiderweb of scars on his face giving it a gnarled look.

In the middle of this chaotic battle, Scar-face bravely led the charge up the stairs. With a vicious thrust of his hand, he shoved a small imp he had caught right into the stone face of the stairs.

Its eyes widened as the crushing palm continued ramming its head into the stone. Seams appeared all over the small imp's head as it crumpled under the overwhelming might of the large imp. With a visceral splat, the head broke apart in a burst of brains and blood.

A large imp came up to challenge Scar-face. He had a body that was as brawny as Scar-face's. In fact, he seemed to have a slight edge over Scar-face in this respect.

This was definitely going to be a tough fight, or so I thought. Scar-face surprised me with his variety of battle techniques which included kicks and other human-like techniques. Most of the time, imps only employed their teeth and claws. Any battle was essentially a match of pure strength and power.

It was as if I was watching a martial artist fight with a common thug. His flurry of targeted blows went unblocked and soon he had his opponent dizzy from his ferocity. In a final show of superiority, he leaped into air and drove his elbow deep into his opponent. The large imp buckled under such a strong attack and after a few twitches, laid dead on the floor.

From the top of these stairs, was a sea of devils rushing down. For every devil Scar-face and his subordinates took down, another would rush to fill in the gap. In order to breach the third step, he must've paid a heavy price. By now, his subordinates were no longer able to hold up as their death rate increased. Even Scar-face was beginning to get worried.

"No.4 and 5, bring these scamps along with you as you collect the corpses. With this amount, it should last us for the day." I ordered as I stood at the base of the stairs.

"With the large imps as the lead, One-eye and No.3 I need you guys to lead a team up the stairs and bring Scar-face back, if possible bring the survivors back as well."

These bone clubs weren't just fashioned out of any old bone. They were fashioned out of the thighbones of large imps and were extremely sturdy. Their mass was enough to ensure that any devil who got hit would be begging for mercy.

As the first three stepss were already cleared by Scar-face, One-eye and the others were able to swiftly climb over the mountain of corpses on the way up to the fourth. It wasn't long before my subordinates joined the fight. With their aid, the tides started to turn for the defenders.

The bone clubs gave the imps a decisive advantage over the barehanded devils. With their superior range, the enemy was well within the striking range of the club before their claws could even reach them.

The sudden arrival of reinforcements had boosted Scar-face's morale. His tired face showed signs of renewed vigor as he upped the ferocity of his attacks. Our eyes met as he turned around, and I saw a sense of conflict within them.

I shouted at him from the base of the stairs. Saving him was a decision made out of necessity. Due to the sheer volume of defenders, our only chance at survival was if both our groups combined. I didn't plan on dying here so I put up with the disgust in my heart and recruited anyone useful.

As Scar-face retreated with his men, One-eye and No.3 began retreating as well. As they fled, a small portion of defenders chased after them, but having lost their height advantage, they were no longer a threat.

One-eye turned around to handle these mad devils. To him, it was merely a swing of his bone club. A moment later, a large imp was lying unconsciousness on the floor; a conspicuous bump on his head.

The other large imps joined in the fun as well. With a swing of their clubs, the leading defenders were swiftly taken care of. The rest of the defenders took a hint and quickly retreated up the stairs…

As we returned to our temporary base, I got No.4 and 5 to hand out the collected corpses to the army while Big 1 and No.3 were sent off to harvest the souls.

Scar-face walked in front of my pondering figure with a blackened expression and stammered slightly before saying: "Why did you save me?"

I glanced at the ever-encroaching sea of blood and replied coldly: "Tomorrow is the last day, once tomorrow's over, all this will be a part of the blood sea. I said it before, I will unite all our force in order to survive. That's why I saved you. Because you were still useful to me."

"..." Scar-face fell silent before lowering his head and saying: "I'll accept your command for now, however, this is only true until we cross that entrance."

"Alright, get your subordinates to rest a while. No.4 and 5 will hand out the food to you guys. Because of that battle, our food stocks should be sufficient. Oh right, our rules here is that all souls belong to me." I turned to him with a deadpan expression. "Any objections?"

"To recruit more devils! The blood tide being so near is precisely why I should continue recruiting. The threat of impending doom will aid our recruitment efforts tremendously. Every minute is precious right now."

As my back faded into the distance, a voice echoed from behind me: "I'll admit my defeat now, but just you wait! I won't give up. One day, I will make you become my demoness willingly!"

In the midst of my brooding, this voice struck like a bolt of lightning, nearly causing me to fall. Just as I was about to berate him, another voice echoed from another side, the source, Big 1: "Master is this one's! Even if it costs this one his life, this one will not relent!"

No.4 walked over at this moment and reported sights of more wandering devils. Before leaving to recruit them, I inquired about the status of Scar-face's team. From his report, they lost two thirds of their forces and only had slightly over 10 large imps and around 70 to 80 small imps left.

A loss of over 20 large imps and over 200 small imps in a short span of 30 minutes. This battlefield was truly a meat grinder. There was still 10 more steps of the stairs that weren't breached as well. Furthermore, the quality and quantity of devils will only get higher as we progress up the stairs. I'm starting to believe that there really is a two-star head imp atop those stairs…

Forget it, we will deal with it as it comes. Thinking too far ahead will do us no good. All I need to do right now is find a way to survive.

Even while in Purgatory, I still miss you. I hope we can meet again. I'll continuing praying for the day that we can meet again... even on my deathbed…

Today is the last day. After today, any remaining devil will be drowned by the [Mother] who birthed them. This was precisely why the number of fleeing devils experienced an explosive increase. I stationed all my subordinates within 1 km at the base of the stairs in order to recruit these stragglers. Anyone who resisted was to be killed.

These were desperate times and any mistakes made could potentially be our last. In just 12 hours, the blood sea will engulf this region. By now, our group had gotten as big as it could possible get.

The army-like group of imps stood behind me clamoring incessantly. They were an undisciplined bunch but I didn't have the time to train them before today. It was a last-ditch gamble. While the overall number of devils on the stairs did not change much after Scar-face's charge yesterday, the first few flights of stairs were noticeably weaker than before.

The small imps were broken up into four contingents and handed over to No.2, 3, 4 and 5 to command. As for the large imps, they were commanded by One-eye. While Scar-face's group was under my command in name, they were essentially their own army.

After resting up yesterday, they went on their own recruitment drive and had gotten surprising results. By today, they were able to gather over 20 more large imps and over 300 more small imps. Along with their remaining forces from yesterday, they were a force to be reckoned with.

Due to yesterday's battle, the first three out of the 13 steps were severely weakened, and had considerably less large imps and small imps. Their combined number came up to only slightly over 10 large imps, and as for small imps, there were roughly a hundred of them per step.

"One-eye, take the large imp army and charge through the first three steps. Once you reach the fourth step, I'll send in the small imps."

"Yes master. I'll get on it right away." He cupped his hands in acknowledgement and proceeded with his usual grandstanding. With a swish of his imaginary hair, he pointed his bone club at the stairs and bellowed: "Everyone charge! For the master!"

Over a hundred large imps charged in their own version of the blood sea's tidal wave. As the first imp arrived on the first step, the curtains were drawn on what was to be a bloody battle for survival. The defenders began their retaliation atop their half meter high vantage point.

However, while this height advantage might have caused problems for small imps, it was nothing to the charging large imps. What's more, they had my patented bone clubs as their weapons. With their superior range, they could easily hit the devils standing near the edge of the step forcing the defensive line back. With a breach quickly formed, the initial wave of large imps made their way up the half meter tall step. As they did so, they dragged any stragglers down to their comrades below to be beaten to death.

In a short span of 10 minutes, the large imp contingent had conquered the first three steps and was setting up a defensive formation in front of the fourth in order to prevent the devils from the uppers steps from retaking the first three.

"No.4, lead your contingent to the fourth step and get those scamps to hold down the fort while the large imps recover their strength."

Our battle tactics were very simple, let the large imps take the weakened first three steps at which point the small imps will charge the fourth. Once the large imps are rested, it will be time for the large imps and small imps to attack the next step. The aim was to reduce the fatigue on the large imps while minimizing any loss of large imps as well.

The little coward immediately charged with his contingent of over 600 small imps. Wave after wave of imps charged forward, stepping over the hundreds of corpses of friend and foe alike as they tried to breach the fourth step. The field of corpses did not scare these imps, but instead sent them into a bloodthirsty frenzy.

As expected of devils. They were truly the incarnation of chaos and bloodshed. The more bloodshed there was, the more excited they became.

The numbers on the first three steps combined were less than the number of defenders on the fourth step. There were 300 small imps and 20 large imps guarding this step. On our side, I sent forth over 600 small imps. They should be able to take this step easily.

"No.2, go harvest the souls and corpses. Souls for me while the corpses are to be handed out to the strongest small imps. I want to see more large imps being born."

While No.4 was attacking the fourth step, One-eye brought his contingent of large imps to the second and third steps to consume the corpses. Upon seeing No.2 and his contingent, he threw his unfinished corpse to the first step and supported No.2.

Back at the fourth step, No.4's battle wasn't going as smoothly as planned. A small imp's height was his fatal weakness. Asking these one meter tall imps to climb up that half meter high step was a pretty tall task for them. The enemy made use of this to defend against our superior numbers. Thankfully, our army had weapons. This included the small imps as well.

As they climbed up the step, they engaged whoever they could with their clubs. After throwing down close to a hundred of the defenders, they finally breached the fourth step's defensive line. The fifth step immediately reacted by sending in reinforcements. Soon, the battle reached a stalemate. Looks like No.4's contingent won't be able to conquer the fourth step. I must send in reinforcements.

As I searched for Scar-face, I noticed that One-eye and the others were mostly rested. I guess this was to be expected. The first three steps were sparsely defended and only used a little of their energy. While this deviated slightly from the original plan, looks like there's no other choice.

"Yes Master!" Upon receiving the command, he shoved No.4 aside as he rushed up the step. "Move aside, I'm going up...for the Master!"

The hundred over chanted their slogan as they rushed forward; raising their morale. They roughly shoved the small imps aside and charged onto the fourth step. With them reinforcing No.4, the battle quickly changed in our favor. The defenders only had a small amount of large imps and were clearly not a match for us.

I slapped him on the back of his head. That seemed to do the trick as he immediately woke up and stood at attention. I didn't bother repeating myself and merely pointed at the step: "Attack."

No.5 looked at me blankly, the word stupid written all over his face, before nodding his head and heading off to the step. I guess it's my fault for expecting anything...

"Oh okay...everyone follow me." No.5 pitifully nodded and led his contingent forward. He only managed a few steps before I slapped him once more.

Seeing him finally attack the step, I turned around to face my remaining subordinates: "We'll follow them as well. No.2 get your contingent to pick up the corpses and leave them on the step. After that, get ready to swap with the next contingent."

No.2 was a competent subordinate and was very loyal as well. He executed my orders without any hesitation. Even if it was an order to charge, he wouldn't hesitate.

As for me, I brought my contingent up to the base of the step but didn't step onto it. The step was pretty vast but it's surface area was still limited in the end. There was no way to accommodate all my subordinates. As such, unless our forces decreased past a certain limit, I won't join in the fight.

The fourth step was finally conquered, but No.4 had lost half of his scamps. Luckily One-eye reinforced him in the nick of time or he would have been wiped out.

After conquering the fourth step, No.4 and One-eye retreated while No.5 took the lead. However, the enemy's forces had exploded in numbers as well. There were around 400 small imps on the fifth step alone.

Damn it, the previous plan had some mistakes. I had assumed the enemy's forces only had about a hundred large imps. To think they knew how to hide their forces...If you added in the large imps who died on the previous steps, there were at least 70 large imps already. What are we going to do about the later steps…

The next batch of souls had just been sent over by No.2 and I consumed them ravenously. My body began to burn and that damned fragrance began wafting out once more. It was as if every pore on my body was emitting this strange fragrance. The devils besides became excited as a result.

The fragrance became even more apparent as I continued consuming the souls. When I consumed the last soul, my body exploded with a loud bang. I lost consciousness for a few seconds, or was it a few minutes, I was completely out of touch with the flow of time right now.

The next time I got a look at myself, I found that I had grown taller. My limbs were slender while my skin was red with a tinge of purple, giving a strange sense of beauty…

However, what concerned me the most was the other parts of my body. I lowered my head and looked. Chest...nope nothing there. I spread my legs and...cried. My pee pee still isn't there…

Upon evolving into a large imp, their bodies were supposed to become bulkier while their limbs were supposed to become thicker. That was the complete opposite of my situation, my limbs had shrunk instead, becoming slender.

Am I an exception? Or did my body undergo some change that I wasn't aware of? After saving Yi Yi that fallen angel, I should've died…

Countless questions swarmed around in my mind. Questions that I had no answers to. As they began to give me a headache, Scar-face's surprised face appeared next to me, an eager look mixed into that surprise.

Summary: Small imps are one of the most important pillars of the devil race. They are the origin point of most of the devils' evolution tree. While they might have an important role in the devil race, they are also the bottom rung of the devil society. They are akin to slaves and cattle.

In the face of my questioning, Scar-face flashed me a mysterious smile, oblivious to my mood. "I knew you would get into trouble, just leave this step to me."

Numerous amounts of devil responded with a resounding cheer. Scar-face broke into a dash towards the step while the devils followed closely behind his lead. Around 70 large imps and 700 small imps rushed towards the step like a tidal wave.

What's going on? Why does he have so many subordinates? Did he go on a recruitment drive during the period he went missing? And here I thought he was planning to watch from the sidelines and reap the benefits after.

Scar-face's fresh army gave our side the boost we needed to breakthrough. As Scar-face entered the fray, No.5 slowly retreated with his contingent, leaving the battle to Scar-face.

Scar-face's methods were nothing if not savage. Kicking, biting, clawing, whatever it took to kill his opponent. His subordinates were just as savage as they fearlessly tore into the defenders. Soon, the entire step was suppressed and victory was now just a matter of time.

I turned around to look at No.3. He was leading the team of small imps who were most likely to advance and got them to feed on the fourth step. Within his contingent, there were already 20 such imps. At this rate, we will have over 100 newly evolved large imps by the time we reach the thirteenth step.

Among the scamp contingents, No.4 suffered the most deaths with over half the contingent dead. was No.5 with almost 200 dead. No.2 hadn't entered the fray yet while No.3 was in the middle of a mission. One-eye's large imp army still had no deaths but had a few that were lightly wounded.

Scar-face led his army in a reckless charge through the fifth step, completely disregarding their personal safety. Soon, they breached the fifth step entirely and prepared to attack the 6th step. While their morale was high at the moment, their casualty rate had reached 20%.

The battle raged on in this manner. Every minute and every second, a devil died somewhere. By the time we r eached the thirteenth step, the combined number of imps in No.2, 4, and 5's contingents came out to slightly under a hundred. It was nearly a wipe.

The only contingent which had no casualties was No.3's. One-eye's large imp army was nearly reduced by half with their current strength at 72. As for Scar-face, he was much worse off with his small imps being completely wiped out while his large imp team had only 26 left.

However, we finally made it to the last step. As I looked down my from the top of the stairs, the blood sea expanded into the horizon before me. By now, the blood sea had engulfed the entire level save for the stairs we were standing on.

The entrance to the upper floor was located on a cliff face and one had to climb a several hundred meters tall slope in order to reach it. This slope was nearly gone by now.

As waves crashed onto the ground near us, countless corpses could be seen floating and sinking on its crimson surface. It reminded me of the flooding of Jinshan temple in Madam White Snake.

The last step was a giant platform that obscured any attempts at spying from the lower steps. This was the reason why I misjudged the enemy's numbers. After stepping onto this platform, I finally realized how large the enemy's forces were.

120 hulking imps stood in front of the entrance to the upper floors; behind them were a thousand small imps. Commanding them was a horned large imp...wait...large imp?

That potato is definitely not a large imp! His body is too large for that. A normal large imp was about 1.5 to 1.7 meters tall and did not possess a horn.

The imp in front of me was different. He was at least 1.8 meters tall and had a horn which curved back like a scimitar; resembling a goat's horn. He must be a two-star head imp!

"You are finally here." The head imp said in a sinister voice which grated on one's ears. From the moment I appeared, his blood red eyes had never left me.

My brows furrowed as I endured the indignity of being treated like a female devil and questioned him, "Why are you blocking the entrance? Let us pass through, fighting now would do us no good. Once the blood sea catches up to us, none of us can escape."

"The one who can't escape is you guys." The head imp laughed in a voice that sounded like [chet chet chet]. "Of course, if you are scared, I can give you a chance. If you agree with my condition, I'll let you off."

"I don't even need to guess to know that your condition is me…" By now, I was very familiar with these devils' chain of thought. There was no way I would sell my body for a chance at living. I rather die than do so.

My decisive refusal enraged the head imp. He roared at me: "What's wrong with being my servant!? Shouldn't the weak serve the strong!?"

"That's just your viewpoint, besides to me, you are merely a foot soldier as well." I threw him a disdainful gaze as I said so. With a wave of my hand, the final battle for the entrance began. "Fight!"

Having received the command to fight, the hot-blooded masochist, One-eye, charged ahead with his contingent. By now, they were only left with a mere fraction of their original large imp count.

Scar-face looked deeply into my eyes as if he had a mountain of things to say, but only threw me a short sentence: "After this fight, I'll be free."

I'm so pissed...don't spew such nonsense during such a crucial period! These blind bastards need to open their eyes! In what way do I look like a female!? I'm a bonafide man with steel in my blood!

The combined forces of One-eye and Scar-face only came out to a hundred large imps and another hundred small imps. On the other side, they had a head imp, 120 large imps and a thousand small imps. No matter how you looked at it, we were bound to lose.

Don't forget, I still had a fresh contingent in reserve. One that had never seen a battle up til now. That was No.3's small imp contingent!

I had never dispatched this contingent to fight and instead fed them all the corpses we gathered. Because of this, out of the 600 small imps commanded by No.3, nearly a hundred of them had evolved!

In the initial clash with the enemy, we came out ahead thanks to our bone clubs. However, this did not last for long. One-eye and the others weren't suited for long battles. Even if they were given time to rest, they would still be exhausted.

As such, I gave No.3 his dispatch orders: "No.3 it's time for you to fight. Flank them from the right and take care of the small imps. Send a portion to help One-eye."

It was finally time for No.3 to enter the fray. This newly evolved large imp was raring to fight. His body was shaking from excitement instead of fright. With a wave of his bone club, he howled: "With me, kill those who stand in our way! For the Master!"

With our army's signature chant, No.3 led his contingent of devils into battle. As planned, they flanked the enemy and threw them into disarray. This wasn't an exhausted army like One-eyes's, it was a fresh army that was brimming with energy. The only thing they were lacking was a place to expend this energy.

With each swing of their clubs, a devil's head was split open like a watermelon. Their charge plowed through the field of imps like a sharp scythe; nothing could stand in their way.

We had large imps leading this charge after all. With their superior strength and the denseness of the defenders' formation, each swing was able to hit a few imps.

As No.3's contingent crashed through the army, a portion of the large imps split off to handle the enemy large imps while the remaining forces took care of the remaining 800 enemy small imps. With their bone clubs, this was an easy battle for them.

However, this successful charge did not improve our situation as a whole. While the enemy was successfully separated, One-eye was just too tired. Even with No.3's reinforcements, they were only able to force the head imp led army to a draw.

The head imp possessed a weapon the other large imps did not; his horn. While it was curved back, it's hardness made it a formidable ramming weapon. As he fought, he would suddenly bite at his opponents. If the bite missed, he could still ram his opponents. Nine-finger was one of the unlucky imps sent flying by his horn.

After defeating the large imp guarding the head imp's flank, Scar-face immediately tried to ambush the head imp. However, this sneak attack only caused him to stagger a few steps before he managed to stabilize himself once more. He turned around to find a stunned Scar-face.

He spun around and punched him with the force of his rotation behind it. Scar-face barely made it in time to defend against this attack with both his hands. However, even with his successful defense, the force behind the punch was just too great for him. Scar-face was knocked down by it, the bones in his arm cracking as he fell.

Just as the head imp was about to finish off Scar-face, a black arrow whistled through the air and hit him on his shoulders, momentarily stunning him with a wave of pain. Seeing his chance, Scar-face wisely made his escape.

It was a skill which controlled the darkness element and compressed it into an arrow. The more one channeled, the greater its strength. It was a darkness skill similar to the one used by a caster in the world famous MMO World of Peacecraft. This arrow had to be controlled by the caster's psyche as it was formed and also when it was fired.

It was a dismal outcome for a skill which took 5 seconds to cast. Within this casting period, my legs couldn't move at all, rendering me vulnerable to any attacks. If he charged at me at this moment, I would be nothing more than a practice dummy.

The darkness arrow still had three more seconds before it could be fired off. If I cancel the casting now, it would not only waste time but also waste this opportunity.

The head imp made a bull rush through the battlefield, his target, me. He knocked aside another two more large imps as he charged. He was getting too close. However, just as I was about to cancel the casting, a towering silhouette stood in front of me. It was a large imp, a large imp that was slightly burlier than a normal large imp.

"This lordship will protect Master with his life!" Big 1 charged into the head imp with a resolute gaze in his eyes; to him death was no longer an issue. He tried to block the unstoppable force otherwise known as the head imp from approaching but was instantly defeated.

However, his efforts weren't in vain as the arrow finally took shape. A pitch black arrow that seemed to consume the light around it, flew out from between my arms and crashed into the head imp's face.

He had just tasted the pain brought on by the darkness arrow earlier and definitely did not want to again. However, his charge had rendered him unable to dodge the arrow properly and he could only twist his head in a desperate attempt to evade it. The darkness arrow struck the head imp's forehead where it joined with the horn like a lightning bolt.

The devil's horn was his weapon but at the same time, it was also his weakness. A devil who lost his horn would be temporarily weakened. That arrow did not manage to sever his horn but was able to inflict a great deal of pain on him.

"Ahhh...I'll kill you...I will definitely kill you…" The head imp clutched his head as he wailed in pain. His howls were drenched in his poisonous hatred, causing me to involuntarily shiver; my morale nearly failing at that moment.

I quickly retreated a distance and hastily commanded the devils around me. I ordered them to stall the head imp even if it cost them their lives. As for me, I suppressed my furiously pounding heart and continued casting my darkness arrows.

The battlefield was too chaotic at this moment. No.2, 4 and 5 had, unbeknownst to me, evolved into large imps in the midst of the bloodshed. Upon hearing my command, they immediately broke out of the crowd and ran towards me. At the same time, No.3, Big 2, Big 3 and Nine-finger rushed towards me as well.

One-eye had the important role of being the commander of this battle so I had ordered him long ago to focus on commanding and to ignore anything else.

Even the previously injured Scar-face had rushed over to protect me. He stared daggers at the head imp in front of him. His arms were no longer functional, but he still had his feet and teeth. He had a vindictive personality; any slight must be avenged, especially one this big! He wasn't the only one who came over, he brought his three large imp subordinates as well.

In total, there were eleven large imps and with me included, it was a 12 vs. 1 match! With such a numerical advantage, we should be fine, right?

I sneaked a glance at the ongoing battle. While our losses were immense, the enemy wasn't that well off either. As long as we took down the head imp, victory was ours.

Scar-face ordered the three large imp subordinates to charge while he hid behind to prepare for a sneak attack. On the other side, No.3 led a group in encircling the head imp. The plan was to attack him from all sides and exploit our numerical advantage.

The head imp's combat strength was truly terrifying. The first to engage with the head imp were the three large imps who were covered in wounds from a previous battle. Upon colliding with the head imp, they were swiftly knocked down in a couple of punches and kicks.

Scar-face had intended to ambush the head imp while he was being held up by the large imps, but quickly gave up on this idea due to the opponent's overwhelming strength. Seeing this strength disparity, he had no choice but to temporarily retreat.

Having just chased away Scar-face, the head imp was immediately ambushed from the back by No.3's bone club. The head imp tried to counterattack by grabbing No.3 but failed due to him retreating in time. Instead, he grabbed onto No.2 who had just charged forward. He lifted No.2 up into the air as he clutched onto his head like a vice, while No.2 desperately struggled. No.2 clawed and kicked as hard as he could but it had no effect on the steel-like hide of the head imp's arm.

The head imp clenched down with his fist and slammed No.2 onto the cliff wall. A sickening crunch rang out through the air. The cliff face was perfectly unharmed but No.2's head had split open…

However, the head imp was prepared for this arrow and immediately dodged. The direction he tumbled in laid in the path of Nine-finger and Big 1. Big 1's had already swung his club prior to this and as a result, coincidentally hit the head imp's head. The head imp's body seized up momentarily as his head collided with the club. However, he quickly recovered and managed to catch the bone club as Big 1 was attempting his second swing. With a forceful twist, he snatched the club away from Big 1.

With both his arms clasped around the bone club, he fiercely swung out, hitting Big 1 squarely on the jaw. Big 1 was flung away like a baseball into the distance.

His stolen club began to crack under the impact of his forceful swing. At this moment, my fourth arrow shot out. However, with previous three encounters still fresh in his mind, he was clearly prepared. He lifted his hands and blocked the arrow with the bone club.

However this did not affect the head imp at all, as he casually tossed aside the stub of the bone club and viciously pounced at me. Big 2, Big 3 and Nine-finger immediately ran into his path to block him but were violently rammed aside. Big 2 was the most unfortunate of the three. The direction he was knocked to was right in the path of the head imp. Before he could get up, the head imp broke into a sprint and leaped into air, landing a moment later with the force of a sledgehammer, right onto Big 2's neck. That sickening crunch rang out once more as his neck got pulverized, his head tilting to the side as it lost its support…

I wanted to run but my speed was just too slow. Just as I was about to despair, No.4 suddenly leaped onto the head imp's leg and tightly hugged it. With his thigh hindered by No.4 , the head imp's momentum was abruptly halted, nearly causing him to trip. He tilted his head and stared cruelly at the imp hugging his legs, while a thousand murderous thoughts flowed through his head.

No.4 was terrified by the head imp's gaze. He had always been a coward but this time was different. He valiantly held onto the head imp ignoring the impending threat of death. What happened to him? Where did all this bravery come from?

As for me...that short sentence of "Master run" had shocked me to the core...I knew No.4 was a bit of a coward, and I didn't look too favourably upon him. I had always thought he would be the first to run away when I got into danger...but it looks like I was terribly wrong. He was the bravest of them all.

Before the darkness arrow could be fired, the head imp had bent down and grabbed No.4's head. With his other arm, he held onto No.4's shoulder. An instant later, he pulled out his head as if he was plucking out a radish!

A stream of blood gushed out of his decapitated body like a geyser, drenching the head imp in blood. At this moment, he turned towards me with his usual savage face and smiled.

The arrow I was casting dissipated before it had fully formed. I didn't know why but at that moment, I screamed at the top of my lungs. I clearly remembered a few days back, No.4 was beaten up by No.3 and the others and looked really pathetic then. But strangely, despite his fear of being beaten, when he turned towards me, that fear instantly disappeared.

Power! I've already died twice and reincarnated twice, shouldn't I be a special existence!? Why am I so powerless!? I want power! More power!

Seeing me in danger, No.3 and the others immediately charged forward. Even Scar-face and his three beaten subordinates got to their feet and desperately tried to block him. All the large imps in this battle rushed forward with one common goal in mind: to protect me.

Big 3 had his throat torn out while Nine-finger was sent flying with a kick. Scar-face managed a kick on the head imp's back but it had no effect. Instead, he got a fist to the stomach and fell to the ground. His three nameless subordinates attacked the head imp's chest and flanks simultaneously but it was all in vain. The head imp took on their attacks as if they were nothing and swiftly took care of them with a few of punches and a kicks.

No.3 tried to ambush the head imp once more and pounced at his calves. However, the head imp was already aware of his movements and leaped into the air to dodge. No.3 tried to pressure him further but was quickly defeat by a punch and a kick.

I lowered my head. My mind was a complete mess at this moment. Even the fact that we just got wiped out was ignored. Numerous thoughts flooded into my mind at this moment. Thoughts that I could not understand. Anger, an uncontrollable anger erupted like a volcano within me. Hidden beneath these raging flames was a deep sorrow. Following No.2, Big 2 and No.4's death, Big 3 was now dead as well. They died protecting me. As I thought about this, an indescribable pain filled my heart. My tears had dried up, leaving behind an indelible scar on my heart.

"There's no one left to save you now." The head imp turned around and glanced at the defeated large imps lying on the floor; letting out a derisive "chi" as he laughed.

"Don't you know, I'm a head imp who is standing at the peak of two-stars. I can evolve into three-stars at any moment. With just this amount of underlings, you wanted to defeat me? You have to bring at least double what you have now in order to win. Now tell me, do you wish to become my demoness or do you wish to die?"

The anger in me rumbled and flared up. I lightly closed my eyes and a moment later, opened them. The expressions on my face disappeared at that moment, leaving behind a deadly calm. "Did you know, flames can reduce everything to cinders? The destruction it brings...that's why everyone is afraid of fire. Among them, there's a flame that not only hurts others but also oneself…"

"Is your head screwed on right? What's the point of telling me a story now!?" The head imp lowered his head and stared at me, his face a mere 10 cm away from mine. I could smell the stench from his mouth and nose. This was his attempt at mocking me. With a light poke on my forehead, he continued: "Don't tell me you've been scared witless by me?"

As those words left my mouth, my body was suddenly engulfed in a reddish black flame. It came into contact with the head imp's finger and like a paper coming into contact with fire, the black flames rapidly spread from his fingers onto his palms and then to his arms…

"Ahhh...what's going on...why am I on fire…" Devils were born with a natural resistance to fire. To them, the average flames were nothing more than toys. As such, the head imp didn't pay much attention to the flames on his finger and even flicked his finger around as if to show that he was the master of fire. The result: the flames spread all the way to his arms without any signs of abatement.

The head imp screamed in agony as he rubbed his flame-covered right arm onto my body. He thought this would put out the flames but he was sorely mistaken. Instead of putting them out, the flames grew even more.

"Flames of anger are truly frightening. Right at this moment, do you feel it?" I said with an expressionless face. With a light touch of my hands, the flames on my palms spread onto his body. A moment later, the head imp had turned into a living torch. He frantically sprinted around, tumbled around, whatever method he could think of he employed them. However, the black flames burned strong. Yet, whatever he came into contact with was spared from this fiery fate. He alone, was subject to the flames.

Mo Ke was lying there unconscious, the nether flames had completely drained him. After the death of the boss imp, the opposing devils lost their will to fight.

After the battle, One-eye recruited all the remaining imps and took count of the survivors. They had 50 large imps left from their side while the defenders had 62 large imps left, bringing the count to 112. As for the small imps, they had 214 small imps left while the defenders had 547 left, bringing the count to 761 small imps.

Outside of these numbers, everyone else was dead. The entire battle had lasted over ten hours. By now, the blood sea risen to the third step. In another hour, even the stairs would be engulfed, by then, there would be nothing left of this level.

"Alright, since you guys have agreed to serve me, you are now subordinates of the Master. Listen up, move aside and let us pass through the entrance first."

The chain of command among lower ranked devils was very simple. After the strongest was determined, you either served or died. As such, One-eye wasn't afraid of them being rebellious. After giving that command, he ordered the army under him to pass through.

As he was about to lead the army through the entrance, he noticed Big 1 approaching the unconscious body of Mo Ke. He immediately rushed to block Big 1. With a forceful shove to Big 1's chest, he separated the two even further. "Stand aside, keep your filthy hands away from our master's sacred body!"

"What's the meaning of this? Master is unconscious and this lordship is going to evacuate him out of here!" The slightly disfigured Big 1 angrily rebuked him. Half his face had been damaged by the head imp and had only just started healing.

He wanted to be the one to carry Mo Ke through the entrance but was interrupted by One-eye. Regarding his former commander, Big 1 had always kept a wary attitude towards him; even while under his lead. He had always seen One-eye as a rival. "Don't think this one doesn't know, the reason why you've stopped this lordship is because you want to carry Master yourself!"

"Go and die! This might be the only chance this lordship will ever get to carry Master. This one won't give this chance up no matter what!"

"Let my Big brother do it!" Nine-finger suddenly butted into the argument, his intention, to help One-eye secure the chance. Under One-eye's grateful gaze, he leaned in and whispered: "Big brother, I'll help you this time, but the next time such a chance comes up you've gotta let me hug Master. I'm counting on you!"

One-eye slapped his subordinate on the back of his head, causing him to fall. However, the cunning Nine-finger made use of this opportunity to fall towards Mo Ke which meant as long as his ruse succeeded, Mo Ke would be within arm's reach.

"If you are going to fall, do it in another direction. This lordship will protect the Master's innocence to his dying breath!" His plan was immediately seen through by Big 1 who sent him flying off in another direction.

At this moment, a seemingly bored looking No.5 yawned and casually walked towards Mo Ke. His plan was simple, approach Mo Ke by acting nonchalant. The two large imps were in the midst of a heated argument and naturally did not notice his ulterior motives. However, just as his fingers were about to touch Mo Ke, a large hand reached out and grabbed his neck.

"Do you think that innocent act would fool me?" With a swing of his arm, No.3 threw No.5 away from Mo Ke. "Hmph, you're still too inexperienced to trick me."

With No.2 dead, No.3 was now the earliest member of Mo Ke's team. He was essentially a founding elder of the team. By now, the two large imps had noticed the ruckus and turned over to face their scheming comrades. They asked simultaneously: "No.3 between this lordship and that fellow, who do you choose to help?"

"Help?" He snorted derisively and chuckled: "Naturally, I'll choose to help myself. None of you have the right to approach the Master's sacred body. The only one who has this right is me. Among the devils present, I'm the one who joined the Master the earliest and had also contributed the most! Naturally the honors should go to me."

"If you guys aren't able to decide on a candidate, I'll be happy to volunteer myself." Seeing Mo Ke's defenseless form on the ground, Scar-face's heart thumped. Having just recovered from his arm injuries, he was also able to participate in this sacred duty.

"The blood tide is going to reach this level soon, if we don't leave now, it will be too late. I don't feel like dying yet so I'll leave you guys to your nonsense. Farewell." As he left those words behind, Scar-face brought his 10 remaining large imps with him through the entrance, his small imps were nothing more than corpses now.

Scar-face's sudden departure seemed to have ended the argument between the five large imps. By now the water had risen to the fifth step, if they dawdled any longer, they might not make it. Unlike Scar-face's smaller army, their side was significantly larger, and definitely needed more time to pass through the entrance. The imps collectively sighed at this grim reality.

They knew that if Mo Ke were to wake up and find that their numbers had dwindled because of their incessant fighting, he would be very upset at them. In order to spare him anymore troubles, the large imps quickly came to a decision.

No.3 and the rest led the remaining devils through the mysterious abyss in front of them known as the entrance to the upper level. As No.3 stepped into the pitch black dark mouth carved onto the cliff, he saw a flight of stairs formed out of stacked platforms. The vastness of his surroundings gave him the feeling of a mysterious dimension rather than a narrow tunnel. After carefully making his way up the stairs for a minute, he finally reached the last platform. With a step forward, he crossed into a new world.

The new world's environment surprised him. He had on multiple occasions wondered what the upper level was like. Did it have fiery volcanoes spitting magma into the air or rivers of magma raking through the earth? Would the air be filled with a perpetual sulfurous smell as a result? What he did not expect as he took the first breath of this world, was the deathly chillness in the air.

The deathly cold air pierced his skin as he looked around. The ground was no longer the familiar reddish black, but was now mostly black with a tinge of green and a frosty white.

The world outside the entrance was just as devoid of life as it was within. It was a desolate world without any traces of life. As No.3 stood there in shock, One-eye stepped out of the entrance and looked around in wonder, a visible excitement apparent in his expression.

After another ten minutes, the rest of the devils had crossed into the new world as well. They made camp on a high ground nearby. By now, everyone was thoroughly exhausted due to the grueling 12 hour battle atop the stairs. Over 10,000 devils had fought in that battle, and now there were less than 1,000 devils left alive. Calling it a blood bath would be an understatement.

With the female devil looking after Mo Ke, everyone could rest at ease. At the side, One-eye and the other named imps were having an idle discussion about how idiotic the head imp was. Anyone with a shred of intelligence would've realized that if he didn't blockade the entrance, those 10,000 devils could've have all passed through in peace. Was there even a point in forcing such a confrontation?

Just as they were having fun badmouthing the head imp, the ground shook. It was as if a rampaging army of cavalrymen was passing through at this moment. Then, out of the black hole they climbed out of, a small imp corpse flew out of it. Then a second came out...a third...a fourth...13th...100th...1,000th...2,000…

Nicole had just finished a day of training and was on her back to her private accommodations. Her sweat soaked white training outfit stuck to her body as she walked, showing off her developing 13 year old figure. She was still the pure and beautiful ponytailed girl from Mo Ke's memory.

As a result of Mo Ke's influence, Nicole chose the sword and shield as her main focus. Having spent half a year in the school, she had gotten used to the simple lifestyle here. It was a life filled with training and even more training. She trained as hard as she could, hoping to get stronger; strong enough to find Mo Ke. Even though in heart she knew Mo Ke could already be dead, but human beings needed goals in their life, and she was no exception. Even if that goal seemed to be nearly impossible.

From time to time, she would receive a letter from Roscar. It detailed his current situation and endeavors. He had set up a mercenary company recently. However, it was only a small company of 10 men.

The goal was to gather information on Mo Ke while carrying out missions to gain money. He would also frequent the slave markets and arenas of the cities he passed by. As long as he heard that a teenager was taking part in an arena match, or that one was being sold, he would rush over to check it out no matter how busy he was. However, his efforts were doomed to be in vain.

As she returned to her assigned villa, she changed into a set of casual clothes. Just as she finished doing so, she heard a knock on the door.

She stood at the door, with no intention of letting him in. She silently gazed at the golden haired youth wearing a dazzling smile on his face. He used to be like a big brother to her; a radiant figure in her life. But after Mo Ke left, she felt a certain hollowness in her heart. This wasn't love. She knew that.

"I guessed that you were done with training and came to visit." Nicole's obvious rejection made him upset. He knew why Nicole was so opposed to his advances; it was Mo Ke's departure. He had already guessed that Mo Ke had left home because of him. He was actually really fond of this mischievous little brother but in the end…

"Oh, that's right. Here's a letter from Uncle Roscar." Just as the letter left his pocket, it was immediately snatched up by Nicole.

Nicole blazed through the letter and it wasn't long before she was done with it. She closed her eyes as she collapsed slightly onto the doorframe beside her, the weariness apparent in her demeanor.

"...it's not your fault…" She opened her eyes and found that the usually smiling youth was no longer smiling, but had his head lowered in a downcast expression.

That's right, it wasn't Sares's fault. Nobody could've predicted that Mo Ke would get so jealous that he would leave home. Sares was merely a scapegoat for their anger.

A while ago, Nicole had lost her wallet. To Nicole, that wallet was nothing. There was no money inside, but it held a very important item within.

Perhaps he had finally had enough of this gloomy mood as Sares decided to bid her farewell without even entering the villa. "Nicole, since you've received the letter, I'll head back first. As for your wallet, I'll try to find it for you. Perhaps I might have better luck."

Ah, I remember now, I activated the nether flames and burned that head imp to death. After that, I fainted from mana exhaustion. That was the story up until now. As for the nether flames...well...I'm not entirely sure either. I only knew that I was really angry and my brain was suddenly flooded with knowledge that I didn't understand; but seemed strangely correct. Using that knowledge, I conjured the nether flames.

Judging by the surrounding darkness and the eerily cold air, this should be a cave. As I looked up, I saw a ceiling packed with black soil; yup, it should be a cave. What about my devil subordinates? When I fainted, I was still on the last step before the entrance. Since I'm not dead, I should be inside the tunnel.

Guided by the faint bit of illumination in the cave, I slowly made my way out. The light slowly grew as I continued until finally I exited and saw...woah...an unbelievable sight.

It was an underground world tinted in a mix of black, gray, green and white. Several steps in front of me was a precipice. Several hundred meters below, the terrain formed a giant natural basin. Inside it, were countless piles of devil corpses. The bulk of them were small imp corpses, but there were a lot of large imp corpses as well. They were unceremoniously piled together like a pile of garbage...

to the corpses was a large group of devils. Their numbers didn't reach a thousand with half of them being large imps and the other half being small imps. They were currently feasting on the corpses in front of them without any signs of conflict. Whatever they wanted to eat, they were able to. It was truly a picture of peaceful and harmonious feasting…

"Oh, Master, you're awake!" A pleasantly surprised voice echoed from my left. I turned to the source and saw an elated but surprised No.5 leaning against the side of the cave entrance, staring at me, his drool still dangling at the corner of his mouth.

Just as I was starting to get fed up with his thick skin, No.3 walked out of a nearby cave and slapped his head: " time, wipe that drool off your mouth before you say that!"

Having beaten the potato, a satisfied looking No.3 turned to me and greeted me humbly in a half kneel position, his head lowered as he said: "Master."

Recruiting the remaining devils, a geyser of corpses...seems like a lot happened while I was sleeping. And that corpse count...it must've at least been several tens of thousands of corpses.

So that's why that head imp wanted to guard the entrance...I thought he was just the cliched end level boss you see in RPGs. I guess he wasn't as stupid as I thought. I would've guarded the entrance as well if I had known about this.

In human time, I was out cold for a total of four days. In these four days, my little piggies had been living a carefree life of eating and sleeping and then more eating.

Thanks to this mountain of corpses, half of my small imps had evolved into large imps while my original large imps had received a boost to their strength. As for the souls...since there was no tool to store souls, it was hard to preserve them. It would've been alright if it was just two days...but I was out for four…

"Master, you must be hungry right now. I'll go hunt some souls for you." The matter of me only consuming souls was known to all my subordinates. He probably thought my long sleep had made me hungry and so offered to hunt for me.

"Oh, what's there to hunt around here?" Truth be told, I didn't take too well to this new environment. After spending so much time near the blood sea and breathing in its sulfurous air, suddenly switching to such an eerily cold place made me slightly uncomfortable.

I paid One-eye a visit and instructed him to look after the devils. In the meantime, No.3 instructed Big 1 to select 30 imps to accompany us on our hunting trip north. After heading down this direction for 30 minutes, we entered a desolate wasteland. The ground was pitch black and cracks weaved through the entire area due to the sheer dryness of the earth. Judging by this, there hadn't been any rain here for a long time or perhaps rain didn't even exist here.

As we continued, a pile of bones not too far into the distance piqued my interest. From the looks of it, it was a complete set of small imp bones. I decided to investigate, but as I got within 10 steps of it, the skeleton started shaking and an upright imp skeleton was soon standing right before me.

An imp's skull was very different from a human's, with its widened forehead and enlarged eye sockets, it was more alien than human. As it stood upright, a sinister green flame lit up in its empty eye sockets. It was an undead's soul fire. This was an important component in controlling their bodies, thus making it a conspicuous weakness.

Once this was extinguished, the undead would experience true death. If the soul's container was destroyed before the soul was extinguished, it would merely fly away to look for another container.

In a sense, they could revive themselves infinitely; though it was more akin to swapping bodies. Kinda like a Gun*am pilot switching Gun*ams.

No.3 charged right at the skeleton and let forth a deafening howl that almost scattered its bones as it retreated backwards from the shockwave.

Its casting time was now shortened to 4 seconds and with the time bought by No.3's stunning howl, I managed to fire off an arrow at the skeleton.

The soul flame twisted about as it laid on his palm. With just one look, it was obvious this was different from the souls I've eaten before. It's taste...wasn't that great. It had a deathly feel to it that reminded me of decaying corpses. However, the nourishment it provided was significantly better than what I was used to. Compared to a small imp's soul, it provided an additional 50% boost in nourishment.

As we wandered around, we encountered several small imp skeletons which were swiftly taken care of by No.3 and the others. Finally after 20 minutes, we met our first large imp skeleton.

Judging from its appearance, it was definitely made up of a large imp's skeleton. As for its strength, my darkness arrow was no longer able to kill it in one shot. The most it could do was blow off a limb. This was due to the inherent hardness of its skull being stronger than the other bones. In order to destroy its skull, I would require at least three arrows.

Judging by my arrow's consumption, my mana pool could definitely sustain ten consecutive shots. As for nether flames...unfortunately, I couldn't use it.

I had a feeling that this flame required emotions as a medium in order to materialize. An example would be anger. Hmm, what other techniques did I have...oh, there's still the flame whip.

I clapped my hands together, and as I did so, a bundle of flames wrapped around my right arm. Seeing this, I separated my hands. Simultaneously, a stream of flames formed in between my hands and took the shape of a whip.

This new map was pretty cold especially for me. Being a picky eater that didn't want to eat meat, my physical body was weaker than most large imps. In this regard, the flame whip had another unexpected benefit. Due to its heat, it functioned as a heat source. As long as I kept it out, even if it wasn't in the midst of a battle, I could keep myself warm.

In front of me was an ancient battlefield scattered with the bones of its participants; along with some weapons. Furthermore, the winds blowing from that area seemed to be much colder than the winds from the other areas.

At first I thought it was merely my imagination, but quickly changed my mind once Big 1 reported that he felt this strangeness too. As I was planning to leave this eerie place, the sounds of bones clattering around echoed in the previously silent battlefield. During the next 10 seconds, undead could be seen rising one by one throughout the battlefield. Some of them were devils in life while some were human. Human?

I was familiar with human skeletons from surfing the net in my previous life. Based on those images, these skeletons fit a human's perfectly. Adding to the credibility of this theory was the fact that they wore armor such as leather vests or plate mails. They also carried weapons commonly used by humans; such as shields, swords, hatchets and spears.

There were quite of skeletons about. I roughly estimated their numbers to be over a hundred, with over 60 of them wearing equipment. I fired my arrow at one of the helmet wearing skeletons. Based on this test, the effects were pretty good. The arrows shattered the helmet along with the skull underneath and instantly extinguished the soul flame within.

From this result, these armored skeletons were at the level of a small imp. With their weapons added into the mix, they were slightly stronger than your average small imp.

The 30 large imps on our side were more than a match for these skeletons. With their bone clubs and them being a full tier ahead of the skeletons, the battle was swiftly concluded within a minute.

However, before the souls were done being harvested, the ground quaked, and a withered hand shot out of the ground; vigorously trying to pull itself out. A short while later, a shriveled corpse broke through the dried ground in a flurry of soil and dust. A zombie! While its form was slightly different, I was still able to recognize what it was. This uninvited guest was a large imp zombie!

Like the first signs of spring after winter, zombie after zombie could be seen digging their way out of the ground around the battlefield. Some of these were devil zombies while some were armored human zombies. The devil zombies all had a towering stature which exuded an aura of immense strength. As for the human zombies, they surprised me more as they seemed to know how to use their weapons.

There were about 50 of these zombies in total. While their actions were sluggish, they weren't the slow zombies you saw in movies; they were faster than your average civilian!

"Their heads. Unless you destroy their heads, they'll keep on attacking. Even if you destroy their limbs, they will try to use their teeth to bite you…" No.3 seemed to have thought of something as he said this; his face had an unnatural expression on it.

"It's just a matter of focusing on their head." Big 1 waved his bone club around in a show of bravado. "No matter what, this lordship will protect Master!"

Whether it was their defensive or offensive power, these zombies were at least a tier stronger than the skeletons we fought. Furthermore, they were a relentless army, they would not stop until their heads were destroyed. They did not sleep, eat or fear anything. They might even be infected with corpse poisons. Other than their sluggishness, they had no obvious weaknesses.

Our side had only 33 large imps including me, Big 1 and No.3. On the other hand, the zombies numbered 50. We were clearly outnumbered in this fight. Fighting now would only incur unnecessary deaths.

"Let's check out the other areas." I still remembered the strange look on No.3's face when I asked about the zombies, so I pressed him further on this matter while we walked. "While I was unconscious, did you encounter any special zombies?"

"They are really hardy and strong. Furthermore, the only way to kill them is by destroying their heads." The expression on his face as he talked about the zombies was not one of fear, but rather of vexation. Meeting such a difficult opponent troubled him. "Their claws and teeth were all poisoned, and had caused problems for our injured devils."

"Their limbs would start to feel weak, their bodies would feel hot, and they would cough up black blood...it would take a long time to recover from this poison." My question seemed to have expended No.3's vocabulary as he struggled to find the words to describe the symptoms. The answer I got was pretty vague.

This was pretty similar to the zombies I've seen in movies, manga or novels from Earth. They had the ability to create more zombies by infection, and only a small amount were immune to this ability.

I had two theories that could explain why this world's zombies could only inflict [weakness, fever, and coughing black blood] instead of directly infecting the devils.

Second: Devils were resistant to the zombie poison. If this was the case, humans would probably turn into zombies upon being bitten. Dying was not required.

This was the fifth day since I woke up in this new world. I had gotten up early and walked out of my cave only to find that disgusting corpse mountain in front of me once more...truth be told, I'm still a normal human at heart. What should've been a productive and happy day was instantly ruined by that mountain of corpses…

However, this couldn't be helped. Devils needed to eat to evolve. Given the choice of having such an easy source of food available, most would choose not to complain about the corpse mountain. After all, who didn't enjoy being able to feed without having to fight for it? Besides, my subordinates growing stronger benefited me as well so I just let it be.

"No.3, Big 1, our goal today is to head back to yesterday's zombie field and investigate it." I ordered the two devils standing guard outside my cave.

After 30 minutes of traveling, we reached the ancient battlefield. It was still as desolate as ever; with a bunch of weapons and bones scattered about. From a distance, it seemed to be devoid of life. However, this was merely an illusion, as someone who had visited this place yesterday I can attest to that.

It was a heavily armored zombie that carried a huge sword. If it wasn't for the crack in its helm revealing the signature blackish green mouth and teeth of a zombie, I would've mistaken him for your run of the mill human heavy infantry.

He seemed to be at a two-star level, but that shouldn't be a problem as long as his speed was as slow as the other zombies. If we couldn't win, we could simply retreat.

"Maintain as much distance as possible and use your weapons to attack them. Make sure not to get injured. Also, avoid that particular zombie."

The large imps charged into battle with a roar. With our numbers, each battle were mostly stacked battles of three versus one. The large imps diligently obeyed my orders of avoiding that heavy infantry zombie by retreating immediately on sight. Whenever they saw it move towards them, they would abandon their current battle and prioritized retreating.

As such, the battle proceeded as expected. Given our superior speed and numbers, the zombies were swiftly cleaned up by our clubs. Outside of a few careless imps who got scratched, there were no casualties.

Finally, there was only that lonely heavy infantry zombie left. I turned to No.3 and Big 1 and said: "He looks pretty lonely over there, we should pay him a visit."

I opened the battle with my darkness arrow, but it didn't have any effect. As the mass of dark energy collided with the zombie's head, the helmet it wore faithfully carried out its duties rendering the arrow harmless. While the arrow got blocked, the helmet had suffered some damage as a result. Several fragments fell off its metallic surface as the arrow collided into it. A few more arrows should be enough to destroy that helmet.

No.3 and Big 1 acted as my vanguard as they charged forward to engage it. With each of them taking a side, they sandwiched the heavy infantry zombie.

I threw out that order right as they were about to attack. Being battle-hardened veterans, they immediately knew what I wanted. After dodging a swing of that zombie's huge sword, the two imps stepped to its back and with a swing of their clubs, simultaneously struck at the zombie's legs.

I forgot...they were called zombies because of their stiffness. If they were that easy to cripple, they would've been called skeletons instead of zombies. Not to mention, this zombie might be a two-star monster!

A huge sword sliced through the air in a wide arc as the zombie spun around to counterattack. With its two meter long blade, it would've hit both of them if it weren't for them smartly retreating after seeing their attack fail.

I took advantage of him turning around to cast another skill at him. The arrow soared through the air and collided with the back of its helmet. However, unlike the first arrow, the helmet was only dented by this attack and not chipped. This helmet seems a lot more sturdier than I expected.

The zombie's huge sword impacted onto the ground once more as Big 1 skillfully dodged its swing. That miss had horribly scarred the earth at the point where it hit...perhaps I should leave the normal large imps out of this. There's no need to feed him kills.

My nether flames were unusable, and at this rate my mana would run out before I defeated him. I need a better plan...perhaps I should use my flame whip.

His sword was still stuck in the ground, and from the looks of it, would require some time to remove. No.3 and Big 1 made use of this time to rearm themselves with a bone club from their subordinates.

The flame on my right hand extended into a whip as I finished casting the skill. Once it had reached the desired length, I swung at the zombie. In a mere moment, the whip reached the zombie. As if it had read my mind, the whip automatically wrapped around the zombie.

The flames of my whip roared as the metallic armor on the zombie was rapidly heated to a bright red hue. Black smoke rose from underneath the armor as the flesh beneath began to cook.

The flames were clearly its weakness. The zombie desperately struggled against the whip's binding in bid to escape from the scorching flames, but ultimately failed as the whip tightened up even further.

This skill was a continuous drain on my mana and could be cancelled at will. It took a darkness arrow's worth of mana to activate it, and every 10 seconds it expended a similar amount of mana as well.

It was said that undead hated the light, but in actuality, they hated the heat it brought. Except for some unique cases, fire was a fatal weakness of all undead, including zombies.

This led to my flame whip having a better than expected result. The heavy infantry zombie could only struggle helplessly as the whip continuously burnt its armor. Furthermore, as time passed the heat increased, causing the damage to increase along with it. After 50 seconds of burning, the metallic armor could no longer withstand the heat and broke apart…

The disgusting smell of its burnt flesh wafted through the air along with the black smoke. All the devils who smelt this covered their noses in disgust. It was a foul stench that one would never wish to encounter again.

I had fainted after killing that head imp so I did not have any impression of eating that imp's soul. As such, I had no concrete comparison to judge if the heavy infantry zombie's soul was truly a two-star soul. After that tough battle, No.3 harvested the souls and presented them to me as usual. From a glance, I could immediately see the difference in strength between that zombie's soul and the others.

And so, the day continued uneventfully. By the end, we had a bountiful harvest of 500 undead souls. They were a mix of skeletons and zombies. However, we never encountered a second soul like that heavy infantry zombie's. It was probably a rare occurrence.

The nights in this new environment were quiet. There weren't any sounds of waves crashing against the coast here.There weren't any insects incessantly chirping at night. Nor were there any drunkards camping out in the streets at night, and there definitely weren't any hooligans waiting to beat me up.

This dead silence was completely destroyed by the devil's eating, yet this in itself brought a sense of life to this place. Because of the abundance of food, the devils happily feasted. Initially the abundance worried me. Would the corpses rot? Would the devils eat a bad corpse by accident and get some kind of sickness? However, these were unfounded worries as today was the fifth day and the corpses showed no signs of rotting.

Perhaps it was due to this environment or perhaps they simply did not rot. Either way, I did not know how they maintained their freshness.

Because of the lack of a sun, I would sleep once I started feeling tired. After sleeping for an indeterminate number of hours, I was woken up by the sound of the devils' clamoring.

Damned potatoes, can't you let me rest in peace? You guys have a giant mountain of corpses to feed off, while I have to go out and hunt for my food!

Before I managed to leave my cave and scold them, No.3 entered without my summons and reported: "Master, there's a problem with the corpse mountain. Please evacuate immediately Master!"

"It would be faster if Master saw it for himself." No.3 brought me out and pointed at the corpse mountain, "The corpses are reviving!"

The corpse mountain now and the corpse mountain before I went to sleep had a very obvious difference. It was the lack of devils feasting. This was because the devil corpses had been reanimated, and were unsteadily moving about while some were crawling around on the mountain. Their eyes were filled with an eerie green light that were devoid of any signs of life.

I was dumbstruck at that moment. Based on the width and height, this corpse mountain had to at least contain several tens of thousands of corpses! If they all became undead, my devil army is as good as dead! We might as well just kill ourselves now and join the party.

Thankfully, not all of them became zombies. It was only a small portion that turned; about 5% of them. My subordinates defended against the zombie horde as they slowly retreated. Some of the unfortunate ones were atop the corpse mountain when it happened and got caught by a newly animated zombie. As they got tripped and pulled into the horde, their horrific cries filled the air as they were slowly eaten.

"Listen up everyone, make sure to work with the people beside you as we leave this mountain together. We will gather at the east side of the mountain." I raised my voice and tried to get them to cooperate. However, devils were a selfish life form. When things were going well they listened to you, but when things were bad, it was every man for himself. They clearly had no intention of cooperating.

"Ah...what's happening...is there an earthquake…" No.5 woke upon being kicked, his drool still hanging off the corner of his mouth. His groggy expression wasn't the least bit endearing. As he looked around in a panic, he relaxed upon seeing my retracting leg. *phew*

"See, this fellow is already awake. Even though his combat strength isn't much, he can still act as a meat shield. It will be fine." I turned and smiled coldly at No.5: "Isn't that right?"

"...yes…" He was probably aware of my mood right now and immediately nodded. Even after hearing the word [meat shield], he smiled accommodatingly.

"No.5 has no ability to command so sending him would be pointless. Plus, if you keep on stalling, my losses would be even greater."

"I understand and comply, Master." No.3 accepted the command in the end and gave a half kneeling salute. As he got up, he glared at the confused No.5: "Protect the Master well, if you dare to slack off again, I'll make sure you pay!"

Since No.3 has gone to gather my subordinates, I should make my way to the east side as well. "No.5, it's time for us to go as well."

"Yes master." No.5 sneaked a glance at me as he said so. However, he did not manage to gain much information from my expressionless face. Not like he could with that intelligence of his. He then glanced at the corpse mountain and immediately exclaimed as he was hit by a sudden realization: "Master, why are those fellows acting so strangely!?"

"The corpses are reviving for some unknown reason and are turning into undead." We continued walking as I explained the situation to No.5.

"The place we are living in houses a lot of undead. I suspect that this is the world of the undead so the corpses here will automatically turn into undead after a period of time."

"Ah...so those corpses were that scary. Luckily, I didn't eat much." No.5 patted himself on the chest as he said so, with a look on his face that said 'I lucked out.'

Wait what did you mean [I didn't eat much]? Unlike you, all my subordinates were ravenously consuming the meat. Don't tell me you aren't interested in food? Do you have anorexia? What's more, whenever I see you, you are always sleeping by the side of my cave entrance. Exactly how much did you love sleeping?!

When I got to the designated point, Big 1 was already there with 200 large imps and was awaiting orders. These were the imps who were on the east side when I gave that order, so Big 1 had an easy time gathering them.

Big 1 half kneeled as he explained why he wasn't by my side protecting me: "Master, this lordship was eating at the corpse mountain."

"The strongest I met were at the level of a large imp. The majority of them were at the level of a small imp. However...as it was a sneak attack, we suffered heavy losses."

"I saw that." While I didn't observe the situation for long, I was able to see that we had suffered significantly. The large imps were all unprepared for the zombies, and ended up getting surrounded and subsequently dying.

Truth be told, if they had helped each other, their chances of survival would have been much higher. However, devils were selfish so the first thing they thought of when they saw what was happening, was how to ensure their own survival. They didn't even try to save their comrades. This was why our losses were so heavy.

As time passed, the number of reanimated corpses rose. One-eye and No.3's group were essentially stranded on the north and southern sides. As I noticed this predicament, I immediately split up with Big 1 and sent help to both sides.

One-eye and No.3 had each gathered over 200 large imps. As for the small imps...they were basically wiped out the moment the corpses started attacking.

I brought No.5 and a hundred large imps to help One-eye at the north side. Standing between me and him were several hundred undead; which were still weak from being newly animated. Only a small portion possessed the strength of a one-star, the majority were at the level of a zero-star. However, as they continued to kill, they would get stronger so we needed to end this battle as soon as possible!

My scorching whip reared its head once more as I said so. With a chopping motion, I brought the whip down onto a stretch of road in front of me, its fiery body burning any undead unfortunate enough to be caught in its path. The air was soon filled with the foul stench of burnt corpses.

Based on my previous encounter with that heavy infantry zombie, I knew that fire was the bane of the undead. This attack proved this theory once more as the undead were quickly dispersed by my flames. Wherever there were flames, the undead instinctively retreated several steps.

I led the charge into the undead group with several swings of my flame whip to the left and right. We swiftly cut through the group in front of us, and within a mere 10 seconds, a laid open to One-eye's group.

"Master!" His eyes practically shone with light as he looked at me. His sidekick, Nine-finger leaned in at this moment and whispered something, but instead got slapped by One-eye.

Having rescued One-eye, I checked on Big 1 and found that he was in trouble as well. With several more swings of my whip, I cleared the road to Big 1 and soon gathered all the scattered large imps.

It was around this time that my mana finally ran out and I had to cancel my flame whip. The army that was suppressed by the flames became active once more. Thankfully, our forces were ready this time and were able to repel them easily. With One-eye, Nine-finger and No.3 forming the spear tip of our charge, we quickly broke out and escaped from the undead horde.

Either way, it's time for a break. The devils are probably tired from that sneak attack by the zombies. Having decided on that, I collapsed onto the floor.

The head count was over in a short while. Not including the named imps, the number of large imps that had successfully escaped was 579!

Just as I was brooding, an anxious looking No.5 rushed into view. I had sent him out to scout the surroundings, and judging from his face, something bad must've happened. This potato even tripped on a stone as he ran over, nearly falling…

"Master, what should we do?" Noticing the lack of response, he anxiously pressed me: "Judging by their speed, they will catch up to us in half an hour."

As time passes, I'm sure that entire mountain would turn into undead. If all those bastards chased us...Forget it, I can leave that matter for a later time. What's more important is this impending crisis. Since we can't retreat, we just have to move forward.

Just as I finished saying this, I heard the familiar clattering of bones in the air… Damn it, I guess there's really no rest for the weary…

Skeletons began appearing about one hundred meters away on our left flank. In just 10 seconds their numbers swelled to a hundred, and showed no signs of slowing down. We had just swept through this area recently so these must be the stragglers we missed. Their numbers shouldn't be that much.

"Big 1, bring 200 large imps with you and clear out those skeletons. Harvest all the souls and bring them to me, I need to recover my mana."

Truth be told, Big 1 was a pretty reliable devil. Whenever I issued an order, he would carry it out without batting an eye. If only he didn't treat me like a female devil…

He quickly singled out 200 large imps and made his way towards the skeletons. With their bone clubs in hand, they charged into the skeleton army. With every swing, the sound of bones cracking and clattering onto the floor could be heard. This was an easy battle for the large imps. With their superior strength, the skeletons who were around the level of a normal human fighter, were basically fodder to the savage imps.

Even a simple body slam from a large imp was able to take out a bunch of skeletons. Once in awhile, they would encounter a one-star that required several seconds to take care of, but overall it was a very low level fight. After all, these were imps who had undergone the baptism of bloodshed. Each of them were ruthless characters who had made it this far by killing their own kin.

The sound of arrows being fired echoed loudly throughout the battlefield as I saw several dozens arrows fly over the skeletons and into the imp army; injuring them. However, with the large imp's thick hide, unless it was a fatal wound, they would barely flinch from normal wounds. These arrows were basically useless. Outside of an unlucky imp who got shot thrice in the head, most got off with a light wound.

In the middle of the skeleton army were 35 skeleton archers who were nocking their bows and preparing for a second volley. They seemed to have learnt their lesson as this volley had a more impressive result of three deaths. Judging from their strength, these archers were probably one-star.

This was the first time I had seen skeletons that possess a warrior class. It was a shocking revelation to me; these skeletons clearly possessed a portion of the strength they had in life. Not only did they know how to use melee weapons, they were even able to perform the intricate task of firing an arrow!

"One-eye go and reinforce them with 200 more large imps. You see those archers? Circle around them and take them out in a decisive blow." As I said so, I made a clenching motion.

"Understood, Master. I'll do as you say." One-eye didn't dally long before dragging the exhausted Nine-finger with him as he roused the other exhausted imps with a kick. It was a simple but effective method, in less than a minute, the reinforcement team had set off.

The skeleton archer team were neither too numerous nor too little. They had just enough members to suppress the charging imps. With their long range capabilities, they formed the core offensive power of the army, and were thus heavily protected by the melee skeletons. Their arrows alone had foiled two attempts by Big 1 to charge into the skeleton army, causing them to not only fail but also suffer losses.

Thankfully, the large imps weren't too dim and were able to figure out a way to block the arrows. They used their bone clubs as bats to deflect incoming arrows, reducing the effectiveness of these archers.

However, this put them on the defensive as their weapon had to be ready to deflect arrows. This dramatically lowered their offensive capabilities. Just as it looked like they were about to be in trouble, One-eye arrived in the nick of time. He had circled around the army while they were distracted by the large imps, and flanked them.

They were undead after all. They had no intelligence outside of a few notable exceptions. Instinct was what drove their thirst for flesh and blood. It was what made them hunt the living, even to the point of forming teams to do so.

One-eye's charge had the desired effect; wiping out the archers in one blow. Their bows had no melee capabilities to speak of, and they were swiftly overwhelmed by a few swings of the imps' bone clubs.

With the loss of their archer corp, the skeleton army was done for. In a mere span of 10 minutes, the battle was over with the skeletons being wiped out.

Big 1 and One-eye had brought back a combined total of 600 soul flames and presented them to me. As I replenished my mana with these soul flames, I formulated a plan. A minute later, No.5 came back to report once more. He reported that the zombie horde was now 20 minutes away from us.

That damned skeleton army had not only cost us time, it had cost me 24 large imps as well. Half of them were done in by the arrows, while the other half were killed by the skeletons taking advantage of the suppressive fire. Damn it, if it wasn't for those damned long range attacks, we wouldn't have lost a single imp in such a low level battle!

Fortunately, that corpse mountain was made entirely of devil corpses. If there had been any archer zombies in that horde, the only option left would have been to run.

Large imp corpses were a valuable resource. While they had been my subordinates in life, in death they were merely a corpse. To the me who had stepped over a mountain of corpses in order to leave the blood sea, dead devils were merely food.

I knew the devils were still exhausted, plus, they were hungry as well. Those 24 corpses were definitely not enough to feed all the large imps in my army. So I decided to distribute the collected soul flames, with the battle's participants getting an extra share.

They were the ones who had toiled to bring in these soul flames after all. They naturally deserved some form of reward. Especially in these dire times, maintaining morale was crucial in preventing deserters while on the run.

We were in the midst of fleeing for our lives so every bit of distance helped. The quickest way to distance ourselves from the zombies was to take a straight line route through the battlefield. If we circled around it, the zombies would require less time to catch up with us.

However, passing through the battlefield meant potentially going against the ancient undead resting in there. Without sufficient information about their strength and numbers, this was an extremely risky choice.

In the blink of an eye, two days had passed. During these two days of fleeing, we met with numerous undead ambushes. Thankfully, their levels weren't too high. Without any extenuating circumstances, our army had the upper hand in numbers and in quality.

The zombie horde was extremely slow compared to us. Even with the frequent waylays and pit stops, we still managed to put significant distance between us and the undead horde. By now, they were a full day's worth of traveling from us. I just don't get why they were so insistent on chasing us down. Was this retribution for eating too many corpses?

In front of us was the ruins of a tower. Within this desolate wasteland, the existence of such a man made structure piqued my curiosity. It was my first encounter with any sort of building since reincarnating into purgatory. The cylindrical tower was split in half at the center. Its head section of the top half was buried into the ground as it leaned against the bottom half, forming an inverse V.

While there weren't any weeds growing out of it, the tower had long since lost its original hue. It was colored in a dark green which resembled the soul flame of the undead.

I hesitated as I stood outside the tower. Should I enter it? If there's a high level undead in there, we're screwed...But I can't just leave it, what if there's treasure in there…

As I stood there weighing the pros and cons, No.5 came back.This lazy fellow had been thoroughly trained by me these past few days. He was now the leader of my scouting team. I assigned 10 large imps to his team. Their mission was to monitor the zombie horde's movement.

"Master, I'm back." As he said so, he threw me his usual ingratiating look. He kinda looked like a dog begging for food. The only thing missing was a wagging tongue…

"Yes, I'm very sure. Furthermore, I noticed something very strange. Even after splitting up, their numbers didn't seem to change much."

"There…there were...there definitely were…" As his legs were lifted off the ground, he panicked and flailed his arms around wildly. However, he didn't manage to break free.

"If I find out that you have made a false report, I'll make sure that there's someone watching over you 24 hours a day to make sure you never get to sleep again!"

As he was put down, he collapsed onto the ground on all fours. Having been questioned by me, he started counting with his fingers: "Err...Ten? Hundred? A thousand?...it was uncountable...anyway they had more than us."

Five times? That meant they were at least 3,000 strong. No, this was too important, I need No.5 to go and scout once more. I need more detailed information.

Having just sent No.5 off to scout, Nine-finger suddenly burst into view in what seemed like a mix of sprinting and crawling. Behind him were two translucent maids floating in the air. Their white translucent bodies were tinged with a hint of green commonly found in the other undead. Judging from their appearances, they were probably vengeful ghosts.

Based on the fact that he came from the direction of the tower, and that the door to said tower was open at the moment….This idiot must've taken matters into his own hands and ended up stirring up a hornet's nest. No wonder it felt like someone was missing when No.5 was making his report.

As I hadn't decided on whether or not to explore the tower, I ordered everyone to distance themselves from it. Who knew that this idiot would approach the tower of his own accord and cause this much trouble.

"Why the heck are you running!" As his big brother, One-eye was thoroughly incensed by his little brother's disgraceful display. Before he even got a chance to slap the imp, Nine-finger had already hugged his waist and circled around to his back.

With an eye peeking out from One-eye's back, Nine-finger pointed a shaking finger at the two floating ghosts and wailed: "Ghost! There are ghosts here, Big Brother!

After hitting him thrice on the head, Nine-finger finally quieted down. However, the fear in his eyes did not subside, as he continued staring at the floating ghosts.

The vengeful ghosts had chased him halfway before noticing us. Noticing that he was now far away and that we outnumbered them greatly, the pair decided to return to the tower.

It was at this moment that No.3 and Big 1 leaped into the air, their bone clubs brandished high. With a forceful swing, their clubs cut through the air and passed harmlessly through the back of the ghosts as if they had swung at smoke.

The two vengeful ghosts laughed as they circled Big 1 and No.3, teasing them. Perhaps it was out of boredom or perhaps it was because of my nearing presence, they tossed me fearful look before flying back to the tower.

Physical attacks were ineffective? I guess they were immune to physical attacks since they had no physical body. In that case, were they able to inflict physical harm?

"I think you owe me an explanation and it better be a good one." My finger shot out and pointed towards the closed doors of the tower as I said so.

"I got curious and entered…" Nine-finger pitifully lifted his head as he said so, his body pinned to the ground by One-eye's leg. "It was really scary inside...there were those flying stuff that weren't afraid of my attacks…"

"I found a strange chest on the third floor but just as I was about to open it up, those flying things appeared. They passed through the ceiling and started chasing me. No matter how hard I hit them...it just didn't work...it was terrifying!..."

The guardians appeared only when he tried to open the chest? If Nine-finger was able to stumble all the way up to the third floor without being challenged, doesn't that mean that all we had to do was kill off those two ghosts to get that chest? Plus, guardians equals treasure and treasure equals let's go!

Having made this decision, I turned to Nine-finger: "Lead the way. No.3, Big 1, bring along another 10 more large imps and follow me in. The rest of you stay here and await further instructions."

One-eye knelt down in front of me as he protested my decision. All this while, I had groomed him with the intention of making him my commanding officer. However, this wasn't because his combat strength was low. Just the opposite, his strength was definitely among the top few in my army. The reason why I chose him was due to a lack of options. Within this army, the only one who had a decent head on his shoulder was him.

Take for example No.3, he loves to use violence to solve his problems. He was a typical muscle brain who didn't think much. No.5 was really lazy, to the point of being too lazy to gather food from the corpse mountain. He always instructed his subordinates to bring the food to him in a doggy bag. Big 1 was slightly off his rocker and as for Nine-finger...he's a potato.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine. Plus, you have the strongest le adership abilities within our group. You shouldn't squander that talent."

"...Yes, your subordinate will manage your army well. Master doesn't have to worry about this as he goes on his exploration!" One-eye was extremely touched by my praise and readily accepted my order. From the looks of it, he would accept anything I said right now.

Having settled One-eye, I led our team towards the tower. Nine-finger gingerly followed us from a slight distance away. He clearly didn't want to go back in. and attempted to find an excuse for this.

As we approached the tower, the deathly coldness within the air grew stronger. Just by standing at its doorstep, I felt like the temperature had dropped by several degrees. The surroundings of the tower were surprisingly tidy and clean. Outside of the usual messiness of a ruin, there weren't any corpses or items scattered around.

From up close, the tower seemed really oppressive. Its 30 meters tall reverse V and ghostly green exterior gave off the oppressive aura of a dark forest.

As I signalled to Nine-finger, his face immediately fell. He pointed at his face with his right hand as if to say "You want me to go?". I glared back at him, clearly not happy with the stupid look on his face.

Nine-finger gingerly approached the giant door and lightly pushed it as if he was a burglar breaking into a house...Naturally, it didn't budge an inch, putting him in an awkward situation. He gave up his stealthy approach and heaved on the large door. The metallic hinges on the door creaked as it finally began to open.

We were greeted by a vast hall that was empty except for its messy floor, scattered with the shattered remains of various objects. There was a spiral stairway near the side of the hall, leading upwards.

Each floor was 10 meters tall and filled with various rooms of unknown purposes. This continued up to the 7th floor where the tower was broken in half which meant the highest we could climb up to was the 7th floor. As for the other half of the tower, we can leave that for when we finish this half.

The entire tower seemed to be made of a slightly luminescent material which gave off a bit of light. While it wasn't much, it was enough for us devils.

Our excursion proceeded uneventfully, as Nine-finger said, all the way up to the third floor. Within a few minutes, we were in the room where he found the chest. It was large enough to accommodate all of fourteen of us, and even had enough space for us to brawl. Judging from the operating table in the center and the strange objects scattered all around, it seemed to be a large laboratory.

Right at the back of this laboratory was a chest made of a special material. What made this material special was the unique color it came in. When Nine-finger mentioned the chest, my musings revolved around whether it was a gold chest, a silver chest, an iron chest or a wooden chest. They definitely didn't include a bone chest!

"Master, this was the chest I encountered. One touch and those ghosts will come flying out…" Nine-finger tried to hide behind my back as he said so but was given a shove by No.3 and failed. If it had been a normal situation, the two would've gotten into a fight, but the eeriness of this place suppressed any protest by Nine-finger.

As for who was to open that chest, that duty naturally fell to Nine-finger. He trembled as he slowly approached the chest, clearly he was deathly afraid of things he couldn't harm.

Just as he touched the chest, a group of vengeful ghosts entered the room from entrances only they could use, the ceiling, the floor and the walls.

Big 1 and No.3 immediately formed a defensive formation around me as they wielded their bone clubs. The usual confidence that holding these clubs gave was noticeably absent today as they did so.

"Hey, hey...let me in…" Nine-finger loudly wailed from his vulnerable position outside the formation. No.3 who had been annoyed with him for a long time, kicked him once more towards the vengeful ghosts. It was a delicate looking teenage girl wearing a maid dress. As she saw Nine-finger tumble towards her, her face distorted into a wicked smile. Her normally delicate and cute face was replaced in an instant by a savage face.

The vengeful ghost pounced onto Nine-finger in that instant, her slender white arms transformed into a pair of ink black claws as she did so. With a vicious swing of her razor sharp claws, Nine-finger's hide was instantly ripped through, and blood could be seen flowing out of the gash.

While Nine-finger had been scared stiff by the ghosts, this pain brought him back to his senses. He instinctively counterattacked and actually managed to send the ghost flying!

"This…" He stared at his arms in disbelief. Seeing another ghost approach him, he attacked her preemptively, his confidence boosted by his recent success. However, his fist passed through the ghost, and the ghost passed through his body harmlessly. As it passed through his back, the black claws appeared once more and viciously slashed at his back.

"Why isn't it working again..." Nine-finger's confidence was quickly crushed by this turn of events as he began avoiding the ghosts once more.

"Just defend first and avoid getting hit. When they try to attack you, counterattack." Those two attacks had given me an idea. Those ghosts were able to inflict physical damage despite their incorporeal form because they assumed a corporeal form as they did so. As long as we made use of that opportunity to attack, we can defeat them!

The devils immediately understood my hint and took up a defensive stance. They waited for the ghosts to attack before counterattacking. The results were good as expected. When they swapped injuries with the ghosts, their ethereal bodies shimmered out of existence in that instant, kind of like those old televisions which experienced a temporary loss of signal. After getting hit, those ghosts weren't as eager to attack the devils anymore.

Their biggest advantage was their immunity to physical attacks. As long as we countered this advantage, the ghosts were merely at the level between a small and large imp.

It was at this moment that an impatient imp swung heavily at a ghost with his bone club. The bone club passed through his target harmlessly as if he was hitting at smoke. Making use of this momentary vulnerability, the ghost materialized and attacked with its claws, leaving a horrific gash on his face, any closer and it would've blinded him.

He gritted his teeth and swung out once more despite the pain. Unfortunately, he was too late as it adopted its incorporeal form once more.

I aimed my arrow at the now incorporeal ghost and fired. The black mass of mana pierced through the air in an instant and shot right into the ghost's body, dispersing her body.

The other vengeful ghosts cried in unison as soon as that vengeful ghost died. It was a piercing scream that overwhelmed our ears and brains. We immediately covered our ears to prevent ourselves from going deaf.

The vengeful ghosts didn't try to attack us during this moment of vulnerability but instead merged into an ever growing mass of ghostly energies. The new ghost finally stopped growing when it congealed into a 5 meter tall deformed apparition!

Magical Arts was the collective term for magical chants and magical formations. A complete magical art must contain both a chant and a formation. If one was missing, it would not be a magical art.

The apparitions squirmed as they continued to merge into each other. The end result was an amalgamation of 14 human faces each with an expression of pain, hatred or anger.

Like a drop of water in the vast ocean, the darkness arrow barely made a dent on the human face it collided with. Under my orders, two large imps swung their bone clubs at the apparition, but both of them passed right through the apparition's thighs.

The deformed apparition's hands had no fingers, but instead had a human head attached to it. It possessed fang-like teeth and its neck replaced the wrists of the apparition. With a fierce swing of its arms, the two heads opened their mouths wide as if they were a pair of vicious pythons and swallowed the heads of the two large imps!

It was just too strong. Based on its strength, it was probably stronger than the guardian on that last step. If you added in the special characteristics of a vengeful ghost, it could probably reach the level of a three-star. I knew this wasn't the time to hold back and immediately brought out my strongest skill which was also a deadly counter to the undead.

The fiery whip coiled around the arms of the apparition with its snake-like body and immediately flared up. While the apparition was at a higher level compared to us, it still didn't dare to touch the whip, as like other undead, it was deathly afraid of flames and radiant light.

The flames began to purify the deformed apparition's right arm, forcing the abomination to give up its arm in desperation as it slowly sank into the floor.

Thankfully, my mana reserves were no longer as tiny as before. Due to all the souls I consumed, my mana had received a substantial boost of 50%, and I could now sustain the whip for two minutes. This was particularly useful now as that deformed ghost had only retreated temporarily. It could still come back. Furthermore, the casting time of this whip was quite long so keeping it out was the safest choice.

While No.3 was slightly dim, he knew that time was of the essence right now. With a leaping step forward, he grabbed the chest and without stopping, retreated. The bone chest was roughly the size of two home PCs which was nothing for No.3 who had a body larger than most large imps.

I really wasn't sure if that abomination was dead. While the flame whip had an undeniable restraining effect on ghosts, it was pointless if the ghost kept hiding. I just hope it doesn't pop out at the last second and cause trouble for us.

This hope was soon dashed as we apprehensively approached the second floor. A large imp was suddenly bitten in half by an arm that shot out of the wall. By the time we counterattacked, it was long gone.

We began avoiding the walls since then, but the ghost merely attacked us from below the stairs. That arm rose up once more and bit down on a large imp's leg and threw him down the floor. With a staggering height of 10 meters, that large imp was definitely dead. Furthermore, it had even collided with a pillar on its way down to the first floor.

"Stay near me!" Avoiding certain areas wasn't the right strategy. The ghost had the advantage of being able to pass through all physical objects, so no matter where we hid, it would always been able to sneak up on us. If we did not do something soon, we would be all be dead.

As we squeezed together, we cautiously made our way down the stairs. We didn't dare to rush as we had to look out for the ghost's attacks. However, squeezing together wasn't the right strategy either as the ghost merely targeted the large imps on the outside and threw them off.

The flame whip was completely useless against this hidden enemy. Furthermore, as time passed, my mana began to run out as well. To make matters worse, one of the imps started wailing in a loud voice, "It's over, we need to escape", causing 4 of remaining normal large imps to run away.

No matter who it was, whether it was Big 1 or No.3, the deserters ignored them completely. Such was their self-serving nature, no matter who you were, what mattered the most was their own safety.

Truth be told, it wasn't their fault either. If it was an opponent they could see or touch, they would have definitely fought to the bitter end. After all, the scariest thing in the world was the unknown. Whether it was humans or devils, this was the same.

The one imp that surprised me was Nine-finger, the imp that I had always viewed as being deathly afraid of ghosts and an idiot, actually stayed. I honestly thought he would run away crying.

One of the deserters seemed to have a hole in his head as he inexplicably ran up the stairs instead of down. As he stepped onto the second floor, he collided with a white wall. Soon his tortured howls could be heard as his body was enveloped by the ghost. Countless mouths bit down on him and within a few seconds, he was reduced to scraps.

After killing that devil, it proceeded to attack our back. This was the first time I've seen it since my flame whip injured it. The arm which I had burnt with my whip had already recovered and was just slightly shrunken.

As it floated towards us, I immediately lashed out with my flame whip. Having tasted its fiery sting once, it knew not to mess with this whip and immediately retreated. Within a blink of an eye, it tunnelled into the stairs.

"The rest of you stay close to me, don't stray too far away from me. Call out if you see anything weird." As my flame whip lashed once more, chasing away the apparition, I turned to them and shouted: "Move!"

Thanks to the flame whip, the abomination did not dare to approach me and we managed to rush down the stairs. The tortured cries of the deserters rang out through the air as we quickly ran towards the exit on the first floor. As the last of the unnamed imps died, we finally stepped out of the tower.

We sprinted for several tens of meters upon exiting the tower before finally stopping. Nine-finger was thoroughly exhausted by now, he panted furiously as he doubled over. My flame whip had already disappeared due to the lack of mana. At my side, No.3 stood silently with the bone chest in his arms. He was completely out of breath as well. Beside him, Big 1 was signalling to the distant One-eye to come over. Even if they couldn't help, they could still be fodder. We just needed more people here.

As we gradually distanced ourselves from the tower ruins, the deformed ghost stood quietly at the entrance, staring at us. Its eyes full of emotions I couldn't understand. Hatred, resentment, fear, envy, pleading? There were even more that I did not understand.

The both of us continued this staring contest for another few seconds before the apparition suddenly trembled, separating into 12 ordinary-sized female maid ghosts. When they had combined, they had 14 ghosts. Did this mean that those two disappeared as I burnt that arm?

When we entered, we had 14 devils and now we only had me, No.3, Big 1 and Nine-finger. How should I even describe this exploration...well, I guess we should first have a look in this bone chest.

"Yes." No.3 gently laid the bone chest down onto the floor in front of me while the other devils, including One-eye, formed a circle around me and the chest. Well, they seemed to be pretty interested. I guess we can have a look together.

Ah, opening chests...Brings me back to the times when I played World of Peacecraft. I used to love playing a thief; no matter what chests I encountered while grinding mobs, I could always unlock them. Such convenience.

It's been a long time since I opened a chest. Should I go wash my hands first? Forget it, there's no water here. Plus, my hands are pretty clean. As I looked at the red skinned but surprisingly feminine pair of hands, I felt too tired to tsukkomi.

The bone chest was locked but it was merely a latch that kept it. In a short moment, we managed to open it. There was no blinding light that spewed forth or some ominous change in the weather though. There was merely a book quietly lying inside.

There was no name on its front cover and as I flipped to the first page, the words that greeted me were written in the language of the devils. The introductory paragraph stated that this was a magical tool used to learn Undead Magic. As I continued to flip through, I saw sections describing magical arts to summon zombies and skeletons. Further on, I found pages about dark alchemy such as using bones to construct basic weaponry. As I tried to turn another page, my head was suddenly struck with a splitting headache as if my psyche was spent and was on the verge of collapsing.

According to the book, mana did not possess any innate elemental attribute. As for why some people were better at certain elements...it was because of their own elemental affinity. Some people were closer to the fire element, and thus the fire elements responded better to their commands. This applied to all elements in general.

Which meant that as long as you had a magical art and the required mana, magic was possible. The difference caused by elemental affinity had to do with the time required to cast and the amount of mana required. For example, a person with high water affinity would be able to cast three water bullets with the amount of mana used by a person who had poor affinity to cast one.

Now's the time to test my affinity for undead magic. I followed the magical art described on the book and began my first summoning. After ten seconds, I finally finished summoning my first undead. It was a ragged looking skeleton with several defects in its bone structure. As for the mana spent, it was two times that of the darkness arrow…as for that skeleton...it was reduced to a pile of bones by the curious Nine-finger who decided to poke it!

Faking an accident by bumping into person, car, bike etc. and then asking for compensation. In some cases, there will be an accomplice to accuse the victim of this scam.

A person’s elemental affinity and strength level can both be classified into the following levels from low to high: Disgust, Low-grade, Medium-grade, Upper-grade, High-grade, Perfect. If both of them are at Disgust, you could judge the person as being unable to learn this element.

For low-grade, this person could learn some low level magic but would have to expend several times more effort than others. Medium-grade is the average level for mages in this world and formed the bulk of mages. Upper-grade meant that one was an elite while High-grade meant that one was a genius at that element. As for Perfect...it is usually only found in pure elemental elves.

Does this devil self of mine not have any talent in undead magic? No way! Shouldn’t devils and undead have an inseparable relationship? According to the legends, this world’s undead was created by the devils!

I used the skeleton I summoned as materials for the alchemical process and began channeling my mana into them. A rounded, black mirror began to form as I channeled my mana. As I slowly lowered the mirror onto the bones, the mirror ripped into the pale white bones like a paper shredder, grinding it into dust with every move forward.

The broadsword had the same shape as Roscar’s broadsword, but notably differed in both material and weight. One was made of bone while the other, iron. I wonder which would fare better...

Under the confused and worshipful eyes of my subordinates, I scooped up the bone broadsword lying on the floor. It was lighter than Roscar’s broadsword. Giving it a couple test swings, I estimated that it was about 10kg. In order to create this sword, I expended five darkness arrows worth of mana.

I tested the sharpness of the bone sword by stabbing it into the hardened ground. It wasn’t a satisfactory result; it took considerable effort to do so which meant it wasn’t too sharp.

“Big 1, One-eye, I need both of you to hold onto this bone club from each end. I’m going to test out the new weapon’s strength.”

With the bone club firmly secured, I raised the bone sword up to my shoulders and lowered my hips as I brought the sword down in a decisive slash.

The next second, the two bone weaponry collided into each other. I didn’t look too favorably on the bone sword being able to cut through the club, but surprisingly, it managed to do so albeit with some difficulty.

No.3 was the first to speak, and with him as the lead, the others began clamoring as well. Soon, the situation spiraled out of control as the excitement overtook them.

However, mana was an issue. Bones were found everywhere but my mana was limited. In order to prevent any in-fighting over these swords, I decided to give them out according to seniority.

“Creating a bone broadsword requires a substantial amount of mana so I can’t mass produce it. I’ll give it out according to who joined me first.”

There’s two goals for now: creating more bone weapons and leaving this undead region. Truth be told, I suspect that we are in Gehenna based on the stories Roscar had told me.

For example, he said that hell was split into three regions: Purgatory, Gehenna and Abaddon. Purgatory was a fiery world so the blood sea shouldn’t be a part of Purgatory. Gehenna sounded like the North Pole, but that was merely my own impression of it. Gehenna was the world of the undead and was crawling with the them. This description fit our current location, which meant that we might just be in Gehenna after all. As for Abaddon...Abaddon was too mysterious...even Roscar didn’t know anything about it.

Either way, whether this was Gehenna or not, there was only one way for me to proceed, and that was forward! Whether it’s for my sake or for the sake of meeting Nicole, I have to advance forward! No matter the cost!

“Let’s continue, there’s no time to waste. Oh that’s right, leave some traces behind so No.5 can find us easier.” I tossed the bone broadsword to No.3 and eyed the tower ruins a kilometer away: “Find some skeletons for me on the way, I want to test if the strength of the weapon has anything to do with the strength of the bones.”

As we set off on our journey, we hunted all the undead we encountered along the way, especially bone-type undead. After a couple more tries of my dark alchemy, I came up with three conclusions.

While creating the same broadsword, when using a bone imbued with soul flames as the material for the sword; reduced the mana consumption of the alchemical process. This means that the soul flames was consumed as part of the process in order to aid me.

When I used the bones of skeletons who did not serve me, there would be resistance; the speed of the mirror would slow down. Furthermore, it had gotten so troublesome, that I had to get No.3 and the rest to toss the bones into the mirror…

During the alchemical process, adding in special materials increased the power of the sword produced. For example, while I was forging One-eye’s weapon, I had a sudden stroke of inspiration, and decided to throw the black pearl I had obtained from the ghosts into the mirror. It disappeared and the resulting broadsword was no longer bone-white but a black sword surrounded by an ominous black aura.

This black sword wasn’t much sharper than its white cousin, but had the added effect of weakening any healing/regeneration effects. How did I know of this, you might ask. Well, that’s because we recently encountered a group of devils.

At the head of this group were two head imps with over 300 large imps as their subordinates. Upon seeing me, the two head imps screamed about making me their female devil without even giving me a chance to say anything and charged over.

In order to test the effectiveness of these weapons, I got these three to face off against the head imps, with No.3 and Big 1 taking on one while One-eye takes on the other alone. As for me, I stood nearby ready to lend them some fire support. As for the 300 large imps, I left them to my 500 plus large imps.

The head imps weren’t blind either, they knew from a glance that we had no two-star imp holding down the fort. So as long as they captured me, subjugating the rest of my subordinates would be easy. It was a good idea, but they picked the wrong opponent.

One-eye wielded his brand new weapon with the excitement of a child having just gotten a new toy. He immediately started the fight with a leaping chop towards the head imp. The head imp who had never seen such a weapon before, mistook it for a stick and tried to block the black sword with his body.

The black bone sword easily sliced through the hide of the devil and right into its right arm, finally stopping after slicing through half of the arm. Judging from this result, it wasn’t especially sharp and was around the level of the weapons made in a human kingdom.

The head imp had never in his wildest dreams, imagined that we would possess such a strong weapon and ended up suffering for it. However, these head imps were still veterans who had killed their way up to this state. He gritted his teeth and counterattacked. With a punch from his left fist onto One-eye’s chest, he sent him flying back.

After tumbling a while, One-eye got to his feet and fearlessly pounced back onto the head imp, his black sword wildly slashing as he pressed down upon the imp. However, the head imp had learnt his lesson and did his best to avoid the sword. While he was in a miserable state, at least he didn’t get hit by One-eye.

On the other side, No.3 and Big 1 had managed to severely injured their enemy in the initial clash as well. Their swords had sliced into the left and right arms of the devil. Like the other head imp, he started avoiding the swords as well. However, unlike that imp, he was facing two swords. Defending for long wasn’t an option.

As they fought, he got injured several times by their swords without any chance of retaliating. However, having fought with them for that long, he managed to find a counterplan. He grabbed a nearby large imp and used him as a club, swinging wildly. The bone broadswords weren’t heavy weapons after all, and both of them together still weren’t able to match a head imp’s strength. As a result, the tide of battle changed.

On One-eye’s side, upon seeing his companion use a “devil club” so effectively, his opponent mimicked him as well. He grabbed a large imp and began swinging wildly while pressing onto One-eye. One-eye had no choice but to retreat, knowing that his sword wasn’t suited for such a head on fight. All this while, the head imp had a taunting smile on his face.

However, idiots were in the end still idiots. His newfound ferocity had blinded him to the fact that while his companion was similarly injured as he was, scabs had long since formed on those wounds while his own injuries were still bleeding non-stop. This coupled with his furious swings rapidly weakened the head imp, to the point where he could no longer keep up with the speed and began to showing signs of passing out. A short moment later, his body came crashing down with a loud bang.

One-eye was initially taken aback by this developed and had used several rocks to test if his opponent was still conscious, but after a minute, he was finally sure that his opponent was truly out of strength. He finally walked up and pointed his black sword at the back of the head imp’s heart. With a forceful stab downwards, he shouted: “Die!”

While he had taken care of his opponent, No.3 and Big 1 were still busy being chased by that head imp. He immediately joined their battle. Under the cover of his companions, he took the risk of getting hit by the devil club and bravely stepped in, slashing at the head imp’s arm.

After that, the battle was pretty much set. The bleeding on the head imp’s arms didn’t stop and finally caused him to collapse from severe blood loss.

One-eye lifted his sword into the air and prepared to drive it through the imp’s throat. Before he could deal the finishing blow, the head imp turned to me and pleaded in a weak voice: “Please forgive me...let me become your slave…”

“Too bad we don’t sell any medicine for regret.” I snatched the sword from One-eye as I said so. I stamped triumphantly on his chest and aimed the sword at his heart, and shoved the sword down!

Because of his severe blood loss, there wasn’t much blood splattering from the wound. The blood slowly flowed out of the wound as I coldly withdrew my foot from his chest: “I really hate being treated as a woman.”

“No.3, stay behind, One-eye and Big 1 go subjugate those large imps. Nine-finger, you’re in charge of cleaning the battlefield. We are resting here.” I returned the black sword to One-eye before finding a relatively clean rock to sit on.

Ever since reincarnating into a devil, it had been one exciting and tense day after the next. Whether it was killing or being threatened, I had gotten used to it already. Recently, I’ve had some strange impulses. For example, wanting to kill someone with my own hands. I even began to experience mood swings. Simply put, I was becoming more emotional.

And it wasn’t just normal emotional changes, they were extreme and unpredictable. One moment I was laughing and joking around and the next I was waving my sword, lusting after blood.

Right now I had three pressing questions to answer; if I continued down this path, what’s at the end? Or should I say what’s waiting for me at the end?

If my subordinates were to solely subsist on souls, it would take one soul of their equivalent level, in order to ensure that they didn’t starve to death. Three souls satisfied them while five filled their hunger. The hungriest among my imps, No.3, felt bloated after eating 10 one-star souls. He had even grown slightly bigger as a result; his strength increasing along with it.

As for me...well, I couldn’t really say. When I was in the blood sea, it took me almost ten thousand souls to evolve, and that only happened at a crucial moment. Furthermore, consuming souls never actually sated me, which meant that I had a bottomless pit for a stomach!

The third question was; where did those devils we just met come from? Were they here from the start? Or were they from the blood sea like us, but just from a different entrance?

I knew so little about this world after all. But I believe given the vastness of the blood sea, there were bound to be other regions like the one I was in. The beach I woke up on was probably just a drop of sand in a vast desert. In other unknown regions, there were probably other entrances as well!

A short while later, No.3 brought a similar looking large imp to me. It was one of the captives from the previous battle. Speaking of which, our casualties were once again minimized thanks to our weapons. We only suffered 30 deaths while the other side lost over a hundred large imps.

“This is my Master.” No.3 dropped into a half kneel as he introduced me. The imp’s first impression of me was shock and admiration. The kind that you showed upon seeing a work of art; I bet he didn’t have the desire to possess me either. It was precisely this that pissed me off, but I didn’t beat him to death in the end.

The large imp scratched his head in confusion as he stared at me silently. My question seemed to have stumped him so I had no choice but to be more specific: &ldquo

“Blood Sea? I’m aware of it, that’s where I came from.” His intelligence might be lacking, but he definitely remembered the place where he was born in. “When I had awoken, I found myself in the blood sea…”

Those two head imps had teamed up since the blood sea. Because of their inherited memory, they knew about the entrance right from the start; and had rushed to blockade that entrance. They ended up succeeding in doing so.

As the blood sea washed up all the corpses onto the land of the undead, they got their subordinates to feast on the corpse mountain while simultaneously suppressing their evolution in order to maintain their rule. Later on, they faced a situation similar to us where the corpses started turning into zombies. At which point they had to escape as well; turning into wanderers.

Among my subordinates, the ones who were about to evolve were No.3, Big 1, One-eye and Nine-finger. The current situation in the land of the undead was that we didn’t have enough food so evolving was especially difficult. Thankfully, I knew dark alchemy and was able to create weapons to make up for the difference in strength.

The sight of two large imps fighting was as expected, a no holds barred match. A fist here and a fist there. Just when you think he’s going to throw a fist at you, he kicks you instead and bites you.

Due to my strict order of not killing each other, they refrained from using any killing blows; so the match lasted for minutes without a winner being decided. However, as they were allowed to use their teeth, both of them were soon covered in bloody teeth marks. Thankfully, their regeneration rate was pretty high.

After separating from No.3, the large imp stared at me as if something had just occurred to him. He immediately knelt down: “Master.”

One-eye and Big 1 had just finished subjugating the remaining large imps. There was a total of 200 new additions to my large imp army, bringing the count to over 700.

The battle had given us a supply of 100 corpses to hand out. My plan was to prioritize those who were about to evolve, and so I got One-eye to set aside half of the corpses for them. As for the other half, I set it aside for my named subordinates, in hopes that they would evolve soon.

“Master, these are the souls you wanted.” Following Nine-finger’s voice, I turned towards the souls laid out on the ground. I activated my soul consumption ability and like a stream of milk, they flowed into me. Thanks to this sumptuous meal, my maximum mana count received a boost as well. My body began to heat up and...that slight fragrance reared its disgusting head once more…

This was Big 4’s first encounter with this alluring scent, and needless to say, it had a noticeable effect on him. His nose perked up as he sniffed and turned towards me. However, with the obvious look of displeasure on my face, No.3 immediately stepped in and gave his shoulder a slap; bringing him back from that bewitched state.

Two days later, No.5 brought back news once more. The zombie horde had split up once more, forming three hordes now. Each horde had around 3,000 members.

After compiling the information from Big 4 as well, I concluded that the land of the dead was connected to the blood sea; all the devils who escaped the blood sea would end up here. Because of the vastness of this place coupled with the random direction that each devil took, and the various undead ambushes, the devils we met later on would probably be much stronger. In contrast, the numbers would fall as well.

I ended up setting aside most of my mana to create more weapons. That encounter with the skeleton archers made me consider the possibility of defensive weapons like shields so that my devils can defend against long range attacks.

The shields were all 2 cm thick, as I knew that the large imps’ strength would allow them to wield such a heavy shield. Thus, the added weight wasn’t much of an issue, and it also boosted their defensive prowess. Not to mention this added weight made it perfect for shield bashing. With such utility, these shield were a decent set of equipment.

As for the costs, it cost me roughly the same amount of mana, but twice the amount of bones to create. All in all, I was pretty satisfied with this new addition to our arsenal.

After another two days of hunting and replenishing my mana with soul flames, I was able to squeeze out 25 sets of swords and shields. Other than my named imps, I was able to use these to form a 20-imp strong team of personal guards.

As we continued our aimless wander for another half a day, we came upon a flat clearing. It was littered with various remains of an ancient battle. From the looks of it, no one had touched this place. There were corpses littered all around with weapons damaged beyond repair by the sands of time.

It was another ancient battlefield. I wanted to circle around it but it was just too big. From a glance, I was unable to determine the end of this battlefield. Judging by its size, it must’ve been an epic battle of at least a hundred thousand men. As we closed in, the scent of the living stirred the slumbering undead. Countless withered hands shot up out of the ground in a tiny eruption of soil and dust.

The bones began forming into skeletons while the zombies crawled out of their abode in the earth. As they wailed in their lifeless voice, an eerie wind blew through the field, welcoming a group of deathly green vengeful ghosts.

Upon entering the battlefield, I had already ordered my personal guards to stand in front of the army in formation. The intention was to prepare for such an attack. A row of 20 imps wielding a bone sword in their right hand and a bone shield on their left stood ready to block the incoming arrows. With a simultaneous hoist of their shield arms, they welcomed the incoming arrows.

As the arrows landed, the unique sound of wood crashing into bones echoed in the air. Some of the arrows were stuck in the shields, but with a slight shake, they fell off. While the others, failed to even penetrate the shield slightly and got deflected harmlessly.

Outside of two unfortunate scamps who, were in the range of the arrows and yet not under the defensive shield, dying, there were no casualties on our side. Those 20 shield-bearing imps were completely fine as well.

“Form up behind the personal guards and charge with them as the spearhead!” I shouted an order before falling in behind the shields as well with No.3 and Big 4. As I did so, I made sure to watch out for those floating vengeful ghosts circling above us. They were definitely going to attack us, the question was when.

One-eye took the lead as he brought his follower, Nine-finger, and his other subordinates in breaking through the skeleton and zombie wall. A few minutes later, we reached the skeleton archers. All this while, they continued firing at us but unfortunately for them, our shields were ready and waiting.

Low level undeads were as such. They had no intelligence to speak of and didn’t know how to change targets even after seeing the shields block them. Instead they focused their attention on these devils instead.

With the bone broadswords and shields aiding the guards, the lower level undead didn’t stand a chance. In just a couple of strikes, one-star skeletons were reduced to a pile of dog bones. One-star zombies were slightly troublesome due to their innate traits, but at least a single strike to the head was enough to kill them.

However it was precisely due to these fodder that the skeleton archers were able to sneak in some shots at our army. Due to them focusing on the melee defenders, the archers were able to make use of that opportunity to fire at them.

Regarding casualties, I had a counter plan waiting at the rear of the convoy. I instructed 100 large imps to act as backup for the 20 guardsmen. If one of them fell, one of the backups would pick up the fallen sword and shield and fill in that hole.

And so we proceeded forward in this manner under the constant rain of arrows. When we finally reached the last 10 meters, the skeleton archers suddenly realized that they were in trouble and tried to retreat. However, with the devils’ superior speed, retreat was not an option for them.

“Don’t let them escape!” One-eye bellowed at the army as he led the charge forward. In a split second, he was upon them, his black sword waving wildly in the air with the guardsmen following closely in tow. In a mere ten seconds, 10 of the archers had been downed.

It was at this moment, that the floating ghosts stepped in to reinforce the archers. Unlike the ghost maids we met in the tower, these ghosts were pitch black apparitions, and only two of them were female vengeful ghosts. Instead of wearing a maid costume, they were akin to soldiers. As for those two females, while their features were pretty, it was overshadowed by their twisted expressions and savage looking teeth.

Unfortunately for them, this move was well within my expectations. I kept my eyes on those ghosts all throughout the fight and upon seeing them get ready to attack, I immediately prepared my flame whip.

With a wide sweep of my whip, the flames crackled in a fiery arc above One-eye’s head, catching two of the ghosts off guard. As the flames came into contact with the deathly entity, the radiant nature of the flames quickly reduced their body to cinders amidst a few mournful wails.

Seeing their companions so easily defeated, the reinforcing ghosts began to back away in a bid to protect themselves from the raging flames.

They tried one more futile attempt at stalling us but were quickly repelled by my whip, and in the process losing a few of their companions. Having learnt their lesson from the two failed attempts, they retreated behind the archers and used their ultimate move-----Fusion!

Over ten ghosts twisted together to form a strange ectoplasmic fog, from which a short while later, sprouted four limbs and a head. Not this time! I immediately swept away the undead in front of me and readied myself. No.3 and Big 4 braced their shields in front of themselves and charged forward like a tank; bulldozing through the undead blocking the way to those ghosts. With the way cleared, I descended upon the ghosts in an instant. By now, they had just formed a pair of legs.

With a sharp flick of my wrist, my flame whip shot forward, burning its way through their body and right into their core. As they were still in the process of merging, they weren’t able to separate off the burning parts and soon the flames began to spread throughout their entire body.

They had no choice but to end the merging process, splitting into individual ghosts once more. Some of the ghosts were fine, but the others were still on fire. Those that caught fire would soon die and as for those who weren’t, they smartly chose to dista

Their cowardice did not surprise me in the least. Just from those ghost maids in the tower, one could tell that while vengeful ghosts were also undead, they were much smarter than the normal undead we had met before; they knew a lost cause was when they saw one. They are apparitions after all, among the ranks of the undead, they naturally ranked higher than zombies or skeletons.

With this problem out of the way, my 700 over imps were able to unleash their destructive force on the archers without worry. They swept out from the backs of the guardsmen and flanked the archers in a pincer movement, thoroughly crushing them.

The vengeful ghosts had fled while the archers were mostly wiped out. The only thing left were the normal skeletons and zombies; they shouldn’t be a problem right? As if in response to my questions, reality showed me its cruel side once more.

The thunderous sounds of hooves bearing down upon the ground echoed throughout the battlefield, the source unknown. Out of nowhere, a small team of skeletal horsemen wielding lances descended upon our left flank. As they pierced through our flank, a large number of imps were caught by surprised and were severely injured by the stampeding horses or killed by the lances.

There were only 10 horsemen in this team. They each rode a skeletal warhorse which looked extremely frail. These horsemen did not wear much armor, with the most armored one only sporting a tattered leather vest which barely covered its chest cavity.

While they didn’t look like much with their small numbers, their sudden charge had caused immense problems for my army. Their charge had struck fear into some of the imps who upon seeing their comrades being trampled to death, began to panic and run. However, with the denseness of my army, they only managed to collide with another nearby imps, causing both of them to fall and get trampled by the imp army. Overall, their stupidity cost us more than the actual cavalry charge.

“Steady! Don’t panic! They only have 10 men!” One-eye and Big 1 tried their best to calm the imps down but the effects weren’t too obvious.

No.3 charged at the oncoming horses with a spirited shout, blocking the horses that were heading straight for me. The skeletal horses were halted by his charge, however the impact had also thrown him back.

The soul flames in the skeletons’ brains controlled their movements via radiating a strange looking form mana. Without this ominous looking mana, the skeletons were merely a pile of bones. This was demonstrated when my flame whip wrapped around one of the horsemen and burned him. Under the intense heat, the ominous mana was quickly dispersed, cutting off any protection for the bones. With a quick jerk of my whip, it broke apart.

No.3 was at the peak of one-star and based on power alone, he should be unmatched in this tier. The fact that he got knocked back meant that these horsemen were probably two-star.

Just as I took care of that horsemen, as No.3 laid there another horsemen charged through the large imp barrier. With a giant two meter leap into the air, he flew over the heads of any remaining large imps; his target, me!

“Master!” Big 4’s heavy set voice rang out beside me. He was one of my two bodyguards and was constantly stationed beside me. As this second horseman tried to spear me, he hastily raised his shield, deflecting the lance.

The lance was diverted by the shield, creating a momentary weakness that Big 4 swiftly took advantage of. With his remaining hand, he swung his sword at the oncoming horsemen who still hadn’t reacted to having his lance diverted. As the two collided, the sword cut cleanly through the ribcage of the horsemen, even severing the horse’s skull in half. As for Big 4, he was blown back by the impact.

After knocking away Big 4, the horsemen tried to attack me, but couldn’t take more than two steps before the almost headless horse crumbled. As it fell to the ground, it crashed down upon its own spine which had been injured by Big 4, completely crushing it...it was a pyrrhic victory.

After the two failed attempts at my life, they no longer tried a third. By now, One-eye had brought the guardsmen over to shield me. Any further charges were instantly stopped by their shields before they even came close to me. However, a number of the guardsmen had fallen prey to their hooves as a result.

The guardsmen played a pivotal role in this confrontation. Therefore, while their original members had suffered heavy casualties, their numbers were quickly replenished by the imps waiting in reserve.

My imps managed to hold off the two-star horsemen due to their superior numbers and equipment. Furthermore, due to the horsemen’s limited numbers and their two failed attempts, our side held the advantage in this face off.

The 1,000 or so normal undead were basically wiped out by now, leaving the 8 horsemen to face off against over 600 large imps encircling them; with the guardsmen pressing them from the front.

Having lost their mobility, their combat strength experienced a significant dip. But even so, they still managed to surprise me by exhibiting the strength of a one-star. Furthermore, even without sufficient space to charge, the horses were still able to aid their masters by kicking at the imps with their hooves.

These hooves were no laughing matter as several large imps soon found out; as they were sent flying. They even managed to knock a guardsman’s shield away.

Thankfully, we had the numerical advantage. Even if they managed to knock some of the imps away, there were still imps ready to strike from the back. The horsemen were quickly overwhelmed by the waves of imps.

As we cleaned up the battlefield, the horsemen’s bones were separated from the rest and their soul flames given to me. Their bones were earmarked for the next set of equipment. The soul pearls of the ghosts we killed were also harvested. All 7 of them were set aside to create the black swords for my stronger subordinates.

However, these two-star undead weren’t much of a concern as long as they didn’t form a horde. With my flame whip and hundreds of imps backing me up, there was no way I could lose.

What concerned me the most was encountering even stronger undead in the future. This was merely the outer edges of the battlefield and we had already encountered a group of vengeful ghosts, nearly 100 archers and a cavalry unit!

Are there even skeletal mages? Roscar used to tell me bedtime stories which had skeletal mages in them, however I’ve never actually met one.

Truth be told, he didn’t need to tell me stories to get me to sleep. I could sleep just fine unless Nicole was nearby. If she was, I would be too mesmerized by her to sleep. That’s why my childhood insomnia is all her fault! (Oh, Mo Ke, that was a smooth way to shift the blame. I’ll give you a 9.5/10, the 0.5 is so that you won’t get conceited.)

“That much!?” Our original strength was slightly over 700, with these 87 gone, our numbers had dropped back to slightly over 600.

Ever since we’ve entered this undead land, we fought numerous battles. The hardest battle we fought so far was at the corpse mountain and due to us getting ambushed. The next battle would probably be this one...

Truth be told, those 10 horsemen wouldn’t have caused much damage to our army if not for the imps panicking. Out of all the deaths we suffered, half of it was probably from their stupidity.

“Master, this was my mistake, please punish me.” Seeing me sigh, One-eye sank to his knees and immediately pleaded, his eyes still averting mine out of fear.

“Forget it, I’ll think of a plan to deal with the horsemen. In the meantime, we will retreat and avoid this region the best we can. The last thing we want is to rouse more undead, those damned undead are like bloodhounds, a tiny whiff of life and they will come after us!”

With the battle over, it was now time to split the “spoils”. The dead imps were dismembered and evenly distributed among the survivors, while the majority of the undead soul flames were sent to me. The remaining portion was split between the named imps. Except for No.5, all of them were on the verge of evolving.

We camped out at this spot for two days before No.5 finally came back. As always, he had that wronged look on his face whenever he saw me.

“No, no, I was just wondering if I could take a break?” No.5 looked at me with his puppy dog eyes as he asked. If he had stuck out his tongue at this moment, he would’ve looked like a dog.

“Sure you can, you can take a break forever.” I nodded benevolently and pointed at No.3, Big 1, One-eye, Big 4 and Nine-finger. “Whose stomach do you wish to rest in? Take your pick.”

“...” No.5 jumped back in terror at these words. Under the strange gazes of his companions, he threw me a smile that looked more like a sobbing face and said: “Stop joking Master, I still wish to work for you.”

“No way, toiling on the Master’s behalf is this servant’s honor!” Having said that, he immediately ran off, behind him One-eye and the others were chortling at his expense.

We weren’t idling around in the two days when we were waiting for No.5’s intelligence report. I began designing new weaponry for the imps. One such design was the heavy bone shield.

To produce this new bone shield, I needed 7 units of mana and 7 sets of bones. It was made with the intention of fighting off devil zombies, but there were other uses as well. (Each unit of mana was equivalent to one Darkness Arrow’s worth of mana.)

The new shield had the same shape as the previous and was strictly speaking, a larger version of it. This new design was 1.5m long, 1m wide and a staggering 5 cm thick. As for its weight, I have no idea. It probably weighed about 150 kg.

The heavy weight meant that only my strongest imps could use this shield without having their mobility severely impaired. If it was a human, they would probably have to be two-star to be able to use this shield.

Unlike the other shield, this was a purely defensive weapon so in order to complement this shield, I designed a bone Mo sabre. [1]

While it was called a bone Mo sabre, calling it a Mo sword wasn’t too far fetched either. It was formed of two sections, a sword body and and long hilt. The sword body was similar to a broadsword. However, it had a wider sword tip and tapered on both sides. Essentially, its blade was double edged.

As for the long hilt, it was a simple hilt design with a length of 150 cm. Combined with the sword body, the entire weapon was an astonishing 250 cm long.

This length made it easier for the wielder to fight off cavalrymen; as you could chop off the horse’s legs to restrict its movement or hack at the rider’s head.

With the new heavy shields in mind, I changed our formation to one where the heavy shieldbearers would stand in front of the army and stab their heavy shields into the ground to form a static defensive line. In order to prevent the enemy from forcefully toppling this shield wall, I stationed some large imps between the shieldbearers and the sabre wielders. Their job was to help brace the heavy shield against any oncoming impact.

At this position, the Mo sabre’s offensive prowess could be unleashed from safety. The sabre wielders merely had to mount their long weapons on the heavy shields and use the double edged blade to chop left and right as if they were harvesting wheat.

Perhaps it was due to the stricter requirements of the sabre’s long hilt, but the bone Mo sabres required an astonishing six units of mana and five sets of bones to craft.

Clearly, time was an issue as these weapons required an enormous amount of mana to craft. I must stall for time so that I can create more of these weapons. The surrounding undead have already been cleaned out during these past two days so I need the imps to venture out further. If I’m lucky, they might encounter more devils to recruit.

As of now, the amount of special infantry in my army was 20 guardsmen wielding swords and shields, 5 shieldbearers wielding the new heavy shields and 5 sabre wielders. (Named devils not included)

With just these numbers alone, fighting off the 4,000 strong zombie horde would be difficult. Winning was a given but at what cost? The losses would be catastrophic, even to the point of losing my entire army.

In order to increase our chances, I decided to lead the zombie horde around in a circle. While we marched, we would hunt the nearby undead and harvest their flames. While at the same time, recruit any devils we encountered on the way using any means necessary. As my army was doing this, I would be crafting more weapons to prepare for the coming battle.

And so, we circled around the edge of the ancient battlefield for two more days. On the second day, I discovered a mountain range in front of us. To be exact, it was bunch of giant black rocks connected to each other in a seemingly endless chain.

As of now, we had killed roughly 2,000 undead, and yet like spring shoots after the rain, they kept popping up no matter how many we killed.

Due to the lack of plant life in this world, objects in the distance were clearly visible. Atop a mountain peak, was an altar-looking structure which piqued my interest. Ever since I’ve acquired the Grimoire of the Dead, I’ve gained a passion for exploring unknown regions in hopes of stumbling upon more treasure.

While the silhouette of the altar was clearly visible, it wasn’t close to us at all. The most I could make out was a tall stone pillar-like structure in the middle of the altar.

“Master, there might be some loot in that place.” No.3 pointed at the altar and said: “Should we head towards it?”

“Master, this lordship will accompany you as well!” Big 1 firmly expressed his wish to follow, as if to say that he would be extremely unhappy if he was left behind.

“No way, it’s my turn to go this time!” One-eye crossed his arms as he said this, standing in a [I’m such a cool guy] pose. “I was left out of the previous exploration, so please bring me along this time. I promise that I will bring Master victory!”

“Big brother...just forget it…” Nine-finger said, clearly scarred from his previous encounter with the ghosts. With a slightly pale face, he patted One-eye and said: “Big brother...it’s too dangerous, there might be ghosts…”

“You idiot! You’ve just disgraced me! All you can say is ghost this and ghost that! Can’t you show some backbone! Just go and eat shit in a corner! Useless fellow.”

He felt embarrassed by his little brother’s spineless display and broke into a furious tirade. By the end of it, Nine-finger was hanging his head in shame.

However, after considering for a moment, he seemed to have come to a decision on something. He pounded his right fist onto his left palm as if he had suddenly realized something and said: “If eating shit is all it takes to skip out on this exploration, I’m willing to eat shit…”

“But I really haven’t eaten shit in a long while...I kinda miss it...Big brother stop hitting me...didn’t we agree not to hit the face…”

“Ah, since Nine-finger is so adamant about staying, how about…” Under the hopeful gaze of Nine-finger and the unhappy gaze of One-eye, I lightly smiled and said: “Big 1 you can stay behind. The rest of us will bring a hundred imps with us to explore.”

Nine-finger was quietly crying by the side, thinking about his shattered hopes and dreams...You potato! Did you really want to eat shit that badly!?

In terms of leadership ability, Big 1 came the closest to One-eye so leaving him behind was a safe choice. Furthermore, because I left One-eye out the previous time, he was slightly resentful of that fact.

Of course, he didn’t dare to voice this out, but from time to time, he would give that resentful look. While I wasn’t afraid of my subordinates talking bad about me, that look he gave me was pretty annoying so I decided to bring him along.

Another option which crossed my mind, was to bring everyone along. However, the mountain path was too treacherous to allow this. Furthermore, there was no telling how long this exploration would take. The undead horde’s movement was unpredictable; if everyone left, they might just occupy this area in our absence. Another matter to consider was if there were any guards on that altar.

If we couldn’t beat them, retreating would be an issue as well. The less we brought, the easier it would be for us to retreat. Plus, the people at the base of the mountain could provide cover for us as we retreated. In short, one shouldn’t put all his eggs in one basket.

Two days later, I managed to craft 5 more sets of heavy bone shields and bone Mo sabres, bringing the respective imp count to 10 each. Of these, I brought along 5 of each type of imp and all 20 of my guardsmen. On top of that, I brought 70 reserve imps along with No.3, Big 4, One-eye and Nine-finger.

The mountain road wasn’t as rough as I had expected. Unlike the human world, there were no plants or rain to speak of. However, the weight of the heavy shields was an issue as they slowly drained the stamina of their bearers. In the end, I had the reserve members help carry the shields as well.

(Note from author: Regarding water...here’s an explanation: Devils are able to extract the water content from the blood and corpses they eat. As for Mo Ke, he is able to fulfill his water requirements by consuming souls so it’s safe to say that he hasn’t eaten/drunk anything since he reincarnated.)

After journeying for two hours, the altar came into sight. It was built on one of the plateaus atop the mountain and had a rounded shape which took up a vast plot of land; larger than a football field.

That “pillar” that I saw from the distance revealed its identity as well. It was the skeleton of a giant dragon; a dragon commonly found in Western mythology. It stood there domineeringly gazing at us with its hollow eye sockets, its giant wings were slightly expanded, as if it was covering the entire world. Thankfully, there was no eerie green flame to be found in its eye sockets. I definitely didn’t want to fight this 20m tall dragon!

This majestic dragon stood atop a rounded platform which was connected to the altar below by a flight of stairs. The steps were around the height an average human could step over, and were built in a fashion similar to the Egyptian pyramids. With its 100 steps tall stairs, it was just as majestic as those pyramids.

At the foot of the dragon was a shrine where one laid their offerings. It was made of bones and looked pretty ordinary. Considering that this was the land of the undead, a shrine made out of bones was indeed, pretty ordinary.

As I was busy observing the dragon’s majesty, No.3 suddenly interrupted me with his warning. I turned towards the direction he was pointing at and saw the silhouette of a person dressed in a black cloak, standing at the foot of the dragon. My first thought was that the undead were here, but considering that he didn’t attack us on sight and his cloak hid his identity, I put aside that thought for now.

The humanoid figure continued its unsteady sway towards us. As it came within 50 meters of us, the figure finally revealed its identity. A section of the robe slid off its finger as a result of its unsteady gait, revealing a pale white bone finger.

Under One-eye's command, the five shieldbearers marched to the front and with as much strength as they could muster in an instant, drove their heavy shields into the ground with a loud bang. The shield wall was erected just like that, a wall reminiscent of the city walls of medieval times; sturdy and safe.

A set of orderly footsteps came up from behind as the trained saber wielders marched forth. Soon, their Mo sabres were in position atop the walls, their fangs ready to strike.

Upon seeing our defensive formation, the robed skeleton stopped in tracks. As he looked up at us, his hood was immediately blown back by the surrounding winds, revealing his bone white skull.

His jaws chattered up and down as he spoke in a surprisingly human fashion: "Please do not attack, this old one merely wishes to greet the intelligent life forms. It's been several hundred years since this old one has had any visitors."

"Can we talk?" He asked in the devil's language. The fact that he was able to talk without any vocal cords was strange but then again, I've already reincarnated twice in this world of swords and magic; so I guess it isn't that strange after all.

"That's right, this old one desires the simple pleasure of having a conversation." As he said this, his bony white arms reached out from under his robes, revealing that he no weapons hidden underneath; this was a sign of his peaceful intent. He then continued: "Living by myself for such a long time has made me...lonely."

He seems like an amiable sort, for an undead. But is that really so? In this land of the undead, all the undead we've encountered so far possessed no intelligence of their own, at least while they were low level...wait, while they were low level?!

The skeleton halted after hearing my demand. As he stood there looking at my reaction, he stroked his chin in an inquisitive fashion: "Stranger, you seem troubled."

*gulp* This is bad...he's definitely higher level than me and I'm still unsure of his intentions. Furthermore, can an undead's words really be trusted?

"Let's give it a try then!" One-eye's black sword was pointed at the undead in a taunting pose as he said so, his shield ready by his side to defend me. "You can look down upon us, but I definitely won't allow you to look down upon our Master! Our Master is the greatest, purest…"

Before he could continue his embarrassing string of praises, the robed skeleton's soul flames burst to life. A second later, the black sword in One-eye's hands was engulfed by a green flame and began melting from the center out.

Having lost the center of its body, the blade fell to the ground in a slightly molten pile of flames and bones. This mix of green and white flame began eating into the ground as well. In the blink of an eye, a hole the size of a fist was formed with no signs of abatement as the flames continued its ravenous rampage…

"This...this…" The sudden turn of events left One-eye speechless. As for his follower, Nine-finger, he was already hiding behind the heavy shields, enjoying the sense of security it gave.

No.3 and Big 4's faces weren't any better, but they maintained their position in front of me, as if to shield me from the eyes of the skeleton.

"Now, do you believe this old one?" He said in an offhand tone that was more suited to a question like [Would you like some tea?]. The soul flames in his eyes danced as if they were mocking One-eye's ignorance as he said this.

"Hmm...I got it. You guys can stay where you are while me and this...sir, have a chat." As the words left my mouth, I pushed No.3 and Big 4 aside, and under their disbelieving gaze, I was crossed over the shield wall and walked towards the skeleton.

As I stood in front of the skeleton alone, I asked in a formal and slightly humble tone: "What does sir wish to tell us, or is there some way we may be of assistance to sir? Or did we stumble into a place we shouldn't be in and ended up disturbing sir?"

"Such an understanding kid. All the kids I met with in the past either tried to flee or attack me after I displayed my powers. You are the first I've seen who managed to calm down and make a well thought-out decision." The robed skeleton gave a strange smile as he continued: "More often than not, those kids just charge at me the moment I appear."

What he said could be interpreted as praise, but this didn't make me happy at all. The reason was that he's still a potential foe whose powers were currently unknown, but were definitely higher than mine. Right now, I'm merely a defenseless sheep standing before a wolf.

Before I stepped out, I had already evaluated our situation. If he had wanted us dead, he could have used that strange flame right as he saw us. But he didn't do so! As for his intentions, whether they were friendly or taunting...This was a gamble that I had to take. Even though my luck had been bad so far…

"It's because you have that in your possession, so I decided to have a chat with you." He pointed behind me with a subtle expression that looked like he had just pointed out the most obvious thing ever. At least, that's what I thought it was; having no flesh to speak of made discerning his expressions, difficult.

That female imp was also the one who had carried through the entrance to this floor. From that moment on, she was always by my side like a shadow. It had gotten to the point where I had forgotten about her existence. After I found that grimoire, I decided to leave it in her care since it wasn't a weapon, and most of the time I had no use for it. More importantly, it was heavy.

Hmm, if I had to describe their gender differences, male and female large imps were pretty similar. Both had flat chests, the female imp didn't have any extra lumps of flesh on her chest. As for what's between their legs, both male and female did not have a pee pee or a little sister respectively.

However, there was a vague sense of distinction between the two that us devils were able to pick up on. In short, they judged who was a female or male by feeling. It was precisely because of this that I was often mistaken for a female…

"Book!" I took the grimoire from the female imp as she brought it over, and stared at it. Was he after this book? Or was he planning something else? Should I give it to him? If I don't, will he kill us…

"Relax, I won't snatch it from you." He said while nonchalantly waving his hands. My hesitation had clearly been seen through. He continued with his reassurance: "I've detected a hint of my race on you which means you can be considered as half an undead."

"..." Well, I'm grateful for your reassurance, but I'm not the least bit happy about it! Why should I be happy about becoming a skeleton or a zombie!

"Well, let's continue with our conversation." He pointed at the weapons in the devils' hands and said: "These are your creations? Fascinating designs, as toys their strength are sufficient."

"Toys…" Ah, don't use such a hurtful term to describe my babies. I expanded a lot of effort in order to create those "toys".

"Objects created by dark alchemy will follow the user's designs during the creation process, automatically shaping themselves to the design. While this might seem convenient, it comes with several issues as well...like the fact that it's a one-off process that cannot be interrupted. So you must have a clear design in mind before proceeding...The product's strength is also determined by the materials…"

As he continued explaining, his aura seemed to change. If he was in my previous world, he would probably be some kind of professor giving a lecture. Judging from his confident tone, he might just be a master dark alchemist.

"Regarding that…" Unknowingly, I had risen my hand like an elementary school kid in a classroom. "May I know why my creations are nothing more than toys?"

"It's just a normal experiment, not many people would die, don't worry." The robed skeleton suddenly stood up and gave me a strange smile. Ah, a skeleton smiling is just something you can't get used to.

Before I was able to react, he retreated back to the foot of the giant dragon where we first saw him. The soul flames in his eyes danced once more but this time his skeletal hands were covered in a dark green glow as well.

The earth began to shake, to be exact, the mountain began to shake. Outside the altar, undead began crawling out of the ground. There were skeletons, zombies and even two skeletal mages who had that same green glow on their hands!

The undead were all equipped with bone weapons and armors. As for the mages, they wore a set of tattered rags similar to robes. They had appeared in a circle around us, and while there weren't too many, each of them gave off an unexpected feeling of immense power.

"Kill them!" After confirming my safety, One-eye grabbed a bone sword from one of the devils and pointed it towards the road leading down the mountain. "Clear the road for the Master! Charge! For the Master!"

With their morale raised to the limits, they roared and charged towards the path. However, before they could even take a second step, a three meter tall bone wall rose from the ground, sealing off our escape route!

Surprisingly, the undead didn't make use of this opportunity to attack us, but instead gathered together. They formed up ranks in front of the robed skeleton; with the normal melee undead in the front, the archers in the middle and the two mages right at the back.

Unlike the unorganized hordes we met in the past, this was a proper army! One that I had almost mistaken for an army of disciplined soldiers.

The reason why I was able to notice all this was because there was no bone wall between us and the robed skeleton...I guess it going to be a battle afterall…

The shieldbearers set up their shield wall once more and huddled behind their massive shields, bracing them for impact. Behind them, the saber wielders stepped up and lowered their Mo sabres onto the shield wall; ready to intercept any charging undead.

The guardsmen split up into two teams, each guarding the left and right flanks of the shieldbearers. Behind them were the reserve team who carried their primitive bone clubs and quietly awaited orders. (One of the guardsmen only had his shield remaining after having his sword stolen by One-eye.)

On the undead side, they had 100 people as well. 50 of them wore a light set of bone armor and carried a buckler on one hand with a short sword on the other. As for the unarmored skeletons, 30 of them carried a giant hammer, 18 of them wielded a bow and the final 2 were mages. Except for the mages, all of the 98 undead were one-star.

My curiosity was piqued by the upcoming battle. After all, this was my first time seeing skeletal mages; I wonder what kind of abilities they had. Judging from their aura, they were at most, at the level of two-star. Either way, nothing is scarier than the unknown, best focus them down first.

Due to the bone wall blocking our escape route and the lack of information on the undead in front of us, we were forced to adopt a defensive stance.

"Don't worry, I just want to show you why your vaunted weapons are nothing more than toys. These undead are armed with some throwaway creations of mine; they are at most slightly better than the weapons you have…" Without waiting for my response, he waved his skeletal arm: "Let the battle commence."

The first to advance were the skeletons armored from head to toe in bone armor. With their short swords raised high above their head, they advanced upon the stalwart shield wall in front of them.

Due to the lack of Mo sabers in the past, they mostly took part in the battles as individuals. This was their first battle as a team together. However, I had confidence in their killing power.

The heavy shields did not provide the promised safety. Instead the arrows bypassed the static shields as they rained from the heavens. Due to their high ground and the parabolic trajectory of the arrows, they landed directly on the saber wielders and the reserves…

"Ahhhh" The pained cries of the imps echoed through the air before I could even react to the arrows. My Mo saber team had lost two members while the remaining were all severely injured!

The hurried shuffle of imp feet mixed in with the groans of the injured imps as they were swiftly replaced. The reserves had undergone some basic training just for such a situation like this. Thanks to this, the handover was quick and the Mo sabers were ready by the time the undead reached the wall.

As expected, the length of the Mo sabres were able to reach just high enough to hack at the heads of the armored skeletons. Unfortunately, their armor not only covered their torso, but also extended all the way to their heads. Despite being light armor, they were enough to block the non-metallic Mo sabres!

While these skeletons were weak and dimwitted, they were perfect for the human wave tactics employed. As the Mo sabres hacked down at them, they fearlessly charged in, soaking the brunt of the attack. Thanks to their armor, the damage was mostly mitigated with only a chip at where they were hit. The skull beneath the armor was completely unharmed.

Furthermore, this initial wave revealed a glaring weakness in my plan. The Mo sabers were very long and thus had a wide area of attack. This was normally an advantage but in this confined space, it became its downfall. The limited width of the heavy shield meant that the Mo sabers had to be stacked closely together causing them to frequently clash with each other as the imps attacked…

The clashing Mo sabers created a scene of chaos in front of the wall, which the skeletons swiftly took advantage of and began climbing over the shield wall.

The bone armor might have been sturdy enough to withstand my slashing weapons, but the bone clubs were a different matter. They were blunt weapons, which meant that even if the armor didn't break, the impact would still be transferred into the skull beneath. That impact would damage the soul flames within, and even if it didn't kill the undead, it would at least stun them momentarily.

Plus, these armors had to have seams at certain locations. As long as the imps were able to strike at these points, even the slashing weapons could easily penetrate the armor.

However, just as this problem seemed to have solved itself, the rain of arrows came down once more, piercing the heads and limbs of the imps. Another wave of casualties appeared.

Firstly the bows needed arrows, and unlike the skeletons, the devils weren't able to turn their own bones into arrows. I could craft some arrows with my dark alchemy but the mana required was simply too much for a consumable item. It made more sense to spend this mana on making melee weapons instead.

was the fact that devils didn't possess the aptitude for archery. Not just these potatoes, even I didn't know how to use a bow. My accuracy was at the level of a potato! As for drawing the bows...Once, I got an imp to draw a bow, but within seconds the bow began to emit slight cracking sounds. I quickly stopped the imp since the bow itself would've probably snapped in half otherwise…

The weak point of most undead creatures were their soul flames which was usually hidden in their skulls. As long as this area was well protected, no amount of arrows piercing their bodies would've made a difference. They were able to shrug it all off.

Thankfully, these skeleton warriors were slow and we still had the advantage of numbers; so we managed to suppress them. The shield wall was still standing strong but the occasional rain of arrows would bypass them, taking the lives of the imps as they did. I considered attacking the archers but this was obviously a bad idea.

Firstly, there was a wave of skeleton warriors in the midst of our army. Secondly, those hammer wielding undead were slowly making their way towards us. While they were unarmored, their zombie flesh was tough enough to function as armor.

As they hobbled towards us, they maintained an orderly formation not seen in the previous zombie hordes we encountered. Upon reaching the wall, they split off a portion to handle the guardsmen while the remainder attacked the shield wall. With their gigantic rounded bone hammers, each strike probably had the weight of several hundred kg behind it. A single strike would've probably been able to flatten a cow.

The shield walls wobbled with each massive swing of the hammers. The imps behind them desperately braced the shields but each strike caused them to shake violently from the impact.

As undead, these zombies would never tire out as long as their soul flames did not run out of energy. As such, merely bracing the wall wasn't a viable option for us. Under their tireless smashes, the shieldbearers began to tire out and were soon on the verge of collapse.

However, what gave out first were not the imps but the seemingly impenetrable heavy shields. A loud cracking sound filled the air as one of the giant hammers impacted a shield, the tireless pounding had finally won out. A few seconds later, the other four shields joined their companion in death as their bodies finally cracked under the pressure…

While all this was going on, the guardsmen were caught in a desperate situation of their own. On one side were the hammer wielding zombies and on the other were the armored skeletons who broke through earlier. The three mixed together in a chaotic dance of death while the shields slowly buckled under the pressure.

I had chosen to watch from the sidelines up until now, as I had thought the Mo sabers and heavy shields were enough. Furthermore, the mages including the robed skeleton had not taken action yet; so I didn't see the need for me to interfere. However, the results were as seen…

The crisp sound of bones clapping together rang out in the air just as it looked like we would get wiped out. The undead, as if having received a signal, began to retreat leaving behind the battered imps. Under the now broken shields, the shieldbearers cowered like babies with their hands over their heads.

As the undead retreated, the defeated survivors stood in shock as their unexpected survival finally registered. I wonder which was more shocking to them, the fact that they were alive or that the impenetrable shields were reduced to such a state…

I stood in abject horror as I surveyed the wreckage of this battle. I had lost 49 large imps while the undead army had only lost 22 melee undead. The archers were completely unharmed, while the mages had not lifted a finger before our defeat was sealed. The only silver lining was that all the named imps were merely injured and not dead. Even that female imp was fine.

This was the first major defeat I had suffered since reincarnating into hell. From the moment I was born in the blood sea, my side had always won; even with smaller numbers. In an even match, we dominated our opponents. However, this time was different. It was a complete loss for us.

"So what's your thoughts on this?" The robed skeleton asked me as he dispersed his army; an expression of curiosity hung on his face. Expression seemed to be a weird word to describe a fleshless skeleton, but his skeletal face truly gave off that feeling right now.

Truth be told, I had some inkling of what he meant when said toys. The heavy bone shields weren't sturdy enough; it only took several hits of the giant hammers to break them. The length of the Mo sabers worked against themselves. We not only had no long range capabilities but also had no way to counter them…

If one looked closely at that battle, there were truly a lot of faults to be discovered. Regarding the sturdiness of the my equipment, I had experimented with adding in metallic elements but had ultimately failed.

The dark alchemical process was extremely picky about what kind of materials I could use. Only materials like flesh, bones or souls could be used. Essentially anything that sounded sinister. Materials like metal or rocks were completely out of the question.

"Honestly, your designs weren't too bad, but they were let down by the sturdiness of the equipment itself." Seeing my dejected and silent figure, the robed skeleton decided to interrupt my brooding and said: "While I'm unable to teach you anything regarding designs, I can share my experiences regarding strengthening equipment."

"Danger? Do you think that we aren't in danger already?" I said with a self-deprecating laugh. I pointed at the bone wall behind us with my thumb and said: "Do you think we can leave without his permission?"

"Clean up the battlefield and harvest all the souls, I have use for them." I sighed helplessly as I stared the figure disappearing into the body of the skeletal dragon. I picked up the pace as I followed him in, with the Grimoire of the Dead hugged closely to my chest.

In the shadow of the dragon's legs was a set of stairs that led underground. At the mouth of the stairs, the robed skeleton patiently awaited my arrival. Upon seeing me, he slightly nodded then proceeded down the stairs in an unsteady fashion.

"Siii...huuu.." With the grimoire resting in arms, I breathed in deeply as I began my trip down the ominous-looking set of stairs.

Surprisingly, the stairs weren't as dark and dreary as I had initially thought. As I took my first step underground, I was greeted with the sight of fairly lit cavern. The sides of cavern wall was peppered with numerous luminescent stones, lighting the cavern up as they fought against the consuming darkness.

After a minute of walking, I was brought to a giant laboratory. At least, I think it's a laboratory, I don't know of any other term that suits this place.

It was a vast room filled with the various prototypes of his experiments; which included weapons. Right in the middle of the room was an operating table made of stone. It was probably used to experiment on undead or devils.

to it was a bunch of untouched containers filled with strange objects. These were most likely materials for his experiments. Why? Because the materials within those containers are also what I had used for my own experiments; bones, claws and the like.

The robed skeleton continued to the right as he ventured into the room. The right side of the room was relatively less cluttered. Was that a row of bookshelves? Kind of reminds me of those libraries you saw in university. So the undead read books as well…

Not counting the bookshelves, everything on the right side was alien to me. Behind the row of bookshelves was our destination; a dark hallway.

As we walked down the hallway, I peeked at one of the rooms I happened to pass by. I wish they had medicine for regret...it was a biology laboratory. Within it, were numerous glass containers filled of organs, limbs and even whole corpses. As for where these came from, they were naturally the body parts of devils…

Having experienced the horrors within one of the rooms, I was in no mood to check out the others that we passed by. With every step I took, my heart pounded furiously as I wondered if the tour guide in front was going to dissect me...best not to think about it...it's too horrific…

This hair raising stroll finally ended as we entered a luxurious room. The room was at least 100 square meters. Right in the middle of the room was a obsidian-esque crystal. It was roughly the size of a human fist and looked like a perfect gem from a certain game about devils, made by a certain company named after a snowstorm.

Half of this obsidian gem was fused into the ground, and around the exposed half, fine lines drawn with an unknown ink extended outwards in an extremely complicated concentric pattern. It was a magical formation. Just by standing near this formation, I could feel the mana being sucked towards that obsidian gem as if it was a black hole.

"Please give me a moment." The robed skeleton said as he turned around to face me. He then turned back to the gem and focused on chanting an unknown incantation. It was definitely the devil's language, but why didn't I understand it? I'm a devil!

As the incantation droned on, a blackish green aura appeared around his body. In front of me, the magical formation experienced some changes as well. Initially, the outer edges of the magical formation began to pull back. It was as if time was being rewound right before my eyes, as the mysterious lines began retreating along the formation.

During this period of chanting, I had considered giving the skeleton a good knock on the head, but after careful consideration, I abandoned that idea. No matter what, he was still leagues above me in terms of strength. Given that I still did not know his level, and that he hadn't shown any ill intent as yet, turning on him wasn't a good idea. Biding my time is the best option for now.

More importantly, this was his territory; he definitely had some tricks up his sleeves; so resisting was pointless. Caution is my best choice now. After all, an excess of caution never hurt anyone.

As I concluded my harebrained scheming, the robed skeleton had finished his incantation as well. The magical formation was now gone, leaving only the obsidian gem behind. It no longer sucked in mana and merely looked like an ordinary ornamental crystal.

As I looked at the skeleton's fleshless but expressive face, a chill ran down my spine and my heart skipped a beat. I sheepishly smiled at him and said: "Err...Can I say no?"

"...all right...I get it…" I said in a resigned voice, as I reached out with trepidation in my heart towards the obsidian crystal. Will it try to absorb me? Or perhaps it might drain me dry of mana...Damn it, all this reluctance is pointless! In the end, I still have to obey that skeleton.

Even after all that whining, what's meant to come will come in the end. I closed my eyes and reached out to the crystal with my left arm…

A sudden warmth rushed into my fingertips as the obsidian crystal liquefied and flowed up my hands and onto my body. Wherever it flowed, a warm comforting feeling followed it.

Soon, that obsidian fluid reached the grimoire resting in my embrace and what happened next could only be described as shocking. The obsidian fluid began rapidly expanding turning into a slime-like monster that swallowed the grimoire whole before I could even register the sudden change.

What the heck just happened...Why the f*ck did the crystal turn into a liquid? Why the f*ck did the liquid eat my grimoire? Ahhh!! So many questions!

However as time passed, things didn't turn out as badly as I had thought. Instead, the string of surprises continued as the now swallowed grimoire left my embrace and began to float in the air. The black fluid turned into numerous arcane lines and began spreading out over the book in an intricate and elegant design.

Amazing, such an amazing world! What just happened? Why does it look like my grimoire had just evolved!? Is it some kind of treasure?!

As I stretched out both of my palms, the Grimoire of the Dead landed onto them of its own accord. The grimoire was back in my control once more. It didn't fly into the air in some blinding burst of light...neither did it become sentient; thank god.

He gestured for me to open the book; which I did so obediently. As I opened it, the first thing that struck me was that its contents had significantly increased! On top of the summoning spells and basic dark alchemy spells, it now had two more spells I could learn!

In the past, my alchemical spell couldn't modify or strengthen my creations. If I tried to forcefully strengthen my equipment, the end result would only be a tragedy. Just like in those Eastern MMORPGs, the only outcome awaiting you was your legendary equipment turning into a pile of junk.

This was the spell that the robed skeleton used to block our retreat just recently. It was definitely a powerful spell. Just based on the fact that my devils were unable to break through it no matter how hard they tried; showed the immense strength of the wall. Even an hour of non stop attacking would've been pointless.

Truth be told, while these two spells were both extremely useful, I was still wary of his intentions. These gifts still weren't enough to cloud my judgement.

"Nothing really, I've just taken a liking to you." He avoided my question with a vague reply and proceeded to bring me out of the room. As we walked down the same hallway we took before, he said: "Let's go, young devil. , we can discuss any questions you have regarding dark alchemy."

Soon, we reached the initial room filled with weapons. As he sauntered about, he casually pointed at a pile of bones and said: "Try creating a weapon."

Once my prided creation, but now merely piece of junk, a toy...looking at this newly forged bone broadsword filled me with a complicated sense of sadness.

The robed skeleton casually picked up one of his own short swords and turned towards me: "Use your broadsword to strike at this old one's short sword."

"...sure." I meekly obeyed his commands. Up until now, I still wasn't sure of his intentions. What did he intend by making me do this? Was he trying to harm me or help me?

Strike after strike filled the otherwise silent room with a clear ringing sound. This continued until finally at the tenth strike; something happened. The short sword finally broke into two halves. As for the broadsword, it was cracked all over and was basically a pile of scrap.

The broadsword held a decisive advantage over the short sword in terms of weight and strength. Furthermore, I was the one attacking and these 10 strikes were all aimed at the same spot. The result was, the short sword broke but my broadsword was damaged beyond use as well.

In the previous battle, I was too stunned by our strength disparity to check the conditions of my army's weapons. When I think back on it, if we had continued fighting not only would our bone swords be destroyed, but our shields wouldn't have fared much better either!

Before I had the chance to consider his question, he created a whirlpool of mana in his palm. With a wave of his right arm, three sets of bones flew out from a nondescript pile of materials nearby. As they flew into the whirlpool, they were quickly devoured by the mana whirlpool. In a short span of 10 seconds, the whirlpool was gone and all that remained was a freshly forged short sword.

Oh my god, he actually used three sets of bones, I only used one set during my forging...how much mana did this guy have?! The more materials you used increased the amount of mana that had to be expended.

Forget it, there's no way an unfathomable expert like him would lack that bit of mana. Only a pauper like me would cut corners to save that little bit of mana.

Truth be told, while forging all these weapons, I had noticed a similar situation as well. For example my broadsword, I could've spent more mana to refine the materials in a fashion similar to the way blacksmiths remove the impurities from their metals. The resulting product would be smaller, but would be a lot tougher.

Simply put, the robed skeleton made use of refined materials to craft his sword while I merely used the bones as is. As such, my weapons were naturally inferior to his.

But it's not like I had a choice...the more materials you used increased the amount of mana that had to be expended. My mana pool was already limited as is, and time wasn't our ally as well. The only viable option was to use a simplified forging process. Not to mention I had experimented with refining once. The mana cost was exorbitant and I could only use two sets of bones to craft one broadsword.

As for the robed skeleton, he was able to refine and use three sets of bones just to craft a much smaller shortsword...in terms of technique, he was head and shoulders above me!

I had unknowingly reverted to polite speech once more. It couldn't be helped, he was just too mysterious and too strong. While I hadn't guessed his intentions yet, it didn't matter.

An expert like him...he could probably hold me down with a single finger; so resisting was pointless. Even if I resisted he could do whatever he wanted with me, and I would have no choice in the matter. It's better to just let it go. After all, no matter how much he tried, he still had no pee pee. As they say, a dead pig isn't afraid of scalding water…

"Definitely!" My mouth reacted faster than my brain as those words leaped out. I hesitated slightly before saying: "Err...is there any way I can help you?"

"This old one said so before, this one has just taken a liking to you." His teeth chattered as he laughed, the sight of him talking without a larynx was just as unsettling as before.

Seeing that I still had some reservations, he stopped talking and instead took out something similar to a goat-skin scroll and handed it over to me.

"A record of all my findings regarding dark alchemy." He yawned as he said so in a bored tone. With his bone hand covering his mouth as he did so, he pointed at the exit and said: "You may leave now, this old one is tired."

"..." Is that it? What the f*ck, we just started this conversation and you are already trying to chase me away. Director, there's a problem with the script.

Shouldn't this be followed by a friendly chat; where the both of us talk about our lives and form a close bond with each other? For example: "From now on, you now will be my trump card; if this brother gets into trouble, he will give you a call. After which you will die for this one, but not without leaving your beautiful daughter to this one. This brother will then make an oath to avenge you, with your daughter as a witness, setting me on the path to become the overlord of the universe." Shouldn't this be the norm for Xuanhuan novels! Why aren't you following the norms?!

After that round of bitching, the robed skeleton was nowhere in sight. With nothing I could do about this, I had no choice but to leave. Just as I reached the top of the stairs, I heard the devils under my command shouting.

As I resurfaced, I immediately noticed the giant bone wall standing between me and the devils. They were unable to come over nor were they able to check out the situation. I guess that's what all the fuss was about. I even heard the sounds of them attacking the wall. They are surprisingly loyal.

Well then, how should I get over there...eh, look's like the problem resolved itself. As I was pondering, the bone wall slowly began to lower itself into ground, disappearing without a trace as if it had never existed.

One-eye nodded and in a couple of steps, reached Nine-finger and gave him a solid kick on his butt: "Bastard! You actually dared to blaspheme the Master! I'll skin you alive!"

"I'm fine, we need to leave as soon as possible. This was a pretty fruitful trip, I need some time to digest all this new information."

While the trip had ended with significant casualties on our side, I had also received a lot of guidance and help from the robed skeleton; so we netted a profit in the end. Overall, I was pretty pleased with this trip.

I secured the scroll I got from the robed skeleton onto the grimoire and tightly hugged it. I no longer handed it over to the female devil. I turned to look over at the couple of stooges and said with a light smile: "One-eye, Nine-finger, let's head out. We wouldn't want those undead to catch up to us after all."

The large imps stared at with their mouths wide open. Just as I was about to ask them what's wrong, a mesmerized Nine-finger spoke up: "Master, your smile is so lovely…"

After meeting up with Big 1 at the base of the mountain, I immediately gave the order to continue our routine of hunting and avoiding the zombie horde.

The robed skeleton had given me a lot of help, but this also left me with several complicated feelings. His decision to help me unconditionally was puzzling. What's up with [I've taken a liking to you].

Its contents were written in the devil's language which I knew from birth thanks to my inherited memories. It recorded down the method he used to refine materials. By using this method, the resulting weapons would definitely be stronger, but the resulting mana consumption was horrifying.

The mirror constructed by the robed skeleton took the form of a whirlpool or vortex while mine was a flat surface. Just from their appearances alone, one could tell there was a big difference between the two. I tried out his method and found that it wasn't too difficult. After several tries, I managed to condense my mana into a vortex.

It looked nearly identical to the previous ones except for one glaring difference. The new sword was even whiter than its weaker cousins. Its body had a smooth jade-like lustre on it unlike the coarse teeth-yellowed luster of my previous attempts.

I got No.3 to hold onto a coarse broadsword while I aimed at it with my newly forged bone sword. In a flash of white, the two swords collided momentarily before the sword in No.3's hand fell to the ground; severed. As for the sword in my hand...it wasn't in the least bit damaged.

"That...Master...that sword is too powerful!" He immediately tossed the junk in his hand and stared unblinkingly at the jade-like sword in my hand: " Master...err...umm…"

"Don't be such a wuss, if you want it, I'll give it to you." I handed the sword to him in a jovial manner. His hands slightly trembled as he received the sword with both of his hands, a loving look in his eyes. If one didn't know better, you would think the sword in his hands was his beautiful wife. I looked at his silly face in a half exasperated, half amused manner: "A simple sword got you that excited? *Sigh*, where's your backbone. Once this brother gets stronger, he will create even better weapons for you."

"Mhm. Just do your job and you will be rewarded well." Seeing him happy, made me happy as well. He was the oldest and most loyal subordinate under my command. If there was anything good to be had, I would naturally prioritize his share over the others.

After sending off No.3, I checked on my mana pool. After all the hard work I had done, my maximum mana was now 30 units. Creating that refined weapon cost me 10 units. According to my calculations, I would be able to create a maximum of three such weapons in one go, given some replenishment.

Hugging that heavy grimoire had gotten me tired so I handed it over to the female devil and continued creating more refined swords. A short while later, another bone sword was completed and this time, it seemed to have tired me out even more.

As I rechecked my mana pool, I received a startling shock. What's happening...didn't it cost 10 units the first time around, why did it suddenly cost me 15 units...

During ancient times, the lands were rife with conflict and war. Back then, humanity was much weaker. Humanity was sandwiched between all the major races of the world, putting them in a dire situation where even survival wasn't guaranteed. Chief among the culprits responsible for humanity's dire situation were the devils and the undead. They were relentless in their pursuit of humans, seemingly bent on wiping them out.

According to the history books, the Sea of Sadness used to be a fertile plot of land where the strongest human kingdom once stood. Under the leadership of their king, the military withstood countless devil invasions, until one day, they angered the demon god.

In one night, the country was wiped out and all that remained was a bottomless abyss...As time passed, the fields were replaced by a sea of water. And so, the kingdom became the Sea of Sadness.

That issue of my two refinements having different costs has been solved. It didn't take too long nor was it some complicated reason...it was simply because of that Grimoire of the Dead!

The grimoire had an enhancement effect on any magic that I casted as long as I hugged it. The grimoire also reduced the mana cost of any spells I casted, undead or otherwise.

Furthermore, undead spells received a boost in strength while I held it. For example, summoning a skeleton with the grimoire in hand created a skeleton that was stronger than most of the wild skeletons we encountered. Any bone wall created was sturdier as well.

What's even more unexpected, was that this unfilial bastard of a book was even fighting with me over souls! Are you trying to rebel? How dare you steal my food away from me, your master!

I can't throw away this rebellious book either. I would lose a trump card if I did that. Not to mention I still relied on it for magical knowledge. Plus, those benefits I just mentioned more than made up for this defect. At least, this was the conclusion I came up with after calming down. This defect wasn't that bad…

Besides, isn't the fact that the grimoire was able to absorb souls, miraculous in of itself? That's right, I should have the attitude of [I wonder what this book's final form will be like?].

The thought that it could one day try to attack me, had occurred to me; so I decided to perform the textbook master-servant ceremony on it. I dripped a drop of my blood onto the grimoire…..and three seconds later, nothing happened...except for the blood getting absorbed.

Is it because there's not enough blood? I decided to drip more blood...just to be safe. The result a few seconds later was, a whole load of nothing…

Damn you, if you can't recognize a master, can't you at least give me a heads up?! Did you really have to make me lose all that blood before you were satisfied!?

Ever since that day, I would constantly hug the grimoire; whether it was while eating or even sleeping. From time to time I would flip open the book, but not to read...just to casually flip through the pages. Heh, I bet it's pissed at me right now. Well too bad, this brother is petty that way.

As for my Mo sabers, after conducting a weapons test on the refined versions, I had an idea. Due to its piercing capabilities, it could serve just as well as a long spear. The saber wielders could hide behind the heavy shields as usual, and merely had to treat the Mo sabers as long spears due to the space constraints.

(Weapons made from dark alchemy had a mold imprinted into the spell beforehand. The materials and mana would then be employed to create a weapon fitting this mold. As such creating a long spear takes up the same amount of resources as making a Mo saber. In that case, the Mo sabers were naturally a better choice due to their versatility. This is why Mo Ke decided to stick with the Mo sabers.)

With the Alteration spell, I could now repair and modify my old creations, thus saving me a lot of mana. With that in mind, I prioritised modifying my old creations over creating new refined weapons.

The zombie team created by that robed skeleton had left a deep impression on me. The sight of them wildly swinging their giant hammers and ruining my heavy shields had changed my views about hammers.

In the past, I didn't favor unwieldy weapons like hammers due to their lack in speed. However, that encounter made me realize the sheer destructive power of such heavy weaponry. Not to mention, the hammer was especially suited to killing the slow and mindless undead.

With that in mind, I would use any spare mana I had to create some long hammers. These were then given out to the stronger large imps under my command.

As for why I didn't try to summon a bunch of undead little brothers… Firstly, lower ranked undead were mindless, and this made them difficult to command. Secondly, without a large mass of them, they were useless. Summoning so many was also not feasible due to my lack of mana.

In the end, I settled on my ready-made devil subordinates. After all, they were usable even without weapons. What's the point of sacrificing the now for the distant future.

Creating these refined weapons took up roughly two times the amount of mana and provided nearly triple the boost in power. Plus, with the grimoire aiding me, the mana cost was also reduced by one third. As such, it only took about 50% more mana for me to create refined weapons, but the resulting gains were over 100%.

The weapons test for the new broadswords yielded amazing results. I tested the broadsword against a sword wielding one-star skeleton, and with one slash, I sliced through his sword. With another, I took his head. The sensation was similar to cutting paper; by the time I noticed the resistance, its head was already sent flying...

I stepped forward and scooped up the skeletal head, holding it up before me. The green soul flames began to stream out of the skull's eye sockets. Just as it was about to enter my mouth, the soul flames were immediately sucked away in a different direction, like a fish getting reeled in. With a silent whoosh, it disappeared literally under my nose with nothing but a tiny trace of green left behind…

Ahhhhh----You god damn broken piece of crap book, every single time! I raised the grimoire high above my head, thoughts of slamming it down and stomping on it floated through my mind...in the end, I couldn't bear to do so.

This was the third sign of civilization we encountered during this month of wandering in the undead lands. The first was that tower where I attained this damned grimoire; the second was the altar where I met that robed skeleton; and the third was this village.

The layout of the village was similar to a human village. The houses were tightly packed together, but had a fixed distance between each of them. Most of the houses had an empty space in front of them and were all collapsed. Those that weren't, were full of holes and functioned like a flute whenever the wind blew through them.

Regarding these structures, I had a conflicted view of them. On one hand, they were most likely fraught with danger, and on the other, I didn't want to miss out on any opportunities.

Who knows what I might find in here. Perhaps enemies? A fortuitous encounter? Either way, I mustn't let it go. I must search through this place. Whatever secrets it held, they must be revealed to me.

It was a large village. Judging from the size, it probably held close to a thousand people. Strange, how did such a place end up in the land of the undead? Logically speaking, there's no way I could enter the human territories from the blood sea. But this world was littered with traces of human civilization.

For example, those skeletons and zombies that looked like human soldiers. Furthermore, that tower had vengeful ghosts dressed in maid costumes. That robed skeleton was likely a human in life as well. With this village added into the mix...there's so many questions in my head right now.

The scouring proceeded at a rapid pace. For this trip, I split our team into several groups, with one being led by me. As we scoured, I came upon a noteworthy structure; it was a chapel-like structure. It had its signature large door, but half of it had collapsed, while the other half was still futilely fulfilling its duty. What was left of the door was tightly shut, but it didn't obstruct our field of vision much.

Within the confines of the chapel, over 10 head imps held a mini feast in front of the chapel podium. Blood and flesh were splattered around the ruined chapel floor as their teeth tore through what could only be another devil. Barbaric...

The chapel reminded me of the more austere Protestant chapels from Earth. There were hardly any decorations, and the entire chapel consisted of a simple walkway flanked by the usual pews; or what was left of them. The floor was littered with the various remains of the pews, with barely any section of it left clean.

Our arrival was quickly noticed by the head imps. Having been interrupted in the middle of their feasting, they were naturally unhappy. However, as they gazed at us, their bodies froze; the shock apparent on their faces; the meat in their mouths falling to the ground. They stared at me with eyes full of undisguised passion, their disgusting drool dribbled down the sides of their mouths as they did so…

The first to approach us was the strongest out of the ten. From the looks of it, this imp was on the verge of breaking through to three-star. The other imps immediately followed him, not wanting to be left behind.

While that leading imp had a chipped horn on the left of his forehead, it did not decrease the aura of strength he exuded. Based on this aura, he was at least twice as strong as the others. It was common knowledge among humans that losing their horns made a devil weaker. However, this head imp seemed to defy that consensus. He seemed to be even stronger because of his horn being chipped!

"You, belong to me, rest, doesn't matter." The head imp with the chipped horn pointed coarsely at me, before making a sweeping gesture that covered the other devils under my command.

"How dare you insult our Master!" No.3 and Big 4 immediately stepped up to shield me from them. Both of them were the two largest imps, they were nearly half a head taller than the rest. But they were still shorter than the head imps in front of us by at least a head.

"Die!" No.3, ever the loyal subordinate, immediately charged at them upon seeing me being insulted. He swiftly slashed out with his refined black broadsword; with the momentum of his dash aiding him. His opponent smirked disdainfully and met No.3's sword with his fist. The instant his fist, which was the size of a casserole, met with the black sword, the razor sharp edge of the blade mercilessly sliced through his hide, leaving a gaping wound on his arm.

However, No.3 didn't get out unscathed either, his opponent managed to counterattack with a kick to his abdomen, sending him crashing into several broken pews.

Due to the vastness of the village my men were separated, and right now I only had a portion of my imps with me. These included Big 1, Nine-finger, One-eye, No.3, Big 4, the unnamed female devil and my 20 personal guardsmen. Each of them wielded my refined weapons as they faced off against the imps that were a whole tier higher than them.

In a head on fight, they might not be able to win against the higher tiered imps, but this didn't matter. They only had to stall for time. Given the ruckus of our battle, the remaining hundreds of imps in my army would swiftly come to our aid.

Big 4 was unable to look after the fallen No.3, and neither was he able to meddle in the battle. As my bodyguard his only duty was to guard me, so he hadn't taken a single step away from me since No.3 started fighting.

While they had my refined weapons aiding them, the disparity in strength was still there. The battle started off with our side being in a disadvantaged position.

Our imps were inferior in terms of power and strength. Black swords would've helped remedy this problem, but we didn't have enough soul pearls to go around. So not all of the guardsmen were equipped with the enchanted black sword that prevented wounds from closing.

Furthermore, while the head imps looked clumsy and slow, in actuality, they were much faster than the large imps. In a one on one fight, they could easily dodge the weapons of the guardsmen while waiting for an opportunity to strike. Even with the refined bone shields aiding them, the guardsmen still had difficulty retaliating.

Considering that we were facing devils, fire attacks like the flame whip wouldn't work. Looks like the only choice left was the darkness arrow. But the arrows were simply too weak…

As an arrow streaked across the space, crashing into the head of the chipped-horn imp, it harmlessly dissipated leaving behind a tiny lump; the expected bloodshed nowhere to be seen!

The furious chipped-horn imp traced the path of the arrow all the way back to the culprit, me. He bellowed at me in a thunderous voice, but this wasn't enough to satisfy him. With a speed rivalling the arrow I fired and a strength rivalling a tank, he charged, knocking away the shield wielding Big 1 as he headed towards me in a straight line!

Seeing the oncoming tank of an imp, my bodyguard immediately stepped forward to block the head imp, his shield raised and his broadsword pointed out.

With his arm still bleeding from No.3's black sword, the sharpness of those swords were still fresh in his mind as he charged. Instead of blindingly charging in as before, he was prepared for Big 4's sword, and dodged right as the black sword came within inches of him. With a swift sidestep, he circled around Big 4 and continued on.

Big 4 tried to turn around and retaliate, but his sword barely left his side before he was swiftly kicked away by the head imp in a fate similar to No.3.

With my bodyguards out of the way, the head imp had a clear path to me as he continued his lust driven rampage. As he reached out with his giant hands, his mouth broke into a wicked grin; his prize was within reach right at this very moment. If I don't dodge now, it would be over for me...but I can't dodge it. It's not that my reflexes were too slow, he was just too fast. Plus, I didn't expect Big 1 and 4 to be so helpless before him.

Time slowed down as his arm barely grazed my face, as I fell to the side from that sudden push. As my figure toppled, the silhouette of my savior came into view...it's her...that female large imp who has been hiding behind my back all this while...she was still in that pose from when she pushed me!

How is it her! How could it be her? Why would she push me away...wasn't she always the one seeking protection...to think she would put herself in danger just to protect me...wasn't she the timid kind…?

I wasn't the only one startled by this sudden turn of events, the chipped horn imp was just as assured as I was of my impending capture; so my last minute escape had left him stunned as well. His brows furrowed as his face took a drastic turn from elation to fury. His fiery gaze locked onto me, who was lying on the ground a meter or two away. With a swift grasp of his hand, he captured the female devil, all the while staring at me.

However, his opportunity was gone. My plight hadn't gone unnoticed, as One-eye and Nine-finger immediately disengaged from their opponents and rushed to my side. The ruckus caused by the fight had begun to attract the attention of my other imps. They streamed in tiny groups of twos and threes with the quickest already nearing the door of the chapel.

Seeing this, the chipped-horn imp knew that he couldn't stay any longer. As he stood at the broken doorway to the chapel, he made the decision to retreat immediately. While his arm had been injured, his combat strength hadn't been reduced by much. With one arm grabbing the female devil, he made his escape without a hint of hesitation.

I knew right away what he intended to do. As my hands tightened around the grimoire, I summoned a bone wall in nearly an instant to block the broken doorway. /span

However, his strength was greater than I had imagined. The head imp didn't even require a running charge to break down the wall. He merely lowered his head and rammed it directly into the wall.

Truth be told, a hastily erected bone wall like that couldn't be considered sturdy, but it should've at least been able to withstand one attack from the head imp...this outcome had totally exceeded my expectations…

He glared at me one last time before making his escape with the female devil tucked under his arms. In the blink of an eye, he circled around the chapel and left my vision. As for the reinforcements, they were still 10 meters away…

The remaining head imps quickly noticed the reinforcements as well, and immediately knocked down the guardsmen blocking them; even at the expense of taking a few extra hits. With all the obstacles gone, they decided on breaking through the walls in order to escape. In those few seconds, they cunningly made the decision to split up during their escape as well.

"You think you all can escape? All of you aren't going anywhere!" There's no way I would let them go that easily. I tightly clutched my grimoire once more and cast another bone wall in front of one of the escaping imps.

As the bone wall rose out of the ground in a cloud of dust and debris, the head imp had no time to retreat from the sudden wall that appeared in front of his face, and collided with a loud bang. The bone wall was cracked by the impact, but unlike that previous one, it held up. The resulting impact had dazed the imp slightly and caused to him fall over due to the loss of balance.

With this thought in mind, I repeated the same action with the other escaping imps, blocking them off. In a few seconds, my scattered forces finally arrived en mass. They stepped over the bone wall broken by the chipped-horn imp and streamed into the chapel.

I finally had the time to evaluate our current situation. Most of my guardsmen were defeated. As for my named imps, they were stronger than the usual imps so outside of No.3 and Big 4, there weren't any serious casualties.

With my grimoire in hand, I coldly gazed at them from the middle of my assembled army of large imps. These head imps had, to some degree, sustained some injuries; with some still bleeding from their severe wounds.

A head imp roared in anger at my words and shouted back in a disdainful tone: "Let us go or we will capture you. Your henchmen are too weak and won't be able to stop us. As long as we wanted to, we can break out of here in an instant."

"Go ahead and try." His obstinance instantly destroyed any desire within me of allowing them to surrender. As the flames of anger burned within me, I waved my left arm and gave out an order: "Shieldbearers to the front, saber wielders prepare yourselves!"

As the shieldbearers took up position, a series of sequential loud bangs echoed within the chapel as they shoved their shields into the ground. In a short moment, a shield wall formed of 15 heavy shields was erected. 15 reserves immediately rushed up to the shield wall and braced the heavy bone shields.

As the final piece of the formation fell into place, the Mo sabers stood ready at the forefront of the shields, their murderous aura clear for all to see.

Due to the constraints of my mana pool, there were still only 10 Mo sabers in my army, but all of these had been refined by me. Their killing power was leagues ahead of the old Mo sabers.

Another issue was the training required to wield these sabers correctly. Due to the width of the heavy shields constraining them, an inexperienced saber wielder would end up clashing into the others. Therefore, I decided to put off creating more sabers until the training was done.

In the few days after the stopover at the altar, I frequently got the saber wielders to participate in solo battles in order to train them. The length and refinement of the saber ensured that they were able to kill any undead from a distance easily; as long as they weren't heavily armored.

Perhaps they hadn't expected me to reject them so decisively and take up a battle stance, but the imp who had issued that threat was now looking at his comrades with worry on his face. He turned around to check the exits left behind by some of his lucky comrades and instead of finding a hole in the wall, he saw a mass of club wielding large imps standing ready.

"Let's attack, there's nothing to think about here. Rather than serving a lowly female devil, we might as well give it a last shot!"

What greeted them was the terrifying Mo sabers. With their boosted penetrating power, the two leading imps were instantly skewered by the saber wielders!

The head imps didn't expect the saber wielders to ignore some of them and instead focus their thrusts onto a single imp. Over three Mo sabres descended onto each unprepared head imp instantly penetrating them. This sneak attack left the two with several holes all over their bodies.

The remaining 5 head imps collided with the shield wall. While they were all injured, their strength was still impressive, and was not something two large imps could hold back. The shield formation was instantly toppled by their charges. Thankfully, their target was me and so they didn't bother with the other large imps.

I had expected the shield wall to topple so I made some preparations for my bone wall prior to their charge. With a large amount of mana already channeled into the spell, a nigh impenetrable wall of bones rose from the ground, shutting down their advance. Punch after punch landed on the wall, but it was all in vain as their flurry of blows did nothing to the sturdy wall.

With their hopes of breaking through the wall dashed, they decided to circle around the bone wall. However, as they turned around, they discovered that the paper-like shield wall they had toppled was now erected once more!

The large imps worked together and slowly closed in on the head imps, driving them slowly into a corner with the furious thrusts of their Mo sabers. It was too late to escape!

By now No.3 and Big 4 had already recovered from their bout of unconsciousness and joined the other named imps in blocking off the head imps' escape.

With the bone wall blocking them from the front, the Mo sabers closing in on their flanks, and the armed large imp army blocking off their rear; they had no way to escape. Soon a few more head imps were stabbed to death by a couple of sabers through their heads.

"Surrender? You should've done so earlier." Without a hint of anger in my voice, I gave out a soft command as I turned around and left the chapel. "Leave none alive."

As for why I didn't accept their surrender, I wasn't sure either. My head was in turmoil at the moment and my heart was hurting badly.

I thought of that female devil who got kidnapped because she pushed me away. She was always quietly by my side like a shadow; never leaving me for long. While I had suspected that she had ulterior motives, I didn't chase her away, but didn't give her a name either.

After reincarnating into a devil, I had been saved multiple times by my subordinates, so I thought that I was already numbed to this fact. At least I thought I wouldn't be as shaken as I was when No.4 saved me...he...I had always seen him as being the weakest and most cowardly subordinate among my named imps...but he still made the choice to save me, and for that….he died.

Even as he died, I couldn't see a hint of regret or pain in his eyes. All I saw was the relief in his eyes upon seeing that I was safe...I don't understand, I really don't understand...I don't understand why that memory always brought me to tears…

That relieved look on the female devil as she got kidnapped...it hurts so much. No.4...that weak and often bullied little fellow. Even though he had a name, his standing was even worse than No.5. In spite of that, he saved me, in order to save me, he died…

As we left the village, I attempted to track the chipped-horn imp by following his footsteps. However, that plan ended prematurely after two kilometers of tracking.

The footsteps had disappeared at that point. No, rather than disappearing, they were covered up by the large mass of undead footprints.

As for the source of these footprints, they were wandering about in front of me at this very moment. Just as I spotted them, they spotted us as well and charged at us with their signature wailing.

I beat a hasty retreat behind my devils while throwing out a myriad of spells, all the while with my two bodyguards by my side. No.3 and Big 4 were itching to fight, but held back out of concern for my safety.

As for One-eye and the others, they weren't charged with protecting me at all times; so they charged with reckless abandon towards the undead, swapping injuries for injuries as they viciously attacked. It wasn't long before the battlefield was a field of properly dead undead.

While it was a complete victory for us, the trail had ended here. Since I wasn't a hunter or a scout, I didn't possess the necessary tracking skills to continue the chase. In the mass of undead footprints, all I could make out were said footprints.

It wasn't that I didn't try hard enough to save her, there just wasn't enough time to do so. That chipped-horn imp was simply too strong for the normal imps to handle. So I decided to handle the rest of the head imps before pursuing that chipped-horn imp. Once our forces were gathered, we could then pursue this stronger target.

If I had recklessly chased after him, the most likely outcome would've been that I got captured as well, and the other head imps from the chapel would've gotten off scot free.

"Master…" Seeing me stand there in silence, made them worried. One-eye cautiously approached me but just as he was about to continue talking, I glared at him, frightening him into silence.

"Leave." I don't even know how a glare was able to terrify a devil, but at least I knew how cold my tone was at this moment. Without waiting for their response, I turned around and left with only the grimoire as my company.

As I slowly made my way to the village, a storm of complex emotions brewed within my mind. Behind my silent figure was my army of subordinates who were just as silent. They knew what awaited them if any one of them spoke up.

As the sight of those damned head imps entered my vision, I pointed at their corpses and said: "You guys can have these corpses, the souls as well. You had better evolve after this…"

"..." The imps looked at each other helplessly. It's not like they didn't want to evolve faster as well. That last sentence was definitely uncalled for.

However, it was to be expected. When a person was in a bad mood, they tend to do things that at the best could be explained as [He's in a bad mood], and at worst be called [Mad].

After resting in the village for half a day, I led the entire army in the direction where the tracks ended. Even though I knew that there was basically no hope that he would continue down this path, I still chose to do so.

Perhaps it was merely out of gratitude or perhaps it was merely to vent my anger, but either way it's not because I liked her...lower tiered devils had a pretty unique appearance after all. Definitely not my taste. Besides imps were simply too low level for me, after all this brother has even seen a fallen angel and had even teased her.

As we continued down the last known direction of that chipped-imp, the path took us through several detours that roughly formed a triangle.

As we searched, we were set upon by undead from time to time. Whenever their numbers were small, we wiped them out. As for when their numbers were large enough to cause deaths on our side, we avoided them completely and searched in a different location. Logically speaking, that chipped-imp wouldn't have passed through those areas either. Instead he would've avoided them by passing through the opening between the undead hordes.

And so three days passed in the blink of an eye. My determined efforts still have not borne any results. While I was able to make use of this time to craft more equipment, the lack of results still frustrated me.

The only good news that came out during these three days, was that No.3 and Big 4 had evolved into two-star head imps. Big 4 was the first of the two to evolve. It happened last night after a round of feeding.

The skin on his forehead began to split open and two goat-like horns slowly grew out of his head. His body grew larger as well. His stature grew taller while his limbs grew significantly stouter, creating a strange imbalance in his body proportions. He was actually really tall, but thanks to his limbs he looked like a short and stubby imp.

was No.3. His evolution was about the same as Big 4, resulting in the two of them looking nearly the same. If they stood next to each other, they would've looked like a pair of identical twins.

By now, they were taller than One-eye and the others by more than a head. They stood at a towering 2 meters tall and truly looked like a pair of mountains. If one didn't look carefully, they might miss the slender me standing in between them.

With their new body proportions, their old weapons were no longer suitable for them. The bone broadswords looked and felt more like toy swords in their giant hands. The bone shield wasn't much better as well, looking more like a squarish buckler than a scutum.

And so, I decided to change their shields into a large rounded shield similar to those worn by Spartans on their forearms. I enhanced the overall thickness of the shield along with widening it into a circular shape. It was now 1.5m in diameter and could be secured to their forearm, making it not only convenient but safe as well.

With these new and improved round shields, No.3 and Big 4 were even sturdier than the shieldbearers thanks to their improved defenses.

Their weapons were remade as well into a pair of spiked maces. The entire mace was 2 meters long with the handle being 1.6 meters and the spiked head being 40 cm long. With its hedgehog-like appearance, it sent shivers down one's spine just by looking at it

The reason why I chose a mace instead of a sword wasn't because I liked maces, but because of a head imp's frightening strength. I still clearly remembered that shocking scene were the chipped-imp broke through my bone wall. That scene made my heart jump into my throat.

Besides, for the simple minded imps, sword techniques and the like were clearly not suited for them. A simple but effective mace was better suited to their brute strength.

Given that these two had finally evolved, my guess was that One-eye and others were on the verge of evolving as well. In that case, we need to pick up our hunting pace. The faster they evolved the better.

Just as I thought about this matter, No.5 who I had not seen in days, sprinted into view. With his body covered in dirt, he ran with all his might as he shouted for help. Behind him was an army of 100 undead chasing him.

Over 10 skeleton archers halted in their tracks and fired off a volley of arrows at the escaping No.5. As he turned around and saw the arrows raining down upon him, he nearly peed in his figurative pants. He immediately adopted what could only be described evasive maneuvers.

From tumbling to crawling, he performed a series of unpredictable movements as he attempted to dodge the incoming arrows. Surprisingly, they were extremely effective; with him coming out of that hail of arrows with just a few minor scrapes. Not a single arrow managed to get a clean hit on him!

Nine-finger stuck out his tongue at No.5 before turning to look at the new weapons wielded by No.3 and Big 4 with envious eyes. He was probably unsettled by this sight. Putting aside Big 4, when they first encountered me, he was definitely stronger than No.3, but in the end the one who evolved first wasn't him or One-eye, but the relatively low key imp, No.3. As for why this was so, perhaps it was due to talent?

Ignoring his pitiful expression, I turned to look at the oncoming skeleton army with furrowed brows. They were merely zero-star with some one-star archers and soldiers thrown into the mix.

"Master, watch out!" While I was busy evaluating their army, the archers weren't idle either. With a mighty pull of their bows, they took a distant shot in my direction.

Due to my forward location and close proximity to No.5, the majority of the incoming arrows ended up heading towards me instead of No.5. Thankfully, No.3 and Big 4 had quick reflexes and were able to react to this attack. With a step forward and a raise of their left hands, they covered their heads with their round shields.

The round shields had an astonishing diameter of 1.5m which created an extremely wide defensive barrier against the arrows. With the two of them combined, it was as if a giant umbrella had appeared above my head. Not only shielding me from the rain of arrows but also the light as well; as my surroundings got dark in an instant.

The potato had long since hidden beneath the safety of the shield umbrella by crouching at Big 4's feet...he knew that No.3 couldn't stand him so he chose Big 4. However, it turned out that Big 4 didn't like him either, and kicked him away after the arrow rain ended; before he even had the chance to flatter Big 4.

Not expecting Big 4's lack of respect, he immediately got to his feet and rebuked him: "Hey, newcomer, don't think that you are so great just because you've evolved. I'm a founding member of this army. Other than third brother, I'm the next oldest member in Master's army…"

"Shut up, just get your ass back there if you don't want to die." I hated people who were useless and yet loved to wave their qualifications around.

At this moment, One-eye ordered the shieldbearers to setup their shield formation. As of now, we had 20 heavy shields with 20 corresponding bearers. Unlike our previous battles, they advanced with the heavy shields instead of driving them into the ground to form a shield wall. Behind them were the 10 Mo saber wielders; closely following.

The newly replenished guardsmen squad now had 22 members in it, they were stationed by my side, ready to protect me with their shields.

"Master, we want to test out our new weapons." The pair looked at each other momentarily before No.3 stepped forward to present their request.

Truth be told, as the head of my bodyguards, requesting that both of them leave my side was slightly unreasonable, but I could understand their desire to test out their new weapons.

The power of a two-star head imp combined with the newly refined weapons was apparent for all to see. With a simple shift of their arms, the colossal shields immediately covered the bulk of No.3 and Big 4's body.

They lowered their bodies slightly as they stuck out their shields, and with a massive kick of their legs the pair of imp tanks rammed their way through the battlefield with the 22 guardsmen following closely behind. In a few seconds, the gap between the two armies was closed.

As they cleared a path through the skeletons, their shields perfectly deflected all of the incoming attacks as if the weapons in the every skeletons' hands were nothing but harmless toothpicks. In contrast, mere contact with the massive tank-combination of bone and imp sent the skeletons flying. Behind them, the guardsmen rushed forward to clean up the skeletons that were knocked down.

Naturally the skeleton archers tried to stop these approaching imps, but compared to the refined round shields their arrows might as well have been toys. Merely crafting one of these shields cost me more than half of my mana and used up 25 sets of bones. The resulting shield wasn't something any old skeleton could break through.

No.3 was the first of the pair to break into the archer squad. As his spiked mace swung through the air, any bones that stood in its way broke apart from the sheer force of the impact in an explosion of bone fragments and dust.

Meanwhile the guardsmen were in charge of the cleaning up the other undead. Thanks to the considerable advantage of their refined equipment, they could easily dispatch any ordinary undead. Even the undead wearing armor were chopped apart like vegetables. Within those same few seconds, the melee undead were reduced to half as well.

With that unfair advantage in strength and equipment, No.3 decimated the opposition. He was clearing enjoying this, judging from his slightly arrogant laughter. Even his battle stance had become more careless. He began casually swinging his spiked mace without any regard to defense, confident in the fact that his attacks would definitely destroy the opponent.

This was the attitude he began showing towards the one-star archers as well; and this came back to bite him. Instead of the usual denseness showed by its fellow comrades, one archer decisively chose to abandon its short bow and swiftly back stepped, dodging the incoming mace.

As its skeletal body leaped backwards, both of its arms reached to the back of its leather armor and drew out a pair of 33cm long daggers.

Now that its uniqueness had been exposed, the fact that its bones were skinnier than all the other undead became obvious as well. Without even steadying itself, it immediately launched into an attack. It was now time for No.3 to pay for his bout of arrogant carelessness. Not even in his wildest dreams would he imagine that an archer would suddenly change into a nimble melee assassin!

In a flash of white, it dodged No.3's mace once more, and in that brief window where he couldn't move, the assassin sprinted past him. A brief flash of metal, that was all he could see before he felt a sharp pain on his right arm!

Thankfully, his hide was too tough for the tiny daggers. All the attack did was barely break through his hide, leaving a thin line of red. There was some bleeding, but not much. Given his regenerative capabilities it would only take a few seconds for this to close up.

Seeing his bosom buddy No.3 get hurt, Big 4 immediately focused his attention onto the assassin. With a furious roar, he swung at the assassin's back with a clear intent to kill.

No.3 shouted amid his ragged breathing. This assassin had clearly incensed him and the only way to wash away this humiliation was to defeat it in a solo battle.

"Now, there's only the two of us." No.3 gave a cursory glance at his now healed wound before smacking his bone shield with his mace in a taunting gesture. Without even caring if the assassin understood him, he proceeded: "Let's have a fair fight."

The skeletal assassin turned to survey the battlefield. Right now, the skeleton army was on the verge of being wiped out. There were only slightly over ten one-star skeleton soldiers holding on. Without Big 4, they would probably be able to hold on for another few minutes; but with Big 4, this boss level mob, a few minutes was clearly not possible.

It turned back to face No.3 who was still standing there quietly awaiting its response. He wanted a fair fight and for devils of his age and tier, this was likely to be true. Most of the devils at this level were still innocent potatoes, so a fair fight really meant a fair fight; at least in No.3's case.

With a casual flip of its dagger, it adopted a battle ready stance; wielding a reversed dagger in one hand and a normal dagger in the other. If it had been the initial No.3, he would've probably charged at it by now, but having been injured by the assassin, No.3 was aware of his opponent's skill and didn't dare to be conceited.

The two stood there silent in a tense face off, neither side moved an inch as they glared at each other. *crack* As Big 4's spiked mace descended once more onto another skeleton, a loud crack echoed through the air, signifying the end of the skeleton army. All that was left was the assassin.

As if on cue, the assassin burst into action. All that remained where it once stood was a bone-white afterimage, the stillness now replaced by a speed that could only be achieved by one unbound from the limits of flesh.

With a graceful bound of its skeletal feet, it nimbly dodged the mass of spikes crashing down upon its head, landing softly upon the giant round shield that covered the span of No.3's body.

Did it plan on taking No.3 head on? However, in a logic-defying feat of acrobatics, it somersaulted over No.3, using his shield as a springboard!

This unexpected move shocked and mesmerized everyone present, including me. With its feet on solid ground once more, it took off in a straight line. Perhaps it was merely coincidence but the path it took led straight towards Big 4 and several other guardsmen.

From the way it ran after passing No.3, it was likely trying to escape. While it's unthinkable for a low level undead to ever consider running away, this was the only logical explanation for its actions. Since it planned on escaping, if Big 4 interfered now it couldn't be counted as offending No.3. After all, his inability to defeat the skeleton meant that the skeleton was now up for grabs.

He readied his shield in a charging stance as he prepared to ram the incoming assassin. This might seem like an illogical move against the nimble skeleton, given the precedent of No.3; and you might even think that Big 4 was a moron for doing so; but you would be making a big mistake by assuming that.

Upon seeing the round shield charge towards it, the assassin employed its mesmerizing acrobatics once more. It dove at the shield, and with what could only be described as godlike reflexes, reached out with its bony arms momentarily grabbing the shield before launching itself into the air with a mighty push of its palm.

However, this was exactly what Big 4 was waiting for. He was naturally a part of the audience and witnessed the assassin's previous display of acrobatics; so this leap was well within his expectations. As the skeleton began its somersault, he raised his spiked mace high into the air, right into the path of the assassin's leap. Unless it changed course mid-air, there was no was escape for the assassin.

Unfortunately for Big 4, the skeleton did just that. Having seen through his tricks, the skeleton forcefully changed its course with a fierce twist of its wrist. With its center of gravity shifted, the skeleton fell awkwardly to the ground beside Big 4, narrowly dodging the mace.

That dazzling display ended with the skeleton disappearing from Big 4's line of sight before he could even react. Big 4 continued his charge for several steps before braking suddenly, a look of confusion appeared on his face as he swivelled around looking for the missing skeleton. By now, all that remained was the shadow of a skeleton leaving.

This was the last straw for me. I abandoned my passive role as an observer and with a wave of my arm, cast a bone wall in front of the assassin. However, the assassin had already retreated a step as if it had predicted my move, completely avoiding the wall.

With its 1.6m stature, leaping over the 3 meter tall bone wall was definitely possible, but that would take time and this wasn't what the skeleton wanted. It tried to circle around the bone wall but before it could even take two steps to the side, another bone wall was erected in front of it, blocking its route.

The soul flames within its eyes flickered as it threw me a glance, after which it immediately gave up the idea of circling around the wall. However, instead of charging at me in anger, it chose to climb over the bone wall. I was well aware of this possibility beforehand so I had already prepared a darkness arrow.

By the time it reached the top of the wall, the darkness arrow had almost reached it as well. Facing the incoming arrow, the assassin was left with only two options, leap into the air or give up on climbing the wall. If it leaped into the air, my arrow would definitely hit it. Given its undefended state, the damage would definitely be severe.

If it chose to give up on climbing the wall, the next bone wall would be ready and waiting, along with another darkness arrow. Checkmate, or so I thought, as the skeleton chose not to abandon climbing the wall. Instead of colliding with the arrow as expected, it backflipped with one hand on the wall. With the other hand, it took out its dagger and threw it!

With my arrow successfully blocked, there was nothing stopping it from escaping. However, instead of jumping down the wall immediately, it straddled the wall and gazed at me, its intentions unknown. After that gaze, it leaped over the wall and made its escape...

Casting magic usually required vision of the target, if one couldn't see or sense the target, casting most spells was impossible. Bone wall was one such spell where line of sight was important. As such, I wasn't able to hinder the assassin's escape once it leaped over the wall and left my line of sight. By the time I thought to cancel the wall...it was too late…

That skeleton must've at least been a two-star undead, from its agile and unpredictable movements, one could tell that it must've been a powerful expert in life.

Ever since I've reincarnated into a different world, I've encountered a lot of strange things. Resurrection, corpses turning into zombies, etc. all these were just side dishes to me. However, after meeting this low key expert...I feel so cheated...I don't think I'll be able to love anymore...Oh wait, I mean I won't be conceited anymore.

Big 1 got the devils to form a line and performed a sweep of the battlefield. As for me, I pulled aside No.5. This potato was usually a lazy bum known for his cowardice...who would've thought that he actually dared to attract the attention of an undead army. Furthermore, his dodging prowess surprised me as well. I was sure that hail of arrows would've at least severely injured him.

I hastily distributed the souls; the large ones were mine while the others were distributed to the named imps. As I led the army away, I turned towards No.5 with a slight look of displeasure on my face and questioned him.

As he walked beside me, he shrunk back pitifully and stammered, his eyes darting back and forth as he did so: "I don't know what happened either, I just took a nap and suddenly woke up to see a bunch of undead surrounding me…"

"Dead...I think…" No.5 mumbled, but upon receiving my angry glare he immediately added: "They could've escaped as well…"

Besides, given the amount of undead about, being able to make It back alive is stranger. Not everyone has your strange dodging ability.

Truth be told, I had no intention of scolding No.5. After all, every one of my devils had some sort of shortcoming of their own. No.3 was impulsive, Big 4 barely talked, Nine-finger was slightly handicapped in the brain and One-eye loved showboating. Big 1 was probably the most normal one of the lot, except for his habit of referring to himself as lordship.

As for No.5...he loved to sleep. The moment I asked him to monitor the undead, I knew that there would be a possibility of him slacking off.

Having ran out of things to say, we quietly continued on our way. As we travelled, we continued with the previous plan of hunting the weaker undead and avoiding the larger hordes. And so half a month passes by without much incident, until one day, I stumbled upon a stone tablet carved wit h words.

It stood there, alone in the middle of a wasteland that was conspicuously devoid of any undead. Perhaps it had some unknown power that kept the surrounding radius of 10km clear of undead.

According to the stone tablet, this land of the undead was once a human kingdom in the western human realms. Because of a huge battle, it ended up being teleported here. What this stone tablet didn't say was exactly who had the power to actually teleport a whole kingdom to this world. But anyone who could do so was probably a God.

Upon being teleported here, the kingdom came under the influence of Gehenna's strange powers. The dead began to rise up naturally. Any whole corpse would turn into an undead over time. Even if that corpse had no resident soul, the land of the undead would naturally bestow one upon it.

If so, that robed skeleton was probably a human in life. He might even possess the memories of his past life even after turning into an undead.

The purpose of the blood sea was to birth new devils. So logically, the connecting level should lead up to a different level of Purgatory. At least, this was what I had thought, but what greeted us instead was the land of the undead.

After that line of words was a picture engraved onto the tablet. Within it was a strange semi-circular object. By my guess, it was a half buried skull with the portion below its nose buried beneath the ground.

The skull had only one eye, but it wasn't like the eye you saw on the deity Er Lang. Instead, it was a horizontal eye with a line right across the center. It wasn't an unusually large eye, but given the fact that there was only one eye, it was unusual enough.

Does this mean that in order to leave this place, we need to first find that strange skull and then defeat that guardian before finding a sacrifice?

Within these past 15 days, I was able to craft a large number of equipment. The Mo Saber team had increased to 20 devils, the guardsmen to 40 and the shieldbearers to 20. Another piece of good news was that One-eye, Big 1 and Nine-finger had all evolved into two-star head imps.

...As for No.5, he's still napping in that corner. That potato's truly frustrating; up to now, he still hasn't shown any signs of evolving into two-star.

As for me...my maximum mana had risen to 40 units. On top of that, each time I consumed a large amount of souls, my body would begin to emit that strange fragrance again. This meant that I was going to evolve soon.

Other than that, there was a more annoying problem. It was the Grimoire of the Dead. It could now fly...or perhaps floating would be more appropriate. It would slowly float about from time to time and would even shake occasionally similar to when a boat rocks when it encounters a wave.

Even though its speed was slow, it still managed to give me a headache from time to time. It would occasionally fly far away from me and wander about like a curious child, causing me to have to hunt for it. And so, I came up with a solution. I used my dark alchemy to create a bone chain which connected my left wrist to the grimoire.

After that, things worked out beautifully...the grimoire would float around as always, but when it tried to go on its little adventures, the 3m chain would stop it from wandering too far no matter how much it struggled. After a period of acclimatization, the grimoire finally behaved itself.

It would mostly float around me or lie quietly in my embrace. From time to time, it would float in circles around me...what the heck, I'm not into turtle binding!

Due to a lack of clues on the Prison of the Dead, I decided to let the grimoire lead us around. Like a rider with absolute faith in his horse, I followed the grimoire around for a few days and…

However, before I had the time to ponder this question, the pair of undead meandering at the village entrance turned towards us. Judging from the way their soul flames danced, they must have picked up the scent of the living from us.

As their cries echoed throughout the village, more undead started crawling out of the ground. The majority of them were zombies but there were also some skeletons clad in rusty armor and weapons.

"Shieldbearers form the wall, Mo sabers get to your positions, the guardsmen will take the flanks, as for the rest, you guys are on reserve duty. Hold position and await further instruction." I gave a set of simple instructions and began waiting for the undead to throw themselves onto us.

By now, our army's formation was roughly set in stone. Big 1 would take command. The shieldbearers would form a defensive wall on the spot, while the mo saber wielders would await the attackers from behind the safety of the wall. The guardsmen were led by One-eye and Nine-finger respectively on each side. No.3 and Big 4 were in charge of my personal guards...although they don't have any subordinates right now.

To any undead horde without ranged support, this formation was a death machine. All we needed to do was wait for them to throw themselves into the meat grinder.

"Master, for you to think of such an impressive formation, you must be a genius!" said the irresponsible No.5 standing behind me with his bone shield and broadsword, his flattery annoying me once more.

"The undead are all in front of Master, if you really wanted to protect Master, you would charge ahead instead of standing behind your master." No.3 said as he glared at him. Regarding this good-for-nothing imp, his impression of him was at rock bottom.

"Because...because I was afraid that the Master would get ambushed from the back." He gave No.3 an ingratiating smile and continued: " Brother Three, do you still remember that slippery fellow from before? That fellow was simply too strange, aren't you afraid he might attack us from the back?"

In terms of eloquence, even with three No.3s combined, they still wouldn't stand a chance against No.5. Furthermore, the fact that he let the assassin escape weighed heavily on him as well. As such, he naturally didn't dispute this point.

Big 4 on the other hand was much more reserved, he merely glared at No.5 with a gaze that could kill. The gaze had its desired effect as No.5 began to tremble slightly. As they say, the dogs who bite aren't the ones who bark…

While they were busy arguing, the zombie and skeletons had already begun their charge. However, despite their spirited attempts at clawing and slashing, the shield wall refused to budge, making them safe targets for the saber wielders to slaughter. By now, the saber wielders had gone through enough training to strike at their heads with pinpoint accuracy. They were even able to throw in some sweeping attacks from time to time without clashing with each other.

The guardsmen also received a boost in their equipment, which made their style of counter attacking after a successful shield block much more effective. This coupled with their innate strength as large imps, allowed them to easily suppress the undead.

As for One-eye and Nine-finger, they were armed with the new round shields and spiked maces just like No.3 and Big 4. As they commanded the guardsmen, they swept through the battlefield with their overwhelming strength. Each wave of their spiked maces took the lives of multiple undead as its spikes smashed through their heads like watermelons.

As I stood in middle of the reserves, I carefully surveyed the entire battlefield. By now, the undead horde had already lost a third of its original 1,000, and this was only after a short span of 10 minutes. As for us, the morale among the large imps rose with every second that passed. As of now, we had 0 deaths.

Just as the thought of 0 deaths flashed through my mind, one long bone spear descended from the heavens and pierced the head of a saber wielder, killing it on the spot!

The death of that saber wielder had scared the shieldbearer to the side of him greatly. The suddenness of his death had stirred up memories of the skeleton assassin and its unpredictable moves, causing the shieldbearer to jump up in shock. This moment of carelessness was not only a costly mistake, but also his last.

Another bone spear whistled through the heavens and pierced the skull of the shocked devil; the look of shock frozen on his face for all eternity.

With his death, the lonely heavy bone shield was all that was left standing against the relentless charge of the zombies. Without a bearer, all that was propping that section of wall up was the tiny section of the shield stuck into the ground, and this was naturally insufficient. As a zombie crashed into the shield, it toppled instantly like a house of cards. The undead horde now had a path into the heart of the devil army.

The orderly battlefield soon descended into a chaotic melee as the zombies poured in through the hole created, right into the Mo saber wielders. At this range, the length of the sabers were not only a hindrance but also a fatal weakness that left them vulnerable to the clawing and biting of the zombies.

Seeing that the formation was breached, Big 1 immediately ordered the reserve army to fill in the gaps. A large imp rushed to the fallen heavy shield as the saber wielders stood aside to clear a path for him. However, before he could plug the breach, a couple of bone spears descended once more, killing two more shieldbearers!

Thankfully, the recent string of victories had left everyone including the reserves with high morale. Even the recent deaths did nothing to dampen their fearlessness as they charged into battle. Soon that gap was plugged up with the other reserves clearing up the zombies who broke in.

Up until now, the reserves were still equipped with primitive bone clubs, but thanks to their innate strength, even these primitive weapons were effective against the undead. Each hit could stun the zombies momentarily and scatter any skeletons it came into contact with.

The anomalies did not stop with only the shieldbearers. On the sides of the guardsmen, they encountered an old foe, the skeletal horsemen. Two teams of 10 horsemen rode out of the collapsed buildings in a thunderous concert of hooves. Their target, the guardsmen guarding each flank. By breaking through these guardsmen, they could then flank the main army, throwing them into chaos.

Even with their refined equipment, their combat strength was still lacking compared to the two-star horsemen. Thankfully, they still had the advantage of numbers to counter this. However, being cavalry units, the skeletal horsemen possessed an innately high charging ability and an added advantage of having a one-star horse accompanying them.

These two factors added together had a multiplicative effect on their strength that more than made up for any number advantage we had. Furthermore, their sudden appearance had caught us by surprise! The first charge alone knocked away several guardsmen, clearing the path for their continued charge into the reserves.

The incoming mass of bones struck terror into the hearts of the reserves. Those that could run, ran; while those that couldn't simply lost their will to fight.

That one moment of cowardice had thrown the entire army into disarray. Some wanted to fight back while the rest wanted to flee. Those that fled ended up wrecking the formation of those who wanted to fight back, and even with Big 1's shouting, the army was no longer able to mount an effective counter-offensive.

This cavalry charge was definitely not something our broken formation could handle correctly. The familiar flow of mana filled my body once more, as I began casting a pair of bone walls. With the grimoire in my left hand and a wave of my right, two bone walls rose up from the ground directly in the paths of the cavalry charges.

However, these walls weren't as strong as I would have liked them to be due to the lack of time. Thankfully, the majority of the force behind the charge had already been dispersed. As the leading horsemen rammed into the bone wall, it cracked under the impact but still managed to severely damage the horsemen. The horse and rider were violently separated with the rider nearly being broken apart.

"The Master has stalled them. Everyone, charge!" Upon seeing my bone walls seal off the horsemen's mobility, the devils under Big 1 regained their courage and began to gather for an offensive.

Whether it was the violent stomp of the horses' hooves or the piercing power of the the riders' lances, both were devastating attacks that no mere imp could withstand. This naturally included the guardsmen as well. Even with their refined shields protecting them, the initial charge had inflicted significant damage, more so since they bore the brunt of the charge.

One-eye and Nine-finger immediately called for the reserves to take up the fallen guardsmen equipment before sortieing against their hated enemy, the horsemen. With their mobility sealed, now was the time for revenge.

All in all, our losses were severe. Our formation had been thrown into disarray with the zombies striking at us from the outside and the horsemen running amuck on the inside. Thankfully, both of these were now under control. With their mobility sealed, they were only slightly stronger than the guardsmen. With our massive number advantage, 40 guardsmen and 500 reserves, wiping them out was only a matter of time.

In the previous chaos, the Mo saber wielders had lost their usefulness and had to retreat momentarily. However with the failed charge of the horsemen, they now had a convenient target for their long sabers.

With hundreds of devils tying the horsemen down, they were essentially stationary target dummies for the saber wielders. Using their advantageous long range, they hacked at the horsemen from a distance away.

The battle was slowly swinging in our favor but there was still the matter of those bone spears. Where did they come from? As I traced the path of the bone spears, my eyes locked onto an empty rooftop. Wait...on that roof a hundred meters away...what are those two moving objects?!

It was merely a faint hope that made me scan the surroundings for the source of the bone spears, but surprisingly, it paid off. Atop the roof was a pair of bone staff wielding skeletons.

The soul flames in their eyes blazed with a vigor that I'd never seen in any other undead. Their fleshless jaws chattered up and down as they chanted a string of words inaudible to me from this distance. With a downward wave of their staves, a pair of bone spears appeared on the left and right of them and flew in the direction their staves pointed at.

The spears flew through the air one after the other and pierced the heart and throat of two saber wielders who were currently attacking the horsemen, instantly killing them!

Their casting was not only quick, but also accurate. Each spell flew unerringly into a fatal point of the imps, instantly killing them.

Why are there skeletal mages here? The last time I was here, this village had no undead at all...how did this place change so much in just half a month!?

As I thought this, the mages seemed to have picked up on my presence as well. They turned their sights on me and began chanting once more. Soon, a familiar pair of bone spears were sent hurtling towards me.

No.3 and Big 4 reacted immediately by stepping in front of me, their rounded shields raised high, ready to intercept the spears. With an earth-shattering crack, the bone spears resoundingly collided with the rounded shields and broke apart. Looks like my rounded shields won out in the end, although the force of the impact had momentarily stunned my bodyguards.

Damn it, I mustn't give them a chance to attack again. That long range capability will only cause more casualties on my side. With that in mind, I immediately made the decision to leave the army. "Big 1, you're in charge of the army. No.3, Big 4 and I have something else to attend to."

"Master...where are you going?" The commander, Big 1, was slightly taken aback by my words, but quickly responded: "The battlefield is dangerous, please remain in a safe place."

"There's no safe place to speak of right now." I shook my head as I said before leaving under the worried gaze of Big 1. I intended to circle around the fighting and hunt down those mages.

Big 1 wanted to follow me but was afraid that the situation might fall apart once more. However, he still wasn't confident about letting me leave just like that. He turned to One-eye who was in the midst of smashing a horsemen to pieces with his spiked mace. "One-eye! Take your squad with you and protect the Master."

The horsemen were basically wiped out by now. As for the other undead, their numbers were rapidly dwindling as well. Without the mages and horsemen supporting them, the battle was much easier than before.

Along the way, we encountered several zero-star skeletons, but they were swiftly taken care of by the spiked maces flanking me. By now, One-eye had already caught up to us, with his guardsmen closely behind him. They surrounded me as we continued our hunt as a precautionary measure against assassinations.

"You guys split off and search around. Make sure to check the rooftops, those mages could be hiding there." While the houses were relatively short, coming in at roughly 5 to 8 meters high, it still wasn't that easy for the mages to climb up and down.

Magic relied heavily on line of sight. Without sight of the target, you couldn't launch your spells. This was probably why those mages were standing atop that roof. In that case, as long as we searched the rooftops, we should be able to find them easily.

As expected, we quickly found them atop one of the rooftops. Their bone spears appeared and hurtled towards the backs of my guardsmen. After confirming their successful kills, they hid themselves once more.

I had considered creating a set of bone armors but there simply wasn't enough time nor resources. I wasn't even able to create enough weapons for my army, let alone set aside more mana to create armor.

Having learnt that painful lesson, I immediately ordered the guardsmen to stick closer together. This change showed its effect soon after as the mages attacked us once more. However, they weren't able to catch us off-guard this time. Thanks to the proximity of each guardsmen, they managed to warn their comrades.

This was the case with one such large imp, who upon discovering a spear immediately rushed in to shield his comrade's back. The spear was successfully blocked but the sheer impact broke his left arm.

Turning in the direction he pointed towards, I spotted those two mages standing atop a roof 50 meters away; preparing their next volley of spells.

He shouted fiercely as he waved his hands, the frustration of losing to these sneak attacks clearly affected him. The 15 remaining guardsmen quickly encircled the mages while I sprinted towards them as well.

Judging from their guerilla tactics, these mages probably had a degree of intelligence in them. Those skeletal horsemen were probably controlled by them as well. It's no wonder that I've never met more than these two mages in my numerous encounters with the undead. Their intelligence made them that much rarer.

The guardsmen quickly surrounded the skeletal mages, preventing them from coming down. However, this didn't mean that the guardsmen were able to climb up either. Their vantage point gave the mages a clear shot at the guardsmen.

As soon as they discovered that they were sealed in, they began to fire off bone spears in rapid succession as if their mana was endless. Within a short span of time, they were able to fire off 10 bone spears, keeping the guardsmen at bay.

However, this didn't faze me as I calmly got my subordinates to maintain their positions. Instead, I stood nearby firing off darkness arrows at them. Their alertness surprised me as the mere action of my spell locking onto them seemed to draw the attention of one of the mages. As the mass of darkness energy hurtled towards the mage, it immediately erected a bone wall to shield itself.

As the bone wall rose from the floor of the rooftop, the building itself began to tilt to the side from the additional weight. Its dry aged walls were already on the verge of collapse due to the ravages of time. If the bone wall wasn't removed soon, the entire rooftop would collapse.

The mage was aware of this fact as well and immediately cancelled his spell. After a slight tremble, the building stabilized once more.

I had originally planned to have my guardsmen wear out the mages, or perhaps tear down building, but now there was a much easier and safer way to bring them down!

"All of you, retreat further back." The devils temporarily retreated under the confused gazes of the mages. What they didn't know was that one of the mages had just dug their own grave for them. As I locked onto an empty spot next to them, I summoned a bone wall!

One, two, three...bone wall after bone wall rose in succession until finally at the third bone wall, the decrepit building started shaking. A moment later, the cracks spread out across the rooftop like a spiderweb before collapsing entirely in a loud burst of dust and mortar.

Due to the sudden collapse of the rooftop, the two mages were unable to react in time and fell along with the rubble, getting buried alive in the process.

With their round shields, sending them was the safest bet. The bone shields of the guardsmen were simply not in the same league as No.3 and Big 4's shields in terms of defensive power, so sending them instead might cause unnecessary losses.

After all, the cunning of the two mages was demonstrate d on multiple occasions. I highly doubt that they would die so easily. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they were lying in wait, ready to ambush us.

As later events would show, my suspicions were well founded and my caution well rewarded. Those two mages weren't dead or incapacitated, they were merely faking their deaths, awaiting the chance to deal us a mortal blow. However, No.3 and Big 4 weren't just any old imp. They were seasoned veterans.

With my reminder still fresh in their minds, they slowly approached the rubble with their shields raised in front of them and their spiked maces extended.

They had intended to prod the rubble with their maces to check out the situation, but as their maces closed in, a couple of odd-looking globes of green fluid flew out of the rubble and landed onto their raised shields.

*Hisssss* As the green fluid flowed down the shield, a loud hissing sound filled the surroundings followed by an unknown stench wafting about in an ominous cloud of blackish-green smoke.

All this while, I thought they could only cast bone spears, but to think they actually brought out an entirely new spell in such a crucial moment. Furthermore, that spell seems really ominous...that smell and smoke…

The sudden turn of events made me panic. I didn't know if I should get them to prioritise killing the mages first or to protect themselves first.

Devils were known for their vicious and cruel nature, especially these two devils. They were exceptionally cruel, whether it was to their enemies or to themselves.

To them, safety was something you thought about as an afterthought. They brandished their spiked maces and began wildly smashing the pile of rubble, determined not to let the mages release a second volley of spells. Only after confirming their deaths did they finally remember to toss away their shields.

Its destructive rampage didn't slow down either. Upon making contact with them, it rapidly dissolved into their skin and began to corrode their arms. Within a few seconds, the forearms of the two imps fell off because of the corrosive fluid!

However, it wasn't satisfied with just their forearms, the corrosion continued on its destructive path up their arms, threatening to swallow them whole.

Upon receiving my reminders, the two potatoes finally reacted to their dire situation. They sprinted to a pair of guardsmen and snatched away their boneswords, and without a moment of hesitation, sliced off what was left of their arms!

Ignoring those two bleeding potatoes, my gaze never left their severed arms for a second. The reason? Those arms had completely disappeared except for a inconspicuous puddle of blackish-green fluid…

What the heck, isn't that spell a little too powerful!? Don't tell me it's some three-star magic! If that's the case, are those two mages three-star as well? That can't be right. If they were, they should've used more magic instead of only using those bone spears, and that strange corrosive magic right at the end.

"Don't just stand there, go get some meat to eat." Eating was the fastest way for devils to heal up their wounds. Souls worked as well but they weren't as effective as pure flesh and blood.

I had instructed the two imps to grab a bite, but instead of doing so they merely looked at each other before walking up to my side. Instead of healing up, they chose to guard me, the same as always, as if they weren't wounded. Only after my safety was ensured did they finally get some of the guardsmen to bring them some corpses to eat.

Sigh, to think that they remembered to guard me even when they were injured...but the loss of their arms was problematic…their daily functions weren't impaired but combat would create some problem for them. However, wasn't I able to reincarnate into a different body? If even that was possible, regrowing a pair of arms should be easy, except I still don't know how to do so.

These two were extremely loyal to me. Whether it was from an emotional standpoint or from a practical standpoint, I would never abandon them.

"Master, here are the soul flames of the skeletal mages." One-eye brought the two soul flames to me before respectfully bowing; a strange look apparent on his face. That corrosive magic must've scared him quite a bit. If it had been him who got hit, he might've been crippled.

At the same time as we destroyed the skeletal mages, the battle on the other side had ended as well. The ordinary undead were naturally not a match for my devil army; all one thousand of them were wiped out; though at great cost.

My devil count was already low at 600 before this battle. After the battle, our numbers had dropped to slightly over 500. If you added in the fact that No.3 and Big 4 had lost an arm each, our combat strength had suffered a significant hit.

Given the vastness of the land of the dead and the frequency at which we encountered enemies, refilling our devil ranks was going to be tough. In the two months we've been here, I've only encountered two groups of devils. The first was the group with Big 4 and the other was that group of head imps we met half a month ago.

After the battle ended, I brought No.3 and Big 4 to the chapel where we met those head imps. As I stood before the now completely doorless entrance, my head was a whirlpool of emotions. Was it agitation or perhaps just the complex mix of emotions within me? Either way, I was anything but calm.

However, I was not the only one who wasn't calm. The Grimoire of the Dead was extremely excited at this moment. This mysterious book flew into a particular direction, insistently tugging on the straightened bone chain as if it wanted me to follow it.

As for why a book could do so, I was too lazy to comment upon it and merely followed behind it. Just as we came close to the podium, the book took a sharp turn, leading me to the side of it and into a small room.

The room wasn't particularly large, coming in at a mere 20 square meters and had the familiar messiness seen throughout the rest of the chapel.

The book brought me to the corner of the room before circling around a particular spot. It bounced up and down as it continued circling, as if to say that something was down here.

Seeing me stand there motionlessly for a long while, the book suddenly flew up and dived down, landing loudly on the floorboard. The resulting impact left me speechless. Did it always have this much strength? Before I could react to this, the book repeated its hammer-like action again, smashing into the floorboard. I finally understood what it wanted. This guy wanted me to break through the floorboard!

"Alright, alright. I get what you're saying. Don't do anything silly." I tugged on the bone chain, pulling it back into my embrace. As I hugged it with one arm, I bent down and swept aside the dust in the air created by the book's hammering. "Judging from the sound of those two hits, it should be hollow beneath this floorboard."

If I still didn't understand that the two spots it smashed created two different sounds, and that this meant that one of them was hollow underneath, then I should just die and spare the world from my stupidity.

Most churches should have a basement, and it seems this chapel did as well. If I'm not wrong, this should be a hidden entrance and there should be a mechanism nearby to open this hidden door.

A while later, all of the named imps, including No.5 were gathered in this small room. As for the 40 guardsmen, they were stationed outside the room.

"There's a basement underneath." I said as I stomped on the hollow spot. While there was no obvious cracks to indicate a hidden entrance, the sound it produced confirmed it. "I wish to check it out. I want you guys to search the surroundings and see if you can find a lever or some sort of mechanism nearby. If we can't find it, we might have to resort to brute force."

"Master, let me try to break it." Just as I finished saying that, Nine-finger immediately raised his spiked mace and smashed it into the floor.

The thunderous sound of the mace smashing into the floor, irritated me. It reverberated loudly in my ears as Nine-finger continued smashing the floor. Just as I was about to leave due to the noise, Nine-finger shouted in an excited voice: "Master, there it is! The entrance to the cellar has appeared!"

I turned around and looked. There really was a black hole leading into the ground. At the side of this entrance, I noticed those same luminescent stones I saw when I followed that robed skeleton into the caverns.

The underground stairway was part of a tunnel that wasn't especially wide, it was the kind where it was fine for one person, but a bit of a squeeze if there were two.

As I lifted the hatch to the underground area, the sickening stench of blood and gore wafted up from the hole leading underground. My eyebrows jumped at this scent. Wasn't this an unused chapel? Why was there the scent of blood in the air...unless something died here recently.

The urge to investigate hit me like a truck as I looked at the ominous stairs leading downwards. I anxiously got One-eye and Nine-finger to bring along 30 guardsmen to take the lead, while me and Big 1 stood in the center with another 10 guardsmen at the back. As for No.3 and Big 4, I forced them to stay above ground due to their injuries. No.5 on the other hand wasn't that strong anyway, so I got him to stay behind too.

As I walked down the stairs, what immediately caught my eye was the traces of blood staining the walls all over. From time to time I would even step on little fragments of bones. Something had died here...and from the blood, it looked like it was being chased by something.

A few steps down, I found a claw print that wasn't too deeply imprinted, but was still very conspicuous. I instructed Big 1 to place his own arm next to it as a comparison. The result was a pretty close match. This meant that the claw mark belonged to a large imp.

The underground tunnel went really deep and it wasn't a straight tunnel either, as it took several bends along the way. As we proceeded down this snake-like tunnel, the scent of blood got even stronger.

Strange, if this was a normal stairway to a cellar, shouldn't it have ended long ago? By now, we've at least travelled over 100 meters and the end still isn't in sight.

Just as I was considering this, a pained cry traveled down the tunnel from the guardsmen in front, throwing the devils into slight disarray.

One-eye's shout sounded unusually alarmed, making the whole situation that much more disquieting. The guardsmen immediately rushed down upon receiving the order. A few seconds later, One-eye's voice rang out once more: "Master, you mustn't come down, get out of here quick!"

"Ahh…" That was Nine-finger screaming, and judging from the sound of it, he was in a great deal of pain. Exactly what's going on down there!

There's a bend up ahead, once I cross that bend, everything will be clear to me. Just from their cries alone, they must've encountered some trouble, and it was the kind which could be settled right away.

"Master, please retreat." Big 1 su ddenly stepped in front of me, blocking the path forward. As he did so, he turned to the guardsmen with him: "Get down there and see what's happening, if there's trouble make sure to help them. No matter what, you must buy enough time for the Master to escape."

"Yes." The guardsmen were all loyal subordinates who immediately rushed down upon receiving this potentially life-threatening order.

"If there's trouble, then there's even more reason to let me have a look." I was extremely pleased with their caution, but still, I must have a look for myself. What if it's really true...she's a benefactor of mine...even if it's a one in a million chance, I must investigate it myself. I need to know if she's still alive.

Big 1 adamantly blocked my way, his intention clear. I knew that they were doing this for my safety so I didn't insist too much and instead prepared to turn around.

Just as I turned around, a furious roar echoed from further down the tunnel: "So you're here as well! That's great. Hahahahah...in the end, you can't escape from my clutches…"

"It's that chipped-horn!" That's the voice, the voice that haunts my memories whenever I think about that female devil. The first time we met, he was already on the verge of becoming a Demon Child, and led a group of 10 head imps. That encounter ended with him escaping. A number of his imps escaped as well.

Even he knows that [The most dangerous place is usually the safest]. He must've only ran for a short distance before hiding himself, all the while observing us. Once we fully evacuated the village, he must've came back and hidden himself underground…

As I hesitated, another cry echoed from further down. My eyelids twitched as if to warn me of the danger ahead. Without even guessing, I knew that the situation ahead was dire.

*bam bam bam* The heavy footsteps of a devil slowly closed in on me. With each step, the sound of someone being tossed and the cries of my subordinates filled the air. Big 1 immediately blocked the passageway, but before he could tell me to leave, a figure entered my sight.

He greeted us was a swift punch of his fist. It was a fist wrapped in a layer of flames that upon colliding with Big 1, who stood in his way, immediately burned his skin in an explosion of heat and brute force. Big 1 was no match for this fiery first, as it crashed it into him, it broke his right arm and threw him to the side onto the floor.

My heart jumped into my throat as I witnessed this sudden attack. As I instinctively backed away in fear, my vision rapidly took a nosedive as my entire body fell backwards. Due to it being a stairway, I had tripped on a stair as I retreated, causing me to fall on my butt.

"We meet again." The owner of this domineering and arrogant voice was a red skinned, over two meter tall devil. As he looked down upon me, his signature chipped horn came into view. This figure...that's right, it's that bastard!

As those words left his mouth, he advanced a step and threw another fist in my direction. This sudden attack caught me off guard and I simply wasn't able to react in time. However, just in the nick of time, the Grimoire of the Dead suddenly flew out and blocked the incoming fist.

The fiery fist had no visible effect on the grimoire itself, but the grimoire didn't have much force behind it either, and flew right back at me after one hit.

Thankfully, there wasn't much force behind the grimoire as it collided with me. I only hurt my back slightly as I crashed into the stairs. I immediately checked the spot where the flames came into contact with the book. It wasn't hot...in fact, I couldn't feel any heat at all.

Just as I stood there idly, Chipped Horn threw out another punch at me. However, just as he did so, his body suddenly jerked backwards slightly.

At the same time, I finally came back to my senses and desperately tried to shift my body to the side. The fist barely grazed my shoulder as it landed on empty air behind me.

So that jerk wasn't accidental, it was because of Big 1's fearless attempt at saving me. He desperately hugged Chipped Horn's leg and tugged backwards, causing him to jerk back missing his target.

I quickly crawled to my feet and dashed up the stairs, not daring to look back for even a second, my heart pounding with every step I took.

Having broken his right arm, Big 1 had to use his only remaining arm to hug Chipped Horn's foot. Even so, he held on for dear life, refusing to let go. Seeing me leave his sight, Chipped Horn turned around and cruelly stomped on the hindrance of an arm. However, this didn't stop Big 1 either, with his left arm now broken as well, he immediately bit down on Chipped Horn.

Ever since I'd given them weapons, my devils had never used their teeth to fight. In the heat of the moment, this basic fighting style finally came back to Big 1 as he suddenly remembered that his teeth were his strongest weapons.

Chipped Horn furiously kicked back, his leg coincidentally landing squarely on Big 1's skull. The heavy kick sent him flying backwards immediately with a sickening crunch, whether he was still alive or not remained a mystery.

As he flew backwards, Big 1 crashed into an oncoming guardsmen and ended up blocking the passageway, as the two of them laid on the floor in a tangled mess.

By now, I had already reached the entrance to the underground tunnel. No.3 and Big 4 who had heard the ruckus downstairs had already gathered near the entrance, worry etched into their faces. Upon seeing me exit the tunnel, they breathed a sigh of relief. However, this relief was cut short by my following words.

"Understood." No.5 was usually a slippery fellow, but even he felt the seriousness of this moment. Without any hesitation, he sprinted off to gather the other devils while No.3 and Big 4 stood by my side, ready.

I brought the two of them out of that small room, but did not manage to leave the chapel. Before the shieldbearers and saber wielders managed to get here, Chipped Horn had already caught up with us. Upon leaving the tunnel, the first thing he did was take a deep breath of air, an intoxicated look apparent on his face. He then turned towards me while flashing a disgusting smile.

Since I had left the dim tunnel and finally regained my presence of mind, I got my first good look at his appearance. Chipped Horn's appearance was very similar to a head imp except for the fact that he was taller.

The only significant difference between him and a head imp, was the thin black tail growing from his tailbone. At the end of the tail was a triangle shaped tip that was similar to devil tails you saw in popular culture back on Earth.

I asked with a hideously desperate look on my face, an image that looked worse than a sobbing devil. This was the only thing I could do right now; stall for time until the guardsmen below came up, or until No.5's reinforcements arrived.

"That's right, I've evolved." His voice oozed confidence as he said this. He was absolutely confident in his victory, and didn't rush to capture me. As he clenched his fists it caught fire, but this flame didn't hurt him. In a brazen show of strength, he slightly closed his eyes and smiled as he revelled in his newfound power.

Demon Child didn't mean that they were the children of devils, but instead meant that devils of this tier had a defining feature that separated them from head imps. Devils who weren't at least three-star couldn't control magic. Only by advancing to three-star could they gain the ability to cast some fire magic.

Simply put, imps were the lowest tier of devils. They were basically at the level of cattle, this included head imps as well. The difference between a head imp and an imp was that one was a servant and the other a slave.

Only after they had ascended to three-stars, were they finally recognized as devils by other high ranking devils. Demon Childs were in a sense newborn devils.

I carefully shifted my feet backwards as he stood there, drunk in his revelling. Slowly but surely, I widened the distance between us. No.3 and Big 4 had wisely retreated with me as well, all the while maintaining an alert stance with their spiked maces ready in hand.

While my plan was pretty well thought out, reality never seemed to follow it. As we stood there, the sounds of footsteps began echoing from that underground tunnel. The guardsmen were on their way! But if I could hear it, the three-star Chipped Horn was definitely able to hear it as well.

"Seems like your men are almost here so it's time to capture you." Chipped Horn confidently declared. Beside me, my two bodyguards stood there agitated. While they knew that the three-star Chipped Horn was an entire tier above them, they weren't frightened one bit. Instead, this merely strengthened their resolve to fight to the death.

Big 4 raised his spiked mace and charged towards Chipped Horn with No.3 following closely behind. As he left, No.3 left me these words: "Master, please leave first, we'll hold him here."

As the two spiked maces hurtled towards him, he jumped backwards, perfectly dodging them. With a quick kick of his two feet, he sprinted towards No.3 and Big 4.

Before the pair could even recover from their missed swings, Chipped Horn was already within striking distance of No.3. With a forceful clench of his fist, the incandescent flames wrapped around his fists once more.

to him, Big 4 was able to recover his stance with the time bought by No.3. As No.3 was sent flying, he counter attacked with his spiked mace.

However, this attack was immediately stopped by the steel-like palms of the Demon Child, who with a clench of his fist, immediately took control of the incoming mace. With a violent tug, the mace left the hands of Big 4 and was immediately tossed away by Chipped Horn. With a fiery punch to his body, Big 4 was sent flying as well, his injuries just as severe as No.3. The pair would probably be unable to get up for a while.

In the short span of time it took for him to defeat No.3 and Big 4, I wasn't idling about either. As the familiar flames extended from my hands, I prepared my sneak attack.

The snake-like whip coiled around the left leg of Chipped Horn without much trouble. As the flames crackled, my heart fell. His leg was unharmed.

The darkness arrows were simply too weak. It was still effective against large imps, but against head imps, its effects were significantly weaker. The enemy in front was even stronger than a head imp, so casting them was merely a waste of mana.

My nether flames were still sealed up, so I couldn't use them. As for the bone wall...he was already able to break through them when he was a head imp. That means only my flame whip had any chance of working. No matter how slim those chances were, I still wanted to take the gamble.

The creamy white wall immediately rose up from the ground, blocking the path between me and Chipped Horn. He wasn't able to react to the sudden obstacle in front of him and rammed headlong into it.

The tank-like demon child rammed right through the bones as if they were merely paper. With that, the bone wall crumbled into a pile of broken shards. This was soon followed by the sound of a second bone wall being destroyed, and then a third...However, at this moment my eyes flickered to his feet, and a bone wall instantly rose at the point where his foot was about to land.

My plan was to trip him with my bone wall as he landed. The unexpected landfall would cause him to lose his balance and fall. Unfortunately for me, having evolved into a demon child, Chipped Horn seemed to have gained inhuman reflexes as well.

The moment he noticed the bone wall, he shifted his weight towards the front, regaining his balance. With a light kick of his feet, he made a tiny leap off the rising wall, as if it were stepping stone.

While he wasted time on this tiny wall, I prepared a 4th bone wall in his path. If everything went according to plan, he wouldn't be able to change his course midair and would crash right into that wall.

However, tactics were meaningless in front of such immense strength. Even with my mana strengthening this wall, the outcome was still as bleak as the other three.

While he wasn't able to change course as expected, he instead clasped his hands together and raised them up high. His muscles bulged as he brought them down onto the wall, cleaving roughly into the wall like an axe. The bone wall exploded in a mass of fragments and dust as if it was merely a glass wall…

Run...that's all that went through my mind. At this moment, there was nothing else I could do but run. Thankfully, a number of my subordinates had already arrived at the chapel entrance. There were 10 ordinary large imps. With their usual howls, they rushed towards the chapel with their bone clubs raised high.

Seeing the reinforcements, my panicking heart calmed down slightly. However, this good news only made Chipped Horn that much more anxious. He immediately followed his chop up with a punch towards me.

With the previous incident still fresh in my mind, the image of my grimoire resurfaced once more as I threw it out at the incoming fist. Book and fist met once again and just like the previous time, the grimoire was harmlessly knocked to the side. His punch wasn't able to expend its full strength, and only caused the grimoire to fly away without breaking the bone chain.

This was the umpteenth time that I had dodged his attacks, and it was starting to get on his nerves. He immediately tried to attack once more. However, that previously missed attack gave the large imps enough time to reinforce me. As they rushed in through the doorless entryway, they stood between me and Chipped Horn.

"Stall him." While 10 one-star imps were definitely not a match for the three-star Chipped Horn, I had no other choice at the moment. In order to live, I have to resort to whatever means I had at my disposal, no matter how ugly it was.

"No matter how many you throw at me, trash will still be trash." He coldly said as he swept his gaze over the incoming imps and stared right into my eyes.

Without wasting a single second, he sent the front most imp flying. What followed was a one man show of Chipped Horn bullying the 10 imps. With his flames and terrifying speed, the large imps were simply no match for him. Their bone clubs were like mosquito bites to him; a slight discomfort and nothing more.

His attacks on the other hand, took a life with each square hit he landed. Even those fortunate enough to live were badly crippled and could only lay at the side, moaning.

At the same time as this, the guardsmen led by One-eye finally emerged from the underground tunnel. Nine-finger and Big 1 were still nowhere to be seen and of the 40 guardsmen only 35 came up. It was highly likely that they were either dead or severely injured.

No.3 and Big 4 weren't dead but they weren't able to get up either. They tried multiple times to stand up but their attempts were all futile. Chipped Horn's punches had injured them greatly; on their chests was a clear imprint of a devil's fist. Judging from the way it caved in, the bones underneath were probably crushed as well.

I would've never thought that the day would come where that potato's voice would sound so sweet to my ears. Right in the nick of time, No.5 managed to bring the shieldbearers and saber wielders over. With the almost simultaneous appearance of my two armed forces, the battle was finally swinging in our favor.

As the shieldbearers and saber wielders were a part of my main forces, they usually rested not too far away from me. Even so, the fact that No.5 was able to bring them over so soon was surprising.

"Surround him!" Under my command, 20 shieldbearers rush out in front of me and set up a straight line wall. Behind them, the saber wielders took up their positions, ready to defend the wall. Under the command of One-eye, the guardsmen began blocking off Chipped Horn's other escape route. And so nearly 80 armed to the teeth devils formed a fearsome encirclement around Chipped Horn.

The survivors from the initial 10 large imps crawled behind the new defensive line, and as for No.3 and Big 4, a couple of guardsmen brought them to safety.

In spite of his dire situation, Chipped Horn roared in a brazen display of arrogance, as if to say that he was the strongest devil under the heavens. "Useless. It's all useless. The me right now is invincible! Gwhaahahah...!"

While his boasting only elicited a mental tsukkomi from me, it seemed to have frightened One-eye and the others considerably. They were relatively young devils after all. Even though they had inherited memories, their world was still limited to this land of the dead and the blood sea.

Originally, we should've have been able to dominate this land with our refined weapons, but we ended up meeting a three-star devil. Furthermore, it was in a narrow tunnel. Losing was a given.

However, this loss still affected them mentally. The terrifying image of Chipped Horn's fists had traumatised them significantly, impairing their ability to think clearly. To be fair, three-star devils were significantly stronger than two-star devils. Putting aside Big 1, even No.3 and Big 4 were defeated in one blow. And that was with their new weapons!

"Invincible my ass, how shameless can you get!" Out of all my subordinates, the only one who remained level headed was surprisingly, that idler, No.5. Even while everyone was suppressed by the pressure of the three-star Chipped Horn, this strange one-star imp was busy heckling him: "Who the hell you think you are! Our Master is the strongest under the heavens!"

"..." I almost gave myself a facepalm as he said this. This brother had just been toyed around like a little rabbit by this three-star, and you still dare to claim that I'm the strongest? How am I the strongest? Is it my face? Or is it my disposition.

"Attack, don't waste anymore time on useless bantering!" I glared at the potato, shutting him up. As Big 1's condition was still unknown, command of the shieldbearers and saber wielders fell to me. I swiftly assumed command and shouted: "Shieldbearers advance! Saber wielders keep up with them."

"Guardsmen advance!" One-eye ordered his guardsmen to advance as well. Knowing him, he should've been right at the head of the charge. The fact that he was commanding from the sidelines meant that he was still wary of Chipped Horn's powers.

These shieldbearers were specialized defensive troops. Their sole job was to defend us with their colossal bone shields. Chipped Horn who had no experience fighting them, naturally didn't know of this and stupidly charged at their defenses.

His charge managed to knock away two shieldbearers but that was the whole extent of his advance. As soon as he did so, three shieldbearers rushed at him with their shields raised. With his stance still in the process of recovering, he still managed to knock away two of the three shieldbearers.

As for the third shieldbearer, he managed to succeed in his sneak attack. As he came in diagonally from the back, he was able to make use of the opportunity created by his four comrades, and bashed Chipped Horn squarely with his heavy bone shield, disrupting his balance.

Peasants in this new world had no surnames. That was because the nobility didn’t allow the masses to have a surname. For example, in this world, I am called Mo Ke but that’s only my given name. My surname isn’t Mo, and my first name isn’t Ke. Only those noble masters who had attained the rank of Viscount would be awarded a surname during their peerage ceremony. Some were bestowed one by a superior while some had the privilege of coming up with one on their own.

Usually, only the king or high ranking nobles were able to bestow a surname. The common practice was to give the noble two choices, to choose their own surname or to raise their original name into a family surname. Then there was also the situation where a completely new surname would be bestowed while the noble’s original name was retained.

A person’s nobility can be determined at a glance by whether he had a surname or not. Most of the time, those who did were either nobility or were a direct descendant of one. If they were not of nobility or were fallen nobles who had their viscount statuses revoked; their surname would be revoked. If they were still found using that surname, that person would be hanged for impersonating a noble, fraud and other similar crimes.

Some nobility derived their surnames from their ancestors. An example of this was when a person of noble status had performed meritorious services but had died in the process. That person’s family members would be awarded the rank of Viscount and have a surname bestowed upon them. Most of the time, it would be the name of the deceased family member.

Some of these nobility had surnames that were rather long. For example, I met a noble girl in the city who was called Annabeth. Apparently, her full name was Annabeth. Falmanseth. Mosby. Mosby was the name of her clan’s ancestor, Falmanseth was the name of the founder of her branch lineage. Of course, it could also just be her parent’s name...

Either way, names in this new world were complicated, kinda like those you see in western cultures. This girl...I get it, I get it...Nicole is getting annoyed by my lamp so it’s time to sleep.

(That was a journal entry from Mo Ke’s journal. This journal is currently in the hands of Nicole, but due to its contents being written in Chinese, only Mo Ke is able to understand it. At that time, both of them shared a bed, and his nightly activity of writing a journal always disturbed Nicole’s sleep. Also, because Nicole was unable to read Chinese, she always thought that he was drawing some strange symbols. Charming but strange symbols.)

While he was caught off guard by the shield bash, it had only caused his body to sway for a moment before he instantly regained his balance. His body whipped around in a roundhouse kick, squarely impacting the shield of his attacker. The shieldbearer had his shield ready and waiting, but the kick sent him flying, shield and all.

The saber wielders advanced upon Chipped Horn under the protection of the shieldbearers. With a shieldbearer separating each of them, four of the saber wielders thrust out their sabers at Chipped Horn simultaneously.

Seeing this, he violently latched onto the side of one of the heavy bone shields and lifted it up, bearer and all, blocking the incoming saber thrusts. The sabers rebounded harmlessly off the shield but the bearer wasn’t so lucky. The saber wielders didn’t manage to cancel their attacks in time, and he ended up getting skewered.

However, Chipped Horn wasn’t satisfied with just half-dead. He immediately slammed the heavy shield down onto the dying imp, smashing his head into pieces; killing him instantly.

The devils present balked at his savage display of cruelty. Not a single imp dared to provoke Chipped Horn. They didn’t want to be the next imp who had his head smashed in.

“What’s the matter with you lot? There’s so many of you and only one of him! Attack! Attack him together!” I have to admit, No.5 was an odd potato. He was like the sweet potato hiding among a field of potatoes. No matter how terrifying Chipped Horn was, he wore an expression that said “Come at me bro, I’ll counter whatever you throw at me!”

Even the sight of Chipped Horn crushing his comrade to death couldn’t dampen his excitement one bit, as he hopped up and down trying to raise our morale: “What are you lot doing? Don’t you want to protect our beautiful and noble Master?! Go on, attack! Protect the Master!”

In that instant, the adrenaline washed over them like a tidal wave as they let out a strange pant before charging, any semblance of a formation, gone like the wind.

“What do you mean by [beautiful and noble]?” While it’s great that their morale was raised, but weren’t words like [beautiful and noble] used to describe a female?

No.5 licked his lips as he gave me that signature silly smile of his: “Heh heh...Master, don’t tell me you don’t find yourself beautiful?”

What really surprised me was the fact he managed to raise our morale with just one sentence. Was he that talented, or was it that [beautiful and noble] phrase that caused this phenomenon?

Because of No.5’s incitement, the battlefield descended into chaos. The shieldbearers maniacally charged at Chipped Horn, not caring if they even had the offensive power to harm him or not. The saber wielders were slightly more level headed; they maintained their distance as they relentlessly poked at him with their long sabers.

The guardsmen were caught up in the heat of the moment as well. Like a swarm of bees, they swarmed the lone Chipped Horn in a flurry of swords and shields. Chipped Horn was slowly getting boxed into a corner by this incoming swarm. This was especially so for the guardsmen who wielded the deadly black bone sword.

Due to No.3 and the others evolving into head imps, their black swords were swapped for spiked maces. These swords were passed on to the guardsmen. Furthermore, we managed to obtain more soul pearls in the meantime which I immediately used to forge more black swords. All in all, the count of black sword-wielding guardsmen or black guardsmen rose to 12.

These black swords had once given Chipped Horn a serious wound that refused to heal up for a period of time; it was during our first encounter that he got a taste of these swords. He tried to capture me then, but failed, in the process getting wounded.

I had wondered if he would simply bleed to death over time, but given his enormous strength, that thought didn’t seem to gain much traction.

After all, devils were able to consume flesh and blood in order to heal their wounds. He even had a large imp captive handy for such an occasion.

Having experienced their lethality once, he definitely wasn’t eager to experience it again. Even at the expense of getting stabbed by the sabers, he swiftly reached out for a heavy shield and blocked the incoming black swords. With his empty right hand, he caught one black guardsman's hand.

As they say, once bitten, twice shy. Chipped Horn was no fool either. He immediately snatched the now ownerless black sword and wielded it along with his stolen heavy shield as he counterattacked.

Heavy shield clashed with bone shield as a guardsman was tossed aside by the tremendous strength behind Chipped Horn’s shield. With a swift kick, he sent another guardsman who had just gotten close to him, flying off into the distance.

As he wildly hacked around with the black sword, the ensuing bladestorm quickly took the lives of two guardsmen. His strength was simply too great for the pair as their hands soon became numb from blocking his sword swings. As their bone white shields fell to the ground, their heads fell alongside them…

In a style that was unique to his overwhelming power, he managed to take the life of one of my imps with every attack he made. As for my subordinates, they weren’t able to deal a fatal blow at all, any attempt was either evaded or blocked.

While there were a few instances of him getting wounded, none of these wounds came from the black swords. He would rather take a few hits from the Mo sabers than take a hit from the black swords.

As the battle wore on, his body became covered in wounds from our numerous attacks. However, this bastard didn’t play fair. While he fought, he would intermittently take a few bites out of my imps. As he chewed, those wounds would regenerate right before our very eyes!

In his hands, that black sword became an omnipotent weapon that smashed, hacked, slashed and bashed; all the while not showing a single sign of breaking...why did I forge them to be so sturdy…

As I turned around, the massive sight of 400 devils awaiting at the chapel entrance greeted me. Each of them were uniformly equipped with a bone club as their weapon. While we had the numbers advantage, Chipped Horn’s furious fighting style terrified me. Without a single thought given, I waved my hand and commanded them, a wicked smile on my face: “Everyone get in here! Dogpile him to death!”

Their boorish shouts filled the chapel as they charged at Chipped Horn without any semblance of a formation. Wherever there was an empty space, an imp would rush in to fill that gap. Soon, Chipped Horn barely had any room to maneuver, but this didn’t stop me as I continued ordering them to dogpile him.

Initially, he was still able to make use of his superior strength and control over flames to take on multiple opponents, but as time wore on, he began to run out of stamina. The frequency of his attacks became lower along with the strength of these attacks.

“ARRRROOO!” With the promise of such a generous reward, there were bound to be some brave takers. The large imps were whipped into a frenzy as they charged at the three-star demon child, hoping to get a bite of his flesh. These mad devils pounced at him without any regard for their lives as they bit down on his legs, his waist, his back, neck, eyes and whatever else they could get their hands on.

This all-in move by me scared the hell out of Chipped Horn. Despite his claim of being the strongest under the heavens, he knew that he was in a dire situation. He was able to handle 10, even 100 imps, but fighting nearly 500 imps was a different matter altogether.

As my subordinates swarmed him, he began to feel the creeping pressure of death bearing down upon him. He flailed his head around as he searched for an escape route, but none could be found. He tried to break out of the encirclement but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake off the devils clamping down on his hands and feet.

By now, he could barely move his arms and had to rely solely on his flames to defend himself. Unfortunately, imps were born with an innate resistance to fire, even small imps, it was just a matter of how resistant they were. The flames were only able to momentarily stave off the devils clinging onto him.

Even so, the relief was only short lived as more imps immediately squeezed into the now empty space. As they did so, the Mo saber wielders ruthlessly thrusted at the pile of devils, not caring if their allies were in the way…

It was a simple but shameless way to win. So what if you’re stronger than us, I’ll use my numbers to wear you out. So what if you’re faster than us, I’ll use my numbers to limit your mobility, let’s see where you can hide then. Through these simple but shameless tactics, Chipped Horn was quickly drowned in a sea of devils.

The bone clubs laid unused by the side as the ordinary imps piled onto Chipped Horn, biting furiously as they did so. No matter how much they evolved, their teeth would always be their most primitive but strongest weapon. Even a three-star Demon Child was unable to withstand a swarm of one-star devil bites.

It wasn’t long before the demon child finally breathed his last breath, but the biting didn’t stop there. Instead their biting became even more impassioned. This was the flesh of a three-star after all. An additional bite of flesh might just give them the boost they needed to evolve. In the face of such temptation, the scene slowly devolved into a chaotic fight among allies. As the imps died to their allies’ blows, the pile of meat grew even more.

The chaotic scene shocked One-eye as well. He didn’t expect his normally obedient subordinates to display such a ferocious side of themselves. He immediately separated the frenzied imps from the pack. On the side, the more level headed ones came to their senses after my reminder and stopped fighting.

By the time the whole ruckus was over, Chipped Horn was nothing but a pile of bones. Only his horn had a bit of meat left on it, but that was only because the irregular shape of the skull made it difficult for the devils to get a clean bite. If I wasn’t so used to them feeding, I would’ve puked at this sight.

“Master, here’s the soul you wanted.” With the army finally under control thanks to One-eye, No.5 immediately harvested the soul and presented it to me.

Chipped Horn’s soul was a lot more defined than the other souls I had eaten before. As I stared at the wispy mass, I could clearly see his face imprinted within it. His terror, resentment and unwillingness were clearly visible to me as I grasped his soul in my palm.

Chipped Horn was the strongest enemy I had faced so far. Even in terms of cunningness, only the skeletal assassin came close to him. Just from an initial inspection alone, I’ve lost nearly a hundred imps trying to kill him. Not to mention that Big 1, Nine-finger, No.3 and Big 4’s conditions were still unknown.

However, just as that thought crossed my mind, a certain book that had been quietly resting in my arms suddenly sprang to life. Its body opened up, revealing the pages inside as if they were its mouth, and with a sudden leap, swallowed Chipped Horn’s soul in one gulp.

However, being angry was fine and all but I still couldn't throw away the grimoire. Thanks to it blocking that attack down in the tunnel, I managed to avoid certain defeat. Just based on that fact alone, I had no reason to get angry with it.

"No.5, get me a head count." After handing him his mission, I went to check on No.3 and Big 4. A hundred anxious thoughts filled my mind, as I took those few steps that seemed so close and yet so far. Thankfully, my worries were unfounded as both of them were mostly fine. They weren't dead but were too injured to get up.

"Master…" No.3 and Big 4 whimpered as they gave me a pitiful look. They probably blamed themselves for not being to able to protect me.

"It's alright. Everything's taken care of. Just rest up and get well soon." With my worries put at ease, I turned around to look for One-eye. He was in the midst of supervising the corpse distribution when I found him. "One-eye, give the two of them some corpses; as much as possible."

One-eye nodded his head before immediately getting his subordinates to move more corpses over to the two of them. Seeing as they were severely injured and missing an arm each, I figured that they wouldn't be able to feed themselves properly. So I made special arrangements to have two female devils feed them personally.

With that settled, I quickly left the scene. Even after all this time, I still wasn't used to the sight of devils feeding. Now that Chipped Horn was dead, the tunnel should be safe for exploration. As I headed for the tunnel, I beckoned to One-eye with my hand: "By the way, have you seen Big 1 anywhere? Is the tunnel safe?"

"It's safe. Master, about Big 1…" His words trailed off ominously as he lowered his head, not daring to look me in the eyes. Only after I pressed him further did he finally continue. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw as he forced out the following words: "Big 1 is dead…"

Chipped Horn's strength was something that I had witnessed personally. His ferocity and strength simply wasn't something one could take to the head and survive...

Another subordinate died protecting me...I knew that this was the land of the dead, the upper floor of the blood sea...that this was the road I had to travel in order to pass through hell...that this wasn't some game where you could simply reincarnate multiple times by mashing A and B on a ***tendo console…

I stared at his corpse silently. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I made up my mind. I clenched down on my teeth as I turned towards One-eye and said coldly: "Get someone to bring the corpse up...give it...let No.3 and Big 4 process it…" pan

It hurts...it was a decision that I made...but still...my heart hurts so much! I'm such a hypocrite...even though it hurt me so badly...even though he was my benefactor...I still made sure to fully utilize his corpse. I'm probably even more ruthless than Cao Cao...

As I continued walking, I suddenly remembered that there was still one more named imp not accounted for, and so I turned to One-eye and asked: "What happened to Nine-finger?"

"He's fine. He's just unconscious from Chipped Horn's initial sneak attack." After settling the matter of Big 1's corpse, One-eye's eyebrows jumped as if he suddenly remembered something. "By the way, Master, there's something I must report."

The 13 year old Nicole had already risen to a three-star warrior. For a commoner, this level of talent could only be described as terrifying. Due to the domineering nature of fighter's aura, the amount of aura a human child could withstand was really low. As such, their cultivation speed would be lowered until they reached around 15 years of age. At which point, their cultivation speed experienced a growth spurt of sorts.

Take Sares for example, he only reached three-star at the age of 14, nearing 15. All this could be attributed to the explosive growth of his cultivation speed.

Outside of her usual training, she mostly kept a moderate social circle that was neither too large nor too small. A large part of this was due to her special student status which made her one of the elites within the fighter school. Her usual cheerfulness had been replaced by a cold aloofness ever since Mo Ke left home.

She felt that she was the one who caused Mo Ke to run away and had placed all the blame solely on herself. It was this crushing guilt that slowly warped her cheerful personality into the reserved and aloof person she was now.

Ironically, this aloofness combined with her heavenly beauty and status to create an image of a crimson-haired cultivation genius; turning her into the mascot for the fighter school. Calling her an idol wouldn't be an exaggeration.

As time passed, this fame started attracting both male and female students who admired her, creating the social circle we now see today.

These students were mostly of the same age as her or slightly younger. They were mostly of humble origin, but there were also a few members of some status. Heirs of successful merchant families and even minor nobles.

Initially, she didn't pay much attention to socializing, and instead focused her attention solely on her cultivation and school work. Her goal then was merely to join a mercenary troop and find Mo Ke as soon as possible. However, after reading Roscar's letter, she realized how vast the world actually was and how complicated society could be.

Without any connections, her search for Mo Ke would only be met with all sorts of troubles and hindrances. And so, she began to prioritize her social life as well. She started by first getting close to her admirers and slowly built upon that. As time passed, her icy heart was thawed, and her usual cheerfulness came back.

As she made her way to the training room, she was greeted by a long green-haired girl dressed in the uniform of the fighter school. It was a white, western ensemble that highlighted her adorable, rounded face. She grabbed Nicole's hand and excitedly shook them as she said: "Sister Nicole, let's go on a date together."

The little girl was only ten years of age and was one of the younger students in the school. She came from an impressive background unlike the majority of Nicole's admirers. Her father was a successful businessman in the city and highly doted on this adorable daughter of his. It was precisely this doting attitude that allowed her to enter the fighter school.

Her father had originally wanted her to take up the more esteemed position of a mage, but the heavens weren't kind to her. During her magic examination she was judged as having no talent for magic, and so her father had no choice but to send her to the fighter school.

As they say, when the heavens closes a door, they open another for you. Upon entering the school, she was found to have an above average gift for cultivating fighter aura.

In the face of the girl's infatuation, she was put in a slightly awkward dilemma. She revealed her signature affable smile and said: "Little Nana, I'm still not done with my daily training…"

"Ah, Little Nana isn't interested in all that cultivation stuff. Today's the founding day of our kingdom, it would be a waste to squander such a rare opportunity just to train. Let's go have some fun."

"It's bound to be a lively event today with a ton of people attending, who knows, we might even find your little brother while we're out and about."

"Nice! That's great, Sister Nicole is going to play with me! Nana wants to get some crepes, and also a cute doll, oh and I want to watch a play as well…"

The robed skeleton was going about with his usual experiments. As his creamy white fingers hugged the test tube in his hands, the liquid inside began swirling of its own accord as if it had a life of its own.

"As expected, compressing several spiritual bodies combines them into a liquid. But it seems to throw their consciousness into chaos resulting in some strange anomalies...perfectly turning spirits corporeal...as expected, it's not something that can be done in a day or two…"

Just as he sealed up the test tube, the liquid in the tube began to swirl around once more. As it sped up, the liquid began to form a tiny human face that plastered itself onto the walls of the test tube. Due to its liquid nature, the face lost all semblance of a human face the moment it splattered itself onto the test tube's walls.

The human face opened its mouth in a soundless scream as if it was in great pain. Soon after, several other human faces began forming in the neighboring test tubes. Within a second, the test tube was filled to the brim with their faces as their liquid bodies began to smash futilely against the bone cork.

As the robed skeleton monitored these test tubes, he etched out letters in the air with his bony fingers. They were written in the language of the devils and said:

"Unstable form...three-star strength...no consciousness? No, it just doesn't have anymore emotions...only negative emotions remain...is there no trace of happiness left? Humm, it would be weird if vengeful ghosts had any happiness left in them...what about the tiny bit of happy memories left in them...discarded? No need for happiness? Such decisiveness…"

This went on for another half an hour before the human faces in the test tubes quieted down and changed back into a harmless pool of liquid.

By now, the robed skeleton's musing had reached a thousand words. As they mysteriously hovered in mid air, they maintained their orderly formation while emitting a faint green glow, their clarity just as strong as when the skeleton started writing.

The female servant handed him a thick book made out of sheepskin. As he opened it, a dense sea of words entered his vision. He ignored these and instead flipped right to the end of the book. With another wave of his hand, the floating words began to file into neat lines before flying into the book in an orderly fashion as if they were moving into a new home.

This miraculous magic had been long lost since ancient times. Nowadays, no one was able to use this ancient magic. Researchers instead used an enchanted quill to record down their findings. The quill would take down whatever the researcher recited.

The advantage of these quills was that they required little mana to operate. One merely had to recharge the quills with mana from time to time. However, a drawback was that the quills recorded everything the researcher said...that's right, everything. Everything from the actual findings to the random curse words the researcher spouted while the quill was active.

Having finished his experiment, the robed skeleton turned his hollowed out eye sockets to a certain spot in the laboratory and peered intently at it. It was as if he was able to see through all the physical obstacles as he quietly stared into the "distance". As for what he saw, no one knew.

This continued for a long while before the robed skeleton began muttering to himself once more: "Teacher, junior sister has already chosen the person she wants...as for what's next, I can only hope that person can bring junior sister out of this place...also, after spending all these years with her, I never realized that she actually likes girls…"

Mo Ci was a female large imp whose birthplace was Purgatory's Blood Sea. Back then, her days only consisted of wandering the beaches in a daze and feeding on any kinsman she found; brainless days driven solely by her primal instincts. It was in this caveman-like state that she encountered her Master.

Master was a very special devil, she was very beautiful, like a goddess. Every waking moment she spent with her, she could feel the pureness radiating from her soul. Her disposition was noble and saintly, perhaps even more saintly than those angels in her inherited memories.

Mo Ci initially had no name, she didn't even think of having a name. Truth be told, small imps didn't need a name, after all, they were an existence akin to cattle. Would you name each and every one of your pigs? Obviously, no.

Mo Ci's master could only be described as wondrous in her eyes. From birth, she had a heavenly appearance that separated her from the other small imps. It was precisely this beauty that allowed her to subjugate so many devils, including Mo Ci.

At the start, Mo Ci could only gaze longingly at her Master from a distance as she quietly fulfilled the tasks given to her. This lifestyle continued till one day, they came upon their first ever trial, the battle at the entrance to the upper level.

The entrance was guarded by a fiendish head imp who formed a blockade on the stairs leading up to the entrance. This was the momentous obstacle hindering her master. Thankfully, her beautiful master was as intelligent as the legendary Goddess of Wisdom.

In order to make up for their lack of numbers, she got Mo Ci and the other devils to fashion bone clubs out of the thighbones of devils.

These makeshift clubs were to be their weapons for the upcoming battles. While they had an average offensive power, their range exceeded the range of their enemies' claws and teeth. It was this advantage that allowed them to successfully breakthrough this obstacle.

However, things weren't that simple. In order to defeat that fiend, her master had to exhaust every last drop of her mana, causing her to faint after the fiend got burned to death.

This created a dilemma for her Master's lieutenants. Who is going to carry the Master's body into the next level? Such a simple question, but it was one that led them into a heated argument. After all, this was a legitimate opportunity to touch the Master's saintly body.

This was a once in a lifetime opportunity for the lieutenants. None of them were willing to budge an inch with regards to this and so the argument escalated, almost causing a fight.

It was at this moment that one of the lieutenants suggested that a female devil be given the task of looking after the Master. And so, Mo Ci was chosen.

The moment Mo Ci's reddish hands touched her Master's body, she felt the inferiority in her. Her inferior self actually got to touch the Master's perfect body…...This moment was one that she would carve into her rapidly pounding heart.

From that day onwards, she stayed besides her master. No matt er where the Master went, she would quietly shadow her even though the Master didn't particularly need her for anything.

Ever since the Master entered the land of the dead, she encountered multiple battles and triumphed over each and every one of them. It was in this battle-fraught yet mysterious land that the Master had a fortuitous encounter.

The Master had obtained an omnipotent magic grimoire. This grimoire that gave the Master the ability to create weapons that none of us could ever imagine. These weapons allowed the Master's subordinates to dominate the undead in this land. Every battle ended with a bountiful harvest of undead souls for our side with barely any losses for us.

The Master's greatness was one that didn't require saying although her evolution speed seemed to be lacking in comparison to the lieutenants.

After taking for a round trip around the land of the dead, the Master led us to an abandoned village full of dilapidated houses. Prominent among these houses was an equally dilapidated chapel which housed a surprisingly large amount of head imps.

Their cruelty knew no bounds as they even tried to capture the Master. However, ever-loyal Mo Ci would have none of this. There was no way she could allow these lowly imps to touch the Master. And so, she stood out. Without any regard for her safety, she immediately pushed her Master away causing her to get captured instead of her Master.

Even though she knew what awaited her was a grim fate, she had no regrets. As she stared into the slowly disappearing eyes of her Master, all she ever thought of was her Master's wellbeing…

This chipped horn imp didn't flee the village as expected. Instead, after distancing himself from the village, he hid himself and waited for the Master to leave.

In order to prevent Mo Ci from escaping and also partly because he had suffered some injuries, he wrapped one hand around her neck and with the other clamped down on her thighs.

What ensued was a sharp piercing pain that tore through her body from her thighs up. Then, she was struck with a burning sensation followed by a sudden sense of weightlessness.

As she looked down at her legs, all was saw was a bloody flower painted on the floor where her legs once stood. For some strange reason, he didn't kill her but only ate her legs.

Once her master left, Chipped Horn made his back to the chapel with Mo Ci in tow. Within the chapel were the head imps who had managed to escape, leering happily at her. They brought her to the underground room beneath the chapel, their nefarious intent written clearly on their faces.

The secret tunnel leading downwards was a very long one. It took several hundred meters of walking before they finally reached the end of the tunnel. It was a very wide room filled with some random clutter. Due to their human origins, she didn't know what they were for. All she knew was that a fate worse than death awaited her.

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The devils shoved her against the floor and used the cruelest of methods to torture her. They shoved a strange pole into the region between her now eaten legs and injected a strange fluid. One by one, the head imps tortured her, never letting her rest for a second.

As time passed, more and more head imps joined the group as they continued torturing her. She was merely a normal large imp and had even lost both her legs; she was powerless to resist them and could only take their torture.

Every day, they would feed her till she was full before shoving those strange poles into her once more, their bodies banging into her as they did so...

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These horrifying days continued for what seemed like an eternity to her. By now, she was on the verge of despair. However, what shocked her was that her stomach had inexplicably gotten bigger?

This strange phenomenon had caused her a great of deal stress and confusion. She didn't know why her stomach had gotten big; she was very sure that she didn't eat anything strange so why…

As she suffered the routine torture of the head imps, she closed her eyes and searched through her inherited memories. A long while later, her eyebrows jumped as the sudden realization struck her. She was pregnant...

As it grew, the despair in her grew along with it. She knew that she could no longer return to her Master. Her Master's purity was something that must not be blasphemed. With her tainted body…

She cried as she thought about this. Even during these horrific days, all she could think of was her Master. She desperately wanted her Master to save her but she didn't want her Master to see her in this state. In the midst of these conflicting desires, the day finally came when her Master finally arrived. That's right, she has come…

Initially, the head imps would leave the chapel on daily hunting trips after which they would feed her in order to ensure her continued survival. Later on, they suddenly stopped doing so for some unknown reason. The head imps stopped leaving the underground room altogether and instead focused on torturing her.

All living things required food and devils were no exception either. Due to the undead horde above, leaving to hunt for food was a quick way to die. However, if no one went hunting, they would die as well. In short, someone had to die in either situation so the head imps chose the safer option.

And so, the head imps began killing each other. Due to their numbers, they had to kill two head imps each day in order to feed themselves however, this soon dropped to one a day and then once every two days. Finally, the 10 over devils living underground were reduced to just Mo Ci and Chipped Horn.

The last remaining head imp suggested that they eat Mo Ci however Chipped Horn swiftly rejected this, the reasons for this insistence, unknown to her.

Under the continued questioning of his companion, Chipped Horn merely replied : "I want to leave this place so this female devil must survive. As such, it's time for you to die."

The first to strike was Chipped Horn. Due to his vastly superior strength, the other imp could only attempt to run away. As he sprinted desperately up the stairs, the ever-looming figure of Chipped Horn stalked him. As he was about to reach the exit, Chipped Horn finally caught up to him and slew him.

This last meal didn't last very long before Chipped Horn became hungry once more. But with no other head imp left, he had no choice but to starve himself. This fasting went on for two days. Within these two days, outside of some occasional venting, he didn't do anything else to her. Even the rumblings of his stomach couldn't force him to consume Mo Ci. All he did was torture her from time to time to stave off the biting hunger…

These two days were the scariest days of her life. She was afraid that she would be eaten by Chipped Horn but what scared her even more was that she might not be able to give birth to the child in her stomach.

The figure that entered her sight was a large imp. In his hand was a familiar bone shield and bone broadsword. Upon seeing Chipped Horn and the legless Mo Ci, the new arrival was stunned.

Seeing the delicious meal before him, he immediately pounced on the large imp. With a flying kick to his bone shield, he sent the imp crashing into the wall and before the imp could even slump to the ground, he caught hold of the imp's head. With one arm locking down the imp's right arm, he brought the imp closer to him.

The death of this large imp was only the beginning. As the seconds pass, more and more devils flooded out of the stairway. Each of them was armed with a bone shield and bone broadsword. There were even two formidable looking head imps leading them.

As One-eye walked out of the tunnel, the sight of Chipped Horn and Mo Ci stunned him for a moment but he immediately recognized who she was.

Ever since the incident at the entrance, Mo Ci had always been by the side of the Master so it wasn't strange that One-eye was able to recognize her.

He also recognized the newly evolved demon child beside her as well. As the pair stared at each other with hatred in their eyes, they didn't waste time with words and instead jumped right into battle.

The prowess of a three-star demon child was something beyond the comprehension of normal imps. Lieutenant Nine-finger tried to bash him with his spiked mace but Chipped Horn merely took it head on. With a casual grab of his hand, the spiked mace was stopped in its tracks.

And with an equally casual flick of his wrist, Nine-finger was tossed to the side along with his spike mace. As Nine-finger crashed into the wall headfirst, a loud thud echoed in the room followed by a pained cry before his eyes rolled over.

Nine-finger was defeated in an instant. This fact didn't escape Lieutenant One-eye as he immediately adopted a more cautious approach. He ordered the other guardsmen to attack with him. Unfortunately, the strength of a demon child wasn't so easily defeated.

Even without any weapons, Chipped Horn was able to trounce the guardsmen without even giving them a chance to fight back. In less than 10 seconds, another two guardsmen died.

"That she-devil is here as well?" Chipped Horn must've thought of the Master as he suddenly revealed a disgusting smile. "That's great, this time I won't let her escape!"

The guardsmen desperately tried to stop him but he was simply too strong for them. The sudden burst of flames on his fists and kicks raised his offensive power to a whole new level as they sent several guardsmen flying, their conditions unknown.

By now, One-eye knew that this opponent couldn't be stopped. His thoughts immediately went to the safety of his master as he shouted: "Master, you mustn't come down, get out of here quick!"

Everyone was now gone, including Lieutenant One-eye. She slowly closed her eyes, ignoring the unconscious Nine-finger and the guardsmen. She couldn't do anything except pray, pray that her Master would be safe...praying, this was an action that definitely didn't suit a devil like her.

After an indeterminate amount of time, the sound of footsteps echoed down the stairway once more. It was the Master and her henchmen! She was still as dazzling as ever, with her faint fragrance and aloofness which separated her from this blood filled world they lived.

As if a giant weight had been lifted off her back, the Master revealed a joyous smile hidden behind a stream of tears. Even now, she didn't address her as Mo Ci. That is because even now, she still had no name…

With just a glance, I recognized who that legless, pregnant large imp was. She was the imp who got captured because she tried to save me.

No matter what, being alive was enough of a blessing already. Ever since she was captured, that look of blessing that she gave me as she was carried off had always haunted me. Whenever I thought of it, my chest would tighten up in sadness and my breathing would become constricted.

With that emotional weight finally gone, I calmly walked up to her in order to check for any external injuries but for some reason, she seems scared. It was as if she didn't want me to approach her.

Her eyes were barely able to contain the panic in them as I walked towards her. With her legs gone, all she could was drag herself away with both her arms.

"..."As I looked at the self-abased imp drag herself away in fear, all the while hanging her head in shame, my heart clenched up once more, the happiness in me was now gone, all that remained was grief.

I got One-eye to single out two female devils to be her attendants after which he led the guardsmen around to search for anything suspicious. All this while, the Grimoire of the Dead was inexplicably flying around the pregnant devil.

"No...I want to birth...I want to give birth to it…" That last sentence seemed to have shocked her a great deal as she instinctively withdrew herself as if to protect her baby against a potential threat.

"Alright, calm down. Getting agitated isn't good for the baby." Truth be told, her reaction seemed to be a bit excessive but then, human mothers were the same as well. Even if it was a bastard child, most of them would've chosen to give birth to it.

It was at this moment that One-eye came back once more with a report from his search: "Master, there's nothing suspicious to be found in the vicinity."

Coming in at roughly 100 meter squ are, the cellar wasn't a particularly large one and its environment wasn't pleasant either. Strangely though, it wasn't because of a lack of fresh air that made me hate this environment.

In fact, the cellar seemed to have some unknown method of maintaining a suitable breathing environment. Instead, it was the years of neglect coupled with the artefacts left by Chipped Horn's stay here, that made this place unpleasant. In short, it stinks.

While the main source of food in the land of the dead was souls, Chipped Horn and the others weren't able to hunt for souls. Instead, they had to kill each other for food and this resulted in their diet being comprised mainly of meat. This means that they needed to defecate.

While they were smart enough to find a remote corner to finish their business, this was still an enclosed area after all. Even buried, it still stunk.

"Get your men ready, it's about time to leave." I briefly instructed One-eye to lead his men away before turning to the pregnant devil and her attendants: "As for the two of you, carry her up to the surface. Make sure to be gentle, I wouldn't want her to get injured."

Unfortunately, things didn't work out as planned. Despite my instructions and their best efforts at lifting her up carefully, they still won't able to carry her in a stable fashion. Is it because of her weight?

As the attendants took a couple of steps forward, the pregnant female winced in pain. Their unsteady gait had caused her stomach to shake.

Since she wants to give birth to it, I guess this place is as good as any other location. At least there won't be any accidents from us moving her.

One-eye replied in a surprised tone, his eyes blinked as if he had just thought of something. He turned to his devils and handed down the new orders to stay.

Once his subordinates were all settled down, he came back to me and asked in a hesitant tone: "Master, how long is our stay here?"

"How long…" I shifted my gaze to the pregnant devil on the floor. As she returned my gaze with an uncertain expression, I said: "Till she has given birth."

"And we won't encounter any undead just by moving around?" I said with my eyes half-closed. "When did you learn to question my commands?"

His gaze only lingered for a split second before he immediately dropped to his knees, his head lowered. "Master...I'm your most loyal servant...if this is what you wish, I'll do my best to fulfill it, my Master."

"Form a defensive perimeter around the chapel. Bring 200 reserves, all the shieldbearers, sabre wielders and half the guardsmen with you as you go hunting. The remainder will defend the chapel. Understood?"

As he heard his name being called, the imp who looked like he was on the verge of dozing off was immediately jolted back to reality. With a dazed look on his face, he pointed at his nose and said: "Me?"

"That's the plan." As for No.5, I don't know what to do with him...he's lazy as a pig most of them but at least he steps up when times are dire. Given his talent for raising our morale, I decided not to treat him as badly as before. However, a little knock on the head is still called for from time to time.

One-eye had probably noticed his laziness as well. With a exasperated look on his face, he grabbed his neck and dragged him up the stairs kicking and screaming.

Strangely, whenever I looked at her, the name K*ng Ci from Wind and Cl*** seemed to pop into my head. And so, through this strange stroke of fate, I came up with a new name for her: "From now on, you'll be Mo Ci."

Judging from the excited look on her face, she seemed to be extremely pleased with it. While her face didn't suit my sense of beauty, her current expression wasn't that dislikeable either.

Approximately half a day later, One-eye came back from his hunting trip with just 200 soul flames. Due to the migratory nature of the undead, the surrounding areas around the village have never been so empty. Our current situation reminded of the MMOs I played where the field would soon repopulate after being cleaned up once.

In a single breath, 10 soul flames were consumed by her but she still wasn't full. In fact, she didn't seem to think much of those 10 soul flames and instead picked up the pace as she continued eating her meal.

At my side, Nine-finger who had recently regained consciousness, stared at her, his lips pursed and his brows furrowed. To him, a devil who couldn't fight was essentially trash who was better off dead. After all, feeding such trash souls wouldn't increase their combat strength a tiny bit.

In the face of this devil who had done nothing but still had the privilege of eating, Nine-finger was nothing if not jealous. He leaned in and whispered: " Master, Isn't that Mo Ci eating a little too much?"

"You eat a little too much as well." I gave him a cold evaluating scan before saying: " If you needed tens of souls as well, I would've still ensured that you were sufficiently fed."

"Master, I don't mean it that way...it's just, you haven't eaten yet. For her to eat first...isn't that a little inappropriate?"

"There's nothing inappropriate about it. Either way, my stomach is a bottomless pit, besides…" The negative emotions flooded me once more but I quickly shook them off. "This is what I owe her."

As I said this, she lowered her hands and stopped what she was doing. Judging from her awkward and guilty expression, she probably heard us. "Master...I...I just...I don't know why but...I'm just so hungry...I...didn't mean to…"

The following days passed uneventfully as we settled down in this abandoned village. One-eye would bring No.5 and Nine-finger along with him as he went hunting for soul flames while my fully recovered bodyguards, No.3 and Big 4 continued their job of guarding me. Despite the loss of an arm each, I still had high hopes for them.

Other than the souls needed to sustain everyone, every other soul was sent to me. With No.5 taking charge of this, there were basically no instances of them being siphoned away.

Mo Ci required a large amount of soul flames every day but initially, she wasn't willing to eat that much. She was probably still worried that I would abandon her for doing so.

I guess I can't really blame her for thinking so. Her appetite was frightening compared to the other devils. They were usually full after two or three souls whereas she was able to gulp down nearly a hundred soul flames in one breath. While this was nothing compared to my bottomless stomach, it was still pretty substantial.

Regarding this issue, I could only assume that this was due to the child in her stomach. I had never seen a pregnant devil before so I'm not sure if being pregnant increased their appetite. I merely tried to feed her till she was full out of sheer habit.

These peaceful days continued until the 10th day of our stay here. The hunting party had returned earlier than expected and what greeted me was a anxious No.5 dashing down the stairway. Before he even reached me, he started shouting: "Master, we've got a problem...the wandering undead have suddenly increased by a lot…"

By the time I got to the outskirts of the village, I understood what he meant by “a lot”. No wonder he didn’t dare to elaborate...the devils were back, this time as a zombie horde.

ly, No.5 had brought back a skeleton army on his way back to “report”. These were probably the vanguard of the devil zombie horde who made use of the fact that he was skiving to sneak up on him. Without any unnecessary flesh to weigh them down, they were naturally much faster than the devil zombies behind.

At that time, the other devils who were with him had gone missing as a result of his momentary nap. Given that such a long time has passed without any one of them returning to us, it either meant that they survived for a month alone or were already dead...one whole month...most likely they were dead, the chances of survival in this land is a one in a million…

In the midst of chasing No.5, the devil zombies must’ve split up, this was why they were now gathered here in multiple groups of 100 or so zombies. Their slow speed was the reason why it took us resting here for 10 days before they finally managed to catch up to us.

These devil zombies had only existed for at most 2 months in this land of the dead. As such, their flesh was still in a half-decayed, half decomposed state. Essentially, their flesh was still in the midst of being processed by nature.

Compared to the fully decomposed zombies, they were much more disgusting with their missing bits and pieces of flesh, and exposed innards. Any remaining portions of whole skin left on these zombies mostly retained their former appearance but they had a tinge of dark green about them.

As I surveyed the other parts of the village, I found the same pockets of devil zombies wandering around the village outskirts which means we’ve been surrounded.

The enemies had vast numbers but thankfully, they were extremely slow. Furthermore, they were pretty spread out as noted before. All of these were opportunities ready to be exploited, which was exactly what I boldly planned to do.

During those 10 days of rest, I was busy crafting more equipment for the devils. By now, the number of guardsmen had increased from 40 to 60 while the shieldbearers’ team and sabre wielders’ team had each expanded to 30.

As for No.3 and Big 4, since they had each lost their left hands, their spiked maces were no longer suitable for them and so I made a couple of long bone swords for them.

“Everyone listen up! From now on, each group will be made up of 20 guardsmen, 10 shieldbearers, 10 Mo sabre wielders and 50 reserves. The first group will be led by One-eye who will eradicate that zombie group right in front of us. As for anything further away, that’s for a later time. Nine-finger will lead another group to sweep the northern areas, Big 4 will handle the west.”

“I’ll leave the south to you, while there’s no more elites left for you to command, I’ll aid you from the side with bone walls. The south is less populated and doesn’t seem to have any special undead so 250 large imps should be enough. Just try your best to stall them.”

Up till now, the reserves were still armed with the bone clubs from the blood sea. Without any advanced weaponry aiding them, killing the undead would naturally be much slower. As such, my plan for them was to rotate

Of course, all these was predicated on the fact that the horde was still dispersed around the village. With a few kilometers separating the different groups, we should be able to kill off each group before the other groups were able to reinforce them.

“Don’t get caught up in the lust for battle. Our goal is to minimize our casualties and also all the loot must be surrendered to me, do you understand?”

As planned, I sealed off the southern passages to the chapel with my bone walls but still feeling a little uncertain, I decided to station 50 more reserves to help No.3 guard the south. Their orders: kill any undead who approached the walls.

With this urban setting around them, they should be able to handle even larger groups by either circling around them or stalling them with the complicated terrain.

Setting up these bone walls had exhausted most of my mana but at least the preparatory work was now finished. I turned to No.3 and said : “No.3, the rest is up to you.”

With everything organized, I returned once more to the cellar in order to visit Mo Ci. However, just as I was halfway down the stairs, I heard the pained cries of Mo Ci echoing up the stairway.

I picked up speed as I practically sprinted down the rest of the stairway, my heart pounding both from the exertion and from worry. As I reached the base of the stairway, the twisted face of Mo Ci greeted me. Her face had scrounged up from the pain and her eyes had nearly rolled over to the back.

“What’s the matter Mo Ci?” I immediately rushed in to check on her condition. Even now, the guilt from causing her to get captured still weighed heavily on my heart. Seeing suffer in such a manner, sent daggers through my heart.

As Mo Ci noticed my approaching figure, her distorted face twisted even more as she forced out a reply: “Master...it’s so...so...painful…”

“You’re about to give birth?!” *thump* My heart jumped at her reply. That’s impossible...even if I assumed that she was pregnant since the day she got captured...that would at most be slightly over a month. How could she give birth so quickly? Devils aren’t those chickens and ducks you see on the farm; not laying eggs won’t get them killed.

If it’s human, they would take close to 10 months to give birth...wait...devils aren’t humans so their length of pregnancy might be much shorter.

To a pregnancy novice like me who didn’t even know how much nutrition a pregnant devil needs, knowing how long their pregnancy would last was definitely out of the question.

“Does anyone have experience delivering a baby?” In my panicked state, I forgot that all my subordinates were essentially newborns themselves. They probably didn’t even know what pregnancy meant or perhaps even what sex meant…

Damn it! Without a midwife, who’s going to deliver this baby? Without a B-scan, how am I going to determine the position of the baby? What if the baby comes out legs first with its head stuck inside...what do I do then...will it suffocate to death?

Ironically, Mo Ci seems to be the calmest among all the devils here. Seeing my anxiety, she forced out that reply in order to allay my fears...why does it seem like I’m the one giving birth instead…

However, that relief didn’t last long before the anxious screams of No.5 echoed down the stairway once more. “Master, we have a problem! Those undead seemed to have gone into a frenzy; their speed has increased tremendously. One-eye can’t hold out for much longer…”

“What!?” This entire string of surprises today had truly caught me off guard. Surprise after surprise came without giving me any chance to catch my breath. Without even bothering about the imp gasping for air in front of me, I immediately sprinted up the stairways after leaving behind a short message.

“Master...wait for me...don’t run that fast...I...I can’t run anymore…” The little potato stared pitifully at my disappearing back and sighed, the resignation in it clear for all to hear, “Sigh, I just got here too...Master, wait for me...I’m really out of energy…”

The devil zombies’ brains were too simple to process the complex task of making a turn and so they decided to simply bash their way through the walls. Because the bone walls weren’t constructed with too much mana to begin with, this mindless tactic actually worked out for them.

Furthermore, the primitive weaponry of the reserves meant that they weren’t able to cleanly kill off the undead and ended up getting gradually pushed back.

As for the other battle fronts, Nine-finger’s forces had almost retreated back to the chapel. One-eye and No.4 weren’t in much better shape either; they were barely holding off the undead at the village entrances.

Truth be told, these devil zombies weren’t that strong by themselves but they vastly outnumbered us. Furthermore, they seemed to have inexplicably entered a frenzied state. Did they get high on drugs or something?

The only silver lining in this cloud was that the devil zombies didn’t manage to coerce much undead into joining them. Other than a smattering of some skeleton archers, all they had were skeleton warriors. There weren’t any monsters like those skeletal horsemen or mages.

One-eye and Big 4 slowly retreated, fighting off the undead as they did so. As for Nine-finger, he was basically at the doorstep of the chapel and only needed to retreat a few steps before reaching our form up point.

By my estimations, these devil zombies were only at the level of zero to one-star. Given their refined weaponry, most of my elites were almost at the level of two-star. Whether it was the bone swords or Mo sabres, they shouldn’t have any problem slicing off their heads.

There were too little skeleton archers to threaten my army so One-eye and Big 4’s retreat didn’t end up costing much. With the three of them back at the chapel, I took a quick head count. All in all, our losses were pretty low. We lost slightly over ten large imps. Thankfully, their equipment were retrieved.

The biggest problem facing us now was No.3’s team. The reserves were only armed with bone clubs which were clearly lacking for this level of battle.

Just this one front alone lost significantly more troops than the other three combined. However, given their equipment, I guess this was an acceptable result.

With the devils all recalled, it was now time to settle the loot. As batch after batch of soul flames was brought before me, I voraciously absorbed them, my mouth extended as wide as I could manage.

Surprisingly, the Grimoire of the Dead didn’t act up but instead, obediently laid at my side. It probably knew how dire our current situation was and that now was not the time to snatch away my food.

As the over three hundred souls rushed into my body, that sensation of being filled up to the brim struck me once more. What followed was that familiar, mesmerizing fragrance which filled the tiny chapel, causing the devils present to tremble slightly.

Some of the more fatigued large imps seemed to have recovered some of their strength just by sniffing my scent. In fact, they seemed to have gotten stronger and faster than before.

As the fragrance grew stronger by the second, the devils began to enter an aggressive frenzy of sorts. The Mo sabre wielders violently swung their long sabres around, taking a few heads along with each swing. The normally defensive shieldbearers began to charge into the zombies, sending anything they collided with, flying. Each charge knocked down at least three to four zombies.

As for the guardsmen, it was if they were on *** drugs. Their offensive power had reached the level of the Mo sabres as they split a zombie in half with every swing of their sword. No longer did they bother with targeting the heads as each of their ferocious swings pretty much guaranteed a kill.

The reserves had gotten a significant boost as well. As their blunt clubs crashed into the heads of the zombies, the sheer impact sent waves rippling through their skulls, disrupting the soul flames within and stunning the zombies as a result. The zombies basically had no chance to counterattack.

TL: Since callmecat (editor/guy in charge of website stuff) is busy on a date with hurricane Irma, the chapters will have to released in draft form. I've done some proofreading but if you notice any glaring mistakes , please contact me via the contact us page.

As always, the most level headed one among my subordinates was No.5. While everyone was overcome by battlelust, it was he who noticed my unusual situation first. Without any hesitation, he immediately ordered the other henchmen to send over the next batch of soul flames.

While all this was happening, I was in an enthralled state and thus couldn't pay any attention to my surroundings. However, after all this time in hell, consuming souls had become an instinctual ability. Even without my consciousness piloting my body, my mouth knew exactly when to open up in order to absorb the soul flames being offered to me.

As batch after batch were sent into my mouth, a new change began to emerge in my body. The first was my stature became even more slender, giving it the elegant and alluring silhouette of the world's most beautiful model.

The next change happened atop my forehead. The skin on my forehead began to split open amidst the rapid changes in my body, revealing the signature horn of the devil.

However, it was a single horn unlike the dual horns found in the other head imps. In fact, it's central positioning and outward growth made it more akin to the horns normally found on unicorns.

While my body didn't receive any significant boost in strength, my mana did. As my horn sprouted, the mana in me experienced an explosive increase. From the original 50 units of mana I had when I started evolving, it began to rapidly increase: 51,52,55,61...all the way to 80!

As the mana in my body began to stabilize, the changes in my body gradually stopped as well. My second evolution was finally complete!

But just when I thought that things had settled down, the ground began to shake and it wasn't some minor tremor either. The earth shook as if it was trying to tear itself apart, sending shockwaves throughout the village that not only destabilized us but the undead as well.

It had gotten to the point where some of the skeletons began to shatter under the violent rumblings of the earth. The sounds of knees falling to the ground echoed throughout the battlefield as zombies and devils alike began to fall to the ground.

What's up with this earthquake? This brother just had a simple evolution, is there a need to create such a grand display for me? It's a fricking earthquake after all! Not just some random party popper...it is an honest to goodness earthquake.

10 seconds later, the earthquake was still going strong although it began to gradually slow down. However, just as I thought that the earth was finally going to calm down, it sent me another bolt from the blue.

A thunderous crackle raced across the horizon as a colossal wave of energy began emitting from the ground up. The immense shockwaves rolled across the village like an invisible tsunami, knocking aside any large object in its path.

The already dilapidated chapel collapsed under this immense pressure, followed closely by the neighboring houses collapsing in a concentric pattern radiating outwards. Soon, the entire village was covered in what looked like an avalanche of dust.

It was at this moment, that the earth was torn asunder by a rounded, bone-li ke structure. As the earth and debris were flung into the air, more and more of the mysterious structure revealed itself. It was a giant skull similar to the one I saw on that stone tablet.

It had a 10 meter diameter at its widest point and had an exposed height of 5 meters where only the portions above the base of its nose were visible.

As my eyes drifted upwards along the towering skull, something immediately caught my eye; it had the same horizontal cyclopic eye as that skull on that tablet! Right on its forehead was a hole that resembled an eye socket with a horizontal line drawn across the black abyss within.

That was the first thought that raced across my mind as I recalled the words on that tablet. Wasn't this the same skull I saw on that tablet?!

A second later, mournful wails began to echo from the black abyss within the skull's eye sockets. My eyes narrowed as I focused on the bottomless abyss and caught what looked like a single phantasmal human face tunnelling out from the black hole.

Another popped up in the corner of my and then another...and another. The wispy faces multiplied exponentially in a second filling the otherwise black eye holes with a field of wispy white apparitions.

It was a monstrous ghost formed from an amalgamation of several ghosts. Its body sprouted a multitude of heads and hands, each representing its constituent ghost in a ghastly display of unity.

However, just as I was about to give up, the ghosts circled harmlessly around me and flew straight at the undead. What greeted me next was an even more surprising sight, the undead started fleeing from the oncoming ghosts! If it wasn't for their ghoulish appearance, I would've mistaken them for living breathing creatures who knew how to feel fear.

In a short span of time, the undead surrounding us had mostly scattered to the winds. Those who didn't, were swiftly killed by the ghosts.

The ghosts had a strange method of dealing with these undead. They would hover around the target undead for a couple of seconds before reaching into their eye sockets with their incorporeal hands. A second later, they would withdraw their hands with the undead's soul flames in tow!

However, instead of consuming the extracted soul flames, they merely tossed it aside. The strangeness didn't end there either; instead of falling to the ground, the soul flames would continue to hover around the ghosts as they continued on to the next undead.

While the majority of the undead chose to flee, some would try to fight back. However, these low level undead were naturally not a match for these ghosts. They only had physical attacks and as such, couldn't damage the incorporeal bodies of the ghosts.

Having seen the futility of their attacks, they attempted to run away but it was too late. In the few seconds it took for them to attack and turn around, the ghosts were able to harvest their soul flames, killing them…

As the hundreds of ghosts plowed through the battlefield, the undead numbers were quickly reduced to nothing. With the village now empty of undead, the ghosts proceeded on to chase down the survivors.

"Mas...Master...what should we do now?" No.5 asked me with a silly look on his face. However, this time, he wasn't alone; I had that same look on my face as well.

After sending off No.5, I immediately rushed to check on Mo Ci. That skull appeared right above the chapel's cellar, does that mean that Mo Ci...damn it, I hope she didn't run into them...

"Are you guys alright?" To think that these two were still alive and even landed up on top of the Prison of the Dead. Was it just sheer luck?

I immediately ordered my subordinates to help them down from the skull but just as I did so, I suddenly noticed that one of them was hugging a devil egg.

I had originally intended for them to simply jump down while we tried to catch them, after all the skull was only 5 meters tall and this wasn't enough to kill a large imp. However, after seeing their traumatized expressions and the devil egg, I changed my mind.

Due to the lack of ladders, I ordered them my imps to form a devil stairway. The plan was to get the egg to safety first before helping the two attendants down from the skull. However, I was slightly worried about handing this over to my brutish subordinates and so I decided to call over No.5; the clever scamp was the perfect candidate for this delicate task.

As I wrapped my arms around it in an embrace, my gaze was immediately drawn to the reddish-black tattoos running across the entirety of the egg in a flowery pattern. I had never seen these patterns before but one thing was certain: this was an egg unlike any other I've seen before.

In fact, it was probably of a much higher level than the ones I saw in the Blood Sea. After all, those eggs were a lot smaller than the football-sized egg currently resting in my arms.

Despite its size, the egg didn't feel heavy in my arms at all. It even had a warm feeling to it that reminded more of a baby than an egg. As for why it was so, I had no idea.

Since there's no way for me to find out either, I decided to leave the matter of this miraculous egg for another day and instead shifted my attention back to Mo Ci's situation.

By now, the two attendants had already been rescued and along with them, a shrivelled up corpse was brought before me. This ancient corpse...don't tell me it's…

In the face of my cold questioning face, the two attendants began to tremble uncontrollably as they stood there not daring to even move a finger, their eyes reflecting their barely hidden fear.

It was said that some devils were sensitive towards emotional changes and these two were probably a part of these devils. When I had questioned them, they must have sensed that I was ready to punish them. Of course, this was only if they had done something wrong.

"When...when she laid that egg...her body began to lose all signs of life..." The attendant who had handed over the egg replied, her fingers waving about as she drew out the scenario then.

However, her ability to express herself was limited and despite her best attempts at depicting the situation, I garnered nothing useful from it. On the other hand, her words had given me enough clues for me to guess what happened to her.

In the midst of laying that egg, she suddenly ran out of energy. Thankfully, there were still some left over soul flames in the cellar and so they immediately fed them to her. Unfortunately, this still wasn't enough to ensure the successful delivery of the egg. It had stopped right at the precipice of a successful delivery.

Truth be told, Mo Ci could've changed her mind at this point. Unlike humans, devils were able to abort the entire process just by getting someone else to destroy the egg before it left their womb. The nutrients from the broken egg will then flow back into the mother.

While this wouldn't strengthen her by much, it would at least save her life. However, Mo Ci chose not to do so. Instead of saving her own life, she chose to walk down the suicidal path of laying that egg. The price of her doing so was her life force.

As for why those two ended up atop the Prison of the Dead...they had no idea as well. Judging from their recounting, the skull had basically appeared right below them and protected them with a mysterious force as the skull tunnelled upwards.

By now, One-eye had already finished counting the losses but instead of reporting them to me right away, he confronted them about their failure. His natural-born thuggish nature reared its ugly head once more as just one question from him sent the two cowering in fear on the ground, like sheep to the slaughter.

"That's enough One-eye. There's no need to blame them any further. After all, they have no obligation to serve as cattle for her."

To him, these ordinary devils were nothing more than food but I knew that given the selfish nature of devils, it was impossible to expect them to sacrifice themselves without a good reason.

Even those subordinates who died protecting me, No.1 , No.2 , No.4 and Big 1, had a reason to die for me. As for what that reason is...it's obvious without me saying.

So we've finally fallen below the 400 threshold...looks like there's no more time to waste. Inspecting my new skills can wait for another day, the most pressing issue now is to leave this place.

"I'm not sure if those strange ghosts will return but since the Prison of the Dead has emerged, we might as well make use of this opportunity to leave the Land of the Dead."

( The Land of the Dead was a world filled with death and as such, the birth of a new life was a momentous event for this world. This is why that egg being laid was considered the highest level of offering one could offer to this world.

The reason why she had difficulty delivering the egg was because its level was simply too high for Mo Ci. She was merely a large imp and definitely couldn't bear the burden of a high level devil being born.

As for why that egg was so high level, it was because Mo Ke had given her too much souls. This caused the egg to naturally evolve while it was still in her womb. This was also why she needed that much food during her pregnancy.

The entrance to the Prison of the Dead laid within the black abyss in the eye socket of the giant skull. It was a relatively large entrance that allowed even the tallest imp among us, No.3, to pass through with ease.

The only problem was that it was too high up in the air and so I had to use my bone walls to create a makeshift stairways for the devils.

With the stairway completed, it was time for us to leave. However, what greeted me as I turned around to give out the order was a bunch of idiots staring blankly at me. Even the female devils were a part of this silly spectacle.

"Not at all. It's just that Master's body has gotten even more beautiful." No. 5 replied in his usual ingratiating tone. "At this rate, no one will be able to resist the charms of Master."

"Bastard!" One-eye swiftly stepped in and halted his advance with a swift kick to his shoulders. "Who gave you permission to approach the Master?"

"Big Brother...I...I…" Having received a withering glare from One-eye, he immediately shut his mouth up, not daring to speak anymore.

"That's enough! No more arguing!" Their chaotic behaviour had ticked me off once more. I pointed at the entranceway and shouted : "Get in. All of you, get in!"

I got some of the smarter imps to act as a forward scout into the Prison of the Dead. Once their safety was confirmed, I finally gave out the order to march off.

As One-eye and No.5 led the army through the eye socket, I made use of this time to inspect my powers. Each time I evolved, I would automatically learn some new spells. This evolution was no different either.

Fireball: This is a pretty common spell but it is significantly stronger than my darkness arrows. It cost me 5 units of mana to cast it and it's also worth noting that this spell can be charged up.

Firewall: Its shape is similar to the bone wall and varied with the amount of mana spent on it. The more mana spent, the stronger than flames and the larger the wall.

Shadow Guardian: Unlike the other two spells, this belonged in the category of innate abilities instead. In order for it work, I have to activate it beforehand. Activating it costs 10 units of mana at which point it will consume 1 unit of mana every 10 seconds.

Its effect was to give my shadow a degree of autonomy. Once activated, my shadow would attack only those with hostile intentions towards me. This included both the living and the dead.

In short, Shadow Guardian allows my shadow to come to life temporarily in order to protect me. Its weakness was that it must maintain a connection with my body. This meant that it couldn't just leave my side.

An important note has to be made that summoning the undead wasn't something you could do out of thin air. It requires the correct medium and environment to do so.

For example, Summon Wraith is best used in an area where there has been a lot of deaths like a graveyard. Summon Skeleton is the same as well; a graveyard or a battlefield suited this spell the best.

Furthermore, without the requisite corpse acting as a medium, summoning an undead would require much more mana and even stood the chance of failing.

(Summoning an undead without the required corpse is impossible. When one tried to do so, the spell would open a dimensional link to Gehenna and transfer a corpse from there. As such, the spell then turns into a dimensional spell which requires a tremendous amount of mana.)

Because the devils didn't know how to draw a bow...wait, that's not true, it's not that they didn't know how to do so, it was simply that I wasn't able to create a suitable bow for them.

Sigh, those days where we had no ranged capabilities really sucked...thankfully, those days would soon come to an end. With Summon Skeletal Archers, I'll be able to create an archer squadron which would allow us to initiate the battle with a volley of arrows.

Wraiths were a two-star undead that specialized in unconventional tactics. They didn't possess much combat strength by themselves but had the distinct advantage of being immune to physical attacks as long as they didn't initiate an attack themselves.

Of course, this immunity came with a corresponding weakness as well. The world is a fair place after all. Wraiths took twice the amount of damage from magical attacks which means that magical fire attacks inflicted at least three times the amount of damage…

His face was genderless but given his ugly mug, he was probably a male wraith. My new wraith came dressed in a set of tattered prisoner clothes and even had the skinhead to go with it. As for his body, he had an average build that was neither muscular or slender and was missing the defining feature of a female, boobs...you can basically conclude that he is a male.

Having spent 50 units of mana, I didn't have much mana left and so I decided to delay summoning any archers. After all, if it failed, I would've wasted a ton of mana. Rather than take that risk, it made more sense to focus on the task at hand first.

Without any instructions, he would immediately fly back to my side once he found out that I was no longer by his side. Usually, he maintained a two to three meter distance from me.

With One-eye, Nine-finger and No.5 organizing the migration, No.3 and Big 4 were the only named devils accompanying me. As they stood by my side as usual, they would throw a cautionary glance at the wraith from time to time and adopt an alert stance.

"Master...what's up with this guy?" No.3 pointed at the wraith shadowing me with a confused expression. "Will it attack us?"

"Attack me? No way." I chuckled. "This guy was summoned by me and while I still don't know much about him, I'm absolutely sure that he won't attack me. Oh right, I haven't given him a name yet."

The wraith seemed to have taken offense to his pointing and immediately set about getting his revenge. He began to circle around No.3 and would elongate his body into a snake-like form before turning back into his original form. While he did this, he would distort his face into various expressions in what looked like an attempt at scaring No.3.

"Shoo...don't come near me!" Obviously, he didn't take too well to the wraith's actions. To be fair, anyone would be uncomfortable around a creature they didn't understand and couldn't counter.

No.3 would constantly try to shoo the bald wraith away as he guarded me; being teased must've ruffled his feathers significantly. However, this seemed to have the opposite effect on the wraith as instead of being chased away, he instead closed in further on No.3 and intensified his teasing causing No.3 to fly into a rage.

"Scram, scram!" No.3 frantically waved his long sword around as he tried to hack at the incorporeal wraith. Unfortunately for him, these attacks merely passed through the wraith.

In that case, I'll just call him Vick. While I haven't watched a lot of Boonie B**rs, the sight of that potato elegantly eating a bunch of buns for breakfast was really...sigh, how nostalgic.[1] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boonie_Bears)

The Prison of the Dead wasn't as dark as I had initially expected. While there wasn't a source of illumination, I was still able to make out my surroundings very clearly as if it was daytime.

In front of us was a single stairway leading down. As this was the only route available, I wasn't worried about getting lost and casually followed the army of devils in front of me as I hugged the devil egg and my grimoire. Beside me were my two bodyguards, No.3 and Big 4, and the new addition to our party, Vick.

It was a straight stairway that seemed to stretch on endlessly as we continued downwards. Finally after an unknown amount of time, the stairway came to an end and what greeted us was an area made entirely out of bones.

The ground itself was made of a bone-like material. At least that was what I thought it was. The feeling I got when I stepped on it was very similar to the sensation of stepping on bones.

The bone floor was pretty similar to those roads on Earth which were created by road rollers. As for the walls, they were made of bones and created a 20 meter wide hallway.

At the end of this hallway of bones, we came upon a crossroads with a couple of identical bone hallways flanking us. Both of them had a ceiling that was roughly 20 meters above the ground and had completely blocked off any vertical movement. This must be a maze!

As I stood there in a daze, the rest of my subordinates begun streaming in. As they looked at the maze before them, their faces betrayed a variety of emotions.

I led the army forward and at the same time got Vick to try and pass through the walls. Initially, he didn't understand what I was saying and merely circled around me, causing me no small deal of frustration.

Thankfully, I wasn't the only one who felt that way. After a few revolutions, Big 4 finally got sick of his circling and tried to explain my intentions to Vick. He walked up to the wall and rammed the wall lightly with his shoulders as if to say "This is what you're supposed to do."

Amused by his actions, Vick tried to mimic his actions by ramming into the wall with his shoulders. Unfortunately, this didn't cause the results I wanted. The bone wall blocked out the wraith's innate ability to pass through walls.

As I continued my research into the quirks of this place, the last thing I expected was to meet another ghost at the turn of a corner. Due to Vick's lack of training, he didn't understand a lot of my instructions and thus couldn't function as proper scout. As a result, the duty of scouting fell onto One-eye.

As soon as those words left his mouth, the scouts let out a surprised cry closely followed by Nine-finger's panicked wailing: "Master, save us quick! These guys are too strong...ahh...spare me…"

The 60 guardsmen led by One-eye were still able to maintain some semblance of order but the 100 supporting reserves were in complete disarray. Scattered around the floor were several reserves pinned to the floor by bone spears.

All of these spears had been targeted at the fatal spots of the devils such as their hearts, heads, throats etc. As such, most of these pinned devils were dead or at the very least gravely wounded and would die without immediate aid.

The first volley of bone spears had caused a total of 10 imps to die on our side. Of these 10, only 2 were guardsmen. They were the two unlucky souls who couldn't react in time to the sneak attack and had died with a javelin through their brains. The rest of the guardsmen were able to harmlessly deflect the bone spears sent their way.

The reserves weren't that fortunate however. They had no bone shields and given that they were merely 50 meters away from the enemy, they could only dodge to the left and right of this narrow hallway.

They resemble the usual skeleton warriors we've met so far with only a level variation in strength. Their one defining feature was the weapon they used, or should I say weapons. They not only wielded a long spear but also carried three javelins on their backs.

There were at least 20 of them within the undead ranks and all of them had another bone javelin ready in here. Judging from their stance, a second wave of javelins was about to come.

As the second volley left their hands, I immediately conjured up a bone wall. The mana coursed through my veins as I hastily channelled whatever I could into the spell. Within a mere second, the bone wall had risen to an impressive height of 10 meters.

The hastily erected wall soaked up all the incoming javelins like a sponge. While they weren't able to pass through my wall, they managed to pierce through it before finally losing their velocity.

With the second volley taken care of, I immediately cancelled the wall causing the 20 javelins to fall harmlessly onto the ground. There was only one volley left…

Upon seeing my bone wall crumble into nothingness, the javelineers prepared to launch their last volley. With their javelins in hand, they broke into a running charge before hurling them at us.

With the added momentum behind the javelins, I knew that this wall needed to be stronger than the last. Thankfully, I had already prepared my second bone wall before the javelins had even left their bony hands. With that additional time to channel my spell, I managed to erect a sturdier wall that successful blocked them all.

"Men, charge!" The moment my second bone wall crumbled, One-eye led the charge at the ammoless javelineers. As expected, without their ranged weapons, they whipped out their Long spears and met our charge head on.

While my 58 guardsmen had a shorter range than them, their shields and numbers more than made up for this. With nearly a three to ratio one, we swiftly wiped them out.

All in all, we lost 10 imps and all of these were from the first volley. The subsequent volleys were blocked by me and so there were no further casualties.

According to his explanation, some of these skeletons were originally hanging off the side of the walls harmlessly while the rest laid on the ground without any traces of soul flame in them.

He assumed they were dead but decided on the more cautious route of scouting them out first. Who knew that these skeletons would suddenly come to life and attack them before the scouts were even dispatched.

Back in the Land of the Dead, the weapons wielded by the undead were extremely simplistic and worn out. For the most part, they were even worse than the bone clubs we had. However, these javelins were slightly different; their penetration power and ranged capabilities had piqued my interest.

And so, I had No.5 fetch a javelin for me. Who knew that this potato would, in a moment of curiosity, try to test out its tensile strength and actually break it in half....

"Mas...Master…"He looked down at the broken javelin and stammered with an expression that looked like he was on the verge of crying: "Master...I didn't mean to...it's...it's just too fragile."

Without even waiting for my reply, he bent down and picked up another javelin. With a slight application of force, the javelin broke in half once more.

Knowing how weak he was, it probably wasn't his fault. There were a lot of large imps who were stronger than him and so if the javelin couldn't even withstand his strength, it must've been really fragile. After all, the only reason why he was a lieutenant in my army was because of his long service.

If that's the case, the only logical explanation for their penetrating power was that they only worked for those skeletal javelineers.

Damn...these javelins could've solved our lack of ranged weapons. To think that even in death, they wanted to deny us this bit of benefit...how much they must've hated us.

Navigating this maze was truly a pain in the butt. One could easily get lost in its winding tunnels if they weren't paying attention. As such, I tried my best to stick to a straight line. If we absolutely had to make a turn, I would always choose the right side.

Truth be told, the easiest way to navigate through a maze was to literally walk in a straight line, knocking down any walls one encountered on the way.

This aggressive style of navigation was naturally known to me as well. I had even ordered my subordinates to test it out but after bashing at the bone wall for a period of time, we gave up. Despite our best efforts, we couldn't even leave a scratch on its bony white surface.

And so, we continued our aimless wandering for another hour or so at which point we heard several strange cries coming from the hallway in front of us. Amidst these strange cries were the sounds of an ongoing battle.

As we got closer to the source, I could make out two distinct cries. One resembled the chittering of a mouse while the other resembled a canine howling. Is this the famous "rodent-nabbing dog being nosey"? Of course not, it's just my imagination running wild again. [1]

(Note: It's taken from a phrase which roughly translates as "a dog catches a mouse, deciding to be a busybody". The origin behind this is that a cat is in charge of catching mice while the dog is in charge of guarding the house. And so, a dog who catches a mouse is nothing but a busybody.)

Having learnt from the previous ambush, I decided to send out a scout the moment I heard that strange cry. I gave No.5 and Vick a quick glance before quickly deciding on No.5. He was our most experienced scout after all.

In comparison, Vick had the intelligence level of an idiot and hadn't undergone any training.In fact, he wasn't even able to talk. A job so full of prospects definitely isn't a good fit for Vick.

No.5 being the lazy bum that he was, was reluctant at first but after receiving a kick and a glare from me, he obediently went about his duties. As he left, he still had a grin on his face as if he wanted to be kicked.

"Errr...it seems like the Abbadon Rodents and hellhounds are having a turf war." Given that he had never seen either of them before, that pause must've been him searching through his inherited memories.

"Abbadon Rodents and hellhounds?" One-eye began to search through his memories as well before continuing: "Shouldn't those ratmen be in Abbadon? And aren't those hellhounds supposed to be guarding Purgatory? What are they doing here?"

To every devil, their inherited memories were more akin to books than memories. If you didn't flip through this book, you wouldn't know about the information stored within. Furthermore, each devil had a different set of memories. Take me for example, my inherited memories were extremely little. Compared to the other devils, it was pretty much nil.

"Alright, let's go have a look." I said, the excitement barely contained within my voice; to someone like me who had no memories of these species, they were extremely fascinating.

The Abbadon Rodents were a bipedal rodent that surprisingly didn't have the chubby exterior of a house mouse. Instead, they had a lean cut body which stood at around 1.5 meters tall. Based on their appearance alone, they seemed to be at the level of one-star.

Facing off against them were the hellhounds. They were roughly 1.2 to 1.3 meters tall and resembled a large black dog. Their combat level was one-star as well.

Judging by the 50 over corpses lying around the raging battlefield, they must've been fighting since a while ago. Of these 50, a large portion of them were hellhounds.

While the hellhounds had a slight strength advantage over the rodents, the rodents had a vast numerical advantage over the dogs. Just from a glance alone, I managed to count up to 200 rodents.

The Abbadon rodents' claws weren't particularly sharp but their fangs were deadly. On top of being as sharp as a razor, they contained a toxin as well. While this toxin wasn't enough to kill the physically strong hellhounds, it was still able to weaken them significantly. One bite was enough to cause their limbs to go soft.

However, if one were to assume that the hellhounds were weak just based on this, they would be making a grave mistake. The dogs not only had a set of razor sharp claws but also had a bite force that could crush the bones of the rodents easily. Furthermore, they were able to channel their rage into a breath of fire.

If they had equal numbers, the ones on the losing end would be those rodents instead. However, that "if" never came to pass. The numerical difference was simply too large and it was only a matter of time before the dogs lost.

"Master, should we help them?" Nine-finger pointed at the two sides before continuing with a slight stammer: "Isn't this battle a little too fierce?"

"Err...how about those giant dogs." Feeling the pressure of his big brother's gaze, Nine-finger immediately put on his ingratiating smile before throwing out a random answer.

"But the Abbadon rodents are winning right now." No.5 pulled his eyes away from the battlefield and said: "Let's help the giant rats."

"I feel that we should help the hellhounds as well. After all, they are fellow creatures from Purgatory." No.3 chipped in before turning around to Big 4: "Big 4, what do you think?"

"You are all wrong." One-eye shook his head dismissively before saying: "We shouldn't help either side but instead let them fight it out. Once they are exhausted, we swoop in and turn them both into mincemeat."

"Well, it doesn't matter what we say in the end, it's Master who will make the final decision." That conniving potato...he knew that his suggestion had garnered zero support and decided to dump the problem onto me.

While my devils all had an evil personality, they had one thing going for them, and that was their obedience. As long as it was an order given by me, they will follow it to the letter.

"Shieldbearers advance, sabre wielders take up position behind them. Guardsmen, you're on the flanks." As I gave out the familiar orders, I prepared my magic as well.

As my devils slowly advanced, I stepped atop my rising bone wall and created a makeshift vantage point over the entire battlefield. With the grimoire and egg secured by my left hand, I raised my remaining arm and pointed it at the densest point in the ratmen crowd. Target: locked on!

①High level devils are only able to give birth to high level devils. As for low level devils, if they are fed a large amount of energy during their pregnancy and also possess an original sin, the resultant egg might turn into a high level devil egg with a primal high level devil inside it.

②If the fetus is fed more energy while they are in their eggshells, this energy will be stored. Once this energy reaches a certain threshold, the fetus will have a chance of evolving. However, this evolution only allows them to reach a maximum of four-star. If the energy stored is too much for the fetus to bear, it will automatically purge the excess energy. If it's unable to do so, the fetus will most likely die.

①：Strictly speaking, high level devils are devils who possess a surname. For example, infant illusion demons, infant devils, infant flame demons and other five-star devils are considered high level devils. However, not all high level devils are at or above the level of five-star. Some high level devils are only in the primal stage and thus are below the level of five-star.

②：The primal stage refers to the newborn state of a high level devil with a surname. Devils in this stage have a power level of one-star to four-star. Five-star is the start of the infant stage.

(Simply put, if a devil has been fed enough energy and also possess an original sin, there's a high chance that the inborn grade of the devil egg will be increased. Once that egg has been delivered, feeding it energy will merely increases its level and not the grade.)

Casting a fireball requires five seconds of channeling and allows for more mana to be added to the spell even after these five seconds.

This was exactly what I did as my subordinates began charging into the ratmen. The flames in my hand roared as the mana gradually flowed out of my hands and into the swirling ball of flames in hands. With every bit of mana I put in, the flames got that much bigger and hotter.

By the time the shieldbearers made contact with the ratmen, the crackling of the flames had gotten to the point where it drowned out the sounds of battle and the heat itself warped my field of vision.

This 1 meter wide miniature sun floated ominously in my hand as I looked down at my prey. Despite the scorching heat of the giant fireball, its flames didn't hurt me one bit as the fiery wisps playfully licked at my skin.

As the giant fireball collided with a ratman, it engulfed the poor rodent, reducing him to cinders in a split second before exploding in a violent conflagration of excessive energy. Any ratman near the epicenter was seriously burned with some of them losing a limb or two to the residual flames from the explosion.

This deadly display of fireworks cost me an astonishing 15 units and while it was worth every unit of mana I spent, this spell wasn't something I could use regularly.

In the midst of an ongoing battle, No.3 and Big 4 would usually stay by my side. As such, the only other noteworthy subordinate left was the two-star wraith, Vick.

However, I soon regretted this decision as his stupidity came back to annoy me once more. The numbskull passed through my back with a whoosh and floated dumbly in front of me, looking at me with a pair innocent fish-eyes. Judging from his reaction, he probably didn't understand a thing after the word "Vick".

"Screw you, don't try to act cute with that ugly mug of yours. I told you to fight! Get it? FIGHT. Do you know how to fight?!" I pointed a trembling finger at the ongoing battle and shouted :" Go help them!"

This time, he seemed to have gotten the message from my angry howling. He turned towards the direction I pointed in and paused for a second before eerily floating down to enter the battlefield.

However, that little annoyance merely entered the battlefield and didn't actually attack anyone. Instead, he floated around the battlefield, teasing and pranking the participants like a mischievous little dog who loved to stir up trouble.

On the other hand, the ratmen had no experience with Vick and his harmless pranks. After a round of his annoying antics, a ratman finally snapped. He lunged at the wispy annoyance and viciously bit down.

His body lurched forward as the expected resistance of flesh never came, his mouth passing harmlessly through Vick, bringing his body along with it as his teeth clamped down upon each other. This unexpected development left the ratmen stunned in shock. He finally understood what sort of existence he was dealing with.

While Vick was a peaceful person most of the time, this didn't mean that he won't get angry. Just the opposite, people like him tend to be extraordinarily wrathful when angered.

Vick floated to the back of that ratmen the very next moment and with a ruthless rake of his hands, dug out a chunk of bloody rat meat.

The rodent screamed in pain as he immediately swiped back at the wraith. But no matter how he clawed or bit, they would pass through the now incorporeal Vick.

As the micro-battle continued between the two, the rodent managed to score a couple of hits on Vick but given his strength, the hits were harmlessly soaked up by the wraith as if he was attacking a body of water instead. After that last attack, Vick's anger had mostly calmed down.

"Chit chit chit chit…" His maddened chittering filled the air as his futile attacks began to drive him to the brink of mental collapse.

All this while, Vick merely stood by passively allowing the rodent to attack him as he wished while he watched with a taunting look on his face. From time to time, he would float around and taunt the rat even further.

Up till now, the devil's well-practised tactics and equipment had aided their happenstance allies, the hellhounds, greatly. In a mere minute, the Mo sabre wielders had slaughtered over 10 Abaddon rodents.

All this was accomplished behind the stalwart safety of the heavy bone shields wielded by the shieldbearers. With a strength that was unmatched by any other large imp in my army, these shieldbearers formed an impregnable shield against the oncoming ratmen army.

Against this brutish display of strength, the naturally weaker rodents were steadily pushed back by the advancing shield wall and the deadly thrusts of our sabres. They tried multiple times to break through our defensive line only to be repelled by the long ranged sabres.

Some of the rodents had the clever idea of trying to flank the shieldbearers but unfortunately for them, all that awaited them at our flanks were the equally deadly guardsmen.

These guardsmen were the elites of my army who had undergone careful grooming by me. If in the near future I'm able to create a sufficient amount of equipment for my army, I would definitely promote these elites to the position of my personal guard where they would enjoy the highest standards of treatment.

With their sword and shield in hand, they fulfilled an all purpose role within this battle. Whether it was on the offense or defense, their formidable combat strength would never disappoint me.

As the rodents charged at them, the guardsmen would meet their charge head on with a quick bash of their shields swiftly followed up by a fatal stab at their now exposed bodies.

With their impressive numbers and tactics, the timid rodents stood no chance against them. Within the short span of two to three minutes, there were already 50 over rodents lying dead on the battlefield.

It was at this moment that the rodent who was being constantly harassed by Vick, gave out an ear-piercing squeal of pain that shattered the already low morale of the rats.

This single squeal opened the floodgates for the collapse of the ratmen army; no matter who it was, devil or ratmen, facing the unknown was always a terrifying prospect.

With such a perfect opportunity laid out before him, One-eye immediately rallied the devils into a thunderous charge. "FOR THE MASTER!"

The combined might of our devils, Vick and the hellhounds and had shattered their army. Their backlines began to flee without any regard for their comrades currently engaged in battle. The ratmen on the frontlines noticed this as well and began to beat a hysterical retreat.

All this while, the maddened squeals of a certain rodent continued to echo in the air, striking terror into the hearts of the rodents. Their battle formation soon crumbled as the fleeing rodents not only left a hole in the formation but also disrupted any rodent who still tried to resist.

I had to admit, this numbskull did a good job today. The fact that we were able to defeat the ratmen so easily was in large part due to the psychological damage he had inflicted.

Nine-finger roared for the army to continue their pursuit. As he did so, his spiked mace would smash any rodent that failed to run away in time. One-eye joined in the chase as well but gave up soon after. The retreating rodents were simply too quick for them.

While I didn't understand their language, I was still able to deduce the meaning from their tone. They warned us against trying any tricks and also inquired about our intentions.

The hellhounds had long since been aware of our appearance and while we were both creatures of Purgatory, the hellhounds didn't feel a shred of kinship with the devils.

If it wasn't for the Abaddon rodents separating us from them, they might've attacked us right from the start. After all, our relation could at best be described as neighbors. Without a strong leader controlling them, the devils and hellhounds would probably hunt each other down on sight.

However, this didn't mean that they were blind to our previous display of aid. Due to our previous assistance, the hellhounds merely adopted a cautious stance instead of attacking us.

After that battle with the Abaddon Rodents, the hellhounds number less than a 100. Even so, they didn't show any intention of retreating even in the face of the devil army several times their size. Instead, they fearlessly bared their claws as they growled menacingly at us.

"I suggest that you get a better understanding of your situation before you growl at us." One-eye readied his shield before aggressively smacking his giant spike mace into the ground.

In his typical display of showboating, he taunted them with his nose pointing at the sky: "If it's a fight you're looking for, we're more than willing to accept."

The hellhounds ignored his provocations and merely stood there, neither retreating or advancing as they maintained their conspicuously defensive formation.

Upon seeing them not take the bait, Nine-finger and One-eye turned towards me with an inquiring gaze in their eyes. Their intentions were clear, they wanted to attack these uncommunicative dogs who they felt were going to be our enemy.

It was at this moment that No.5 stepped in. He interrupted One-eye with a wave of his hand and flashed him a roguish smile before swaggering towards the hellhounds, not caring whether One-eye understood his message or not.

He put on what was, in his opinion, a winning smile and slowly approached the dogs, all the while waving his empty hands to show his peaceful intent.

As he approached them, the hellhounds didn't attack him but simply maintained their vigilant stare. Their inaction seemed to have given No.5 the answer he was looking for. He turned around to face One-eye and Nine-finger and gave them a smug toothy grin.

Just as he was about to pat that dog, the hellhound suddenly opened his mouth, displaying his razor sharp fangs for the world to see before giving him a warning chomp.

As the scorching breath of hot air left the hellhound's mouth and licked No.5's hand, he immediately withdrew it in panic before running away with his tail between his leg. He scampered all the way back to us and cowered behind my legs.

At the side, Nine-finger danced and sang around No.5. While the song was pretty horrible, No. 5 deserved that little bit of punishment.

Based on their low growls, it was clear that they didn't want us to approach them and given their circular formation, they must be protecting something in the middle.

"Master, I feel that we should just wipe them out." He threw them an incensed look as he said so. He must've been really annoyed that his grandstanding was so thoroughly ignored. It was, after all, an insul t to his self-esteem.

"Master, I agree with One-eye as well." As expected of his little brother, he was the first one to declare his support. "They've clearly rejected our attempts at communication, this is a challenge towards us!"

"Is that what you guys are really thinking?" Regarding their little schemes, I had seen through them since the very beginning...bunch of potatoes…

"Sigh, I'll have a look myself." Their pea-brains were basically beyond saving by now. Having said that, I began to approach the hellhounds.

"Master, please reconsider your decision. There might be danger ahead." No. 3 immediately stepped forward to block me with Big 4 joining in the very next second.

"It's fine, the little doggies are all good kids." I calmly weaved through the two imps and continued onwards with a faint smile on my lips. Because the grimoire and egg in my hands were obviously not a weapon, the dogs didn't express much hostile intent as I neared them.

As I slowly closed in on them, the front few hellhounds started sniffing the air before visibly letting down their guard. If I had to hazard a guess, my unique fragrance was at work once more. Soon, they stopped growling and seemed to even welcome me.

I reached out to the nearest hellhound and lightly scratched him on the underside of his chin. As my fingers gently raked through his fur, the hellhound slowly relaxed his mouth and eyes, clearly enjoying my petting.

Seeing their comrade so happy, made the other hellhounds want to approach me as well. Soon they were all leaning in on me with their heads, their longing puppy dog eyes staring right at me.

"You want some attention too?" I gently petted him without waiting for him to reply. Judging from the way he rubbed himself against my hand, he clearly didn't mind that bit of haste.

To them, I was a harmless petting machine. They jostled their way towards me, each of them eager for their turn at being petted. With each rub, they would give out a light woof to express their delight.

As the dogs moved in for their petting session, their formation began to fell apart, revealing what they were previously guarding closely. It was a snowy white puppy...puppy?

She looked like a newborn who had just weaned herself off her mother's milk. She had a lustrous snowy white coat of fur that had a slight purplish sheen on it. Her eyes were a brilliant shade of gold that had the natural beauty of amber. With such an adorable appearance, she would've sent scores of women on Earth, squealing in delight.

At least it would have, if not for the extremely dissatisfied look on her face right now. Don't ask me how I knew that she was upset, all you have to know is that her displeasure could be smelled from a mile away.

"..." Truth be told, I'm starting to feel a little pressured. Ever since that little puppy appeared, the dogs quieted down, Their affectionate behaviour noticeably growing colder as they began to distance themselves from me.

I had intended to recruit these hellhounds which was why I took the initiative to approach them but the appearance of this puppy had thrown my plans into disarray. Perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that she complicated matters.

Ever since the day I was born in the Blood Sea, devils had been inexplicably attracted to me. This was how I recruited One-eye and the now dead, Big 1.

They were both the bosses of their own little troop and were much stronger than me at that time. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that, if they wanted to capture me then, I wouldn't have been able to live as freely as I did now.

Ever since that time, I've been wondering why they offered to serve me. The answer soon revealed itself during my subsequent evolution. My body began to emit a strange fragrance which, in my opinion, was the main reason why they agreed to serve me.

Which means to say that, my body was able to emit a strange scent that was able to mesmerize these devils, or should I say, it was a scent that they loved. It was also this scent that made them treat me like a high level devil.

The white puppy calmly trotted over to me, as she did so, the hellhounds would make way for her, prostrating themselves as they did so. They tilted up their hind legs and lowered their chins with their paws stretched out in front in a pose that reminded me of people paying homage to an emperor.

Coupled with the way the Abbadon Rodents seemed to attack them in a purposeful manner, it was clear for all to see that this puppy had a lofty status within the hellhounds.

As the little puppy got closer, I began to feel slightly suppressed by her aura. I subconsciously gulped, all this while, my brain seemed to want me to retreat. However, I forcefully suppressed this desire. No matter what, I had my own dignity and this dignity wouldn't allow me to retreat in the face of a little puppy.

In order not to be seen as a threat, I summoned a half finished spear and slowly rounded out the already blunt edges. A few seconds later, a tiny toy bone laid in my hands, similar to those toys used by little puppies.

I gave the toy bone a light toss over the white puppy's head. The cute little bone spun around as it arced over the white puppy and landed softly behind her tail. I lowered my back slightly, clapped my hands and said with a gentle smile on my face: "Go on, fetch."

"..." The white puppy ignored the toy and continued trotting up to me and with a gentle tilt of her head, she gave me a look that seemed to scream " Are you an idiot?"...

"Don't act in a way that only an idiot would, aren't you here to negotiate with us?" Even now, her eyes kept saying to me "Retard…"

"You...you can talk?" It had never occurred to me that they were able to talk, in fact, it had never occurred to me that hellhounds had such a subspecies either.

I didn't really take to that kind of woman so I decided to steer the conversation in a different direction, "Err, I'm Mo Ke, what about you?"

"Violet Snow." She had a melodious and slightly mellow voice that was pleasing to the ear. Unfortunately, this pleasing voice was owned by a dominatrix that had an overbearing aura of pressure.

"Violet Snow huh. It's a really nice name." I nodded my head, casually praising her name after which I continued: "Do you mind me asking if you are a boy or a girl?"

Despite our conversation that went nowhere, Violet Snow expressed her intent to join us. Surprisingly, she was only unsociable on the surface.

While she wasn't willing to talk about her background, I vaguely knew that she was no ordinary hellhound. Her unusual white fur and small body coupled with the fact that so many hellhounds served her, all these showed that she couldn't be some kid from an "average household".

As we explored the Prison of the Dead, three hellhounds led the way for us while I walked alongside Violet Snow, my two bodyguards beside me as well. Surrounding us was a ring of hellhounds followed closely behind by my subordinates.

It has been an hour since we met them, during this time, nothing eventful happened except for that potato Nine-finger suddenly interrupting our conversation by shouting: "Master, these Abaddon Rodents aren't enough for us to eat."

At that moment, I felt like I wanted to die from the embarrassment especially when she gave me that "birds of a feather, flock together" look…

When it comes to finding food, there's no way a bunch of newcomers like us could compare to the hellhounds who were basically locals by now. Besides, my imps didn't have a nose as sensitive as those doggies.

And so an hour passes without us finding any food. By now, my subordinates were a little restless and began throwing the hellhounds a strange and nefarious look.

Having had previous interactions with her, I was, to some degree, familiar with her personality. She had a cold personality or should I say, she wasn't willing to interact with people. She constantly had that cold, displeased look on her face as if someone owed her a million dollars.

Even so, I still felt that she was only unsociable on the surface, although her acid tongue ended up causing me trouble from time to time.

After another few minutes of walking, I discovered some fur scattered around the bony floor in front of us. It was a grayish black fur which resembled those the rodents had.

Just by looking at the scene, I could tell that there had been a battle here, it was just that the scars of battle had been cleaned up. Despite the lack of bloodshed and corpses left behind, I could vaguely tell that this battle had happened recently.

"These belong to the Abbadon Rodent?" After inspecting the fur that No.5 brought back, that was the conclusion I had to come. Only those ratmen had such a dirty looking fur.

"It's them." She gave me a curt reply along with her usual cold stare before ignoring me once more as if another word would've harmed her in some way.

"How would I know of such a thing?" She answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "It's not like I took a walk in their home before."

"I…" God damn it! You don't even know their numbers and yet you boldly brought us to their nest to kill them?! Are you sure you aren't trying to get yourself killed?

What's with that disdainful look...this isn't being scared..it's called not having any assurance. How is charging into an enemy's base without any information, not a suicidal move?!

Her determined attitude left me stuck between a rock and a hard place. I didn't want to face this unknown threat and yet I didn't want to leave this adorable puppy to die. It was truly a love hate relationship that I had with her. Since I'm not willing to let her go in alone, I could only sigh in resignation as I continued following her.

As those words left her mouth, a bunch of ratmen stuck out their ugly heads from the corner ahead. They looked around in what looked like an attempt at stealth. Their eyes widened in shock a second later as their eyes peered in our direction. The poor sod probably didn't expect to encounter an enemy on a routine patrol.

Bone spear was a fast casting spell that only required a second of prep before I could toss it. Furthermore, it was even faster than my darkness arrow and fireball, making it perfect for such a sneak attack.

"Chit chit…" With his dying breath, he gave out a pained squeak that definitely attracted the attention of any nearby kinsman.

"Well, you definitely can't run away now." She gave me an evil look, the kind where their eyes seemed to be laughing at you. Seems like she's pretty pleased with this development.

"Ah well, I never intended to run away anyway. It's just that I didn't feel too comfortable about fighting an enemy I had no information about." I gave her a shrug as I said so.

Upon receiving the order, my devils immediately took up their positions like a well-oiled machine and within seconds, our formation was ready.

Violet Snow ordered her hellhounds to guard our flanks along with the guardsmen. Having done so, she turned to me and in a rare display of affection, reassured me: " Don't worry, they only number around a thousand. They shouldn't be more than 1200."

"We got here by following the trail of that army of ratmen. Normally, their hunting parties are around 20% to 30% of the total strength of the entire clan. That ratmen army we met was roughly 300 rats strong.

"This means that this clan should have a strength of 1000 to 1500 rats. 1500 is the the absolute maximum, their real numbers shouldn't be this much. Don't forget to count those dead ratmen inside that number as well."

"Besides, I'm not that stupid to challenge them without any assurances. Based on that previous battle, I've noticed that your devils are exceptionally strong. Especially those geared devils, they should be able to handle a number at least three times theirs. With my hellhounds added into the mix, this battle should be a done deal."

While she technically took advantage of us, I still wasn't mad at her. Instead, her exploitative actions merely seemed smart to me. After all, she didn't actually force us to help her, she merely hid some information from us.

During our previous battle, we basically suffered zero losses. While some unlucky guardsmen got infected by their toxin and thus were unable to fight now, their equipment weren't lost. As such, it was just a simple matter of swapping in some reserves.

Furthermore, she was right about my devils being strong. With those refined equipment aiding them, the fangs and toxins of the ratmen shouldn't be able to kill them. In fact, their swords should be able to hack them to death in a slash. These equipment were after all, labors of my love.

As usual, the shieldbearers were at the forefront of the formation, with a heavy slam of their shields, they rooted their bone shields to the ground, forming a shield wall. Under the command of No.5, a number of reserves went up to brace these shields as well.

The ratmen swarmed at the shields in a maddened frenzy that threatened to overwhelm the shieldbearers. Thankfully, the reserves came in to brace the shields in time. It was then that the meat grinder kicked into action.

With a deadly swing and stab of their razor sharp sabres, the rat swarm in front of the wall was quickly thinned out in a gory display of blood and death. Before the majority of the swarm could reach the wall, the sabres would lop off their heads or skewer them in a quick thrust.

Within the ratmen swarm was an exceptionally large, black-furred ratmen. He had an extremely burly physique and was at least 2 meters tall. While he looked extremely powerful, he gave off a sense of clumsiness as well.

to him were a group of 1.8 meter tall ratmen encircling him. They numbered slightly over ten and judging from their defensive stance, that giant ratmen in the middle was probably their boss.

The ratmen boss was busy commanding the swarm in midst of that defensive ring. From his vantage point, he was able to see the deadly effectiveness of our Mo sabres. In just a few seconds, nearly 30 ratmen died before they even had the chance to touch our shield walls.

While they had no information on the geared devils, they were basically long time acquaintances with the hellhounds. Both sides were extremely familiar with the other's tactics. And it was this familiarity that made him decide to attack our flanks.

Truth be told, while these ratmen were one-star, they were probably at the bottom of the one-star rung. They didn't possess many ways to kill their opponents directly. Instead, their main offensive power was their toxin but this required time to kick in. Furthermore, they actually had to bite their opponents in order to spread this toxin.

These two shortcomings were fatal to the Abaddon Rodents as they faced off against the stronger and well-armed devils. With their shields and deadly swords preventing the rats from getting a clear bite in, these devils were their natural nemesis!

Under the orders of the ratmen boss, the ratmen on standby split into two groups, one to attack our left flank and one to attack our right flank.

The lack of mobility was the biggest weakness of the shieldbearers. They couldn't change formations easily and required the cooperation of others to do so. Furthermore, they posed no threat on their own.

The ratmen had over 600 rodents in total versus the 60 guardsmen split between the flanks. Just based on this disparity alone, they had enough members to instantly swarm the defensive line in one charge, throwing the guardsmen into disarray.

While the flanks were aided slightly by the Mo sabres and shieldbearers, they didn't have their fixed, orderly formations backing them up. And so, their sabres didn't create a significant impact.

If it had been my army facing them alone, we would've been in huge trouble by now but thankfully, we had the hellhounds backing us up. As the ratmen swarmed in, they pounced forward to block their charge.

For every ratmen that tried to charge forward, they would be met with the deadly fangs of the hellhounds. With our canine allies holding the line temporarily, the guardsmen were able to reform their ranks.

By now, the reserves had also reinforced their numbers. While they didn't have the deadly bone swords aiding them, their bone clubs were still able to stun the ratmen with a bash to their heads. These defenseless rats were swiftly stabbed to death by the guardsmen.

Now that the guardsmen had stabilized themselves, the battle became much simpler with the hellhounds tying down the ratmen with their relentless bites and the guardsmen swiftly following this up with a slash of their swords.

This quick recovery was in large part due to the hellhounds' timely help. Having had his plans foiled once more by his old rival, the ratman boss was livid.

With the wings now under control, One-eye withdrew the order to have the sabre wielders and shieldbearers participate in the battle at the flanks. He instead ordered them to reform the shield wall and hold positions.

While their ferocity was just as fearless and frenzied as before, they didn't have the brains to back up their brawns. All we had to do was hold positions at our defensive lines and wait for them to attack us.

With the arrival of the reinforcements, the ratman boss bellowed into the air and began to march forward. From the looks of it, he was finally going to join in the battle.

As his gargantuan body marched forward, he shoved the other lesser rats to the side. With another thunderous roar, he rushed at us like the imposing truck which sent me to this world. As he madly careened through the mass of rodents, he knocked his own subordinates to the side without giving them a second look.

This was a disastrous turn of events for the shieldbearers. After all, the charge of over 10 two-star Abaddon Rodents was nothing to scoff at. Especially, since the shieldbearers were only one-star.

While they were the strongest among my large imps and had the stalwart heavy bone shields to back them up. A pure clash of strength like this could be said to be their weak point.

Their strength was the backbone for their formidable defensive power. But on the flip side, if someone came at them with strength greater than their own, this defense would crumble in an instant.

While the rodents weren't known for their brute strength, the disparity in level ensured that even the weakest among the two-star rodents could at least match the shieldbearers. Furthermore, they still had the monstrous ratman boss backing them up, a formidable foe who might even have the strength of a three- star.

The first to reach the shield wall was naturally the ratman boss. His first charge went basically unopposed as his immense strength sent even the two large imps bracing the shield, flying several meters back.

With this breach created by their boss, the two-star rodents directly penetrated our defensive line. The sabre wielders were now like insects who had lost their carapace, without the shieldbearers, they were easy prey for the ratmen. The best they could do now was buy time with their lives.

The shieldbearers were still able to hold off the attacks of the two-star rodents on their own but the sabre wielders didn't have the luxury of a sturdy shield. They were after all, a purely offensive troop designed to rely on the defensive shieldbearers.. As such, all they could do now was attack.

Several Mo sabres stabbed ruthlessly at a single ratman bodyguard but the two-star ratman simply leaped into the air, dodging the spears. Compared to the unwieldy Mo sabres, these weaponless rats had a much easier time maneuvering around even in the thick of this battle.

In fact, this disadvantageous situation was the biggest boon for the ratmen, bringing their innate agility to the forefront of this battle.

Another Mo sabre slashed at a ratman bodyguard. Without any armor protecting him, this sabre definitely had enough penetrating power to kill him. Whether it was the one-star rodents or the two-star rodents, they were all vulnerable to the Mo sabre. This bodyguard was no exception either.

Sensing the impending danger, he nimbly dodged to the right, his body on a collision course with a nearby shieldbearer. Under normal circumstances, the shieldbearer would simply push the rodent back into the sabre. But this expected collision never happened. Instead, at the very last second, that rodent leaped into the air in a death-defying feat of acrobatics.

As the rodent landed gracefully behind the shieldbearer, he immediately kicked the large imp away, snatched the heavy bone shield and braced it against the incoming Mo sabre.

The sabre crashed into the shield with a resounding bang but outside of that, no harm befell the two-star rodent. All that remained of their collision was a tiny scar on the heavy shield's surface.

This last minute improvisation by the ratman had stunned the sabre wielder but he quickly recovered from the surprise and began furiously stabbing at the shield. However, try as he might, the heavy shield bone didn't budge a inch from his rain of spear thrusts.

Like the medieval pikemen on Earth, mobility definitely wasn't the forte of the sabre wielders. In fact, the current situation was in large part due to their short-leggedness. This coupled with the fact that there was only two meters between the imp and the rodent, meant that the sabre wielder was basically a sitting duck for the rodent's charge.

The reserves tried to stop the two-star rodent but their primitive clubs were basically useless against him and they ended up getting hurt for nothing. Soon, the casualties began to climb on our side.

The moment I heard that roar from the ratman boss, I had already begun preparing my spells. Since I wasn't sure what level he was, I decided to play it safe by using my strongest spell, the fireball.

With that much time to channel it, the fireball had reached an impressive diameter of 1 meter. I mentally focused on the ratman boss and hauled the giant ball of flames at the ratman boss.

While I was busy doing so, the ratman boss was preoccupied with my army. He grabbed a nearby large imp and begun using him as a makeshift club. The ratman's strength could only be described as monstrous; with each of his devil club, the air pressure alone was enough to send the devils stumbling back a step or two.

The shieldbearers tried to surround him with their shields but it merely elicited a disdainful snort from the rodent. He gave them a contemptuous sweep of his eyes before casually knocking them away with a swing of his devil club.

With such heavy forces bearing down on the poor devil, his body simply couldn't bear the burden and finally exploded in a gory mess of blood and flesh as his head impacted with the third shieldbearer.

Now that his weapon was destroyed, the ratman boss had to search for a "replacement". But before he could do so, an overbearing heat began to bear down upon him. As he felt the rising heat upon his black fur, he looked up into the air and spotted the giant fireball I tossed towards him.

By the time he had noticed this, the fireball was within meters of him. Dodging it basically impossible now and so he didn't. The ratman boss tossed away the ragged devil club and immediately reached out towards a nearby heavy shield with his right arm.

With a forceful grab, he dragged the shield in front of him, bearer and all, and used it to block the fireball. As expected of the ratman boss, even in a tense situation like this, he managed to keep his cool!

The bone shield shattered instantly upon impact. As the residual shockwave blew past the shattered shield, it careened into its intended target, the ratman boss. He was forcefully sent tumbling backwards, crashing into several devils and rats before finally coming to a stop.

The ratman stood up right away after regaining his balance. Outside of a few singed hairs, the residual force hadn't done much damage to him. He gave his head a forceful shake, dispelling the bout of dizziness from his tumbling before turning towards me. He had traced the fireball's trajectory to my location and as he did so, he let out a wrathful roar.

A second later, a devil "missile" was sent flying towards me courtesy of the ratman boss. The ruthless bastard had grabbed one of the winded devils nearby and tossed him at me.

Thankfully, there was at least 10 meters between me and the ratman boss. Furthermore, my eyes had never left him so upon seeing him turn towards me. I had already prepared to cast my bone wall.

I immediately summoned three walls in his path but these hastily erected walls were no match for the approaching tank. The ratman boss tore through them like paper and continued on as if nothing had happened.

My devils howled into the air as they recklessly tossed themselves into the ratman's path, any semblance of a formation, abandoned to the winds.

However, their brave efforts were all futile. The strength disparity was simply too great for these one-star imps. With a simple kick and punch, the ratman boss sent any obstacle flying away in an instant.

"Master retreat, leave this guy to me!" One-eye roared as he leaped at the ratman with his spiked mace held high. Unfortunately, his usually formidable mace was nothing before the unstoppable momentum of the ratman's charge. In a split second, One-eye was knocked away. Even his sidekick, Nine-finger was sent flying with a simple kick.

No matter who it was, whether it was the one-star imps or the two-star One-eye, none of them stood a chance against the rampaging locomotive known as the ratman boss. It barely took him a second for him to knock aside anyone who got in his way.

A portion of the large imps were so terrified that they lost their will to fight. All they could do was stand there in a daze, dumbly watching as the rodent charged towards me.

No.3 and Big 4 shouted as they rushed out to shield me. From the moment they saw him break into a charge, they had already adopted a vigilant stance. In just a short span of time, the formidable rodent had already knocked aside ten more imps as if they were nothing more than bowling pins.

He had come. After forcing his way through hundreds of my imps, he was now a measly 50 meters away from me. At this distance, I could feel his hatred filled eyes boring into me.

He picked up his pace even further. With just a few more seconds before he reaches me, there's no longer any need for hesitation or caution. He charged, the fury in his eyes growing more oppressive with each step he took.

My heart skipped a beat as the sheer ferocity of his gaze stunned me for a second. Focus! I forcefully suppressed my body's discomfort.

Just as he was about to collide with No.3 and Big 4, I erected my bone walls. Three massive bone walls rose out of the ground in a flurry of bone fragments and dust. Due to the sheer speed of the ratman, I couldn't channel too much mana into these walls thus resulting in the walls being significantly thinner than I would like.

As the bone wall rose up without warning, the ratman boss's feet landed right on top of it, abruptly halting his stride, causing him to trip and nearly fall from the loss of balance. However, the ratman immediately reacted to this by stomping down on the brittle wall, crushing it in an instant before continuing his charge, leaving the bone wall to continue its pointless ascent.

The timing of the bone wall must've also been perfect as the ratman's pacing had been significantly disrupted by that minor trip. As he struggled to maintain his furious speed, he staggered a few steps before finally giving up and adopting a more primitive beastlike stance.

Having adopted a beastial charge, his ferocity rose even further. He tore through the remaining two bone walls as if they were paper and continued his charge unhindered.

No. 3 and Big 4 roared as he dashed to meet the ratman head on. Unfortunately, their lack of an arm made them that much weaker than One-eye. With a slight acceleration on his part, the ratman easily sent them flying.

At this very moment, the only person who could protect me was the snow white puppy standing beside me. However, there's no way this newborn puppy could possibly stand up to this ferocious charge.

In the heat of the moment, I had almost forgotten that I still had one more trump card to play. As I looked at the silent grimoire, I pinned my last hopes on it and tossed it at the rat in what was my version of the hail mary throw.

Who knew that this bastard would immediately betray my hopes. After flying for a mere two meters, it immediately flew back at me. It even flew above me, to a height where I couldn't reach even if I jumped!

As I hastily backpedalled, my right arm hugging the devil egg still, I yanked on the bone chain connected to my left arm, hoping that it would be enough to drag that little bastard back down. However, the grimoire stubbornly refused to come down, leaving me in an awkward situation.

As all these happened, the ratman was still charging towards me. Without any other option left, I decided to take a gamble and activated my untested ability ----Shadow Guardian.

By now, I could see the whites of the ratman's eyes. His mouth widened as if he was going to swallow me whole and howled with that rancid breath of his.

The shadow guardian swiftly elongated itself and coiled itself around the ratman like a giant python. With a raise of his shadowy scythe-like hands, he hacked ruthlessly at the ratman's neck. However, this was merely a minor obstacle to the ratman.

He dove at me head and claws first. Up close, I finally felt the brunt of his oppressive, murderous aura. As my head blanked out in fright, I fell on my butt and dumbly stared at the impending doom, any thoughts of crawling away, totally forgotten.

Is this the end? If there's no other surprises, I'm definitely dying the very next second. No! I must hold on even if it's just for one more second.

As the shadowy figure stirred from my shadow, it turned into a serpentine figure once more and coiled around the ratman. I knew the result would probably be the same. The shadow guardian is just not able to match this rat so all this is just a futile endeavor. All it could do was buy me one extra second of life.

I'm going to die again...there's no one left to save me this time...by the way, why aren't I dead yet? It's already been several seconds.

Wait...something seems off. Why isn't he killing me. It certainly looks like he's trying, his claws are shaking from his tremendous effort right now but something seems to be holding him back.

Violet Snow's deadpan voice rang out beside my legs. As I lowered my eyes to look at her, I caught a glance of the mysterious force holding back the rat.

My eyes widened in disbelief as I gazed at the harmless-looking puppy before me. She actually managed to bind this Boss-level monster.

The ratman boss continued with his violent struggling and finally after a few more seconds, the ice began to crack as he pulled out his bound legs. At the same time, the shadow guardian binding him was dispersed as well. Without the ice holding him back, the shadow guardian stood no chance on its own.

The ratman chittered angrily at me before resuming his murderous rampage. However, his target was no longer me but the white puppy beside me.

Violent Snow calmly raised her right front paw and slapped the ground. An icy stalagmite rose from the ground the very next instant and rushed towards the rodent's belly. The ratman immediately tumbled away, dodging it at the last second. Having extended to its maximum range of two meters, the stalagmite was no longer able to reach the ratman.

He resumed his charge but Violet Snow was already way ahead of him. As she opened her adorable little puppy mouth, she breathed out a frosty cloud of ice shards. Seeing the razor sharp ice residue hurtle towards him, the ratman immediately jumped to the side and latched onto the wall beside him.

That icy gale only took a second of her time. Seeing that it failed to restrain the ratman, she immediately dodged backwards. As if she had predicted his moves, right as she did so, the ratman landed on the very spot she just occupied a second ago.

As he busied himself with Violet Snow, I wasn't standing idly by the side either. I began channeling my fireball. However, this was a slow casting spell. Furthermore, this rat seemed to possess an agility inconsistent with his burly stature, making this a tough shot to make.

Having missed his mark entirely, the ratman boss stood still for a moment as he searched around for Violet Snow. Naturally, this once in a lifetime opportunity didn't go unnoticed by me. I locked onto him with my eyes and immediately shot out the basketball-sized fireball at him.

As the fireball hurtled towards him, he began to feel the heat singe his hairs slightly. He instantly knew what was coming towards him. Without even turning his head, he attempted to dodge to the side. However, this bit of rashness cost him dearly as Violent Snow took this opportunity to strike at him.

From the moment she dodged backwards, Violet Snow begun concentrating mana in her mouth. Just as the rat landed on the ground, she shot out a basketball-sized ball of ice. The iceball careened through the air and crashed into the ratman's legs before he managed to dodge my fireball.

The iceball shattered loudly upon impact and instantly encased the ratman's legs in a thin layer of ice, preventing him from moving. The next moment, my fireball crashed into his back. As the scorching flames burnt into his back, the rat howled in pain but unfortunately for him, no amount of howling could reduce the damage.

The ratman seemed to have noticed that he was clearly outmatched in this two versus one match. He gave us a furious glare before turning around and trying to leave.

My two little potatoes, No.3 and Big 4 showed up once more to try and stop him. Having not learnt their lesson from their previous encounter, the two one-armed heroes charged at the ratman with their large swords raised high and...they were knocked away once more…

Lucky for them, the ratman boss was busy trying to escape and had no time to finish these two off. A moment later, the two of them got to their feet and glared helplessly at the slowly disappearing back of the ratman boss as it faded into the chaotic battlefield.

With the unexpected retreat of their boss, the Abbadon Rodents' morale instantly plummeted and they began to flee for their lives as well. Now that their leader was gone, no one was stupid enough to stay behind and fight to the death. After 10 minutes of chasing after them, this battle was drawn to a close.

Based on the casualty report by One-eye, the battle ended with acceptable results. We lost 57 devils while Violet Snow lost 24 of her hellhounds. On the other side, 243 one-star rodents were dead and the two-star bodyguards were nearly wiped out.

What was unacceptable to me was, how was Violet Snow so formidable? Even that terrifying ratman boss didn't dare to take her hits face on.

My expression must've looked terrible to anyone looking at me right now. As I stood there with devil egg in hand, a vein popped on my temple as I asked in an annoyed tone: "By the way, care to explain something to me?"

"Explain exactly how you are so strong!" I don't what's the reason for this outburst but I knew one thing, I wasn't happy with her.

I continued in an exasperated tone: "Judging from your appearance, you should've just left your mother's womb, how do you possess the strength to fight toe to toe with that ratman boss! This isn't scientific, not scientific! You hear me?"

"You said it yourself, [from your appearance], is there even a need for me to continue explaining?" She stared at me with that look again...the one you gave to an idiot.

Up till now, I still couldn't wrap my head around her strength. Her body was so tiny that I could even hold her in the palm of my hands. Yet this tiny body contained enough power to rival that ratman boss! Unbelievable...or should I say scary.

Right from the start, the battle had been completely under our control up to the point where he joined in the fight. Seeing that, his two-star subordinates joined in as well and ended up throwing my guardsmen into disarray. This was the main culprit for most of our losses.

Essentially, we had too little experts in our army. Even with my bone equipment, they still weren't able to overcome the difference in levels. Furthermore, as we progressed, this gap in power would only grow ever wider.

A zero-star imp is able to take on a one-star imp as long as he had a sharp weapon. Several large imps, armed with my bone broadswords would be able to take down a two-star head imp if they were lucky.

This growing disparity got even worse at the three-star level. Five to six fully armed head imps probably couldn't even take on a three-star demon child. As the level increased, this disparity would probably increase exponentially as well.

We got lucky this time with the unexpected aid of Violet Snow. If it wasn't for her handling that ratman boss, it might've been the end of the road for me.

This is bad...it's highly likely that we will encounter stronger foes in the future and yet I still don't have a three star devil in my army...at this rate, the Prison of the Dead might just be my final destination.

"As for the loot distribution…" Strictly speaking, Violet Snow was only a temporary collaborator and thus wasn't my subordinate. That was why I decided to bring up the matter of loot distribution. Discussing this beforehand would prevent any unnecessary conflict.

A short distance away, my devils were facing off against the remaining hellhounds. Between them was a barren plot of land that clearly demarcated the two sides. In the middle of that plot of land was a devil fighting with a hellhound.

As they fought, the devils would cheer for that imp in their usual brash manner while the hellhounds would howl on the sidelines, seemingly rooting for their own kinsman as well.

Upon hearing my command, the large imp immediately stopped fighting but just as he was about to retreat, he was attacked by the hellhound. I guess this was to be expected, after all, I wasn't the master of these dogs.

After dodging that hellhound's bite, he performed a violent flip into the air and landed right on top of that hellhound. He reached out with both his hands and pulled upwards with all his might, his lower jaw pressing down on hellhound's head as he did so.

Having his neck strangled and his head pressed upon, greatly angered the hellhound. He began bucking like a wild horse as he violently attempted to shake off his unwelcome passenger.

Unfortunately for him, the large imp wasn't that weak either. He tenaciously held onto the hellhound's neck and as he did so, he wrapped his legs around the hellhound's stomach forming a cross beneath it.

The hellhound finally realized his bucking was pointless and so employed a shameless tactic of his own. He began rolling around on the ground, his back slamming the devil as hard as he could, into the ground. And so, the dog training devolved into a brawl between hooligans.

However, Violet Snow didn't seem to share my concerns. She approached me and with a lift of her little furry head, said: " There's no need for that, just let them continue."

I couldn't understand her "just let them continue". A fight between subordinates wasn't a small matter, it must be stopped immediately.

"It's just a fight between two creatures from Purgatory. Isn't it normal for them to settle their disputes with their fists?" Her voice was just as calm and deadpan as always.

"Purgatory creatures should have the bearing of such. As their master, you just have to step in once the winner has been decided."

"Master, I feel that what Miss Violet Snow said was true. Purgatory creatures have always used their fists to determine right from wrong. If both parties had a dispute, we would always turn to might to secure our interests."

I didn't know when but One-eye had approached me and explained this in a matter-of-fact tone. He didn't seem startled by the fight and even had a sense of impartiality about him as if to say he was on the side of justice and not kin.

But on Earth, we had something called the law and this settled any dispute we had. However, this is a different world after all. This is the Prison of the Dead. There's no judges to be found here. Neither are there lawyers and there are certainly no sympathetic juries here to help you out.

However, this still didn't sit well with me. In the end, I was still an otaku who had lived in the peaceful world of Earth for over 30 years. I'm still sensitive to such internal turmoil. To me, everyone was on the same boat together. If there was any problem, it should be settled via a civilized discussion instead of a brawl.

"Master's concern for us is a blessing to us." He realized how improper his previous words were and immediately kneeled on one foot and expressed his loyalty once more.

Hearing this, No.5 immediately ran out, the chance to flaunt his existence was finally here. "Master, the matter started like this…"

The Prison of the Dead was a cruel environment to live in, similar to the land of the dead. As before, the two ways of obtaining sustenance were:

Two, fighting the other life forms in this world and feasting upon their flesh and souls. The victors will get naturally get the spoils of war and this included the corpses of any fallen comrade.

The Prison of the Dead didn't only have undead, hellhounds and Abaddon Rodents. There were devils like us, dogmen and other races as well. There were a multitude of races here and the named ones were merely the commonly seen races.

The hellhounds had a custom where after the death of their kinsman, they would guard the corpse for one hour. Only after that hour would they feed upon the corpses of their kinsmen. Furthermore, they didn't allow the other races to feed upon their kinsmen's flesh and soul. This was the rule passed down by their ancestors.

After the battle with the Abaddon Rodents, the devils and the hellhounds began sweeping the battlefield as usual. Right from the start, the hellhounds prioritized hauling their kinsmen's corpses to one side. This action caused the imps who had no prior experience with the hellhounds to become curious.

I don't know what went through his head but one of these large imps decided to drag away one of these corpses and ended up getting caught by a patrolling hellhound. That hellhound immediately requested for the return of his kinsman's corpse.

While that imp didn't understand the language of hellhounds, he wasn't that dumb either. Based on the actions of the hellhound, he concluded that that hellhound was after this corpse as well.

All these devils who followed me here had undergone the baptism of war. They only managed to get here by climbing over a mountain of corpses. To them, food was everything and food wasn't something you returned so easily.

Devils didn't have such a strange sense of kinship among themselves after all. To them, the dead were only useful for one thing, food.

As the two fruitlessly tried to argue in their own languages, the hellhound finally lost his patience and leaped at the imp. And so, this unavoidable fight started.

Suddenly, the two fellows stopped fighting. I don't know who it started from but, both sides began to relax their stance as they slumped to the ground in exhaustion. The large imp was the first to get up after which he went over to support the hellhound as it stood up.

The large imp petted the hellhound's black noggin while the hellhound leaned in on his chest. This sudden display of affection left me at a loss for words as my jaw sunk limply to the ground.

"They've made up." Violet Snow smacked her tiny paws onto the ground a couple of times as she said this, it was as if she had expected this outcome all along.

"Well, their combat strength weren't that far apart to begin with, given that they aren't allowed to kill each other, fighting up to this point is about their limit."

The ensuing aftershow was a little surprising to me. That large imp voluntarily gave up the hellhound corpse and even promised not to do so again as a sign of friendship. That hellhound quickly dragged away the corpse before returning right away to the large imp's side.

While they weren't able to understand each other, the large imp was able to read into the hellhound's actions. He wanted him to ride him. And so, the large imp jumped onto the hellhound's back and with a clasp of his feet, settled down on his back.

I'm not even sure if a dog from Earth is able to handle the weight of a mere 10 year old child but right now, there's a dog being ridden by a large imp at top speeds.

As the hellhound sped around the empty space, the large imp held on tightly to the dog's fur in order not to fall off. However, as time passed, the imp began to get used to the dog's undulating gait. He began to loosen up as he let go of one of his hands and started waving it around while giving out a few meaningless screams of joy.

By now, my eyeballs were on the verge of popping out of their sockets; I never expected a hellhound to be able to support a large imp.

In fact, the hellhound didn't seem to be affected by the large imp at all. Even with the imp on his back, his speed didn't experience any significant decrease. Although, his agility naturally took a hit.

Cavalry units were an important force during the era of cold weaponry. Under the same conditions, a foot infantry stood no chance against a horseman. In fact, a squad of well trained cavalrymen are able to charge into an army ten times their size.

Not to mention that there were horsemen archers as well, whose accuracy even allowed them to hit a kite in the air while they rode on a horse.

Just because the two of them were able to frolick around right now, didn't mean that they were combat ready. In the heat of battle, the lack of a saddle stabilizing him might cause the large imp to fall off the hellhound.

While the mouth bit doesn't completely restrain their mouth, it would still severely hamper the hellhounds' ability to attack with their mouths, causing them to experience an overall decrease in offensive power.

Just thinking about these problems made my head spin...don't tell me my dreams of a cavalry squad will be dashed before they even start.

"I'm sorry for being bald...please stop making fun of me…" I felt like crying right now, being made fun of by a puppy was just...too damaging. What's worse was that I had just discovered that I couldn't even beat this puppy…

The loot distribution was a lot easier than expected. It was an even four way split of the souls, namely, one to the grimoire, one to the devil egg and the other two to me and Violet Snow.

In lieu of its callousness just now, I had initially planned on confiscating its portion but who knew that that little bastard was so vigilant. Upon picking up on my intentions, it immediately gobbled down its own portion.

This *****...unfortunately, I couldn't even do a thing to it. Even now, I still didn't understand this situation. Exactly when did it start having a personality?

Up till now, the devil egg was pretty obedient, whenever I gave it souls to eat, it would eat them. Whenever I didn't, it wouldn't cause a scene either. Standing side by side that grimoire, it's obvious to see who had the better upbringing.

As she ate the souls in front of her, she would meticulously and elegantly bring them to her mouth. What's even weirder was that she wasn't even slow despite that. Not to mention the fact that I still don't understand how this puppy was able to elegantly feast on souls. Who can tell me which family this dog came from...they brought her up well…

Initially, I got my subordinates to bring her some meat and bones out of goodwill but she instantly snubbed it with a disdainful turn of her head.

And then, that well brought up puppy stopped eating the souls and swivelled around to swear at me. "You're the doggie, your whole family are doggies!"

"You don't have to concern yourself with my matters too much." Having left me these words, she wolfed down the remaining souls and left in an angry fit.

The Abbadon Rodents were covered in a filthy coat of fur that reeked from a mile away. Once you got past this disgusting outer covering, you were left with a noticeably smaller chunk of meat.

After crunching some numbers, I came to an annoying realisation, the reward didn't justify the risk we took. Essentially, we came out short whenever we hunted these skinny ratmen.

Thankfully, devils weren't picky eaters. Even these disgusting piles of meat were delectable to them. It's just that they gave off a weird odour whenever they ate the ratmen's meat. Because I didn't want to stay near these smelly imps, I even ordered No.3 and Big 4 [to just stand there and leave me alone for a moment].

After another half an hour, the battlefield was finally swept clean. All my devils managed to get their own share of the meat and the same applied to the hellhounds as well. Under Violet Snow's supervision, they managed to evenly split up the hellhound corpses.

Having finished all that, Violet Snow sauntered up to me and with a haughty raise of her tiny little head, said: "It's about time for us to leave."

"We should have a look at the ratmen's nest." Without even waiting for me to reply, she turned towards the direction the ratmen escaped in and trotted off.

I fully supported this opinion, after all, it had been a full hour since we stopped to clean up the battlefield, those rats must've fled by now.

Truth be told, when those ratmen fled the battlefield, I didn't dare to chase them. That ratman boss was at the level of three-star and he still had a hundred over one-star rats. If we really forced them into a corner, the casualties would be tremendous on both sides. As they say, even a rabbit will bite when it is cornered.

Those rats would've probably fled back to their nests first and carried away whatever they could with them as they evacuated the nest. While it might be a little late to catch these rats, they must've left some things of value behind, given that they didn't have much time to flee.

Because the entire Prison of the Dead was just a giant bone maze, there was no soil or plants to speak of. What I referred to as a nest was essentially a just a corner of the maze.

It was a dead end in some random part of the maze and was relatively wide. The area was extremely messy and was filled with a stench that stunk to the high heavens. Even spending an additional second here pissed me off.

The Abbadon Rodents had a degree of intelligence and so they designated a specific area to defecate and a specific area to dispose of the trash as well. The garbage point was at the entrance of their nest where a tiny mountain of bones was haphazardly stacked up to at least 10 meters high.

Violet Snow lightly jumped atop the mountain of bones and began sniffing around. She continued her climb until she finally reached the peak of the pile where a canine skull rested atop it.

The moment she came upon that skull, she solemnly lowered her head and gently rubbed her face against the skull while giving out a low whimper. As her frail silhouette stood atop that mountain of bones, she looked exceptionally sorrowful.

As her sorrowful howls echoed in the chambers of the nest, the other hellhounds began to howl into air as well, that same sorrow permeating through their cries.

While I'm not too familiar with their communal customs, I was at least able to hear the pain in their howls. And so, I chose not to interrupt them. Even the curious One-eye was stopped by me as he tried to inquire about this action.

After 10 minutes, the sound of footsteps suddenly echoed in what was supposed to be a moment of silence. It was the unique chattering sound that could only be produced by bones stepping upon bones. Judging from this sound, they were closing in on us.

To a newbie like me, the ecosystem of the Prison of the Dead was a complicated question. I knew that the undead here had a habit of wandering around so encountering them was merely a coincidence.

The hellhounds were circling around the bone mountain and so my devils ended up being the first line of defense. Judging from the clattering of the bones, they should be relatively close to us.

The thirty strong shieldbearer squad formed up near the entrance and put up their shield wall as always. Behind them, the Mo sabre wielders took up position as well. At the sides were 60 guardsmen who defended the flanks.

They were a bunch of skeletons, numbering around 80 and were all clad in a light set of bone armor with a pair of bull horns sticking out of their helmet. Judging from their appearance alone, these weren't the same trash tier armor the undead wore in the land of dead.

As if to confirm this fact, each of them carried a set of bone weaponry that were anything but simple. There were swords, shields, hammers, long spears and even javelins. Right at the very back of the army were about eight to nine javelineers.

These javelineers were at the level of one to two-star and wore a set of light armor that looked a lot sturdier than the others. Looks like they were the elites of this army.

Upon noticing us, the melee skeletons immediately charged at us. Leading the charge were the agile skeleton warriors who wielded a sword and shield. They were the first to collide with our shield wall.

Needless to say, our heavy shields withstood the brunt of this charge without any losses. The sturdiness of these shields and their bearers were proven time and time again in my battles.

Not to mention that strength was never the forte of these frail looking skeletons. Being unable to break through the shield wall, all that awaited them was a swift counterattack.

The deadly Mo Sabres pierced through the air as always but this time, they were foiled by the bone shields of the warriors. Before the Sabre wielders had the time take in this fact, their Sabres were swiftly shoved aside by the shields, beneath them, the bone swords of the warriors had already shot out in another attack at the shield wall.

These skeletons were fast! Unfortunately for them, speed alone wasn't enough to bring down my heavy shields. Without the required strength backing up these stabs, they deflected harmlessly off the shield wall.

Seeing an opening once more, one of the sabre wielders tried to stab at the warrior but was instantly halted by an unexpected javelin to his heart.

With their precise throwing skills, these javelineers were able to easily bypass the shield wall. Backed by the momentum of their running charge, the javelins whistled through the air in a parabolic arc and landed right atop the defenseless Mo sabre wielders.

With the loss of their supporting sabre wielders, a number of the shieldbearers were put in the disadvantaged position of only being unable to counterattack. Thankfully, not every javelin was an instant death for us and for those that were, a reserve was ready to pick up the slack right away. And so, this disadvantage was only short lived.

The hammar skeletons were substantially stronger than the warriors. Each swing of their hammers would cause the shield wall to vibrate slightly but fortunately, that was all.

Such strength was still bearable for the shieldbearers. Furthermore, without a shield of their own, these skeletons were easy prey for the Mo sabres who swiftly claimed their first victims.

Each javelineer had a total of three javelins on their backs. If we allowed them to freely throw all these...it would be disastrous for the current members of the Mo sabre squad.

Thankfully, the hellhounds joined at this moment. With their superior mobility, they bravely leaped over the shield wall and agilely weaved around the undead.

They performed quick hit and run strikes on the undead where every hound would quickly lunge at their target's weak points and move on whether or not the bite hit landed successfully.

With their support, One-eye finally had the space needed to attack the javelineers. He dispatched Nine-finger along with his 30 guardsmen to wipe out the javelineers.

These spears had a longer range than the bone broadswords and so what greeted the guardsmen as they charged in was a wave of spear thrusts. However, these imps weren't any old imps. They were seasoned veterans who had undergone numerous battles with me.

With a casual raise of their bone shields, they harmlessly deflected the incoming spears with their trusty bone shields. The first wave of thrusts ended with only minor injuries inflicted on the bone shields and now they were completely open to our counter attack.

As my bone swords hacked down upon them, their razor sharpness shone through once more. These were swords that had undergone my refinement process and would not lose out to any sword used by human armies. With just one swing of this sword, the skull of the skeletal spearmen were swiftly cleaved in two.

Ten of these spearmen fell in the first wave of counter attack. The rest who survived were those that reacted fast enough and managed to dodge that fatal swing.

The bone javelins descended from the sky once more. Their target, the guardsmen. Having just counter attacked, the guardsmen were unable to raise their shield in time to block the javelins and Nine-finger ended up losing four of his guardsmen in that sneak attack alone.

Seeing so many of his subordinates die in one go, angered him greatly. With a thunderous bellow, he broke into a unstoppable charge. With every step he took, he would wildly wave his spiked mace around.

His first victim was a spearman who tried to halt his charge head on with his spear. Nine-finger's spike mace crashed through the slender spear and sent the skeleton flying, spear and all. He then shifted his round shield to the front and took off once more, his head lowered and his body crouched slightly behind the gigantic shield.

Their spears collided with the rounded shield but the sheer force of Nine-finger's charge sent a shockwave right back at the spearmen. In the face of such force, their bony fingers buckled under the impact and ended up letting go of their spears instead.

Unfortunately for him, his brainless charge didn't work out in the end. The javelineers upon seeing him charge at them, cleverly split into two separate groups and distanced themselves in two different directions.

I had to admit, these skeletons were surprisingly smart. Since he had only one shield, this two-pronged attack couldn't be completely blocked.

Nine-finger knew this as well and with a grit of his teeth, he made his decision. He chose to block one of the javelineer groups' attack while charging at them. As for the other, he planned to take the hits head on.

With that settled, he charged without any hesitation at the nearest group, 20 meters away, his back completely exposed to the other group as he did so.

All this time, I had been monitoring the battlefield from the sides. Upon discovering that Nine-finger had been given a solo mission, I immediately turned my attention to him.

This potato was someone who messed up on a regular basis and so I wasn't too comfortable with leaving things to him. As expected, just two minutes after he got his solo mission, he got himself into trouble.

Luckily for him, I began casting my fireball upon noticing his little bout of madness. The moment he made that inane decision to leave his back exposed, my fireball had already flown out.

I targeted the other javelineers with my gaze and with a forceful push of palms, shot out the one meter wide ball of flames. As it hurtled through the air, it reminded me of a meteor with its beautiful stream of fire trailing behind the sphere.

The giant fireball landed right in the middle of the javelineer group and exploded upon impact, killing the four javelineers in dazzling but deadly display of pyrotechnics.

The sheer force of the impact caused their bones to fly into the air before falling to the ground once more in a rain of blackened bone fragments.

Hearing the loud explosion behind him, he gave his back a quick glance and saw the raining bone fragments land right in front of his eyes. He finally understood what happened. His ugly mug scrunched up into what looked like a chrysanthemum and shouted while waving his hands at me, "Thank you Master!!! Ouch…"

This potato...couldn't he have waited till after the battle to thank me! He's lucky those javelins didn't skewer him for his stupidity.

In a strange stroke of luck, those javelins ended up missing their targets because he suddenly halted his charge. Only one of the five javelins missed their intended destination and ended up scratching him on the back.

In the meantime, the guardsmen under Nine-finger had managed to kill the remaining spearmen and had used this distraction to completely encircle the remaining javelineers. With their last round of javelins spent, they turned into long spearmen.

And so, this battle was basically over. The undead army that attacked weren't that big to begin with. Furthermore, the sound of battle attracted more and more hellhounds and they were soon severely outnumbered.

With the aid of these brave dogs, the shieldbearers were able to swiftly corner the melee skeletons allowing the Mo sabres to tear through the trapped undead. After approximately ten minutes, the battle ended with the skeletons being wiped out.

The casualties were quickly tallied up and the count was: 10 dead large imps. As for the hellhounds, they merely suffered minor injuries as they only joined in midway. We managed to kill a total of 82 skeletons with every one of their soul flames being significantly richer than the ones we harvested previously.

With the battle over, Violet Snow carefully dragged the canine skull which was roughly as big as her, down the bone mountain. She brought it to me and with her tiny little paws pushed it towards me and murmured: "Help me make something."

At that moment, I was in the midst of tallying up the loot. Vick the freeloader chose to float in at this time and attempted to freeload once more. He stretched out his incorporeal hands and attempted to grab a soul flame for himself.

Seeing this, I angrily tossed the Grimoire of the Dead at him but ended up missing. This vigilant fellow immediately noticed the book and fleeted away before it even got close to him. At least it stopped him from stealing the soul flames...

"Hey, I said, help me make something." Having been ignored, Violet Snow unhappily repeated her words once more, impatience dripping from every word.

Having just chased away Vick, I finally noticed the little puppy standing beside my legs. Judging by her unnatural pose as she looked up at me, she probably wanted me to craft something with my dark alchemy.

Out of a sudden, she leaped into the air and smacked away my finger. Startled, I immediately withdrew my hands. As I turned to look at her once more, I saw the tears rolling down her eyes as she stared back at me with a pitiful expression on her face. Shit, I overdid it this time…

"Alright, alright, it's my fault okay?" I bent down and with my other free hand, consoled her in the same manner as you would a small animal.

This was the first time I had ever touched her fur and it felt really good. It had a feel superior to the even the best silks in the world. This was especially so when I lightly brushed against it with my palm...that soft yet slightly cool feel was just so addictive.

It's so comfortable...I might just get hooked on this, especially that faint fragrance coming off her, it's faint but it's still soothing to the soul.

As I opened my eyes, my eyes stared directly into an impatient and extremely unhappy set of eyes. I jumped back in fright and instinctively withdrew my hands. The expression she had on right now was just so terrifying…

In order to prevent the situation from getting worse, I immediately changed the topic: "Err...so what did you need my help with?"

"Turn this into something I can carry by my side at all times." She pointed at the skull between us with her lower jaw, her eyes tearing up as she said so.

I gave a long hum as I mulled over what to turn it into. Violet Snow rubbed her tiny head against my finger and said in an almost pleading tone: " I know you can transmute bones, those weapons your subordinates wielded were your works, weren't they? Don't deny it…"

"I'll definitely help you." I said, anxious to not let her misunderstand my silence as a sign of refusal. As I did so, I didn't forget to pet her head once more. As I basked in the fluffy paradise, I didn't forget to reassure her either. "I was just thinking of what to turn it into."

But letting such an adorable dog wear a dog tag seems like a travesty of justice. Furthermore, doing that might just earn me a swat of her tiny paws.

I glanced at her, throwing the problem right back at her. An accessory for a dog...with my limited creativity...all I got was a dog tag...maybe a toy bone?

Based on her petite frame, the dagger would have to be at most five to six cm long in order for it to hang off her body which was smaller than most house cats. And there's still the issue of a chain…

It wasn't long before the dagger accessory was fully crafted. There wasn't anything fancy about it but she accepted it nonetheless as I hung it over her neck. Based on her current size, the dagger almost touched the ground as it hung off her neck.

I made it longer than needed in consideration of the fact that she will grow bigger with time but this still seemed a little too long. And so, I adjusted the chain and made it shorter.

She stared unblinkingly at the dagger shaped out of that skull, the sorrow clearly reflected on her face, thankfully, it wasn't as heavy as before. Once I finished the adjustments, she gave her adorable puppy head a light swish, her face perking up as she did so as if she had just swished away her grief.

"If you find it uncomfortable, just come find me, I'll help fix it up." I gave her head a last pet before reluctantly withdrawing my hand.

"Thank you." These two words were only slightly louder than a pin drop. Having said her thanks, she immediately turned away. Was it her pride acting up again or was it just a small tantrum.

"No problem, as long as you like it." The thanks was kinda soft but since you were so sincere, I'll be magnanimous and accept it.

"Yup, it's been a long time since I replenished my army. The battles are getting fiercer with our enemies getting stronger as we proceed further. Putting aside my case, the advancement rate of my subordinates are just too slow. If I don't recruit new devils, I'm afraid I might not be able to leave this maze."

Recruiting more devils was definitely necessary. Ever since I left the Blood Sea, my subordinates had undergone countless battles with me. Over half of them died as a result and we only managed to replenish our numbers once in the Land of the Dead.

If it wasn't for that robed skeleton's help and me finding the Grimoire of the Dead, I wouldn't have even made it here. Or at the very least, I wouldn't be able to get here so easily.

I don't know how long the road ahead is but, there is one thing I'm sure of: without strength, even surviving is difficult. Since I had the ability to subjugate devils, why shouldn't I use it?

"Nearby devils...hold on, I'll ask around." She thought about this for a moment before going off to find a certain hellhound resting on the ground.

Based on his appearance, he was a rather old hellhound. His fur wasn't as glossy and black as the other hellhounds and there were even signs of balding.

"This is the oldest warrior in our pack. According to him, there is a nearby clan of devils just west of us. But they are one of the larger factions in this region and number over a thousand."

Over a thousand devils? Devils were stronger than ratmen and weren't that cowardly either so they were definitely stronger than the ratmen we just chased away.

There's still the problem of how strong was their strongest warrior. "What about their leader and what about their two-stars?" I immediately asked.

If these devils were significantly stronger than us, they would definitely pounce at us with little more than a few yells. Compared to being my subordinate, they would probably want to capture me more.

My ability to seduce devils wasn't a 100% effective all the time. Just based on the recent events, I realized that it had mostly to do with my unique physiology. At least, I haven't been able to find another devil who gave off the same fragrance as me.

Furthermore, the stronger devils all had the tendency of trying to dominate me the moment they lay their eyes on me...as a bonafide male, being coveted by a bunch of male devils was just...embarrassing.

Of course, there were always exceptions such as the recently deceased Big 1 and One-eye who was currently commanding my devils. Their decision to join was a surprise to me and until today, I still didn't understand why they did so.

Violet Snow conversed with the senior hellhound once more and said: "Their leader is a three-star demon child and has nearly a hundred two-star head imps under him. As for the one and zero-star imps, we aren't too sure about that."

"Three-star demon child…" Truth be told, this phrase still brought up unpleasant memories, that last encounter with Chipped Horn was just too traumatizing.

Not only was he able to kill Big 1 in just a few hits, his strength was just too overwhelming. None of my subordinates were a match for him and in the end, I had to steel my heart as I told them to dog pile him.

And now our target was just as or even stronger than Chipped Horn. Not only that, he had an army that was stronger than mine. How can I be anything but worried?

After all that fighting, my devil army was reduced to less than 300. While they had my refined equipment aiding them, a head on battle would still be a disadvantage for us. Not to mention, that three-star demon child...I definitely didn't want to pluck the whiskers off a tiger.

"If you are worried about their three-star leader, I can help you with that." Violet Snow looked at me with those prideful eyes of hers, an expression hanging on her face that said [you can ask me for help].

"While a one on one fight might be difficult, with you helping me at the side, taking him down isn't as impossible as you think."

"But he has too many small fries under him, plus he even has nearly a hundred head imps with him…" I had less than 300 devils while Violet Snow had only 56 hellhounds left. In a head on battle with their thousand strong army, we definitely came out short.

As for that battle with the Abbadon Rodents...that was nothing but a scam. It was that puppy Violet Snow who dug that pit for me to jump into.

Luckily for us, those ratmen were extremely cowardly and didn't possess much strength in a head on battle. Once their leader fled, the other ratmen fled as well. That was the only reason why we won that battle. If they had chosen to fight to the end, we might've just died there.

She threw a cold, arrogant look before turning her head away from me disdainfully as if to say that I was nothing more than a coward who only knew how to talk.

In order to placate her, I immediately told her my thoughts. "Our armies combined are just too small. If we expend all of them, wouldn't you be sad. We should first find a way to expand our troops."

Hearing the phrase expand our troops immediately made her face freeze up. After a while, she finally said reluctantly, " I will definitely not see the other hellhound clans."

"I never asked you to do so." I said with a slightly wronged look on my face, standing up as I did so. With a casual swat, I slapped at Vick who was circling us in an annoying fashion. While it didn't hit him in the end, that sudden burst of violence scared him and he fleeted away with an even more wronged look on his face.

Violet Snow still didn't understand the intentions of my words and so I had to explain my devious intentions to her, "Best if they were timid and easy to subjugate."

She finally understood my intentions and immediately turned back to that senior hellhound. Ten seconds later, she told me in a slightly doubtful tone, " There's a dogman clan nearby. They number above 2000 and have a three-star dogman warrior as their leader. However, his combat strength is lower than the ratman boss so we should be able to take him easily."

The Prison of the Dead was a gargantuan maze that stretched on endlessly. While she said that the dogmen were nearby, it still quite a bit of travelling to reach them.

One of the most troublesome aspect of a maze was that one could easily get lost within its convoluted passages. Thankfully, the hellhounds had an inborn gift for navigation making them a whole lot more useful than my directionally challenged self.

During our travels, we were waylaid from time to time by wandering undead. These undead attacked us in groups of ten to over a hundred. Each of them were at the very least one-star while very few of them actually reached two-star. As for three-star, we hadn't encountered any...yet.

Thanks to the hellhounds, we always had the initiative during these fights. Their sensory abilities warned us well in advance of any potential encounters and so we had ample time to prepare for the battle.

What struck me as strange was that since we met with Violet Snow, we had only encountered one undead party and it was a small sized encounter. But, ever since we left that ratmen nest, we had been ambushed by over ten parties of wandering undead and this was all within a day of travelling!

Due to the lack of a day night cycle, we scheduled our rest time based on our fatigue level. If we were tired, we merely rested at a nearby corner of the maze. The normal devils and the hellhounds would sleep on the outer edges of our campsite while a rotating roster of hellhounds and devils went on patrol duty.

With our relatively large numbers and patrols, our campsite almost looked like a small base. Only the lack of actual tents marred this otherwise satisfying scene.

I quietly pondered as I leaned against the bone walls of the maze. The recent deaths of my subordinates had frustrated me. In my mind, the hellhounds should've been able to lead us around the ambush in order to reduce our casualties.

Our main goal was to recruit the dogmen, without sufficient military force, the plan might just fail before it even started. And so, I decided to discuss this matter with Violet Snow.

"Circle around? Putting aside the fact that this maze is extremely complicated and taking a detour might never lead us back to our desired path, if we avoid the undead, exactly what are we going to feed on?"

Being on the receiving end of my griping, displeased her greatly. As she roused herself from her nap, she glared at me and said: "Besides, fleeing is for cowards."

"I never said that we were fleeing, this isn't called fleeing, it's called a change of tactics." As the word "coward" left her mouth, it mercilessly stabbed me in the heart, I sub consciously raised my voice.

"This is their territory. To them, anyone that is alive is an outsider." She then proceeded to explain some of the basic knowledge of this world.

"As you know, this vast maze was at the very beginning an undead territory. The undead we've been fight are basically patrols tasked with the mission of cleaning this entire maze."

"So those undead we met at the ratmen nest was...don't tell me...those undead were actually on their way to attack the ratmen?" I blurted out my thought.

"You can see it as that." She nodded. "To be exact, those patrols are more like janitors. Their true goal was to clean up the bones stacked at the entrance of the ratmen nest. As for attacking the ratmen, it's more of a "why not?" matter to them."

I'm still a newbie when it comes to the ecology of this place but there was one thing I'm sure of: if those were just janitors, then that means that there were other undead in charge of fighting. The janitors themselves were already one-star, what about the actual warriors? Two-star? Maybe even three. Gives me the chills just thinking about it…

"I know you're worried about the safety of your subordinates but in this Prison of the Dead, a lot of things can't be avoided." In an uncharacteristic move of concern, she continued trying to console me.

"What I'm really concerned about isn't my subordinates." For some reason, I wanted to make sure that she didn't misunderstand me.

"Leave this place?" She paused for a second, her expression immediately switching from nonchalance to shock. "Did I hear that correctly? Did you just say that you wish to leave this place? Leave the maze? Leave the Prison of the Dead?"

"You heard me right." As those words left my mouth, my gaze changed, gone was the indecisiveness within them, what remained was only a steely resolve.

As those words left my mouth, her face immediately became solemn. She lowered her head and laid back on the ground once more, her chin resting on her tiny paws and her eyes closed. She laid there silently as if avoiding the topic or perhaps she was just crying silently.

"I'm sorry…" Even a thick headed buffoon like me knew that I had just stepped on a landmine, for all I know, that skull might just be her mother's.

We had just made camp after a tiring day of fighting during which we encountered over ten groups of undead. Outside of these undead, we didn't encounter another race.

Even after these two days of travelling, we still hadn't left the hunting grounds of the ratmen which was to be expected. This was the territory of large clan that had over 1500 members after all; a large hunting ground is definitely required to support them.

These two days of fighting nothing but the undead made me relax my guard. To me, all we had to deal with were the wandering undead. It had never occurred to me that we might meet another race while in this hunting ground.

The strange creatures numbered over a hundred and had a humanoid form to them. These humanoid monsters wore a primitive set of hide clothing and wielded bone clubs. Before they even closed in on us, their revolting stench had already assaulted my nostrils. The source of this stench was their grayish black body that had a coarse look to it.

Paired with their off putting appearance was a dishevelled head of hair that was littered with numerous specks of black and dark gray matter. As for the other parts of their body , they were mostly fur-free.

They had a large mouth that revealed a jagged set of teeth within them that painted a picture which would make any dentist cringe in disgust.

They had a muscular build and were around 1.8 to 2.0 meters tall. If you didn't count their skin color, they looked very similar to orcs described in fantasy novels and games.

A weird cry left their monstrous mouth, signalling the start of their attack. As they waved their primitive bone clubs, they charged at us.

Thankfully, we were warned by the hellhounds prior to their appearance. That horrid stench must've been terrible for their sensitive noses.

As they closed in on us, I swiftly prepared a spell to attack the foremost orc. A split second later, a bone spear hurtled through the air, heading straight at that orc. His eyes narrowed as he focused on the incoming spear and with a quick swing of his club, knocked down the incoming spear.

In order to buy my army more time to ready themselves, I immediately followed that bone spear up with five bone walls raised right in the path of their advance.

Prior to that, most of the devils were still resting. Having fought for an entire day, they definitely didn't get much rest before they were reluctantly dragged back into formation. They weren't professional soldiers after all, the lack of discipline made their response sluggish and left our formation full of weaknesses.

A vexed One-eye shouted and kicked at the devils who still hadn't taken up positions yet. This bit of violence of his part seemed to have worked as the 30 shieldbearers finally formed up our defensive line.

The orcs rammed into the heavy bone shields like a bunch of enraged bulls. In this initial charge, five of their stronger members actually managed to knock away one of the shieldbearers with their combined might. However, this success was in the minority as the majority of the orcs were merely deflected by the sturdy shield wall.

Of course, the shieldbearers who deflected them weren't in a great shape either. Some of the weaker shieldbearers fell to the ground immediately after deflecting their powerful charge.

Even though the shield wall was compromised, a vast majority of the orcs had been deflected. The sabre wielders made use of this opportunity to stab at the humanoid monsters.

Having just traded blows with the shieldbearers, these orcs were naturally in no position to react to the deadly sabre thrusts and ended up getting skewered. Only those five who managed to knock away the shieldbearer, were able to charge at the sabre wielders.

Due to their limited close range abilities, they were defenseless against the giant bone clubs of the orcs. As the primitive clubs swung down, one of the imps was struck squarely on his temples and died instantly, his eyes opened wide in pain.

These strange orcs were smart enough to carry weapons. This meant that they were at least more intelligent than the ratmen, as for how much, that's difficult to say. Either way, just knowing how to make and use a weapon, meant that they couldn't be that stupid.

This was why I had assumed they would charge at the guardsmen guarding the flanks. After all, the shields they wielded didn't seem as sturdy as the heavy bone shields. However, the reality of the situation was that they chose the shield wall as their entry point.

The moment the leading orcs broke through the shield wall, the other orcs began streaming in from this breach as well. This sudden calamity made the shieldbearers and sabre wielders abandon their usual stance of counter attacking. Instead, they were forced into the passive position of being on the defensive.

Upon breaching our formation, these two-star orcs now had to deal with the reserve army on top of attacking the sabre wielders and shieldbearers. The reserves were always stationed behind the Mo Sabre wielders with their mission being to replace the sabre wielders and if need be, protect them.

While the two parties had the same equipment, that didn't mean that they were happy about it. The moment they locked eyes, they charged at each other, their eyes red with fury. The reserves were made entirely of one-stars but despite this, they bravely charged at the orcs, their clubs flailing wildly in the air as they did so.

Unfortunately for them, the first enemy they encountered were the two-star orcs. Each of these orcs possessed enormous strength and with a simple swing of their clubs, smashed the heads of a few reserve devils.

As time passed, more and more orcs streamed into the breach caused by the two-star orcs. Without the stalwart shield wall protecting them, what had been an advantage for them now turned into a burden. This was especially so for the sabre wielders.

Not only were they not able to go on the offensive, their long sabres even dragged them down. As they attempted to strike back at the orcs, their unwieldy sabres would hinder their own reinforcements.

I had long considered giving them a set of secondary close range weapons but given that my army wasn't even sufficiently armed, I simply couldn't spare the mana to create more weapons for the sabre wielders. This was why the sabre wielders were put in this awkward position time and time again.

With the formation in disarray, One-eye was severely distracted to the point where he even forgot to give out orders. Seeing that matters had devolved into this state, there's no need for a formation and so I decided to dogpile them.

"Guardsmen forget about the flanks. Leave a section behind to defend against the charging orcs while the rest of you attack the orcs directly. Reserves, help them as well. Shieldbearers and sabre wielders get out of there now!"

By now, half of the orcs had already engaged with the bulk of my army. As for the other hal f, Nine-finger led half of the guardsmen to block the remaining 30 or so orcs. One-eye led the other half of the guardsmen to attack the orcs fighting against the shieldbearers and Mo Sabre wielders.

Thankfully, the hellhounds finally joined in the battle. While they were only one-star as well, they had the advantage of mobility. They swiftly weaved through the crowd and struck at the heart of the battle. As beasts originating from Purgatory, they had terrifying offensive strength.

Their claws and teeth were easily able to tear through the hide of the orcs and not only that, some of the hellhounds were even able to breathe fire.

Usually this wouldn't matter much against the flame resistant devils but these orcs seemed to have a low resistance against flames. Whoever was struck with their flame breath, immediately wailed in pain and began rolling around on the floor.

"These are the Demonic Half-Orcs. While they have an enormous strength, they are inhibited by their primitive weapons and hence do not possess the lethality you would expect from them."

Violet Snow finally returned, having recently left due to my inconsiderate question. As she explained this to me, she slapped the ground with her tiny paws.

The deadly icicle had at least the circumference of an adult's palm and as it tore through the half-orc's lower body, it nearly split him in half as it skewered him through the chest. Naturally, this half-orc was as dead as dead can be.

"Demonic half-orc?" This was an unfamiliar term to me but judging from what I knew of them, they were probably a life form found in Abaddon.

Any creature found in the Prison of the Dead was probably from one of the three hells, Purgatory, Gehenna and Abaddon. They definitely weren't from Purgatory. Most of the creatures in Gehenna were undead or had an affinity for ice. As for Abaddon, they were a complicated bunch.

Due to my lack of experience with Abaddon, I couldn't say for sure but even so, I wouldn't be surprised if there were lifeforms such as these half-orcs.

"Demonic half-orcs have a strength that rivals your devils but they possess an abysmal resistance towards magic, especially flame magic."

"Even so, the casualties are still too great…" The enemy had at least seven to eight two-stars. As for our side, we only had Nine-finger and One-eye. And so, I turned to my bodyguards and said, "No.3, Big 4, go help them."

"But Master...your safety…" No.3 was reluctant to leave my side due to safety reasons. At the side, Big 4 stood there silent as always but judging from his eyes, he didn't seem to want to leave either.

I gave them a dismissive wave of my hands and tried to send them off once more. Who knew that, No.5 would pick this moment to butt in.

"With me protecting the Master, there's nothing to be afraid of." He gave his bone shield a smack of his bone sword, grabbing the attention of everyone present before boldly swearing, "I vow to protect the Master to my dying breath!"

No.5 cowered slightly at being glared. Perhaps he felt that he had just lost dignity and so he decided to double down on his words. He lowered his head while still adamantly insisting, "If anyone wishes to harm the Master, they have to do so over my dead body!"

My named subordinates had all shown signs of growth, barring those that were dead. All, except for No.5. This potato just didn't seem to be growing at all. Even those normal large imps were showing signs of evolving. By my estimation, they would soon evolve into head imps.

It was at this moment that the shadowy figure of Vick appeared within the chaotic battlefield. I simply couldn't understand why a vengeful wraith would end up as a peace-loving ghost. But reality was as such, this strange fellow would never proactively attack another person. Instead, all he did was play pranks on the combatants.

Thankfully, he knew how to distinguish friend from foe. As he fleeted about the battlefield, he limited his pranks only to the half-orcs. He would fly circles around one of the two-star half-orcs, infuriating his victim.

In response to the taunting, the half-orc swung his club at the wispy figure but it merely passed through Vick without leaving a scratch on him. From to time, this mischievous ghost would make faces at the half-orc and even flashed him a thumbs down, causing him to fly into a rage.

Unfortunately for him, there was no outlet for him to vent that anger. After all, Vick was immune to physical attacks; even if you wanted to get angry at him, there's no point in doing so.

As the two bodyguards scanned the battlefield, they immediately locked onto the half-orc getting pestered by Vick. With the two of them teaming up on him, the poor fellow who was nearly driven mad, was swiftly hacked to pieces.

Despite losing his toy, Vick wasn't angered a bit. He merely swallowed the half-orc's soul and immediately went in search of a new toy.

Regarding his habit of stealing my souls, there was nothing I could really do about it. While it was a failure on my part for summoning him, I still didn't want to unsummon him. After all, he was already there, it would be a huge waste of mana if I got rid of him.

Besides, he seemed to possess a will of his own and I even gave him a name...I'll just leave him be. While he didn't attack them, he knew to proactively distract the enemy. Besides, his immunity to physical attacks might just come in handy.

Violet Snow stopped summoning that terrifying icicle of hers after killing another two more half-orcs. I guess those few casts must've taken a toll on her. After all, casting such a spell with pinpoint accuracy in such a chaotic battlefield and at that range must've consumed a ton of mana. Even now, her accuracy was something I didn't possess.

With the addition of No.3, Big 4 and Vick, the half-orcs began to lose their advantage and soon the combined forces of the hellhounds and the devils began to suppress them.

After ten more minutes, there were about ten or so half-orcs left. Having been surrounded by an army tens of times their size, they began to lose their will to fight.

The devils obediently stopped their attack and the half-orcs weren't in a hurry to press the devils either. They were slightly confused by their opponent's decision to halt their attack despite their obvious advantage.

The demonic half-orcs began to gather around the two remaining two-star half-orcs. Their intention was to tighten up their defenses by reducing the area they needed to defend.

I strode forth with grimoire and egg in hand, behind me trotted the snow puppy, Violet Snow. Seeing me approach, my subordinates made way for me. No.3 and Big 4 made use of this time to return to my side, flanking me on both sides.

In the face of my curt questioning, the two remaining two-stars glared at me with bloodshot eyes. The more aggressive of the two immediately cut in before I could finish my sentence. As he opened up his giant mouth, revealing a row of blackish-yellow teeth, he shouted fiercely at me in an unknown language.

My interest was immediately dampened by this revelation. Being unable to communicate meant that recruiting was basically impossible. Does this mean I have to put them all to death?

"He said, you damned lust demon, don't even think of seducing me." Just as I thought about whether or not to kill them, Violet Chime chimed in with an unexpected translation. "He said he will never believe in another lust demon again. Furthermore, he said that even if you offered to be his female slave, he wouldn't accept you."

TL: Since callmecat (editor/guy in charge of website stuff) is busy on a date with hurricane Maria, the chapters will have to released in draft form. I've done some proofreading but if you notice any glaring mistakes , please contact me via the contact us page.

Upon hearing my order to purge them, that aggressive two-star half orc immediately charged at me, a thunderous shout spewing forth from his large mouth.

The sudden turn of events left the imps no time to react. One-eye stood there, too stunned to stop the half-orc as he easily rammed past three guardsmen who happened to be in the way. This entire sequence only took a few seconds, by the end of it, he was in front of me with his club poised to strike.

No.3 and Big 4 were seasoned bodyguards and were naturally used to such sudden attempts on my life. The pair simultaneously raised their long bone swords and thrusted them at the approaching half-orc, forcing him back. In order to avoid getting skewered, the half-orc abruptly halted his tracks.

"I suggest you take up his offer, that is if you still wish to recruit them. Of course, that's assuming you have confidence in your strength." She slowly explained her reasoning: "Demonic half-orcs only submit to the strong, if you can defeat their leader in a duel, there's a high chance the rest will follow you."

She nodded and said in a tone without a hint of doubt: "Yes, these half-orcs have a great respect for their traditions. They only serve the strong regardless of their race. As long as you defeat him, you stand a chance at getting their loyalty."

"Alright." She immediately turned towards the half-orc and spoke to them in their language. The moment he heard that, a strange look of surprise crossed his face. Judging from his reaction, he probably didn't expect me to accept the duel.

"Master, there's no need to risk yourself in a such manner. If it's a fight he wants, we're more than enough." One-eye immediately stood out to stop me.

The reason why I accepted this was because I had absolute confidence in my victory. In that previous battle, I discovered that while these half-orcs were physically strong, they weren't very agile. Furthermore, they weren't able to react to changes well. With my ever-changing style of magic, I should have no problem toying with him.

Seeing my resolve, they reluctantly retreated to the sidelines. However, this didn't stop them from throwing me a few worried looks from time to time, their weapons gripped tight, ready to step in in an instant if things went awry.

Everyone retreated and formed a circle around us, creating an arena ring of sorts for our deathmatch. The half-orcs were cordoned off at one side by my subordinates. However, this didn't seem to worry them at all. In fact, their excitement could be felt a mile away as they pounded their chests and cheered madly.

The half-orc growled as he flashed his jagged teeth at No.3 and Big 4, taunting them. Failing to elicit a response from them, he turned his attention to me and spewed a string of unintelligible words once more.

"Lust Demon, accepting the mighty Dewey Dan's deathmatch will be the biggest misfortune of your life. I will defeat you and right in front of your subordinates, I will…" Translator mode Violet Snow abruptly stopped at this point, a look of disgust on her face.

I handed over the devil egg to a nearby female devil and as I turned back, I caught sight of Violet Snow's constipated expression as if she had just been greatly insulted. Thinking back on his words...I guess they didn't need translating for them to be understood.

It's probably that thing that men and women did together. I totally get it. But when did this brother turn into a lust demon! Damn it, all of these people keep treating me like a female!

In a fit of rage, I shot out three spears in a quick succession. They whistled through the air in what looked like one extremely long spear, their target, the half-orc Dewey standing a mere 15 meters away.

I instantly cast a bone wall to block him. It was a brittle wall due to the lack of mana within it, but it served its purpose. As the bone wall rose right at the point the half-orc was going to step on, it disrupted his balance and tripped him.

His massive body stumbled before falling forwards, as it did so, the bone wall he stepped on continued rising, bringing his feet along with it as his face fell towards the ground.

While the half-orc wasn't exceptionally agile, he had a vast wealth of combat experience and strength. Upon sensing the impending danger, he stuck out both his hands immediately, forcefully halting the fall before his head impacted with the ground.

With his hands as a support, he threw his body forward, legs first, and performed a slight tumble forward before righting his posture once more.

He kicked off his massive legs and sprinted towards me once more. I immediately created another wall but this time, Dewey Dan ploughed right the brittle wall.

As flesh collided with bone, the massive legs of the half-orc noticeably slowed down after breaking through the bony barricade. The half-orc seemed to have noticed this as well and decided to halt his failed charge. Standing a mere seven to eight meters away from me, he bellowed at me in what must've been his attempt at showing off his strength.

As he did so, the other half-orc captives roared in unison as if they were trying to cheer for their kinsman. However, the expression on Violet Snow face's seemed to say otherwise. She wanted to translate the "cheers" but changed her mind in lieu of the ongoing match.

After that bit of venting, he resumed his charge but this time, he was noticeably more cautious and slower, the humiliating experience from the first two charges obviously having an impact on him.

This time however, I opted for a brute force approach. A large amount of mana flowed through my body as I channeled them into a much sturdier bone wall. The wall swiftly rose out of the ground, connecting the two sides of the maze, completely blocking off Dewey Dan's path.

As my face disappeared behind the rising bone wall, a surge of blood rushed to the temperamental half-orc's head. He was furious, furious that his prey managed to escape once more despite being only a few meters away from him. He slammed his bone club down at the bony-white culprit in a maddened fit of rage.

After a few hits however, the bone club snapped, no longer able to bear the brunt of his fury. He tossed it aside and began hammering the bone wall with his fists and kicks. With each strike of his grayish black limbs, the bone wall reverberated and gave off an ominously loud crack.

Five to six seconds later, the bone wall finally gave way in an explosion of bone fragments. What greeted me was a pair of bleeding knuckles that grasped on the sides of the breach as they pulled forward the muscular titan behind them.

"I heard you guys are afraid of fire." I derisively laughed at his challenge with flame whip in hand. With a flick of my wrist, the snake-like flames lashed out at the half-orc, binding him before he managed to dodge it.

As the scorching heat bore into his flesh, the horrid stench of cooked meat wafted throughout the maze as Dewey Dan howled in pain. He struggled desperately against the burning snake but it was all for naught.

The first to catch fire was his dishevelled hair, followed by his face and then his body…soon, there was nothing left but a blacked corpse on the floor. As I stepped over what remained of the half-orc leader, my flame whip dragged against the floor, leaving a black scorch mark wherever it touched.

However, this situation didn't last too long as the surviving two-star half-orc suddenly cut in. He seemed to have gotten a portion of their support as they raised their voices in what seemed like opposition. While I still didn't understand what they were saying, it sounded like they didn't want to serve me.

She gaved me a helpless look and said: "Customarily, the fight would be between two fighters who competed with their martial skills and strength. There would be no magic used as it is considered a violation of traditions."

"Violation?" No wonder they were making that much noise right at the start of the match. I thought they were cheering for Dewey Dan...so the real reason was they thought I was cheating. My face immediately blackened upon receiving that answer.

"...Demonic half-orcs are kind of...if you don't explain clearly to them, they won't submit to you that easily." She was clearly exasperated by this "cheating" matter as well.

"You're asking me for an explanation? Then who should I ask for an explanation?!" It was a perfectly valid duel but now I have to deal with all these crap? And what's with that bullshit that Dewey-whatever was spouting earlier?

As the anger built in me, a fireball rapidly formed in my right palm, the fire elements seemingly resonating with my fury. Soon, a meter wide fireball was seen hurtling towards the sole surviving two-star.

It's all that b***ard's fault, if it wasn't for that guy flapping those disgusting lips of his, the other half-orcs would've quietly submitted to me.

The roaring flames engulfed that eyesore along with two half-orcs standing beside him, turning all three of them into a pile of cinders.

Sigh, I seem to be getting more and more temperamental. Perhaps I'm getting used to the lifestyle here. Having blown those eyesores to bits, my heart was filled with a strange sense of elation. It egged me on, sweetly whispering in my head to continue killing.

I should just continue killing these ignorant beasts...kill all life who aren't willing to submit to me...no, I mustn't do that...I still have to return to the western human realms, I still have to find Nicole…

The strange bloodlust was immediately quashed as it appeared in me. If I had let it continue, who knows what I might turn into in the end. I knew how weak my will was and so I immediately banished these thoughts before they could take root within me.

As I regained my senses, I found the half-orcs staring dumbly at me, their face full of fear. Hmm, in this situation, subjugating them should be easy.

"Tell them, there are many kinds of power in this world, there's no need to split it into some nonsense like magic or physical. As long as it can kill the enemy, it's power. This is their last chance, submit or die!"

After a round of persuasion by Violet Snow, the remaining half-orcs finally let go of their hostility. While they might not fully accept me, at least they won't try to oppose me.

Whether it was because of her persuasion or my fearsome magic, the half-orcs finally came to a decision amidst this life-or-death situation. They turned towards me and half-kneeled, pledging their loyalty to me in their unintelligible language.

The combat record was abysmal this time around. After countless battles, my subordinate count had fallen to slightly less than 300. Now, it dropped even further, coming in at 237 after that damned attack by the half-orcs. The hellhounds had lost some members as well, their numbers only came out to 45.

My face instantly fell as the numbers ran through my head. As No.5 continued recounting our losses, my face got darker and darker. At the side, the half-orcs were already shaking in their boots, not a single one dared to breathe too loudly for fear of catching my attention. While they didn't understand what was being said, certain things didn't need explaining.

"Ask them. Why did they attack us." I sought out Violet Snow once more to be my translator. I still wasn't sure if any one of them could understand me so asking her to help would simplify matters alot.

The two engaged in a surprisingly lengthy conversation. There were multiple times where I wanted to interrupt them but thinking about it, she probably had her reasons for talking this long. And so I decided to rest at one side while she continued her enquiries. A while later, she finally came over to deliver her report.

As I hugged my little babies, (the grimoire and the egg) I quietly listened to her. Immediately, I was shocked by the first sentence that left her mouth.

"These half-orcs originated from Abaddon but due to the civil war between half-orcs, their clan members ended up either being taken captives or being thrown here by the victors."

"They were dumped here from the outside?" Due to the wide variety of unique races here, I had long suspected that this world was connected to the outside world via multiple channels. If this was true, the Prison of the Dead might just be the last stop in my journey to return home.

"Was that so strange?" She gave me a puzzled look, clearly not understanding the source of my surprise. "I was thrown in here from the outside too."

"Oh, I just realized, the Prison of the Dead should be linked to the ancient Blood Sea as well, shouldn't it? You must've climbed up from there."

What's with that "Ah hah" look you're giving me, why do I suddenly get the feeling that there's a lot of things you haven't told me!

"That's...true, I did climb up here from the Blood Sea so there's a lot of things I still don't understand. I hope you will explain them to me."

"Hmm, where should I start...let's start with those half-orcs." Her face scrounged up a little as she pondered this issue. Obviously, my lack of knowledge was giving her a headache.

In the end, she decided to start with our initial focus point: "As I was just saying, these half-orcs were originally from Abaddon, one day they were visited by a pair of uninvited guests, they were six-star lust demons…"

The demonic half-orcs were a warlike race in Abaddon and as such played a decisive role in any conflict. In a sense, they were similar to the Hu people of Ancient China (includes the mongols) in that they were nomadic and warlike.

Their clans came in various sizes from large to small with a grand chief ruling over his own clan as well as having some control over the surrounding smaller clans.

It was in this backdrop that the pair approached the head of one of the smaller clans. The head was entranced by one of the lust demons and ended up submitting to her. The first order given to him was to subjugate the surrounding smaller clans.

Initially, this went well with the small clan only targeting clans weaker than it. This clan rapidly grew in strength as it did so until they finally ended up offending the large clan ruling them.

Naturally, the smaller clan ended up getting dispersed. The might of a large clan simply wasn't something a small clan like theirs could compete with. Some of them were exiled while some of them were taken as captives. A small portion of these ended up being thrown into the Prison of the Dead. However, the vast majority of the clan weren't that fortunate and ended up getting killed in the war.

These half-orcs standing before me were the survivors who got thrown away. When they first arrived here, they had around 500 people with their head being a three-star half-orc.

Under the leadership of this orc, they quickly got used to living here. Since they were new here, they didn't possess a nest to call their own and ended up being bandits, robbing and killing whoever they encountered.

"Then, do you know of the method to leave this damned place?" If there's a way to throw people in here, there should be a way to send them out as well. Regarding their sob story, I couldn't care less, all I was concerned with was how to leave this place.

I want to return to the western human realms to see Nicole once more. Of course, if given the chance, I would love to see that lovely fallen angel loli, Yi Yi, I still owed her my thanks for saving me.

"The method to leave this prison...I only know of two methods. The first is to evolve into a four-star and find the exit yourself. While the exit is guarded by multiple prison guards, these guards will not hinder a four-star from leaving. Of course, this only applies to you yourself."

"If you insist on bringing along your subordinates, you can only rely on the second method." Violet Snow rubbed the ground with her tiny paws before calmly continuing under the anxious gaze of my eyes.

"Oh right, didn't you mention that they had a three-star leading them…" Putting aside the matter of leaving, I focused my attention back on the half-orcs. "During our battle, I didn't see any three-star leading them, don't tell me he's already dead."

She answered with an off topic response: " I just learnt an unfortunate piece of news from that half-orc, it looks like you have to cancel that plan to subjugate those devils."

"Why?" She raised her head and looked at the bone ceiling before answering in a helpless tone: "That enclave has at least two three-star demon childs guarding it. That three-star half-orc was killed by these two working together.

"...you're kidding me." Such a coincidence...I just decided on this new target and two days later, I stumble upon this piece of intelligence...although it's a pretty terrible piece of information.

"That enclave is the largest among the local factions. While they are a mere 7 days away from us, I suggest you set your sights on a different target." She pounded her paws on the ground to emphasize this need for caution.

"Master, here are the souls." Having tallied up the damages, No.5 had the self-awareness to automatically offer up the gathered souls.

In total, we harvested over a hundred souls which was delivered to me by several large imps. These souls were split into equal portions to be divvied out.

Upon seeing the souls, the grimoire gleefully flew over and gulped down its share in an instant. It was at this moment that Vick popped out to try and steal some souls but the grimoire didn't take too kindly to his advances. It tossed itself at the wispy dunce, scaring him away in an instant.

As for the devil egg, it seemed to have lowered its food intake. In the past, it would automatically absorb whatever was given to it. Now, it required me to feed it one by one. In fact, I actually had to place the soul onto its shell before it was willing to absorb it. Looks like it almost reached its limit or perhaps it just got sick of these souls.

In the face of my questioning, she hesitated for a while before answering: "Is that your child? That can't be true...you're obviously…"

...I absolutely detested this kind of people who left their sentences hanging like that. Even if that person was an adorable puppy, I still didn't like it although that anger only lasted only a couple of seconds. Being so pretty made it a lot easier to forgive her.

"It's not my child, it was birthed by one of my subordinates…" I gave a brief recounting of Mo Ci's story, all the while, she had an expression which said "so that's why".

"That's right, I'm really lucky." Having cheated death twice, I was definitely a lucky person. At the same time, I was also really unlucky...as for why, I'm sure it's pretty obvious…

As I reflected on my life, Violet Snow unintentionally struck at my weak point once more: "If you were the one who got caught, that role would've probably fallen to you."

"...there's...there's no way...I can give birth…" I had to admit, her words really hurt. Based on her words, she had always seen me as a female devil…

Unfortunately my indignant grief wasn't able to change her view of me. Her ears twitched a little as she gave me a disbelieving look. She slowly trotted up to me and gave me a good sniffing. After that round of inspection, this girl calmly looked at me and said:

"No matter how you look at it, whether it's your appearance, scent or soul, you're definitely a lust demon. Furthermore, you have a really high-grade bloodline. I wouldn't be surprised if you had the royal bloodline of a lust demon within you. It's probably because of this status that you were able to gather this large amount of devils."

"What lust demon! Let's set the record straight once and for all! I'm a male! Except for my lack of a pee pee, how am I anything but a male! I still have a pure heart within me so don't use those tainted eyes to corrupt me!!"

You've got to be kidding me! Even though I didn't use a certain tool for over 40 years, thus turning into a sage, I still won't allow you to treat me like a female! Back in the good old days, I was a stud who could fire off 7 consecutive shots in one night just by looking at a loli book!!

I've decided...before I die, I must grow a pee pee and at least have a night with a beautiful girl. This is my sole wish in life so God, please help me...wait, that's not right. I'm the enemy of God now, a devil...my head is getting messed up again.

My protests fell on deaf ears as she relentlessly battered me with her words: " Initially, I thought that you had relied on your feminine charms to maintain your control over these devils but clearly this isn't the case since you don't have that stench emitted by the carnal branch of lust demons in heat."

"Neither do you have the stench of male fluid on your body. And so, I guessed that you belonged to the combat branch or the beguiling branch of lust demons. If you were a part of the carnal branch, I wouldn't have allowed you to come near me."

"I just said that I'm not a lust demon!" Damn it, what will it take for you to believe me. An all female race like the lust demons simply aren't my cup of tea...oh wait, if they are willing to be my girlfriend, I won't object to that.

"I've never heard of a thief calling himself a thief." She threw out that irrefutable analogy and instantly shutting down my objection. She continued her inexplicable soliloquy without paying me any heed.

"In the past, any male who dared to touch me would be put to death immediately, someone like you would've died multiple times over. Also, those who stared at me for too long would have their eyes gouged out."

"..." What the heck, are you some kind of sacred maiden! Putting aside the fact that you execute anyone who touches you, what's with the eye gouging! Exactly how precious are you?

"Of course, that's all in the past." As she said this, she sadly shook her head. "While you're a natural born lust demon, I doubt you know much about your race since you were born in the Blood Sea. I'll give you a quick rundown so that you don't end up getting your gender mixed up."

"Who are you calling gender confused! I'm a male through and through, a female loving male!" This question of gender was driving me insane but no matter how I explained myself, she simply didn't believe me.

"Alright, alright. I get that you're a male lust demon. Just settle down and listen to me, who knows, your thing might actually grow out once you do so...pfft…"

According to her, lust demons had three branches namely, the carnal branch, beguiling branch and the combat branch. While they were called branches, they weren't a subspecies of the lust demon race. Instead, they were methods of survival.

Firstly, the carnal branch of lust demons. They formed the largest branch of lust demons, roughly 70% of the entire population fell under this category. As for what they did, the name says it all.

Basically, the common view of lust demons originated from this branch. In fact, they were the reason why humans considered lust demons the avatar of carnal desires...technically, they aren't wrong about that either.

The combat strength of the lust demons weren't particularly strong. Even though they controlled darkness and flames, their forte lied in their beguiling talents. Unfortunately for them, hell wasn't a conducive environment for them. To be exact, their forte didn't do much for their combat strength, in fact, their strength was lacking compared to the other races.

This was the reason why they were gifted with an alluring appearance and beguiling talents. At the end of the day however, combat is still the main method of survival in hell.

Due to the fierce competition in hell, it was much harder for female devils to survive. This was especially true for the more beautiful ones where their beauty ended up becoming a burden instead.

Their beauty often made them a target for enslavement by stronger devils. It was in such an environment that the carnal branch was born.

Carnal lust demons would often serve a stronger devil, becoming a plaything for them. At times, they might even turn the tables on these stronger devils and end up assuming the dominant role.

Simply put, it was using one's body to please another, in return, they were given a safe environment to live in. There were even lust demons who used their bodies to dominate male devils.

They were kinda like a friend with benefits or a cheap prostitute and in some cases, like a female bandit chief who controlled her subordinates with her body.

As for the beguiling branch, they roughly made up 25% of the lust demons in hell. This type of lust demon tended to specialize in psychic magic and were easily able to beguile the more simple minded devils. (Abyssal devils, flame demons and even some greater devils who were befuddled by their desires.)

This form of beguilement was a combination of their individual charm and psychic magic. Every member of the beguiling branch were peerless beauties as well as master level mesmers (mages who specialised in psychic magic).

They were not only able to make a person like them with a glance, some of their victims end up falling irreversibly in love with them at first sight, regardless of whether they are female or male.

These lust demons tended to have what was known as "queen syndrome"...which means they had a very high probability to creating a harem for themselves...furthermore, they didn't discriminate between men and women, with them as the dominant role.

The biggest difference between the two was a matter of choice. Carnal lust demons were either playthings or actively seduced others, on the other hand, beguiling lust demons were able to toy with others.

Combat lust demons were the most unique of the three. Unlike their kin, they possessed a terrifying gift for combat. If they were humans, they would probably be known as valkyries.

Their combat strength was so terrifying, they actually equalled the fallen angels who were known as the strongest devil race in hell. It wouldn't be a stretch to call them the reapers of the battlefield.

Their claim to prominence lied in their perfect control over flames and darkness. Combined with their peerless agility, they were able to overwhelm their enemies in close and long ranged combat.

Their beauty and affinity with psychic magic allowed them to charm their opponents with merely a stare...coupled with their control over darkness and shadows, these lust demons were the perfect assassins. After all, with their control over shadows, who else could blend into the shadows as well as them?

The biggest weakness of the combat branch was their rarity. Within the entire population, only 0.5% of lust demons were of the combat branch.

Similar to human society, there was a big difference in prestige between genius and mediocrity. As such, you could imagine the joy I felt when Violet Snow praised me.

"I thought you were a carnal/beguiling lust demon at first, but it turns out I was wrong and you're actually a combat lust demon."

My face practically radiated confidence as I beamed and put on a "I'm really strong" pose. "Is it because I'm so adept at combat?"

Seeing my confident expression, her mouth cracked into a rare grin: "Actually, the conclusion is that I still don't detect any trace of a male devil on you."

Without giving me time to wallow in depression, she immediately followed this up with a serious question: "What's your next plan?"

"Like you said, those two three-star demon childs are too much for us, at least for now. Even with our equipment, their numbers is more than enough to crush us. In that case, we have no choice but to keep wandering around."

I lightly rubbed the devil horn on my head, hoping to alleviate the headache I was getting from all the mulling. Two seconds later, I finally came to a decision: "We'll go back to our original plan of recruiting the dogmen. Once we do so, we can proceed to subjugate the other races and bolster our troops till we can stand toe to toe with that devil clan."

"After we subjugate that clan, we can search the surrounding regions for other clans to conquer while we look for the exit. The main goal is to get out of the Prison of the Dead as soon as possible."

"Why are you in such a hurry to leave? The Prison of the Dead isn't a place you can leave so easily." Despite her apprehension, I could detect a hint of longing in her voice. I could tell that she actually wanted to leave this damned place just as much as I did but she merely didn't have the confidence to do so.

That reminds me, exactly why did I run away from home in the first place? Oh right, it was because I was powerless and I didn't want to become a burden on my family. I didn't want Roscar to tire himself out, day after day, for my sake. I didn't want all his hard earned money to be wasted on my second magical examination.

Furthermore, if she actually left for school, my powerless self would be an easy target for the village hooligans...why did I have such a delicate looking face...sigh, there's just so much pressure on me…

More importantly, while I'm messing around here, Sares is still by her side, watching and waiting for his chance...what's worse was that bastard Roscar actually liked this kid...I just don't get it. What's so great about Sares? He's just a little talented and a tiny bit better looking than most people!

I'm pretty good looking myself! Well, things are different now, I've attained a power of my own. This time, I'll get back to the western human realms and snatch her back with my own two hands!

She's already 13 this year, if I don't hurry back within the next few years, she will have reached the marrying age. At that time, Sares might just…

My heart pounded, sending the blood rushing to my head. As the fires of anxiety burned within me, I jumped to my feet and replied, my voice just as fiery as my mood, " In a hurry? How can I not be in a hurry...if given the choice, I would immediately sprout a pair of wings and immediately fly out of this prison!"

Because of my sudden outburst, a number of subordinates started peeking in my direction. My eyes swept across the area, staring down anyone who dared to look at me: " What are you looking at? Go back to sleep!"

"Forget it, this isn't something I can explain to you." There was no way I could tell her that I'm a transmigrator, or that I was a 40 year old sage (virgin) or that my wish was to grow up into a real adult. How could I possibly tell her that!

As I stood there, alone, I was overcome by a sense of boredom and decided to look through the grimoire once more. The familiar words of the grimoire filled my vision as I flipped through the pages, suddenly I noticed a spell that I hadn't tried out yet. It was the new spell I attained when I evolved, Summon Skeleton Archer.

Reading through the words, I was reminded of that terrifying encounter with the skeletal assassin. Initially, he was merely an unassuming skeleton archer but all that changed when my subordinates cornered him, forcing him to reveal his prowess.

That encounter had traumatized me deeply, causing me a great deal of worry for a period of time. Given his strength, I was actually afraid that he might come back to assassinate me.

Due to a variety of reasons, undead magic was put on the back burner despite its obvious usability in the Prison of the Dead. Not only was my affinity with it worse than my darkness and flame affinity, I simply didn't have the mana to spare after spending it on crafting weapons. As such, all it could do was gather dust till now.

Despite all that I had I just said, it didn't mean that I couldn't devote a little time to a useful spell like Summon Skeleton Archer. Not only did it address a problem that has been plaguing me for a while, being in the Prison of the Dead meant that I didn't need to search for a skeleton before I test it out.

I stood there, grimoire in hand and began channeling my mana. As I did so, the magical array lit up, growing ever brighter with each unit of mana I used up. At the side, the light show ended up drawing the attention of a curious Violet Snow who turned around to watch.

Truth be told, it was kind of a shame I couldn't utilize the grimoire fully. It not only had the effect of reducing mana consumption, it also empowered my undead spells.

However, my affinity with that field was simply too horrendous. Furthermore, necromancers weren't well looked upon in the western human realms. If it wasn't for these two points, I would've definitely switched my main focus onto undead magic.

Ten seconds later, the radiant green glow of the array began to die down. All of a sudden, a bony hand broke through the bone floor with a distinct crack. An instant later, a second hand broke through the floor, this one gripping a bone bow. It arced its bony joints and pushed itself out of the ground in a strange sight that reminded me of a mud monster appearing out of a pool of mud.

Slowly but surely, the skeletal hands dragged its entire body out of the ground, revealing a relatively normal looking skeleton archer.

That skeletal assassin was pretty unremarkable as well. While it hid among the other skeleton archers, one would never single it out at first glance. Only after careful inspection would you discover that it was slightly shorter and more slender than the rest. If I had to make a comparison, if the other archers were normal humans in life, then that assassin must've been an elf in life.

Elven rangers were known for their long ranged capabilities along with their excellent close combat strength. A strong ranger is also by a definition a terrifying killer. They had after all, a much longer lifespan than humans. This meant that they had more time to hone a variety of crafts compared to a human who could only focus on one field in their limited lifespan.

Demonic werewolves are a subspecies of the werewolves normally found in the human world. They mainly live in Abbadon unlike their non-demonic cousins who usually hide themselves among humans.

The main difference between the two lies in the fact that demonic werewolves permanently stay in their wolf form while normal werewolves are able to switch between their human and wolf form, although this switching isn't as easy as it sounds. It is precisely because of this ability that the werewolves are able to infiltrate human society.

Demonic werewolves are famously known for their temperaments. This fiery temper of theirs is partially why they aren't able to assume a human form. Another factor is the sheer adversity they have to face in Abaddon. In such a chaotic and violent environment, their weaker human form ends up being a burden to them which led to them slowly favoring their wolf forms more.

Werewolves possess a number of extraordinary abilities in their wolf form. This includes an enhanced agility and power, a logic defying regenerative ability that even allows them to regenerate their limbs in a short span of time and finally a resistance to illnesses and toxins. They are, without a doubt, one of the strongest demonic races in this world.

Surprisingly, summoning that archer took up a lot less mana than I had expected; it only ate up 20 units of my mana. I guess the next thing to do is to test out its strength.

I ended up choosing a guardsman to stand in as a target dummy for this weapons test. As he quietly stood there, 50 meters away with his shield raised, I got the newly summoned skeleton archer to fire off an arrow at the shield.

The archer reacted nearly instantaneously to my command and drew out a bone arrow from an unknown source. It swiftly nocked the arrow onto its bow and with a resounding twang of its bow, let loose the bony projectile.

The arrow whistled through the air at nearly the speed of a bullet. In just a blink of an eye, it crashed into the raised shield, staggering the guardsman slightly. However, before it could knock him further back, the guardsman came to his senses and with a firm grip of his feet, steadied himself without giving up an inch to the arrow.

To think it was actually able to leave a mark on my refined shield...it's power is pretty decent. For a one-star skeleton to possess such an offensive power was impressive in its own right. With such power, it should be able to penetrate the hides of those ratmen easily.

However, these archers required a certain number before they could truly show off their offensive powers. Given that I currently possess a maximum of 83 units of mana, I can summon three archers a day with some mana leftover as an emergency. If that's the case, crafting weapons will have to be put asi de for now.

Recently, we've had to deal with a myriad of creatures which was to be expected. The ecosystem of the Prison of the Dead was much more complicated than the Blood Sea and the Land of Dead combined. As such, getting this long range squad ready took precedence over reinforcing my melee squads.

Absorbing souls would replenish my mana quickly but at the same time, I needed them to hasten my evolution...ah...so many problems, where should I even begin...forget it, I'll just focus on creating a 30 man squad first.

As always, he turned out to be a capable and reliable subordinate. He was in charge of managing all my subordinates and this included the half-orcs who I had just assigned to him.

As instructed, the half-orcs formed up in a neat formation in front of them, their bone clubs resting in their hands as always but instead of their usual ferocity, a sense of lethargy emitted from them.

I guess this low morale was to be expected. After all, they had just been subjugated and they weren't even the same race as us. Thankfully, I only needed a bunch of cannon fodder so I had no plans to groom them into proper subordinates. Their lack of morale was fine as long as they were able to soak some hits without fleeing.

The devils roared in unison. A moment later, the bony hallways were filled with the thunderous sounds of a hundreds strong army marching through its cramped passageways.

The journey didn't change much from yesterday's; all we encountered were a bunch of wandering undead. While these patrols were frequent, each patrol wasn't too large and so I decided to dispatch the half-orcs. Despite me labelling them as fodder, I still didn't want to risk their lives unnecessarily.

Upon entering combat, these half-orcs immediately showed why they were the one of the foremost combat races in Abaddon, their lackadaisical attitude took an immediate 180 as they charged into battle, their clubs waving wildly in the air as they roared.

These guys were even faster than my guardsman, it was as if a fire had been lit under them as they fearlessly plunged into battle. Their unexpected ferocity even gave me a scare the moment they started roaring.

In the Prison of the Dead, souls were an important source of sustenance for us devils. In terms of numbers alone, the undead formed the bulk of the population here and was naturally the most common food source. came the other races who were thrown here or had climbed up from the Blood Sea.

If these half-orcs weren't able to feed on souls, that meant that they only had one means of feeding themselves: killing other life forms for their meat.

The real problem was that on top of hunting the undead for souls, I now needed to hunt down some other life forms in order to feed these half-orcs…

No wonder these half-orcs didn't create a nest of their own aftering entering the Prison of the Dead but instead chose the life of bandits.

Given that before meeting these half-orcs we went through two consecutive days of nothing but eating, sleeping and hunting undead, that meant that these half-orcs had to have starved themselves for at least two days before meeting another source of meat. I guess this was the only silver lining in the cloud right now; they were accustomed to starving themselves.

Which brings up the next question, did the Abaddon Rodents have this same problem as well? If they weren't able to feed on souls, how did their thousand strong clan survive? And how did they maintain or perhaps even increased their numbers?

Looks like there's a lot more for me to learn about this place. Asking Violet Snow was definitely an option but she probably omitted this because she thought this information was unnecessary. Of course, it could just be that she forgot about it...or that she simply felt that I was too stupid and thus couldn't be bothered to do so…

After we managed to amass roughly 500 hundred soul, I distributed a portion of the souls to the elites in my army, in other words, the devils who were most likely to evolve into two-star. They numbered roughly 20.

Upon finishing his evolution, the newly evolved head imp stared at his hands in wonderment, he then gave his new horn a feel before looking around in a daze. As he took in the envious gaze of his peers, it finally dawned on him that this wasn't a dream and that he had really evolved.

"What are you laughing about! Get your ass over here and thank the Master for his generosity! Don't you know that these high- quality souls are normally reserved for the Master's own consumption. Feeding you guys these souls is such a waste!"

Seeing the silly grin on the imp, an irritated Nine-finger swiftly slapped the imp on the back of his head, stunning the imp for a short while.

"Which bastard actually dared to hit me, I'm going to…" The elation of evolving had left him a sense of superiority which got instantly disrupted by that sudden sneak attack on the back of his head. Feeling exceptionally irate, he turned around intending to give the culprit an earful.

However, the moment he did so, he came face to face with the equally irate Nine-finger. The sudden turn of events coupled with Nine-finger's seniority left the poor imp stammering for a reply.

"Cut the crap and go thank the Master." Having not vented his anger sufficiently, he gave the imp another slap on his head. Seeing that the imp merely shrink back in fear without daring to speak up, he finally experienced the pleasure that he was looking for; the pleasure of bullying another. And so, he strutted off, extremely proud of himself as if he had just won a battle.

The head imp didn't wait for Nine-finger to leave before immediately running up to me. He kneeled and said, with tears of gratitude in his eyes: "Many thanks for the Master's gift, I will forever be your most loyal slave. May your beauty remain as unchanging as the Blood Sea itself…"

Putting aside the matter of my gender, I had to admit that their eloquence had experienced a significant boost after evolving. Even their flattery had reached a new tier.

The fact that they treated me as a lust demon was just as exasperating as ever but I knew that there was no point explaining this as long as my pee pee didn't grow out.

And so, I simply went along with it: "Since you've evolved into a head imp, I'll bestow a name upon you. Not having a name for my two-star henchmen would be too much of a bother after all."

His excitement reached new heights as the words sunk in. He stared up at me with an expectant look on his face, the drool practically flowing from the corners of his mouth as he did so. I suddenly had the urge to kick his disgusting face but I suppressed it in time.

"Yes Master, Big 5 understands your words. I have a name...I'm Big 5...I finally have a name…" He muttered to himself, leaping into air several times as he did so. He was in every way, a gullible child celebrating after having received a simple gift.

This continued until he finally noticed the darkening look on Nine-finger's face, only then did he realise that he hadn't been given the permission to rise. His face paled and immediately fell to his knees once more.

Perhaps it was out of fear of having his name rescinded but the newly christened Big 5 continuously kowtowed, not daring to look up, any trace of a head imp's dignity, gone with the wind.

"It's fine. I'm not angry with you, you may rise first." After finally settling this issue, I suddenly realised that he was the same fellow who was riding that hellhound.

Even though he has gotten bigger since then, it seems like he was still able to ride that hellhound. Having received my forgiveness, he gleefully hopped onto his hellhound and rode around with a wide grin on his face.

While all this was happening, Nine-finger stood there staring uncomfortably at the pair. I don't why but he seemed to detest this imp and constantly tried to cause trouble for him.

How should I say this...truth be told, I found his personality rather... unique, but then, all my devils had a rather unique personality as well...

One such version claimed that she was a priestess of Athena who, due to her beauty, caught the fancy of Poseidon. Poseidon visited her in Athena's shrine and raped her. Having been raped, her body was no longer pure and was viewed by Athena as being a taint on the shrine. And so as punishment, she was turned into a snake demon.

Another version claimed that she was in a relationship with Poseidon despite being a priestess and was punished because of that. There's another retelling that said that Medusa was extremely narcissistic and even had the gall to claim that she was more beautiful than Athena and so she got punished for that…

There was even a version that claimed that she was actually a clone of Athena...the Greek mythology is just so chaotic, completely unlike our Chinese legends. There was only one Yellow Emperor and that was Xuanyuan. There's no instance of his legend being cloned like what happened to Zeus and Jupiter.

(In roman mythology, their king of gods was Jupiter who was also Zeus in the Greek mythology. There was a saying that goes: Rome conquered Greece with its might but Greece conquered Rome with its culture.)

When I first encountered the Medusas in this world, I found, to my surprise, that they had no connection to the legend of Athena at all. In a sense, it was impossible for them to have a connection anyway.

(In order not to forget how to write in Chinese, Mo Ke would write down his musings from time to time in a diary of sorts. This diary contained some of the thoughts he had when he was free.)

Due to his evolution, his body had grown bigger, making it awkward for him to ride his hellhound. In the past, the pair were a perfect match for each other proportion wise but now, his feet nearly touched the ground as they rode along, creating an extremely awkward looking sight.

I guess it wasn't strange of him to suggest such a thing. Furthermore, I originally had the intention of creating a cavalry unit but I ended up giving up on that idea since I didn't know how to create a saddle and reins. Since he took the initiative to ask me, I guess there's no harm in trying.

Seeing that I had no intention of rejecting him, his enthusiasm grew even stronger. As he stared at me with longing eyes, he answered, "Yes Master, I wish to ride him into battle, I feel that it makes me look cool."

"I have no objection to you being a cavalryman but I have no way to secure you to his back. If you aren't secured to him, it's highly likely that you will fall off his back. Plus, I can 't teach you how to fight so you have to figure it out step by step. All I can do for you is craft a weapon."

Even after saying all that, the enthusiasm on his face didn't dim a bit. Judging by that, he probably already came to terms with these issues. Even so, I asked him one last time, "Don't forget that you will be the only person in the cavalry unit for now. Before the other devils get the approval of the hellhounds, you won't have any subordinates to command. Are you fine with that?"

"Alright, I understand. If you're able to prove yourself in the coming battles, I will support you in creating your own hellhound cavalry unit." I've already received his resolve, all that's left for me to do as his master was to support him with a handcrafted weapon.

Because I didn't know how to create a crossbow, I ended up making a variant of the Mo sabre that was significantly shorter at just two meters in length.

Truth be told, this was merely an experiment to me, one that was unlikely to succeed. After all, the issue of the saddles was still up in the air, until that was resolved, the future of our cavalry unit seemed bleak.

As for Big 5, his thinking was just as innocent as always. Upon receiving his own custom short Mo sabre, his face immediately broke into a silly grin.

Thankfully, the hellhound's weight bearing abilities were still pretty decent. Even while carrying the slightly enlarged Big 5, he still didn't lose much speed. The only issue was the bumpiness of the ride.

Big 5 had to use his legs to support himself from time to time in order to maintain his balance, creating an extremely awkward scene. Furthermore, this style of riding was a heavy burden on the hellhound's fatigue; are dogs even suited to being mounts?

The summoning of the skeleton archers proceeded as smoothly as projected. Within the first day, I managed to summon 15 archers. However, they didn't seem to work out as well as I would hope. Against the wandering undead, they were significantly less effective.

I was only able to command them to fire in a general area, as for targeted shots, it was simply impossible. In other words, their archery wasn't that good.

This became a huge problem when fighting the undead as their only weak point was their head. These skeleton archers had to fire directly at the skull of the undead in order to damage the soul flames within...this was the equivalent of asking someone who didn't know how to play basketball to make a three pointer shot right off the bat.

So far our journey today was really smooth; we had zero casualties despite our battles. While we didn't acquire any meat for the half-orcs, they were still able to feed on the meat stored up from yesterday so they didn't have to starve.

However, the issue of distance was truly a hair pulling one. According to Violet Snow's translation of that old hellhound's words, the dogmen were supposed to be quite close to us.

It was this "quite close" that scammed me. This "quite close" was based on their galloping speed and their equally formidable stamina. My large imps definitely couldn't compare to them in either category.

And so, even after four days of travelling, we still haven't encountered the dogmen tribe. In the words of that old hellhound, we still had another half a day's worth of travelling left, which means that my large imps had to march for another whole day...

"That's right but there seems to be a variety of scents nearby. Other than the dogmen, I picked up the scent of the demonic werewolves and the medusas."

"I've no idea what you're talking about." She rolled her eyes at me, obviously not getting my sense of humor. Her eye ridges drew together in worry as she continued, " If I'm not wrong, those dogmen are either dead or enslaved."

"Isn't this too much of a coincidence, we just got here and you tell me that my target is already gone?" I should've checked my horoscope before leaving...if there's even such a thing here.

It was at this moment that the scouting hellhound sent out by Violet Snow came back. He barked at her several times and she barked back several times as well. The two dogs barked at each other in what I assumed was them communicating before the scouting hellhound finally turned around and trotted off.

She turned back to me, her face visibly darker. "We encountered a patrol of demonic werewolves in front of us. They got into a fight with my hellhounds and we ended up leaving with the short end of the stick."

"Can you confirm their exact numbers?" I've never seen these werewolves before but so far, the monsters I've encountered seem to somewhat follow the legends on Earth. These werewolves shouldn't be an exception either. They should be covered in a thick coat of fur with the head of a wolf and the body of a human's.

They should have a set of razor sharp claws and teeth and also possess an astonishing strength level, speed and regenerative ability. Their weaknesses should include a vulnerability to fire and a lack of magic talent.

"The scents are too mixed up so I can't confirm it. However, the medusas and the demonic werewolves aren't allies so they should be fighting with each right now." She paused for a while before proceeding to explain the characteristics of the werewolves.

According to her description, it was pretty similar to what I envisioned a werewolf to be. With a new notable points such as their fur being a defensive tool. This meant that my arrows and archers were basically useless in this fight.

Their weak points were their head, throat and heart. Attacking them elsewhere would have limited effect at best and as expected, they were afraid of fire.

I tried to think of a way to counter them but I ended up with nothing. In the end all I could do was pray that their human form was weaker.

"Demonic werewolves aren't able to assume a human form." She immediately destroyed that last bit of hope I held. "Due to the adverse conditions in hell, they've evolved to always maintain their wolf form."

"No human form huh…" The werewolves described on Earth had the weakness of a weaker human form. What couldn't kill them in their wolf form might just be able to kill them in their human form. I originally planned to fire off an arrow storm before they turn into wolves but...these werewolves weren't cooperating with me at all!

"The werewolves who were thrown here shouldn't be too strong but given that they are able to fight with the medusas, they should have a few three-stars."

Upon hearing her mention the medusas, my curiosity was piqued. "What are the Medusas like? In my memory, their hair is made of snakes and their body is that of a snake's. Anyone who lock eyes with them are turned to stone and they possess an affinity for the bow. Furthermore, their blood is toxic."

"What you just said pretty much matches my own except for the part about the bow." She gave me a bland look and said, "Medusas have their own unique ranged attack, they don't need a bow."

Ignoring my wry smile, she continued explaining in that icy tone of hers, "Medusas are one of the combat races of Gehenna just like the werewolves. While they don't have the regenerative ability of those werewolves, they have a strength that matched the werewolves'. In terms of close combat, they are a force to be reckoned with as well."

"As for their speed, perhaps it's because of their tails getting in the way, they simply aren't a match for the werewolves in terms of speed. As a comparison, they are about as fast as your large imps."

"The medusas have a set of poisoned teeth which can paralyze any living creature they bite while the snakes on their head are able to spit out poison up to a range of 30 meters. It's a corrosive poison that can even chew through rock. The same goes for metal as well."

"However, their most terrifying weapon is their eyes, anyone who stares at their eyes run the risk of being petrified by their innate magic though, this isn't a permanent effect…"

"From the looks of it, the medusas seem a bit stronger than the werewolves, after all, the werewolves didn't have a long ranged attack." While I didn't have any particular fondness for these snake women, the facts simply suggested that they had the advantage.

"Actually, the sturdiness of their body allows them to temporarily resist the paralyzing effect of the medusa's bite. Plus their fur allows them to resist the corrosive poison shot out by the snakes. All in all, they have a pretty similar combat strength and neither side could claim a decisive advantage over the other."

TL: I made a mistake in the previous chapter where I said that he could only summon 3 skeleton archers in a day, it should be in one session instead. I've changed that retroactively.

The reason why we were leisurely standing around was because our opponents were the werewolves. Against their speed, running away now was simply too late…

Besides, if Violet Snow's guess was right, those werewolves should be fighting against the medusas right now. In light of that, they shouldn't be that brainless as to charge at us for no reason. At the very least they would try to discover our intentions and then try to avoid or bring us into the fight against the medusas.

After all, fighting a war on two fronts wasn't the smartest idea. As long as they had some brains in them, they shouldn't do that right...

Either way, I had a lot of room to maneuver. For example, I could pretend to be harmless and wait till both sides have exhausted their men before suddenly turning on both of them. By then, subjugating both sides should be easy...yup, sounds perfect.

These were merely my assumptions but seeing as she didn't raise any opinions but instead took her time to explain these matters to me, she must've had the same idea as me right…

While I was busy making wild guesses, a hellhound rushed up to Violet Snow and reported something in their usual barks. After which, she nodded her tiny little head and said, "Mhm, their attack is about to reach us. In that case, it's time for battle."

"..." What's with that nonchalant announcement! Wasn't the reason why we were standing here because you had some assurance that they wouldn't attack? What happen to our plan of ambushing at the right moment?!

"What's with that look on your face?" Upon discovering my strange expression, she turned her attention to me before giving out an "Oh!". In an instant, her gaze told me exactly what she thought of me at the moment, [Idiot, Stupid, Fool].

"As an intelligent life form, I feel that the least they can do is to send an emissary to find out about our situation, I'm sure they wouldn't just attack us without…"

"Anyone who thinks that they have a brain is brainless themselves." She sighed and stopped talking. The adorable little puppy was at a loss for words to describe the retard standing before her right now.

The formation was the same as always except the addition of the half-orcs at the back. These newcomers were given special care at the moment. I had given One-eye specific instructions to keep them behind the Mo sabres in order to prevent any unnecessary losses. After all, this wasn't the time to use them yet.

It didn't take too long before the hunched over figures of the werewolves entered our sight. As they bore down upon us, they sprinted on all fours like a bunch of mindless beast s.

They numbered roughly in the 60s and as expected. Their humanoid body was covered in a jet black coat of fur that extended all over their massive body from their razor sharp claws to their lupine head. Within that wolf-like head were a couple of rows of equally sharp teeth that looked more like a meat grinder than a mouth.

If they were to stand upright, I would estimate their real height to be at least 250 cm. Their upper body proportions were significantly wider than most life forms. Just based on this alone, it looked like they were built for charging attacks. It was as if we were up against a bunch of (American) football players.

Their sprinting speed was exceptionally fast and could be said to rival the speed of the hellhounds. As they charged ever closer to us, they would give off a frenzied howl, spraying the battlefield with their disgusting spit as they did so. The howls probably had no meaning behind them but it was precisely this reason that they sounded even scarier.

In a blink of an eye, they were less than a hundred meters away from us. Due to the height of the shieldwall, we weren't able to see them as they approached us. However, this made it that much scarier for the shieldbearers as the disembodied howls echoed in their ears. They trembled as their minds filled in the blanks regarding their strength.

As for the other devils, they were just as unsettled. From their vantage point, they were able to clearly see the herculean physique of the werewolves. Only the hellhounds and half-orcs were unfazed by this display and were instead fired up as they readied for battle.

"Fire!" I gave off the command to the archers. As they were my summoned minions, this task could only be accomplished by me. On my signal, the 30 archers let loose a hail of arrows at the approaching werewolves.

In face of this arrow rain, even the werewolves couldn't get away unscathed IF the arrows managed to hit them. However, that was an extremely big if. Due to the parabolic curve of their flight path, the werewolves had plenty of time to react to the incoming arrows. They slowed their charge down by a tiny bit, dodging the majority of the arrows, all the while maintaining their formation.

As the distance got smaller and smaller, the blinding speed of their charge grew ever more apparent. A breath later, they had reached the shield wall.

An endless chain of crashes echoed in the battlefield as black fur met with white bones. Right before they collided, the werewolves leaped off the ground with a mighty kick of their legs and dived right into the shield wall. Their speed was simply too great for the sabre wielders who couldn't even attack before the shields began toppling one after the other.

What was an impossibly heavy shield to the large imps was merely a toy to the werewolves. To them, all they needed was a slap of their palms to send these toys flying.

One of the sabre wielders finally came to his senses and immediately stabbed at the werewolf in front of him. At that moment, the werewolf was just about to rip into the large imp crushed under the bone shield beneath his feet. However, the sudden sabre thrust ended up foiling his attack as he was forced to retreat a few steps in order to avoid the lethal thrust.

However, before he could even breathe a sigh of relief, the werewolf was already gearing up for a second attack. However, instead of stepping on the shieldbearer, he leaped at the heavy shield and with a casual lift of his arm, picked it up and threw it as if he was slamming down a wooden table.

The heavy bone shield slammed into the sabre wielder with a loud smack, not only was he knocked off his feet, the two reserves behind him got caught up in the attack as well. The heavy shield crushed the three imps into the ground with the combined force of its weight and the werewolf's immense strength, killing two of them and severely injuring the other.

The ones who charged up first were obviously two-star werewolves. With herculean their strength, overpowering the one-star shieldbearers was a given. As such, the immediate failure of the shield wall was predestined.

The eight two-star werewolves breached the shield wall in an instant, creating a gaping hole for the other one-star werewolves to swam in.

While they were only one-stars, our broken formation meant that even these werewolves were able to inflict significant casualties on my imps.

As I stood atop my bone wall, I was struck with a severe headache as I looked at the tragedy unfolding before me. Not only did the immense combat strength of the werewolves cause me grief, the rapid failure of the shield wall was another problem as well.

The heavy bone shield was a creation of my own design. In my mind, it was to be an impregnable fortress but...it ended up failing battle after battle. As long as we met with a strong enemy, these shields would fail spectacularly, where it was thrown away, broken into pieces or even used against us.

Because of this failure, the sabre wielders ended up being a high-risk occupation...the exact opposite of what I had intended. The moment the shield wall broke down, this entire formation became a death trap for the sabre wielders.

I should revamp these heavy shields...no, what's more important now is to stop these demonic werewolves. No matter what, we mustn't allow them break through any further!

Once again, the guardsmen had to put out the fire caused by the heavy shields failing. A portion of them led by Nine-finger were dispatched to plug up the breach while the others, commanded by One-eye, immediately tried to separate the sabre wielders from the werewolves. As long as they succeeded, the sabre wielders would be able to regain their effectiveness.

A guardsman bravely stepped forth and separated one of the sabre wielders from the werewolf. However, before his bone sword even had the chance to swing at the enemy, his body was swept away, shield and all, with a single swipe of the werewolf's claw.

Given their strength, One-eye was barely able to hold off one of the werewolves. And so, I decided to throw all caution to the wind as I commanded my two bodyguards, "No.3, Big 4, go ahead and help them as well."

Realizing that, I summoned more bone walls, raising the entire archer squad seven meters into the air, giving them a much better vantage point to shoot. At this height, their arrows should have an even greater impact due to the high ground.

While the effectiveness of their arrows were limited, this didn't mean that the werewolves were completely immune to them either. While I couldn't speak for the two-stars, the one-stars were definitely unable to take these arrows head on.

With their suppressive fire, our dire situation was given a moment of reprieve. However, this didn't mean that it was time to relax, the battlefield was still a chaotic mess and if I didn't think of a way to turn this situation around…

TL: I made a mistake in the previous chapter where I said that he could only summon 3 skeleton archers in a day, it should be in one session instead. I've changed that retroactively.

Somehow, I get this feeling that I'll never understand the way these half-orcs think...I'm the one who enslaved them and yet they're risking their lives to save me?

Half-orcs were initially stationed among the reserves and so they were sufficiently close to the sabre wielders and the shieldbearers.

My intention was to utilize them while minimizing any casualties among them. My concern then was ensuring that they didn't feel like I was treating them as cannon fodder…

However, from the way they're rushing into battle now, it looks like these muscle heads never intended to rebel against me in the first place.

By now, the shield formation had fell apart from the werewolves' unstoppable charge. Behind them, the Mo sabres laid strewn across the battlefield, unwanted and untouched. The werewolves' had no use for "toys" such as these; to them, their claws and teeth were much more trustworthy.

It was in this unfavorable situation that the half-orcs decided, of their own volition, to join in the fight. The disastrous situation on the frontlines seemed to have no effect on their morale as the half-orcs plunged into the losing battle, their spirits high as they howled at the top of their lungs.

The half-orcs split off a squad to help plug the breach in our frontline while the rest of them rushed in and picked up the scattered heavy shields and sabres. With their looted equipment in hand, they joined the fight against the terrifying werewolves.

Initially, this unexpected move by the half-orcs startled One-eye; he thought that they were planning to betray us. However, upon seeing them fight the werewolves, he knew that he was wrong. Reacting to their much needed aid, he immediately ordered his men to stall the werewolves in order to give the half-orcs more time to equip themselves.

It was at this moment that No.3 and Big 4 joined in the fight as well. The pair immediately matched themselves against a two-star werewolf of their own.

While they were both short an arm, their combat strength was still formidable. With the aid of their nearby allies, they managed to hold their own against the herculean werewolves.

The hellhounds were Violet Snow's subordinates and so I had no control over them. Thankfully however, these clever hounds knew to cooperate with our forces in taking down these werewolves.

While the half-orcs were gearing up, they took the initiative to aid this process. They would lunge at any nearby werewolf and stall them while some even brought the half-orcs their gear...

These half-orcs had a natural affinity for weapons. Just based on the fact that they chose to wield a club was proof enough of this. Without any prior training given, these normally dim half-orcs instinctively knew what to do with their newly acquired gear.

The shield wielding orcs immediately formed a frontline for their sabre wielding brethren who retreated right away behind the safety of the heavy bone shields. With their saf ety secured, they immediately focused their spear thrusts on the nearest werewolves they could find.

Just based on this performance alone, these half-orcs clearly lived up to their reputation as the premier combat race in Gehenna; their talent for weaponry was clearly above my large imps.

Given their relative safety, 100 meters away from the frontlines, the archers were able to rain death upon the werewolves with near impunity, causing them a great deal of pressure. These werewolves not only had to deal with the half-orcs, they also had to watch out for any arrows from above, lest they get skewered by them.

This feeling of being cornered didn't sit well with the werewolves, if these archers were given space to act as they wished, their defeat was only a matter of time. And so, the werewolves split off four two-star werewolves to handle this problem.

The four werewolves adopted their beastial stance once more and broke into a four-legged charge towards my general direction. Their target, the bone archers atop my bone wall.

While they weren't a match for the werewolves in terms of combat strength, their numbers more than made up for this. There were more than 10 times the amount of troops on our side and if they were to focus on stalling the werewolves, even their two-star strength wouldn't help them much.

This, however, would result in enormous casualties on our side and this was something I didn't wish to see, whether it was from a sentimental standpoint or a practical one. In order to leave the Prison of the Dead, such needless sacrifices must be avoided.

This unpredictable fellow had always been prone to such sudden appearances. Perhaps it was due to the novelty of meeting these werewolves for the first time but Vick decided to charge at one of the two-star werewolves without even waiting for my instructions.

As the wispy humanoid came into sight, the werewolf immediately picked up the speed of his charge. His lupine mouth cracked into a toothy grin as his muscular legs rammed even harder into the ground, propelling him forward with greater force. His plan was the same as always, ram into any obstacles standing in his way.

As his bulging frame rammed into Vick, a bone-chilling gust of coldness penetrated his body. His body trembled uncontrollably as his body temperature plummeted and his blood circulation slowed to a crawl.

His limbs began to feel like lead as the penetrating cold worked its way throughout his extremities, forcing him to halt his charge and focus his attention on the enemy he had just charged through.

The werewolf didn't understand the meaning behind the wraith's seemingly harmless circling but that didn't stop him from attacking Vick anyway. He leaped at Vick, his mouth wide open and his teeth glimmering in the air. Unfortunately for this dim-witted werewolf, he attack was doomed to fail once more.

He passed through the ghost just like before without causing any damage on Vick. This frustrated the werewolf immensely who immediately began chasing his foe.

As for Vick , he was in cloud nine at the moment, having just gotten a new playmate to tease. He would drift towards the werewolf and immediately retreat right as the werewolf's attack was about to hit him.

Due to his lack of subordinates, Big 5 had been by my side this entire. This was to be his maiden battle riding his hellhound into battle and it showed on his face. His excitement could barely be contained as he rode off into battle, short sabre waving in the air as he did so.

Instead of dodging his charge, the werewolf met it head on. Claw met with sabre as the two collided. As the dust settled on the titanic clash, both parties didn't manage to get a decisive lead over the other. The werewolf's fingers dangled limply by the side of his hands as the sabre ripped through leaving a wound of unknown depth on his claws.

As for Big 5, the force of the collision threw him off his hellhound. Feeling the sudden lightness on his back, the hellhound immediately knew what had happened to his companion. However, instead of heading back to Big 5, he made use of this opportunity to tear into the werewolf's legs.

The werewolf howled in pain as he viciously clawed at the hellhound, desperately trying to shake him off. Unfortunately for him, the hellhound had predicted his counterattack and with a nimble shake of his body, dodged it while he leaping back towards Big 5.

Back when I crafted that Mo sabre for him, I was afraid of just such a scenario and so I shortened the Mo sabre from 2.5m to 2m. The range of the Mo sabre wasn't as advantageous in a melee fight as one would think. The length would end up being a burden if the enemy managed to get close to the wielder.

The 2m Mo sabre was a lot better in this regard. While it still didn't measure up to shorter weapons in terms of agility, it was less cumbersome and given the shortage of mana, this was the best solution I could come up with.

Big 5 had just evolved into a head imp and so was only recently given this weapon. As such, his combat experience with it was severely lacking but fortunately for him, he had a trusty sidekick by his side, the hellhound.

Knowing that he couldn't take on this werewolf head on, the hellhound smartly chose to adopt the role of an assassin. While Big 5 handled the werewolf, he would sneak in attacks from time to time.

Having just experienced the strength of Big 5's "toy", the werewolf knew not to face it head on and instead used his speed to dive Big 5. However, his plan didn't work out as planned as the hellhound was simply too capable to allow that.

Whenever he tried to approach Big 5, his trusty hellhound would lunge in and despite his measly one-star strength, prevent the werewolf from advancing any further. The werewolf turned around to claw at the hellhound but before it could do so, the nimble hellhound had already retreated to safety.

While the fight ended up being a close match, this wasn't the case on the side of Violet Snow where her opponent could only be said to be unlucky for getting matched up with her.

Having been with her for a while now, I was basically sure that she was a three-star. However, she basically stood on the sidelines during most of our fights; perhaps she had an issue with her mana consumption and with her body not being suitable for close combat.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she was more of a mage-type character who had a few powerful spells which could only be used a few times.

Her chosen werewolf barely got within several tens of meters of her before he was met with a speeding bullet in the form of a snowball. With a quick twist of his body, he neatly dodged the incoming bullet, however, this was the end of his good fortune. Just as he did so, an icicle the size of an adult's thigh shot out of the ground and pierced his abdomen.

The sudden impact of the icicle, caused his speeding body to lose balance, tumbling off to the side and ripping apart the wound on his abdomen. Pain shot through his body like lightning as he barely managed to stumble back on his feet. His eyes locked squarely onto his foe, the hatred seeping from his gaze as he stood there panting heavily.

As the howl left his mouth, his face suddenly froze, his eyes as wide open as his gaping mouth. Right in his blindspot at the back, was a similarly sized icicle piercing into his heart, skewering him like a shishkebab...even with their renowned sturdiness, a mortal blow like this spelled instant death for them.

"Instead of wasting time talking, perhaps you should spend it casting spells instead." She ignored my praise and calmly trotted to the side, clearly not intending to partake in the fight any longer.

By now, the last werewolf was nearly within striking distance of me. I knew that my fireball couldn't hit him and so I opened up with my fast casting bone spears.

As the bone spears hurtled towards him, the werewolf had to veer off course in order to dodge them, buying me enough time to summon up a bone wall to block his path. With the bone wall stalling him, I began casting my flame whip.

The fiery elements converged on my palm, stretching out into a snake-like object as I pulled my hands apart. By the time my whip had fully taken shape, the werewolf had just managed to break through the bone wall.

The bone wall crumbled as the werewolf's claws ripped through its chalky interior, revealing the face of my opponent once more. However, instead of charging right at me, the werewolf stood there for a second, his eyes wide open as he looked in the direction of the skewered werewolf.

Seeing the tragic fate of his companion, he became wary of the snow white puppy beside me. This coupled with my recent display of magic, caused him to reconsider his actions.

Unfortunately for him, the skeleton archers weren't nice enough to give a person time to do so. Due to the proximity of this werewolf, the tireless archers had designated this poor wolf as their main target.

As the hail of arrows whistled through the air, the demonic werewolf didn't even consider taking them on and instead ran off with his tail between his legs…

As the two-star werewolf ran away, he gave out the characteristic howl of a wolf. However, it sounded slightly different from before; it was much weaker and almost seemed like a signalling howl.

The howl rolled across the battlefield, bringing with it an immediate change in the werewolves. No matter their circumstances, they immediately tried to break away from their opponents even at the risk of getting injured. Soon, the werewolves were all gathered in one spot.

As if they had rehearsed this before, the majority of the werewolves simultaneously turned around and ran leaving behind a smaller portion to cover their retreat. Despite the abruptness, these escaping werewolves managed to maintain to a semblance of unity as they tried to break through the devils.

They succeeded initially but things were never so simple, especially in a chaotic battle like this with so many unknowns thrown into the mix.

The two-star werewolves were significantly stronger than my imps, in fact, they were able to assist the other werewolves while taking on an enemy of our own. Initially, this created a favorable situation for the escaping werewolves.

However, they were foiled right at the cusp of success by the unexpected intervention of the half-orcs in what could only be described as the second coming of the half-orcs.

Due to the immense strength of the werewolves, a large number of our devils had been seriously injured by them, causing the battlefield to be littered with abandoned weapons. In the midst of this chaos, the half-orcs undertook a second round of scavenging, bringing the total up to 11 heavy shields, 14 Mo sabres and 8 sets of swords and shields.

While I certainly appreciated their continuous show of formidable might, I just couldn't understand the way these half-orcs thought. Don't forget, just a short time ago, these slaves were our mortal enemies!

Initially, upon seeing the werewolves attempt to escape, I had planned on letting them go after putting up some nominal resistance. After all, even a rabbit would bite when cornered. Furthermore, I didn't want to lose anymore subordinates and so I decided not to push them further over the edge.

With heavy shield in hand, the 11 shield bearing half-orcs rammed right into the werewolf blockade. Making use of the heavy shield's inherent sturdiness, they threw themselves at the werewolves with reckless abandon time after time.

Shockingly, this brute force method ended up working as their third attempt finally succeeded in disrupting the werewolves' formation, allowing a breach to form in the blockade.

The half-orcs immediately streamed through the gap and dashed past the fleeing werewolves. With a quick turn of their bodies, they formed a shield wall in front of the fleeing werewolves.

These fleeing werewolves were all one-stars and so had no way to breakthrough this new shield formation. This last minute plan of theirs ended up being extremely successful.

It was at this moment that the other half-orcs who were currently mixed in with the devils, engaged in another frenzied wave of attacks. The sword and shield half-orcs formed the took the lead and charged at the werewolves with the Mo sabres following closely behind.

Compared to the devils, their take on our standard formation was significantly more successful. These half-orcs were able to bring out the full power of the bone shields as they clashed with the werewolves. Not only did they manage to efficiently defend themselves, they were able to interrupt the flow of their opponents' movements with a timely bash.

Furthermore, these sword wielding half-orcs coordinated perfectly with their Mo sabre brethren in inflicting the maximum amount of damage on the disorderly werewolves.

Ever since the demonic werewolves decided to abandon the fight, our side hadn't suffered a single casualty. This was in large part due to the half-orcs' dynamic offense. To be honest, the fact that I had considered using them as cannon fodder was a serious mistake on my part; it would've been a severe underestimation of their abilities if I did so.

"These half-orcs truly exceeded my expectations this time around." I praised them, all the while making sure not to stay idle, with a wave of my hand, I instantly fired off a bone spear in the direction of a two-star werewolf.

That werewolf was currently engaged with Nine-finger, all the while being flanked by a couple of hellhounds. In midst the of this dangerous situation, the werewolf not only had to deal with attacks from these three, he also had to contend with my sporadic bone spears. Naturally, this could only end in a tragedy for the poor werewolf.

"We have a problem." She replied ominously as she threw a grave look in the direction the werewolves had just attacked us from. "Get your men to retreat now, we have a problem."

Upon receiving the order, my devils were just as stunned as I was. To them, beating on a defeated foe was exactly the situation they had been waiting for. Expecting them to stop now was the same as having to take a toilet break in the middle of an exciting fight.

A high pitched howl echoed ominously across the battlefield, At the corner of my eye, I spotted a black shadow flash across the battlefield at an unbelievable speed. If I had to describe it, it was as if a flash of lightning had crackled across the night sky, eye-grabbing and startling at the same time.

In the blink of an eye, the black shadow crossed the barricade set up by the half-orcs, knocking them aside as it rammed through. As it approached the werewolves, it gracefully leaped into the air, passing over the werewolves, devils and the mix of half-orcs and hellhounds. By the time it landed, it was already in front of my bone wall.

What stood in front of us was a demonic werewolf. Her figure was roughly similar to the others we had encountered so far except that her body was slightly more slender than the others.

However, as she straightened her back, her towering figure cast an immense shadow over the bone wall and beyond. She must've been at least three meters tall!

A glint of danger flashed across her golden eyes as she stared at me. Her razor sharp claws glimmered coldly in the dim lightning, adding a sense of sinisterness to her already deadly claws. On her chest was a V-shaped tuft of fur that resembled that of a asiatic black bear's.

Three snowballs the size of a soccer ball shot towards the silver furred werewolf, at the same time, five icicles stabbed at her from different angles, blocking off any avenue of escape. No matter what she chose to do, she would have to contend with an attack.

However, instead of forcing her into the corner, the attacks turned out to be mere annoyances for her. The werewolf stomped her feet into the ground, directly smashing one of the rising icicles into the pieces.

With a quick rotation of her body and a deadly flash of her claws, she sliced apart the four other icicles coming at her from the north, south east and west of her.

Instead of dodging, she nonchalantly stood there and allowed them to hit her. Upon impact, the snowballs began to freeze the werewolf' body starting from the point of impact, spreading outwards till it nearly covered over half of the body.

Having just fired off eight spells consecutively, Violet Snow was exhausted and from the looks of it, wasn't able to cast anymore spells.

She used her tiny body to shove me, signalling for me to run away first. However, the might of the werewolf had left me stunned and so I didn't react to her warning in time. Not that I was going to leave her behind anyway.

Within the span of that slight delay, the werewolf leaped into the air, all the while withstanding the hail of arrows from the archers.

Her voice almost sounded feminine to me but for the most part, she sounded like a typical warrior with steel in her blood. However, this tone reminded me of another matter. As I lowered my gaze, I finally noticed that her chest was slightly bulging out…

"Devil, do you wish for me to repeat myself?" She reached out with one arm and lifted me up by the neck, her hand giant hand engulfing my shoulder and neck as she did so. At this distance, I bore the full brunt of the terrifying murderous intent emanating from her eyes.

Truth be told, her order was sort of redundant. The moment she captured me, my subordinates had already stopped fighting. As a result of this, the remaining one and two-star werewolves finally managed to get a moment of reprieve.

My throat was squeezed to the point of suffocation by her hand. Despite this, all I could think of was the safety of the devil egg. As I held my breath, I tightened my grip on the grimoire and egg, ensuring the safety of these two but at the cost of increasing the squeeze on my neck.

Noticing that I hadn't said a word since the start, the silver furred werewolf finally realized that I was unable to talk in this state. She turned and surveyed the area, by now, the fighting had already stopped as per her request and so she jumped off the bone wall and finally released me onto the ground.

As her crushing grip finally loosened its hold on me, I slumped onto the ground unceremoniously, gasping for air as I leaned against the bone wall. All this while, I didn't dare to shift my eyes away from her, even for a second; she was simply too terrifying.

And so, I had to use my hands to check up on the devil egg. I gave it a cursory feel and upon discovering that it was still whole, I finally heaved a sigh of relief.

"Master...are you alright?" One-eye and the other named head imps finally caught up to the werewolf and immediately formed a protective ring around me, shielding me from the werewolf.

"Devil, while this battle was caused by the rash actions of my men, your army had picked a truly inopportune time to arrive. Right now, I suggest that you turn around and retreat." Ignoring the five head imps around me, she reached out and waved her claw in front of me as if to emphasize my impotence.

"Don't think you're safe just because you have Mo En backing you up. If you choose to ignore my warning, your fate will be just as tragic."

Upon saying that, she turned around and left. The surviving werewolves hurriedly gathered up the corpses of their comrades and followed after her.

In the face of such an overwhelming strength, I didn't dare to pull any tricks in front of that werewolf. Any request for battle was immediately shot down by me as I commanded them to stay put. However, I had forgotten about a certain idiot who was actually brainless…

I didn't know when but by the time I had noticed it, the wispy green figure of Vick was already floating about the silver werewolf. As he circled around her, he gave her body a thorough scanning, his curiosity clearly getting the better of him. While this wasn't by any means an attack, it was still an annoying move on his part.

Her brows furrowed at the irksome ghost in front of her, her claws swiping out at him as she did so. Vick stood there, without a trace of fear in him as he took her attack head on.

However, the unexpected happened the very next moment. The werewolf's claw tore through his body, ripping his body apart as it cleaved through his supposedly incorporeal body...

"Ma...her magic's pretty impressive!" I wryly smiled as I turned towards Violet Snow. Didn't you tell me that the werewolves were bad at magic?

Having chased away Vick, the silver werewolf gave me a cold stare, ignoring the barrier formed by One-eye and the others, her face deadpan as if she was looking at a dead prey.

Don't...don't turn around...go on, just leave. Don't keep looking at me...it's not like I was the one who told him to bother you, I'm innocent…

Just as I started celebrating, an earth shaking cry rang out from a distance across the battlefield , giving my poor little heart another scare. "Maaaassteeerr, are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere, do you need No.5 to give you a check up…"

Often in the heat of battle, this potato would mysteriously disappear only to show up after the battle ends. This time was no exception either, his ingratiating voice appeared as if right on cue, ready to take advantage of the situation.

Regarding his skiving, I had already given up all hope on it, with a resigned wave of my hand, I signalled for No.3 to give him a quick kick while getting him to take count of our losses.

Upon receiving the command, One-eye left to summon the surviving half-orcs. After the battle, their numbers had dropped from 49 to 44, with basically all of them covered in injuries. Over half of them were still wielding the bone weaponry they scavenged in the middle of the battle.

Regarding this matter, One-eye was still utterly opposed to it. He immediately yelled at them: "Who allowed you to remain armed in front of the Master? Put down your weapons immediately, don't forget your place!"

The half-orcs stared at the yelling imp quizzically. They weren't able to understand the language of devils but judging from his angry posture, they were roughly able to infer his intentions. A number of them fumed at the indignation and nearly threatened to attack him; the fierce battle must've just forged an indomitable spirit in them. Thankfully, the more aggressive ones were immediately restrained by the their brethren.

I had to admit, their bravery and contributions this fight were the crucial factor leading to our success this battle. However, I still didn't know why they were maintained such a ferocious warlike behavior, even to the point of risking their lives for me, their captor.

Even so, this didn't mean that I was going to turn a blind eye to their prowess, in fact, I was planning to rely more on them from now on.

"That's enough, One-eye." I rebuked him neither too lightly nor too heavily before turning towards Violet Snow: " Help me pass on this message, I'll allow them to keep the weapons and from now on, they will form their own team. They will also be given priority for any newly crafted weapons."

"All I need from them is this, be obedient. On my side, I won't send them to their deaths unnecessarily. Fierce warriors like them are exactly what we need right now."

However, before she could begin translating, a member of the half-orcs stood out and knelt before me, putting down his sword and shield as he did so. He was a burly fellow but this wasn't an unusual sight among the half-orcs. "Master, thank you for your trust. This one is unworthy of such honor."

Truth be told, before this half-orc spoke up, I had always felt that these demonic half-orcs were slightly lacking in the mental department.

"This...this lordship...such a nostalgic way to refer to yourself...even though, it's only been a while since his lordship left us...thinking back on it, it almost feels like a lot has changed since then…"

His use of "this one" stirred up my memories of Big 1, the imp who loved to use "this lordship", the very same imp who in order to save me from Chipped Horn, ended up sacrificing his life.

In return for his loyalty, I abandoned him...even though it was him who told me to escape, that desolation wracking my heart couldn't be erased so easily…

"Baccarel huh…" I sighed once more. "You've performed well in the previous battle. Who was the one leading the half-orcs?"

"It's you huh…" My lips cracked into a slight smile as I praised him: "From now on, I'll allow you to refer to yourself as "this lordship"."

"This...this lordship is unworthy…" He trembled from excitement as he received his new title. It was the same excitement a person felt having accomplished a momentous feat after years of being in the background.

"But Master, according to the rules of our clan, the position of leadership shouldn't be passed onto me. Plus, I'm not the strongest amongst my brethren, I'm afraid...they won't comply."

"You don't have to concern yourself with that, I'll handle the matter of your combat strength for you. All you have to do is make sure that you can manage your brethren well, as long as they serve me well, you've done your job."

"Leadership is what I'm expecting of you. Naturally, you guys don't have to worry about me abusing your trust, you are all brave warriors and I'll be sure to treat you guys well."

"Yes Master. This lordship will follow your orders to the letter. I'll be your sharpest sword, your sturdiest shield, your will is this lordship's command."

"Master, letting them form an army of their own...isn't that a bad idea?" One-eye finally voiced the concern that he kept to himself all this while. He was afraid of interrupting us and so he waited till now to speak up: "They just surrendered recently after all. Not long ago, they were our prisoners, if we give them weapons now…"

At the side, Baccarel merely stood there silently, without any anxiety or guilt, staring right in the eyes of One-eye, not intending to give up even an inch.

"I believe that Baccarel is loyal. As the previous battle has shown, the demonic half-orcs take in pride in their battles and are in every way, valorous warriors. You should learn to view them in a different light, you'll find that they don't have such a dirty side to them." I said with a stern glare.

Under the anxious gaze of One-eye, I continued: "Don't worry, I don't plan on changing my priorities. It's just that I've seen the shortcomings of the imps and so wish to make up for them by using the half-orcs."

"Yes, Master. I'll take my leave now." He said, slightly disheartened. I could roughly guess why he was downcast. In that previous battle, the imps had clearly underperformed compared to the half-orcs. Unnecessary mistakes were made because of the chaos but instead of correcting them, they were magnified instead.

In the past, there was no base of comparison but now, there were the half-orcs, next to them, the side that was lacking was clear from a glance.

Whether it was in terms of coordination or talent with weapons, the imps clearly came out short compared to the half-orcs. While this might disappoint him, the contribution of the half-orcs were just that significant, not rewarding them simply wasn't an option.

"Hold on, I have a question that's been bothering me for a while." Before he even had the chance to reply, I continued voicing my confusion: "You were, until recently, my prisoners, why did you all risk your lives for me in battle?"

Instead of a straight answer, he simply asked, without much thought given. "In your opinion, we should've chosen to escape in the middle of that battle?"

He continued, ignoring my silence, "The customs of the demonic half-orcs dictate that we must follow the strongest. Since we've chosen to submit, we shouldn't hold back because of that."

"...You can leave for now, get Big 4 to help you secure your position." Baccarel's answer had stunned me, I simply couldn't understand this seemingly childish behavior.

What about the grudges of your fallen kinsman? How could you all submit so easily to the strong...the thinking of these half-orcs was simply something that I couldn't understand…

With that settled, I turned back to Violet Snow, hoping to have a few words with her. However, I discovered that she had left during my conversation with Baccarel and was currently indisposed.

After every battle, the hellhounds' would suffer some deaths and she would spend this time to mourn for them, though it wasn't too long.

"Master, our losses are pretty heavy this time...the hellhounds lost six hounds, bringing their total to 39. We lost 50 large imps, bringing the total to 187. However, there's a bit of good news. Two of the large imps have evolved into head imps."

...that little huh...the less there are, the more dangerous it is for me...I guess that's not true either...no amount of subordinates would've saved me from that silver furred werewolf. In the face of a monster like her, I probably can't even run away.

Damn it, exactly how high is her level? Three-stars can't be that strong...don't tell me she's a four-star...but if so, why is she still staying in this god forsaken place?

Demonic half-orcs were a warlike race created by the God of Evil in the ancient times. They possess a sturdy body and an indomitable will. Their constitution is at least several times that of a normal human's. Whether it was their strength or their survivability, both were things a frail human couldn't compete with.

These half-orcs valued tradition, respected valor and had a great sense of responsibility to their mission. To them, honor was more important than anything, each half-orc was and aimed to be an outstanding warrior.

To their creator, they were flawless. However, they still couldn't win over the "weak humans". This was because they had a fatal flaw; they didn't like to think and also hated magic.

As the werewolf corpses were all carted away, I had no way of knowing their exact death count but it must've at least crossed the 50% mark.

Soon, Violet Snow came back from her vigil and I had a discussion partner once more. "In your opinion, what's our next course of action?"

Come to think of it, the whole reason we came here was to recruit the dogmen. But after arriving, we found that the dogmen were already spoken for. Even now, I still didn't even know if they were alive or not. Not only that, we ended up fighting the werewolves for no reason. What's worse was that we didn't even win…

Regarding my habit of shirking responsibility whenever I've met with adversity, she was, to say the least, unhappy about it. She blandly threw these words at me: "You decide."

After finally coaxing her back, I could only smile wryly at her as I continued our discussion. " About that werewolf, what tier do you think she's at?"

"Four-star." Without any hesitation in her voice, that was the snow-white puppy's answer. "To be able to take on my magic head on, she must've have at least been four-star."

"Who knows, four-star counts as the highest combat strength sustainable within the Prison of the Dead, perhaps she doesn't wish to leave." She paused for a moment before continuing with furrowed brows: " It could also be that the demonic werewolves have a strong sense of community and thus she couldn't bear to leave by herself…"

Judging by words, four-stars were the strongest powers in the Prison of the Dead. It might just be like what she said: better to be the head of a chicken than to be the tail of a phoenix. Is it truly better to be a small fish in the vast exciting world or is it better to be a big fish in this god forsaken place? The answer was a pretty tough one.

"Let's put aside this question for now. Have you heard of this person called Mo En?" The name "Mo En" had been on my mind all this while, after all, this was the name that ended up saving me. That silver furred werewolf probably thought that I was connected to that name which also means that she was concerned about this name.

"No." Violet Snow shook her. "I've never heard of that name. Perhaps my level is simply too low or perhaps we just haven't been in here long enough."

"Since we can't advance, we just have to check out the other areas. Who knows, we might just find another source of reinforcements." Just as we started discussing this, I heard a commotion arising from my subordinates.

The roars of Baccarel echoed across the bony hallways as he ordered the half-orcs into formation. The devils seemed to be readying themselves as well under the command of One-eye. The hellhounds didn't have much to prepare and so rushed to the devils at the first opportunity.

As for the cause of this ruckus, it was a humanoid silhouette which seemed really familiar...that v-shaped tuft of silver fur...sh**, what is she doing back here…

Standing in front of her was One-eye, the commander of my armies. to him, her figure looked even more slender despite her towering height of three meters. That figure is such a violation of the rules...wait, now's not the time to admire the beauty of the human figure.

Truth be told, I was extremely scared right now, scared that this uppity fellow was back to capture me. Even with all these henchmen protecting me, I didn't feel the least bit safe. Just thinking about her overwhelming speed gave me a headache...I want that speed too…

"I have a matter that requires you, come over here." That was definitely a female's voice. Even though her valorous behavior had dulled this significantly, her voice still had the qualities of a lady...an extremely attractive lady. That giant black wolf head however...it's just a little too much for me…

"There's no way I'm going over. I dare you to come over and catch me if you can." Do you think I'm stupid enough to fall for such a ruse?

Seeing my defiant attitude, she immediately lost her patience and said: "Devil, my patience is limited, you better get a move on it."

Just as she was about to act on that dare, Violet Snow kicked my shins with her tiny little paws. "I suggest you listen to her, if she really wants to capture you, you can't avoid her. It's only a matter of whether she has to expend that much more effort. If you aren't lucky, she might just decide to kill you instead."

Of course, this was all just in my head. Her words after all, made sense. If a four-star demonic werewolf wanted to capture me, there was no way this ragtag bunch of potatoes could stop her, even with Violet Snow aiding them.

Fine fine, anyway I'm not exactly a man right now either. There shouldn't be any problem with just having a chat. Just as I started walking towards her, No.3 and Big 4 immediately stepped out and blocked me. They looked at me with a mortified expression and said: " Master, please escape. Even if it means that we have to die, we will buy time for your escape."

Big 4's knuckles turned pink as he gripped down on his bone sword. In a grave voice, he said: "Master, please bestow upon me the chance to serve you."

"...just forget it. This opponent isn't someone we can take on even if you risk your life." I beckoned for a female devil with a wave of my hand. "Look after it." I instructed her as I gently handed over the devil egg.

"To think that, I would one day be forced into this situation." I laughed bitterly as I looked up at the bony white ceiling. "Why am I so unlucky...I just want to go home a little earlier...oh, that's right, if I...if something were to happen to me, you guys should follow Violet Snow…"

"Instead of bemoaning your fate, perhaps you should spend more time thinking of a solution." As she said this, I felt something soft stamp down on my feet, followed by her deadpan voice echoing in my ears, "As for writing a will, that can wait till you are actually on the verge of dying."

From the looks of it, the little puppy wants to follow me? And, what's with that sorrowful look you're giving me? Don't tell me you really see me as a person heading to his death?

Just as I stepped in front of Baccarel, the ordinary looking half-orc called out to me, I paused for a moment as I turned to him. However, all I saw was him raising his hand and pointing in the direction of the silver furred werewolf: "Charge! For the Master!!"

Without waiting for my command, the half-orcs suddenly broke into a charge. As his burly figure rushed off, he left behind a sentence: "Master, please escape…"

"Hey, wait a moment...everyone get back here! This is an order!" The half-orcs actually attacked out of their own volition in order to protect me...even though they know that they won't last that long, but they still did it without any hesitation...these guys...must they really make me cry before they're happy.

The half-orcs didn't listen to my command and continued charging. Perhaps to them, this was the most advantageous move they could make for me and so they did it without even giving me a chance to object to it.

Unfortunately, the result of this blind charge was a swift and decisive one. In just a few moves, the silver furred werewolf defeated the entire squad within seconds. Having lost her patience, she ploughed through the obstacles in front of her and leaped right to me.

"Baccarel, just stop. You all are brave warriors but this battle is already over. There's no need for you guys to act now." In the face of such overwhelming strength, what else could I do except smile bitterly?

"Master, it's our fault for being incompetent." He said through gritted teeth before retreating, his eyes all the while fixed on me. To the honorable half-orcs, having their Master threatened in such a manner was an insult to them. However, it was their fault for being weak and so they could only swallow this shame.

In such a life or death situation, there was no longer a need to hold back. Even though I had only heard of this name once, there was no other option left to me, even if that option was nothing but a bluff.

Never in my life had I ever wished so much for the gift of the gab. Unfortunately for me, I was nothing but an otaku, persuasion was definitely not one of the skills I had on my character screen.

"Why must I be afraid of someone at the same level as me? If it wasn't for the fact that he has so many devils, I wouldn't even give him a second thought." Her claws closed in on my neck, immediately I was struck with a hot piercing sensation as I felt my skin break.

Her lupine head leaned in and gave me a sniff before continuing, disdain dripping from her words: " You're just a mere devil, there's no way Mo En would kick up a fuss over you. Besides, I don't smell his scent on you so there's no way you're his woman."

"What the heck! Exactly how do I look like a woman?! You need to get your eyes checked! No matter how you look at me, I'm a bonafide man!" My temper erupted instinctively upon mentioning this taboo subject. Even if it means risking my life, there's some dignity that must be protected at all costs.

Her claws tightened even further. Instantly, my mind was struck with the overbearing sense of pain. In that moment, I truly felt the reaper's scythe on my neck.

Even though I had already gone through reincarnation twice, there's no guarantee of a third time. Besides, will I even have the same strength as I have now? Will I even be able to stay in the western human realms?

Upon noticing my stunned look, she broke into a grin as if she was mocking my lack of mental fortitude. Or perhaps she was merely laughing at herself for pushing things too far.

It was at this moment that Violet Snow spoke up, shifting the focus of the silver furred werewolf off of me and onto her. "Powerful and respected werewolf, I request for a negotiation on equal footing."

With a swipe of her left claw, she picked up the little puppy and brought her up to her nose for a quick sniff: "sniff sniff...Abbadon hellhound...sniff sniff...Gehenna demonic wolf...sniff sniff...so you're a mutt."

The anger overtook her reason as Violet Snow opened her jaws and spat out a ice ball, not even caring that she was currently trapped in the palms of her opponent. Clearly, the word "mutt" was a taboo word to her.

Due to her close proximity, the ice ball hit the werewolf's face upon leaving her mouth, freezing the werewolf's face in a layer of ice. The werewolf's claws immediately tightened upon being attacked, crushing her petite frame.

Upon seeing that things had fallen apart, I immediately tried to attack her but due to my lack of close ranged abilities, all I could think of was to toss the grimoire at her, turning it into a makeshift meteor hammer. The grimoire curved in an arc, slicing through the air and landing coincidentally on the frozen layer, shattering it in an instant.

"Isn't this enough." She tightened her left hand, forcing out a cry of pain from the puppy trapped within, the shock from the grimoire smash clearly not affecting her. Without even checking if the puppy was alive or not, she tossed her back to me as a way of ending this matter.

Just as I withdrew my grimoire, I caught sight of a fluffy ball of white fur flying towards me. I extended both my hands and caught it squarely in the palms of my hands, as I looked down, I discovered the identity of this fur ball. Isn't this Princess Snow?

I gave her a shake with my hands, trying to rouse her. As if in response to the stimulus, her eyelids immediately twitched and slowly opened up. In a weak almost whisper-like voice, she said: "Mostly…"

You actually dared to beat up such an adorable puppy, are you even human?! I gave a pointed stare and shouted back at her, dissatisfaction clearly written on my face: "Don't tell me you're just here to humiliate us?"

"I'm not as free as you think I am." The werewolf ended the conversation with a simple reply, not intending to waste anymore time as she got down to business: "I wish to borrow your subordinates."

If she was knife right now, I would be the fish on the chopping board. Borrow? I bet it's the kind of borrowing that doesn't have a return date.

"You sure make it sound nice. Rather than borrowing, why don't you just say snatching." Towards this female werewolf, I had only one word for her, hypocrite.

"Killing you would make them submit to me anyway." Even though she said that, her eyes weren't focused on my men at all but instead darted to the weapons they wielded.

It was at this moment that Violet Snow finally recovered enough to speak. As she stood atop my palms, she stared at her at tacker head-on and said in her usual deadpan voice: "You're after those crafted equipment aren't you?"

"Yes, I won't deny that. However, it's not because we covet them; demonic werewolves dislike relying on external aids like these, instead we put more faith in our own claws." As she said this, she flashed out her own razor sharp claws as if to show off the strength of her innate weapon. At the same time, it was a veiled threat at us.

"Demonic werewolves do not use these...hindrances as they will lower our combat effectiveness instead. My true aim is for you guys to help defend against the attacks of the medusas. Those lowly creatures are truly an annoyance with their long ranged attacks."

While her immense strength terrified me, this was also an opportunity I couldn't pass up. As long as I'm able to get them on our side, attacking the Prison's exit would be much easier. In fact, her immense strength makes it that much better for me.

...as if I couldn't hunt for food with an army of my own. A few patrols of undead is all it takes to fill our bellies and besides, food isn't what I'm after.

Even though she's a werewolf, it seems her ears aren't working too well and so I had to repeat myself once more: "Prison of the Dead, in other words, this maze, do you wish to leave this place?"

The moment she heard me say this, her initial reaction was even more exaggerated than Violet Snow's. She continuously shook her head and stared at me as if she was looking at an idiot.

"Impossible! With your current level of strength, there's no way you can leave this place. Unless you guys can evolve into four-stars, there's no other way you can leave this place."

"Honestly, I wish to leave this place as well but I just can't leave my kinsman alone. Unless I can bring them along with me, there's no way I'm leaving this place. However, the guards at the exit do not allow for lower level creatures to leave. With their overwhelming power, there's no way for us to resist their commands either."

She said with a sympathetic tone. However, that sympathy only lasted a moment before it took a more oppressive tone. "If you can't alter your terms, then there's no choice. I just have to say sorry to you."

Heading back to the western human realms is my ultimate goal. If I'm unable to do so in the short term...don't tell me I have to wait up to ten over years? Do I really have to wait till Nicole's kids are old enough to listen in before I'm able to see her? Don't f*** with me! There's no way I'll allow that to happen!

In the face of this principal question, I had no intention of backing down as I rebutted: "In that case, I'm sorry as well. Helping us leave is my bottom line. If this isn't a part of the terms, there's no way I'll help you. Perhaps you might be able to kill me but once I die, you will never get what you wish for."

Violet Snow threw me a strange look as she took in my words. She definitely didn't expect me to be so stubborn about this matter. To her, rising to four-star was only a matter of time, there was really no need to risk our lives for this matter. However, the issue still remained for me, exactly how long will that take?

Regarding this matter, I had done some calculations in the past. For some unknown reason, my levelling speed was slower than a normal devil by more than a hundredfold.

In our past battles, all the souls were handed over to me and so just taking into account the time it took for me to rise from zero to one-star, I've consumed at least a thousand souls of similar level.

"You have no say in this matter, if you really wish to hold onto this term to the bitter end, I can grant your wish right now." She reached out and gave my neck a warning grip before continuing with a smile on her lips that didn't feel like one, "Don't think that we will lose to the medusas just because you chose not to help us…"

Hmph, scare tactics are useless against me, there's no way I'll change this condition, not even if you kill me! Each time I think about Nicole cozying up with Sares, a dagger was driven right into my heart.

Who gave you the right to snatch Nicole away from me! What have I done to deserve this punishment! Is it really so hard to see her one more time!? No matter what, I must return...right now, I am a dead pig that isn't afraid of hot water. (nothing to lose)

"Habona, you need to be more courteous with our guests." An old wizened voice echoed from the werewolf's back. Unbeknownst to us, a weather-beaten old wolf had begun approaching us from a distance. His back was hunched, his fur slightly ruffled. The senior werewolf was significantly shorter than her, coming in at roughly 2.5meters.

The silver furred werewolf turned around with a slightly startled look on her face. Upon discovering that it was that wizened old werewolf, she exclaimed in an astonished tone: "Grandpa! What are you doing here? I can handle things here, that side requires your attention more."

"I've already settled that matter for today, I'm just here to check up on the situation." The old werewolf slowly walked up to us and with a gaze, signalled for the silver furred werewolf to loosen her grip on me.

He turned to me with a wide amiable grin on his face as he evaluated me. Unfortunately for him, what might've been a friendly smile merely made him look like a strange beast in my eyes. Instead of reassuring me, it instead made me more nervous.

"While we were the ones who attacked first, your timing was extremely unfortunate. Since both sides have suffered some losses, let's put aside this matter for now."

While I wasn't happy about him trying to suppress that matter, it was also a fact that I couldn't beat them so getting angry wasn't going to help either.

Upon noticing my silence, the old werewolf must've guessed that I was still silently angry and so he continued: "I heard that you wish to leave the Prison of the Dead?"

"Who doesn't wish to leave this damned place?" Seeing that the discussion had taken a turn in my favor, I knew that I had carry on this train of conversation.

"Truth be told, it's not that we aren't willing to help but it's that the guards are simply too strong. Except for the four-stars, there are very few creatures who are able to leave this place."

"..." The old werewolf's sincerity was extremely clear to me. Naturally, I knew of this as well. After all, who would choose to suffer in this place if they had the option to leave.

Seeing me ponder, the old werewolf knew that I had taken the bait and so with a slight smile, asked me: "If, we are willing to help, what do you plan on doing?"

The old werewolf didn't agree to this immediately but merely threw out a non-committal response: "First, you have to tell me your plans, assuming you have one."

"I do, definitely...we had just recently climbed up from the Blood Sea…" I gave him a brief summary of our story up till now as well as my future plans. My goal was to create a large army while searching for the exit. Once we had done so, we would scout out their strength while accumulating our own and then push through the exit in one go.

The old werewolf remained silent after hearing my plans. He looked at me, then at Violet Snow and finally the half-orcs, all the while not saying a word.

Instead, it was the silver furred werewolf who spoke up. She had remained silent ever since the old werewolf showed up but upon hearing my plan, she felt the need to cut in once more.

In a disdainful tone, she said: "You actually think that you can lead the various races? Little weakling, don't kid yourself, who would agree to having a weakling as their leader?"

"Whether or not I can accomplish that is one matter, attempting to do it is another matter. If you don't even try, you will never succeed." Even though, my various attempts at hard work had ended in failure on Earth, this didn't mean that I would give up here as well. No matter what, I won't lose the courage to work, to move forward!

What kind of person am I if I were to give up right after encountering adversity? No matter the task, even if I had to break my back while doing so, I still wanted an outcome. Even if that outcome is a bad one, I will still accept it.

Medusas are an offshoot of the Mesa race (A sub branch of the orcs; the snakeman). They share several similarities with the mesa race in that their upper body is that of a human's while their lower half is that of a snake's.

The biggest difference however, is that the Mesa race have both males and females while the medusas are a female only race. The mesas possess a normal head of hair that resembles a human's while the medusas' have snakes for hair.

As they didn't have a male counterpart, these medusas weren't able to reproduce naturally. Whenever they entered their mating period, they would find a male from another race to mate with.

No matter who it was, human, elf and even some devils, they were all targets for the medusas. The only requirement was that they had a male humanoid figure.

Another unique feature of their mating ritual was that only females could be birthed and it would always be a medusa regardless of the male counterpart. The medusas had a genetic trait in them that rejected any genes that didn't belong to the mother.

No one knows for sure when this species came about and after hundreds and thousands of years, this could no longer be determined. However, there has been no new sighting of medusas in the past hundreds of thousands of years.

I theorize that the medusas had been infected with a mysterious virus or curse. In my opinion, this might just be a curse from the ancient God of Evil. Of course, there's also the possibility of mana corruption.

The old werewolf smiled as he stared into my eyes. Seeing me remain silent for a long while, he finally answered me: "If you're able to gather sufficient troops, I'm willing to rally the werewolves in support of your cause."

"..." Are you messing with me?! What is the hell is up with that number! There's no way I can gather that many troops! The ecosystem in the Prison of the Dead had always been a complicated one, while there were many races here, subjugating them wasn't easy with my current strength.

By the time I'm able to subjugate ten thousand men, I would've probably evolved into a four-star. You old coot! Do you think I'm still in the Blood Sea where there's an ancient hen lying right beside me churning out little devil eggs?!

He knew from a glance exactly what went through my head and with a shake of his head and a resigned smile, he immediately continued: "Don't be in such a hurry to reject me. How many guards are there at the exit? How strong are these guards? These are all questions that no one knows about because all those that tried were either dead or had left."

"So you're saying no one was able to escape after witnessing their power?" A t times, intelligence was more important than combat strength. Regarding this piece of news, it was absolutely vital to my cause.

"In actuality, the Prison of the Dead only allowed people to enter and not leave…" Judging by his expression, he wasn't being entirely open with me. He must've known some other secret but wasn't willing to share them. However, there was nothing I could do about this. After all, I couldn't just place a knife to his neck and threaten him. Besides, I couldn't even defeat his granddaughter…

"That's right. There are a total of three exits. Twenty years ago, I had the fortune to witness an army assail the exit. Unfortunately, they only made it to the second floor."

As he said this, his face suddenly darkened as his mood got visibly graver. "Back then, the army had a total of 5000 one-star warriors. As for two and three-stars, they weren't lacking those either. They even had two four-stars with them. Even so, they were only able to last for less than half a day. After crossing the first floor, they were thoroughly routed."

"Aren't you contradicting yourself right now? If no one has ever made it out alive, then how do you know of this? How did you know where they got up to?" Truth be told, I didn't trust his explanation entirely as it was full of holes.

However, he didn't seem to be willing to divulge anymore information and instead gave me a smile and glossed over this matter: "You don't have to concern yourself with this matter. At that time, you will understand why. Of course, this is assuming you're able to fulfill my terms."

Based on his previous statements, I was able to determine that this old werewolf wanted to leave this place as much as I did but simply didn't have the strength to do so.

Hmm...I guess I'll trust him for now...even though his condition of ten thousand one-stars was kind of inane. That reminds me, is it too late for me to return to the Blood Sea?

Truth be told this entire matter between the two races had given me quite a shock. On top of negotiating our deal, that senior had also explained the origin of this fight.

It went as such. A short while ago, the demonic werewolves' second-in-command, in other words, Habona's little brother, Harlow was captured by the medusas.

The demonic werewolves had always been protective of their kinsman. When it came to the lives of their kinsman, it took precedence even over their own. Not to mention that the one who was captured was the leader's little brother.

Thanks to their keen sense of smell that trumped even the hellhounds', they knew right away that the one who kidnapped their kinsman was a medusa, specifically, a medusa in heat.

Medusas in heat were especially terrifying. Not only were they extremely temperamental, their attack power was several times stronger than usual. Furthermore, their mating sessions were notoriously long, coming in at an astonishing 10 hours long. Most of the males who had undergone this mating didn't last long after that.

This wasn't just a result of the long mating but also due to the fact that the medusas "fed" upon their husbands in order to nourish their babies.

Yet upon finding the werewolf in question, he inexplicably claimed to be in love with the medusa who captured him and actually refused to return to the clan. Mojasha the medusa counterpart of this relationship, declared that she wouldn't give up on this love as well. If someone tried to break them apart, she would protect her right to love with her life.

Medusas actually knew what was love? You've got to be kidding me, compared to these cold blooded snakes, the werewolves were practically model citizens.

In her mind, Harlow must've been bewitched by some sort of beguiling magic, after all, what's so great about those ugly snakes that reeked from miles away!

The pair knew that Habona would object to their relationship and so they had long since subjugated the dogmen clan in order to fight against Habona. Just as the battle heated up, the medusas joined in as well.

Please allow me one last tsukkomi...I just don't understand why they worship love...no matter how you looked at it, it was a use and discard relationship. To them, killing their boyfriend was easier than killing a chicken. Was it truly that important to have a boyfriend then? Or did they finally come to the realization they could find a stronger male and share him publicly...alright...that was slightly off the beaten path.

Anyway...the two sides ended up in an epic battle after failing to reach an agreement. During this chaotic battle, Harlow and Majosha suddenly disappeared and when the werewolves tried to chase after them, the medusas immediately stood in their way, resolved to defend their little tryst.

By now, the dogmen were mostly wiped out or had escaped. The demonic werewolves and the medusas had suffered major casualties on both sides and were unable to secure a decisive victory over the other.

As for the rest, it was pretty simple. The werewolves were worried that we were here to cause more trouble and so they dispatched a section of their army to attack us preemptively in order to prevent any potential attack on their backs.

"So you're saying that the issue now is that those medusas won't allow you to search for your little brother?" Having gotten the gist of it, I had this sudden urge to act philosophical and ask "What is true love?" But I doubt these barbarians had the mental capacity to comprehend my genius and so I suppressed that urge.

Habona pointed at one of the heavy bone shields wielded by my half-orcs. As she did so, she explained without a hint of courtesy in her voice as if she was the master and I was the slave in this relationship.

"Those snake hairs of theirs are able to fire an extremely corrosive poison. While our fur is able to resist this poison fluid, our fur would end up getting corroded. That is why I want those shields of yours."

While I can understand your plight of not having any long range capabilities and still wanting to fight against those medusas, I still had to say that your brother was a bonafide chuunibyo patient. Of all the people he had to choose, he had to choose a girl from a different race and she even had snakes for hair! Your brother definitely had some unique tastes.

Surprisingly, that half-orc was pretty obstinate about his shield. While he wasn't able to beat her, that didn't mean that he had to show her respect and give up the shield willingly. He casually ignored her and turned to towards me.

"If I'm not mistaken, we are just allies. I am not your subordinate. While my strength cannot match up to yours, isn't your attitude a bit much?" I waved my hands and continued in a tone that was neither overly soft or overly harsh. "When you are begging a person, shouldn't you be a little more respectful?"

At a towering height of three meters, I could only come up to her waist even after tip toeing. As a comparison, smaller houses in China came up to three to four meters in height and yet she was already three meters tall without even straightening her back. I bet if she lifted her head, it would hit the ceiling.

In front of this giant mountain, I was but a tiny hill to her. As her crimson eyes stared daggers into me, the pressure I felt couldn't be described in words.

The old werewolf immediately stepped in to soothe the situation. Just from this alone, you could tell the difference in maturity. The senior werewolf was clearly able to weigh the situation and not let his emotions get the better of him.

Evidently, the werewolves weren't just a race of hotheaded meat heads as I previously thought. At the very least there was one intelligent and logical member in front of me right now.

"Whatever you say." I left it at that and turned to one of my large imps. I instructed this shieldbearer to hand over his heavy bone shield to Habona.

"Hmph, at least you know what's good for you." She glared at me before snatching the shield from the devil. The 1.5m tall heavy bone shield was almost able to shield the entirety of a large imp but with that cheat-like height of hers, this heavy shield ended up being a normal shield in the hands of Habona.

"..." That shield was almost 150kg and required an exceptionally strong large imp in order to wield it properly...exactly did that turn into a toy in your hands! Damn it.

Habona gave the surface of the heavy shield a rake of her claws and instantly a set of claw marks could be seen etched into the shield's body.

That shield was created after I learnt to refine equipment from that robed skeleton! Even my refined swords were barely able to scratch it. How did it end up like a piece of paper in your hands?

Surprisingly, she didn't make fun of my work despite the ease at which she tore through it. Instead, she said: " It's not bad, to a two to three-star warrior, this shield is pretty sturdy."

"Their long range poison attacks aren't just physical attacks, the innate resistance of the heavy bone shields is important as well. Furthermore, this shield is too small." As she said this, she gave the shield a couple of casual swings. What seemed like a door to me was simply a piece of paper to her. She tossed it around as if it weighed nothing.

"Small...maybe to you guys it is." I sighed, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. "I've never encountered these medusas before but from what I heard, their snake hairs are able to spit out corrosive poison from a distance."

"And that's why I can't be sure that your shield will hold up." Habona returned the shield to the shieldbearer standing at the side before turning back to me. " I hope that you'll be able to create a larger and thicker shield."

"Didn't you say that the demonic werewolves disliked using weapon?" Violet Snow suddenly came to life once more and taunted her with a deadpan voice as she laid within my a rms. ly, she had been bullied by Habona and had to recuperate in my embrace.

She wanted to spit another ice ball at Habona but Habona had already predicted this and snatched her from my embrace before she could do so.

The rules...the weak is food for the strong: if you aren't useful to me or stronger than me, then you have live under my shadow. If you dared to resist, then all that awaited you was death.

"That's enough, the two of you need to step back for a moment. Habona stop insulting Violet Snow so thoughtlessly. I promise that she will stop being hostile towards you." This pair of females was truly a pain to deal with. The moment they talked to each other, they ended up in a fight.

The issue was that one had an explosive temper while the other had a heart made out of glass; any insult was immediately met with battle. What's worse was that the glass hearted one couldn't win...

"Since you're still useful to me, I'll give her one last chance." She handed Violet Snow back over to me and snorted derisively at her.

"Let's get back to business. I need you to create new shield that is bigger and wider. At the start of every battle, we had to endure a round of poison from them before we even got close. This is the main reason why we always started with a disadvantage. In a one on one melee, these medusas aren't a threat to us. That's why I need you to create an equipment that would allow us to approach them without any injuries."

I gently rubbed the puppy lying in my arms, signalling her not to speak up. The little fellow was sensible enough to know that she wasn't a match for her and so buried her head unhappily in my arms, having decided to swallow this humiliation.

According to my calculations, crafting such a shield would take well over two times the amount of mana required to craft a heavy bone shield. Which means, I could've crafted three heavy bone shields with the amount I set aside for this task.

"Crafting these shields shouldn't be a problem but I require an enormous amount of mana. A shield like this would require me to use all my mana. Without any replenishment, the most I can make per day is one shield." I voiced out the issue without giving it much thought. After all, since they wanted me to craft something, the cost would naturally have to be borne by them.

Habona truly fit my mental image of a demonic werewolf. Without giving it much thought, she immediately blurted out the question on her mind: "Then what do you need to replenish your mana faster?"

The ability to feed on souls was something I had only noticed in the undead and creatures from Purgatory. As for the various species I encountered from Abaddon, none of them fed on souls as we did. Naturally, this included the werewolves. Since that's the case, they should just hand them all over to me and we can both benefit from it.

"There's no way we can hand over all our souls. While we do not feed on souls, they have other uses here." Her answer surprised me. I didn't expect the Prison of the Dead to have a currency system in place where they could exchange souls for food.

It sounded pretty absurd at the start but once I thought about it, it seemed surprisingly acceptable. To be exact, it answered a question that I had been unable to solve for a while.

Based on the hunting grounds of the Abaddon rats, it should be really hard for them to gather meat. Since they didn't have the ability to consume souls, exactly how did they feed their thousand over clansman? By chewing on bones? No way. There must've been some other method.

This was an issue that affected me as well. My half-orcs had the same problem as those rats in that they weren't able to feed on souls as well. This applied to the vast majority of Abaddon creatures.

Then another problem arises, once I form a grand army, exactly where am I going to find the meat to feed them...as they say, before the three forces can move, the food must first be moved. Food was an important matter that must be solved as soon as possible otherwise, we would be plagued with problems down the road.

(TL: In the past, the phrase used was "before the cavalry and infantry could move…". However, in modern times, it's common to see the phrase "the three armies/ forces..." which refer to the air force, the navy and the army. Either way, it means that rations must be prepared before sortieing.)

No matter what, hoping that they could fight on an empty stomach was ludicrous. Putting aside the possibility of rebellion, it was definitely possible for them to kill each other for food.

The method to exchange souls for meat was simple: create a six-point star out of blood, bones or corpses and then place the gathered souls within it. A while later, the souls would automatically disappear and the array would create the corresponding amount of meat.

Meat can't just be created out of thin air...that's not scientific...well I guess science didn't make much sense either in a world of magic and demons.

But still, this strange system simply didn't make sense! Don't tell me that at the opposite end of this array was another bunch of fellows who had an unlimited supply of meat and needed souls. And don't tell me that this array is merely a channel for them to conduct this trade.

With this array, I would definitely be able to feed my men. Furthermore, judging from the fact that all the meat created was the red meat of an imp. The other party was probably situated in Purgatory.

This is just so unfair. We are both devils so why are they able to prosper just by sitting in front of a exchange array whereas I have to risk my life just to guarantee my freedom? No wonder the ancients said "The same species of human but different lives, the same type of umbrella but different handles"...they weren't kidding me at all.

"Either way, if you wish to speed up the production, you need to give me souls." I quietly sighed to myself. Initially, I had intended to fleece them of their souls seeing as they didn't need it. However, now that I found out that they needed the souls as well, I couldn't be too harsh with my terms and thus I had to lower my earnings.

I didn't know if she noticed my bit of profiteering but she ended accepting my offer. After all, performing this sort of task required mana and she knew of this as well. She nodded her head and generously accepted my offer. "Alright then, how much do you need?"

"I won't know the specifics before I craft the shield. Also, how many do you need? I paused for a second before asking: "And how big?"

The reason why my heavy shields were so large was because I didn't need them to charge, I only needed them to hold the line. These werewolves on the other hand needed to do so. If you can't even see in front of you...wouldn't the result be tragic?

"It's fine, just create a few holes in the front of the shield." She didn't seem to think much of my question and instead dismissed it with a casual wave of her hand.

"Even if we aren't able to see, we can still use our noses to smell and our ears to listen. Besides, this maze isn't that wide,the werewolves wielding the shields can lead the charge in a line formation with a person commanding them from the back. They should be fine with just that."

With the cementing of our accord, we were given temporary residence in the werewolves' nest. As usual, this was just a corner of the maze where one wasn't vulnerable to a pincer attack.

Having walked through their nest, my first impression was that they weren't as numerous as I had initially thought. According to my estimates, their numbers roughly came out to 500.

Of these 500, only a small portion were the elderly. Surprisingly, there were werewolf children as well. While they were technically children, these werewolves were already much taller than my imps.

The werewolves mostly viewed us with hostility due to our recent clash. Both sides had suffered significant casualties and so both sides had a grudge with each other. Logically speaking, the ones at fault were the werewolves since they attacked first. However, logic had no say in this lawless land; right and wrong was determined solely by one's fists.

Truth be told, the reason why Habona provoked us time and time again was due to the discomfort in her heart. After all, while this was an accord in name, there was no binding force behind it.

ly, she didn't attack me because of my alleged connection to Mo En. The next time we met, the old werewolf interceded on our behalf. Plus, she also needed our skills and so she stayed her hands once more. However, once I was no longer of use to her, there was nothing in our deal that could stop her from swatting me to death.

Despite this, I went ahead with the accord anyway. Leaving the Prison of the Dead was a main questline of sorts for me so I had to finish it. Besides, the old werewolf seemed just as eager to leave this place as me. Based on this point alone, the werewolves were worthy of my trust. At least when it came to leaving this maze.

Even so, walking under the hostile gaze of several hundred werewolves wasn't something I enjoyed. My heart pounded with every step I took into their nest. I was deathly afraid that one of them might just lose control and rip me to shreds.

Violet Snow felt this unbridled hostility as well. She jumped down from my arms and swept her gaze through the gathered crowds with an equally hostile pair of eyes. While she didn't hold much of a grudge towards them, there wasn't any good intention in her eyes either.

The old werewolf seemed to have noticed this tension between us and immediately stood out. With a loud cough, he gathered their attention and placated them with a few growls and barks in the language of the werewolves.

A while later, they quieted down and no longer stared at us as if we were a bunch of meat. Evidently, this old werewolf had an influential status amongst his kin.

It could be said that the werewolves and medusas were natural counters to each other in battle. In their previous altercation, the deaths both on sides were extremely little; a combined total of less than 10 people.

In actuality, both sides were relatively small clans. If you added in the fact that the two lovebirds had an influential status in their respective clans...it wouldn't be a stretch to consider the other party as in-laws.

While the werewolves didn't approve of this interracial romance, the medusas did. They had no choice in this matter after all. Who told them to be a female-only ra ce that relied on males from other species to reproduce.

In the end, what it boiled down to was that the demonic werewolves objected to this romance mainly because of their husband-consuming custom...Oh and by the way, are you sure these medusas aren't a distant kin of the black widows?

Shortly after I entered our temporary residence, I spotted a medusa captive being escorted by four werewolves. This was the first time I've encountered one and she naturally piqued my interest.

Just as the stories depicted, she had snakes for hair and a snake tail as her lower body. As she was escorted past me, I caught a whiff of her snake scent. It wasn't particularly foul smelling but it wasn't pleasant either.

She had certain scent to her, similar to the fishy scent of fishes but instead of being fishy, it had a more earthy tone to it that reminded me of mud.

In contrast to these undesirable traits, the medusa had a stunning appearance that trumped the petite face and melons of Aoi-sensei. While Aoi-sensei had a fantastic body, she wasn't that pretty to me...Ahem, I know nothing of this Aoi-sensei. (AV actress)

Once the medusa had passed by, I instructed my subordinates to find a resting spot for themselves. In order to leave this place as soon as possible, I immediately got down to crafting they were settled down.

Regarding their giant shields, I already had a design in mind. Other than the specified dimensions, I planned to fashion three spikes on the front of the shield. They were based off the design of an elephant's tusk in that they had an upward curvature. This would increase the effectiveness of the shield when these fellows decided to charge.

Upon completion, this shield would definitely cross the 250kg mark. According to my estimation, it at least require a two-star werewolf to wield this shield.

Given their immense strength, running around with a 350k kg load probably wouldn't affect them too much. And so, I didn't pull any punches with regards to the weight. As long as it increased the defenses of the shield, I made sure to add it in.

Initially, I had intended to add a couple of eyeholes into the shield so that the wielder could see in front while holding up this shield. However, after giving it some thought, I decided not to. After all, Habona had mentioned that their nose and ears were extremely sensitive.

By the time I finished the first shield, I was thoroughly wiped out. It was every bit as exhausting as I had predicted. Just this shield alone cost me 78 units of mana which was to expected after all. Given its increased surface area, the amount of bones that needed refining increased exponentially as well. I guess I should be happy that I actually had enough mana to even finish the shield.

Just as I finished the first shield, Habona appeared before me. Behind her heavy footsteps were a group of werewolves who carried at least two skulls each. Within these skulls were green flames that roared violently in their eye sockets. Based on this alone, one could see that the souls within were particularly energetic.

Looks like impatient werewolves decided to make use of the time I took to craft the shield to go hunting. As they didn't possess the ability to absorb souls, they were unable to freely touch the souls as well. This was why they had to use such a clumsy method of transporting the souls. Not only did they bring back the souls of the undead, they brought back an actual part of them as well, the skulls.

"Hunting?" I stood up and welcomed them back with a slight smile. I pointed at the gargantuan shield beside me and said: "Come have a look at the shield."

"It's done?" Without waiting for my reply, she casually lifted the steel door-esque giant shield with one arm and brought it up to her gaze. She immediately locked in on the tri horns on the front, clearly pleased with it. It must've suited her sense of aesthetics.

As she said that, she used her finger to flick the fang. Upon hearing a solid echo from the bone, she nodded her head, satisfied with it. She then brought it to her front and tested its sturdiness with a couple of shoves before saying: "Not bad, if it had eye holes in front, it would've been even better."

"That...didn't you say that your ears and nose can replace your eyes…" Sister, this is the second time you've contradicted yourself. Exactly how much tsukkomi do you require…

She stared at me with half-open eyes and said, neither embarrassed nor concerned, "I mean if we could use our eyes to see, that would definitely be the better choice."

"By the way, these are the leftover souls." Ignoring my collapsing psyche, she clapped her hands, signalling for the hundred over werewolves to present their collected souls to me. "These are all one-star souls, how many shields can you craft from these."

"If they are all one-stars, I can only craft one more shield." Based on my calculations, after deducting the amount required to sustain and replenish my mana, these souls were sufficient to create one shield with some leftover at the end.

"If that's the case." She paused for a moment and gave it some thought, judging by from the look on her face, she seems to have accepted my answer.

"Alright. About that, I'll have to rely on you to provide for my subordinates as well. After all, I'm unable to lead them hunting in the meantime. Besides, the surrounding areas have already been cleaned by you guys and wandering around aimlessly might just get us into trouble with the medusas."

"I have no problem with that but I have a question to ask you." With a deadpan look on her face, she pointed at a certain bald wraith circling around her. "What's up with this guy?"

"Ah, you mean Vick? He's just a curious baby. He's probably fascinated by the fact that you were able to harm him and so he decided to stay close to you." Come to think of it, when did he get attached to Habona? No wonder I didn't see him recently. I thought that he finally learnt to behave himself but apparently he just found a new toy.

"About that, I have to apologize in advance. While he was summoned by me, he doesn't really listen to my commands. Perhaps it's due to an error in summoning." Regarding this issue, as Vick's master, I was equally vexed by this as well.

"How annoying." For some people, the more angry they got, they less the they showed it on their faces. Habona was one such person. She looked at me with an icy look on her face and asked in a matter-of-fact tone: "Can I kill him?"

Upon hearing that, she finally revealed a trace of her anger. She took aim at the playful ghost and swiped at him with her claws, eliciting an immediate cry of pain from Vick who drifted away without any hesitation.

She turned towards the direction he fled in and coldly smiled, "Since he's already here, there's no need to worry about him being unable to return is there?"

After teaching him a lesson, she resumed her hunting while I went back to my crafting. And so, the rest of the day passed by uneventfully.

In the midst of my sleep, I dreamt of the eloping couple tangled up in each other's arms. While the sight of a wolf and a snake doing it together was exceeding odd and painful for the eyes, it also stirred up the melancholy in my heart.

Even a wolf and a snake were able to get together...as for me? Am I a devil or a human? Probably a devil...I do have red skin after all. I didn't have any hair either and even had a horn on my head. Thankfully, I still possessed a humanoid form so I should still be able to be with Nicole, assuming I'm unable to regain my human form…

Nicole, where are you now? Is everything alright for you, did you try to find me...did you miss me? Did you and Sares end up together? You're already 13 this year. In just a few more years, you'll be of marrying age. As for me? I'm still trapped in this god forsaken place...exactly how long will it take for me to leave…

All of a sudden, I felt the urge to sing...swells of power rose up in my throat as the world around me quietened down, it was as if I was the only person awake in the world. This was the first time I've heard my singing voice since I've reincarnated. While my previous incarnation had an excellent singing voice, it couldn't compare to what I had now.

It was a girl's voice, graceful yet sad, stirring yet desolate. It was a voice that brought tears to its listeners as its sorrowful waves rolled over them.

I knew that the lyrics didn't really fit our location but I still did it anyway, thrice. The first was in Chinese, the second in the language of the western realms and third in the language of the devils.

, hands wrapped around my knees as I swayed to the melody. The world was empty except for a twin tailed beautiful redhead beckoning to me. My mouth broke into a smile, my first smile ever since I became a devil.

Harpies are female demons with the body of an eagle but the face of a human. Notably, they have the ability to speak and possess an above average level of intelligence. Instead of arms, these birdwomen had wings with which they took to the skies and swooped down to rip apart their prey with their razor sharp talons.

They loved raw meat and were natural born bandits thanks to their extreme speed. Their human face had a beauty that rivalled some of the peerless beauties in the human race. This coupled with their mesmerizing voices, allowed them to charm their prey and even caused them to hallucinate.

However, their beauty only extended to their face and voice. Outside of that, these harpies possessed a litany of vices which includes, cruelty, promiscuity and bloodthirstiness. They were essentially the representatives of chaos.

They were notorious for capturing males of other races and forcing themselves on them. These unfortunate creatures would not be allowed to rest until they were thoroughly drained by the harpies. If a male child was born as a result of this, the harpies would kill and consume these babies; only females were spared this fate.

What's with their lack of clothing...exactly what are you guys plotting by showing me those weapons on your chest. Bunch of savages...I scorn you...now, let me count how many medusas I have to scorn, one, two , three, four, five, six, seven...I think I need to use my feet as well…

"Master, what's with that strange expression on your face and why are you panting?" I was suddenly pulled out from the tumultuous peaks of the medusas by that little potato, No.5. Having regained my senses, I gave the corner of my mouth a wipe despite there being nothing to wipe off.

"Master, were you the one singing just now? It was beautiful, please allow your lowly servant, me, No.5 to kiss your toes as an expression of loyalty of humbleness." Without even waiting for me to respond, he pounced on me , his arms and legs spread eagled in what looked like a toad stance as he reached out for my calves.

Before his face got the chance to hug my legs, it was met was a painful flash of black. The Grimoire of the Dead smacked him loudly on the face, sending this lascivious guy rolling away like a gourd.

"Your singing wasn't bad." Violet Snow trotted up to me and laid her front paws on my calf, her face betraying a hint of disbelief. "It's just, I have a question for you."

I actually did that...it's probably because of that song...how I should know, it's not like I'm the songwriter, why don't you ask that guy instead…

As if on cue, her rival, Habona stepped out to answer her question. With a pat on my head, she said: "That's because this fellow is too short."

However, this comedy skit didn't last too long; I still wanted to know why were the medusas here. It turns out that after the werewolves retreated, the medusas left to look for Harlow and Mojasha but instead found out that they were captured by the harpies…

Aren't those the second-tier dungeon faction units from Heroes of Mig** and Mag** III. I remember those birdwomen well...They had a human face and an eagle's body. When you upgraded them, they could attack without retaliation and even flew back to their original spot; perfect against those immobile factions.

Basically, the lovebirds were ambushed by the harpies and Harlow ended up being captured. In actuality, he was safe for the time being but as time passes, the risk of him being drained by these promiscuous harpies increases.

...I just don't get what that werewolf saw in these medusas...just their stench alone could burn his sensitive nose...don't tell me he's in this for Mt. Everest?

Truth be told, I had some difficulty telling all these creatures apart. Thankfully, the devils under me all had their own unique features and devils had their own unique way of identifying each other so I didn't suffer much in that respect.

As for the others, that old werewolf was like the old hobo from down the street;definitely easy to recognize. Habona was three meters tall and even towered over her kinsman.

Baccarel was on the plainer side but thanks to the bone headband I gave him, he was one of a kind among my subordinates; not only did it satisfy his need for honor, it made things easier for me as well.

As for the Medusas...other than their tail color, I was basically unable to tell them apart. It's kinda like when a human looked at a bunch of apes. To him, they all looked the same. It was probably the same for the ape as well…

To me, they all had the same face, hair, nakedness, lack of clothing...even the short, tall, fat and skinny ones looked the same to me. If their tails were the same color as well...that would be a nightmare for me.

A slightly puffy-eyed medusa slithered over with her companion, her posture slightly diminished. Judging from the redness around her eyes, she must've just stopped crying. She had a brownish yellow tail while her companion had a black tail.

The puffy-eyed medusa bowed before coming up to me, remnants of her tears dripping to the side as she did so. As her golden snake eyes gazed reverently at me, I could actually see the lingering grief in her eyes. She said, a pair of fangs revealing themselves as she opened her mouth: " Greetings, honored Soul Bard, this medusa, Majosha, requests for your aid."

Majosha spoke in slightly husky voice that while wasn't awful, wasn't that great either. In light of my race, her request was delivered in the language of the devils.

I carefully evaluated the bowing medusa in front of me. Her tiny snake hairs laid dormant at the moment, significantly reducing my aversion to them. Right below them was a pretty, delicate face that would've been a solid 90 even among humans. That valley below her neck was extremely perfect, even in the entertainment industry, her melons would've been top-notch.

Especially that lack of clothing...ahem, for an honorable person like me, I absolutely despised those women who didn't wear clothes. This is my judging stare...so beautiful..ahemm… as for their lower half, let's not talk about that.

"Soul Bard? Are you referring to me?" I pointed at my nose. She nodded in response to my question, yet my eyes still had the same confusion it had before: "Are you sure you're referring to me?"

"There's no time for that, I already told you that Harlow has been kidnapped. That's why Majosha is here with us right now. All you need to know is that we need your help in order to find him." Her voice was unable to contain the anxiety she felt at the moment. It was to be expected after all, this concerned the safety of her own brother.

Without waiting for me to respond, she lifted me up with her furry claws and set me down upon her shoulders. After confirming that I had settled down, she took off.

"Wait, I still don't understand how does this relate to me." As I sat atop her shoulders, my field of vision expanded significantly. Not only that, her fur was surprisingly comfortable to sit on. Even as she sprinted along, her steady gait ensured that it wasn't a bumpy ride for me.

"My name is Manasha, Majosha's older sister. My younger sister has just lost her loved one and is shaken by it. I'm afraid that she's unable to answer your questions and so I've come to answer them in her stead."

Manasha was the black tailed medusa accompanying Majosha a while ago. As she supported her sister, she began to explain in a voice that seemed slightly more mature than Majosha:

"Soul Bards are individuals with a special ability. They are able to use their songs to overcome any language barrier and communicate directly with the soul. Even without knowing their language, a soul bard is able to use his or her song to transmit her words, her thoughts. Even the blood thirstiest of monsters aren't immune to this effect, just by listening to her songs, they will form an empathetic bond…"

Based on what she said, Soul Bard must've been a rare job. Soul Bards are able to use their songs to tame creatures, soothe pain and even communicate with all living things in this world. Of course, that last point seemed a little far fetched to me but as of now, it was the best tool I had to communicate with the harpies.

The harpies were the most notorious bandits in Abaddon. With their mighty wings, they were able to soar to heights the naked eye couldn't perceive. They came and went like the wind and loved to swoop in and snatch the creatures they set their eyes on.

They had a degree of intelligence that while wasn't exceptional, it didn't lag that far behind a human's intelligence either. However, they had no hands and so weren't able to create or use tools.

Every harpy possessed a flawless singing voice with which they used to lure their prey into their trap. Because of their rapid speed, their hunting zone was extremely vast. As it stands, it might be extraordinarily difficult to locate their tracks.

If we aren't able to locate Harlow soon, he must just end up being violated and drained after which they will consume him. As for how long it took to do so, that depended on Harlow's stamina. It was a fascinating ability but now was not the time to research it.

In order to find them as soon as possible, the medusas needed to lure out the harpies which then brought up the question, how do they so? Both parties discussed this for a while but were unable to come up with a solution, at least till they stumbled onto a semi-conscious me singing I Miss You So Much...and so I was drafted.

Hmph, do those black widows even care if their husband was eaten? Fine, I guess they will be troubled by it. After all, that was still a piece of meat.

"I know the fact that we eat our husbands after procreation is difficult for the other races to comprehend but we have a difficult reason for doing so." It might've arose because she noticed my disdain or perhaps she simply felt that the matter required explaining, either way, she took the initiative to explain it to me while sighing regretfully.

To think I actually thought that you guys had a human side and weren't all cold blooded animals, I was such an idiot! If a human couple ever had a situation where one side feared the other, the most that would happen was domestic violence or a divorce.

You guys actually ate your husband and even put on a [I've been wronged] expression...in all my three lifetimes, I've never seen such a shameless display. Today, I've finally learnt something new.

This brother finally understands, for an honor student like me, there's simply no way to communicate with these medusas. We aren't even on the same page, the same dimension...

The mission to rescue Harlow was one that required speed, and so the only people we had all together were namely me, Habona, Majosha and Manasha. With the slowest being me, Habona picked me up without a second thought and carried me all the way. On her sides, the two medusas slithered along, keeping pace with the anxious werewolf without much difficulty.

Roughly half a day of sprinting later, we arrived at the spot where Harlow was kidnapped. There was no signs of blood or corpses nearby but judging from the remaining murderous aura, a battle had definitely happened here recently.

Violet Snow had mentioned that the patrolling undead were essentially the janitors of the Prison of the Dead. This must've been their handiwork.

I had to admit these hardworking fellows were truly model workers. They toiled tirelessly without rest or respite to maintain the cleanliness of this massive maze despite of the constant battles.

In my opinion, the Prison of the Dead was just a giant arena where countless organisms including the undead, lived together, fought against each other and suppressed each other. Every day was a bloody affair for the residents here and while this might seem like a meaningless endeavor, it helped to maintain the life of these lowly life forms.

In actuality, not everyone here could evolve into a four-star. After all, the issue of talent existed here as well. An analogy would be human society, while there were resources available for people to cultivate, not everyone had the talent to reach four-star. Instead, the majority would be stuck at one to two-star, doomed to be fodder on the battlefield. The best they could hope to achieve was being a squad leader of 10.

Going back to the matter of my subordinates, under normal circumstances, we should've had a large number of two-stars by now, given the amount of battles and food they've consumed. However, we had less than 10 two-stars as of now, and as for three-star, not even one of them showed any sign of evolving anytime soon.

This was an issue of talent, if they weren't talented enough, no amount of hard work would allow them to escape the fate of being cannon fodder.

With this in mind, the rule which allowed a four-star to leave unhindered was a problematic one. While it wasn't impossible to achieve, only the few sitting atop this b loody pyramid could get to enjoy this privilege.

"Hey, don't just stand, start singing, quick!" She roughly lowered me onto the floor, which forcibly interrupted my ruminations and brought me back to reality.

"Sing. Any song will do." She hurried me, sounding more impatient than before. "Harpies are jealous creatures; having someone sing better than them is the one thing they can't stand. As long as you sing well, those despicable birds will appear."

"If that's the case, I'll just sing that previous song, *cough cough* mhm." I cleared my throat with a light cough and immersed myself in the lyrics once more:

"They're probably too far away to hear you." Majosha's face fell as she shook her head. A strange sight occurred as her head swung from left to right, the little snake heads at the end of her hair actually shook their heads in tandem with her.

"They were definitely here recently. Their scent is still strong amidst the smell of battle." Habona furrowed her brows as she looked around. " Perhaps we are simply just too far from their nest. Why don't we change locations?"

"They flew off in that direction with Harlow." Majosha took the lead as she slithered off. A few hundred meters and a few patrols later, we came upon some crossroads. As there were traces of the harpies' scent on all three routes, Habona was unable to determine which way they took and so it fell onto me to try once more.

Without much choice, I began singing once more, this time, I chose a happier song. While it wasn't as moving as the previous song, it had an energetic feel to its beat. Even the two worrywarts were infected with its energy and began swaying to the rhythm. Clearly , they enjoyed the song as well.

Manasha even tried to learn a few lines from me but unfortunately her voice was slightly on the impaired side...she sounded like a siren, a siren who could kill with just her voice.

Our brows tightened as we faced the same dilemma once more. With three choices to choose from, the likelihood of choosing the right one was low. While there was still some time before Harlow gets drained completely and loses his will, it might be time for us to take this risky gamble.

Even though she had faith in Harlow's mental fortitude, Majosha couldn't help but cry as the thought of potentially losing her lover wrecked her heart. At the side, Habona busied herself with sniffing the surroundings once more, hoping to get a better lock on Harlow's scent.

However, the harpies' scent were too strong and ended up overwhelming Harlow's scent. Even with their sensitive noses, such a cacophony of scents wasn't an easy mass to dissect.

In the end, we had no choice but to try my songs once more, praying that we were close enough to attract the harpies. If it failed once more, we would have no choice but to try our luck.

"By the way, why did you all capture Harlow? Was his genes that superior?" I suddenly blurted out an irrelevant and seemingly useless question.

"So, what I wanted to say was, why was Harlow chosen by the harpies? After all, there are a lot of males in the Prison of the Dead, for both parties to choose the same target seems to be to much of a coincidence to me."

Without feeling any shame about her reproductive preferences, she bluntly said: "That's because mating with higher level creatures result in an offspring with higher talent."

"..." Harlow is actually a three-star. I assumed he was merely a two-star since he got captured so easily by the harpies. If that's the case what's the level of this medusa over here? She had to be at least three-star… perhaps even four.

Since the purpose of their hunt was to aid in their reproduction, let's choose a more sensual song. Hmm...a sensual song...I haven't heard this song in a while...was it 10 years ago? Mhm, it's coming back to me.

It's the kind of song that was not only sensual but was also extremely raunchy, the type you couldn't clean, even with bleach. The kind which would earn you a beating from your parents, the scorn of your classmates and would make your friend put on earmuffs…

As the first line left my mouth, the black fur on Habona's body stood up immediately. Even the two medusas turned red from hearing the lyrics. Let's not forget that these two were extremely open about their sexual habits just a while ago!

I sang every word to the best of my abilities, however flirtatious it sounded was exactly how I sang it. It could be said that I expended every bit of my vocal arsenal to bring forth a faithful rendition of Overflowing Awe the devil's edition...

In fact, the song seemed to tempt me into singing it. As I continued singing the lyrics, they filled me with an excitement and passion to continue singing. In the end, I sang it three times, back to back.

Compared to the two medusas, Habona reaction was rather docile. The medusas were driven into a state of heightened coital agitation. Their snake tails coiled around each other as their somas writhed in a piquant manner. Their physiognomies abraded against each other, their tails smacking the floor in tandem with the swaddling of their dorsal surfaces…

Is this the famous white lily league? How could two women behave in such a shameless fashion. Men being with women is a great dao of the world and obeys the laws of yin and yang!

As an upright youth with morals and principles, I must condemn this action! In order to do so, I must get a closer look! Step by step, I stealthily crept up on them, all the while focusing my judging eyes on their every action.

Habona stepped in front of me, forming a wall with her towering figure, shielding me from the front. She lifted her head and looked in front, her ears twitching as she did so.

"The harpies are here, we can finally locate Harlow." Her voice sounded relieved as she thanked me: "Many thanks, Soul Bard."

"..." This brother has already sang so many songs and yet none of them even garnered a second look from you guys. Yet when I sang Overflowing Awe, you guys immediately flew over? Couldn't you have arrived a little later?! The shows had just started and you guys ended it abruptly...don't tell me this raunchy song is really that effective...

"Don't try to resist when they capture you." Habona turned around and lifted me up into her embrace. My tiny body was immediately wrapped in what felt like a comfortable fur blanket.

Her sudden embrace immediately brought up memories of Overflowing Awe. Don't tell she's thinking of doing THAT after listening to Overflowing Awe? There's no way I'm doing THAT with a wolfhead.

I immediately resisted her embrace, causing her a great deal of discomfort as I violently writhed in her arms. She tightened her hug, nearly crushing my skull with her herculean strength.

"Don't be scared, these harpies have the habit of bringing their prey back to their nests. As long as we don't resist, they will definitely escort us safely back to their nests."

"Tig...ht...can't breathe…" I desperately forced out my opposition to her hug. Noticing this as well, she finally loosened her hug after which, I took the opportunity to climb up to her shoulders in order to get a better look in front.

"CAWWW!!!~~~" Just as that thought crossed my mind, a sharp, half eagle, half female cry resounded within the bony corridor, followed closely by a flock of human faced eagles diving at us from a distance...

ED: Cat here, I'm sorta back, currently working on building a new WordPress based website since wix is giving us and everyone else cancer. So I can only speed proofread at the moment. Chapters will remain as drafts for a few weeks more until I am done then I will go back and clean them all up.

These strange creatures had a relatively large body, their upright height was at least two meters tall and their feathers were dyed in a diverse range of colors. Upon extending their wings, the harpies' maximum wingspan was at least three to four meters wide. From a distance, it looked like prismatic cloud was approaching us.

They swooped down on us with terrifying hook-like claws and latched onto the two medusas before taking off once more. The pair kept their cool and allowed the harpies to carry them off without a fuss.

I had never ridden an airplane before, so I didn't know what it felt like. However, as of now, I've at least ridden a harpy and it felt...dizzying…

Their speed could only be described as lightning quick as they zipped past the corners without slowing down a bit. After a mere ten minutes, we reached the nest of the harpies and the sight that greeted was shocking to say the least.

Upon entering the Prison of the Dead, the first thing I attempted was to break apart the bony white walls of the maze. However, to my disappointment, it wasn't possible no matter what I tried.

Later on, we encountered the Abaddon Rodents but they were unable to do so as well. If even a rat wasn't able to dig a hole in these walls, I simply couldn't picture anyone else being able to do so. This was the impression that stuck with me until today…

The maze walls were 20 meters of bones that stretched to the ceiling or at least it was at the other nests I've been to. At the 15 meter mark was a conspicuous lack of bones. Instead, that section all the way up to the ceiling had been hollowed and had even extended to the other side of wall. On that harpy-made platform was their nest.

They actually managed to destroy that sturdy wall...and even built a nest on it! I couldn't even imagine the destructive power of the harpies that accomplished this feat!

Another point of interest was the thousand over skeletons currently scaling that broken wall. Their target seemed to be the harpy nest.

Hundreds of harpies flew out in response to the undead invasion. With a fell screech, they swooped in and picked up the undead. Their claws sunk in between their bony body. With a clench and pull of their claws, the skeletons shattered without any resistance, falling to the ground like a bunch of wooden toy blocks.

The harpies' treatment of captives were extremely rough; without any concern for our safety, they unceremoniously dumped us from a distance above the ground. Habona tumbled a couple of times before coming to a stop, all the while hugging me. The two medusas received the same treatment as well.

As I got to my feet, a cacophony of smells crashed into me like a sledgehammer. It was an amalgamation of scents that was not only difficult to describe but also reeked. Mixed into the air was a scent that smelled like feces, blood and flesh mixed in with the pungent smell of decay.

Shortly after dropping us off, the harpy landed near us along with nearly a hundred of her brethren, forming a tight circle around us. Looking closely, at their faces specifically, they were actually quite beautiful.

However, this beauty was instantly shattered as they opened their mouths and screeched at us...rows of disgusting, blackened teeth immediately burned my admiring eyes. There's no way anyone would willing kiss this mug.

Being stared at by this bunch of monsters was truly disconcerting. However, what unsettled me even more was our audacious and perhaps suicidal infiltration of the enemy's nest. I gently leaned in on Habona and whispered: "What're we going to do now?"

"I'm trying to locate Harlow's scent." She slowly edged towards the medusas while keeping me protected behind my back. "Just hide behind me once the battle starts, I won't able to keep my eye on you then. You need to watch out for yourself."

In spite of our precarious situation, Majosha was surprisingly calm. She coldly glanced over the ring of screeching monsters around us and said: "While the harpies aren't particularly smart, they know enough to separate their dining area from their mating area. Since we're all females here, they've naturally brought us to the dining area."

"I knew that even without your explanation." Those piles of skulls aren't just for show after all. Not to mention the strong smell of blood and decay. Also, "I'm a male. Don't get my gender mixed up."

The two medusas were stunned after which they gave me an evaluating look. Manasha took it a step further by simply reaching out and grabbing my non-existent package.

After discovering the lack of a certain organ, she flashed me a roguish smile and said: "You actually dare to call yourself a male without a penis? Besides if you are actually a male, the harpies wouldn't have brought you here with us."

"Since we have no luck in this matter, we'll just have to find him ourselves." Habona abruptly cut in, her patience nearly stretched to its limits while we were busy discussing my penis or lack thereof.

Without even waiting for a response, she leaped into fray and lashed out viciously with her razor sharp claws. The scent of blood grew even stronger as her deadly claws tore apart a couple of unfortunate harpies, turning both of them into geysers of blood as they fell backwards limply.

The harpies sprung into action immediately. With a enraged screech, they dove at her in unison. However, Habona was simply too agile for them. With a casual sidestep, she avoided their talons and counterattacked at the same time. Flesh and blood splattered all over the floor as her claws easily tore through the feathers and hide of the unfortunate harpy.

GIven her four-star strength, these harpies were clearly not a match for her claws. Even a light rake at their weak points was enough to kill these harpies in an instant.

Due to the height at which the nest was built, there was only five meters of airspace to maneuver in and so the vaunted flight abilities of the harpies were powerless before the land bound werewolf's lightning speed and strength.

There were about two to three hundred of these harpies. However, they were mostly one to two-stars. A small proportion were three-stars but this didn't matter as Habona's claws swept through them just the same.

Habona's sudden attack on the harpies had triggered a chain reaction among the harpies. Without even giving me time to react, countless harpies leaped at me. Within them was one three-star who had a significantly larger body than her kin. As her blue-feathered wings flapped, it induced a violent gust of wind that nearly knocked me off my feet.

Making use of this opportunity, she approached me, jaws wide open, ready to bite into me. By the time I reacted to her attack, I could already smell the horrid stench of her breath which nearly caused me to faint. I knew that it was too late to run now.

I immediately summoned up my shadow guardian. I knew that it was powerless against a three-star but even so I had to try no matter how futile it seemed.

As expected, the shadow didn't slow her down one bit. As it tried to coil around the harpy, she bit through it easily and continued charging at me. All it took was just one more step and she would be able to rip apart my exposed neck.

Just as I was about to meet my makers, a earthy-yellow snake tail flicked across my eyes like a bolt of lightning and whipped the harpy away…

"Get behind us quick." As she said that, the snake hairs on Majosha's head didn't let up on the offensive and continued spitting at the pouncing harpies. With every successful spit, the acrid of smell of burning flesh filled the air amidst a backdrop of tortured screeches.

Manasha slithered forward in what looked like a charge and whipped out, cutting into throat of the wailing harpy with a sharpness that didn't lose to Habona's claws…

Their immense strength came as a pleasant surprise to me. Not only was Manasha strong, Majosha was as well. A simple flick of her tail was able to send a three-star flying away.

However, this wasn't the end of that three-star. After a couple of tumbles, she immediately got to her feet and stared daggers at the offending medusa before charging at her once more. If looks could kill, Majosha would've been dead several times over.

While her target was Majosha, I ended up getting caught in the crossfire between the two. As her fervent gaze swept over me, I was frightened stiff by it, temporarily forgetting to run away.

Seeing my precarious situation, her snake tail immediately coiled around my waist and pulled me to safety behind her back. As for herself, with a shake of her serpentine waist, she slithered off to clash with the harpy head on!

As snake clashed with bird, the final victor was unsurprisingly the snake. Her unstoppable charge instantly sent her opponent flying. However, she didn't stop there and instead pushed forward, her aim, to finish off her knocked down opponent.

Her muscles contracted before snapping forth in a burst of speed at the end, coiling her tail around the harpy just as she landed on the floor. With a vicious gouge of her razor sharp teeth, she tore into the harpy's neck.

"AHHH!!" The harpy desperately tried to struggle free but Majosha's serpentine binding held strong, preventing her from even moving an inch. A few seconds later, the harpy fell silent. Whether it was the asphyxiation or the blood loss that killed her, it didn't matter as the harpy was without a doubt, dead.

She actually did it! A three-star harpy was dead just like that, and in such a cruel manner too...so that's why Harlow got captured so easily despite being a three-star. He simply couldn't beat her…

With the teamworks of these two medusas who I assumed were at least four-stars, no amount of enemies would matter. Assuming there weren't any four-stars within the group.

After losing over a hundred of their kinsman, these idiots finally realized that they were no match for the three female monsters in front of them and began to take off.

A blood drenched Habona walked over, coldness radiating off her body with each step she took. The medusas were in similar situation as well; they were drenched in the foul blood of the harpies.

"We're fine...at least the three of us aren't hurt." I gave her an evaluating look. "What about you? Are you hurt?" I simply couldn't tell whether the blood was hers or not.

"We've managed to defeat them for now but this is their nest after all. I'm sure they'll be back with greater numbers next time. We need to find Harlow, quick."

"But we don't know where they bring their male prey to…" While we were talking, Majosha took the opportunity to survey the area. She slithered a circle around the area, trying to find some clues. Unfortunately, her efforts didn't pay off.

While I wasn't of much help in the battle, I still maintained an alert stance. Upon returning to the nest with her prey, I immediately spotted the laden harpy and started tracking her path with my eyes.

Given that these harpies were smart enough to separate their mating area from their eating area, by the process of elimination, that must mean that the area she was headed to was the mating area.

The nest of the harpies was similarly built in a corner of the maze. Their nest was hollowed out in a 'U' shape with a portion of it leading through to the other side of the maze.

Even now, we still didn't know how many harpies resided in this hollowed nest, nor did we know if there were any four-stars here. And so, it was imperative that we rescued Harlow as soon as possible.

I led the party off into the direction I saw the harpy fly in. However, before I could take a couple more steps, I was abruptly lifted up by a furry hand and placed onto the shoulders of Habona. My speed was clearly too slow for these four-stars and so I was relegated to pointing instead.

As I only knew the rough location of that harpy, I had some difficulty giving out directions. Strangely, our road so far had been pretty smooth. Except for the initial wave of harpies, we basically navigated through their nest unopposed.

This struck me as being extremely suspicious, therefore I made a mental note of this as I continued guiding the party. This was, after all, the nest of the harpies, the lack of harpies wasn't normal and could just be a trap. Getting ambushed because of a moment of carelessness was simply not worth it.

Perhaps the heavens finally smiled favorably on us but only after a few minutes of running, Habona was able to pick up the scent of Harlow.

"I've got his scent. It's coming from this direction." She growled excitedly as she took off, leaving the two medusas in the dust. As I sat through this rollercoaster ride of a dash, my body was pelted with fragments from an assortment of objects.

I staggered around after hopping off her shoulder; her speed was simply too much for me to bear and had nearly knocked me unconscious. As I wandered around in a daze, I was hit with an odd smell. It was clearly an awful scent but it was strangely soothing. It felt like I could put aside all my worries just by being here.

"Don't inhale the air, there's something wrong with it." Perhaps it was due to my unique constitution protecting me or perhaps it was due to my innate talents as a sage (virgin males above 40 but below 50) showing their true value, but either way I was unexpectedly resistant to its temptations.

Of course, it could just be my lack of a pee pee at work here. Regardless, that strange heat began to rapidly cool down before it even had the chance to take effect.

Habona on the other hand, didn't notice anything strange and instead waved her hand dismissively, "It's fine, the bodily fluids of a harpy has a bewitching effect. It's only effective on males though."

"..." Based on this piece of information, I've learnt two things. The first was that the strange scent came from the bodily fluids of a harpy. The second was that I'm...neither a male nor a female…

Unfortunately or perhaps I should say, fortunately for me, I didn't have much time to mourn this fact as I came back to my senses and began scanning the area for our main objective, Harlow.

Just based on the frightening sight before me, I could tell that this was the mating area of the harpies. There were over ten male creatures lying stock still on the floor; devils, demonic half-orcs, ratmen, dogmen and even three lizardmen.

They came from a wide gamut of races but they all had one thing in common, that was that they were emancipated to the point where their bones could be seen through their skin. It was as if they were drained dry after countless assaults. The lifeless males stared blankly at the ceiling, not even noticing our arrival.

Right at the corner of the area was the sole werewolf in the bunch. Unlike the others, he still maintained his original appearance, without the characteristic stoned look of the others. He probably hadn't been here for long; his condition was mostly alright albeit worrisome.

He laid there spread-eagled on the floor, secured tautly by four ropes tied to a separate pole. His eyes were slightly glazed over as he stared mutely at the ceiling. On his dishevelled body was the pungent scent of the harpy's bodily fluid.

"Harlow!" Habona's shout rendered any need to guess useless. She rushed to his side in a couple of strides and with a swift swipe of her claws, cut the bindings on her brother.

She grabbed his shoulders and shook it excitedly. It didn't work and so she shook him even harder, shaking basically his entire upper body. However, he merely stood there dumbly staring at her.

Seeing his lack of response, frightened her even more. She slapped him several times without giving it much thought. As the vicious slaps rang out across the mating area, his lifeless eyes finally began to stir.

"Sis...sister…" His unfocused gaze finally centered on the female werewolf in front of him. As he took in the familiar sight and scent of his sister, his puppy dog eyes watered up and immediately broke down into tears. "Sis...it was terrible...they...they were just merciless...wah wah…"

Just as she lifted up the frail werewolf, his body immediately collapsed as his eyes rolled into the back of his head; he was simply too weak right now. Habona rushed in to catch his falling body, not caring about the filthy bodily fluids on him.

"Harlow!" The lagging medusas finally caught up at this point. With just a glance, Majosha immediately recognized her lover and slithered up to him with a few rapid shakes of her tail, pulling him into her embrace unabashedly. Given his height of 2.5 meters, he still managed to tower over her despite his slumped body.

While they hadn't been separated for long, the tumultuous events up till now made them miss each other even more. The reunion of these lovers could be said to be a long awaited one.

I've never been so touched in my entire life...even in hell, the heavens made sure to rub a PDA in my face...exactly how determined are you…(Public Display of Affection)

"Hey hey, that's enough hugging for now. How about turning around now? We still have to find a way to leave." I turned around and looked at the other males with a pitying gaze. "Should we help these unfortunate potatoes out?"

"..." I guess you're right about that. Even Harlow who was in a much better shape than them, was thoroughly fatigued. His back and head were probably aching right now along with his jelly legs. Given that he had gotten off lightly, the other males were probably a lost cause.

"Don't you guys find it strange that we didn't encounter any harpies on the way here? I'm afraid that they might be plotting something." Manasha posited, clearly having the brains to back up her beauty. She was acutely aware of the strange behavior of the harpies and the potential danger it posed. Unfortunately, even she couldn't fathom what that danger could be.

"Screw them, no matter what plot they have in mind, I'll take them all on. In terms of strength, there's no way I'll lose to some harpy." Having found her little brother had filled her with renewed confidence.

"Well then, let's get a move on it. I don't want to stay here for a second longer." I didn't choose to come here in the first place and so I naturally didn't want to stay here either. Habona and the others seemed to agree with me as well. However, Harlow seemed to have taken some issue with me as he gave me a strange look.

"This brother is a male! A guy!" While he was polite about it, I definitely didn't intend to forgive him just because of that. This was a matter that transcended even life and death. No matter what, I must fight for this bit of dignity!

"...how…" As he laid his head on Majosha's shoulders he gave me a "You're lying" look and smiled. "You're such a kidder."

"..." Kid, since you're out to get me, I'll just have to return that favor. So...I heard that medusas have a really strong sense of envy…

I turned to Majosha and flashed her a devilish smile: "Hey why is your husband flirting with me? Don't tell me he has picked up some bad habits from those harpies?"

"..." The rumors weren't exaggerating the least bit. That simple question immediately had the desired effect on her as her face turned pitch black. "Harlow! I'll let this matter of the harpies go but if there's a next time...hmph…"

As expected, a half finished threat was a lot scarier than a completed one. I don't know what went through his mind as he heard that "hmph", but it clearly wasn't anything good judging from the cold sweat on his forehead. If it wasn't for his fur covering up his face, I bet his face would be a deathly pale right now.

"Alright, that's enough horsing around for now. Our first priority is to find a way to leave this place." Manasha interrupted the lovebirds, reminding her sister not to take things too far.

"I only saw them fly out of the nest. As for the reason why, I have no idea what happened." I was extremely concerned about this matter as well. If they were to suddenly show up and ambush us, we would be in an extremely perilous situation.

Just as we were discussing the matter of leaving, a strange moaning suddenly filled the airs of the mating area. How was it strange? Instead of us hearing it, it seemed to be echoing directly in our minds. It sounded like a combination of a hundred, even a thousand sounds. While its pitch wasn't uniform, it sounded surprisingly harmonious and didn't give off a repulsive feel.

"Harlow...no...here...here...lower…" As I turned around and followed the moaning to its source, I saw the lovebirds engaging in an advanced form of PDA...

What the f*ck, are you guys a bunch of exhibitionists or something? Now's not the time for this; Who knows when those harpies would show up and ambush us. You better shape up this instant, don't tell me you've been corrupted that badly by the harpies!

Seeing them engage in the act of fornication, made me angry for some unknown reason. I didn't know why this was so but I certainly knew that I wasn't happy about it.

"Lust demon…" Habona had a strange look on her as she leaned in on me. She gave me a sharp tug and pulled me into her embrace and proceeded to run her moist tongue all over my face and body.

"Hey! Habona! What do you think you're doing!? Even a sanctimonious b*tch like you wants to assault me? You're sick...scram!" Why did she suddenly turn into a pervert…

I desperately struggled to break free but she was simply too strong for me. No matter how much I hit her, she didn't seem to budge a bit.

"Lust demon…let's do it..." My heart leaped into my throat as I heard the seductive voice of Manasha behind me. The beautiful snakewoman coiled herself around me and Habona. Being trapped between her cold scales and the warm fur of Habona felt like I was being sandwiched between two extremes.

"Hey hey hey...don't touch me there...I, I, I...no...mercy...I'm on the verge of breaking through to a Grand Sage…" (Grand Sages: Virgin males who are at least 50 years old.)

The sudden change in behavior caught me off guard, barely allowing me to time react before I was accosted by the two perverts...thankfully, I had a clear idea of what caused this unusual change in the four potatoes; it's that strange chorus.

Even though we all heard the same chorus, they were visibly more affected by it than I was. From the looks of it, I had some kind of immunity to this psychic attack. But, the issue is how to bring these four back to their senses...damn it...they are touching me there…

With my hands and feet bound by them, the only thing I could move was my...mouth! That's it, I can still sing my songs! Since the other party was able to control their psyche with sound, it should be the same for my songs as well. Either way, I have no better choice at this moment so I might as well do it.

But what should I sing...with this wolf and snake assaulting me, I can barely concentrate...in that case, I'll do what those harpies did and just vocalize the emotions with sounds rather than words.

With that in mind, I opened my mouth and moaned with the same "ah~~~ah~~~" vocals the harpies used. However, the four potatoes didn't seem to react to it at all and continued with their business. Perhaps the sound wasn't loud enough? I increased the volume even more but it still didn't work…

Don't tell me I'm going to lose my virginity like this? Noooo...even if it's not with Nicole, at least make my first partner a proper human girl. Other races are fine as well but at least make it an elf or even a lust demon...why must it be these two barely humanoid females...demon waifus and such are perfect just the way they are...2D. As for the 3D world...they aren't that cute here.

I began sobbing uncontrollably as the despair finally set in. Tears flowed down my eyes as I bemoaned my fate. Suddenly, I noticed that something was off. The pair of perverts weren't accosting me anymore?!

"What's...why are you crying?" Habona shook her lupine head as if she was shaking a load off. "Why does my head feel so heavy…"

"Me too." The two of them had managed to free themselves from the control of the harpies but Manasha seemed a lot more beaten up than Habona.

At the other side, Harlow and Majosha came back to their senses as well, as they looked at us and then at their own entwined state, the two shameless fellows immediately blushed...at least one of them did. I couldn't see if Harlow's face was red as well due to his fur, but I sensed his embarrassment just the same…

"That should've been the chorus of the harpies, their combined voices have the ability to bewitch others. While their individual voices aren't able to affect us, it's a different matter if they combined into a thousand strong chorus."

"Lucky for us, we had this lust demon with us. Her being a soul bard ended up saving us from their mental domination." Habona said as she turned to me with a smile, clearly happy about her choice to drag me along.

Harlow threw this nightmarish place one more look but hurriedly turning to Habona. "Sis, let's get out of here already, I don't want to stay here any longer…"

"Don't worry, Harlow...it's all over, we'll leave right away." Sensing the mental trauma of her lover, she stepped forth and comforted him with another hug. She gently stroke his back and placated him: "It's alright now...we can go home now...don't worry…"

As abruptly as it began, the harpies' chorus ended without any warning; they must've noticed that I had dispelled their mental domination.

"They've probably realized that their plan has failed. They should be gathering outside right now to block us. We need to break through their blockade as soon as possible.

Habona immediately assumed the role of a big sister and offered to take on the hardest role by herself. "Majosha, you're in charge of protecting Harlow, I'll lead the charge, Lust demon...you're too slow so Manasha will look after you."

Unknowingly, we were swept up by her confident aura and ended up following her orders unquestioningly. Seeing this, she didn't waste anymore time and took off in a violent burst of speed. As she charged ahead, the other two medusas went about their task as well.

Harlow was significantly taller than Majosha and so she had to hug him with both of her hands as she slithered behind. As for Manasha, she placed me on her back similar to a piggyback and slithered behind the charging werewolf as fast as she could.

At our blazing speed, it didn't take long for the trio to reach the borders of the harpy nest. As I laid on top of her back, I peered at the harpy blockade in front of us. Surprisingly, they weren't flying when we first arrived but were all gathered on the ground,

These repulsive birdwomen immediately took to the air upon noticing our arrival, blotting out the entire ceiling of the maze in an impressive but deadly display of claw and feathers,

Being a creature capable of flight, these harpies naturally didn't require stairs in their nest. However, as land-bound creatures, we had no such luxury and that meant only one thing...we had to jump down in order to leave the nest.

Habona barely paid their show of force any heed, she turned around to check on us one last time before leaping off the 15meter wall without a second though.

What the f*ck, sister, that's a 15 meter wall for crying out loud...a gund*m is only 20 meters...err, I mean that's as tall as a five storey building! Hey hey…why are you jumping off as well...I'm still not ready for thiiiisss…

Having left the ground, we were completely exposed to aerial attacks due to our lack of wings. Taking advantage of this, the harpies immediately rushed in, claws first. However, Habona was already prepared for this scenario.

She calmly grabbed onto the wings of an attacking harpy, breaking her fall slightly as the harpy desperately tried to stay afloat with one wing. The harpy furious flapped her remaining wing but that didn't change her doomed fate one bit.

Another harpy swooped in in the meantime, determined to claw at the back of this hateful werewolf. As unfazed as ever, Habona nonchalantly batted away the cunning harpy with the makeshift club she had just attained. The two birds collided into each other with a sickening crunch. They screeched one last time before falling lifelessly towards the ground with their eyes glazed over.

However, this violent display of power wasn't enough to deter the other birdwomen. Just as they saw Habona's bird hammer leave her hands, another pair of harpies swooped in to claw at her. With nothing left to aid her, it looked like that was the end for Habona.

Or so I thought. As the two birds closed in on her, she used one of the falling harpies as a stepping board and leaped off gracefully as if she was a qinggong expert from one of those wuxia novels. She vaulted away from the pair and onto an unsuspecting harpy a short distance away.

It was at this moment that Habona transformed from a normal wolf into a flying demonic werewolf. As she savagely clubbed at the harpies with their own comrade, she would grab onto another harpy's wing, refilling her stock of bird hammers while simultaneously slowing down her descent.

As she plummeted down the 15 meter drop, so did the number of harpies. With each passing second, the screeching in the air grew softer and softer as the blood rain grew ever denser. Seconds later, she landed gracefully atop a pool of blood and feathers. Judging from the height of that corpse mountain, there must've been nearly ten harpies piled on beneath her…

Thanks to her savagery, Manasha and Majosha experienced a relatively uneventful descent. The only issue they faced was that they had carry another passenger while jumping off. In order to compensate for the additional bit of weight, each of them commandeered a carrier harpy with a whip of their snake tails.

As the scaly appendage coiled around their bodies, the harpies furiously flapped their wings in a bid to stay airborne. Thanks to their hard work, our descent ended up being significantly softer.

With everyone accounted for, Habona took the lead once more in clearing the way for us. Even in the face of the numerous harpies swooping in on her from the sky, her savagery wasn't slowed down one bit. With each swipe of her claws, a tiny mountain of meat was raked into her palms as she effortlessly ripped through the harpies.

Behind her, the medusas didn't skimp on their poison spits either. With each step we took, the air echoed with the tortured cries of harpies having their flesh gouged out or melted. It didn't take long for the harpies to begin avoiding us. As our backs slowly faded into the distance, all they did was stare, none of them daring to move a muscle.

To think our daring attack on their nest would end so smoothly. As expected, four-stars were truly the lords of the Prison of the Dead. Not only did these three barge into their headquarters, they even scared them into submission!

*Bang* A loud explosion echoed from the very spot she leaped off just a second ago. In its place was the fiery remains of a fireball, ominously crackling in the air as it painted the ground black.

Right at the end of that path was a 1.7m tall humanoid descending from the ceiling. She had a voluptuous humanoid figure that was covered in a luxurious coat of feathers. Except for her limbs which had claws instead of hands, every other part of her body resembled a human's.

Her crimson hair flowed down her shoulders up till her waist, accentuated by her pearly white teeth and skin, her hair radiated like a brilliant sun. With a pair of fiery red wings on her back, she almost looked like an angel of fire, if you didn't count the feathers on her body.

Within the harpy race, there were those who possess a stronger bloodline than others. Theses harpies are known as Harpy Witches. These witches possess an appearance similar to humans and have a pair of wings growing out of their backs; unlike their brethren who instead have wings for hands.

With their natural affinity and talent for elemental magic, these harpies occupy the position of Queen within harpy society and take on a name corresponding to their element.

Their talent for elemental magic lie in these three categories: fire, ice and wind magic. A witch would name herself Blaze, for the fire element, Frost, for the ice element and Gale, for the wind element.

Other than evolving after birth, there was another way of producing a harpy witch. Every normal harpy has a chance of giving birth to a harpy witch. This was known as natural evolution.

Based on the years of research conducted by my teacher, she theorized that the first harpy witch was born as a result of a union between a normal harpy and a male creature with strong affinity to a particular element.

Not only did these witches look different from their normal brethren, they also had different mating habits. They weren't promiscuous and instead of capturing any male they came across, they were surprisingly...loyal lovers. It might just be a case of when things are taken to an extreme, they end up doing a reversal instead. They rarely showed interest in male creatures, but once they expressed their love, they would have unconditional loyalty towards their lover.

Harpy witches naturally possess the ability to absorb souls. In fact, they rarely consumed meat, instead preferring to feed on plants or souls. If their offspring was a male, he would accompany their father. If it was a female, she would become the next generation of harpy witches.

Regarding their bloodlines, traditions and habits, I had to admit that I didn't give a sh*t about them. What I really wanted to know was how is it possible for these women who grew up in what was essentially a brothel, to ever know the meaning of love?

They are just a group of ugly, disgusting, despicable, contemptible, tainted, dirty...murderous wh*res...hey, don't stop me! I order you in the name of your teacher's spouse to let go...let me finish...this paragraph…

(The above book is the joint work of three authors. Namely, a certain magician, a certain magician's wife...and a certain magician's apprentice who was forced to keep the initial paragraphs of the log.)

As she stood there staring at us, Numila's crimson body radiated a scorching heat that felt partly like an aura, and a natural phenomenon. Under her overbearing pressure, we could only stand there mutely.

"Habona." Habona replied cautiously. Out of all of us here, she was the only one who wasn't affected by the harpy. She faced the domineering aura head on, back straight and eyes burning with rage.

Numila glanced at the frail looking Harlow and then back at Habona. Her lips broke into a smile that didn't seem like a smile: "I take it you're here to rescue him."

A simple and direct answer, without much consideration put into it. It was the rashness which characterized the demonic werewolves, including Habona. Even a simple question like Numila's was a hassle to them. All that mattered was: are we fighting or not?

"..." Numila's face instantly darkened upon being insulted, it didn't take long before this brewing storm burst forth: "If that's what you want, then die!"

Apparently, her temper was as fiery as her looks. With just one provocative sentence, a battle broke out between the two hotheaded females. With a wave of her hand, a snake-like flame appeared in her palm and immediately shot towards Habona who was standing five meters away, as if it had eyes.

However, Habona was already prepared for this outcome the moment she taunted Numilia. As the flame snake seared through the air, she had already leaped to side. She twisted her massive body as her feet made contact with the wall, and with a mighty kick of her legs, propelled herself forwards like a dart flying unerringly towards its target.

With that impossibly agile movement by her titanic frame, she was now within striking range of Numilia. Her claws opened wide as they readied themselves for the incoming feast. However, just as they were about to tear into Numilia, she revealed a mysterious smile followed closely by a sudden gust of wind.

It was at this moment that her fiery wings lightly flapped, propelling her body backwards without any prior preparations whatsoever. It was a small step backwards, but it was enough to dodge Habona's claw attack by a hair's breadth.

Unfortunately for Numilia, these flames ended up backfiring on her. As the flames rapidly closed in on Habona, the heat emanating from her claws immediately alerted Habona to the impending attack. With an inhuman reaction speed, she swiftly lowered her hands to receive the incoming blow.

The clash of their claws ended as quickly as it started with both sides withdrawing swifty. Habona's claws were slightly scorched by the flames but while her fur was slightly charred, her hands were basically unharmed.

This style of brawling was exactly the type of fight she loved. Once she began attacking, she would unleash an unrelenting torrent of blows upon her opponent. Now wasn't any different either, especially since she had already sensed that her opponent was weaker than her.

In the face of her follow-up attack, Numilia made use of her wings once more to perform an otherwise impossible sidestep. Habona's claws barely grazed the feathers on her body as she circled around the werewolf. As she did so, she prepared her next fire spell.

This was the first time Habona had actually faced off against such a difficult opponent. She would never have imagined that someone was able to so easily circle behind her. After all, speed and power were always the forte of the demonic werewolves. However, right at this very moment, she was losing out in the battle of speed.

With Habona's exposed back squarely in sight, Numilia sent a fiery kick flying towards this weak point. All she needed to do was land this kick and the battle would swing immediately in her favor. However, what she thought to be a perfect plan had one fatal mistake within it, she had forgotten about Habona's tail.

Before the claws on her feet could rake at Habona's back, her wolf tail immediately swung out at Numilia, landing squarely on her claws and ankles. The unknown black mana on her tail instantly dispersed the flames on Numila's claws and crashed right into her ankles.

She winced in pain at the surprise attack and immediately abandoned her attack. With a furious flap of her wings, she retreated back into the sky, her ankle coming into full sight as she did so. Right where the tail had struck was a conspicuous swelling.

She gritted her teeth and glared at Habona. Despite losing that trade, her words didn't soften one bit. "To think that your tail was a weapon as well...how dare you ambush me!"

"Blame yourself for being stupid." She smiled derisively at her. "While the tail might be a weak point for my other kinsman, mine is particularly strong."

"So what if you're strong? Don't forget that you still have those two burdens behind you while I still have over two thousand kinsman behind me. If we decide to dogpile you, none of you would be able to leave here alive."

"However, you won't get off unscathed either." She flashed her a savage toothy grin as she scoffed at the countless harpies in the air as if they didn't even matter. "If we were to go all out, how many of your kinsman would survive? Besides, do you honestly believe that we are only five people? We have over a thousand clansman behind us as well."

"Devil, demonic half-orc, medusas…" Numila clenched her fists as she murmured to herself. She was a four-star herself and was thus extremely aware of how powerful four-stars were. Thus, she knew she had to swallow her anger. Furthermore, these four-stars had the backing of their clans behind them. If all of these clans were to attack them, it would spell the end for the harpies.

She tossed a fireball on the ground as she said so, clearly angered by the choice she had to make. As it scorched the ground, the shockwave blew over Habona, ruffling her fur. Habona waved at us as if nothing had happened and said: "Let's go, don't tell me you guys are waiting for them to treat us to dinner."

"Oh...right." The four of us were stunned by the sudden turn of events. Given the intensity of the battle, we had all assumed that the two of them would continue to fight, the last thing we would've expected was that they would stop so abruptly. So much ado about nothing...

As the nest faded into the distance behind us, a string of explosion could be heard echoing from behind us. Without even guessing, we knew that it was Numila venting her anger with her fireballs. I still couldn't believe that she allowed us to leave so easily and so I decided to ask Habona who was currently in great spirits.

Having rescued her little brother, she was in a jubilant mood right now. She readily accepted my question and explained it to me as we continued walking: "Four-star is the highest strength level this maze could support."

"There are only two types of people who would stay after reaching this level, lone wanderers and the various heads of the clans. There's nothing much to say about the lone wanderers and so I won't elaborate on that matter. As for the leaders, they stay behind out of fear that their clan will get wiped out if they leave…"

Barring certain exceptions, those who were able to achieve a leadership position in a clan and attain four-star at the same time, were people who had already stayed in here for a long time. This meant that they've most likely established a family or even a household of their own.

In order to ensure the survival of their descendants, a portion of these four-stars would give up their right to leave the prison and instead stay behind to protect their offspring. Of course, there was always the possibility that they simply wanted to be a big fish in a small pond.

By the way, exactly what did her birth story have to do with me? While her face was pretty, that body of feathers...truth be told, it's a little too much for my tastes. Even Habona would be a better choice if she had such a pretty face...ah...somehow that sounds even worse...

Having received the cold shoulder, she didn't bother with any pleasantries and instead cut right to the chase. "There should be a soul bard among you, right? The one who dispelled the mental illusion cast by 2000 of my kinsman."

"Hahaha, so I was right. Don't even think about lying to this lady. After giving it some thought, I realized that there were no other person in the Prison of the Dead who could give birth to an imp who had the smell of a lust demon."

What's with that smug look on your face! Are you kidding me right now? It's one thing to mistake me for a female devil, what's with you randomly assigning a pair of parents to me!? Don't think you can bully me just because I have a good temperament. I won't show any mercy if you ruffle my feathers!

Even though I said that...after giving it some though, I don't think I can actually beat her even if I tried...errr, just wait till I finish cultivating my godlike techniques, I'll get you then. For now, I'll let you off. Be grateful for my benevolence, bird woman!

Having to deal with that flying bast*rd once more, Habona was in a notably foul mood, "Hey you, don't tell me you're here to pick another fight?"

Numila peered at me with narrowed eyes, clearly interested as her mouth broke into a smirk: "I'm just here to determine the identity of the soul bard. However, if we are still on opposing sides the next time we meet, I'll be the first to kill you."

Habona put me back on the ground after which I immediately ran to her back. This bird lady's gaze was simply too piercing and she even wanted to kill me...should I seek protection from Habona? But that mat of black fur though...I think I'll just pass on it.

"The defeated shouldn't act so arrogantly!" With a kick of her feet, she shot into air, dispersing the heat as she hurtled right at the flying harpy.

"What did you say!" She shouted defiantly, her body erupting in a blinding flame that blocked her from my view. All I heard was her furious shouting. "I was just careless the last around. This time I'll show you who is the real loser!"

ly, Numila ended up losing because of that surprise attack by Habona's tail; what should've been a weak point turned out to be a deadly weapon and caused her sneak attack to backfire.

This time, things were different, the same tactic won't work on her. Furthermore, she had confirmed that while Habona was stronger than her, her speed was inferior to her own especially since she had the ability to fly. This was a massive advantage against the land-bound Habona, one which she intended to make use of right now as she pelted the werewolf with long range attacks.

First were simple fireballs, next came the fire serpents, fire whips and even a flame shower. As the two fought, the destruction they wrought became even more widespread and heated up. Several passing undead ended up getting caught the crossfire and were instantly reduced to ashes to by stray fireballs, soul flames and all…

"So it's unfair just because you can't hit me? How stupid do you think I am to give up on my advantage of flight? You're mad if you think I'll do so just to engage in a melee fight with you."

By now, Habona had been driven insane by the infuriat ing fire attacks of the harpy. Not only was she unable to hit her, she even got burned trying to do so. No matter how she tried to attack, Numila was able to evade by a hair's breath thanks to her wings.

"Errr, Harlow, is your sister going to be...alright?" By now, we were slightly concerned about our safety. After all, she was the strongest in our temporary party. If we were to get swarmed by harpies while she was engaged, the two medusas alone would have difficulty protecting us two baggages.

"Don't worry, Sis isn't as frenzied as you think she is. While we can't turn into humans thanks to our overwhelming rage, this doesn't mean that we are controlled by our rage. She might look frenzied now, but she will definitely come back to her senses when the situation arises, barring any exceptional circumstances."

This was her third attempt at hitting Numila. Despite her frenzied and reckless attacks, Numila's flight ability was proving too difficult for her to handle. With her impressive agility and command over fire, as long as she didn't stay stay too close to Habona, Numila's position was nigh assailable.

"If she really can't win, we should join in the fight." She said this while staring intently at the ongoing battle. She coldly threw out a suggestion, "My snake hairs should be able to hit her from this distance."

"Don't forget about me, my accuracy rate is pretty high with my snake hairs." Majosha chimed in, agreeing with her sister's suggestion.

"...maybe you shouldn't." Would she be alright with our interference though? From the looks of it, she must've been the prideful type who didn't want anyone to interfere in her fight.

"No!" Harlow anxiously cut in. "Sis is really particular about a match's fairness. If you stepped in now, she would be furious."

"Are you sure she isn't furious already?" She smirked as she pointed at the female werewolf who had been on the losing end since the beginning. "She seems to be on the verge of losing it."

"It's a totally different matter. Right now, she's still in her normal state. Once she gets angered to the limit...she wouldn't even able to recognize me…" Harlow shrunk inwards as he said this as if he had remembered a traumatic experience. After a few seconds of silence, he finally broke out of his recollection with a head full of sweat. He hastily persuaded them not to interfere in the fight.

"Fine, she's your sister." Manasha waved her tail dismissively and crossed her arms, ready to watch the show from the sidelines.

Majosha, on the other hand was significantly more concerned. She was Harlow's sister after all. Once Majosha marries into the family, that sister would be her kin as well.

"Don't worry, she hasn't shown her true powers yet." He said confidently in what could be an attempt at assuring Majosha or a show of confidence for his sister.

As we were discussing this matter, Habona leaped into the air once more and attacked Numila. Unfortunately, the harpy merely dodged it with a flap of her wings. With a wave of her hands, she launched a fire serpent, engulfing the furry werewolf in crimson flames.

In the face of this aerial attack, all she could do was fall helplessly to the ground. Aerial battles weren't her forte after all. She roused the mana in her body and dispersed the scorching flames. However, this came a little too late as a section of her fur ended up getting singed black.

"My beautiful fur...my beautiful tail...you bast*rd!" Her eyes turned bloodshot as if they were about to bleed. Her damaged fur had stirred her anger even more.

"That ugly lump of fur? Even if it wasn't singed black, it's still ugly as sh*t at the best of times. Plus…" In a professional display of heckling, she waved her hands in front of her nose as if there was an odor lingering around, "With that stench of yours, I would die from suffocation even without you lifting a finger. Meat-eaters are such a smelly bunch."

"Oh, isn't this an exciting scene." Just as the two potatoes started fighting. A frivolous drawl barged into the scene, capturing the attention of everyone present. The previously heated battle ended up stopping abruptly.

Following that voice, I turned around and saw what had to be the most hideous looking red imp I had ever seen in my short life, bouncing around the corner. As for why he did so, it wasn't that his leg was injured, instead it was a strange swagger born out of his sense of superiority.

It was as if this barely one meter tall potato was a rich kid with a dad called Li Gang… (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Gang_incident)

Without showing any self-consciousness, the small imp flashed us a stupid smile and said : "The weather's pretty good today, are you ladies having fun here?"

Even though I've never seen him before, I've heard some rumors about him from Habona. He should be a four-star devil with an extremely strong faction under him. It was said that he had over 2,000 devil henchmen and even had a primal lust demon as his lover.

All this time, I assumed that he must be some single horned, winged devil with a ferocious face and a hulking frame. The last thing I expected was to see a midget, with the face of plebeian, an extremely perverted one.

Due to the huge disparity between my mental image and reality, I ended up blurting the first question that came to mind: "This is Mo En? Are you sure it's not a case of mistaken identity?"

"Do you think that the five of us would make this mistake at the same time?" By now, Habona had already abandoned her fight and darted to my side.

"A fight between four-stars are a rare sight and so I decided to have a gander." He eyes narrowed in a lascivious smile as he surveyed us. His eyes swept over the gathered females before finally stopping on me, staring at me intently. I suddenly felt an urge to bash him for giving me that uncomfortable look...but I didn't dare to do so.

And so, several seconds passed before he finally gave me a gentleman's bow and said: "This beautiful lust demon, would you happen to know anything about a soul bard appearing nearby?"

Until now, I couldn't wrap my head around this small imp. His aura was even more domineering than Numila but that appearance of his…

The five of them had simultaneously recognized him as Mo En so there should be some validity in this claim...a low-key attitude is probably best…

"Huh, you aren't a succubus?" Before Mo En could even react, Numila abruptly butted in. Ignoring the furious glares of the werewolf beside me, she reached out and grabbed my face, pulling it in various directions. She gave my body a thorough sniffing...even in that area. A minute later, my body had been thoroughly inspected.

She gazed at the black grimoire before tossing it back to me with a disinterested look. She turned back to me with an icy look, which while didn't contain any killing intent, gave me the sensation of being dropped into an icy ravine: "You should be happy that you're not a male."

At that time, I still didn't understand the meaning of her words. It was only later that I found out about the key difference between a harpy and a harpy witch. It wasn't their strength but rather their unwavering loyalty to their husbands.

"She's with me so you better keep your distance." Habona shooed her with a wave of her hand before turning to the midget imp. "If there's nothing else, we'll be leaving."

"Hold up, I'm not done talking yet." He waved his hands to stop her from leaving. No matter how domineering she was, Mo En was still the leader of a large faction, not giving him his due respect was not an option. Habona stood there gazing down at the ugly little midget.

"There we go, what's the rush. Let's all have a proper discussion. The reason I came here is to...mhm…" He abruptly stopped and surveyed his surroundings. A second later, he scrambled to a nearby wall.

What's up with this mysterious little bean...first he goes off about having a discussion and then suddenly stops to find a wall? Was he looking for a prop or was trying to reflect on his actions? Don't tell me he's taking a piss…

"Ah, should've done this earlier. Standing and talking is simply too tiring." As he said this, he slumped against the wall and sat down.

Given their nonchalance, Habona and the others must've had dealings with this eccentric imp before. Or perhaps it was his strength that made them slightly wary around him.

However, it seemed that sitting down wasn't enough as he began twisting around trying to find a more comfortable position. He soon gave up and instead laid on the ground directly, not caring about the dirt as he rolled around with a slightly glazed look in his eyes.

"Ah~~~the whole point of being born a devil is to enjoy yourself~~~*roll* so comfortable…" He unabashedly sighed in satisfaction.

"I'll be on my way as well. I'm kind of tired after those two battles." Numilia yawned in boredom as her eyelids began to droop.

"Wait wait wait! I'm not finished yet!" He swiftly moved himself in front of us and then to Numila, all the while maintaining his supine position. As he did so, he anxiously stated his purpose: "I'm actually here to find the soul bard!"

What the heck is wrong with you? Is that all you had to say? Why didn't you just say so earlier instead of embarrassing yourself...did you really have to dig yourself into a hole before you're satisfied, you potato.

"..." He threw me a strange disbelieving look as he scanned my body. However, he didn't perform full body check-up like Numila did and instead adopted a negotiating tone: "Then what about my granddaughter?"

"...exactly what's wrong my babies...just go have a look…" Having been rejected thrice, he laid there like a deflated balloon, dejected.

Is this guy really the head of a few thousand devils? Are you sure he's not some imposter? Or perhaps his head shrunk along with his body...

Habona placed me on her shoulders once more and began to leave. On the side, Numilia began to fly away as well having lost interest in this scene.

Hold on, I seemed to have forgotten something important. Exactly, why did I agree to save Harlow? Because Habona agreed to help me break through the exit once I did so. If she can become my ally, why can't Numila and Mo En as well?

"...No, I just wanted to ask, are you guys truly satisfied with just staying here all your lives?" Did this guy even have any brains in his head or was it just filled with mush?!

Before he even understood the meaning of my question, he chimed in: "Of course not, I'm going home as well. Once you guys leave, there's no one else here. How boring is that."

Unlike Mo En, Numila clearly had an inkling of what I meant. "You're talking about leaving the maze?" She said after giving me an appraising look.

"That's right, I intend this leave place, as soon as possible." I want to return to the western human realms, I want to have human food, I want to stay in a big house with a warm bed. I miss Roscar, Nicole and even Sares...I don't want to struggle alone in this world for survival...I can't even let the others find out that I'm a human...because humans are cattle to devils.

Numila had clearly seen my strong desire to leave. Given that I had chosen to recruit more people, it was also clear to her that I wasn't a rash person who allowed his desires to cloud his judgement and was clearly aware of the dangers of doing so. This contradiction between my rash desire and my cautious behavior intrigued her.

"Haha, what a joke, the guardians at the exit won't stop a four-star from leaving. As long as I wished it, I could leave at any time." Having finally understood my question, he rushed out to pad his sense of existence once more. "What's the matter, you want to leave?"

"If you were willing to leave, you would've done so long ago." I couldn't be bothered to answer his question. After our short interaction, I've come to the conclusion that he was an idiot, so there was no need for such wariness. "The fact that you're still here means that you must've had some reason for staying."

"When you put it like that, I seem to have...exactly why did I choose to stay behind...why?" He scratched his bald head and began to mull over this question. However, no matter how much he tried to act like one, he clearly wasn't cut out to be a thinker. After a short deliberation, he gave up and with a wave of hands, said: "I seemed to have forgotten."

In contrast, Numila was a lot more straightforward to deal with. Like her name, she was fiery and direct. "The maze is too dangerous, I have to guard my clan in order for them to survive."

Regarding this harpy witch, there was clearly no need to probe her intentions and so I cut straight to the point and asked: "Since you feel that this place is dangerous, shouldn't you lead them out of here?"

"That's impossible. The guardians at the exit aren't as simple you think they are. It's been said that since the creation of this maze, only four-star experts have been able to leave this place. There have been no records of weaklings ever leaving this maze."

"It's impossible, just give up." She lowered her voice and tried to persuade me once more. However, there was no way I would change my mind for someone who wasn't even an ally yet.

I stared back at her, not intending to show any weakness as I rebutted: "Then let me ask you, are you sure that all of your subordinates are willing to stay here and await their deaths as well?"

A Summoning Zone was a special zone where the spatial barriers were significantly weaker than other zones. Any creature living in these zones could be summoned and were able to respond to summons from a different world.

The summoner would open up a dimensional passage with a sacrificial rite where an offering or mana was offered up in order to summon the target to the summoner's side temporarily. However, this is not to say that only creatures within this zone could be summoned.

In actuality, any creature could be summoned as long as one possessed the name of the target or a personal belonging of the target to use as a medium to summon the target. However, this requires a large amount of mana in order to tear through the dimensional barrier. Furthermore, the summoned target might ask for an offering of sorts.

These zones have existed since ancient times and despite our attempts at researching them, we haven't managed to understand their construct. However, our ancestors have long since managed to attain the coordinates of the summoning zone within Hell. And thus, summoning as an art was born.

Theoretically, anything can be summoned as long as one possessed the coordinates, however, there has always been an unresolved question plaguing the school of summoners: why can't we summon human beings (This includes demihumans such as elves, dwarves, orcs etc.)

Numila had been stumped by my question. Evidently, her subordinates wanted to leave this place as well, but the guardians were simply too terrifying for them. While she maintained her silence, Mo En took the opportunity to crawl up to us like a puppy. He looked up at with a silly grin on his face, all the while maintaining his crawling position.

"Ample food...that's only from your perspective. As the highest power within this prison's system, your livelihood is pretty much guaranteed as long as you don't rouse the other four-stars. However, don't you find it depressing to be constantly surrounded by these bones?"

Truth be told, while it might seem that I was trying my best to invite him, this offer was at best, a probing one. I had already expected him to reject it before I even opened my mouth.

As expected, he nonchalantly rolled his eyes as he glanced over me. He continued in blase drawl: "I don't find it boring. After all, I have a method to visit the human world so I don't care about this."

"Human world?! Did you just say that you could visit the human world?" My heart pounded as a rush of blood blocked out all propriety. Without regard for our difference in status, I immediately pressed him, "You're really able to visit the human world?"

"Of course." He nodded his head in a matter-of-fact manner. As he did so, he turned his nose up, thoroughly pleased with himself.

"Is there any oth er human world other than the Western Human Realms?" He scratched his head, a look of confusion flashing across his face as he turned to me. "How do you know that the human world is called the Western Human Realms?"

"Summon…" If I'm not mistaken, there were a number of occultists in the Western Human Realms. While there's no law against practising the devil arts, this occupation wasn't looked upon favorably. This discrimination coupled with the lack of talent has resulted in their numbers being relatively small.

Summoning zone...according to my inherited memory, as long as one stayed in the summoning zone, there was a chance of being summoned by a summoner in a different world. Naturally, the circumstances of this summoning depended on the strength difference between the two parties.

If the summoned party was significantly weaker than the summoner, the summoned party could be forcibly contracted. If it was the reverse, the success of the summoning ritual depended entirely on the mood of the summoned party.

Who knew that this midget would end up providing such valuable information to me. If I managed to get summoned back to the Western Human Realms, the first thing I would do is find Nicole, check up on her and if…

Ah, I'm getting ahead of myself here, I still don't know if he will accept my request. If it's really not possible, I don't mind seducing his granddaughters...assuming they aren't ugly…

"Mhm, that's fine, my granddaughter is SUPER cute, you'll definitely like her." Seeing me finally agree made him ecstatic. Two seconds later however, his elation was replaced with confusion as he scratched his head and asked me: "Weren't you opposed to the marriage just a while ago? Why the sudden change of heart?"

"Leave these matters to the adults, kids like you don't have to know about it. Just go play with some eggs in a corner." Having taken a crucial step in returning to the human world, the heat of the moment ended up getting the better of me.

Who was Mo En? He was the leader of 2,000 devils, that's who! He was also a four-star expert and was rumored to have a four-star primal lust demon as his wife! Even his wife was able to crush me a million times over and I actually...will he change his mind and eat me instead?

"Entering the Western Human Realms via the summoning zone isn't guaranteed to work. Without a named summoning, getting summoned was solely a matter of chance. Thus, my offer still stands. I won't give up on assaulting the exit of this maze. You should give it some thought once you go back. Ask your harpies if they are willing to spend their lives rotting away in this damned maze."

"That's all I'll say for now. Once the time is right, I'll find you again. In the meantime, I hope you will restrain your subordinates and ensure that they won't attack the demonic werewolves and the other races under me. After all, we might just become allies in the near future."

She paused for a moment before finally nodding her head. As she peered at me, her eyes belied the complex mix of thoughts and emotions within her.

As the guardian of her clan, she had a mountain of secrets and issues to handle. Her duty was to ensure the survival of her clan but as a creature with wings, she had her own innate desires as well. She wanted to fly underneath the vast boundless skies, bask in the warmth of the sun as she soared through the blue horizon. From the moment she accepted the role as guardian of her clan, her clan had turned into a chain, binding her down.

There's no way she didn't dream of her own freedom one day. After all, even a shut-in like me needed a computer and a LAN cable, let alone this harpy witch who was born to take to the skies.

And so, she left. At the same time, the slothful Mo En left as well. The plan was to first hand in my completed quest at the temporary camp of the werewolves and medusas. After which, I'll lead my subordinates to Mo En's nest.

Without Numila's interference, our trip was an uneventful one. The occasional undead we encountered were swiftly taken care of by Manasha with their souls handed over to me.

Throughout the trip, I sat atop Habona's shoulders, mulling over the issue of assaulting the exit point. Mo En was still an unknown but Numila's participation was basically a given by now. The werewolves had agreed to join in once I meet their terms and so all that remained were the medusas.

The couple were busy flirting with each other when I called out to her. She immediately turned around and asked: "How may I help you?"

"It's like this. I'm sure you know about that matter I discussed with Numila, and so I wish to ask you, what are you and your sister's reasons for staying here? Is it to protect the clan?"

"That's right. We have no males in our clan after all. Furthermore, we don't have the best of reputations and have garnered a lot of enemies over time. Not only that, our pregnancy period is rather long. Coupled with the fact that this maze doesn't produce food, our numbers haven't been able to increase for a long time. Without the protection of both of us, the others won't be able to hold on for long."

So you know that your reputation is crap as well...speaking of which, where did this ridiculous custom of eating your husband because you're afraid of him, come from? Isn't that going overboard!

"Yes, Sis just told me about the conditions of the deal. Grandpa agreed to Lady Lust Demon's deal in exchange for saving me. Now that I've been rescued, it's time for us to fulfill our end of the bargain. During her assault on the exit point, us werewolves will be there as well."

As he said this, a distinct fire could be seen within his eyes. He confidently smiled and said: "Besides, I've always wanted to see the world outside of this prison. Even if I break through to four-stars, I still won't be able to leave this place due to my clan commitments."

"Normally, the issue of leaving without breaking through to four-star is a dead subject...but now, things are different. Lady Lust Demon's appearance has given me a chance at a new life. Truth be told, my biggest wish in life is to leave this prison and lead a life in Abaddon!"

"Harlow, you're so ambitious! That's what I love about you! Your bravery!" The couple entered into their own world once more as Majosha expressed her wholehearted support for him in a slightly submissive way: "I feel like I'm in love with you all over again!"

"Haha, it's not that great, I'm just a little braver than others, hahahaha..." He flashed an honest smile as he scratched his head shyly.

By the way, is it really okay to be so loving in front of a 45 year old bachelor like me? Haven't you heard that PDAs are a quick route to death?! And, what's that about my gender!

"Ah, so Lady Lust Demon is a male." He slapped his head in realization. However, a look of confusion returned to his face merely a second later. "But I don't smell a male's scent on Lady Lust Demon!"

I really wanted to slap this stubborn wolf right now but in the face of his adorably stupid and innocent expression, I changed my mind in the end.

Truth be told, I shouldn't blame him either. After all, the problem stemmed from my own body. However, the question then becomes, exactly what went wrong with my body that caused me to be neither a man nor a woman. Did I botch my reincarnation and ended up in a female fetus? Or did I turn into a female because of some strange reason?

I still don't know the answers to these questions but I guess I'll have to put them aside for now. What's more important now is to stop him from calling me Lady Lust Demon!

"That's right. If you can call yourself Harlow, why can't I name myself Mo Ke?" I threw him a disinterested look before focusing back on Majosha who was currently leading the way. "Your help is definitely a major boost for our cause, I'm just not sure about Manasha's thoughts on this matter."

"I'm sure she doesn't want to rot in this maze either." Habona chimed in. "No one is willing to be confined for their entire lives."

"She won't." Manasha abruptly turned around and broke her long kept silence. With a casual flick of her tail, she shattered the three skeletons that just came out from around the bend.

She slithered towards us with an expressionless look on her face, completely disregarding the remaining skeletons as she curtly said: "If you wish to assault the exit, that's your own business. It has nothing to do with me or my sister. You're free to get yourself killed if you wish but don't drag my sister along with you."

Making use of her momentary distraction, several skeletons launched a sneak attack on her turned back. In spite of the impending danger, her face was as unfazed as ever as her snake hair calmly reared their heads and spat out globs after globs of green fluid like a machine gun.

The shower of green acid tore through the skeletons, sparing no one as it swiftly dissolved their bony white bodies. Soon, there was nothing but a pile of pus lying on the floor, their soul flames nowhere to be found.

"I said so already, there's no way I'll allow her to leave with you all. If she wants to leave the maze, she can do so by herself!"

"No buts!" She forcefully interrupted her and glared at her sister with a gaze that left no room for refusal: "This time, you WILL listen to me!"

Well, things seemed to have taken a turn for the worse… I had originally thought that they would be in this together and she wo uld be more than willing to help us. Even if she wasn't willing to, I didn't expect her to object. Unfortunately, reality was markedly different from my expectations; she had rejected us without a shred of hesitation. On top of that, she had even forbidden her sister from accompanying us.

"Sis, there's no way I'm leaving Harlow alone!" In the face of her sister's refusal, she prepared herself for battle as well. She wrapped her arms around Harlow's arm and leaned in, clearly showing her intention to stay with him.

"From the moment he showed that he wasn't afraid of me, I knew that he was the one for me. I took an oath, from that day on, wherever he went, I would by his side!"

"Shasha…" Harlow was deeply touched by her courageous confession. However, just as he was about to say something, his weakened body gave way under the weight of Majosha and fell to the ground, pulling her along with him…

"Harlow...are you alright?" Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that her brother would be so...potato as to fall just from a female leaning on him…

"Look at him, he's so weak, there's no way he can protect you." Manasha threw him an exasperated and disdainful look. "If you're a man, then you should have some self-consciousness. If you really wish to leave the maze with Majosha, you can do that once you've reached four-star."

"The only reason Harlow is so weak is because of those harpies." Without even waiting for Harlow to respond, she stepped in to defend her boyfriend once more. "What if I insist on leaving with him?"

The two sisters ended up in a furious brawl at the drop of a hat. Thankfully, both of them still maintained their sense of reason. The fighting was merely limited to their claws without any poison spits on both sides.

"Stop fighting...stop fighting…" He was beside himself with worry but he was simply too weak to interfere in this fight between two four-stars. With no other option available to him, he decided to ask his sister for help. "Sis, help me pull those two apart…"

Habona assented with a nod of her head. She lowered me onto the ground before leaping right into the heated fight. With a swift grip of her claws, she grabbed onto both their heads and tossed them to the side before their snake hairs could bite her.

The entire sequence happened within the span of a breath. The lightning quick sneak attack gave the sisters no chance to react before she turned them into a pair of snake discuses.

A couple of bangs echoed in the hallway as the sisters simultaneously crashed into the bony walls. The pair weakly slumped to the ground, their eyes glazed over from the violent crash. They laid there, stunned for several seconds before shakingly standing up. As they straightened their snake tails, they gave their head a good shake; the toss clearly had an effect on them.

"Shasha are you alright?" After raising his objection to his sister, he immediately rushed to his lover's side to comfort her: "I didn't expect Sis to be so rough…"

"I'm alright." Majosha lovingly gazed at her boyfriend's eyes. At the side, I was nearly blinded by their dazzling love for each other.

Not again...this torturous display of public affection is just too much for me...if given a second chance, there's no way I would choose to work with you lovebirds again…

On the other side, Manasha had recovered from her short flight as well. She unsteadily straightened herself before glaring at us. Her nails drew blood as her fists tightened in anger. Drop by drop, her anger boiled as her blood slowly dripped to the ground, dissolving the bones around her.

"I had no intention of forcing anyone to come. All I wanted to do was recruit more allies. If you are so opposed to the idea then I'll just stop mentioning it. Naturally, I don't plan on changing Majosha's views as well."

For things to escalate to this extent wasn't something I had expected. It had never crossed my mind that such a rift would form between comrades who had just gone through thick and thin together.

The scene fell silent after those words left my word. This awkward silence continued for the rest of our journey as neither of us spoke a word.

To be honest, her resistance was completely understandable. The exit point was truly a dangerous place. Even after countless years, there's been no accounts of anyone below the level of four-star leaving the Prison of the Dead. To the countless inmates trapped here, the exit point was a veritable grim reaper.

Of course, this only applied to those below four-stars, after all, anyone who had reached that level could leave whenever they wanted to. However, this was easier said than done. The Prison of the Dead barely had enough food for its residents, let alone for someone who wanted to evolve into a four-star.

It's similar to the difference between a school and a prison. Being locked up in prison wasn't conducive for learning. After tens of years of being locked up, any inmates you release would barely be able to integrate into society. In contrast, no matter how bad a school was, going through years of education would at least produce a few talented individuals from a pool of kids.

The three hells outside of the maze were the schools in this analogy. Within the three hells were multiple treasures and fortuitous encounters you would usually find in a wuxia novel. Anyone fortunate enough to have an encounter would be able to change their fate and become stronger.

At the very least, one could become a subordinate of a powerhouse and have their evolution path significantly smoothened out. After all, any old expert in the three hells could easily trounce a four-star from this beginner village known as the Prison of the Dead.

This was the effect an environment had on making a man. No matter who you were, your environment would affect your life in some fashion. The Prison of the Dead was in every way a jail for us. And while the three hells weren't schools per say, they were several times better than this prison.

The three hells, in comparison, were complete societies with a wide variety of residents inside them; from the lowly small imp slaves to the mighty demon kings of the three hells.

In actuality, all these weren't important to Manasha. This medusa had already resolved herself to fulfilling her sister's wish even if it meant sacrificing herself. If she didn't feel this way, she wouldn't have said to wait for Harlow to rise to the level of four-stars before trying to leave.

This stipulation had several implications. First, she didn't object to Majosha's pursuit of happiness on the condition that she was safe. In other words, the real reason why she objected to Majosha joining us was that she felt that ours was a lost cause.

The second point was a deeper one. As we all knew, the environment here was an unforgiving one. Due to the lack of food, interracial conflicts were commonplace. This was especially so for the medusas who had to kidnap males from other races in order to sustain their all female race.

For them, this prison was even more treacherous. In that case, having two four-stars was an important safety net for their race. Wasn't the main reason why these four-stars stayed behind because they wanted to protect their clans? In that case, having more four-stars was definitely a boon for the clan's safety.

With this in mind, one could see how much she loved her...in a sisterly way of course. Manasha not only approved of her abandoning her duty to the clan, she had even resolved herself to pick up the slack.

This was why I chose to stand aside and allow the two sisters to work it out by themselves. As for Harlow...I don't think it's my place to interfere either.

Because of my interjection, the two sisters had temporarily made up even though they still had their misgivings with each other over this spat.

And so, we set off with this awkward silence looming over us. It wasn't long before we reached the temporary base of the demonic werewolves. As we entered the base, we were welcomed by the senior werewolf and an entourage of werewolves. Mixed within the welcoming parties were my potatoes as well. Upon seeing me, Vick and No.5 sprinted forward to greet us…

The both of them ended up suffering for it. Vick was instantly scared off by Habona's claw while No.5 managed to get a hug in before being kicked away by Habona...the reason was [You actually dared to take advantage of this lady…]

As the grandfather met with his grandson after a close brush with death, the pair broke down into tears. A while later, the tears changed into a concerned chiding as the old werewolf beat him while giving him an earful: "As if the medusas wasn't enough, you actually got yourself kidnapped by the harpies as well, do you wish to be a reproductive tool for the rest of your life…"

If he actually used the word [scared], he would've probably gotten another scolding; looks like his head wasn't that badly damaged after all.

Humans have created a grading system for their equipment, starting with Normal-grade for the most basic of weaponry and armor, followed by Exquisite-grade for higher tiered versions of normal gear. Anything above that are enchanted equipments which have their own grading system as well. It similarly starts with Low-grade, followed by High-grade, Epic, Semi-Divine and finally Divine.

Each grading has a specific set of definitions assigned to it. Normal-grade weaponry and armor refers to the equipment forged by an adept apprentice. These equipments are usually mass produced and used to outfit a normal army.

Equipment crafted by an official blacksmith falls under the umbrella of Exquisite-grade equipment. The majority of their users are either mercenaries, adventurers or are elites of a large country's army. These equipments are significantly more durable than Normal-grade gear.

While they are more expensive than their lower grade cousins, they are still considered affordable and provide a good value for money, essentially you wouldn't be too upset if they broke. This grade was one of the more commonly used grades of equipment.

Anything after that was a watershed in equipment grades; a master class craftsman was required to craft low-grade enchanted equipment. In order for them to craft these gears, they needed a certain degree of magic knowledge. The crafter has to know how to incorporate magical ingredients during the crafting process without causing a magical explosion.

This expertise is important as a large amount of magical ingredients has to be incorporated in order to infuse a small degree of mana into the gear. Furthermore, the degree of infusion was random as a master class craftsman was unable to create a complete magical array with the ingredients given.

Without an array supporting the equipment, it will only possess the bare minimum degree of mana. For example, it will only be able to cast one wind blade of average strength or create a weak magical barrier. This degree of mana is suitable for temporary spells such as levitation or other non-combat spells.

Grandmaster class craftsmen are able to create high-grade enchanted gear. In order for a master class to advance into grandmaster class, he or she has to be able to incorporate magical ingredients while creating a complete magical array.

During the crafting process, a grandmaster craftsman is able to engrave a magical array of his choice, bestowing a specific magical property onto the high-grade gear. The strength of this property is determined by the skill level of the craftsman.

Not only does the strength vary between craftsmen, the number of spells infused are different as well. Some are able to infuse one high level spell while some are able to infuse several spells simultaneously into a single piece of gear. Each piece of high-grade gear is a crystallization of their knowledge and hard work. Thanks to their impressive creations, grandmaster craftsmen enjoy a prestigious position within society; even a king would welcome a visit from thes e craftsmen.

Epic enchanted gear are a unique case of equipment. These gear used to be high-grade enchanted equipment but had undergone an evolution. However, they shouldn't be mistaken for any old high-grade gear. Due to having undergone a strengthening of some sort, they are several times stronger than a high-grade gear.

Semi-divine equipment are slightly harder to explain as a concept. If a divine piece of gear could taken as a deity, then a semi-divine equipment has a mortal and divine side to it.

Semi-divine equipment are failed attempts at creating a divine gear. While they can only be considered a defective product, they still possess a fraction of a divine equipment's might which explains the term "semi-divine".

Divine equipment, an equipment with a divinity inside it. It is said they can rip the skies apart and shatter the earth. The defining feature of these equipments are the spirit residing within them that allow them to choose their own master.

Having reunited with my subordinates, my next destination was the nest of Mo En. Before that however, the issue with Harlow still has to be settled.

If I had to describe his problem, it would be that he faced the problem all son-in-laws face. Habona wanted Majosha to stay with Harlow in the demonic werewolves' nest while Manasha would not budge about having the couple live with the medusas.

This was a difficult situation to resolve. Normally in such a marriage, the female side would follow the male side which means Majosha should stay with the werewolves. However, Manasha had vehemently made the point that Harlow was simply too weak and so he should stay with them instead.

A strong wife with a weak pretty face of a husband...it was a pretty disgraceful matter when one thought about it...well, I guess furry face would be more appropriate for Harlow.

This stalemate nearly caused the two older sisters, Habona and Manasha to come to blows as both sides bickered with no signs of a compromise in sight. Thankfully, the pair were each restrained by their younger siblings. Finally, the matter was settled with the mediation by the senior werewolf.

They agreed to having the couple rotate between the clans where Harlow would first stay with the medusas. After a period of time, the two would then come over to the werewolves' nest.

However, this wasn't the end of this matter either. With the schedule worked out, the two older sisters got into another heated argument over the couple's future children. Even though their child would definitely be a medusa, Habona was rather accepting of this fact and had already counted her future niece as a part of the werewolf clan. She adamantly laid her claim on their future child who had not even been seminated.

Naturally, Manasha didn't agree to this, after all, what right did she have to lay claim over the child? Majosha's future child would definitely be a medusa. She had only borrowed Harlow's seed. If this lady's sister wanted to give birth to a child, it didn't have to be your brother's seed! Anyone else would've been fine as well!

As Harlow prepared to leave for his new home, he stopped to discuss a matter with Habona. The two siblings barked to each other in the tongue of the werewolves, throwing me a glance from time to time. From the looks of it, Habona didn't take too well to his suggestion but finally acquiesced with a nod after his determined persuasion.

All in all, the entire discussion about their child custody rights only took about an hour. Compared to the furious back and forths between a human couple, this could only be described as expedient.

With matters settled, it was truly time for the lovebirds to depart. He momentarily stepped away from the loving embrace of a smiling Majosha to bid his farewells to me.

"Master Mo Ke, I'm immensely grateful for your assistance, if it wasn't for you, both my sisters might have been ensnared as well. As a sign of my gratitude, I have a gift for you."

"That's right, it's a token of my appreciation for helping me and Majosha." He spread out his empty palms and continued in a slightly helpless tone. "However, the item isn't with me at the moment so you will have to wait for my sister to give it to you."

"Ah, in that case, thanks for the gift." Knowing that I was about to receive a gift thrilled me. No matter what it was, a gift was still a gift and naturally I was more than happy to accept it. I respectfully thanked him for his generosity before asking: "About that, may I know what it is?"

With this final bit of business done, the pair bid us farewell with a wave of their hands before disappearing around the corner. Soon after they left, Habona came up to me and gave me a tap on the shoulder, signalling for me to follow her.

After a short walk, we passed through a conspicuously large gathering of werewolves and came to a corner of the maze guarded by a team of werewolves. Right in the middle of these werewolves was a black pole stuck into the ground.

Habona walked up to the unidentified weapon and easily pulled it out of the ground. She gave it a couple of reluctant looks before tossing it to me: "Catch."

I slowly drew out the weapon to find an eye-catching blade that was tinted pitch black. As the last bit of the blade left its sheath, the first impression I had of its entirety was that it almost looked like a large katana except that it wasn't as curved as one. However, this didn't mean that it was completely straight either.

It had a very fine edge. While it was a bit much to describe it as a cicada's wings, the thickest point on its body was merely 7mm. I wasn't able to determine its constituent material from a glance and so decided to give it a cursory touch. The moment I did so, I felt a jolt in my body as I was suddenly struck with a sense of lightness.

"Shadowfang, an epic enchanted weapon." She said with a hint of grief in her eyes. I could tell right away that this was a upsetting subject. "It was my mother's weapon."

Not dead. From the looks of it, she wasn't in the clan either. That could only mean two things: she had either left the clan or wasn't in this maze entirely. No matter how I looked at it, the latter seemed a lot more likely.

Strange...based on its length alone, Shadowfang doesn't look like a weapon suited to demonic werewolves...shouldn't Habona's mother be a demonic werewolf as well?

In spite of her visibly sullen face, I decided to touch upon this sensitive topic once more: "I thought that demonic werewolves didn't like to use weapons?"

"..." She gave me a furious glare. Just as I thought she was about to eat me, she suddenly turned to the side and gloomily forced out a sentence: "My mother is a pure werewolf...she tends to avoid her wolf form…"

(Pure werewolves or original werewolves were those who normally looked like a human except at night where they would shapeshift into a wolfman. Demonic werewolves were a subspecies of these werewolves.)

High-grade equipment and experts were the backbone of a country. Human countries could be separated into three tiers, a principality, a kingdom and an empire. The kingdom of Tarnia naturally belonged in the middle of that tier system.

Epic enchanted gears are enough to support the formation of a principality while a semi-divine gear is enough to support the formation of a kingdom. In order to form an empire, a divine gear is needed to stabilize the fortunes of this vast country.

All these had an assumption underlying them. That was that the humans of the Western Human realms created their countries based on might. The founding monarch was usually a peerless expert of his generation. After this monarch dies, his high-grade enchanted gear would be passed down as a national treasure, becoming the support for future generations.

However why did they have to be experts themselves? On Earth, there were a lot of emperors who possess no martial prowess, there were even some who collapsed after taking two steps on their own. Didn't they manage to keep their throne in spite of that?

It wasn't a must for every monarch to possess an unrivalled martial might, but there was one thing that was absolutely necessary for these monarchs. They had to at least have a peerless expert standing behind them.

On Earth, there was no such thing as a person being able to stand up to 10,000 men. On the other hand, the Western Human Realms had such people...some of these people were even able to stand up to 100,000 men…

And that's where the crux of the problem lies, if your family dared to set up a country without such an expert behind you, I could easily destroy your country on a whim. All it takes is for me to dispatch one expert to your country for a quick tour.

The expert merely has to go on a rampage, killing the citizens and any soldiers you threw at him. If he's unable to handle the army, the expert merely has to retreat and continue his slaughter elsewhere. With his mobility, there would be no way for the soldiers to lock him down. Given time, your country's collapse was a given. Given time, I can guarantee that that one person would be able to destroy your country by himself.

With all that said, it's necessary to talk about the importance of high-grade enchanted gear. Long story short, gear superiority allows you to take on those at a higher level than you!

"This weapon is more suited for humanoids, in our hands, it will only hold us back." Habona said in a forthright manner while nodding her head. "Besides, Harlow said he wanted to give this to you, since we aren't using it, gifting this to you isn't a bad choice either."

"In that case, I'll help myself to it, I'm still lacking a melee weapon after all." I had nothing but gratitude for her show of goodwill. This was an Epic weapon! It wasn't some random bone weapon you found lying on the ground. Since she's so willing to give it away, it's only right of me to accept it.

Given that the weapon was roughly 2m in length, it was slightly awkward for my 1.4m frame to carry it on my back. And so, I decided to use the wrist chain on my left hand to secure Shadowfang to my body. As for the Grimoire of the Dead, I ended up letting it roam free, as a side benefit, it could even help me look after Shadowfang.

Recently, I've noticed a serious deficiency in my melee capabilities. Perhaps it was because of my eating habits but my strength was significantly lagging behind the other two-star imps, although my speed had received a corresponding boost.

Coming in at 1.9m in length with a 0.3m blade hilt, Shadowfang was a large weapon that I had to use both of my hands to wield. However, don't let its size fool you, despite its ridiculous length, it didn't hinder my normal movement. This was largely in part due to the floatation ability of the grimoire. With the bone chain secured to Shadowfang, I was able to hang it on the floating grimoire.

Thanks to that, I ended up with a rather unique bearing. With the bound grimoire floating high the air, all the while dragging a black katana attached to my wrist with a bone chain, I almost looked like a Magister with my martial and magical abilities. If...and that's a big if, you ignore the red egg in my arms...

With that out of the way, my next objective is to impose on Mo En...err, I mean pay him a light hearted visit. Simply put, I REALLY wanted to have a look at this so-called Summoning Zone.

If I'm lucky, I might just get summoned into the Western Human Realms, and if I'm even luckier I might end up beside Nicole...fine, that bit of daydreaming was a tad unrealistic.

The plan was for me to scout out the place. If it was suitable, I would bring my subordinates over. If something unexpected were to happen, Habona's prowess should be enough to secure an escape route for us. As such, this trip was only limited to a small group of me, Violet Snow and Habona.

After swatting away No.5's thinly veiled attempt at sexual harassment, I left some orders for One-eye, No.3, Big 5 and Baccarel to look after my subordinates in the meantime.

One-eye was in charge of the guardsmen, No.3 the reserves, the shieldbearers and the sabre wielders. As for Baccarel, he was in charge of the remaining half-orcs. The hellhounds were given to Big 5 to handle since he had a good relationship with them anyway. With Violet Snow leaving her own set of orders, he should be able to manage them.

As for my 30 skeletal archers, I left them explicit orders to remain still as a statue while I was gone. Even if they were attacked, they were not to retaliate.

Before leaving, the old werewolf reassured me that he would look after my subordinates. Even with Habona gone, the werewolves still had a number of three-stars in the clan. As long as they didn't provoke a four-star, their survival was basically assured.

As usual, I was given a ride on Habona's shoulders. In my arms were the devil egg and a resting Violet Snow. Habona maintained her blistering speed as always, even so, she was able to fend off any patrolling undead with ease while looking after me.

The surrounding areas had been cleaned recently and so there was hardly any meat to be found. Thanks to that, Habona had to rely on the magical exchange array to procure meat for herself. As for me and Violet Snow, things were much simpler as we could feed on souls.

"Being a devil sure is convenient." She said as she looked enviously at me studying Shadowfang while wolfing down the meat she procured from the exchange array. "Just having the ability to feed on souls means that you don't have to worry about food in this maze."

The resting puppy in my arms immediately turned her head at Habona's sigh, snubbing her. Clearly, that "mutt" comment by Habona still stung her.

"It's an ability we were born with, there's not much use being envious about it." I shrugged. Seeing that Habona had finished her meal, I gingerly drew out Shadowfang from its floating scabbard. As I did so, I noticed strands of black lightning crackle across its three finger wide blade. Just from its chilly aura of death, it looked like a peerless weapon that devoured souls.

"Shadowfang has got to be the best looking weapon I've ever seen." Regarding my new weapon, every second not spent looking at it was a loss. Whenever I had the chance, I would pull it out to give it an admiring touch and stare.

"You know how to use this kind of weapon?" Having finished her meal, she patted her hands clean and then straightened out her fur, removing any traces of blood from it. As she did so, she gave me an intent stare. "I know that devils all have inherited memories however these memories aren't omnipotent either."

"Mhm. I do have some expertise with weapons but my inherited memories do not possess knowledge on such blades." I gave it a couple of test swings but each time I did so, I felt some resistance that prevented me from wielding this strange blade as I wished.

After trying a couple more times, I confirmed the existence of that unnatural sensation and decided to seek Habona's help. "Do you know the method to wield this particular blade?"

Due to me standing up to test out the blade, Violet Snow had to leave her resting spot atop my legs. As she landed on the floor, her face soured as she glared at me with her beautiful ruby eyes. In response to her displeasure, all I could do was smile helplessly.

"When I was young, I saw my mother use it." She said with a reminiscing look on her face, her eyes closed as she paused there for a long while. I didn't dare to interrupt her and signalled for Violet Snow not to do so as well. The both of us stood there quietly not daring to move too much or breathe too loudly.

The sudden burst of killing intent, nearly scared me into slashing out of reflex. Violet Snow had been visibly affected as well with her ice magic ready to fire off from her mouth.

A short while later, the still Habona returned to her normal state, her killing intent completely withdrawn. Having confirmed several times from a distance that she had regained her senses, I immediately lowered Shadowfang and signalled for Violet Snow to relax as well.

"I recalled a matter from my past." She abruptly ended her sentence, not intending to explain any further. She took a few steps forward, stopping two meters from me and suddenly swiped at me with her cold gleaming claws.

However, that reality never came to pass. Just as those deadly claws were about to rip into me, the oppressive aura was suddenly lifted as my breathing became a lot easier. A few seconds later, having determined that I was still alright, I looked up to see her standing 5m away from me.

"What do you think you're doing!" Not waiting for an explanation, Violet Snow swiftly shot out an ice ball at Habona having labelled her as an enemy.

A cold glint flashed across her eyes as she stepped backwards and with a swipe of claws, cut the ice ball in half. An instant later, she appeared in front of Violet Snow without so much of a trace of having moved.

"That's...that's...unscientific…" Why did it seem like she advanced even though she retreated and how did she retreat despite having advanced!

During her initial attack, I clearly saw her rush me but at the end of that attack, she ended 5m away. When she faced off against Violet Snow, she definitely stepped backwards and yet a second later, she was suddenly in front of her. This doesn't make any sense!

Not expecting her sudden appearance, the proud puppy immediately dodged backwards, firing off an ice spike at Habona's legs. Habona repeated the same move once more, stepping backward before mysteriously appearing in front of the puppy.

Unlike the previous time, she didn't intend to let her go. She lifted the little puppy and swung her around rapidly. Ten seconds later, she finally stopped and put down the puppy.

"That was amazing!" Having no time for Violet Snow's plight, I immediately focused my attention on Habona, my eyes practically radiating admiration. "What's that technique called!"

"In that case, all you need to do is follow my movements." After throwing out those ambiguous words, Habona proceeded to perform the Inversion Cut twice. She first leapt to the left before leaping to her original position. As she performed the Inversion Cut, I definitely saw her center of gravity shift towards the right and yet it moved to the left instead.

"..." Lady, do you think I'm some main character from a wuxia novel? Did it look like I was born with a photographic memory or a peerless comprehension ability that allowed me to learn any ultimate martial art with just a glance...I'm just an average Joe. Wasn't it a bit much to expect me to learn this skill just by watching you jump a couple times?!

"You weren't able to catch all of that?" She roughly deduced from my expression that I still wasn't able to perform the Inversion Cut. "I'll perform it a few more times, make sure to look closely." She continued flatly.

"...lady, there are some things you can't learn just by seeing a few more times alright? If you're really serious about teaching me the skill, you should tell me how it works or even share the experience you had when you just started cultivating it, that might be a useful reference."

"Experience…" She blinked her eyes at my words. "I learnt this by watching my mother fight, if you want to learn this skill from me, you just have to keep on watching and practising."

Unfortunately for me, this was exactly how she taught me. Even after that back and forth, we still ended up at "watching and practising" with the end result being a few days of fruitless attempts. While I still didn't know how to execute the Inversion Cut, that strange impediment I felt while swinging Shadowfang had lessened significantly; I was able to attack and chain my attacks much faster as a result.

Mo En's territory was surprisingly far from the werewolves' temporary base. Even with Habona's speed, we still hadn't reached his base after four days of running.

At a glance, the Summoning Zone wasn't that much different from the other sections of the maze. The difference was a much more minute one that couldn't be perceived easily. If I had to describe this difference, it would be that it felt like I had stepped into a different dimension upon entering this zone.

"We've just entered the boundaries of the Summoning Zone, it won't be much longer before we reach the nest of Mo En. Given our proximity, I wouldn't be surprised if we meet some of his men on patrols. In order to avoid any misunderstandings, don't act rashly in front of them."

This warning by Habona wasn't directed at me but at Violet Snow instead. As for why she did so, it had to do with Violet Snow's proud personality and their unpleasant first encounter.

During their first meeting, Habona had insulted her by calling her a mutt. Ever since then, Violet Snow had been at odds with Habona. Whenever the two met, they would end up in a fight with Violet Snow being the initiator and ultimately the loser as well. This ended up giving Habona the impression that she was a violent person...even though, she was actually the most violent of us three...

"Hmph." She snorted rudely, not caring to answer the werewolf. That however, was enough of an answer for Habona. She knew that Violet Snow wouldn't act rashly.

Having entered the vicinity of Mo En's nest, it wasn't long before we met up with a patrol of devils. Leading this patrol was a winged female devil who closely resembled a female child.

On her forehead were two, three cm long horns that looked more like bamboo shoots like actual horns. She had the signature red skin of a devil and even had the devil tail and flesh wings commonly associated with devils. She was in every way, the model depiction of a devil, a primal devil in fact. (Earliest stage of a scythed devil.)

The devil girl was only sixty to seventy cm tall which was roughly half my height. Her face had the exquisite sheen and redness expected of a devil and was framed by a short bob hairstyle with bangs that reached up to her brows. Her face was slightly rounded and had a petiteness that made it that much more adorable.

She was clad in clothes crafted out of animal hides. It was a tiny garment that covered her torso and barely reached past her hip, revealing a pair of slender thighs and arms.

At the time we spotted their party, they spotted ours as well. With a flap of her wings, she left her team and approached us. Whether it was intended or not, she had flown to a height of four to five meters, and this ended up giving her a slightly arrogant disposition as she addressed us from high above: "Outsiders, you should not have come here."

Her voice was extremely pleasing to the ear with a sort of soft and waxy feel to it. The only issue I had with her was that she was too high up in the air...it would probably hurt my neck just looking up at her for a period of time.

"You're looking for Mo En?" She immediately puffed up her airport runway of a chest and said, in a slightly flaunting manner: "That old coot's dead, you all can leave now."

"Dead? That's not possible!" I refuted immediately. This was clearly news that I didn't want to hear after such a long journey to see this devil. But then, it's not like she had any reason to deceive me either…

"When?" She scratched her head before counting with her fingers. A while later, she was still counting, evidently she no longer had enough fingers to count with as she began hugging her thighs as she bent down to count her toes as well. Having used up those as well, she started counting her hair as well…

Unfortunately for her, hair wasn't that easy to count with. It didn't take long before she lost count. The little devil girl ruffled her hair in frustration and said: "Exactly when did he die...Mimiya just can't figure it out…"

"..." Where did this airhead pop out from...I was just asking when he died...if you didn't remember the exact timing, you could just say so. Was there a need to torture yourself by counting your toes and hair?

It was at this moment that the rest of her team caught up with her. Unlike her, the ten large imps weren't simple minded enough to trust us and immediately adopted a guarded stance. As they weren't sure of our intentions, they immediately stepped forward, shielding Mimiya from us.

"I'm counting when did Grandpa die." She answered without lifting her head. Having said that, she returned her focus back to the task of counting.

Her reply stumped the large imp. He meekly looked at us before whispering in what he thought was a soft voice: "Missus, Master Mo En...he...isn't Master still alive and well…"

"Mimiya knows that." She halted her counting and looked at the large imp. She continued in a serious tone: "But grandpa told Mimiya that if someone came looking for grandpa, Mimiya should say [Grandpa is dead]. But Mimiya just can't remember when did grandpa say this."

So he wasn't dead...he's just pretending to be dead. At the side, her answer had left Habona, Violet Snow and the other large imps just as speechless as I was…

"...NO NO, Grandpa is dead…" She began spinning around in circles as she anxiously tried to explain this to us. "Mimiya just remembered. 100 days ago, Grandpa told Mimiya that no matter who came looking for him, Mimiya is to answer [dead] that way…"

"Grandpa?" A chill ran through my heart as a sudden realization hit me. "Err, Miss Mimiya, are you Master Mo En's granddaughter?"

"That's right." She stopped her spinning and answered with a furious nod of her head and an intent stare of her adorable golden eyes.

What the heck is this answer that makes me want to cry. I get it now, Mo En wanted me to go for a marriage interview and the person I'm to meet was his granddaughter...which was this potato in front of me…

"..." I want to cry right now. Don't you have the self-awareness to know that your lie has been exposed. How stupidly adorable can you be! Can I have someone normal to communicate with!

Just as my head was filled with thoughts of meeting Mo En and finding out how to get summoned to the Western Human Realms, a strange ringing echoed in my head. It was a very sudden appearance that seemed like it had come from within my head instead of being transmitted through the air.

I focused my mind on the ringing. Immediately, I felt a force trying to pull me into some other region. It was an extremely forceful pull that brooked no resistance from me. Before I could even react to it, my body was struck with a sense of weightlessness as the scene in front of me began to distort.

Not only did my vision begin to distort, my body began contorting as if it was a boneless mess. A distorted Violet Snow tried to tell me something but her voice simply couldn't reach my ears, as if there was an invisible barrier separating the two of us.

What followed was a severe sense of dizziness that lasted over ten seconds or perhaps even a few minutes. The weightlessness disappeared and I found myself in a foreign yet familiar room.

It was foreign as I had never seen this room before. As for why it was familiar, that was because...there was a human in front of me...and not just one either…

A pentagram array formed entirely of mana suddenly appeared beneath Mo Ke's feet. Within seconds, Mo Ke was engulfed by the magical array, bringing Shadowfang and the Grimoire of the Dead along with him as he disappeared.

The only thing that remained was the devil egg that fell to the ground having lost its master's support. Seeing this, Habona immediately reached to catch the egg, stopping it with her palm in the nick of time.

Of those present, Violet Snow's relationship with Mo Ke was the deepest and was thus the most concerned by this sudden development. Having never been in a Summoning Zone, she naturally wasn't aware that he had been summoned away, and had assumed that Mimiya had caused him to disappear.

Her concern got the better of her as she yelled at the equally confused Mimiya in a threatening bark: "Speak! Where did Mo Ke go?"

"Ah...Mimiya doesn't know either…" She stammered in a frightened voice. While it was merely a white puppy that yelled at her, Violet Snow's furious countenance had frightened her. She stammered, not daring to look the puppy in the eyes: "Summ...summoned by an occultist...probably…"

As long as one was a devil who possessed inherited memories, they basically knew about this occupation in the human world known as an occultist. Occultists randomly lock onto the Summoning Zones within the three hells via their chants, and with a summoning ritual, call forth a devil from within that zone.

Without a specific medium to link to a devil, this ritual has an element of randomness to it. While there were chants that could target a specific species, targeting a devil in particular was difficult and wasn't guaranteed to work. There were even devils who grew old and died without ever getting summoned.

On the other hand, there were those who got summoned the moment they entered the Summoning Zone. In terms of luck, Mo Ke was obviously not the former.

"That situation just now...Mo Ke had definitely been summoned by an unknown entity." Habona was more knowledgeable than Violet Snow and had immediately guessed that he had been summoned upon seeing him disappear.

"Mimiya right, bring me to see Mo En, even though Mo Ke ended up getting summoned due to fluke, we should still greet him since we're already here."

Recently, the aca demy had decided to hold a martial tournament for the new students in which every first year had to participate in. This annual event could be said to be a grand pageant and was one of the landmark events in a new student's school life.

As a special student, Nicole was naturally under much more scrutiny than the average student. It was similar to how a normal person had to go on a murderous rampage in order to become newsworthy while a star merely had to sneeze to get the media's attention.

Of course, this attention came with a corresponding pressure as well, of which Nicole wasn't particularly suited to. No matter where she went, she was unable to avoid the gaze of strangers.

These strangers came from a complex gamut of backgrounds. Some were students, teachers, workers and even fans...there were even households who wanted to recruit her in lieu of her talent; and then there were nobles who wanted to marry her…

Of these noble suitors, there was one noteworthy person. That was the son of this territory's lord, the son of an earl and also the nephew of this city's lord, Dean Baker.

It thus goes without saying that he enjoys a privileged position in this city. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call him a mini-emperor of this region. This noble young master was also a student of Azure Warrior's Academy. In fact, he was a senior student who was about to graduate.

When he met her for the first time a month ago, he decided then that he had to have this fiery redhead who had the personality akin to ice.

From that moment on, Dean would often appear at Nicole's side. This golden haired, handsome youth would always be seen with a rose in hand as he stood outside her dormitory waiting for her to appear.

Even though she never once paid him any attention, this didn't deter him from badgering her. Truth be told, he wasn't all that either, ever since his thirteenth birthday, he had bedded at least 500 women. Given that he was 18 this year, he had bedded and discard over 100 women per year.

However, Nicole was different from all of these women. She had an exceptional talent for cultivation. It was this talent that made her a treasure he must have; talented individuals like her gave birth to children with exceptional talent as well.

It can be said that their child would have a talent that was one in ten thousand. A child of this calibre would elevate their household to a whole new tier and would solidify his position within the family. Whether it was out of lust or practicality, she was someone that he absolutely must have.

And yet she wasn't someone he could force himself on. Nicole was the only special student in the million strong Baker Earldom and thus enjoyed an unimaginably high position within the academy. She was the headmaster's treasure, and this headmaster was the strongest martial expert in the entire earldom; making him an extremely influential personage in the Earldom.

It would be still be alright if he courted her via normal means, but if he used despicable means and end up ruining her by accident...the old man would probably fly into a rage. As for the consequences of that...it was something he couldn't bear. Thus he didn't dare to force himself upon her, and had to resort to courtship in order to slowly work his way into her heart.

Unfortunately for him, Nicole didn't love anyone, not Sares, not Dean nor any of the other suitors. Even her feelings towards Mo Ke weren't that of love but merely of concern. She only wanted to locate him as soon as possible or at least confirm his safety.

With the freshman's tournament coming up, the time she spent training naturally increased as well. She shortened her rest time as much as possible in order to squeeze out more time for training. In the six months since she entered the academy, she spent so much time training, she could almost be called a robot who only knew how to train.

Outside of her rare rest periods, her only destressing activity was going with Nana to the Goddess of Light's chapel for prayer service.

The reason why she entered the Goddess of Light's chapel was naturally because of Mo Ke. During her shopping trip with Nana on Founder's Day, she met a priest by coincidence and ended up joining the Goddess of Light's chapel. To her, anything that could possibly aid her was worth trying, even if it was useless praying.

What greeted her as she entered the chapel for the first time was a priest in the midst of his sermons. She quietly sat down on the pews with Nana and turned her attention towards his preaching. Time passed by unknowingly as she let the soothing droning of the priest wash over her. It was the first time she had ever felt such peace since Mo Ke went missing.

Ever since Mo Ke ran away from home and Roscar left to create a mercenary troop...her days in school seemed almost surreal to her. She had never known that she possessed such a steadfast side. Even after losing the little brother she grew up with, even after being separated from her father, she never once shed a single tear.

She never gave in and instead stood up and faced these challenges head on. In order to rebuild her broken family, she worked as hard as she possibly could.

It was only after listening to the priest's preaching for the first time did the torrent of pent up stress finally revealed themselves as she wept subconsciously. She didn't know what the priest was saying but his soothing voice made her cry uncontrollably.

She dried her tears and turned towards the 10 year old Nana sitting quietly besides her with her head tilted to the side as she dozed off...looks like her weeping would go unnoticed.

Since then, she would go for prayer service whenever she was on break. Naturally, she brought her lucky charm, Nana, along with her as well.

Today was one such day as well. She threw on an austere set of casual clothes and left her dormitory. What greeted her right as she left her dormitory was Dean standing still as a statue by her door, with a bouquet of roses in hand as always. On a flower bed nearby was an exquisitely packaged gift box.

"You finally decided to leave your room, did you know I had to wait a whole ten minutes for you." He joked with a dashing smile on his face. With his eyes fixed intently on hers, he stepped forward and whipped out the roses he had prepared: "These are the most beautiful roses in my garden, they were all handpicked by me to suit your beauty."

Having been ignored, his face immediately froze. Before he met Nicole, there was no girl who dared to ignore him. However, he quickly suppressed his rage which threatened to burst forth and put on his dashing facade once more. He was the son of an earl after all, this bit of emotional quotient was to be expected.

"Please wait a moment...I've prepared a gift for you, won't you have a look?" He stepped forward and opened up the gift box he prepared, revealing an extravagant formal dress within. "I had to spend 1,000 gold in order to get this dress from the capital, it's the latest and trendiest…"

After giving the dress a look, she emotionlessly sidestepped him before he could finish his words and walked off without a second look.

"Thank you for your good will, oh Son of Earl." She couldn't stand his badgering anymore and had no choice but to turn around and deal with this annoying fly. In a calm voice, she chided him: "My martial arts teacher once said, true warriors do not require such extravagant things, indulging too much in such worldly objects would only dull our spirit, creating a barrier in our path to the top."

"But isn't it a girl's nature to want to be beautiful? Don't tell me you don't want to show off a more beautiful side of yourself?"

"I'm sorry, but the me right now has no time for such considerations." She firmly rejected him in a soft voice. "Furthermore, I won't accept any gifts from others. Please take it back, perhaps another girl might like your gift."

Having had to wait for 10 whole minutes outside her door, this outcome was clearly something he couldn't accept. Not only did she snub him, she walked off without even acknowledging his sacrifices. If he was to let her go like this, it would be a massive loss of face for him. He immediately chased after her, intending to stop her.

A short distance away, the voice of a little girl echoed down the hallway, within it was a hint of forced anger: "Sister Nicole, hurry up, we're going to be late for prayer!"

Hearing this, Nicole's face warmed up immediately. Nodding her head, she turned towards Dean and said apologetically: "I'm extremely sorry about this Young Master Dean, I'm about to be late for prayer service in the Goddess of Light's chapel, please forgive my rudeness."

Given her usual coldness, that apology was a considerable compromise on her part. With that powerful old man of a headmaster standing behind her, Dean didn't dare to push his luck any further. If he wasn't careful, he might just rouse the ire of the headmaster, at that time, the one to suffer would only be him.

A long, blue-haired little girl with an adorable rounded face, dressed in a white school uniform leaped into the arms of Nicole without a care in the world. As she continously rubbed her face in her chest, she said: "Sis, let's go for prayer, quick. Once that's over, we still have to get some crepes!"

"Nah, my father sent me some money a few days ago." While Nicole was a special student and thus received a number of privileges, all her money was spent on cultivation tools. This resulted in her finances being rather tight despite her status.

Nana was the child of a prominent merchant which meant her household was particularly wealthy. She would constantly pay for their meals whenever they went out. Nana's father was an astute merchant and thus knew the potential value of their friendship. This was why he was particularly lenient about her expenditure.

"You rejected me again…" Having been rejected again, his desperately wanted to force himself on her but he was simply too afraid of the headmaster's wrath…

On the other side of the flower bed, Sares was quietly watching this entire exchange with a complicated expression on his face. He stood stock still, not daring to move a muscle until Nicole's back had completely faded into the distance.

By the time I recovered from the disorientating sensation, I found myself in an empty room that was probably a basement given its lack of windows.

I gave my person a quick run through to check for any losses. The grimoire was there and so was Shadowfang however the grimoire seemed to have lost some of its energy during the summoning and could no longer support its levitation. It laid there lifelessly like an ordinary book right next to the giant blade it was bound by chain to.

With these two settled, all that remained to be found was the devil egg. However, I vaguely remembered it not being teleported along with me as I got summoned. I guess that made sense, after all, the egg had a soul of its own and could be counted as a separate entity. Since it was still in the maze, Habona and Violet Snow should be able to take good care of it.

After checking that my body and limbs were all intact, I finally had the sense of mind to notice the demonic array drawn in blood beneath my feet. A short distance away was a group of three human men and a girl.

Each of them had a noticeably different bearing to them. One was a black robed, red headed man roughly thirty years of age and had an arrogant look on his face as he stared at me with a devilish glint in his eyes as if he could see right through me. He was probably the master of this group and also an occultist.

Flanking the occultist on either side was two burly bald men who looked almost identical to each other. Both were over 30 years of age and had a scar riddled face beneath their shiny domes.

Their two meter tall frames were clad in chainmail that covered even their heads. Wrapped around their hands were a pair of black, metallic gauntlets that matched their sinister and bloodthirsty aura. Just from a glance, one could tell that these two were the stereotypical evil henchmen of a villain.

(Chainmails were made by interlinking multiple metallic rings in order to form an armor. They boasted an impressive defensive ability that rose with the density of their chain links. These metallic rings were particularly suited for carving magical arrays and thus made chainmails the preferred armor for crafting enchanted gear. Due to the complexity of crafting their metallic rings, chainmails tended to be more expensive.)

The last of the four was a little girl roughly 14 to 15 years of age. She was a rather pretty lass. With her fair skin, flowing black hair that reached up to her shoulders, she possessed a sort of ladylike beauty. At least it would've been so if not for the gray shorts and shirt she wore that were clearly meant for slaves.

However, I don't mind that slave teenage girl setting either. That tattered and bare bones piece of cloth gave a tantalizing view of her thighs and arms as she laid there shivering in fear while looking at me.

My head experienced a moment of silence as I spaced out from the shock of having just been summoned. What's up with these four? Don't tell me they're the welcoming party...more importantly...where am I? Is this the Western Human Realms?

While I stood musing to myself, the only guy who seemed like a mage due to his robes, stepped and spoke to me in a slightly broken but understandable version of the devil's tongue. "Oh devil, bow before me, your almighty master."

"Master?" My lips curled into a disdainful smirk as I snorted. "Ever since I've been born, I've always been the master. You actually wish to command me? I'm afraid you aren't even qualified for that."

"I'm a mighty three-star occultist while you're just a measly two-star head imp and yet you claim that I do not have the qualifications to be your master?" Perhaps my rejection had an effect on him but his face was noticeably darker as he emphasized the difference in our levels and even went so far as to brazenly threaten me.

"..."I didn't want to go back there, at least not for now. But to use this as a threat to restrain me, to force me to submit...I'm sorry but it's still lacking.

Having mistaken my silence as a sign of success, the occultist adopted a softer tone as he pointed at the shivering girl next to his leg: "I know what you devils desire, look, this is the gift I've prepared for you."

Oh so that's a gift, well wasn't he a thoughtful one. As I shifted my gaze to the girl, she shrunk back in horror, visibly terrified by my renewed attention on her. However, there was simply nowhere in this empty room where her panicked self could hide.

Tears rolled down her eyes as she desperately scampered to the back of the occultist. Unfortunately for her, the black robed man would have none of that and wasn't going to be a gentleman about it. He kicked her on the shoulder, neither too lightly nor too heavily, telling her through his actions that being offered to the devil was her fate.

She did not know what that fate would mean for her, but she didn't plan on finding out either. She stubbornly clung to her desire to live as she vigorously shook her head, expressing her silent resistance of my approach. From time to time, she would throw me a tear-filled look of curiosity as she did so.

What a strange a girl...how should I say it, there seems to be a certain disarray to her soul as if there were two souls within it...wait, the position of that second soul...is in the abdominal region! It's not that she has two souls...she's pregnant!

My emotions right now could only be described with one word, astonished. While there were cases of teenage pregnancy in China, as an otaku shut-in, I had not encountered one until today. This was my first time seeing a pregnant 15 year old...though her belly wasn't really that big on the account that she wasn't that far into her pregnancy.

"A gift? This pregnant girl?" I turned to the black robed caster with a befuddled look that seemed to ask, 'exactly what should I do next'. I didn't know what kind of answer I would get out of his mouth but I questioned anyway.

"Don't devils love tainted women?" He was equally befuddled by my reaction as he explained to me in a tone that seemed more like he was explaining it himself as well. "This slave has been trained by me for a long time and is even pregnant with my child, shouldn't she be tainted enough…"

"Well, that's up to you. You can eat her if you want or you can play with her if you want, either way she's yours." He waved his hands as if to accentuate his magnanimity and signalled for one of the bald men to toss the girl to me.

Judging from their swift reaction, these men must've followed him for a long time and knew exactly what he wanted. One of the men lifted her up by her hand like he would a chicken or a cat and tossed her to me without a second thought.

No matter what, there was no way I could stand by and watch this girl get hurt. I rushed forward and caught her with my slender arms and gently lowered her to the ground. Perhaps the sudden turn of events had simply been too much for her but even after getting rescued, she was still shellshocked and could only lay there motionless like a dead person.

"How is it, are you satisfied with my gift?" Seeing that I had taken to the girl pleased the occultist greatly. He smiled at me with a satisfied look on his face and said: "As long as you agree to serve me, she's yours. Not only her, I can give you more women as well just as long as you accept me as your Master!

Is his head screwed on right? What's with the sudden calls of [submit to me, accept me as your master]. He even tried to gift another person's daughter away, and that was his woman too! I detested these kind of bast*rds who treated women as objects!

"Did you just say that the child was yours? So you guys have…done it?" In a moment of anger, I ended up asking what was a stupidly obvious question.

"Hahaha, of course we've "done" it. If we haven't "done" it, how could there have been a child...hahahaha…" Hearing my question, the occultist couldn't help but roar with laughter. Even the two bald men at side were smirking derisively at me.

Having your way with a girl and giving her away so callously...how much of a bast*rd are you? People like you don't deserve to live. Thinking about all the innocent women who might've fallen victim to his clutches because of their young age or circumstances, my head was hit with a rush of blood and I yelled at the robed caster: "You actually gave away your own woman!?"

"..." The occultist was stunned into silence, clearly not expecting my vehement refusal. He blinked his eyes a couple of times, seemingly having understood something. He anxiously offered me new terms: "So you prefer virgins...why didn't you say so from the start, all the women here have already been played with. If you want virgins, you'll have to wait a few days for me procure more goods for you."

Hmmm, at this distance, a mage like him should be at a disadvantage though…with Shadowfang, my melee capabilities are significantly higher that before...at this distance, I might not even lose to him.

In an ambush, my epic-grade weapon, Shadowfang, might just be able to kill one of them in a swing. Then the question was...would my hands go soft at the thought of killing a person...after all, I had never killed a person before.

Sneaking a glance at the pregnant teenager shivering on the floor, I knew that I had to act. This time, I must kill...before that however, there was a mountain of questions I had to ask. At the same time, asking these questions should lower his guard.

"Fresh goods, that's what you said. You better not go back on your word." In order to gain his trust, I went along with his suggestion. I licked my lips expectantly, fully playing into the part of a lecherous devil: "Make sure they are beautiful."

As if in response to my action, he licked his lips as well before laughing uproariously, clearly happy that he had found a comrade: "Hahahaha, don't worry. As long as you follow me, I'll guarantee an endless supply of virgins...hahahaha...hell probably didn't have beauties such as these...haha…"

I don't know if he was mad or something but he seemed to laugh uncontrollably whenever he got excited. Truth be told, he was a pretty handsome fellow if only he didn't have that creepy laugh.

Throughout our interaction, the black robed caster had been carefully observing my reactions. From my reaction just now, he probably assumed that he had found my weakness which was my strong desire not to return to hell. With this angle to work from, things should be a lot easier for him.

Having confirmed this point, he nodded, satisfaction written all over his face as he gave out the answer I expected: "I had to expend a lot of effort in order to summon you here. As long as I'm still alive, my mana will be able to support your perpetual stay in the Western Human Realms."

"I just knew that devils preferred staying here." He declared smugly, clearly confident in his assumption that he had grasped my weakness. "As long as you listen to my commands, I can allow you to stay here perpetually, if you choose to oppose me, I'll throw you back to hell."

"One more question." I said, paying his threat no heed. This was an extremely important matter that I had to verify. No matter how you looked at it, it was too much of a coincidence that I was able to get summoned right as I entered the summoning zone. That amount of luck would've been equivalent to striking the five million jackpot in a lottery.

"Before I was summoned here, I wasn't readily available for summoning. The fact that you were able to summon me right as I entered the summoning zone was just too much of a coincidence."

"Oh that, I would've forgotten about that if you hadn't mentioned it." As he said that, he took out a dainty but slightly shoddy red wallet. It was a common style of wallet that was found everywhere in the Western Human Realms. However, this particular wallet had something those other wallets didn't have. A tear that was very roughly stitched together.

During my childhood years, I remembered repairing her wallet once. Back then, I sewed on a backing to the tear in order to patch it up. Due to my horrid sewing skills, the seam ended up being eye-catchingly crooked. While I hadn't seen this wallet for a while, there was no mistaking that bit of tailoring.

"This wallet...why do you have it…" If this wallet is in his hands, does that mean that Nicole had been captured by him as well?

As I thought about that, it felt like a knife had been driven into my heart. My fists clenched tightly as a red haze began clouding my mind, wiping away all other thoughts, leaving only a desire to kill him behind.

I've just seen an example of how he treated women, if he really had Nicole, then...didn't he mention that he had already toyed with the women here? Does that mean that...Nicole had already been...

There's no way that's true. Nicole's too strong to be captured...there's no way her fate would end up like this...she should be in some corner of the world safely waiting for me to marry her...there's no way I'll believe it! There's no way that wallet is Nicole's! That seam must be a coincidence, it's nothing but a coincidence!

"Wallet? You mean this thing? Hahaha, why can't I have it?" Having missed the point entirely, he proceeded to let forth an uproarious laugh as he haughtily admitted to his crime.

"While I'm curious as to why this ended up being your medium, my guess is that you aren't interested in all these. Instead, the matter of this wallet's owner is probably of greater interest to you. As luck would have it, we have her locked up as well."

However, he didn't stop there either. I didn't know what his motives were but he continued stoking my anger with his words: "That little girl was pretty fun to play with. She initially tried to resist me but after a round of fixing, she became much more obedient. Oh right, truth be told, this wallet alone isn't enough to summon you. The main culprit is this."

He reached into the wallet and took out a knot of blue hair and gently toyed with it between his fingers: "The real medium is this instead."

"..." I had nothing else to add in the face of that overwhelming evidence. No matter how hard I tried to lie to myself, there was no denying the facts now. The appearance of that knot of hair means that the wallet was really Nicole's…

That knot of hair was placed inside the wallet after I had patched it up. A few days before that, I vaguely remembered my elementary school teacher on Earth mentioning that in the past, a suitor would pass a lock of hair to his or her target as a sign of love.

While this custom didn't exist in the Western Human Realms, I couldn't help but cut off a lock of hair and sneak it into her wallet...in the entire Western Human Realms, I was probably the only one who would do so...

"Her?" He stroked his chin as he thought about it for a moment before grinning as he happily declared: "I got bored of her so I gave her to the Drump brothers. I'm not even sure if she's alive right now."

Having been mentioned, one of the bald men stepped up to explain in a sonorous voice: " Young Master, she's not dead yet. However, it's a shame that she's crippled."

"Don't listen to Big Brother's nonsense, Young Master. It's not just "crippled", her treatment could only be described as inhumane. She tried to run away a few days ago so Big Brother decided to break her limbs. We haven't fed her these past few days either so she's mostly dead by now." The other bald man complained in a joking tone.

"It's all Big Brother's fault for being so vicious and crippling our toy. Now I don't get to play with her. Please give us another girl to play with Young Master."

"That was just a wooden rod. Big Brother, you actually brought in a male dog to toy with her. I lost all interest after watching that."

"Alright, alright, enough bickering. I'll get a new toy for you guys later." While his words showed a slight annoyance at the brothers, his reddish cheeks told otherwise. All that talk had given him a few innovative methods of unleashing his beastial desires.

"You guys should know how to enjoy yourselves. This young master has always relied on a stick to conquer his prey, never before has he thought of using animals. Just based on this alone, I can't compare to your naughtiness."

As I listened to their filthy banter, my head was constantly bombarded by images of Nicole being humiliated...by the time I came back to my senses, my right hand was already grasping the hilt of Shadowfang.

"A two-star weakling like you dares to fight back?" The robed spellcaster reacted to my show of rebellion not with fear but with disdain.

"Drump, Frump, teach him a lesson. After spending so much effort summoning him, there's no way he is just some ordinary head imp. Putting aside his weapon, he probably has an exceptionally high growth factor. Make sure not to kill him."

"Leave it to us Young Master, when have the both of us ever disappointed you." The bald men confidently bumped their gauntlets, not even caring to take up a stance as they stood there haughtily with their arms folded. While their eyes were focused on me, there was naught but mockery in them. Clearly, they didn't see the two-star me as a threat.

His decision to stand aside and spectate worked perfectly in my favor. As long as I was able to kill these two bodyguards, this mage shouldn't be an issue afterwards. Chanting requires time and given our proximity, even a three-star mage wasn't a problem for me.

With my left hand on Shadowfang's scabbard and my right on the hilt, I cautiously advanced until I was a mere five meters away from the brothers. I felt a deathly stillness wash over the cells of my body as I recalled Habona's movements.

The look on their faces grew graver as they watched my movements. While they didn't know the reason for the sudden change in my aura, they knew to be cautious. The brothers finally abandoned their "folded arms" stance and began to take up a defensive stance.

From their defensive stance, I could tell they had a great deal of confidence in their sturdy metal gauntlets. That means only one thing, they won't dodge this blow!

Truth be told, even I didn't understand why I was able to perform the Inversion Cut now. I was barely able to perform the stance back when Habona taught the move and yet under this blinding rage, the skill felt noticeable smoother.

In a harmonious union of breath and force, Shadowfang shot out of the scabbard like a flash of lightning and under the disbelieving gaze of the brothers, sliced through their metallic gauntlets and chainmail, bifurcating the brothers!

"Impossible...that's impossible! Drump and Frump were three-star warriors that could advance to four-stars at any time… All their equipment was low-grade enchanted gear and even had their defensive properties strengthened. How did you kill them in one slash! And I clearly saw you swing backwards...how did it…"

The fact that a two-star devil was able to kill a couple of three-stars was definitely unbelievable so I could understand the shock he felt right now, not to mention that it was a single strike that cut both of them down.

This success was in large part due to the overwhelming level difference my epic weapon afforded me and also the tricky Inversion Cut. A cut that looked like it was slicing backwards but was instead slicing forward? Rather than a warrior skill, it seemed more like an assassin's skill. It was this sense of disjointedness that allowed me to assassinate these two three-stars.

Even after killing these two men, Shadowfang was still as pitch black as ever with not even a speck of blood on it. From time to time, a black flash of light would run around the blade's body, increasing its sinister aura. With the warriors dead, there was only one target left.

"Don't...don't come any close...if you come any closer, I'll strike back!" He weakly threatened me as he continued his helpless retreat, the arrogant smile on his face as dead as his two henchmen. All that remained was the fear of death.

Magical scrolls are one-use tools that have magic sealed within them. They come in a variety of types such as offensive scrolls, defensive scrolls, healing scrolls, dispelling scrolls and even curse scrolls.

Scrolls were initially created with the purpose of overcoming the weakness caused by a mage's long cast times. However, their crafting process require a large amount of expensive magical ingredients as well as the expertise of a trained mage. This was especially so as the stronger the sealed magic, the more difficult it was to craft the scroll.

While it was created with the common mage in mind, reality ended up being completely different than what was envisioned. Due to the cost of crafting these scrolls, they couldn't become a staple of magic casting but instead ended up being a last resort for mages.

As more research was conducted in this field, the scroll crafting process had become significantly simpler over the ages. Not only was it simpler, the materials required had become more refined, allowing for less materials to be consumed in the overall process.

With the overall cost of crafting a scroll reduced, more and more mages were able to get into this field. There were even mages who specialized in scroll crafting as a livelihood. The addition of these scroll vendors boosted the supply of scrolls significantly.

However, even with all these advancements, the price of a scroll was still expensive. Even so, it remains a viable last resort option when one's life was in danger. This was due to the low mana cost of using these scrolls which then only required the user to focus his mind on a target in order to fire the spell.

Seeing him pee in his pants didn't fill me with joy as expected. Instead, I felt a sadness in the depths of my heart. If you were so afraid of retribution, why did you create this tragedy in the first place?

How should I kill him...flaying him alive would require too much skill, throwing him into a boiling pot of oil was too crass as well. I need to find a method that won't kill him instantly but would still inflict unending pain on him. As I pondered this matter, I ended up drifting off once more in daze.

All I saw was the moment he clenched his left fist as he targeted me before a fireball the size of a basketball shot out of the ruby ring he wore on his finger.

By the time I was able to react to it, the fireball was already within inches of me. A second later, the fireball slammed into my head without even giving me the time to dodge…

It felt like I had been splashed by a buck et of hot water followed up by the shockwave caused by the fireball's explosion which flung me to the ground unceremoniously.

"I bet you never expected that even without the necessary time to chant, I could still rely on a high-grade enchanted gear to cover for my long chant times." Having regained the upper hand with his sneak attack, he abandoned his guise of a weakling and instead went on the offensive, firing off fireballs continuously, all the while laughing haughtily.

A torrent of fireballs chased my back as I dodged around, blasting me with a wave of hot air as they exploded. If it hadn't been for my innate devil resistance to fire, my back would've been severely scalded by now.

Initially, the appearance of enchanted gear had been to shorten the cast times of mages. A mage with a high-grade enchanted gear was at least several times stronger than one without. Take this occultist for example, if he didn't have that ring with him, I could've broken his limbs and sliced off his tongue in the time he took to chant a spell.

However, with that enchanted gear aiding him with its magical array, he was able to fire off fireballs instantly, stacking the odds significantly in his favor.

Thankfully, due to my fire resistance, his fireballs mostly felt like splashes of hot water even if they hit my head. However, no matter how strong my resistance was, there was still a limit to it. Given enough hits, my hide would give way too and so taking them head on wasn't an option.

Seeing that his fireballs barely hit me, the occultist probably thought that his fireballs were too slow and decided to mix it up. His right hand rose up, revealing a white glint that I did not want to see.

"Let's see how you dodged this!" Splitting his focus, he simultaneously activated his ruby ring and the white gemmed ring on his right middle finger which was probably of the ice element.

A fireball and an ice spike shot out of his respective rings and hurtled towards me. With a dodge and a tumble, I easily dodged the two spells. This room was after all built for a summoning ritual, given the vastness of the room, there was more than enough space for me to avoid these attacks.

While the fireballs were mostly harmless once they exploded, the ice spikes were different. As their crystalline bodies exploded, they would leave behind a glistening layer of ice and water on the floor. Not only was the ice surface chilling to the bone, it was extremely slippery.

All that, I learned first hand when I accidentally stepped on the ice and welcomed a fireball to the face as my body fell butt first onto the floor, my skin prickling with the spicy sensation of the flames.

Despite my best efforts, I didn't make much headway into approaching the occultist. His defense was extremely tight; each time I came close to him, he would take out a scroll and rip it open without hesitation.

While I haven't seen such scrolls in action before, I knew some basic knowledge about them. Normally, an offensive area of effect magic would be sealed in these scrolls which meant only one thing, trouble!

I immediately halted my advance but it was still too late. With a savage grin on his face, his hands pulled apart the seal on the scroll as his grinning eyes locked onto me.

I focused my energies onto my legs as I willed them to step backwards in spite of their forward momentum. With a tilt of my body, I simultaneously tried to dodge to the side as well. However, the wind blades were simply too fast and I knew that a portion of my body was bound to be hit.

In the face of these unavoidable wind blades, all I could do was put my faith on my trusty blade, Shadowfang. As an epic blade, it clearly wasn't as simple as it looked. My desperate defense ended up working as the wind blades dispersed harmlessly on its gleaming black surface.

Even so, this wasn't a method I could rely on as the enormous length of the blade meant it was difficult to wave around. Thus, the remaining wind blades had to be dodged.

With the combination of Shadowfang and my dodging, the flurry of wind blades flew past my skin, barely missing me by an inch. Their sharpness was enough to give me goosebumps just from being in proximity; no matter what, this wasn't something my body could withstand.

Even though I ended up avoiding them perfectly, in actuality, my heart was racing with anxiety. A single misstep would've easily cost me a limb. If I hadn't thought to pull out Shadowfang at the last second...I would've been a pile of minced meat.

However with that out of the way, the danger should have passed. Scrolls were a rare magical tool and no matter how rich this guy was, he shouldn't have that many right? With that in mind, I rushed forward once more into another magical scroll…

The occultist nonchalantly pulled out a fire scroll and with a quick stare, locked onto his target. As the ripping sound of paper echoed in the air, it was swiftly drowned out by the roaring sounds of a 2m wide giant fireball that easily crushed my feeble attempt at pressuring him. Sh*t, that thing's going to squash me!

There was no doubt in my mind that that humongous fireball had the power to kill even a three-star flame resistant devil, let alone a two-star devil like me. If I ate that head-on, I would probably be lucky to be left with cinders.

Thankfully, the room was nearly 100 meters wide and had more than enough room for me to dodge. With the first scroll as a reference, I wasn't as shocked at seeing him take out the second.

Upon seeing the scroll, I erred on the side of caution and immediately retreated before he even tore it open. This bit of caution ended up saving me as the giant fireball landed at my previous location a mere second later. The resulting shockwave crashed into me like a sledgehammer, sending me flying into the wall.

Had this been a normal building on Earth, this room would've probably collapsed from this devastating shockwave...however, this wasn't Earth and this basement wasn't any old basement. In the face of that deafening explosion, it barely shook let alone collapse.

Having fired off over ten spells, his attack speed began to drop noticeably. This is the time! He probably ran out of mana by now so now's the time to rip him to pieces!

The occultist gave a satisfied nod upon seeing me retreat. And then, under my shocked gaze, pulled out a test tube filled with an ocean blue liquid. He bit on the stopper, pulled it out with a yank of his teeth and downed the liquid right before my very eyes…

"Hmph, I bet you want to cry right now. The one thing this young master isn't lacking is money. Whether it's mana potions, high-grade gear or scrolls, this young master has plenty to spare!"

Noticing that I had stopped my advance, his grandstanding habit kicked in once more: "Seeing as you were able to kill those two brothers in one swing despite their low-grade gear, that black blade must be a high-grade weapon. My guess is that it had a sharpness attribute enchanted onto it, otherwise there's no way it could slice through two chainmails reinforced with the defensive attribute."

"Don't think you can hide the truth by not talking. This young master is swimming in money; there's no gear he hasn't seen before! I'll give you one last chance, swear your loyalty to me and sign this slave contract. This young master will give you the best treatment as before and even allow you to feast on the tenderest of virgin flesh!"

"Don't push your luck!" He bellowed after not receiving a response for a long time. His eyes reddened as he shouted: "Since you refuse to yield, then just die!"

In midst of my dodging, a sharp scream caught my attention. A short distance away was the offering he prepared for me, the underage pregnant girl. She was curled up in ball, with her hands wrapped around her head, at a corner of the room.

The reason for her scream was a stray fireball that landed a few inches away from her. The scorching heatwave of the fireball scalded her beautiful face, giving it an unnatural orange look. On her forehead was a noticeable bruise; she must've hit herself on the head when the shockwave blew into her.

" *spit* Shut up, you wench!" He tossed her an annoyed look and fired an ice pick in her direction, his mouth never stopping its tirade: "Either way I'm done playing with you, since you're so afraid, why don't you just die. After all, you don't have to be afraid once you're dead!"

Even though I didn't know this unfortunate soul, there was no way I could let her die before my very eyes, not even if I closed my eyes...and so I did something completely anathema to my supposed identity, save her!

While my evolutions hadn't given me much in the way of strength, they had instead, given me an equivalent boost in speed and agility. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that speed was a forte of mine given that no other two-star devil could compare to me.

"Haha, you actually saved that girl. I'm not hallucinating am I? A devil actually saved a human!? You are such a disappointment!" He laughed maniacally at what he thought was the most absurd thing he had ever seen.

He couldn't wrap his head around the fact that a devil saved a human, a human he didn't know at that. To him, devils were vile heinous creatures who should care about human lives as much as they cared about the dirt on their feet.

Regardless of his confusion, he continued his unending barrage of spells, never letting up even for a second. In fact, he had increased his speed upon seeing me rush to save the girl.

A second later, another fireball came hurtling towards us. I swiftly sliced it apart as usual but unlike the previous times, I didn't manage to retract the blade in time. In my anxiety to save the pregnant girl, I had overestimated my own endurance.

Having reached the limit of my strength, I was unable to retract Shadowfang in time, fully exposing my fatal weakness to the occultist. It was in this dire situation that the next ice spike came flying towards me…

The weight of this enormous blade had always been an issue for me. Normally I would have this burden split between me and the Grimoire of the Dead but now...I'm not sure if it was pretending to be dead or something but either either way, it wasn't helping me anymore.

Without the grimoire's help and the constant need to dodge, my stamina was rapidly exhausted, leaving me unable to swing in rapid succession and deflect the oncoming spike…

Sh*t…if that ice spike hits me...I can safely prepare for my next reincarnation...assuming I had one. Comparatively speaking, our ice resistance was as weak as our fire resistance was strong. In fact, it was in the negative range. An ice spell like this could definitely be said to be our nemesis.

Even so, all I could do was close my eyes and smile bitterly at my incoming fate. Time seemed to slow down as my last few breaths were painfully drawn out...drawn out...wait I'm still breathing!

The grimoire which had laid silent ever since I came to the Western Human Realms had leapt into the air at the very last moment and collided with the ice spike. As the ice shards scattered all over the grimoire, the ice mana rapidly chilled the black book, turning it into a block of ice.

With no time to spare on the falling grimoire, my fingers tightly wrapped around Shadowfang as I raised it above my head in a sprinting overhead chop that caught the occultist off guard!

Unfortunately, he was only stunned for a moment before his quick reflexes allowed him to pull out another scroll in time. Given our proximity however, any offensive scroll he planned on using would hit him as well. On the other hand, if he were to hesitate for even a second, Shadowfang would cut him in half before he could even rip the seal off the scroll.

Shockingly, he decisively tore open the scroll and fearlessly locked eyes with me as if there wasn't a razor sharp blade rushing at him this very second. Was he going all in as well? Or was gambling on the fact that I would cherish my life more and block at the last second? Either way, there was no way I'm withdrawing my blade now!

Seeing me advance, the occultist suddenly revealed a sinister smile as if his plan had worked out: "I knew you would try to cut me, unfortunately for you, I've made preparations long before this. There's no way you will ever harm me!"

As he said this, he activated the necklace that hung around his neck. Having received a mote of his mana, the necklace began to glow a radiant blue hue, shortly after, a magic barrier the shape of a semicircle appeared in front of the black robed occultist!

It was probably this piece of equipment that gave him the courage and confidence to tear open his scroll so decisively. At the same time as the barrier was finished forming, the magic in the scroll began to activate, firing off the same flurry of wind blades.

While my vertical slash had sliced apart the majority of the oncoming blades, a sizeable amount still managed to make their way towards me.

On the other end, the occultist was in a similarly dire situation. Under the horrified gaze of the occultist, the gleaming black blade tore through the seemingly fragile yet surprisingly sturdy magical barrier.

Amidst his panicked retreat, Shadowfang bore down upon him, slicing through his nose and lips before making its way down his loose robes...if it hadn't been for that single step backwards, he would've been bifurcated.

At the same time, I was buffeted by numerous wind blades. My horn was sliced off while my face and body were covered in a field of cuts. Fortunately, none of these were fatal, the only major injury was my horn whose loss would affect my mana, everything else was minor.

Similarly, the occultist was spared from any fatal injuries. Putting aside the blade wounds on his face, the cuts on his body were merely paper cuts compared to those on my own. However, his reaction was...how should I say it...magical? Either way, it was amazing.

"Ah...it hurtsss...it hurts so mucchh...my face...my nose...my mouth...they've been split open...owww...it hurts so much…" He began tumbling on the floor, bemoaning the minor cuts on his body, his face more savage than handsome as the blood from his cuts smeared across his face.

Truth be told, I've had about enough of his whining...weren't they just a bunch of minor injuries? If you're a real man, you would stand up and continue fighting!

I had originally expected this to be a tough fight but who knew that this potato was such a wuss. A non-fatal wound like that actually scared him into submission. If this potato could still be considered a man, then what about me who shrugged off all these wounds like they were nothing? Was I Superman?

"Hey, you better pull yourself together right this instant." In order to prevent any further surprises, I immediately stepped up to him and gave him a vicious kick that sent him spiralling into another round of crying. In midst of this, I cut off both of his hands.

As a precaution, I wanted to cut off his tongue as well in order to prevent him from casting more spells with his tools. However, I remembered that I still needed him to tell me about Nicole's location and so stayed my hand.

"Enough with the nonsense and bring me to the place where you're keeping Nicole!" I forcefully suppressed my desire to kill him and lifted him off the ground. With a forceful push, I slammed the wailing occultist against the wall.

Probably having never experienced such pain before in his life, the will to fight had completely left the man. With the pain from his wrists and the force of my slam, the occultist slumped to the ground in a pitiful display of weakness.

As he did so, his bloodied stumps came into contact with the ground, welcoming another round of wailing that sounded like a pig being slaughtered.

Was it really that painful? To think that I didn't even raise an eyebrow from being run over by a truck or from being bitten to death by goblins. Hmph, I guess this brother is a true man with blood of steel.

Having been shocked back to his senses by the pain, the occultist stared at me with wide open eyes as he stammered: "Your weapon...epic grade...impossible...even I don't have such an equipment...you...don't tell me you're the heir of that devil lord…"

The occultist didn't seem to respond to my command. Having lost my patience, I kicked on his back once more: "Didn't you hear me? Bring me to Nicole!"

"She's the owner of that wallet!" It was at this moment that I thought to find the wallet and the hair within. Unfortunately, they were nothing more than a pile of ashes now. My anger rose once more as I stared at the former wallet.

"But I don't have any Nicole here..." By now, his face could barely be called a human's. Even after all that beating and scolding, all he could do was curl into a tight ball while giving off an innocent and harmless look.

"Then die!" Damnit, how stubborn did you have to be in order to stonewall me even in the face of death. Just watch...I'll slaughter you and have you as a side with a bottle of beer...no, this fellow mustn't die...if he dies, I'll be thrown back to the Prison of the Dead again...

Just as I was fretting about his stubbornness, the pregnant girl who I had forgotten about all this while suddenly came up to me and knelt. "Sir...Devil, I might know the location of the person you're looking for…"

"Yes...yes I do…"She lowered her head instinctively, clearly shaken by my fierce reaction. After confirming that I meant her no harm, she meekly continued: "I know the rough location of the slave pens…"

Her words were like a ray of light that brightened my downcast skies. In a moment of anxiety, I grabbed her shoulders and without giving it much thought, asked in forceful tone: "Bring me there, quick!"

My savior! Those two bald men mentioned that they broke her legs and hadn't fed her in a few days...who knows what condition she was in right now…

"But...but…" That sudden touch startled her once more but thankfully, she had already determined that I wasn't going to harm her. Suppressing the nervousness in her heart, she continued: "But I can't confirm her identity…"

And so, we left for the slave pens, my left hand dragging the unconscious body of the occultist while holding onto Shadowfang with my right. Along the way, his bloodied body painted a bloody trail…

There were a number of women locked up in this basement but there was only one who had their limbs broken….and that woman a complete stranger...she's not Nicole?!

After confirming multiple times that this crippled, dying and naked woman was the "owner" of Nicole's wallet, I truly wanted to thank the heavens...she's...she's safe.

This search for the wallet's owner had truly been a rollercoaster of a journey for me. Truth be told, I was a bit of a purist...I only read harem novels and not those tasteless smut novels...furthermore, it must be the kind of harem that accepted all virgin women.

The reason why I was still a virgin at 35 was because my first girlfriend wasn't a virgin...and also because we broke up...because I suspected that she wasn't a virgin…

The result was that, even if I had break my teeth and swallow this bit of indignation, I would endure that bit of taint. Even though this decision pained me greatly, it was worth it for Nicole. That's because my love for her was more than the love for myself, even though I still had that dream of starting a harem…

And then...I was given a serendipitous surprise. The dying girl in front of me wasn't Nicole at all; instead she was a thief that stole Nicole's wallet!

And so the pregnant girl took me on a tour through the slave pens, in the process saving over 20 other beautiful teenage girls, all of whom were between the age of 14 to 19. Some were locked up by themselves while others were locked up in groups of two or three. All of whom had one thing in common, which was their youthful and captivating beauty.

All of them had a common reaction to my identity as a devil; fear and apprehension. They probably thought I was going to eat their souls after gaining their trust…

Because Nicole was still nowhere in sight, I wasn't in the mood to explain myself either, at least until the pregnant girl brought me to an isolated room…

Using the key I looted off his unconscious body, the door opened with a click, unleashing in my opinion what had to be one of the foulest smells I had ever smelt since reincarnating, again. Considering I had spent time next to an actual mountain of corpses before, that was saying something indeed.

It was a stench that could only come from having locked a beast in a sealed room for a long time. The only person who found this more painful to bear was probably that crippled girl lying in the middle of the room naked. Judging by her pallid expression, that must've been the girl who the brothers crippled.

Throughout this entire process of saving the girls, my heart would pound furiously as I stood outside each of the rooms. It was as if I was standing on a precipice, all it took was a single push to send me over the edge. Was it Nicole behind the door? Or was it…

As the door swung ajar, what greeted me was a golden head of hair and a sudden change of perspective as I collapsed to the floor...that's right, my legs gave way at that instant...it wasn't Nicole...thank God….

"*Bark Bark Bark!*" My attention was immediately drawn away, past the naked girl that was chained spread eagled to the floor by four poles, and onto three large yellow dogs that reminded me of a chinese field dog.

Originally, these three potatoes were quietly gathered in a corner but upon noticing an intruder, me, enter, they immediately stood up and began barking.

"Dog…" Those brothers were talking about humiliating "Nicole" with dogs...madness, how could dogs and man...ah, exactly what am I picturing in my head!

"Die!" Even though she wasn't Nicole, I was raging just the same, these people were worse than beasts! It's one thing for them to do it themselves but they actually used these dogs to humiliate her. Even the 18th level of hell wasn't enough for men like them! With righteous fury burning within me, I dashed forward and with a swing of Shadowfang, punished those dogs.

With the dogs taken care of permanently, I finally turned to the poor girl lying in the middle of the room. She really wasn't Nicole huh...Nicole had a blazing head of red hair while hers was a radiant blond. Perhaps the recent events had gotten to her, but her hair seemed a little dull as if reflecting her current state.

The blond girl was secured tightly to each of the wooden poles with her back facing the air and arced in a way to expose her butt and private parts….which...had really been…

Judging from the strange angle of her limbs, they must've been thoroughly dislocated. Not only that, her body was covered in a gamut of burn marks, whip marks, bruises and even knife marks, criss crossing with each other to paint a gruesome picture on her body.

"..." She didn't reply me but neither was she dead either. Instead, she merely stared at me, her eyes completely devoid of life. Even in the face of an infamous devil, her expression didn't change a bit. From the looks of it, she had completely shut herself off from the world.

In the midst of my musings, the pregnant girl chimed in: "Master...she might not understand the language of the devils, perhaps you should let me translate instead."

It finally dawned on me that I had been using the devil's tongue up till now. Even when I was conversing with the pregnant girl, we communicated in the devil's tongue. Putting aside the question of why she even knew this language, now that I knew where the problem lied, it was a simple matter to fix it.

Changing to the tongue of the humans, I said: "It's alright, you should release her instead, I'm not even sure if her limbs can recover anymore."

"Mhm." I nodded while hurrying her along with a wave of my hands, not even taking the time to admire her stunned expression. I instructed the other slaves to help her rescue the crippled girl as well.

Having received my command, the slaves gingerly undid her bindings and found a relatively clean spot for her to sit. I even found a blanket to wrap her in, hiding her wound-ridden body; the last thing I wanted was to be constantly reminded of her pitiful state.

With that settled, I got one of the slave girls to fetch her some water which she halfheartedly drank. While she still had that lifeless look in her eyes, the fact that she drank the water meant that there was still hope.

According to their own words, the brothers had starved this girl for several days. Fearing the worst, I checked her body for any signs of bite marks. Given that the dogs were locked in with her as well, they might have gnawed on her flesh in a fit of frenzied hunger.

However, this theory was quickly debunked not only because there were no bite marks but also because I had discovered dog food nearby...was it to prevent them from biting her to death or…

The room wasn't a particularly large one, it was roughly 50 meters square in area but the majority of the space had been taken by a enormous collection of torture implements. There wasn't even a bed in the room. In order to accommodate her weakened state, I ended up holding my interrogation here.

The sudden impact on his head jolted the occultist back to consciousness. As he looked around with dazed eyes, his gaze fell upon the stumps where hands once were. It finally dawned on him that all that wasn't a dream but was instead reality!

"Don't...don't hit me...don't kill me…" Upon seeing the gathered slaves, he immediately realized how precarious his situation was. He struggled to climb to his feet but his desperate attempt was swiftly thwarted by a kick to his leg. Having lost his balance, he fell to the ground with a loud thud.

The gathered slaves stared at their former master with mixed feelings. Some were fearful while others were angry, either way, not a single one of them pitied his plight. After all, this beast was the entire reason why they were locked up. However, old habits die hard, even in his helpless state, the slaves didn't dare to take revenge on him.

"There's no one else here?" Having confirmed Nicole's safety, my mind was no longer stuck in an angry rut. Turning my gaze onto the slave who was the most mentally stable, in other words, the only one who wasn't that fearful of me, the pregnant girl, I said: "While that battle didn't end up destroying the basement, I'm sure it must've caused a significant ruckus. If there's anyone nearby, they might just come over to have a look."

"Don't worry Master, there's no other living person in the vicinity except for us." She replied, roughly guessing the concern behind my words.

"Young Master is an occultist after all, while they weren't as hated as the necromancers, being an occultist wasn't an honorable job either. This is why he built his villa in a remote area where no one would visit." She calmly explained.

"Oh." Having heard her explanation, my worries were put at ease. I grabbed a handful of the occultist's hair and violently smashed his head into the floor thrice, turning his face into a bloodied mess. However, he was still conscious.

I let out an exasperated sigh. I wanted to smash his head again but I was worried that I might end up killing him, so stayed my hand temporarily. Seeing my troubled expression, the pregnant girl graciously offered her assistance.

"Master, if you wish to render Young Master powerless, there's actually a simple way to do so. In order for mages to cast their spells, they need to chant. Sometimes, this required hand seals or magical arrays. Since you've chopped off his hands, all we have to do is take away his magical tools and seal his mouth and limbs."

"Hmm, let's go with your plan then." Who knew that this little girl was a talent as well. While her words weren't always on the mark, they were mostly logical and well thought out.

I loosened my grip on the occultist who by now had wet his pants from the repeated shocks. I nodded my head to show my accent, at the same time, I reminded her: "Make sure not to kill him." The last thing I wanted was to get summoned back to Hell due to an accident caused by an angry former slave.

With the matter of the black robed caster settled, my gaze subconsciously wandered back onto the blonde girl. Just by looking at those three dogs, I could roughly guess how much of an ordeal she had undergone. Even after being rescued, she didn't seem responsive at all, which was a problem...I still needed to ask her where she got that wallet from.

While I could understand her plight, I would shut myself off as well if I had to go through that torture, but her unresponsiveness had truly put me in a bind.

In the end, I decided to try my luck with a question: "If you answer my questions, I'll hand over that occultist to you. You can do with him as you wish."

"...I'll take your silence as consent." I pointed at the black robed mage bound by the remaining slaves and said in the sincerest tone I could muster. "Look, your enemy is right over there. The two bald men have already been killed by me so all that remains is for you to take revenge upon him. As long as you tell me where you got that wallet from, I'll hand him over to you."

"As long as you don't kill him, you're free to do as you please. Even if you wish to get a horse to f*ck his *ss, I'll support you. Just as long as you don't kill him. It would be a waste to kill him, after all you can't torture a dead person."

"..." Having listened to my persuasive words, her eyes began to glint with life once more as her placid face began to take on an angry expression.

"Sto...Stol...Stolen…" She struggled to spit out that word. Not speaking for so long made it difficult for her to speak right off the bat.

"Azure…" I had some vague recollection of such a city during my brief stint as a human. It was the city closest to Chaik Village that possesses a warrior academy.

"If it's Azure, I know how to get there. We'll have to pass through several cities on the way. Without a carriage, it will take us an entire month of walking to get there." She answered while simultaneously instructing the slave girls to look after the crippled girl.

"That's right, there's someone I have to find in Azure." If it's just finding someone, there shouldn't be a need for me to hide my motives. Besides expecting someone like me who couldn't tell north from south to navigate on his own...it would be a miracle if I even had the map turned the right way up.

"Locating a person might be slightly difficult…" the pregnant girl furrowed her brows as she pondered for a second. "May I know if this person has any special characteristics?"

"Characteristics huh." I thought about it for while: if that wallet was stolen in Azure, that means that she had traveled to Azure, as for the reason why...wasn't the academy that Sares studied in called Azure Warrior Academy?

No, no matter what the result is, I must verify it with my own two eyes. I finally found my way back to the Western Human Realm. No matter what the cost, I must find Nicole!

I decisively put a lid on any further discussion and said: "The only reason she might be in Azure is to study in Azure's warrior academy."

"If she's a student, that makes our search range significantly smaller but the academy has a pretty strict policy about visitors, usually strangers wouldn't be allowed in." The pregnant girl gave her analysis once more, showing off an intelligence which I would've never connected to the girl who just moments ago seemed to be on the verge of mental collapse.

"If Master is looking for a student in the warrior academy, it might be a little troublesome, we'll have to wait outside and pray we run into her…"

"What's with the sudden change in attitude? I remember you were deathly afraid of me when we first met." I had to admit this girl's adaptability sure was something…

"This is all to repay Master's benevolence. Besides in the short time we've known each other, Master doesn't seem to be as scary as the devils I've heard out." She gave a confident smile and said: "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Ancarin, an apprentice mage."

"...Mo Ke." For some reason, it felt as if the initiative had always been on Ancarin's side whenever I had a conversation with this pregnant girl.

"Master Mo Ke, if you wish to visit Azure, I suggest you refrain from traveling alone. After all, your identity is kind of…" Her friendly banter came to an abrupt halt at the mention of my identity as she paused for moment, seemingly deep in thought. "...sensitive."

"...I guess you're right, my appearance is kind of a dead giveaway." I said while staring at my red tinted hands. My appearance was that of a two-star head imp but instead of the usual burly physique of one, I had a leaner physique t hat had the elegant slenderness of a forest elf.

If it wasn't for my red skin and horn, I could have passed for a normal human, an unusually thin and bald human. However, it was exactly this 'if' that prevented me from hiding my devil identity!

Oh, right...my horn had just been sliced off, leaving a 3mm stump at where it stood. With a hood, I should be able to cover that up entirely.

"If you wear a hooded robe, your identity shouldn't be easily discernible, in fact it would almost make you seem like an elf. Of course, the skin is still a problem, so you'll have to wear a mask and probably gloves as well." She continued on with her teasing that sounded like a compliment but yet was strangely wounding as well.

She then blurted out a sentence that struck deeply into my wounds: " A beautiful devil like you shouldn't be that common in hell right?"

"Ah...you…" Her perky self immediately quietened down as her face turned a deathly shade of white, as if something had just scared the living daylights out of her. Whether it was her or the other slaves, all of them had the same terrified look as they screamed and huddled together.

Truth be told, over 20 beautiful teenage girls huddling together in terror was a pretty interesting sight as well, especially given their rather enticing outfits. A few of them even had holes in certain strategic positions.

The only person who wasn't terrified was the blonde girl laying on the floor. Was she really that brave or had she simply lost all interest in this broken jar known as her life? Either way, she had an uncaring look on her face.

"Hey, am I really that scary?" As I said this, I walked towards what looked like a mirror inlaid into the wall and gave myself a lookover. Come to think of it, this was the first time I've used a mirror ever since I've become a devil. What greeted me wasn't the usual ugly mug of a devil but was instead an enchanting albeit hairless face.

Even without the hair, I had nothing but praises for my peerless face...but why does it look so feminine...before this, I had always assumed I was a man through and through except...for the lack of a pee pee…

"You...won't do anything to us...will you…" The one who spoke up first was as expected, Ancarin. Noticing me stare at the mirror for a long time, she finally gathered up the courage to approach my back and question me, her perkiness and intelligence seemingly gone with the wind.

Even though she didn't mention it explicitly, I roughly knew what she meant by "do". I sighed and said in a helpless tone: "Is it a must that I do all that to you guys?"

"Then...you…" Having gotten the answer she wanted to hear, Ancarin was visibly more relaxed though she was still wary. Her eyes sneaked a glance at the sore spot beneath my waist before darting back up: "You're sure you won't do anything to us?"

"..." I wanted to pull the hair out of my head to express my frustration right now, but I didn't have any. Unfortunately, I still had to give them an explanation. After all, I couldn't exactly say "I have no pee pee so you have nothing to worry about."

I smiled bitterly and said: "If I wanted to do anything to you all, I would've done so already. Why would I wait until now? Besides, given your strength, I don't think any of you can resist me."

My words were abundantly clear: I am the strongest here so what I say, goes. Since I haven't harmed you yet, there's no reason for me to do so in the future either.

"..." So now it's my fault? Would you believe me if I told you so earlier? Don't tell me I have to carve "I'm good guy" on my head just to inform you!

"By the way, how's her injuries?" The sudden change in topic had thrown my thoughts severely off course. Having no recollection of what we were talking about, I pointed at the crippled girl and asked: "It's not convenient for me to check on her so who here has some medical background and can treat her?"

"I checked her just now, her limbs have been broken and dislocated. Judging from the swelling they're in bad shape right now. Those two recovery potions you looted off Young Master should help with that though." Ancarin replied with the slight aura of a learned person. She calmly retrieved the two test tubes full of red liquid and gave them a shake in front of me.

"If you'll allow it, I can use of these potions to treat her limbs. Given its efficacy, her bones might even be stronger than before."

That occultist was a veritable treasure trove of valuable loot. Not only did I manage to find over a hundred gold coins and ten test tubes of recovery potions, there were five more magical scrolls and the necklace he had used to create that barrier. All of these were high-grade enchanted gear that if sold, could easily fetch over ten gold coins with the most expensive being the necklace which could probably fetch over 10,000 gold coins.

"Let her use it." I answered without any hesitation. She had already suffered enough at such a tender age. For all we knew, her despondency might be in large part due to her crippled limbs.

Having received a definite affirmative, the blonde girl laid there as lifeless as ever but Ancarin on the other hand, was visibly more excited. Her eyes lit up as if she were the one who was getting treated instead. "Alright! I'll get her fixed up right away."

She roped in a few slaves to act as her assistants while she went about inspecting the blonde girl's injuries. Having finished her initial examination, she swiftly popped the bones back in place with a practiced deftness and proceeded to pour the red fluid onto the girl's injuries.

As the red fluid streamed onto the girl's skin, it was immediately absorbed into her blood vessels while Ancarin knelt by her side, securing her limbs to ensure that the bones were set right.

Roughly twenty minutes later, the treatment was over. Ancarin briefly instructed the other slave girls to look after the blonde girl before getting up and giving her sore back a good stretch. "It's finally over."

"Hey, I was a doctor before I became an apprentice mage…" As she said this, her cheerfulness suddenly disappeared, the pride from having just treated the girl vanishing without a trace.

Without paying my question any heed, she turned to the bound and gagged occultist, her eyes burning with hatred as she said: "It's all thanks to him!"

According to her, the majority of the teenage girls here had all been tricked into coming to this place. He would frequent the cities and villages nearby and scout out young and naive girls. Most of the time, his handsome face and seemingly endless wealth were enough to win over the girls.

Ancarin was born into a doctor's household and had been groomed since a young age. When she was 12, she became an exceptional apprentice doctor. Two years later, her talents allowed her to graduate from apprenticeship, becoming a full fledged doctor. It was at this moment that the black robed caster approached and told her that she had a gift for magic and that he was willing to teach her.

In this world, was there any kid that wasn't fascinated by magic and its grandeur? Putting that aside, the status that being a mage afforded was more than enough to drive a person crazy. Being a mage elevated one's status above the common masses and was a surefire way to nobility.

Ancarin was no exception to this rule either. What she really wanted to become was a mage respected by countless people and not some doctor.

(Author's Note: Medical treatments in the Western Human Realms consists of potions, healing magic and normal drugs. The red fluid belonged to the alchemical category of potions. Healing magic and potions were relatively rare in the Western Human Realms. The majority of the citizenry would instead rely on normal drugs to treat their illnesses.

As such, there were a lot of doctors in the Western Human Realms. These doctors were only there to treat the problems of the commoners. After all, the nobility didn't lack money and were thus able to afford the rarer and more expensive methods of potions and magic. They were, after all, faster than conventional medicine.)

According to the person himself, the occultist's name was Duran Kefka, the legitimate son of an elder in some random mage clan; apparently, he was sent out as part of his training. However, beneath this prestigious upbringing was a veritable devil, a devil that was even more of a devil than the devil himself.

His nature could only be described as sadistic with cunning coming in at a close second. He loved to force himself onto young girls; to him, he was a superior breed of human and ordinary people were nothing more than cattle.

After taking in Ancarin as his apprentice, he was, for a time, a conscientious teacher. However, there was a sinister motive behind his uncharacteristic behavior. He wanted to summon a permanent devil servant. In order to do so, he needed the strength to suppress such a servant. If he didn't have that, a sufficiently attractive sacrifice could also be used to lure the devil into a master-servant contract.

Naturally, devils weren't interested in gold coins and such. Instead, they were most interested in souls; which functioned as a currency of sorts. Gold coins were able to get you everything from clothes, food, houses, slaves and even power...it wasn't an exaggeration to say that gold was something you couldn't live without in human society. Souls were the equivalent of gold coins for devils, in fact, they were even more important.

Notably, souls were also a source of sustenance and evolution for devils. Mankind was definitely not able to feed on gold or use it to evolve, at least not directly. Devils on the other hand, could so so with souls.

While Duran had a massive source of souls nearby, the neighboring human city, he wasn't audacious enough to slaughter a hundred humans just for a summoning ritual. Such a conspicuous move could be easily traced by mages who specialized in soul magic. Therefore, he decided to substitute quantity for quality.

Then came the next question, how do you increase the quality of a soul? Increasing its inborn talent and power of course! And so, the occultist concocted a nefarious plan where he would groom a talented female into a mage and sacrifice her once she got stronger.

It was then that he stumbled upon the newly graduated doctor, Ancarin. He saw in her an astonishing level of talent, and an ambitious heart that wasn't satisfied with just being average. Ambitious people tended to be hardworking people. Take for example, Liu Bei from the Three Kingdoms era.

He dreamt of being an Emperor since young and worked towards it ever since. Despite his abysmal battle results, he persevered, never backing down from battles until finally he recruited the brilliant strategist, Zhuge Liang from which point his ambitions took off.

That is why what's scary isn't just ambition, but rather hardworking and ambitious people. Ancarin was just such a person, a girl who wanted to learn magic no matter what the price. Of course, this didn't include her chastity.

Initially, he didn't particularly feel any lust for her. After all, he had an entire basement full of beautiful slaves to choose from, a number of which had the talent for magic as well.

However, these girls didn't have the drive that Ancarin did. Compared to magical knowledge, they were more interested in the young, handsome and wealthy mage. Duran naturally didn't mind having a tumble with them but the problem was...there's no point if they didn't raise their power!

If their power didn't increase, their souls would remain at the same low quality. Low quality means no devil and no devil meant that all this was for naught.

Prior to Ancarin, Duran had taken in a number of talented apprentices as well. However, they didn't take too well to the tedium of daily meditation. Rather than the horrendously slow progression of mediation, buttering up Duran was clearly a quicker way to fulfill their dreams.

He didn't mind their attention initially, however as time passed, he grew frustrated with this arrangement. Why? Because he suddenly remembered the original reason why he brought in these girls to begin with…

Before he knew it, his plan to groom these constantly bickering, needy and envious girls into suitable sacrifices ended up turning into a harem.

Reflecting back on his mistakes, he immediately demoted these girls into slaves and began to search for new prey. It was in this circumstance that he came upon the exceptional Ancarin.

Why was she exceptional? Because unlike the other girls, she didn't waste time buttering him up but instead focused on her magical studies. Furthermore, her comprehension ability was high. In just under a year she managed to graduate from an acolyte to an apprentice mage.

(Apprentice mages were one-star mages. Most of the time, it took an acolyte one to two years to progress from zero-star into a one-star apprentice.)

During this entire year, Duran never once made a move on her as he didn't want to risk destroying such an exceptional sprout. Everyday, he would conscientiously teach her and stay by her side, rarely leaving the villa. Only when he truly couldn't take it did he visit the basement to relieve himself.

It all started with Ancarin asking for leave to visit her home. It had been an entire year since she came to his villa and she was getting homesick. Duran agreed to it readily as he knew that she would definitely come back to him. After all, this was the only place she could learn magic for free. After settling on a return time, Duran went on a trip as well.

A year of being cooped up in that villa had nearly driven him stir crazy. All his time had been spent on teaching Ancarin, leaving no time for him to hunt for fresh prey. Playing with those broken toys of his in the basement was no longer enough to satisfy him. Ancarin was an enchanting girl and had a chaste body, but now wasn't the time to touch her…

As for why he brought this girl back with him, it was because she once tried to steal something from him and had even tried to fight back when he caught her.

Even after he forced himself on the bandit girl she didn't submit to him, and instead resisted even more. His patience finally snapped and he decided to kidnap her back to his base. Along the way, he used every trick in the book on her, their tumbles lasting an entire day at times.

In actuality, this trip wasn't as fruitless as he had originally thought. Other than the bandit girl, he picked up a certain wallet as well, which to his surprise, held exactly what he wanted.

It was a strand of blue hair that held a trace of demonic energy on it. For someone who was in the midst of preparing to summon a devil, there could not be a more fortuitous find than obtaining a devil's medium.

Having been away for some time, Duran hadn't adjusted his mindset back to that of a conscientious mage teacher. After their usual magic lessons, he left in a hurry, eager to toy with the bandit girl once more. However, unlike the previous times, he didn't make sure to guard against Ancarin.

With a question still hanging over her head, she wanted to approach him for clarification, but upon noticing his unusual hurried behavior, she decided to follow him out of curiosity…

And thus everything was exposed. By the time she realized that her teacher was a deviant who enjoyed forcing himself onto women, it was too late for her.

Now that she knew about his true identity, there was no way he could let her leave. In that case, there was no point in maintaining this facade. He forced her into a relationship while dangling the carrot of magic lessons in front of her, while at the side, he began the preparations for the ritual.

The first summoning ended up in a complete failure; he could sense the hair forming a connection but the other party simply wasn't in the summoning zone, and his mana wasn't enough to forcefully tear through the dimensional barriers.

Therefore the first ritual failed, however he wasn't particularly upset about it either. Rather, this only intensified his interest in the hair's owner. To him, a devil that could leave a medium of itself in the human world couldn't be just any old devil.

A lot of devils would leave a summoning medium of theirs in different worlds in order to increase their chances of being summoned by a mage who specializes in summoning magic. If the target of the summoning was too strong or was already dead, there was a chance that his offspring would be summoned instead.

It was precisely this reason that led him to believe that this particular devil was special. Thus, he decided to put this aside for now and wait for a more opportune time. In the meantime, it was back to paradise once more now that the cat was out of the bag.

For Ancarin, it was the beginning of a never-ending abyss. On top of her forced meditations, she had to endure his constant abuse. In order to prevent her from retaliating, he made sure to only impart her the basics of meditation and accumulating mana without any spells to go along with it. His reasoning? One shouldn't get distracted while building their magical foundation…

Truth be told, this was a valid reason and was a common occurrence during the initial stages of learning magic. It was like those wuxia novels where the student would focus on his internal techniques first before learning any sword techniques.

In order to increase his chances of summoning his devil servant, Duran set up a magical array for reconnaissance purposes. The moment the devil in question entered a summoning zone, the array would give off a faint blue light. Thus, several months passed without any reaction from the array.

It was only after a month into Ancarin's pregnancy did the array suddenly react. After such a long wait, it was finally time for him to summon his devil servant.

His heart pounded with excitement as he made his way to the prepared ritual room. The preparation had already been made long beforehand, and all that remained was to bring Ancarin to the ritual room in the basement.

With the completion of the ritual what greeted him was a strange looking devil, which at a glance, looked like a lust demon yet didn't have the unique characteristics of one. Even though its face was that of a peerless beauty, as an occultist, he knew not to be fooled by a devil's appearance. Some devils were able to manipulate their appearances in order to beguile their targets.

After several months of training, Ancarin had become significantly more obedient. She had basically mastered all the positions and had even learnt to take on a more proactive role. Based on this alone, one could say that she had been stained with the sin of lust.

A mage's soul was completely different from an ordinary person's soul. With a one month old fetus in her, Ancarin's body essentially housed two souls within it, raising the quality of this sacrifice by another notch. Not only that, the fetus was born of Duran's seed as well. This act of sacrificing his own flesh and blood could be counted as the highest grade of sacrifice ever.

Thus, he had the utmost confidence in his choice of sacrifice. After all, which devil could resist the lure of not only a sacrifice of the highest grade, but also the chance of being able to stay in the Western Human Realms permanently…

He had this all planned out in his mind: the devil would readily accept his sacrifice and in a moment of bloodthirsty frenzy, consume her, piece by piece while she was still alive. After which, it would enjoy the rare delicacy of a dual soul body.

As the slave girls were still afraid of me, interacting with them was difficult to say the least. Therefore I had the only slave who wasn't afraid of me, Ancarin, accompany me to the basement to finish looting the corpses.

The first thing she did was search for the severed wrists of Duran. Her lips broke into a grin as she looted the magical rings previously worn by him. While these were only low-grade enchanted gear and wasn't much compared to the necklace she had looted, they were still a windfall for the apprentice mage.

As for why she was given these rings….it wasn't that I looked down on these magical aids, it also wasn't that I didn't need them. Instead…

Out of curiosity, I asked for the ring which Duran used to cast his fireballs. However, just as I did so, the Grimoire of the Dead began throwing a tantrum. For some unknown reason, it didn't want me to put on any other enchanted gear.

As I tried to put it on, the grimoire rammed itself into the ruby ring, sending it flying onto the floor several meters away with a resounding cling. Thankfully, the ring was sturdy enough to survive the fall, and was swiftly picked up by Ancarin.

"Alright alright, I won't wear it." Honestly, this wasn't the main goal of my trip downstairs. Instead, it was for the souls of those bald brothers. Both of them were three-star warriors and would definitely count as premium grade nourishment. However, their souls were nowhere to be found even after a thorough searching of the entire basement.

I was wondering why it started acting up even though it had been so docile up until now...so that's why...it was bored after its meal.

Whether it was the Blood Sea, the Land of the Dead or the Prison of the Dead, all of them were places without a day and night cycle. Mealtime and rest time were all I had to rely on to count the days.

But that wasn't a long term solution either, after all, I couldn't just count every nap as one day. You could say that my sense of time had been in disarray ever since I reincarnated. All I knew was that it had been a long time.

"Year 1283." She paused for second before she answered, clearly she didn't expect a devil to be interested in the calendar year. A moment later, she considerately added: "7th day of the 12th month." pan

(Author Note: For convenience sake, the calendar of the Western Human Realms is the same as on Earth. 365 days, 12 years, 4 seasons but no leap years.) [Or daylight savings if you're into all that mumbo jumbo.]

"Year 1283, 12th month, 7th day…" If my memory serves me right, the day I died protecting Yi Yi was 02/12/1282. So I've spent over a year as a reincarnated devil.

"What's the matter?" Having roughly determined that I was harmless, Ancarin became a lot more forthright in her speech, abandoning some of her previous formalness.

"It's nothing." There's no way I'm revealing the fact that I was reincarnated into a devil. It's not like anyone would believe me anyway, it was simply too absurd.

"Nothing, there's nothing left to be looted here; let's head up." I hurried her along. Having been denied my meal, my stomach was left wanting after that short excursion. "I wonder what your sisters have whipped up for us. I sure hope it's something delicious, I haven't had any proper food in over a year."

"I had it daily in the past, later on…" Forget it, now's not the time to be thinking about mountains of corpses and those devils, that would just spoil my appetite.

Returning back to the surface, we found that the dining hall mostly cleaned up by now. It was an enormous dining hall with an opulent chandelier hanging from above; as you would expect of a noble's villa.

On the walls were the typical oil paintings that no one understood; but pretended to. The majority of the room was occupied by a long dining table with silverware laid on top of it; with an equally expensive looking fur rug below the table. At the corner was an ominous looking lucky charm that was bounded up like a rice dumpling (hogtied).

Sprawled out across the table was a veritable feast of meats, vegetables and fruits, some of which I had never eaten or even smelt before.

I surveyed the room and did a quick headcount; all of the slaves were accounted for, including the blonde girl who still laid there on the floor. I thought some would try to escape while I was down there, but thinking back on it, staying was probably the better choice.

After all, I was their savior and a pretty amiable master. Without much other information on me and my methods, staying was a lot safer than running away.

The slaves stood by the wall, not a single one dared to sit before we came back. As I stepped into the room, their faces froze up. Having no prior interaction with me, they didn't know how to react and so they kept quiet.

"I'm not really particular about the rules so everyone please sit. While everyone is here eating, let's have a chat about our future plans." Having said that, I took the lead and sat down first; after which I gave the blonde girl laying on the ground another glance. Looks like she wasn't planning to fit in.

With no other option available, I turned to Ancarin and in a slightly helpless tone, said: "Help her up to the table so she can eat with everyone else."

"Understood, Master Mo Ke." She signaled for two slave girls to assist her in carrying the motionless girl to her chair. While she was adamant about pretending to be dead, she still sat down like a normal person.

Having gone through that potion treatment, her limbs were mostly healed up and even those criss crossing wounds were nowhere to be seen. Based on appearance alone, one would've never guessed that she had been through such a traumatic experience.

With the blonde girl seated, the rest of the slaves sat down as well with Ancarin as the lead. I have to say...could this table be any longer? With nearly thirty of us seated, there's still plenty of seats left.

The meals in the Western Human Realms were presented in an individual dining style with the dishes laid out on the table for you to take at your convenience...that is, if you were a peasant. Nobles naturally had someone to serve them the food.

As Ancarin sat beside me, she did her part as a butler would, even though she technically wasn't my servant. The food wasn't particularly exquisite, especially not for our setting, but after not eating human food for over a year, it was more than enough for me.

And yet, a certain blonde girl was still as adamant as ever about not fitting in. Even in the face of all these delicacies, the blonde girl remained as lifeless as ever without any signs of improvement. Does she even get hungry?

I signaled for Ancarin to feed the blonde girl. However, as she brought the steak up to her mouth, this woman actually refused to open her mouth.

So even feeding you isn't enough...was your mouth full of gold or something? Was that why you refused to open it? You won't speak nor eat so exactly what do you want to do?

Even though her stubbornness was causing us trouble, it wasn't her fault she ended up this way. As I thought of this, I glared at our bound lucky charm in the corner, wishing for nothing more than to skin him alive for his transgressions against this poor girl.

Even so, as long as you're alive, you shouldn't seek death. Going on a hunger strike simply isn't the answer. If you really don't want to live, why did you answer my question then? You didn't object to the potion treatment either.

I turned towards the gathered slaves and said: "I know that everyone still has their own reservations about me, but seeing as no one escaped when I went to the basement, means that everyone here has some sort of faith in me."

"Honestly speaking, I don't enjoy killing the innocent. Even as a devil, I don't take pleasure in the suffering of others. I have my principles. As long as no one provokes me, I won't attack either."

"Plus, as you all have heard, I plan on going to Azure to find a person, so no matter how you look at it, I won't recklessly cause trouble."

While killing everyone was the safest and most optimal choice, I couldn't do it. I wasn't such a villain after all. It was already saddening enough that so many beauties were captured by that deviant Duran. How could I push them down into hell once more…

The only option was to convince them with my words and actions. Besides, this method had an added benefit as well; they could serve as my cover while in the city.

The girls' reactions were mixed, some were visibly relieved, others were still conflicted, while the rest clearly didn't believe that I could be a good guy.

I bet if I was a handsome human or an elf they would've leapt into my arms and proposed by now...sigh, the reputation of a devil was so difficult to overcome. Even doing nothing was enough to arouse their suspicions.

"Sigh...after this meal, you are all free to leave. I won't stop you. All I ask is that you keep my identity a secret. All I want to do is find my...sister. She's a human that raised me since young. That's why I have no animosity towards humans, neither do I wish for them to become my enemy. I just want to see her again after being separated for so long...to see if she's still doing well."

After listening to my speech, the girls feel silent. One of them, the oldest among them, suddenly spoke up: "If what you say is true, I'll give you my word that I won't expose you, but will you really let us go?"

This green, long-haired girl was roughly 18 to 19 years old, and had a certain maturity in her voice. She was one of the girls who didn't believe in me, however, given that she just spoke, it meant that she had put aside some of her reservations.

"I just want to find her, that's all. Truth be told, I didn't expect to be summoned at all." I looked at her with the sincerest expression I could muster and said: "Whether you believe me or not, I'll release you all."

Being bitten by a snake once ended up with over 10 years of fearing ropes as a result. Being cheated and thus seeing everyone as a liar...while these were over-generalizing matters, they were to be expected. A person who had been traumatized wouldn't see thing the same way as a normal person would. The more serious cases would even involve delusions.

Duran could be said to be an extremely successful liar. Before his true identity was uncovered, no one would have ever suspect him of being so evil. If one cannot even trust a human, trusting a devil like me would probably be even harder…

Their suspicion was something that I could understand and unfortunately couldn't do a thing about. Thanks to that, the atmosphere at the table had gotten worse, forcing me to hasten the process of releasing them.

As they say, the rabbit doesn't feed on the grass near its nest. Duran was no exception either. He would never target those nearby his villa, but instead head to the further cities to kidnap girls. Out of the 20 odd girls, the closest city they came from was two cities away from us.

In order to dispel their distrust, concrete action was required. Right after dinner, Ancarin led the girls on a looting spree throughout the villa while I watched over Duran.

Surprisingly, she seemed to have a talent for being a bandit. In just under a day, the entire villa was scoured, its valuables looted and stacked in front of me. In total, over 10,000 gold coins were found. As for magical tools, they found 17 scrolls, nearly a hundred potions, 12 enchanted gears of which 3 were high-grade enchanted gears.

Half of the gold was given out to the girls as travel expenses and as compensation for their traumatic experience. After doing the math, each of them would get 300 gold coins.

Gold coins had a significant purchasing power within the Western Human Realms; as a comparison, one gold coin was worth 1,000 Chinese Yuan (150 USD, keep in mind the difference in living standards and costs). 300 gold coins was definitely a huge sum of money for these peasant girls, though it still wasn't enough to make up for what they had to go through.

However, at least with this sum of money, they'll be able to find a decent man who won't despise them. Of course, this does not rule out any further misfortunes.

(Author Note's: Gold coins have been set as the common currency within the Western Human Realms in order to avoid any unnecessary confusion. It can be taken that the three major empires have jointly issued this currency.)

The moment I handed them their gold and sent them on their way, I noticed a visible change in their attitudes. Some wore a look of disbelief while others broke down and weeped. Some cheered while some stood confused...either way, there was a whole gamut of emotions.

There was even a girl who rejected the money as she feared I would take her soul for doing so…this story seemed to have made its way around, even crossing the barriers between worlds...

Up until now, the situation with the blonde girl could be summarized as being horrendous. Throughout our meal, she hadn't moved a muscle. While she hadn't given up on life as yet, she neither ate, slept or moved, causing me a great deal of headache. Thankfully, Ancarin was a different story…

"Not anymore." Looking right into my eyes, she gave me a warm smile and said: "I'll never forget that in my darkest hour, it was a devil that actually saved me, while a human tried to kill me."

"..." Were you referring to the time when that ice spike almost killed me? If it hadn't been for the grimoire flying up to take the blow, I would've really died back then.

While her gratitude was heartwarming, it concerned me slightly. The last thing I wanted was for her to have an unrealistic image of devils, so I had no choice but to clear up this potential misconception: "Devils are evil, there's no doubt about that. You have not seen them before so you do not know. I'm just an exception."

"I understand, Master Mo Ke." She solemnly nodded her head, losing the playfulness she had before. "Other than you, I won't trust anyone else ever again."

As I sat on the dining chair, I rubbed my temples to ease the growing headache I was feeling. "I'm Mo Ke, may I know what's your name?" I turned and asked the blonde girl.

"Don't you wish to take revenge?" Just as I was about to give up, Ancarin's sudden interjection caught the attention of the blonde girl. The moment those words left her mouth, the girl who had been still these past few hours suddenly reacted. Her dead eyes suddenly held a violent murderous intent within them.

As a devil, I was particularly sensitive to these sorts of negative emotions; the kind where you wanted to take revenge but was unable to do so. I had experienced those exact emotions before.

Seeing that this train of conversation worked, I immediately picked it up: "ly, I had said that you can take your take revenge on him but if you don't take the initiative to do so, how will you ever get your revenge?"

"..." The blonde girl stayed silent for a moment. Just as I thought she was giving me the silent treatment once more, a dry, cold voice broke through her lips: "Regine"

I had to admit Duran was pretty precise about his targets. He made sure never to kidnap noble girls due to their powerful households. If he were to do so, he would run the risk of being exposed easily. Not only that, he might end up offending a foe he couldn't handle. Thus, he only targeted peasant girls who were as pretty as the noble ones.

(Author's Note: Fallen nobility who had their noble status revoked are banned from using their surname under the penalty of death for pretending to be a noble.)

In order to ensure that I didn't get sent back for no reason, I made sure to remind her not to kill Duran. Thrice! Regine's piercing cold gaze shifted from me onto Duran and lingered there. She begrudgingly nodded her head before standing up.

She staggered towards the unconscious Duran, her body swaying from left to right as it struggled under the effects of her malnourishment. The way she cocked her head as she made her way towards him with knife in hand, it almost reminded me of the Sab*r Alt*r from the manga...or maybe the nurse from Silent H*ll...either way it gave me, a devil, the chills just from watching her.

She viciously drove the fork right into his shoulder. While it didn't penetrate too far, it was enough to awaken the unconsciousness man. As for this potato's pain tolerance...I had some experience with it already...it was worse than a goblin's. As he screamed in pain, his pants had turned visibly moist from the fear.

Duran's daily routine of torturing the poor girl had led him to insult her instinctively, swiftly earning a stab to the back of his arms. He screamed in pain and began weeping for his mother and father, however this merely encourage the girl who derived pleasure from his suffering. With the knife in her left hand and the fork in her right, she stabbed them into both of arms.

Perhaps it was her malnourishment acting up once more but each stab was mostly a shallow one, breaking through the skin and flesh while not causing too much blood loss…

And so she continued stabbing him like she would a straw doll with needles. Roughly ten minutes later, his entire body was covered in blood. The urine in his pants had mixed with the metallic smell of blood to create a piercingly foul smell.

The waterworks had stopped by now but not because he no longer felt pain. Rather, it was because he realized that she stabbed him even harder whenever he did so.

As for Regine, she didn't look that well either. Due to their proximity, some of his blood had splattered onto her body. The right side of her face had been caked with a layer of dried blood.

I immediately reached out and stopped her, barely preventing her from gouging out his eyes. Seeing me stop her, she turned around and threw me a bone-chilling question: "You want to play as well?"

In order to prevent a repeat of that, I tried persuading her: "Look, if you kill him now, he would at most suffer for that short period of time. If you truly wish to get your revenge, you need to let him experience a pain that will make him beg for death."

"Beg for death...makes sense." She had a pretty voice now that I had a better chance to hear it, it's just that it was so bone-chillingly cold. "Ancarin, do you want to play as well?"

"...sure...sure…" She stammered, clearly shaken by her savage visage. The clever but slightly timid Ancarin immediately went and retrieved a test tube for her and in a soft voice, told her: "His wounds aren't deep so using a little is enough."

"Mhm." Regine was a bandit prior to her capture and possessed the strength of a two-star. She wanted to apply the medicine on him but yet was afraid that he would use this opportunity to escape. Thus, she used the table knife and severed his tendons, turning him into a cripple. With her grisly preparation done, she untied him and began applying the potion carefully

As for why she asked for the potion and applied it so thoughtfully, it wasn't that her conscience got the better of her, but was because she didn't want to waste the potion. She knew extremely well how expensive these were; every bit she used meant that there was less available for us to use.

However, she had gone slightly overboard with her games, causing him to lose too much blood. In order to prevent his accidental death, she decided to ask for a potion.

Having finished the treatment, she stood up and stared at the half-empty potion with a satisfied look and a nod: "Looks like I can kill him one more time."

Devils and other life forms who wished to cross into different worlds had a limited variety of methods available to them. Mostly, it boiled down to two methods. The first was being summoned. A notable point about being summoned was that the summoned life form would be returned to their original world should the summoner die.

The other method was to cross into the desired world via a dimensional gate. A dimensional gate was basically an upgraded version of a teleportation array. What a teleportation array did was to allow instantaneous movement between any point within a world while a dimensional gate allows movement between worlds.

Life forms who crossed through a dimensional gate would enter the world for real; which meant they were able to exist in that world permanently without a summoner. The downside was that in order for them to return to their original world, they would have to use a dimensional gate again…

Dimensional gates were a masterpiece of a bygone era. According to rumors, the materials required to create such an artifact were extremely expensive...as for why it was "according to rumors", that was because the blueprints and the materials had been lost in an ancient war. Of course, there was also the possibility that they were hidden away on purpose.

Dimensional gates were a must-have for any wannabe dimensional conqueror. With it, you not only gained the ability to tour the world at your whim, you also had the opportunity to conquer it! So take up your swords and axes, countless worlds await your mighty self, all you need to do is construct a dimensional gate!

(The author of said book was an accomplished magic researcher in the field of dimensional magic. He was an intelligent chap, but from time to time, he came down with a serious bout of chuunibyou.)

Having taken care of Duran, Regine finally realized that she was hungry. Her body swayed left and right as she made her way to her seat. With her hands to her knees and her back straightened, she stared at me with an uncaring pair of eyes and opened her mouth wide? And then, she did nothing else.

Are you telling me to feed you? Could you at least wipe the blood off your face before you try to act adorable? Besides, there's no way I'll see you as adorable after watching you "play" with Duran like that, no matter how much of a "cold loli" you are…

This stalemate continued for a moment before Ancarin started to notice something. She prodded me: "I think Regine wants you to feed her."

Physical contact right on our first meeting?! That's just improper, I just could not bring myself to do so. More importantly, she was just not my cup of tea. I prefered the warm, virtuous type like Nicole.

Regine's portion of the food was still left untouched on the table. Grabbing a clean set of utensils, I cut the steak with a practised ease and tried feeding it to her. To my surprise, she actually opened her mouth and unabashedly bit down on the meat without any sign of embarrassment.

I awkwardly fed while Regine robotically ate, soon the plate of food was picked clean and yet her mouth remained open as wide open as before, her hunger seemingly unsated.

I smiled bitterly as I handed over the plate to Ancarin. She nodded her head and said: "There should be some leftover ingredients in the kitchen, I'll prepare them right away."

"Mhm, I'll have to trouble you then." I politely thanked her. As her petite back disappeared from my sight, I turned to face Regine.

Due to my awkward feeding her shapely lips were covered in meat sauce, however she didn't seem to notice this as she sat there as quietly as ever. The more I looked at her, the more I felt sorry for her plight. Without giving it much thought, I instinctively put down the cutlery and reached out for a napkin.

Regine on the other hand, wasn't infected by this confusion plaguing me. Her clammy hands latched onto mine and before I even reacted to it, pulled it to her lips. With that done, her hands returned to their resting spot atop her knees as if nothing had happened.

Just as I went about done wiping her mouth, Ancarin came in with a plate of mouth watering food in hand. As she looked at me, she opened her petite little mouth in shock as if she had just witnessed something unthinkable. A few seconds later, she recovered from the surprise, however the look she gave me had something extra mixed within it.

Knowing that she was merely joking and that this wasn't a matter that was easily explained anyway, I couldn't be bothered doing so and blandly said: "You're thinking too much."

As the last morsel entered her mouth, Ancarin began cleaning up the table. With Regine fed, I had some spare time on hand and wanted to get some questioning in. However before I could do so, she got up and walked towards Duran with that half finished potion in hand…

As I returned from the study, I found Duran tied up in a bundle with his limbs dislocated and bent at odd angles similar to a contortionist...and stuffed inside a giant wooden bucket. His mouth had been sealed with a vent left open to prevent him from suffocating to death...

While it might sound complicated, essentially Duran was processed in a way so that he could be stuffed into a bucket. And so, all I saw was the strange sight of a human head sticking out of a wooden bucket…

Apparently she did know how important he was to me after all. In order to prevent him from dying accidentally, she put in extra effort into securing this piece of "luggage". After all, we were going on a long trip, therefore tying him up was best solution to avoid any unnecessary trouble. And thus, he was processed into the form I saw before me.

As I had only been summoned into this world, his death would cause a mountain of problems for me. Out of safety considerations, she cut off his tongue...the reasoning, to prevent him from making any weird noises or committing suicide, and also to prevent him casting magic…

Without minding the germs one bit, she speared the severed tongue with a fork and, under Duran's horrified gaze, stuck it back into his bloody mouth…

As for Ancarin, she went about packing our luggage without much incident. On a trip down to the basement, she managed to scrounge up a set of unused black robes with a hood attached that was large enough to cover most of my face. However, my crimson skin was still an issue.

With that in mind, she prepared an expressionless white mask and some bandages for my arms. As long as my devil's scent didn't leak out, there was no chance of me getting found out.

Thankfully, the horn on my head had been severed by the wind blades, otherwise I would have to do it myself. Hmm, wouldn't that be self-mutilation then…

Ancarin was similarly shocked by Regine's sudden outburst and immediately retreated a few steps, just in case her bloodlust got the better of her.

Sister, are you alright? You had your revenge already, it's time to let it go. However, I couldn't really blame her for being angry either, especially given what she suffered. Killing those horses were understandable and so I went over to Ancarin to console her while explaining Regine's actions.

As I said that, her dagger saw action once more as it penetrated the skull of another horse...now there were only two white horses left in the courtyard. These were probably used by him to roleplay as the typical "prince charming on a white horse".

With her grisly deed done, she slowly drew out her dagger and wiped it clean on a handkerchief, discarding it right after, all in one dashingly smooth movement. All we needed now was the creepy background music from a horror movie.

As she went about her work, I noticed an oddity in the whole situation. Normally, animals would react adversely to seeing their own kind being killed in front of them. However, instead of running away, these horses, merely stood there as their kin was killed, including the recently deceased one, not even moving an inch.

With two horses left, it was just enough to pull a carriage. As Duran's apprentice, Ancarin was familiar with the ins and outs of the villa and soon got the carriage ready.

Like his villa, it was an opulent carriage with a width of 3 meters. Its black exterior gave its opulence a slightly reserved quality that was probably another essential component of his roleplaying kit. Just by looking at the carriage, it wasn't hard for me to imagine him acting as a mature prince charming.

However, given its weight, whether or not the horses could even pull it was an issue. This question was quickly answered by Ancarin who pointed out that the carriage had an built-in magical array to reduce its weight by half.

It's wheels and axles had all been reinforced with arrays of their own to reduce wear and tear. This ensured that the carriage would last even when travelling under blistering speeds. As for the horses, they were all raised on special feed that made them not only stronger than normal horses but faster as well. In fact, their endurance and speed eclipsed even that of a warhorse.

As for the main body of the carriage, it had been reinforced to withstand the full might of a four-star mage...was this a carriage or the alternate universe's version of the president's limousine!!

The carriage came with two storage compartments, one large and one small. The large one stored Duran and his tub while the smaller one housed our travel necessities; food, clothes etc. As for us, Regine was in charge of driving while Ancarin and I sat in the passenger compartment.

As a qualified thief, she had to pick up a variety of skills along the way. In fact, thieves in the Western Human Realm could be said to be the representatives of multi-talented individuals. At least the famous ones were…

Unlike assassins, they didn't rely on killing for a living but instead robbed to earn money. Another point had to be made, the Thieves Guild and the Assassins Guild were two separate entities. While they weren't at odds with each other, their relationship wasn't that rosy either.

They were, in a sense, business rivals, since both occupations dealt in the procurement and sale of information. However, this wasn't their main business, so their relationship wasn't too tense despite their rivalry.

Thieves accepted missions from postings on the quest board within the Thieves Guild. These postings would contain a detailed introduction to the task in order to aid the thief in their thievery. During this process, the thief was allowed to harm a person but not kill them. This however, didn't mean they could cripple the person either; anyone who broke this rule would get censured by the guild.

This was an ironclad rule of the Thieves Guild, at least while they were on missions. Outside of missions, the guild didn't stop their members from acts of murder.

The Thieves Guild did not take part in the slave trade either, however this didn't extend to pets and other living creatures. As for the Assassins Guild, they would even murder the Emperor if you gave them enough money. Compared to the notorious Assassins guild, the Thieves Guild had a much better reputation, with quite a few Robin Hood-esque thieves coming out of it.

The above could be spoken as common knowledge within the realm. However, the forty year old me knew not to take such things at face value. Just because they had such rules, did not make the Thieves Guild the good guys either.

During our previous search of Duran's villa, Ancarin emptied the villa of any magic book she could find. While it wasn't some treasure trove of arcane knowledge, there were at least a hundred books found; with the biggest being as thick as a dictionary. Stacked together, they could probably form a wall, or at the very least fill up our carriage compartment. Thus, our carriage trip was to say the least, uncomfortably cramped.

"From now on, you are a mage who got disfigured from a failed experiment. Due to that failure, you gained a trauma about magical experiments and so decided to become a magister."

"Also, while I don't know why your grimoire is so interested in other grimoires, you should probably make sure it doesn't stand out so much…" s aid Ancarin in an awkward tone as she pointed at the Grimoire of the Dead who was busy flipping through the other grimoires in the carriage.

Naturally, I knew of this as well. While I wasn't guilty of anything, possessing such a strange object would make me a target just by association. If I was strong, possessing a divine weapon would lead to the fear and respect of the masses. However, I was merely a two-star potato, possessing such a treasure would just make me a juicy target.

Therefore, I decided to avoid using Shadowfang for now. The Grimoire of Dead would be kept within my robes most of time in order to prevent strangers from noticing its peculiarity.

Not wanting to hide inside my robes, the grimoire began struggling furiously. With a slightly impatient look on my face, I hugged it with both of my arms and threatened it in a low voice: "I already gave you those two horse souls so you better quiet down. Otherwise, I'll stop feeding you from now on."

As she looked at the comedic sight of me stuffing the grimoire into my robes, she chuckled and said: "My identity is that of your apprentice and assistant. Regine is your follower. Also, we should ensure that strangers do not see that thing we have in the back or else…"

"..." Ancarin nodded but immediately rejected it again with a shake of her head. "While there are a number of mages who perform experiments on humans, it is also a fact that most human countries ban human experiments. The reason being that such experiments usually deal with alchemy, healing magic and necromancy. All three of which cause the subject to turn into that…"

I'd probably be misunderstood as a necromancer won't I...then I would be chased by countless do-gooders under the banner of "ridding the world of an evil necromancer"...

Then the question remained, how would I explain Duran's existence should he be discovered, and in such a way that I would not receive a bounty on my head as a result?

It was a complicated question that Ancarin mulled over while eating. As for Regine, I had to feed her once more...and I botched it, staining her face with a patch of sauce…

As Ancarin looked at the now bearded Duran, she excitedly said: "I got it! We can change our faces so that if something were to happen, we can just revert back to our original faces later."

"Make-up huh, that could work." I had to admit that this idea, while it wasn't the best, was the simplest workable solution we had right now. But make-up huh...we needed tools and skills for that…

Having her suggestion shot down due to her lack of skill, she turned her hopes onto me, her eyes sparkling as she asked: "Do you know how to apply it?"

How could I have forgotten about our carriage driver! Other than her skill to be not at all adorable while acting adorable, she was a thief.

Come to think of it, if a thief were to get seen while committing burglary, won't their face be all over the wanted posters? With the ability to disguise themselves, things would be a lot easier.

I wouldn't be surprised if the more masterful thieves were able to disguise themselves as the target's family members and simply walk in and out from the front door. Once everything was completed, they could revert back to their original faces...was there anything more convenient than the make-up skill?

No longer would they need to climb over walls or windows, they would even have a scapegoat ready without any additional effort...just thinking about this gave me goosebumps.

According to Regine, we didn't need that many tools after all, and thankfully, all of them were already in our possession. ly, partly out of necessity and partly because the carriage was so large, I had instructed Ancarin to move anything remotely useful into the carriage, this coincidentally included some tools for make-up.

Due to my fiery complexion, make-up was naturally out of the question. All I had to do was wrap myself in clothing. If anything were to happen, I would have to find a way out on my own. If worse came to worse, I could just kill Duran, sending me to back to Hell without any fuss.

This whole discussion about disguises was more about the safety of Regine and Ancarin. Even now, I still wasn't sure why they chose to remain by my side and be my accomplices. The only reason I could think of was that they wanted to repay me for saving them. Seeing as they willingly put themselves in danger just to help me, thinking about their escape route was the only decent thing to do.

As I didn't need to undergo a round of make-up, I had spare time to visit Duran after feeding Regine. ly, I had considered killing this bast*rd, but now I was trying my best to keep him alive. In a sense, his horrifying state right now was a form of atonement for his sins.

For convenience' sake, Ancarin forced a sleeping potion down his throat. Given the right dosage, this medicine could knock a person out for an entire week. Not only that, it would even sustain him throughout that period and give him a pleasant sleeping appearance. It was in every way, a wonder drug for kidnapping. Seeing as one third of the potions we found in his villa were that type of potion, Duran had probably used those as well to kidnap girls.

Based on the amount we fed him, we wouldn't have to bother about him for an entire year. All that remained was to ensure no one else found him.

Even though he had undergone the cruelest of tortures, he was still alive. Normally, a cowardly fellow like him who feared pain should've died long ago, but seeing as he didn't, it meant that he still wanted to live.

While having his limbs and tongue severed might sound horrific, it actually wasn't that serious in the Western Human Realms. The medical standards in here were much better than that of Earth's. As long as your corpse was still there and your soul intact, a perfect revival was still a possibility. There's no better proof of this than me; after dying to a goblin's attack, I found myself alive and well in the Blood Sea…

Ancarin stood there by Regine's side, curiously staring at the expressionless girl while she worked on her craft. She placidly ground a bunch of leaves and roots into a paste and wrung the juice out of them, mixing them into what looked like foundation…

After 10 minutes of pounding and mixing, the final product was ready. It was an ordinary looking paste with a light pinkish hue to it that resembled a girl's complexion. As her back was facing me, I was unable to see the exact process as she slathered the paste onto Ancarin's face. In just a few minutes, her work was done.

With that completed, Ancarin turned around to face me...who the heck was this sickly looking person...if I hadn't seen her put on the make-up myself, I wouldn't have thought that this was Ancarin!

Ancarin took out a mirror from her pocket and admired her new appearance. It was still pretty except for her pale sickly complexion. It gave her the look of someone who was cooped up in a laboratory all day with a sickly constitution from her erratic mealtimes. Instead of making her uglier, her sickly complexion gave her a sort of vulnerability that made you cherish her more.

Reluctantly, she tore her eyes away from her reflection and slowly handed the mirror over to Regine after admiring herself for a noticeably long period. It was only then that Regine started on her own make-up, which to be fair, was to be expected; you couldn't put on make-up by yourself without a mirror after all.

After she applied a round of make-up, Regine had a more mature feel to her thanks to the knife scars she drew on her face. While they were faint, their proximity to her eyes made them especially conspicuous. Furthermore, they had a realness to them that made it seem like they truly belonged there on her face.

With her face disguised, she took out a bottle of eye drops and dripped it into her left eye. A second later, the black in her eyes began to shrink as if it was blind. With that, a perfectly beautiful girl was turned into a scarred one-eyed dragon...even the most astute of people wouldn’t be able to recognize her now…

Strangely, after all that, she decided to put on a silver mask that was similar to my own...I don’t even know what to say about you…

Without a word, she hopped onto the driver’s seat and waited patiently for us to enter the carriage. After confirming that we had settled down, she sent the horses galloping with a whip of the reins.

Shadowfang wasn’t the most conspicuous of Epic-grade gear, however its sharpness was without a doubt at the level of an epic gear. The four pieces of low-grade defensive gear it sliced through could attest to that fact. (Author’s Note: The chainmails and gauntlets worn by the two brothers)

This was exactly what I feared. Therefore, in order to prevent any chances of it being recognized as an epic gear, I rummaged through the loot found by Ancarin for a replacement weapon.

The dagger naturally went to the thief Regine, it had a weight reducing effect on her and boosted her speed. Not only did it boost her attributes, it also had a keen enchantment that boosted its own slicing power whenever one attacked, making it the perfect weapon for a thief or assassin.

The mage staff went to Ancarin, our resident mage (apprentice). It had a mana cost reduction effect, reduced the time it took to cast a spell and even had a magical barrier built into it.

That left the enchanted straight blade for me. It was an ornately decorated blade engraved with flaming red runes. Having never learnt to read runes, their meaning escaped me, but thankfully I had Ancarin here with me.

Her one year tutelage under Duran had not been in vain as she recognized the words in an instant. This blade had a fire enchantment on it which activated whenever the wielder channeled his mana (aura) into it. On top of that, a three-star fire spell was also engraved onto it.

This new blade was roughly similar to Shadowfang in appearance. However, where Shadowfang had a slight curve to its blade, this enchanted blade was complete straight. It’s blade was 130 cm long attached to a 33 cm (1 chi) long hilt which allowed it to be wielded in one hand or with two.

With that settled, I reached out for my new weapon. However, just as my hand came into contact with the blade, the previously silent grimoire stirred within my pocket; it probably wanted to be let out.

I hastily tossed the blade aside and took out the Grimoire of the Dead. With both my hands wrapped around it, I whispered to the grimoire, not caring if this arrogant little book could understand me or not:

“Stop throwing a fit over this, this is the Western Human Realms not the Prison of the Dead. If some human discovers my treasures or identity, they’ll chase me to the ends of the world for that. Don&rsq

While I wasn’t sure if it understood me, I knew for a fact that it had a will of its own. From the way it helped me block an attack multiple times or the way it helped me carry Shadowfang, I could tell that it had a consciousness. If only it wouldn’t steal my food so often…

With that bit of friendly persuasion, the grimoire finally quietened down and went to back to reading Duran’s books. Or should I say, flipping through the books which it did at breakneck speeds. I barely had the time to read through a paragraph before it would flip to the next page. Sometimes I wondered, was it really able to read these books or was it merely fooling around.

This staff had a bit of a story behind it. It not only belonged to Duran but was also his main weapon. During the day of the summoning, that trash was busy ‘having fun’ with Ancarin. As he was about to release his load, the reconnaissance array triggered, forcing him to end his fun prematurely. He immediately dispatched the brothers to the summoning room while he readied himself.

In the heat of the moment, he left his staff behind in the basement. As a three-star occultist, the most he could summon was a three-star devil. With the brothers protecting him, by most accounts he should’ve been able to handle anything that appeared, especially with all his scrolls and rings. Therefore he chose not to return for the staff. After all, with three of them, he should be safe right?

In the end, the staff was found by Ancarin and now belonged to her. While it was not much, it was at least some form of compensation for her.

While it couldn’t make up for the humiliation she had to endure, my stance was the same as always, as long as he was not dead, you could do as you please.

The enchanted straight blade and dagger were both bought from an auction house with each costing about 37,000 gold coins. According to Ancarin, this was slightly on the expensive side. Most high-grade enchanted gear would only cost 10,000-30,000 gold coins in a regular shop.

I secured the blade to my left so that I could draw it easily with my right. As for Shadowfang, it was secured to my back. The two blades combined were a drag to carry around but it wasn’t something I couldn’t get used to. Besides, it was a kind of training in of itself.

During the trip, we stuck to the side roads with less traffic in order to minimize any human contact. While it resulted in a lot of detours, it was a safer choice. Whenever we encountered strangers, we would say we were on a training journey and send them off. With it being a training journey and all, I’m sure they’ll understand our curtness.

Before returning to the Western Human Realms, I had dreamt day and night of this place. However, now that I’m actually here, I’m feeling slightly unsettled. That whole running away from home stunt was truly a thoughtless move on my part. Putting aside the other consequences for now, Nicole and Roscar...were probably desperately looking for me.

As an exceptional hunter with excellent tracking skills, Roscar should’ve been able to find my tracks. Unfortunately, I wasn’t alive long enough for him to find me...I wondered if he found my body in the end...would I see my own gravestone when I returned to Chaik Village?

Forget it, it had already been a year of waiting, a few more days wouldn’t hurt anyone. Safety was the most important thing right now.

With that, we continued taking the deserted roads on our trip to Azure. For the next three days, we did not encounter a single human. Instead, due to our proximity to the forest, we ended up getting waylaid by a pack of wolves.

That night, the three of us made camp in a clearing as usual. Due to the carriage being so cluttered, we had no choice but to pitch a tent outside. Having finished her meal first, Ancarin set about pitching the tents while Regine sat there with her mouth wide open, waiting for me to feed her as always.

Halfway through the feeding, the woods echoed with the howls of a wolf. As the thief of our party, she was the most vigilant of us all. With a kick of her feet, she rolled behind a giant rock for cover, her dagger already drawn as she landed.

Ancarin on the other hand didn’t fare that well. The howls startled her timid self, causing her to lose her sense of bearing as she abandoned her half pitched tent and scampered to my side. With her staff tightly clenched to her body, she looked at with me puppy dog eyes as her gaze begged for protection.

The least you could do was wait until the wolves show up before getting scared...don’t you have that high-grade staff and aren’t you a one-star mage yourself...show some backbone girl.

Compared to her, Regine was a lot calmer. As she crouched behind her rock, she kept perfectly still while suppressing her breathing as much as possible. Turning back to Ancarin…..she’s started hyperventilating, her perky breasts that had been fondled multiple times by Duran, rose and fell rapidly with each breath...at least I think he did that.

With every passing second, her breasts rose and fell faster as she clung even tighter to me while shivering uncontrollably. Did she have some sort of coping issue?

With no sign of her calming down anytime soon, I dragged her behind another rock where she could hide. In the gentlest voice I could muster, I tried to soothe her frayed nerves with the usual placating phrases.

Whether it was the words or perhaps my previous show of might that calmed her, I would never know. Either way, she seemed to have taken some solace in my comforting, her heart which had probably jumped out of her body by now, finally returned to its place.

Soon, the sight of over ten wolves crept out from the darkness of the dense foliage. They didn’t reveal themselves out in the open. Instead they hid in the shadows of the trees, their bloodthirsty eyes were the only indication that they were there.

From time to time, they would rear their lupine heads to check in on us, however, they mostly maintained their distance; probably out of fear of the campfire. While it was clear that they were apprehensive about approaching us, they weren’t willing to leave us alone either.

As time passed, their numbers grew to over 50 wolves. Even so, this stalemate continued until a few minutes later; the wolves finally made the first move. They began to disperse themselves, forming a ring around our campsite.

The wolves began to split up into groups of three, closing in on us in an orderly fashion as if they were a platoon of trained soldiers. Was it their numbers that gave them the courage to approach us in spite of the fire?

These wolves weren’t magical beasts and were mostly zero-stars. Six of them were noticeably stronger looking than the others; these were probably the head wolves which should at least be at the level of a one-star.

Initially, I didn’t want to fight them. After all, I had just gone through a year of non-stop fighting and wasn’t in a hurry to resume that lifestyle. Besides, who knew what other dangers lurked in the consuming darkness of the forest. The last thing I wanted was for the smell of blood to attract other predators to our campsite.

Thus, whether it was out of exhaustion or safety I wanted to avoid this battle, which was why I had intended to use that campfire to deter these wolves. However, who would’ve thought that these wolves would be so adamant about feasting on us.

After three days of learning on the road, Ancarin was no longer the defenseless slave girl I met in the basement. Thanks to her extraordinary ability to learn, she managed to pick up a fire spell, perfect for roasting these wolves.

Under my direction, she plucked up the courage to begin chanting. As the monotonous chant resounded in the silent night, her staff began to emit an incandescent glow. Three seconds later, with her hands clasped firmly around the pulsating staff, she directed it at an approaching wolf squad and fired off a mini-fireball, 10cm wide.

The globe of fire careened towards the wolves at the speed of a bullet, leaving a fiery trail in its wake as if it was a tracer round. However, just as it was about to impact, the wolf sidestepped it perfectly as if it had predicted her attack all along. The fireball exploded on the ground, harmlessly dissipating into the air without even singing a strand of fur on their backs.

Impossible...aren’t these wild wolves? How were they smart enough to dodge bullets? If they could do so, did that mean that police dogs are actually special forces in disguise?!

Putting aside the Canine Special Forces Brigade issue for now, they were in the end, just wolves, it's just that they were smarter than your average wolf.

Seeing her first fireball miss, Ancarin continued chanting a second, unfazed by her failure. Even so, the fireball's sudden appearance had the effect of scaring the wolves even if it missed, especially that wolf who almost got roasted. It immediately fled behind a nearby rock, its tail hiding just in time to avoid the second fireball.

Not one to take this failure lying down, she began chanting a third mini fireball. However, her mana had almost been expended by now and her spell was forcefully cancelled mid-chant. Thankfully, her mana pool was relatively small and the mini fireball was the lowest grade of spells. The backlash from the spell failure merely caused her chest to tighten slightly.

It's worth mentioning at this point not to underestimate these wolves. While their individual strength wasn't much, they were extremely coordinated and more than a match for anyone stronger than them thanks to their superior numbers. If I had to face these wolves alone, I might even suffer some losses.

By now, the wolf pack had noticed the lack of fireballs on the part of Ancarin and had begun to stir once more. Under the assumption that she was out of mana, the wolves left their hiding spots and started closing in on us, their aim, to cut off our escape routes.

It was at this moment that her lips cracked into a roguish grin. Her plan had worked! A clenched fist punched into the air, aimed directly at one of the wolves. Flames condensed around the ring in an instant, and shot off a fireball a split second later...that was the fire ring Duran had on!

The wolf barely had time to react to the sudden attack before scorching flames consumed it within a fiery explosion. Its fur instantly caught fire while the sheer impact of the explosion tore through the wolf's hide and flesh, killing it as it stood there…

Not bad...its destructiveness was passable for a fireball, the damage wasn't bad either. Basically a one-star warrior would get burned to death if he ate that head on. Against a life form that's weak against fire, it could probably cripple it.

Without waiting for the flames to die she punched out with her right fist which still clasped her staff firmly and fired an ice spike.

The translucent cone soared towards its target, covering the same distance in a fraction of the time it took for the fireball to do so. In the blink of an eye, the ice spike pierced through a wolf with energy to spare, landing a few meters away freezing the patch of earth around it.

It wasn't just me who was left speechless either, even Ancarin who had just popped the cork on a recovery potion was equally surprised.

In the past, I had pestered Roscar to bring me along on one of his hunting trips; during which w e encountered a wolf pack as well. Back then, those wolves were ruthless to say the least. Even in the face of the vastly superior Roscar, they didn't back down one bit and instead focused their attacks on me who was still a human kid back then.

Wolves hunted by first scouting out their prey, after which they would attack if and only if they were sure of their superiority in terms of numbers and strength.

And yet the wolf pack we encountered surprised me. They actually fled after merely losing two of their members. I still clearly remembered those wolves I met while hunting with Roscar. They fled after losing half of their numbers, only because they had determined there was nothing to be gained…..How should I say this, the wolves we met today are a bunch of wusses.

With the imminent threat gone, it was time to divvy up the loot. Due to the abundance of actual food in the Western Human Realms, I actually had the chance to eat proper food for once, thus I didn't need to feed on souls.

The two wolf souls were handed over to the grimoire, who by now was hopping around in my pocket. Having gotten what it wanted, the book quietened down as expected.

"I know." I nodded in assent without elaborating, their behavior was strange, but I couldn't say how or why. After all, their reaction was normal by any definition of the word. With the roles of hunter and prey switched, it would be stranger if they chose to stay after discovering we were stronger than them.

I hadn't encountered any wolves on Earth before but if the other animals in this world were anything to go by, these wolves should be a lot smarter than their Earthborn counterparts. That's why I could sort of accept the fact that they retreated so decisively…

"It's time to leave, the scent of blood is starting spread out, it might attract other beasts to our location. Besides, their retreat still seems a little fishy to me, continuing to stay here is too risky."

The wilderness was a totally different beast in the night compared to the day, who knows what might show up after being attracted by the smell of burnt wolf meat and blood. Plus, there was no guarantee that those wolves won't just circle back and ambush us, which made staying here an even worse idea.

Today was a particularly hectic day, by the time we set up camp it was already dark outside. Thanks to that, the tents hadn't been fully pitched during the wolf attack, which ironically saved us a lot of effort since we decided to abandon this site.

It didn't take long for Ancarin to pack up the tents; after which we rode off in a hurry. Roughly two hours later, we came upon a hamlet by accident.

The entire hamlet only had about fifty or so households within it, bringing the entire population to slightly over a hundred people. As our carriage ground to a halt at the entrance of the hamlet, the men began streaming out of their homes to investigate while the women and children peeked out from their windows.

While Regine and I had strange outfits on, Ancarin wore the telltale garb of a mage and even had a staff in her hand to sell that image. Our horses were barely fatigued even after pulling the excessively opulent and heavy looking carriage behind us. All these signs made it abundantly clear to the villagers that we weren't ordinary folk.

As they watched us from a distance, some of the villagers wore a look of worry on their faces. The Western Human Realms was after all, not a very safe society. There were bandits who threatened villages, the lord's henchmen dressed as bandits who threatened villages and then there were just the plain old lord's henchmen who...threatened villages, not to mention the usual evil mages.

Regarding these evil mages, there was really nothing much to explain. They were people who as the name suggested did evil acts like razing, kidnapping, raping, murder etc, kind of like Duran...Strictly speaking however, Duran was nothing but a small fry compared to the established evil mages. He didn't even have the qualifications to lick their boots.

As the brains of our group, Ancarin quickly noticed the strange looks the villagers were giving, some even had pitchforks ready in hand. Seeing more and more people begin to gather, the beautiful apprentice flashed a sincere and radiant smile, charming some of the teenagers present.

Noticing the drop in hostility, she began to explain our intentions in a soft soothing voice: "Be at ease everyone, we aren't bandits or bad people. We're just ordinary mages on a trip, as we were in a hurry, we ended up in your village at an inopportune time. We won't interfere with your lives in anyway, we just need to make camp for the night and we'll be gone by morning."

With that, the villagers lowered their weapons, and some returned to their homes. Seems like they believed her words. Were they just that trusting or was it simply because she was beautiful? To the point where they actually forgot about the not so normal looking pair of masked and robed characters standing by her side.

At least, they weren't bold enough to invite us into their homes, so they still had some sense of vigilance which was fine with me. I didn't intend to involve these ordinary folk in my business after all.

As we began to set up camp at an empty plot of land next to the hamlet, the majority the villagers dispersed back to the homes; satisfied that we meant them no harm. Only a small portion remained led by a buff grandpa of sixty to seventy years old.

The buff grandpa wore a white short sleeved villager's frock that looked like it had been washed countless times. Beneath his loose garments was a relatively shredded body that while burly, wasn't fat. Unlike a typical person of his age he didn't require a walking stick to support himself, and he seemed to walk even faster than the youngsters behind him. Even though, he had a full head of white hair, his disposition was not diminished by it.

"It's an honor for our tiny hamlet to welcome Your Excellencies, this old one is Dylan, the chief of this hamlet." He greeted us with a smile after which he stated his true purpose for approaching us: " May I know if sirs have encountered anything unexpected on the way here?"

"Unexpected?" Knowing that I didn't wish to expose myself and that Regine wasn't that good at talking either, Ancarin took the lead in this conversation. She pondered for a moment before smiling at the village chief.

"We originally made camp in the wilderness but we encountered a wolf pack. Even though we managed to chase them off, we decided to continue travelling through the night, just to be safe."

"Wolf pack…" His face blanched as those two words left her mouth. At his side, the other villagers seemed equally alarmed as they began whispering to each other in hushed tones.

"What's the matter?" Even under the dim illumination of the torches, his sudden change was not missed by Ancarin who immediately sensed that something was wrong.

According to him, those wolves belonged to the local bandit troupe known as the Wolf's Fang Bandits. Their leader had the ability to train wolves which he used to turn the wolves into scouts and hunters.

Normally, these wolves would be out searching for prey. Should they encounter a small merchant convoy, they would kill the merchants and guard the loot while one of them reported back to the leader. If it was a larger merchant convoy, they would stalk the convoy while one of them sent word to the leader; after which the bandit troupe would sortie to rob the convoy.

Even though this was a remote village, it wasn't strange for merchants to come here. Being in the mountains, this village mostly relied on hunting to sustain themselves. Whenever there were extra pelts, they would store them up to sell to the people living in the city.

However, the road here wasn't easy and so a bunch of entrepreneurial merchants realized they could capitalize on this to make a profit. They would take make the arduous trip here to purchase the furs at a lower price for resale. And wherever there were merchants, their nemesis, the bandits, wouldn't be far off.

The Wolfsfang Leader wasn't an idiot either; he knew not to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. Most of the time, the bandits wouldn't raid the village which formed the basis for their wealth. After all, if you killed everyone, there would be no more merchants to raid. Plus, killing this many people might just attract the attention of the army. Given all these negatives, it made no sense for him to raid the village.

The bandit leader knew that the key to their survival was patience; other than the usual displays of dominance, the bandits would rarely approach the hamlet. Of course, there was still a need for the bandits to prove their dominance from time to time.

Robbing some supplies, kidnapping some beautiful girls and heckling were all part of the course. Not only did these acts maintain their control over the village, it was fun too.

Yet, in the midst of that explanation, we obtained a certain piece of information from the village chief: we had been followed by the wolf pack...

Speaking of following and chasing someone, wouldn't Regine know the most about such matters, being a thief and all? I immediately turned towards the blonde girl and gave her an inquiring look.

She turned towards me with a knowing look in her eyes and shook her head. However, two seconds later, she nodded instead and threw me a confused look. So are we being followed or not? Work me with here…

In the midst of my bewilderment, Ancarin stepped forward to clear up the miscommunication: "The wolves possess a keen sense of smell so they don't need to physically follow us. Just by following our scent, they are able to track us down."

Ah. Now that she mentioned it, that made perfect sense…damn it, does this mean we have to rush through the night? A fight was unavoidable if we waited for those bandits to arrive.

Seeing the worried looks we gave each other, the village chief immediately guessed our intention to leave and anxiously interrupted us: "If you leave now, our village will be...those bandits aren't the sort we can reason with. You might be able to evade their pursuit if you leave now, but once they discover that you're no longer in the village...our village will…*sob sob*..."

As the old man rambled on, his words became garbled as he began sobbing in front of us. Some of the villagers who had gotten wind of the impending danger from the village chief's impassioned pleas, stepped forth to comfort the chief while the others pleaded with us to find another solution.

The so-called solution they wanted was probably to have us wait like sitting ducks in the village...but then, this whole mess was caused by us in the first place...expecting these innocent villagers to bear the blame for us wasn't right.

While the chief's wailing wasn't particularly loud, it was the dead of night after all; even a pin dropping would sound loud let alone the chief's grief-stricken sobbing. Soon, the villagers who had previously gone back to their homes came out once more, attracted by the chief's wailing; which must've sounded terrifying the in dead of night.

As the gathered villagers whispered amongst themselves, word began to spread that our sudden arrival had brought danger along with it. The informed villagers turned to stare at us one by one with mixed emotions on their faces.

Naturally, the villagers didn't dare to openly offend us. Thanks to our showy appearance and carriage, they had assumed that we had a powerful background. However, this didn't stop them from worrying or throwing us a silent but pleading look. They desperately wanted to ask but kept silent out of fear of getting rejected.

"What should we do?" asked the soft-hearted Ancarin as she looked at the worried villagers. While it was technically a question, I could tell just by looking at her eyes that she wanted to help them.

Having made my decision, I let out a slight cough to attract their attention. As their eyes swivelled towards me simultaneously, I took a deep breath and said:

"I know that our appearance has b rought trouble to this hamlet, however this wasn't our intention. Since this matter was caused by us, we'll be the one to end it as well, you have my solemn word on this."

"To make up for our mistake we'll stay here until the bandits arrive, and until this problem has been solved, we won't leave. Please be at ease everyone, this is solely a matter between us and the bandits so we'll be the one to end it. You won't get dragged into this matter."

With my clear assurances, the villagers were visibly relieved. At the side, the village chief busied himself with persuading them as well. Despite his embarrassing display just now, this old man still had some say in the village as he was able to send the villagers off to their homes with just a few words.

As they left, I caught snippets of their conversations about how this excellency had a wonderful voice or how they wanted to see what was underneath the mask...etc. In the end, only the old village chief stayed behind.

"It's nothing, we caused this problem to begin with." I replied tersely, not wanting to continue this topic. "We'll spend the night here, if you notice the bandits, you may contact us then."

Hearing my name, he let forth a deluge of praises till his face reddened from the exertion. " So it's Lady Mo Ke, your voice is truly exquisite, I'm sure that underneath that silver mask is an equally exquisite face…"

Due to my mask, the chief was unable to see my darkened expression and continued on, not sensing the awkward mood. "From the moment I first saw you, I had a hunch: underneath that silvery mask must've been a goddess made flesh. If not, why else would your voice be so alluring…"

"Hahahaha…" Ancarin burst out laughing at the spectacle but immediately cupped her mouth after a furious glare from me, her eyes averting their gaze from mine as if they were saying "it wasn't me".

Regine on the other hand had a more muted reaction, not that I could it see thanks to her mask...but then I doubt this stone-faced girl would've shown any expression even without it.

Having dug his own grave with his bootlicking, the old man awkwardly switched topics, asking if we wished to stay at his home for the night. However, we politely declined his offer after which he left with a dry laugh.

His offer was an attractive one but our carriage still had that ticking time bomb, Duran, inside it. The last thing I wanted was for his existence to be exposed while we weren't by the carriage's side.

As the Grimoire of the Dead didn't require sleep or it could just be that I didn't know when it did, night duty was usually done by it. If there was any suspicious movement, it would wake me up with a forceful love tap to the face. However, tonight was a different story, with the threat of the bandit troupe looming over the village, I decided not to take any chances and so night duty was taken over by the three of us living beings.

Watch duty rotation started with Ancarin followed by me and finally Regine. I wasn't particularly worried that they would not show up, after all the impression that wolf pack gave me was that they had undergone strict training. Not only did they know how to dodge magical attacks, they even knew when to retreat.

Even if these wolves were merely scouts, all they had to do was report to their master about our expensive looking carriage and that would send those scoundrels scurrying to raid us. Although...how did a bunch of wolves communicate their thoughts? Don't tell me they spoke.

At roughly six in the morning, I was awoken by a commotion at the village entrance. Just as I started putting on my robes, Regine crawled into my tent.

I stared blankly at her with a pair of eyes that were still glazed over from sleeping. A moment later, I finally remembered what our situation was and asked: "The Wolf's Fang are here?"

I briskly threw on my robes, put on my mask, shoved the grimoire into my robe's pocket and walked out with Shadowfang on my back and the straight blade in hand.

While she was still slightly groggy, my reminder had mostly woken her up. She dressed with the same haste and walked up to me with her magical staff in hand. With her necklace and rings worn on her self at all times and her tools stored within her robes, her preparations were completed significantly quicker than my own, that is, if you didn't count the time she took to put on her makeup.

By the time we reached the village entrance, it was already surrounded by people on both sides. On the side of the village was ten villagers dressed in a hunter's garb with a simple bow and spear in hand. At their feet was a pile of dead game; boars, hares, chicken, deer etc. From the looks of it, they had just gotten back from hunting when they bumped into the bandits tracking us.

Behind them, the rest of the village hunters could be seen dashing in to reinforce them. The hunters must've thought that these bandits were here to raid the village.

Facing off against them were a hundred odd bandits accompanied by ten plus wolves growling menacingly at the side. The bandits stood there with their weapons brandished and ready to strike, clearly confident in their number superiority. Leading them was a 25 year old dressed in the typical small fry bandit getup as he heckled the villagers.

"Last night, we, the Wolf's Fang Bandits, lost a pair of trained wolves. We know that the culprits are hiding within the village so if you know what's good for you, hand over them over and fork out 500 gold coins as compensation. If you don't, we'll just to take it by force!"

Well...isn't this a confident potato...but he seemed to be biting off more than he could chew. Putting aside the part about the culprits, what's this I hear about 500 gold coins? That's right, GOLD not silver coins! That's the Earth equivalent of 500,000 yuan (75,000+ usd). That's more than enough to buy a 200 meter square house in China!

"I don't know any such culprits but this whole issue of two dead wolves...that's just an excuse isn't it?" said one of the hunters. The one who spoke was a burly man roughly thirty years of age and clad in a set of leather armor. He pointed his bow at the small fry and said: "Plus, even if what you said was true, there's no way those two wolves were worth 500 gold coins."

The smallfry stepped back in fear as he saw who it was that spoke. However, he immediately stepped forth once more having remembered who it was that was backing him and said in a tone harsher than before.

"I was wondering who this arrogant prick was, so it's you George. How's your bones faring after being broken by one of our heads? These wolf killers I speak of truly exist and I know they're in your village so shove off. If you anger our chief, your beautiful wife is in for a world of pain."

"Before that, I'll twist off your head." George growled, not intending to back off one bit. Yet as he said that, his eyes flickered. It wasn't that he was cowardly but rather he was afraid of implicating his wife.

The smallfry balked at his rebuttal and immediately shifted the topic back to the culprits, not at all willing to spend anymore time on the man.

"Dawson promised us that as long as we paid our tribute on time, we would not get raided. Are you trying to renege on the agreement?"

"This time's different. The boss's wolves were killed by someone, and we need to find that person," countered the smallfry in an angry tone. In the face of George's uncooperative attitude, the smallfry became increasingly agitated as he shouted: "At this rate, anyone who has offended the Wolf's Fang will be able to take sanctuary within your village! Do you take us for fools? HUH?!"

"I know that Dawson's formidable and neither do I object to you guys searching for the killers but I won't allow you to enter the village." George shook his head and replied in an even tone, choosing a more reconciliatory stance in the face of the smallfry's bullying tactics.

And yet, the smallfry ignored his goodwill and continued with his aggressive tone: "So you're set on defying us to the end huh?!"

"If the people you're looking for are really in the village, I'll find them for you, but I won't allow you to step into the village."

George flatly rejected him once more, adamantly refusing to allow the bandits passage no matter how much he threatened them. Truth be told, George's stubbornness was only natural. After all, they were dealing with bandits here. The village hadn't missed a tribute payment to date so there should be no reason for these bandits to trouble the villagers. Yet, wasn't it because they had no principles to speak of the reason they were known as bandits?

It would be ok if they kept their hands to themselves after entering...but what if...they took a liking to someone's property or perhaps some unfortunate girl? What were they to do then? Endure it?

With the conversation going nowhere despite his best efforts, the smallfry finally had enough. Rather than bear the humiliation of his failure, he decided to double down and put the final nail in the village's coffin.

"In the end, you just want to shelter those criminals, don't you? From the way I see it, those criminals might even be the villagers themselves!"

"I said so already, I just came back from a hunting trip so I don't know anything about some wolf killers or whatnot. If the culprits are truly in our village, I'll ask them to leave but there's no way I'm letting you all into the village!"

"George," he said as he peered at the burly man. "I see you as a man worthy of respect, more than anything, I know of your forthright character. If you say you don't know, then it must really be so."

"Yet we aren't lying about our wolves being killed either. Not only that, the wolves who were present then told us that the culprits had visited your village. I understand that you just got back and naturally don't know of this matter. In that case, you should ask the villagers right now. The last thing we want is to destroy our current relationship."

"Shut up," snapped the crew cut sporting, muscular man known as the Third Chief, silencing the smallfry who was unwilling to cease his taunting. Knowing not to push his luck, the smallfry astutely stood aside. Clearly, this man who held a grudge against George didn't have much influence within the troupe.

With that, a temporary agreement had been reached between the two parties. During this time he took the opportunity to question one of the young hunters who had just rushed to the scene.

"We did have three visitors last night, they were attended to by the village chief." His long, blue hair bobbed up and down as he gave the older hunter an affirmative nod after which he began explaining the situation to him.

"They're wandering mages who weren't aware of the Wolf's Fang and their wolves. The wolves had surrounded them, so they had no choice but to kill them in self-defense. When the village chief mentioned that the bandits would come and seek revenge, the three of them promised to stay behind and take responsibility for this."

"Hmph…" George glared furiously at the smallfry, to be exact, his dissatisfaction which had reached its limits by now, was directed at the troupe as a whole.

Not counting their other deeds, the act of waylaying travellers alone had caused the village significant hardships. With the roads becoming this treacherous, smaller merchants wouldn't dare make a trip to the village while larger merchant convoys wouldn't even bother with the miniscule revenue…

With nowhere else to turn to, the hamlet had no choice but to offload their goods at a pittance...perhaps, calling it a tribute would be more accurate.

Now, these shameless curs had the gall to ask for compensation from them, despite their wolves being the ones who attacked first; getting themselves killed in the process. How shameless could these lowlifes get!

With me in the lead, Ancarin and Regine stuck closely to my back as we weaved through the hunters and came face to face with the bandits. As we got closer, the wolves became increasingly agitated, growling louder with each step we took while giving us a bloodthirsty stare that spoke volumes about their desire to rip us apart.

Judging by the wolves' reaction, it was clear to everyone who the culprits were, us. The Third Chief casually glanced at our group before saying blandly, without making a move: "Looks like the perpetrators are here."

"So you're the ones who killed our wolves." Seeing that his chief was silent, the smallfry stepped up in his place to question us. However, did this potato not see the staff in her hands or did he think that the 100 odd bandits and 14 wolves behind him made him invincible? Either way, his arrogance didn't decrease at all as he said: "Hand over your valuables, cut off one of your arms and we'll consider this matter settled."

Only now did the smallfry get a good look at Ancarin. His eyes widened as he noticed her beauty. At the same time, his mouth began salivating without his knowledge; it was an embarrassing display but his comrades behind weren't much better either.

"Don't worry little beauty, you don't have to cut off your arm, all you have to do is follow us back to our mountain hideout for some fun. We'll be sure to raise you right and proper there."

Their words became progressively more crass as their lust got the better of them, some even sticking their hands into their pants...oh god, my eyes!

"Bast*rds! A bunch of uncivilized bast*rds!" The Third Chief yelled at his misbehaving subordinates, his booming voice stunned the men for a good few seconds.

*slap slap* However, he didn't just stop there, with a swing of his arms, he slapped the two idiots who were cleaning their rifles in public. Just as his subordinates started wondering what was up with their chief, the burly man turned to Ancarin and flashed her a smile that made his face look like a puckered up butthole.

"Don't be scared, Little Lady. Uncle has taught these hooligans a lesson, they won't bully you anymore. Isn't he really kind? By the way, didn't you kill a couple of wolves raised by Uncle's family yesterday? Don't you know how hard it was for Uncle to raise them? How are you going to repay Uncle?"

"It was them who tried to bite me first...I was scared so I defended myself…" Ancarin immediately picked up on his intentions and in the blink of an eye, turned into a naive loli. In the cutest voice she could muster, she asked the bandit chief: "I didn't mean it...will you forgive little old me? Pretty please?"

Even without the makeup on her face, Ancarin was a beautiful girl. But with that makeup giving her a sickly countenance, it made her beauty stand out even more. Just looking at her pale face made one wish to protect and treasure her. With her looks working in her favor, even her contrived acting managed to pass off as being real.

His face lit up at her coy expression, his mind already imagining how exciting it would be to deflower this beautiful little virgin…

Sorry to break it to you buddy, but while she's young, she's definitely a veteran of the bed considering what she went through with Duran...besides she's pregnant, it's just that the pregnancy is only a month old so you don't notice it.

The burly chief slowly closed in on her with his hands opened up like a pair of chicken claws; his lust clearly written all over his reddened face. All he wanted to do now was to grab her by the waist this very instant and carry her off to the hideout.

"You...who're you?" His eyebrows jumped as he laid eyes on my expressionless mask. However, for a man with good mental fortitude like the Third Chief's, such a fright was easily recovered from; of course, it could just be that idiots have more fun.

The Third Chief puffed up his chest and threw me a look filled with disdain as if I was not worthy of his time "Shoo, don't you know that your mask is hideous?"

"Let's have a discussion about the problem at hand instead." Ignoring that, I steered the conversation back to the wolves with the intention of buying him off with money. Given their numbers and the hamlet's situation, a direct confrontation wouldn't benefit our side at all.

"You…" His eyes narrowed, staring intently at my mask as if he intended to see through it. Behind him, the bandits were just as unabashed while staring at my mask as he was, with some even salivating.

As those words left his mouth, he reached out for my mask and tried to peel it off. Thankfully, my lithe body allowed me to dodge to the side in the nick of time.

"Watch your hands." I snapped, disgust rife within my voice. His lasciviousness behavior disgusted me, yet I couldn't just walk away from him as that would spell certain doom for Plateau Village. I swallowed my anger and disgust, forcing myself to maintain an even tone as I brought the conversation back to the matter of the wolves once more: "What will it take for you to leave this village alone?"

"I have money...what I want is to see your face!" He declared grandiosely, his lip stretched into a lustful grin and his eyes narrowed to a pair of crescent moons.

"Just listening to your silky voice is enough for me to know that you're a real femme fatale. How about it? If you take off your mask and let Uncle have a look. If you're pretty enough, Uncle might just forget that this whole incident had ever happened. Isn't Uncle so dependable?"

Even though my anger was about to boil over, even though I wanted to rip him a new one, I couldn't. For Nicole, for the hamlet, I swallowed my anger once more and explained in a deadpan tone: "I'm a guy."

The news hit the scene like a tidal wave as the unintended trap sprung on not only the bandits but the villagers as well, shattering their fantasies in an instant. Everyone's expressions darkened except for two particular ladies, Regine and Ancarin. With that mask on her face, Regine's expressions were naturally hidden away from us. As for Ancarin...her face was placid except for her biting her lips as her eyes bulged out slightly.

After a few seconds of absolute silence, the Third Chief burst out laughing, his finger shaking as it pointed at me while his entire body doubled over. "Hahahahaha, the lass is scared! Don't worry, Uncle isn't a bad man, you just have to let Uncle see your face, that's all."

"...I'm a guy." I emphasized once more, ignoring the swelling anger and humiliation I felt. "In the past, a magical experiment failed and…"

"That's right that's right, hurry up and take off that mask, if you're pretty, our Third Chief might just take you back to our base. You'll have all the best food and jewelleries, all you'll have to do is spread your legs. Such an easy job with so many benefits!"

Damnit! How am I an ugly woman...wait, I'm not even a woman! Endure it...endure it...if my identity gets revealed...the consequences will be dire...endure it...endure it...

As I started chanting to myself, a boy's voice filled with righteousness rang out from behind me: "Stop making things difficult for her, she already said her face was disfigured, what else do you want her to do!"

It was a teenage boy with a fiery head of hair similar to George's. Judging from his youthful square of a head, he was roughly 16 to 17 years old and sported a crew cut hairstyle. Similar to George, he had on a slightly worn out set of hunter's leather armor with a half meter long blade by in his hand.

The boy stood there with disgust in his eyes as he stared down the Third Chief, his right hand raised foolishly in a provocative stance that showed his readiness to attack.

"Whose brat is this? How about growing some hair down there before pretending to be hero? If you don't watch yourself, I might just kill you!" The Third Chief waved his hands dismissively as he gave him a fierce glare, clearly not taking his threats seriously. "Scram, stop wasting my time brat."

After dismissing the brat, he turned his gaze back to me, ignoring even Ancarin as he did so: "Babe, just remove that mask of yours and let Uncle see your pretty little face. If you're beautiful enough, Uncle will be sure treat you well…"

"Go kill yourself!" The red haired teen screamed with what seemed like shame-induced rage, shame from being ignored or perhaps some other reason. His short blade flew out before anyone could even register his words, its aim to kill the scumbag.

Who would've expected a kid like him to pull a sneak attack? Certainly not the Third Chief who was still fixated on me. His eyes barely caught the glint of steel before he was hit with a wave of murderous intent, causing him to dodge instinctively. However, this came too late as the blade bit into his shoulder drawing blood with its decisive swing.

"Dioh stop...damn it!" yelled George the moment he noticed that something was wrong. However, it was too late to stop the fiery teen from attacking. By the time, the words left his mouth, the Third Chief had already been stabbed.

As he felt a wave of burning pain coming from his shoulder, he instinctively rotated his body preventing the blade from further injuring his shoulder. With a quick hop mid-spin, the Third Chief retaliated with a jumping back kick which sent the teen flying. Without waiting for him to get up, the Third Chief bellowed, his eyes fuming and his face red with anger: "Brat, you actually dare to injure me? I'm going to murder your entire village! Lads, get'em!"

On the Third Chief's command, the bandits unsheathed their blades simultaneously briefly illuminating the night sky with their cold gleams.

Since the hatred had been sowed, there was no avoiding a fight. With a quick shout, George rallied his fellow hunters and led the ten odd hunters who had just returned in a charge. It was at this moment, that the remaining sixty to seventy hunters streamed in from the back.

However given the proximity of the two parties, they didn't dare to fire their bows recklessly and instead chose to abandon them, charging into the fray with their blades drawn. With that, almost all of the able-bodied youths in this tiny hamlet of four to five hundred people had gathered here.

With his strength as a three-star warrior, George did not need to use his short blade. Instead he opted for a primal approach as he pounced at the bandit minions with his fingers fanned out like grasping claws, mimicking a ferocious and unstoppable tiger.

With his fighter's aura wrapped around his body, it not only gave his muscles a surge of strength but functioned as a protective layer, dulling the attacks of the bandits. The most these ordinary blades could do was break the outermost layer of his skin while his ensuing counterattack, on the other hand, left their heads and bodies separated.

As the majority of them were merely one-star with their squad leaders being at most two-star, the bandit henchmen could do nothing but watch as their comrades get torn apart by the vicious hunter.

Without the might the of three-star Third Chief aiding them, George was like a wolf thrown into a herd of sheep, ferociously ripping through their numbers amidst their cries for help and their mommas. Combined with the remaining hunters behind him, the villagers easily suppressed the bandits right from the get go.

In order to prevent any unnecessary conflict, I endured and then endured some more. But who knew that before I could even make a move, a blockhead teen took the initiative to air my grievances for me...the world truly worked in mysterious ways.

As he strode towards the fallen teen, the Third Chief drew his long blade that hung by his waist and without a moment's notice, hacked at the teen. The stunned teen sat there with his mouth hanging open as he watched the murderous blade descend upon him without even trying to dodge.

Did the kid get scared witless? I immediately rushed forward with the enchanted blade drawn. However, it was too late to block the descending blade. Thinking quickly, I immediately diverted my blade towards the chief's exposed neck. As I did so, I focused my will on the enchanted blade channelling my mana rapidly into it causing it to ignite with roaring flames.

At this distance and angle, there was no way I could miss. If the Third Chief continued attacking the boy, all that awaited him was death by my blade.

Knowing that even his fighter's aura wasn't enough to block my blade, the chief promptly withdrew his blade to defend. While he was a reckless daredevil, that didn't mean he was going to throw his life away needlessly.

His body spun around swinging the long blade towards the fiery weapon, stopping it just inches away from burning him. Having blocked it in the nick of time, the chief willed his aura forth in an explosion of Fighter's Aura that pushed me back.

As I righted my posture, I snuck a glance at Dioh and found that the boy was at least smart to make use of this opportunity to run to safety beside George.

"So you do have some skills on you, lass." the bandit sneered before gazing at the shallow wound on his shoulder. From that brief exchange, he managed to discern that my strength was roughly at the level of a two-star. With nothing to fear from me, he flashed me a fearless smile as he said: "You'd best follow me back to our mountain hideout, if we fight for real, there's no guarantee I won't injure you."

Why does this potato keep insisting that I'm a girl?! No matter how you look at it, I'm a guy, A GUY! My pee pee is just on a holiday that's all!

I took a deep breath before exhaling for an equally long time. However, with the mask covering my mouth and the majority of my face, the exhaled air ended up being trapped behind the mask giving it an uncomfortable humidity. Originally, all that talk of "lass this, babe that" had already irked me significantly, with that adding fuel to the fire, my anger finally boiled over: "Lass your f*cking ass, go kill yourself!"

I roared and broke into a charge with the intention of using the Inversion Cut to take him by surprise. However, this seemingly ultimate skill in my eyes failed to come through once more. Ever since I used it on the Drump brothers in the villa's basement, I hadn't been able to perform it again no matter how hard I tried.

This time was no exception either. No matter how much I swung the blade, the Inversion Cut refused to show itself causing all my furious swings to be nothing but ordinary swings.

Without the Inversion Cut, my melee abilities were dwarfed by the Third Chief's own abilities. The difference in power could be compared to the difference in height between a dwarf and a human, no matter how much I tried, I was unable to harm him. In fact, my rage-fuelled slashes were perfectly parried by him even without the aid of his Fighter's Aura.

Thankfully, the battle as a whole was tilting in our favor. While the hunters had less people than the bandits, their combat strength made up for that discrepancy. After all, their occupation was one that battled with animals and magical beasts on a daily basis. Even their weakest member had some strength to him.

Not to mention the minions were basically fighting without a leader while the villagers had the mighty George, a three-star, leading their charge. Against a bunch of one and two-stars...there was nothing that could stop him!

However, that didn't mean that they suffered no losses either. This was due to the inherent weakness of their short blades versus the bandit's longer blades. As the saying goes, an inch longer is an inch stronger.

By now, the bandits had suffered massive casualties from George's ferocious attacks. As for the villagers, there were some unavoidable losses but on a whole, the scales were still tipped in our favor.

With a resounding howl, the tamed wolves leaped into the fray turning the already messy battlefield into an even more chaotic one. A portion of these wolves went to aid the bandit minions while the remainder split off to harass me.

The Third Chief was definitely a lot stronger than me. Had it not been for my high-grade blade being able to break through his Aura Layer, this fight would've been over before it even started.

Just as I dodged the Third Chief's long blade, the first tamed wolf pounced towards me barely giving me time to react before I was forced to roll to the side. Yet before I could even regain my posture, another wolf pounced at me catching me completely off-guard.

Its lupine mouth opened to reveal a menacing row of razor sharp teeth as it prepared to lacerate me. Right at the last second however, a fireball crashed right into it with an explosive roar of flames as it sent the wolf flying to the side.

Without even looking, I knew that it was Ancarin who helped me. With no time to spare, I immediately activated the enchanted blade's flames as I stabbed at the third oncoming wolf; cauterizing its flesh as the blade pierced through its neck.

As the flames burst forth from the wolf's neck, the Third Chief ordered the wolves to restrain me out of fear of approaching my blade. The wolves leapt instantly at his command without any hint of hesitation in their eyes as they tried to suppress me with their numbers.

If I wasn't in the Western Human Realms right now with so many humans watching, this dog pile could've easily been taken care of with a few bone walls and spears. Unfortunately for me, this wasn't an option as necromancers were even more of a taboo occupation than occultists.

If my identity as a devil was ever uncovered, we could still pass that off as me being a minion of Ancarin. However, if it was ever discovered that we were necromancers, that meant only one thing...getting burnt on a stake.

While the wolves kept me occupied, the Third Chief took the opportunity to close in on Ancarin having determined that her magic was currently the biggest threat. Seeing this, I instantly rushed forward to stop him but was immediately intercepted by the remaining eight wolves who leapt at me simultaneously.

Having spent the majority of my childhood practicing with the sword and shield on that wooden dummy, I had attained a degree of familiarity with bladed weapons such as my enchanted blade. After all, the swords of the Western Human Realms were almost the same as blades; unlike the ancient Chinese swords that were mainly used to stab, they were also able to slash and chop as well.

However, the lack of a shield often threw off my stance due to my open left flank. Naturally, I couldn't use the grimoire as a makeshift shield, which forced me to dodge often in order to defend against the combined attacks of the wolves while severely limiting my offensive options.

Not only that, the wolves the bandit chief had brought with him were markedly stronger than those we met in the woods. With their one-star strength , they were probably the elites of their wolf army and this showed in their impeccable cooperation. Whenever I slashed at an exposed wolf, another would leap at my left flank, forcing me to retract my blade to defend.

By now, the Third Chief was close enough for Ancarin to see the whites of his eyes. He raised his long blade high into the air and gripped the hilt tightly, ready to perform an overhead chop as he covered the last five meters between them. It was at this moment, that a sly grin crossed her lips as she raised her hands and fired off an ice shard.

At this distance, he barely had time to react before the shard's crystalline exterior dominated his field of vision. With a swift tug of his hand, he drew his blade down towards his hips and sliced the shard in twain. However, while the danger had been neutralized, his blade was now encased in ice from the shard's residual freezing power.

Even so, the bandit trudged on with his now frozen-solid club of a blade still raised high for what was now to be called a smash. And yet what greeted him as he stepped forth was a fireball aimed right at him.

Forced to defend once more, he swatted the fireball down with his club causing an explosion of fire and ice as the frozen layer shattered leaving behind a steaming blade. Concerned that the fireball wouldn't be enough to stop the man, Ancarin threw up a magical barrier in the meantime as a precaution.

The magic crystal atop the staff glowed blue with mana as she focused her will on it. A second later, a blue, dome-like barrier of pure mana formed in front of her. This was a barrier formed solely out of the crystal's stored mana which automatically recovered every 12 hours.

As long as she activated it while it was charged up, the barrier wouldn't require any mana input from her. On the other hand, it also meant that she could activate the barrier as long as she was able to expend the required amount of mana.

Living up to his reputation as a three-star fighter, the Third Chief's wealth of experience allowed him to remain calm even when faced with a sudden explosion. Without giving it any thought, he instinctively expunged his Fighter's Aura in a short burst, cancelling out the shockwave of the magical explosion.

Even under that barrage of fire and ice, his blade had never swayed from its course as the Chief continued his relentless attack on Ancarin.

The barrier shattered into transparent flakes of blue as it blocked the Chief's chop in a flash of blue magical energy. While he had successfully broken through the barrier, he had lost his grip on the blade at the same time.

After being pelted continuously by her magical attacks, the Chief's hand was numb from the impact, and upon receiving the backlash from the barrier, finally caved in.

A triumphant smile crossed her lips as the blade fell to the ground with a loud clang. This was the moment she had been planning for since the beginning. In the past, she had seen Duran use the staff to block an attack from a three-star warrior. The situation back then was exactly the same as what happened now.

Even with his right hand out of commission, he still had his left. In an admittedly impressive display of focus, he activated his Fighter's Aura and channelled it towards his left fist as he punched out at the unprepared Ancarin.

The bandit once again showed his wealth of combat experience with this decisive move. Given the speed of his fist, the punch would land before she ever got the chance to fire off the spell even though she was the one who made the move first. If this punch were to land, her left hand would end up crippled due to the massive disparity in their bodily strength.

As the Grimoire of the Dead was vehemently opposed to me using low-grade gear, the majority of the loot was given to Ancarin. Even so, she knew that more wasn't necessarily better and wisely chose the tools that Duran had usually brought into battle such as potions, scrolls and enchanted gear. Thus, she actually had two defensive tools instead of just one.

The aura clad fist tore through the air, the gap between itself and its target shrinking in an instant. Knowing that she couldn't match him in speed, she immediately withdrew her left hand while simultaneously activating her defensive necklace.

Similar to the staff, the necklace was a high-grade enchanted gear, but unlike the fixed defensive strength of the staff's crystal, the necklace required the user's mana to activate and its strength varied depending on the amount of mana put in. In short, the more mana you put the stronger the barrier gets.

(Author's Note: There is a maximum value on the necklace's barrier, channelling more mana past that value doesn't add to its defensive strength and if the mana channelled is more than the amount the necklace can take, it might break.)

His fist punctured the barrier without any difficulty, tearing down the last hindrance standing between him and Ancarin. However, as his fist was merely flesh and blood, the barrier absorbed the majority of its impact.

By the time it hit the staff she swung forward to block him at the last minute, there was barely 10% left of its initial power. Yet, this was enough to send her flying while knocking the staff away.

It was at this moment that the forgotten masked girl, Regine, finally made her move. The girls had already agreed on a plan prior to this: Ancarin would distract the Third Chief while she waited in the shadows for the right moment.

Putting aside the issue of morals, thieves and assassins were basically the same occupation with the majority of their skills overlapping. The biggest difference would be that one relied on killing for a living while the other relied on stealing. Thus during situations such as this, thieves could perform the same job as an assassin...a slightly inferior assassin.

With Ancarin demanding all of the Third Chief's attention, she had the perfect chance to sneak up on the man. At the moment, his fist made contact with Ancarin, she revealed her murderous intent, her enchanted dagger baring its cold metallic fangs. Unfortunately, the wound wasn't a fatal one...

The Third Chief's vast combat experienced saved him once more as his honed battle instincts alerted him right at the very last second. As a bandit living with death on a daily basis, he not only had to keep his guard up during their raids, he also had to remain vigilant against his own men.

The rule of being a bandit was that there was no rules, strength was the only thing they respected; if you were strong enough, then you would be the leader. If you fell because of an accident or a plot, then your life would be forfeit. No one could be trusted in such an environment and those who survived were all cunning cutthroats.

It was in such an environment that his instincts were honed giving him an extraordinary sensitivity to danger. Prior to her attack, the man had no clue that Regine was behind him yet the moment Regine let out her murderous intent, the bandit instantly picked up on it and realised that there was a killer lurking nearby.

He immediately abandoned going in for the kill and instead focused on dodging the stab. However, due to the suddenness of her attack, he only managed to avoid a fatal wound.

Regine was a two-star thief and not a professional assassin. If she had been one, that stab would've definitely penetrated his heart. Not being able to kill him in one strike was the decisive difference between one who trained in the arts of murder and one who merely dabbled in it.

The assassination had failed and that meant only one thing: run. While it was a shame that she couldn't finish him off, her opponent's instincts were too sensitive and had exceeded her own estimations. Withdrawing her dagger, she instantly retreated without any hesitation.

A split second later, a kick came flying towards where she had just been. Naturally, the kick missed its target and all he could do was rub his back in pain and anger as he tried to figure out the extent of the wound.

"Are you alright?" asked the stealthy thief as she landed gracefully at Ancarin's side, handing over the staff she had picked up along the way to the girl who had just gotten to her feet.

"I'm fine," she replied shakily while accepting the staff. Judging from the paleness of her face, that strike must've given her quite a fright. Thankfully, she was a resilient girl. After a few shakes of her body, she recovered her presence of mind and turned towards me and the wolves: "Master Mo Ke seems to be in trouble, you should help him instead. Leave this side to me."

"I can't do that." While her face was as placid as ever, the expression on Regine's face clearly showed her reluctance to leave Ancarin alone to face a three-star warrior.

"Don't worry, I have this." As she said that, Ancarin took out a magical scroll from her robes. Seeing the scroll, Regine finally relented with a nod and came over to aid me.

With a just glance, he instantly recognized the rolled up parchment in her hands. Furthermore, he knew better than any of the bandits here how terrifying this piece of paper was. Ten years ago when he was merely a young mercenary, he was on a escort mission to protect a mage. Back then, their convoy had encountered a fearsome bandit troupe that they couldn't defeat.

Just as it looked like they were about to lose, the mage ripped open a magical scroll and then...there was no more enemies to worry about. At that moment, the young Third Chief made a decision which would forever change his life.

At the dead of night, he murdered his client and stole all his possessions after which he fled. The mercenary group chased him endlessly until the day he faked his death and finally managed to shake off their pursuit, cementing his future as a promising bandit.

Having tangled with these eight wolves for so long, the fact that they were able to toy with me up till now was without a doubt, an embarrassment. It goes without saying that I was lacking in certain areas, namely strength. Other than my speed, it could be said that my other attributes were definitely stronger than a one-star but barely comparable to a two-star.

If I could use my bone walls to create a more favorable terrain or my instant cast bone spears, these wolves would not have been such a problem. In fact, if I just had enough time to cast my flame whip, I wouldn't have been in such a disadvantageous position. Unfortunately, the need for secrecy took precedence over everything.

If my red skin was to get exposed by a stray bite, the consequences would be dire. And so I had no choice but to focus primarily on defense. All it took was for one wolf to bite off my hood and my secret would be revealed. Thus, this wolf encirclement was particularly troublesome for me; it wasn't that I had gotten weaker but rather I was unable to fight with my full capabilities.

Furthermore, the situation on the other side concerned me as well. Regine and Ancarin were only two-star and one-star respectively. Facing off against a three-star warrior was already asking much of them, let alone expecting them to win. With all these issues distracting me, concentrating on the fight was difficult in of itself.

Thankfully, Ancarin had a treasure trove of magical tools aiding her, most notably those magical scrolls. The Third Chief knew of the power of these scrolls and thus couldn't decide on whether to retreat or continue attacking.

Having been reassured by the presence of those scrolls, Regine abandoned the fight with the bandit and instead came to help me. As a thief, she naturally had long range attacks of her own and thus didn't need to stand too close to the wolves. All she had to do was find the opportune moment to toss a couple of throwing daggers.

With her superior speed and throwing daggers, she had a much easier time handling these wolves compared to me. The combination of my blade and her daggers ended up killing most of the remaining wolves.

In the meantime, George and the other hunters had managed to defeat the minions that the Third Chief had brought along with him. That's right, defeat not kill.

Logically speaking, George should've been the one to face off against the three-star Third Chief right from the get go as they were the only three-stars present. Only should he falter would this responsibility fall onto us outsiders.

Yet when George saw that I saved his little brother Dioh, he no longer paid any attention to the Third Chief but instead chose to fight the minions. While I could understand his reasoning, it still pissed me off nonetheless.

If, during the process of fighting against the Third Chief we were to get killed or captured, there would no longer be a reason for the two parties to fight. While some minions might get sacrificed in the process, these minions were called small fries for a reason. With that in mind, it seems like the relationship between George and the Wolf's Fang Bandit Troupe wasn't as simple as it seemed on the surface.

Choosing to fight the minions instead could just as likely had been motivated by the desire to minimize the casualties on the side of the hunters. However, I had to admit that this fellow was truly ruthless. With every swing of his blade, a bandit would fall to the ground dead or crippled. Under such circumstances, it didn't take long before the bandits began to feel the pressure of their losses.

With his minions defeated and George free to join in the fight, not to mention the other side still had magical scrolls on hand...the chief was basically stuck between a rock and a hard place.

And so the Third Chief wisely chose to back out of the fight. Yet, this didn't mean that the matter was over either. As the man retreated, he shouted: "George, you win this time but this won't be the last you hear of me. One day I'll make you pay for everything you've done!"

Having said that, he picked up the long blade he dropped and signalled for the surviving bandits to gather up. With a long sharp whistle, he commanded the wolves to stop after which he slowly walked past George and began gathering the survivors.

With this battle over, George who was against this fight in the first place, finally breathed a sigh of relief and began marshalling the hunters. The uninjured hunters were tasked with escorting the injured ones back to the village first while he took care of one last piece of business.

Without stopping to check the casualties, George immediately stepped forth and rebuked the bandit, knowing full well that if he were to show any signs of weakness now, the bandits would only get emboldened: "You shouldn't have attacked my little brother."

"Let's get things straight here, he was the one who attacked me first!" Hearing this, the Third Chief immediately flared up once more. "You should rein in that mangy brat instead and teach him the dangers of being impetuous!"

"Naturally, whoever it is that answered of course." The Third Chief said with a taunting laugh as he threw the boy a contemptuous look.

"Dioh!" Seeing the kid try to rush towards his death once more, George immediately grabbed hold of his little brother and prevented him from running off.

However, no matter how much he struggled, George refused to let go. After struggling for awhile, he finally realized the futility of his actions and quietened down. Thinking that the kid had finally calmed down, George released his grip on Dioh and turned his attention back to the departing bandit chief.

Not even giving the moaning bandits on the ground a second look, the Third Chief turned his gaze onto me and said with a sinister grin on his lips, "Lass, I've set my eyes on you now. There's no way you'll escape from the palm of my hands!"

"There's no way we can settle this amicably?" Keenly aware of my desire to remain low-key, Ancarin stepped forth once more to mediate this issue with money. "If we give you a low-grade enchanted gear as compensation, will you let bygones be bygones?"

A low-grade gear was at least worth 500 gold coins with the more expensive ones being worth a few thousand. However, being able to settle this issue by paying one or two pieces of gear was still a worthwhile trade; given that we managed to loot ten of such items from Duran. Compared to having my identity potentially exposed, losing some money was nothing. With Nicole so close at hand, the safer choice was definitely the better one.

Yet, the Third Chief didn't seem to think so. With a legion of henchmen under him and two other chiefs standing behind him, he didn't need to fear us at all.

"Haha, as long as I catch you all, all your items will belong to me. Naturally, that includes your bodies as well," said the Third Chief, revealing his unbridled greed with one sentence.

Even though he had lost the battle, his aggressiveness hadn't diminished a bit thanks to his powerful backing. Ironically, it was us, the victors who seemed more concerned about any repercussions.

"Lass, you better wash up and be ready to get f*cked! Ah hahaha...lads, we're leaving for now. Once we've had our fill, we can come back and settle the score!" He laughed for a moment before signalling to his henchmen to retreat with a wave of his hands.

As for him, he made sure to threaten us once more to ensure we didn't abscond: "Don't even think about escaping, if I come back to find ya'll missing, I'll raze this village! Women, children and all."

With those simple words, he cut off all our escape routes. No matter what we tried, whether it was money or just running away, the other party didn't intend to let us off the hook. Even though we could still leave after these bandits retreated, there's no way the villagers would allow us to do so as that would incur the wrath of the bandits.

Given that the man was only ranked third, that meant that there was at least two other chiefs ahead of him. Since bandits only valued strength, the other two chiefs would definitely be stronger than the three-star Third Chief. In fact, one of them might even be a four-star.

With that in mind, I could finally understand the feelings of that old village chief; not only could he not defeat them, he couldn't let us go either. If we had chosen to leave last night, the combined forces of me, Ancarin and Regine should've been enough to break through any opposition, assuming that George and the others weren't there of course.

Yet if we did that, the village would've definitely had to pay the price. While there was no guarantee that the bandits would kill them all, the price would still be steep.

At this moment, the looks the villagers gave us started to seem a little strange. They had done nothing wrong at all and yet they were now threatened with the possibility of annihilation thanks to us. We must've looked like a bunch of jinxes to them.

Unfortunately for us both, the reality of the situation was as such so there's no point blaming me. Who would've known that killing a couple of wolves would bring out a whole bunch of bandits?

Not only was the Third Chief unrepentant; not only did he walk at the very back of the contingent with his exposed back to us, his swagger gait was wide enough to form an upside down V! If one didn't know better, one would've mistaken him for the reincarnation of a blonde orange.

Hmm...what are we to do now? If we wait for him to come back, that would be the same as committing suicide. Even if we tried to escape now, the addition of George and these hunters ensured that our chances were basically nil.

The twang of bow resounded across the silent battlefield, bringing with it the signature whoosh of an arrow barrelling through the air as it shot right towards the back of the bandit's throat.

However even in his non-combat state, the Third Chief didn't let his guard down for a second. The moment the arrow left the kid's bow, he immediately picked up on the sound. He swiftly turned around and swung his blade, landing it perfectly in the path of the arrow slicing it apart with ease.

That's right, the one who launched that sneak attack was Dioh. The kid who seemed to hate the man even more than me for reasons unknown, immediately loaded a second arrow with the full expectation of his first arrow failing.

I had to admit though, this brat's archery skills weren't too shabby. Even with over ten meters separating the two of them, both of his arrows were aimed perfectly at his throat and heart respectively.

Having been the target of two sneak attacks, the Third Chief was now dead set on killing Dioh. Yet, his attack was intercepted once more, this time by George who rushed to Dioh's side the moment he saw the second arrow being loaded.

Before he fired off the arrow, George was completely unaware of what he had planned. Knowing that his big brother wouldn't approve of his sneak attack, the rebellious kid ran off to a remote corner and waited for an opportune moment to launch his arrow. In the end, he failed at catching the bandit off guard.

Knowing that the first arrow was doomed to fail given the disparity between him and a three-star warrior, he decided to load another arrow.

Truth be told, the second arrow was probably a stunt on his part. His aim, to attract the attention of the Third Chief while simultaneously telling his big brother that "your little brother is about fire his load again…"

Seen in that light, one might think that Dioh was a scheming potato, yet I knew that this was not the case. The hot headed teen had merely acted on his impulses with not much scheming to speak of.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that this second sneak attack of his forced the Third Chief's hand. Whether it was to prevent a loss of face, to prevent a loss of face or even just to prevent a loss of face, this bandwagon wasn't one he could easily disembark from. If he didn't teach this brat a lesson now, how was he to survive in this dog eat dog world of his?

Screamed the bandit dead set on punishing Dioh. However, there was no way that George, as his elder brother, would allow this to happen; so the battle between three-stars began for real.

While the Third Chief still suffered from injuries gained during the previous fight it didn't hinder him one bit. Instead it stoked the flames created by the numerous provocations he endured today. Fuelled by rage, the bandit abandoned any attempt at defense and instead went on a reckless rampage; which ironically gave him an unprecedentedly imposing aura.

George on the other hand still hoped for a peaceful resolution in order to avoid the possibility of the bandits attacking their hamlet. They were after all, the weaker party in this confrontation. Should the bandits ever break through their defenses, the entire village might get massacred in order to set an example.

Even if by some stroke of luck they manage to avoid such a fate, the entire hamlet would still end up as the possession of the bandits; while the villagers would become slaves for them.

Thankfully, the situation hadn't worsened to that extent. The Third Chief had only sustained some injuries and wasn't dead. That meant that there was still a chance to settle this amicably. As for those small fries who died in this attack...did you honestly think that a bunch of immoral thugs would care about the death of their subordinates? Stop kidding yourself.

Compared to the Third Chief's increasingly fierce display of power, the uninjured George seemed to be gradually losing ground. At least that was the impression he gave as he was forced into a purely defensive stance.

Logically speaking, George should've been a lot stronger than the Third Chief. After all, it wasn't too long ago that he showed us his violent style of fighting where he ruthlessly hacked the bandits to death.

And yet he seemed to have become significantly restrained in front of the Third Chief; did he take some laxative by accident or something? Did he have a sudden tummy ache?

The bandits tried to help out their chief, yet as they stepped forward, the hunters raised their bows and immediately pointed their arrows at them. With their morale shattered from before, they swiftly caved in to the threat of the bows and backed off.

George continued his passive stance as before but in the face of the Third Chief's furious slashes, his defenses began to show signs of collapsing. From the looks of it, he would lose in another 10 moves or so.

As for Dioh, I honestly did not know what to say about this kid. For some reason, he seemed dead set on starting a feud with these bandits.

The kid stood there with his bow drawn and his arrow aimed right at the Third Chief, and yet he didn't fire it off but instead merely kept it locked onto the bandit. "Hey you thieving bast*rd, I got my arrow locked right onto you so you better watch out!" Dioh shouted that reminder out as if he was afraid the bandit might forget about him.

As his long blade knocked the passive hunter back a few steps, he took the opportunity to sneak a glance in the direction of the taunting voice. The veins in his forehead bulged as his anger boiled over from the kid's obvious provocation. To think this kid actually dared to point an arrow at him while he was busy fighting George in a one on one!

Having been pushed past the brink, the Third Chief swung his long blade out as hard as he could, forcing the three-star hunter to the side. "YOU DAMNED BRAT, EVEN IF IT KILLS ME, I'LL SKIN YOU ALIVE!" He bellowed at the kid not caring if this action ended up exposing himself to the hunter.

Before anyone could react to his words, he charged at the bow-wielding teen with a mighty kick of his legs, leaving the hunter behind as he focused his attention on his young nemesis.

Yet before he could hack the offending teen to death, his long blade was blocked once more by George who managed to circle around him despite his earlier dash.

As expected, George was the stronger of the two. In the face of the Third Chief's furious attempt on Dioh's life, George didn't dare to hide his true strength anymore. Which reminded me, how many times has this kid been saved already?

When you think about it, this pair of siblings worked pretty well together; one taunted while the other blocked as if this was a well choreographed play.

Naturally, the Third Chief didn't think this way. It was one thing when you were the one watching the show, it was a different matter altogether when you were the one being watched; especially when that show involved you being shot at time and time again without being able to retaliate.

The bandit withdrew his long blade and gave the hunter a long pointed stare. He finally realized that harming the kid was impossible as long as this fellow was here. Then the question arose in his heart, who was more important? Dioh or the hamlet?

"Good. Very good." Having no way to vent his anger, the chief laughed instead. However, it was a laugh that had a bone-chilling coldness to it. He pointed his long blade at Dioh before turning a hateful gaze onto George as if he was an injured serpent: "I'll give you two choices. One, let me kill him."

Having a blade pointed at him naturally ticked the teen off who immediately tried to draw his bow once more. Unfortunately for him, his brother had seen through his intentions and promptly knocked the bow away before giving the immature teen a reprimanding glare.

However, this bit of infighting wasn't enough to satisfy the Third Chief whose face was just as icy as before: "Two, you let me kill off everyone in the hamlet."

He deftly confiscated all the weapons he could find on Dioh; a short blade and another hunting bow. Without any care for his brother's feelings, he tossed the weapons at the Third Chief's feet and tried once more to negotiate: "I promise he'll avoid you from now on…"

"This brat has tried to kill me several times now and yet you protected him each and every time. So I take it you want him to live? In that case, pay for his life with your village!"

With that, he demonstrated his unyielding stance. Like the man said, after being shot at by Dioh multiple times, if he couldn't even take care of the brat, how did you expect him to live this down?

"Is there truly no way to settle this peacefully?" George persisted with his pleading but the Third Chief wouldn't have any of that. The gauntlet had been thrown down and there was no way he would withdraw it now. Not to mention the fact that they seemed to be on equal footing in terms of strength; at least that was how the Third Chief saw it.

From George's deliberate display of weakness, the Third Chief had determined the personality of this hunter. Despite his impressive strength, he was the type to sacrifice his own interests for the majority. It was this personality that gave the Third Chief the audacity to dole out such harsh terms without any regard for George's will; especially with the powerful backing he had.

With his boss, Dawson backing him up, the Third Chief wasn't the least bit worried that George would dare to attack him for real. Killing those small fries was merely a minor issue that could easily be settled with money. However, if George were to kill him, a chief of the Wolf's Fang, that would start a blood feud between the village and them.

"Sigh…" Having failed to persuade the Third Chief twice, it seemed like he had no choice but to choose between those binary options...and yet just as I thought he would do so, he struck out. In the space of that sigh, he did something that stunned everyone into silence.

Knowing that he couldn't change the chief's mind, there was only one option left to him since he didn't want to sacrifice his little brother...he went all out.

As that sigh left his mouth, his short blade flashed out. With a ruthless swing of his arms, he sliced the man apart from his waist up to his neck. A second later, blood gushed out from that horrific gash, threatening to suffocate the hunter in a bloodrain. However, George was more than ready for this; his Fighter's Aura activated long before the crimson droplets could touch him and instantly expelled the fluid.

This sudden turn of events left everyone staring at the hunter in disbelief including me. Up until now, George had been extremely accommodating, going so far as to isolate us in order not to cause trouble for the village. I had assumed that he was terrified of the bandit troupe, yet when driven into a corner, he killed the Third Chief with a single swing of his blade...this disparity was truly frightening.

However, my shock was nothing compared to the bandits whose morale seemed to be on the verge of collapsing. The shock from seeing what was in their minds, an impossibility, was nothing to scoff at after all. Even after his cold lifeless body collapsed to the floor, the bandits were still too stunned to process the sudden change...that disparity was just too much.

Now that their leader was dead, the bandits naturally fled back to wherever they crawled out from. At the side, I gave Ancarin a look that said "why does it feel like we had turned into a bunch of side characters?"

From the time that fellow came looking for trouble, we had gone through a round of fighting, followed by negotiation, followed by another round of fighting, after which we negotiated once more, and then he got murdered...if that sounded confusing, you aren't alone in thinking that.

"Big..Bro?" Ignoring the fleeing bandits, Dioh turned to his brother with a shocked look on his face as if he couldn't believe that his brother had such an unyielding side to him.

"Mhm." He grunted in response to his questioning look before turning to face the three of us, or should I say me. He stared emotionlessly at me for a good while before he said in an understandingly impolite tone: "Why all this happened is no longer important, there's also no way for us to chase down those fleeing bandits now, so news of me killing Doran will definitely reach the ears of Dawson. At that time, I hope that you'll...help us defend the village."

"Sure...no problem…" I nodded to show my complete support for his suggestion that definitely wasn't any way motivated by his terrifying countenance…

came the task of tallying up the casualties. The bandits were roughly as strong as the hunters since their longer weapons gave them a slight edge. However, thanks to their three-star shirking his responsibility and leaving us to fight Doran, the hunters ended up scoring a decisive victory over the bandits who didn't have a three-star aiding them.

In actuality, melee combat could be summed up as a battle of morale. Once one was able to suppress the other with their morale, the end result would be a crushing victory for one side.

Take for example our recent battle, the hunters suffered 9 deaths with 7 others being severely injured and 31 others being slightly injured. As for the bandits, they lost 11 wolves and suffered 36 deaths with 12 of their members being left behind due to their injuries.

Naturally, there was no need to guess what happened to these bast*rds. Leaving them here would just be a waste of food and medicine so the hunters threw them into the wilderness to fend for themselves.

With that settled, next came the question of how to deal with the bandits' counterattack...but before that, there's something I had to do…

The sudden tummy ache left me befuddled for a moment before Ancarin chimed in with the answer: "Ever since I've known you, I've never seen you use the bathroom…"

I'll give her that...I haven't actually gone to the toilet since returning to the Western Human Realms. To be exact, I've only done a number one…

How should I say this, I… had gotten used to the simple lifestyle of consuming souls as a devil...these souls decomposed into a variety of nutrients when they entered my stomach and since they weren't corporeal, there was no waste product left behind. Thus, I never had to worry about performing a number two for the longest of time.

Since I've returned to the human realm, I've eaten quite a lot of human food...while I did pee from time to time, the matter of a number two had slipped my mind completely… (Author: As his pee pee is still missing, taking a piss while standing causes the pee to spill all over...so whenever he pees...you get the idea…)

With an anxious look on my face, I hastily asked Ancarin to lead me to the nearest toilet. As he watched us scurry off, George almost mistook that as us trying to escape. However, he quickly changed his mind when he noticed the direction we were rushing off to.

Excrement had an important function in rural villages like this; they functioned as nutrients for their crops and thus the villagers had an idea to create a public collection point, otherwise known as an outhouse. Thus, with no mental preparation whatsoever, I entered this facility and then...I felt something within me die…

With that bit of personal matter settled, Ancarin informed me that the old village chief was going to hold a banquet in his home to welcome us.

During our battle with the Third Chief, this old man was noticeably absent even though he knew about the ongoing battle. To put it simply, he was afraid of dying so all he could do was welcome us with food and wine after the battle. Rather than welcome, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he was doing whatever he could to keep us in the village.

The village chief had a pretty decent house made of wood; two stories high and it even came with a courtyard of its own. It was in this courtyard that the banquet was held. By the time we arrived, the banquet table already had several people seated around it. The old chief, George, Dioh and a blue, long-haired youth with average looks. Atop the table were over ten dishes, the majority of which were meat with a couple of vegetable and fruit dishes at the side.

Despite the slight impoverishment of the village, the banquet was surprisingly satisfying. This was after all, a hunting village. Thus other than farming, the village relied heavily on the mountain game for sustenance as well. Given the wide variety of meats available, our meal was pretty delicious in spite of the cook's average skills.

During our meal, the village chief would bring up the matter of the Wolf's Fang from time to time which was understandable given their current circumstance. In truth, the Third Chief came here looking for us and yet the bandits ended up leaving with a vendetta against them...shouldn't we be the main characters here? I think there is something wrong with this plot…..

As for Dioh, the main contributor behind this blood feud, he was currently sitting around the banquet table enjoying his food without a care in the world. Beside him was a stone-faced George who didn't show much expression even when offered a drink by the village chief. All he did was down the wine before he returned back to his sulking.

"Sigh, if those bandits attack us in force, our village is doomed…" Having taken a swig from his mug, the village chief let out a helpless sigh. "Dioh...you've really stirred up a hornet's nest this time."

"What are you afraid of! If they dare to come, I'll make sure they never go back alive!" exclaimed the teen in question without any remorse on his face. As he took a massive bite out of a steak, he gave his chest a slap in a manly fashion and said: "Even if I can't do that, there's still my big brother over here!"

...Well, weren't you the considerate one, dragging your brother down with you the moment you realized you were not up to the task. No wonder he's so sullen, I would be too if someone dug a hole for me to jump into and bragged about it.

"All you know how to do is cause trouble!" George yelled at the teen, however upon seeing the kid turn his nose up at him defiantly, he lost the mood to scold him and instead gave a dejected sigh: "Our parents died while we were still young so can't you just behave yourself."

"What's wrong with killing bandits?" he rebutted in the typical rebellious teen fashion. "When I was young, you taught me not to fear the strong and to uphold justice. Do you know how much I idolized you back then!"

"..." A constipated look crossed his face for a long while before he finally forced out a reply: "Upholding justice requires strength. Only a fool would stick himself out for justice without any strength."

"So you're saying that's why you stood by idly as they got bullied!" Somehow the flames of war ended up spreading to our side of the table as well as the kid pointed a finger at me while yelling at George. Unfortunately for him, his glare had no effect on George.

George glanced at the three of us before he promptly turned to his foolish brother and argued with him: "Between the village and a bunch of strangers, who is more important?!"

"Then do you understand that your "justice" might just get our village massacred a few days later! Massacred, you hear me?!" Without waiting for his infuriating response, George tugged at the teen's collar and continued with his tirade: "If Dawson were to attack us, exactly what do you expect us to do!"

"Don't we have you to defend us!" Not caring about his older brother's action, he maintained his sitting posture as he stared at the angry hunter right in the eyes and said unwaveringly: "Aren't you really strong? That Dawson isn't even a match for you!"

"...hmph…" He released the kid's collar and slumped back into his seat, downing his mug as he did so. The pint of alcohol slid down his throat with several noisy glugs after which he slammed the mug back onto the table and crassly wiped his mouth with his sleeves.

From the looks on their faces and their conversation, George must've fought with Dawson previously. Furthermore, it must've been a pretty fair fight which ended in George's victory. According to George, he only won because his opponent went easy on him. However, putting that aside for now, it least meant that he won the fight.

"Honestly, Dawson isn't the main problem here, our biggest problems are his minions which number over 500 and his two to three hundred trained wolves. They're simply too much for our village to bear." He continued having calmed himself down slightly.

George closed his eyes for a second before pouring himself a cup of wine, but instead of drinking it, he merely held it up and continued talking: "Even if I do my best to stall Dawson, how are you going to handle the near thousand strong bandit troupe?"

By now, Dioh had calmed down as well. He lowered his head and gave this matter some thought before answering: "We can set some traps to stall them while everyone else whittles them down with their bows. There's no way we'll lose to those curs in an archery battle."

"Those bandits aren't fools either. They know how to create traps as well and won't fall for ours so easily. Plus, you seemed to have pegged their intelligence at the level of a mere beast."

"That is nothing short of foolish. They have long range weapons as well and in an archery battle, their 500 strong army is more than enough to overwhelm our skill...after the battle today, the amount of able bodied hunters in our village is less than 80 if you don't count the wounded and the dead."

"I understand…" He said in an attempt at admitting his error. However, his face clearly said otherwise. Although the mention of casualties dampened his mood slightly, this show of sadness was quickly replaced by his bull-headed need to maintain his front.

"I think we can try to rope in the nearby security forces," interjected the Village Chief in the midst of this sudden silence. "If we give them enough benefits, they should be willing to aid us. Plus, this plan wouldn't require much time either. A trip back and forth would only take a total of two days."

How ironic, the forces charged with protecting this region's security ended up turning into an extortion gig. What was to be their duty was now a chance for them extort money from the villagers; if you didn't pay the protection fee, they would not deal with the bandits...I swear this situation was so common nowadays.

Nobility could be divided into a number of ranks that started from, knight, baron, viscount, count, marquis, duke and finally ended in king. In theory, all kings were of the same level, but in reality there existed differences in each nation's strength which resulted in them having different standings.

The lowest denomination within the security forces were villages. The security of a village was handled by the lowest grade of nobility, the knight. However, that didn't mean that every village had a knight that looked after it. Only villages located in strategic locations or those that were rich in resources could enjoy the protection of a knight.

In short, only villages who could bring those noble masters some form of benefit were worthy of protection. This meant that Plateau Village didn't possess an officially sanctioned security force. For the most part, security was handled by the villagers themselves as no knight would want to waste their time in a poor village like this.

"The security forces are...useless. Dawson has men stationed out there as well. Even if we pay them, those knights will merely take our money and not show up." George's mood could only be described as despondent right now. While it hadn't reached the point of giving up, he showed an unprecedented level of dejectedness.

"What about mercenaries?" said Ancarin after hearing out their opinions. "As long as we're willing to pay, mercenaries will take on any job we give them. We should hire them to fight the bandits."

Agreeing with this point, Dioh gave the table an excited slap as he said: "That's right, as long as we manage to hire mercenaries, we don't have to be afraid of those bad guys! Although hiring them would take a lot of money."

"With the bandits nearly being a thousand strong, the amount of mercenaries we would have to hire is slightly troublesome, but given our wealth wiping out an entire bandit troupe shouldn't be a problem as long as we fork out whatever we have."

I thoroughly approved of this suggestion seeing as it only required money. With over 10,000 gold coins left in our coffers, it should be more than enough to hire the needed amount of mercenaries. Plus, killing these bandits should net us some loot as well. For all we know, raiding their nest might bring us enough loot to recoup our losses and more.

The sudden tummy ache left me befuddled for a moment before Ancarin chimed in with the answer: "Ever since I've known you, I've never seen you use the bathroom…"

I'll give her that...I haven't actually gone to the toilet since returning to the Western Human Realms. To be exact, I've only done a number one…

With that bit of personal matter settled, Ancarin informed me that the old village chief was going to hold a banquet in his home to welcome us.

George glanced at the three of us before he promptly turned to his foolish brother and argued with him: "Between the village and a bunch of strangers, who is more important?!"

"Those bandits aren't fools either. They know how to create traps as well and won't fall for ours so easily. Plus, you seemed to have pegged their intelligence at the level of a mere beast."

Under the leadership of George, we reached the first destination along our trip of aid-seeking. It was the village closest to the Plateau Original Village. Its founder was a person called Iroi, so the village was called Iroi Village. Apparently, Ivan, who the bandits killed was the son of Iroi.

By the time we arrived and saw the son of Ivan, Io, three hours had already past. Io was a man roughly thirty years of age, and like George, was clad in tattered leather armor. Above that was a bushy beard that seemed to occupy the majority of his face.

His blonde hair was slightly curly and had an oily sheen to it that made it look drab; it must've been a while since he washed his hair. Even more likely given the fact that we found him in his courtyard binging on wine.

They was a saying that wine could drown away all your sorrows, but like stopping a stream with a blade, all it did was speed up the flow around the blade. In a sense, worries and vexations are like a waterfall, no matter how you try to stop it, it just kept rushing downwards. Not only that, it was able to continue to bother you 24 hours a day; who told you to stay right next to the waterfall?!

(Author: You can understand this sentence as being if your heart is calm, you'll keep your cool. If you are troubled by a matter, the best solution at times is just to let it go and let time heal your wounds.

Even though people say that time was a quack that can heal a hundred illnesses, the fact of the matter was that it did heal your wounds. Originally, I didn't want to put this paragraph in but after giving it some thought, I decided to do so anyway to counsel everyone.

Who doesn't have troubles in life? It's just that as time passes, these wounds gradually become fainter. So alcoholism isn't the solution. In life, one should be looking forward, being vexed for a moment is more than enough, let it go otherwise the consequences will be dire.

According to the other villagers, Io had been stuck in this rut for some time now; ever since his father was murdered by the bandits. Every day he wore an expression that said the world was ending while he drowned himself in wine. Over time, he turned from an outgoing adult that seemed to radiate sunshine, to the worthless drunkard before us right now.

Roughly a month ago, Io's wife took their daughter and left him to return to her parents' home. She had attempted multiple times to convince him to stop drinking, but instead of listening he doubled down on the drinking. Finally, she couldn't take it and decided to leave with their daughter in tow. Her parents' home was in one of the villages we planned on visiting later.

"Stop drinking." With a furious look on his face, George marched towards the man ignoring Kevin who tried to hinder him and snatched away the bottle in his hands.

Having been separated from the wine bottle, he spat out the mouthful of wine in his mouth without caring about his image right at George.

George seemed to have predicted this would happen and already had his Fighter's Aura ready to disperse the wine. There was even a portion of the wine that got reflected back onto the drunkard, drenching his face and hair in the wine he spat out…

Putting aside the matter of having his drinking interrupted, this man actually drenched his face in wine, George must be really looking for a fight!

Io abruptly stood up and without saying a word, punched out at George. With his Fighter's Aura coursing through his fist, it was a fast and ruthless punch that threatened injury should it land.

However, George didn't back down from this challenge. With his aura wrapped around his right palm, he caught the incoming fist. At the same time, he stepped into man's strike zone with a twist of his body and in one fluid motion, crouched down and threw the drunkard over his shoulders and onto the ground!

"...we...weren't we here to ask for help?" Ancarin muttered to herself as she adorably shrunk inwards from the impact. "Is this really alright?"

"It's fine, you'll get used to it." Dioh shrugged as he continued watching the show with glee. On the other hand, Kevin tried to stop the two men but was blocked by Dioh who was still enjoying the fight from the sidelines.

With a turn of his body, he placed the bottle back onto the table and for some unknown reason, walked back up to the fallen man and rained a volley of kicks and punches right onto his face…

Even though Io was still in his drunken state, he at least knew to block the blows with his hands; which prevented him from becoming a punching bag. After taking a couple of kicks to his shoulders, his drunken stupor had mostly been knocked out of him. Taking advantage of the moment George used to recover between kicks, he latched onto George's right calf and tugged downwards. With his left leg, he hooked onto the other leg George used for balance.

Perhaps he deliberately went easy on the drunkard or perhaps he simply didn't expect Io to pull such a shameless move, either way, with his balance disrupted his body was no longer able to maintain its upright posture and swiftly fell backwards.

With George's unexpected fall, it was time for Io to counterattack. With a leap similar to an injured beast, he straddled the fallen man and began furiously slapping George. Thankfully, he still had some sense in him and didn't bite George.

However, it didn't take long for George to find a window of opportunity given his better physique and his lucid state. Yet with his drunken stupor and anger aiding him, Io was a lot stronger than usual and so the pair became locked in a stalemate with the two men tumbling around on the ground...the kind of tumble you did on the bed…

After an exciting scuffle, the match ended with George successfully pinning Io to the ground. Yet even with his face pressed against the ground, he refused to yield the top position. Try as he might however, there was no escaping George's grip. And so Io turned into a gentleman, that's right a gentleman. Gentleman use their mouths and not their fists; before George could react to his move, he bit down on George's right shoulder.

Without batting an eye, George ignored the bite and viciously pounded his fist into the man. The heavy blow caused the man with a jaw strength rivalling that of a wolf's to loosen his bite and ultimately succumb to George's furious pounding...that's right, his furious pounding.

About that...they naturally weren't doing it in front of us, it's just their fighting ended up looking like up nighttime tumble from our perspective.

Several blows and a bloodied mouth later, Io realized that this was a lost cause. Thus, he gave up on resisting and threw his arms to the side as if he was being crucified. With a twist of his head, he turned his cheek towards the man and gave him a look that said "hit me I dare you, kill me if you have the balls!"

Seeing his defiant attitude, George gave a cold harrumph and got off the man's belly. After straightening his back, he extended his right arm to the fallen man.

This time his drunkenness had been thoroughly expelled. With a sullen face, he grabbed the man's arm and pulled himself up. As he did so, his eyes fell onto the conspicuous bite marks on George's forearm. Memories of their fight began to stream into his head; especially that of his frenzied bite.

In actuality, the only reason he was able to leave those marks on George was because he let him do so. Three-star warriors weren't just potatoes you could find on the street after all. If you dared to bite them, a simple activation of their aura layer was more than enough to shatter your teeth. It was because Io realized this fact that he blushed red in shame.

The two men stared at each other for a few seconds before Io turned around and sat back down at the table, pushing the wine bottle to George without saying a word. George slowly took his seat as well and downed the bottle without caring if Io's spit was on it.

Judging by their behavior, these two were acquainted with each other after all. I guess this wasn't surprising given the proximity of their villages; not to mention that both of their villages were once the same some years back. For all we know, both families had some relationship that crossed the boundaries of space and time.

Given that they were calm enough to drink together, it's probably time for serious business. After that exciting tumble, we were left a little wanting by that abrupt end. However just as we were about to take our seats, George dropped another bombshell on us.

"..." A pair of furious eyes that were red from murderous intent bored holes into the insensitive man. Io opened his mouth releasing the acrid smell of alcohol into half the courtyard as he said: "Your wife's the one that ran away with another man!"

"My wife's still at home." George stared right back at the raging man and very clearly said: "I made sure three hours ago."

".......she went back to her parents' home." What was originally an insult ended up leading into a proper conversation as he lost all desire to bicker after hearing George's serious answer.

Feeling depressed once more, he reached for the wine bottle and downed it only to find that it had already been emptied by George. All he got from the bottle was a taste of George's saliva. The unfortunate potato swivelled his head around in search for an unopened wine bottle, but to his dismay, found that there were none.

There were technically several wine bottles lying not too far from him, however, they had all been opened and he had no idea if there was any wine left within them. Even so, he tried his luck with one bottle and gave it a thorough shaking. It was empty.

"You should visit her parents' home soon. If you leave this matter hanging for too long, she might just come to her senses one day and marry another man."

"What do you mean come to her senses and marry another man? It's marrying another man because she couldn't come to her senses! Are you f*cking messing with me or something! Go ahead, tell me what's wrong with marrying me?"

His angry retort drifted through the air like a gentle breeze, passing through the magnanimous George without any effect. "Let's talk about you first, exactly what happened to you this past year? How did you end up in this state?" George rebutted in a calm voice.

Io's silence elicited a sigh from George. Even though he wasn't there to witness it himself, he had naturally heard about his father's tragic death at the bandit's hands thanks to their proximity. That sordid affair took place roughly six months ago.

Seeing as his friend's mood was basically at its lowest right now, he chose not to continue rubbing salt into his wounds and instead revealed the purpose of his visit: "I killed Doran."

"The third chief of the Wolf's Fang? That Doran?" Io immediately asked. Having been on the receiving end of their care, Io was exceptionally sensitive to the name "Wolf's Fang". Hearing George say that, he immediately perked up and pressed him for answers: "Did you really kill him? When did that happen?"

George briefly recounted our encounter with the Wolf's Fang in the morning after which Io slapped his thigh and said: "Good! That bast*rd got what he deserved!"

"There's no point cheering about that...we're in big trouble now thanks to his death. Dawson will definitely come looking for us with an army at his back. Against his thousand subordinates, our village won't stand a chance…"

"That's right." George looked at Io in the eyes and said in an earnest voice: "I know you have a grudge with them and that's why I came to you for help. Besides, these bandits have been acting more and more arrogant lately. If we don't use this opportunity to wipe them out, the consequences will be dire. Once we get wiped out, you three won't be able to stand against Dawson. At that time, you'll all be his next targets."

"Targets huh...I know that...I want to slaughter those damned bandits as well but...not everyone in the village understands this logic." Io clenched his fists and gritted his teeth as he said that. With a agitated but conflicted look on his face, he said: "I want nothing more than to rip those curs apart! If only I was my own man...but...I…"

"I understand." George chose not to comfort him but instead shared his own feelings regarding the matter: "Expecting these bast*rds to be reasonable was silly to begin with, yet not only are these fools short sighted but I am as well…"

"Oh, Dioh and Kevin are here as well, you've grown taller since I last saw you guys." Due to his drunken stupor, he had only just noticed the two boys standing behind George. After greeting them as their senior, he turned towards me and Ancarin: "And these two are?"

Having said his greetings, Dioh rushed to introduce the two outsiders before George could: "They are Magister Mo Ke and Mage Ancarin. As a side note, Ancarin is Master Mo Ke's student."

"Oh...so we have two noble mages here, no wonder their get-up is so weird." Io joked with a derisive tone. "So what are these two mages doing here?"

"So there will be mages backing us up in this battle?" Even though the question was directed at us, he asked George instead. Perhaps he was still drunk after all seeing as he lacked this basic amount of courtesy; a good thumping would solve that right away.

"There will." Without waiting for George to reply, Ancarin promptly picked up the conversation. "Truthfully, the reason why Mister George had to seek aid was because of us…"

Ancarin spent the next two minutes recounting our encounter with the Wolf's Fang and Plateau Village, which elicited a string of sighs throughout from Io.

As for why he said that, *cough cough* even a fool would understand without being told. Right after his dad was murdered, the man must've definitely gone through a difficult period where he had to choose between revenge and survival. Seeing as he was standing before us right now, he clearly chose survival albeit unwillingly.

It was this decision that ended up throwing him into a spiralling descent of guilt, alcoholism, pain and self-condemnation. Even when his wife, whom he had a great relationship with, left with their child for her parents' home, Io still hadn't pulled himself out of this torturous rut. Just the opposite, their departure threw him further into the depths of despair.

Just as he was about to go through a mental breakdown, we arrived with an invitation to "take revenge on the Wolf's Fang together."

The reason why he didn't rush off to take revenge after his father was murdered wasn't because he didn't care about the dead man but rather because he was a logical person. He knew very well that rushing in alone was nothing more than suicide. As for asking the villagers for help, he more than anyone else knew that they wouldn't do so unless they had a dire reason to do so.

After all, living under the yolk of these bandits was still living. If they were to offend the bandits because of his grudge, they might end up getting implicated as well. Thus, Io chose to bear the burden of his guilt alone.

In truth, Iroi Village wasn't the only village in such a situation. With Plateau Original Village included, all the villages basically adopted such a passive attitude towards the bandits. Those curs were simply too strong and combining forces might not even guarantee a victory.

"Since you've decided to stand with us, then you better start recruiting some men quick. With my understanding of Dawson, he will attack in two days tops." Having finished our business here, George rose from his seat and prepared to leave. "We'll be leaving now, we still have two more villages to visit after all."

"By the way, about our numbers…" He awkwardly scratched his head sending off a storm of snow flakes as he did so. Despite this embarrassing scene, he chose to say it in the end; some things were too just important to be left unsaid. "I'm not sure how many people will join us for this battle, our opponent is just too strong after all…"

Leaving behind Iroi village, we spent another three hours on the road before reaching South Plateau Village. By now it was already night time and the majority of the villagers had gone home for dinner with only a few idlers roaming outside.

George was a kind of local celebrity in this village. Upon entering, his presence was immediately discovered by some of the more busybody villagers who immediately circled around him asking him about our trip here. George gave a cursory answer and asked to see Moranthal.

It seems I had accidentally vocalized this bit of confusion seeing as Ancarin immediately stepped forth to remind in a whisper. "Moranthal is that poor man who had his wife kidnapped."

Ooooh...right right, that chump. It was said that the two greatest tragedies a person could suffer was the murder of their parents and having their spouse taken away. Today must've been a lucky day seeing as how we encountered two such cases in less than half a day.

I wonder what state of mind he is in right now, defiantly angry or perhaps he is drowning himself in alcohol as well. Probably the latter…

As if acting in accordance with my will, we found a young man who was definitely under the age of 25 sitting in the courtyard of Moranthal's home, sullenly drowning himself in alcohol.

So this is rumored man who had his wife kidnapped. He seemed kind of handsome with his refined features, his faintly green hair that parted down the center flowed to his shoulders and most of all his fair complexion that would turn any woman green with envy.

While I did say that he was drowning in alcohol, his method of doing so was markedly more civilized that Io's. At the very least, he wasn't chugging at his wine bottles directly but instead used a small cup. Even so, his efficient drinking speed that seemed almost mechanical more than made up for the difference.

Somehow I have a bad feeling about this. A person who could give off that sort of impression while drinking wine from an almost teacup-like vessel would definitely be a much harder opponent to tackle than Io.

"Moranthal, do you need me to keep you company?" George asked, clearly not intending to use the violent method he used on Io. I bet it had something to do with his more civilized drinking style.

"...George?" Moranthal raised his head and looked at George with glazed eyes. After several seconds of staring, he finally verified the identity of that voice. With a faint hiccup at the start, he asked in a fairly lucid voce: "What are you doing here?"

"Naturally we have some matters to discuss with you." As he said that, George walked into the courtyard and plopped himself down next to the man as if this was the natural thing to do. In a slightly teasing voice, he said: "So I heard you've been having some trouble lately."

"*cough* What do you think?" Moranthal reached for a spare wine cup and filled it to the brim before gently pushing it before George. "So what are you here for? Don't tell me you're just here to make fun of me."

"Hah, I don't have that much free time to spare." George picked up the cup and downed it in one gulp. He lowered the cup and waved his hand at us: "I'm sure you're familiar with my brother and Kevin. Let me introduce these two to you."

After a short introduction, Moranthal signaled for us to sit, but as he did so, he discovered that there weren't enough seats. He graciously went inside his house to retrieve a pair of chairs for us; unlike a certain someone who made us stand throughout the discussion.

Moranthal swept his gaze over us; while it wasn't a wary one, it wasn't a curious one either. He asked in a fairly formal tone: "Ever since those bast*rds showed up, Plateau Village rarely has any visitors anymore, I'm sure these two have a story to tell."

"Truth be told, this is what happened…" George picked up the question and roughly recounted our encounter with the bandits and their village.

Moranthal remained silent for some time, tapping the table with his fingers while he did so. A moment later, he slowly opened up his eyes and squinted at us. "You're here to request for aid, aren't you?" He said summarily.

Having received such a definite answer, Moranthal took a sip of his wine and said in an extremely amiable fashion: "Alright then, you guys are free to recruit within this village. If anyone is willing to help, you're free to take them with you."

What an unambiguous stamp of approval. I wonder why I thought you would be more difficult than Io. I must've taken the wrong medicine today. So sorry about that, I've wronged you, you're a really nice man.

Even though we had just received what was in my mind the best answer possible, George remained motionless in his seat and instead stared at Moranthal.

"Oh me.." Moranthal picked up the cup with his right hand, and with a tilt of his head backwards, downed its contents. His left eye twitched as if something had gone in it. While maintaining his previous position of having the wine cup raised in his right hand, he rubbed his eye with his left.

Come to think of it, he did say we were free to recruit and not that he was willing to help us...which means...this bast*rd was toying with us from the start!! Damnit, how did I ever mistake him for a nice guy?!

Dude, couldn't you have just said so from the start! Couldn't you have just communicated like a normal person, weren't we all adults here!? Did we really have to partake in this childish game at our age!?

As if he had predicted this would happen, George's face remained calm as ever as he said: "Sigh...I've heard about your situation. Don't you hate the Wolf's Fang?"

Bro, wasn't your girlfriend kidnapped by them? Don't you know how important a girl was to an eternal bachelor like me? They're more important than life itself!! Couldn't you show even a tiny bit of anger? Wasn't this the legendary grudge of a stolen wife? Don't just treat it as nothing!!

"I heard you were there when they took Elona away. Are you really going to swallow this humiliation? Are you really going to accept what they did? As long as you're willing to join us, the combined forces of our four villages and these two mages should be enough to defeat those bandits."

"In fact, we have a high chance of winning since they've lost Doran, and Io is already preparing for battle. As long as we join together, our experts won't lose out to theirs."

No matter how much he tried to persuade the man, George's entreatments seemed to have no effect on him as he continued to sip his wine quietly. Seeing that this persuasion was going nowhere, he decided to adopt a more aggressive tactic:

"If you're really man, you should be itching to wash away this humiliation with their blood! Do you really have no desire to do so!? If you're still a man, you'll aid us in this fight and at the same time aid yourself! Right now, there's an opportunity to do so right in front of you! Take it and come defeat Dawson with us and save your wife!"

"Elona isn't my wife." Moranthal slammed the wine cup onto the table; the loud slam was a clear sign of his anger. Yet he didn't lose his temper as expected, but merely suppressed it once more.

"We weren't married yet! That's right, we weren't married! She's not my wife, she's not!" He spat out phrase after phrase as if he was trying to convince himself of something.

You even repeated yourself twice. Each time. You definitely mind what they did so why are you trying to avoid reality? Could you really call yourself a man then?

Having had enough of his escapism, Dioh rushed forth to voice his opinions once more: "Rather than her being kidnapped, I bet you offered up your girlfriend instead to appease Dawson!"

No matter how trashy Moranthal was, being censured by a junior wasn't something he could simply ignore. His face immediately flushed red, but seeing as Dioh was just a junior, he chose not to vent his anger on him. Instead, he suppressed his anger once more and said after a long sigh: "My relationship with her...you won't understand it."

"How can I not understand it?! You're just a masochist who loves being cuckolded. I know exactly what I'm talking about, you're just a wimp who can't protect his fiancee! Just by looking at that wuss of a face of yours I can tell that you're a natural born CUCKOLD!!!!" /span

"Shut up!" The temples on his forehead began to pulsate like an earthworm was burrowing underneath his skin. "What does a brat like you know!"

Cuckold boy...when you think about it, it had the same meaning as cuckold but it seemed to stab even deeper into his psyche than anything. Just looking at the myriad of changes Moranthal's face underwent was more than enough to tell us how much this nickname affected him.

While Dioh wasn't much help in a fight, no one could deny his value as verbal artillery. A couple of taunts from him was even more painful than having a knife shoved down one's throat. Not bad, this kid's a talent worth grooming.

"Elona left willingly!" Having been pushed to the brink, he blurted out what was plaguing his heart all this while and laid down on the table with his hands over his trembling head. From the looks of it, he was probably crying right now. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a storm brewing underneath those arms right now. However since he didn't let out a single sound, all these were merely speculation on my part.

Hearing his shameful admission, Dioh's face immediately froze up...it was the kind of surprise one experienced when they undercovered a major scoop.

So Moranthal's woman wasn't kidnapped...she dumped him...no wonder he didn't give a damn when George came to him with that proposal. He didn't even want to take revenge on them from the beginning.

Even so, this was a pretty interesting development in of itself. At the side, Ancarin's eyes practically lit up as she smelled the potential bit of gossip.

Having given into despair, while lying prone on the table Moranthal revealed the entire sordid affair of how his woman fell in love with Dawson at first sight…

In my mind, I pictured two figures with question marks for heads, one male and one female. As for their body...since I had never seen them before, I assumed that one was a hunk while the other was a voluptuous lady.

In actuality, it was a really simple story. Not too long ago, Dawson brought his trained wolves out on a stroll during which those mutts came upon Elona who was busy picking herbs. Having been trained well, they knew not to attack a defenseless girl like her and instead surrounded her.

Damaged goods weren't worth money after all so the trained wolves were specifically told beforehand not to attack any woman who seemed harmless.

A terrified Elona began waving the tiny hoe in her hand hoping to chase away the wolves. Thankfully, the wolves were smart enough to know that this wasn't an attack, if not she would've liked died there. Moranthal who was nearby searching for herbs immediately came to her aid upon hearing her terrified cries.

Moranthal immediately recognized those wolves and began retreating slowly out of the circle with his wife. He was very familiar with Dawson's personality and the consequences of killing these wolves. If anything were to happen to them, Dawson would definitely raid their village and perhaps even kill him.

Unfortunately for him, the wolves were only told not to attack defenseless women, there was nothing in their instructions that forbade them from attacking a man who seemed bent on resisting them. The intelligent mutts immediately realized that the man was trying to escape with their prey, so began to attack in hopes of delaying the man.

As he didn't dare to injure the wolves, what was originally an easy battle became a complicated one. Thankfully, the wolves didn't try to pounce on Elona, so he was able to focus solely on fending off the wolves. Being a three-star warrior, these wolves were naturally no match for him, the only difficult thing was that he couldn't harm them.

It was at this moment that Dawson showed up. The bandit chief clearly knew who Moranthal was and upon seeing him take their attacks so passively, decided not to trouble the young man any further. With a loud and clear whistle, he called off the wolves and threw down a parting threat: "Don't let me see you here again."

Moranthal's body froze up from the tension as he watched the bandit chief appear and leave so abruptly. He held his breath and stared unblinkingly at the man's back until he finally disappeared from his sight.

From that day onwards, Elona would frequently sneak off to that same region without the knowledge of Moranthal. However, her frequent disappearance wasn't something that could be kept secret for long. He began to notice her strange behavior and her sudden aloofness. It got to the point where she flat out despised him.

Suspecting that something was up he secretly followed her, and to his horror, discovered that she...was having a tryst with Dawson...in fact it seemed like this wasn't the first time they had done it together…

And now comes the climax of this story. For the most part, Dawson treated the girl with a cold aloofness. After all, he was merely toying with her. Since her boyfriend showed up, there was really no reason to keep this sort of used goods.

Even so, Elona was dead set on following him even after he rejected her multiple times. And yet her shamelessness knew no bounds as she tried one last tactic. She threw her boyfriend under the bus without any hesitation, and right in front of a stranger, humiliated him with the worst possible insults ever.

Hearing her call him a wuss and an impotent, his heart crumbled in an instant especially since he clearly saw that this wasn't the first time they had done it either!

What the heck! Did you think I protected and cherished you so much so that I abstained myself until our wedding!?... And yet my good will was seen as "can't get it up"?! You actually tumbled in bed with another man behind my back...well I guess, it's only a pile of leaves and shrubbery here...but still!

By now, he could tell that his woman's heart had completely left him for Dawson. Compared to that stoic bandit, he was nothing more than a loser.

Seeing the once-loving couple break up, Dawson coldly said: "Seeing as we were together for some time...I'll allow you to follow me if that's what you wish."

While that story was slightly far-fetched, it actually happened to Moranthal. As if to prove that fact, right after he told his tale, he let forth a hysterical wail aimed right at our resident verbal artillery, Dioh.

"Her heart isn't even with me anymore, is there even any point of snatching her back!? Go ahead, tell me! Why won't you tell me!? Aren't you full of ideas!? Tell me then!" Having cried his heart out, I clearly saw a sheen of moisture at the sides of his eyes as he raised his head. As they say, a man's tears was never lightly shed; looks like this time he was truly despondent.

In the end, Dioh proved to be a brat with a slightly formidable tongue. While he was busy shooting his mouth off, he had never once considered that there might be such an explosive secret behind Moranthal's behavior. In his eyes, the man must've been a coward and that's why he lost his wife...in the end, well…

Who would've thought that the man who everyone thought had his fiancee stolen by bandits was in actuality, just a complete failure. His failure was even more tragic than having one's fiancee kidnapped. After all, your opponent had never even thought about kidnapping your fiancee...the man had lost before the competition even started.

Based on what we know from his retelling, Dawson had never once come onto Elona, it was Elona who took the initiative instead. In fact, Dawson even tried to give her away at the end, but Elona refused to let go like a piece of chewed up gum; even going so far as to insult her own fiance.

Such a scary woman, she even mastered the art of being a slut without anyone teaching her. Not only had she two-timed him, she had done so in such a cruel fashion. I bet Moranthal might really become impotent after her "can't get it up" comment.

"About that...woman, just let it go." While they might've sounded cliche, these were the only words of consolation George could think of. "Don't give up the entire forest for a tree."

"..." Moranthal gave him a cold stare and remained silent. Even so, his expression said it all; this was a stubborn man. As expected, after a few seconds of silence, Moranthal stated his terms: "You want me to help you guys? Alright, all you have to do is introduce to me a woman who'll never betray me, I'll gladly help you then."

"..." The heck, you might as well ask for the sun while you're at it! I'm not saying that every woman was a two-timing slut, but exactly how were we to know if she's going to betray you before it happens? That's just another "did the chicken or the egg come first" question.

Speaking of which, I didn't think it was possible rule out such a possibility no matter who it was; unless they were so ugly that even a mother wouldn't love them. Perhaps that's the answer then...how about we find an ugly freak for him. But then, this high and mighty prick would probably reject a girl who was born ugly.

"What do you mean messing aro und? I gave you a very serious term. As long as you find me such a woman, even just a look is fine, I guarantee I'll help you."

"I don't see how that is serious in any way. All I see is a man giving into despair." George rejected him with a shake of his head. "Perhaps this episode was too much of a shock for you, but your life's just beginning. You shouldn't destroy it for a woman that doesn't belong to you…"

"A fortunate man like you would never understand how I feel!" His face flushed and his neck veins bulged as he spat out that sentence, his spittle flew all over as he did so. In what looked like another tantrum, he continued ranting:

"All I want now is just a woman that won't betray me. Even if that woman doesn't like me, I'm fine with that, I can still pursue her. I won't even mind if she was ugly, all I want is love...a pure unadulterated romance...why...why must it be me...why…"

Regarding George's view that he had given into despair, I'm in complete agreement with that. This guy was done for. In his eyes, George's normal marriage must've made him seem like the legendary winner in life...in other words, he had already labelled George as a rival of sorts. After all, there was no way us singles-for-life could coexist with these winners in life.

In the face of this disappointing display, George gave me a slightly exasperated look before asking in a tone that sounded like he was seeking my opinion while at the same time complaining. "We might have to move onto the next village."

"Alright then, our time is precious after all." This was the first time I had spoken since we met Moranthal. By now, I had basically given up on recruiting this lost cause.

Exactly how did a fine young man like him turn into such a mess? Not only did he give George a headache, he annoyed the heck out of me as well. How could a grown man like you give up so easily?! Exactly how did you live up to this point with that weak will of yours?

You even had the gall to ask "why" three times. I should ask you instead, why weren't you taking up arms with us and taking revenge on Dawson and that slut!? Don't you think that a whore like her deserves to have her life ruined?!

Moranthal's head whipped up to face me, his burning eyes threatening to bore a hole in my mask as he stared intently at me. That gaze...did he always have such a scary gaze?

"Excuse me, do you mind taking off that mask of yours?" What was a disappointing meat sack just a while ago suddenly did a 180 as he flashed me a slightly reserved and shy smile. "Err, I don't have any ill intentions, I just want to see your face."

Wait, something's wrong, why is this meat sack showing such an interest in me all of a sudden? I better be careful about how I reply to him: "I apologize but that request is too hard for me to fulfill."

In the face of his persistent badgering, I gave out the answer we had prepared long beforehand: "Because of a failed magical experiment, my face was horribly disfigured."

"That...is such a shame..." He muttered to himself with a tone full of regret, yet amidst that dejectedness was a hint of elation and celebration. "However, your voice is really beautiful..."

"Let's move onto the next village, every second is precious right now!" I promptly cut him short with my suggestion which immediately garnered the approval of George. Understanding the severity of our situation, Kevin and Dioh accepted our decision without complaint. Yet a certain meat sack wasn't too thrilled about this.

"Which eye of yours was it that lied about my gender?! I'm a bonafide man, more so than you!" That's right, I'm more manly than you. At the very least, I won't allow some strange man to stay beside Nicole.

"..." He was startled by my sudden outburst but immediately recovered a couple of seconds later. With the same reserved grin on his face, he said: "There's no way you're man with that exquisite voice of yours. Stop joking around."

As I said that, the meat sack actually gave me a serious assessment with those nightmarishly creepy eyes of his; which gave me the goosebumps just knowing he was looking at me. As he stared at me with a gaze that seemed to be able to see through my mask, I felt an unprecedented level of pressure from his evaluating eyes.

After staring at me for a long while, he nodded and flashed a brilliant smile: " Whether it is your voice or your body, there's no way Miss Mo Ke is anything but a lady, in fact if your face were to ever recover, I'm sure you'll be drop dead gorgeous!"

You're courting death! I swear I'll kill you, I...I've just been mistaken for female again!! Even with my mask on, my displeasure was apparent for all who knew me. At the side, Ancarin was busy stifling her laughter with both hands covering her mouth.

Ignoring my horrid mood, Moranthal spent a couple of seconds straightening out his clothes in a bid to impress me; even though he seemed more like a cockroach to me right now. Having touched up his clothes to what was, in his mind a satisfactory degree, he gave me that annoying brilliant smile of his and continued with his futile advances.

"Ahem, if Miss Mo Ke doesn't mind having a meal with me, this one will definitely put forth his best in aiding you against the Wolf's Fang Troupe!"

Suppressing my sudden desire to kick him, I did my utmost to maintain a calm voice as I explained to him: "I'll have to pass on that meal, our time is limited after all. If you don't mind, please organize some men and hurry to Plateau Village as soon as possible."

"Alright, I'll do as you say." A look of regret crossed his face as he took in my rejection. Even so, he gave me an elegant bow and said: "Your wish my command, Miss Mo Ke."

Seeing me lose my temper, the ever vigilant Ancarin immediately stepped in to pull me aside: "Master, don't act rashly, remember your status!"

The word status might've sounded to the others like a reminder for me to watch my image(feminine), but to me, it was a reminder not to forget about my devilish identity.

Truth be told, this whole mess between the Wolf's Fang and Plateau Village was something I didn't have to stick my hand into. However, seeing as it started because of us, I had to stay even if it was merely to take responsibility. Thus, here we were, standing side by side with the villagers in their time of need. Not like George would have had it any other way….

Having unexpectedly dealt with Moranthal, we didn't tarry any longer and instead pushed on to the next village. This was the last village we had to convince, and luckily it was really close to the South Plateau village; barely 2 hours of traveling was required to reach it.

Even though night had fallen, we pushed onwards in midst of the darkness. Thankfully, the moon was out in force today so the mountain road wasn't as difficult as I had initially thought it would be. With no time to spare, we ate a simple meal of dried rations while we pressed on. Roughly 9 pm in the night, we finally reached our final destination.

In order to avoid any potential accident, I abstained from eating dried rations while we walked. However, in order to avoid any suspicion I cleverly made use of the darkness to fake the eating motion.

Caution was the name of the game after all. If my crimson skin were to ever get discovered, that would cause a stir among the villagers. More importantly, there was no guarantee that I would be able to convince them that I wasn't a devil...especially given that stump on my forehead.

In the midst of my acting, George suddenly turned around and looked in my direction, attracted by the sound of me tossing away the dried rations. I immediately turned around as well and faked a wary look while looking around. Thankfully, the ruse worked.

All this while, that brat Dioh would sneak a few glances in my direction. I don't know what he's up to but I'm sure it's nothing good.

The village was called East Plateau Village, formerly known as Plateau Village back when the four villages were still combined together.

Being a peasant in the Western Human Realms, one didn't have too many leisure activities to pursue, especially at night. Thus, there weren't too many villagers out and about when we arrived. Those who witnessed our arrival chose to turn a blind eye to us. In all likelihood, the darkness of night had prevented them from seeing George's face.

Thankfully, George knew his way around the village and was able to lead us through a maze of well-lit houses, bringing us to our destination in a mere three minutes.

If my memory serves me right, our last target was a person called Eddison. According to Kevin, he was the one who suffered the least under the Wolf's Fang. Compared to having a parent killed or a fiancee that betrayed him, the loss of material wealth and beating he suffered was negligible and made him the luckiest of the three. Of course, luckiest was a relative term. If he was truly lucky, he wouldn't have gotten beaten up to begin with.

However, with the lack of such a deep hatred, that meant that he had no real reason to duke it out with the bandits either. Thus before coming here, I mentally prepared myself for a verbal slog. As for Dioh, he was raring to show off his almighty cannon of a mouth in order to clinch us a victory. Even before seeing the man, his ammo was already primed and loaded.

George stepped up and gave the door a hard knock. Without having to wait long, the door opened-up unleashing a torrent of incandescent light out into the darkness; which made the person who opened it seem that much taller. It was a fatty standing at the doorway, roughly 180 cm in height, who flashed us a jubilant smile the moment he saw George.

"Naturally because we have something to discuss with you." In the face of his jovial smile, George's expression became noticeably stiffer. "Don't just stand there, let us in."

Eddison looked to be roughly the same age as George. He had a rounded face with cheeks tinged a healthy red flanking an ever present smile. Looking at his neatly combed head of short chestnut hair and his immaculate style of dress, my impression of him was one of a wealthy businessman. In short, this potato didn't seem like a fighter.

Before meeting him, I had wondered what kind of person he would be. Would he be a drunkard like Io or a loser like Moranthal? In the end, what greeted us was an amiable looking businessman.

Stepping through the doorway, we came into a relatively large parlor which was at least a 100 square meters large. A beautiful lady of roughly 20 years of age came up to us with a tea set in hand and set it down gently onto the large table in front of us.

Without seeking any prior approval, George led us to the table and sat down. Not paying this action any heed, Eddison instructed the lady to bring us some hot water and tea leaves before signalling for her to leave.

Tea leaves. The Western Human Realms did in fact possess such a product, although it was not a popular one it was not a cheap either. After all, growing tea leaves in such a backward society still required a decent amount of effort, and thus it was a luxury that the common folk couldn't afford.

Roscar didn't have a habit of drinking tea. In fact, he barely had money for his own equipment let alone such luxuries after toiling day and night for our tuition fees. The weapons he used were at least several years old and yet he couldn't bring himself to spend the money required to renew them. This was the first time I had smelt a cup of tea ever since I reincarnated into this world. This smell...it doesn't seem as fragrant as I remembered…

Picking up the piping hot cup of tea, my nose and mouth began twitching from the irresistible white wisps that wafted from its watery surface. I paused for a second, and deliberated on the potential consequences of what I was about to do. In the end, I gave into temptation, carefully removing my mask as I lowered my head gently into the cup and giving the tea a good sniff. It was slightly sour with an overpowering bitterness that lacked a certain dryness.

As expected, this didn't even come close to the authentic Chinese tea from China. However, this familiar fragrance was enough to stir up a sense of nostalgia in a lone reincarnator like me.

Due to my obsession with this cup of tea, I was basically oblivious to how the negotiations were proceeding. By the time I was brought back to my senses, George and Eddison were engaged in a heated argument.

"If we don't make use of this opportunity to wipe out those curs, they'll never let us off. If Dawson's able to wipe out our villages today, he'll be able to wipe out yours tomorrow. Don't you know that if the lips are gone, the teeth are cold?!"

"Nope." He said without any hesitation. "Our village is now East Plateau Village and have long since separated from Plateau Original Village. After several decades of being separated, our relationship is at best cordial. I'm well aware of how Dawson works, he wouldn't mind."

"If we combine our forces together, our military might is more than enough to wipe out those bandits. Only by doing so will we enjoy peace."

"Just forget it, if you really want my support, go defeat Dawson first." Eddison took a drawn out sip of his tea as he said that. "I know you managed to defeat him before, I'm sure you'll be able to do so again."

Easy for you to say...by the time Dawson shows himself, the battle will almost be over. By that time, if George was able to defeat Dawson, their morale would be crushed in an instant. At that point, all we needed was the might of the three villages to finish them off. Whether or not he took part wouldn't matter at all. On the flip side...we runned the risk of being wiped out.

The whole point of this journey was to rope in the other three-stars in order to overwhelm Dawson. George said so already, he wasn't a match for Dawson and that's precisely why we needed more three-stars in order to win. In a fight between life and death, fairness could take a backseat.

Seeing my confusion, Ancarin promptly stepped forward to explain the situation to me. Apparently, Eddison didn't have much of a grudge against Dawson and thus didn't care too much about defeating him. Furthermore, he didn't look too favorably upon George either. He felt that even with our combined forces, we would still lose to their overwhelming numbers.

More importantly, these bandits not only had wolves backing them up, they had horses as well. As for their four villages, not a single one of them had horses; all the horses had already been confiscated by Dawson. This was precisely why we had to make this trip on foot. As for my carriage, that wasn't an option either thanks to a certain tied up potato.

So exactly what did it mean to not have horses? It meant that we had no means of communicating with the outside world to trade. ly, it was mentioned that the Wolf's Fang had sealed off all trade routes leading to and from the villages. The most direct way to achieve this was to stop any merchants from making the trip. Another way was to take away any horses that could potentially serve as a transportation tool.

On top of that, not having horses meant that none of the villagers could escape from any potential blockade. Well they still could...in a bodybag. These were after all, ordinary villagers; there was no way they could outrun a horse without any martial training.

In short, any resistance would be met with bloody consequences and with the lack of any viable escape methods, only a madman or someone with a blood feud would tangle with these bandits. Normal people would rather steer clear of this entire mess.

His leeriness was understandable, if it was me, I would be wary about tying the fate of my entire village to a bandwagon with such a bleak future.

However, then came the question of what were we to do. Without Eddison's cooperation, our plan was doomed before it even started; which meant we had to rope him in no matter the cost, even if it meant using force. At least that was how I felt.

"We won't die, with the combined might of the four of us, we will definitely be able to suppress Dawson. Furthermore, I've already killed Doran so their side has lost an expert even before the fight has started. After all this, are you still unwilling to lend us your aid?"

"Hmph, so you killed Doran. Now I get it, so that's why you're so anxious to recruit me." Eddison laughed coldly and said: "Don't even think about dragging me into this mess. If you want to fight the Wolf's Fang, go find Io and Moranthal instead. I'm sure those two will be more than happy to support you. After all, one of them lost a father while the other lost a fiancee."

As Eddison and George stared daggers at each other, the rest of us glanced at each other with a worried look in our eyes. Unlike the previous two villages, this situation didn't look like it would resolve itself.

That meat sack Moranthal inexplicably came onto us after some persuasion. That drunkard Io came on board after a good thrashing. Yet why did things become so complicated when it came to dealing with this damned fatty? I guess it came down to the fact that we didn't have a grasp of his weakness.

Sh*t, if this negotiation fails, we'll lose the aid of a three-star and at least a hundred men...looks like it's time for me to make an appearance.

With a light cough, I gathered the attention of everyone present and poised my question: "Ahem, about that, I heard that Master Eddison was robbed by the Wolf's Fang a while ago while doing business. May I know if that's true?"

Looks like George didn't do us the favor of an introduction. Seeing his questioning gaze, Ancarin stepped forth to fulfill George's duty of introducing us: "Greetings Mister Eddison, this is my professor, Magister Mo Ke. As for me, I'm Ancarin, an apprentice mage. We are a pair of travelling mages who, due to a misunderstanding, ended up offending the Wolf's Fang."

"Misunderstanding? You mean those trained wolves?" The fatty nodded his head while giving Ancarin an admiring look. "Those beasts are ignorant to have attacked a beautiful mage such as yourself. Truly deplorable."

"Hahah, beautiful, you're too kind Mister Eddison." She gave an obligatory response to his praise before steering the conversation back on track.

"It's precisely because of this misunderstanding that we offended those despicable bandits. Not only that, we ended up implicating Plateau Village as well. This matter has caused us a great deal of guilt which is why we decided to stand against the Wolf's Fang. We hope that you'll aid us in this noble endeavor and help us overcome this obstacle."

Her words were soft and gentle with an alluring undertone you would expect from a typical seduction ploy. The fatty's body jiggled slightly in excitement from her advances, yet this still wasn't enough to change his mind. "I'm terribly sorry. Normally I would make it my duty to accept any request from a beauty such as yourself, however, I do not possess the strength required to fulfill this request."

Ancarin gave a pitiful pout as she said that in a pleading voice. Even so, the fatty didn't bite. "I'm sorry but I truly do not possess the strength to do so."

You damned tub of lard, why are you so damned obstinate about this. If you are truly that weak, why the hell would George even bother looking for you?

Yet with all that cursing, the problem still remained that he wasn't being cooperative. It's not like we could force him to help us with a knife to his neck either.

In the midst of their conversation, that beautiful lady came back once more with a platter of piping hot food in her hands. Laid out on the tray was bread, soup, vegetables and also some grilled meat.

"I'm aware that this must've been an arduous trip for all of you especially given the t iming. I'm sure none of you had the time for a proper meal while rushing here." Eddison smiled at the girl's arrival and nodded in her direction. "Is the fish ready?"

Mhm, this hall's pretty well decorated, from the looks of it, it must've cost him a pretty penny. So...Io got into a blood feud with the Wolf's Fang because they murdered his father….while Moranthal's grudge was because of his slutty ex-fiancee. As for this tub of lard, he was robbed while running a caravan...this hall though...why does it seem so different from the homes of the other village chiefs? I guess he pays more attention to his lifestyle?

Mhm, let's go with that, after all this fatty's furniture seems to be on the expensive side, or at least they're more expensive than those of the other three chiefs. Just from a glance, one could tell that the furniture in the homes of the other chiefs were all made from their village's carpenters; they were slightly rough around the edges, but the emphasis was put on durability instead during construction.

That beautiful lady just now must've been his maid. While she wasn't wearing a maid's costume, there weren't that many women who would call a man master. She's either a servant or his wife, but given her aloofness, it was probably the former.

In order to maintain this lifestyle it must've cost him a fortune, and that was probably why he does those trade runs. If that's the case, shouldn't this man be very particular about his money? After all, trade runs weren't allowed by the bandits and ran the risk of him getting beat up. Also, the fact that he could even transport the goods meant that he had horses...didn't those bandits confiscate all the horses? He must've kept a hidden stable somewhere.

When he was robbed, I'm sure he put up a fight and yet he was merely beaten up and instead of murdered. That means he didn't go all out then...so we're dealing with a money-grubbing fatty that was afraid of dying.

Alright, enough analyzing for now. I might've messed up somewhere along the way but for the most part, I had just the right plan for such a fellow.

As I pondered this question, the enticing fragrance of the grilled meat wafted underneath my mask, tempting me to eat it. Yet this clearly wasn't an option, so I decided to settle this problem as soon as possible.

"*cough cough cough*..." In the midst of what was probably his second dinner, my sudden proposal caused him to nearly choke from the surprise. The fatty immediately wiped his mouth off with the cloth he hung in the front of his collar, coughing several more times before finally settling down. He then gave me a look you would only give when you saw your long lost father or perhaps when you stumble upon a million dollars.

"..." Hearing that, his grin turned upside down in what had to be a world record in falling out. With a shake of his head, he flatly said: "No."

How was a thousand gold coins not enough?! That's the equivalent of a million Chinese Yuan (roughly 150k USD)! Don't you know the meaning of the word million? Why weren't you jumping at such a generous offer? Only a fool would reject it!

At the side, Dioh stirred in his seat, clearly dissatisfied with the fact that he rejected such a princely sum. However, George knew that I was trying to win him over with money, so he swiftly silenced the teen before he could open fire with his mouth cannon.

"Give me…" He halted mid-sentence as if he had just remembered something that prevented him from even extorting us. He closed his mouth and paused for a second before saying in a definite tone: "No matter how much money you offer me, I won't accept the deal so just give up on this."

"No way, I...this isn't a matter about money." I clearly saw his eyes waver at the mention of 2,000 gold coins, however, he still rejected the offer. Don't tell me we really have to put a knife to his throat to secure his cooperation?

His refusal left me at a loss for words. It was then that Ancarin spoke up: "Mister Eddison, is the reason why you refuse our offer because you feel that we will lose?"

"Truthfully, I don't think that the combined forces of our four villages will be enough to defeat Dawson and once we fail to do so, we're all doomed. No matter what, I can't take this risk."

"According to what I know, the bandit's suppression of your village is extremely severe. If you don't make use of this opportunity to defeat them now, I'm afraid this chance will never come to you again."

His words had a varying level of shock on us, particularly George. He had suspected that the man was nearing four-stars, yet that was merely his suspicion. All this while he had operated under the assumption that, while he might not be able to defeat the man, he might not lose either if he went all out. And yet...reality was never as one thought.

Four-star warriors have the ability to project their Fighter's Aura and thus could perform long-ranged attacks. If Dawson was really a four-star, he wouldn't even be able to get close to the bandit in a one on one match.

"Mhm, it's only a possibility though…" Eddison continued in an unsure tone. "Truth be told, I only learnt of this through hearsay. Roughly three months ago, I heard that Dawson managed to slay a warrior who had just advanced into four-stars. While no one was there to witness it in person, the state of that man's corpse was telling enough. I heard that it was ripped to shreds."

If Dawson was truly a four-star...then weren't we all in trouble? Was it too late for me to leave now? Hmph, when did I become such a coward? I caused this mess so I must be the one who fixed it. Besides, I couldn't just leave Regine to fend for herself. If I left now, what about those innocent villagers?

"If the enemy is truly that strong then that's all the more reason I won't let you guys off the hook." It was then that Ancarin showed a side of her which I had never seen before. While she was still smiling, that smile had a sinister undertone to it. "If you're so adamant about rejecting us then I'm afraid I'll have to employ certain measures instead."

"Hmph! A one-star like you?" Eddison said scornfully. A one-star mage's powers were clear for all to see. Even if she was a hundred meters away from him, he would be able to deflect her spells easily with his aura, let alone at this close distance. With a few rapid dashes, he could easily cover a hundred meters in mere seconds and punch her. Of course all this was under the assumption that she had no enchanted gear.

"Of course not, I still don't have the strength to defeat a three-star warrior, but in terms of forcing a person to listen to my whims, I'm a lot stronger than you."

As those words left her mouth, Eddison furrowed his eyebrows partly in confusion and partly in alarm. Even I was confused by her baseless declaration.

"I know that you're unwilling to participate in a battle you aren't sure of, and I also understand that you're concerned about the wellbeing of your village. However, seeing as you aren't able to make this decision yourself, I'll just have to make it for you." She declared once more with that sinister smile on her face.

"Just now, I mentioned that we killed a couple of trained wolves and ended up implicating Plateau Village. From this point alone, one can see that the bandits see us as enemies. Given their nature, what if we were to...flee to the East Plateau Village in the event of our defeat? I wonder what those bandits would do then."

"..." His face darkened in an instant, his gaze a bone-chilling cold. His eyes no longer held the admiration they had before and instead contained an undisguised hostility. "I'll hand you over to them then!"

"Hah, the fact that I dare to say this now means that I'm more than confident about being able to evade capture. Even a three-star like you wouldn't be able to catch a mage dead set on escape." Ancarin tossed him a disdainful smile as she casually brought out several low-grade equipment and fiddled with them.

"All these are magical tools meant for escaping. This piece here increases my running speed. This hinders my enemies' movements. As for this, it has a levitation spell built into it, this…"

As if reading off a catalog, she began introducing every piece of magical tool she had. With each piece she brought out, Eddison's face became increasingly more sullen. The moment she mentioned that she still had much more in the carriage, the fatty had basically given up on trying to capture her.

According to her, should this plan ever fail we would flee to East Plateau Village and use it as a shield. While the village fought with the bandits, we would make use of that opportunity to escape. As we still had Duran's sports car of a carriage ready in the wings, being able to flee from the bandits was a guaranteed fact.

When the bandits discovered that we were gone, the first people they would blame would be the villagers. Even if they knew that they weren't sheltering us, the bandits would make use of this excuse to raid the village. After all, by the time they reached the East Plateau Village, they would still be in the midst of a bloodthirsty frenzy after massacring the three other villages.

Even if the intention wasn't to wipe them out, the bandits would still make use of this chance to show their dominance in order to deter any future resistance.

"...I'm sorry but I do not wish for the villagers to get massacred, so I chose to resist." George avoided answering his question directly, but even so, his apologetic tone was evidence enough. While he wasn't going to take part in this scheme actively, he still gave his tacit approval to it. Deep down, he desperately wanted Eddison to join their side even if it meant resorting to such a threat. With several hundreds of lives in his hands, there's no trick too dirty to use.

By now, he had completely abandoned his calm demeanour as he glared furiously at the girl. Yet just as he was about to continue yelling, the beautiful lady servant came in with a platter of portioned out fish.

Eddison calmed down slightly at that. After waiting for her to return to the kitchen, he let out a long helpless sigh. "Even if I join you guys in fighting them, you still won't win against Dawson. If that story is true, then even if he isn't a four-star, he still possesses the strength to kill one."

"Four-star...even if four of us gang up on him, we still can't defeat a four-star. Not to mention that there's still Dohby, the Second Chief, and at least 500 bandit minions..."

After a short introduction, I learnt that Dohby was the older brother of Doran, and was even stronger than him; making him at least a three-star peak warrior. While he might not be able to defeat George in a one on one, he could still stall for time.

Thus, we were placed in a precarious stalemate; we wanted him to help us defeat Dawson but he was unwilling to do so as Dawson was too strong. If this farce continued any longer, the situation might take an unexpected and fatal turn. We might end up pushing him towards Dawson or force him to attack us instead. Even if he didn't do so, there's a chance he might fake allegiance and backstab us at the crucial moment.

I nodded at Ancarin to show my approval, after which she reached into her robes. "Even if he's really a four-star warrior, there's no need for us to be too concerned about that either because we still have this trump card." As she said that, she pulled out a bunch of magical scrolls. Each of these scrolls had a three-star spell enchanted onto it, which If used at the right moment, would even be able to kill a four-star.

Eddison's eyes widened as he fixed his gaze onto the magical scrolls. As a merchant, he knew better than anyone how expensive these things were. A scroll with a three-star spell enchanted onto it could easily fetch over a thousand gold coins. Furthermore, this was a consumable item, meaning it disappeared after one use.

"All of these scrolls have a three-star spell on them and are a perfect counter to a four-star warrior." She took out six scrolls in total and laid them out one by one on the table. "I have more scrolls like these stored away in our carriage. Against a four-star like Dawson, that should be more than enough to handle him."

"Not only that, we still have more magical tools in our carriage. While they're only low-grade enchanted gear, they are all high quality gear that can amplify a warrior's might. All these will be made available to you all as a loan."

Not like we paid for those things anyway...even if we end up losing them, we don't really lose out much. Plus, I truly hate bandits...I'll never forget what those fake bandits did to Morran and Rhona (TL:Dad and Mom if you don't remember)...I know that technically had nothing to do with bandits, but imagine for a second if this world was peaceful and there weren't that many bandits roaming about; those bast*rds wouldn't have dared to pose as bandits! No matter where they were, as long as they're active bandits, they all had a part to play in my new parents' death.

"Magical scrolls and magical tools…" Not only did this revelation stoke the already raging fires in George and the others, even the leery fatty began to salivate at this idea. No matter how you looked at it, this was a great opportunity, an opportunity to kill off Dawson once and for all! With these gears, George and the other three-stars would definitely be able to increase their might by at least 50%.

Ever since these bandits started muscling in on their business, the four villages had grown increasingly impoverished with time. However as the villagers had lived there for generations, none of them were willing to leave in spite of this. Yet this was a problem as living in such conditions not only made them poorer with each passing generation, sooner or later they would become accustomed to such treatment and end up as slaves.

Right now with George and the other three-star warriors guarding villages, the bandits didn't dare to go overboard in lieu of the potential losses; this also didn't fit in with Dawson's policy of interests first. However if this balance was to change, you could be sure that these bandits would leap at the opportunity to return to their deplorable roots.

Having been to all the villages, a certain fact was now apparent to me. Except for Plateau Original Village, the other three villages all received a challenge of sorts.

Was this a deliberate move on Dawson's part? After all, the combined might of the four villagers was a force to be reckoned with. Even if they were weaker than the bandits, the difference wasn't that huge.

Plus defeating the strongest warrior of the village in front of the villagers was a quick way to quell any resistance and thus gain true control over the village. There was, after all, a limit to how much killing and suppressing one could do before the villagers end up banding together.

The four villagers of Plateau all had a three-star of their own while the bandits only had three; namely, Dawson, Dohby and Doran. Of the three only Dawson was a match for George. As for the other two, I was not familiar with Dohby, and Doran's dead so he's definitely out of the picture.

With that in mind, the might of our experts was clearly greater than the bandits. If you add in the aid of the scrolls and tools, there's basically no way those bandits could win.

"We still have a bunch of potions on hand, they can heal injuries, cure poisons, recover mana...hmm, I think we have some that can restore Fighter's Aura as well although it's only a few bottles."

"I...I don't think I have a reason to reject your proposal anymore." That last revelation was the last straw that broke the camel's back. As Eddison said that, he let out a drawn-out sigh of relief as if a heavy burden had been lifted off his back. He flashed us a sheepish smile and asked:

"Do you know why I insist on conducting those secret trade runs? It's because I know that the combined might of our villages isn't a match for these bandits and that's why I wanted to save up money to hire some mercenaries…"

While these bandits were relatively restrained in their actions, they were a plague on the villages. After all, they were bandits and bandits relied on robbing to feed themselves. These despicable bast*rds would often raid the villagers' homes and empty them of whatever valuables they could find. However with the three-star warriors watching over the village, Dawson knew not to push his luck and only settled for stealing their wealth and not their wives.

It was this bit of foresight that prevented any serious uprising against the bandits since none of them were actually in any mortal danger. What they lost was merely wealth and that could be re-earned given time.

This was also the reason why George acted so passively in front of Doran. If it hadn't been for Dioh's provocative actions, George definitely wouldn't have killed the Third Chief.

With that in mind, I could understand Eddison's wariness. He wanted to accumulate enough money in secret to hire some mercenaries to wipe out the bandits. Unfortunately, this required a large sum of money in a range of at least several thousand gold coins. If this was the Plateau Village of yesteryear, they might still be able to scrounge up this sum, but now...well, dreams are dreams for a reason.

Having heard this, I now knew that this fellow actually had the mind to resist the bandits as well. It's just that he was lying in wait like a deadly viper waiting to strike. Unfortunately for him, we came along and now his plans had to be pushed forward.

Having taken care of the most troublesome fellow, we stayed the night in his home. The next morning, Eddison kept to his word and began rallying the men of his village. All in all, he swiftly recruited 120 hunters of which 17 were two-stars while the others were one-star.

Everyone gathered here was a hunter and thus had a lot of experience with archery and trap laying. With that in mind, Io volunteered to bring the hunters to prepare the battlefield. While the bandits were proficient in trap laying as well, these traps should still be able to cause some casualties and dampen their morale.

George's plan was to settle this battle outside of the village. Therefore, he chose a nearby forest with a clearing within it as the battlefield. The hunters would place traps in the bandit's path and lay in wait for them at the opposite side. In order to leave the trap field, the bandits would have to step into the open clearing where they would be vulnerable to a volley of arrows from the hunters.

All the while the trees would provide us with a natural cover and defense against their long-range attacks and charges. Of course, the bandits might just decide to retreat back into their side of the forest.

As for the trained wolves, while these mutts were pretty smart, their intelligence couldn't be compared to a human in the end. They might be smart enough to avoid some basic traps, but the traps the hunters had set were anything but basic. All that awaited them was certain death.

The first thing we did once we returned to the village was visit Regine. As she refused to eat without me feeding her, she ended up spending all this time locked up in the carriage without touching the food the villagers had sent her. By the time we returned, her stomach was already rumbling in protest...thank god she knew how to go to the toilet herself.

Thus feeding her was the first thing I did upon returning. The last thing we needed now was a starving Regine. Because of this, we ended up wasting some time in the village, during which George led the hunters away to prepare the battlefield.

Probably out of consideration of all the gear and tools I gave to them, George seemed to trust me a lot more than before. He no longer watched me as closely, leaving only his brave potato of a brother, Dioh, behind to follow us. For some strange reason though, this kid kept giving me a strange look throughout this journey, and it severely creeped me out.

Having finished feeding Regine, we hopped onto the carriage and left. For this journey, Dioh was our driver and tracker. Without much difficulty, he drove the carriage along the tracks left behind by the hunters, and soon we came upon the temporary base set up by George.

As they weren't an actual army, the base had a haphazardness to it; all they did was find a spot with water and cover. Thankfully, the hunters all had a wealth of experience living off the land, so they knew which areas to avoid while pitching their tents. The hunters pitched their tents as close to each other as possible, then scattered an insect and snake repellent powder aro und the base.

Being so close to the forest, this camp was particularly vulnerable to a fire attack. But...considering that the bandit's had no mages and that battles in the Western Human Realms basically revolved around sword and spears, I guess it was understandable that George forgot about this matter.

According to George, Dawson wasn't one to rely on dirty tricks, sneak attacks and the like. If he decided to attack you, he would give you sufficient time to prepare. So this was where he got the idea of two to three days...he based it on an estimate of his understanding of Dawson's personality. But weren't we fighting a war now? Was it really alright to leave your own safety in the hands of your enemies' morality...weren't they bandits?!

Throughout this preparation period, I had this nagging concern that the bandits would suddenly launch a sneak attack on us seeing as, at the end of the day, they were just a bunch of despicable cutthroats. Not doing so would be the biggest surprise instead.

On the day we killed those trained wolves, the Third Chief came looking for us at Plateau Village the very next morning. This meant that their mountain hideout must've been extremely close to the village; probably several hours away.

Seeing as we were the underdogs here in terms of quantity, George's tactics of using traps sat well with me. But...exactly what were these two potatoes doing!?

Ever since we left the command tent, Dioh and Moranthal, these loafers, would stick to me wherever I went. At the start I thought that they were merely interested in Ancarin, seeing as she was pretty and thus naturally attracted men; anyone who didn't fantasize about her was either impotent or gay...I guess they could just be a gentleman as well.

It might've been that "cuckold" remark at work here, but ever since that day, these two potatoes hadn't seen eye to eye with each other. Flanking me on both sides, they would follow me wherever I went. In the off chance that their eyes met by accident, one could see the daggers flying between their gazes.

Originally, I merely wanted to take Ancarin out for a stroll to calm my nerves, but then these two potatoes came along with their potato antics. While we walked, one of them plucked a flower for me and the other grabbed a couple of fruits for me to eat...Naturally, I rejected these offerings. Yet whenever I did so, the other person would throw a mocking grin at their counterpart along with a few choice words.

Feeling my obvious displeasure, the pair immediately blamed the other for angering me and began arguing. They almost ended up coming to blows. That's right, almost...because Dioh was defeated within the first two moves.

The two had an entire grade separating them after all; how could the two-star Dioh even stand up to the three-star Moranthal. Being the hot blooded kid he was, Dioh was naturally the first one to attack, yet Moranthal's retaliation ended up hitting him first. With a swift grab of the boy's hand, Moranthal immediately blocked his attack and twisted it behind his back.

With Ancarin in tow, I returned back to the carriage where our resident thief girl stood guard. As we still had the slumbering Duran to worry about, she remained behind to guard the carriage while we went for a stroll. She must've been bored to death by now.

As night fell, the hunters stopped their trap laying and returned to camp where a piping hot meal was ready and waiting for them. Tomorrow was the day of the battle, it could be at dawn or even in the afternoon, but either way, Dawson would definitely attack us tomorrow.

At night, Ancarin came to my tent unannounced and sat down uneasily beside me. She seemed slightly shaken up, her body and lips quivering silently for a while before finally managing to force out a question.

By now, all the low-grade enchanted gear that we didn't use were all given out to the hunters for them to distribute amongst themselves. The four three-star warriors naturally had first pick after which the remainder was given to the strongest two-stars amongst them. George and the other three warriors all received an additional tool in the form of recovery potions and aura recovery potions.

It's said that potions had a number of wondrous effects as well. There were potions that could strengthen one's body temporarily, for example, your speed, endurance and power. Not only that, there was even a potion that boosted your defense by creating a layer of stone on your skin...etc etc. In short, there were a ton of potions with an equally large price range starting from ten gold coins to over thousands.

The frightened girl leaned in hoping that would alleviate her worry. "But the enemy is so strong and...this matter doesn't have any relation to us anymore...we've already given them our precious magical tools and potions, that's more than enough."

"But this matter started because of us so we mustn't be too selfish, that's wrong of us." I smiled gently and softly ran my fingers through her hair. As she had just showered, her body still gave off a faint fragrance. Even though she was pregnant, it had only been one month since, so there was still no visible change to her stomach. Based on appearances alone, she was nothing but an adorable little lady.

Her mouth fell open at my unexpected reply. A second later, her surprised look changed to a slightly touched one: "Master doesn't seem like a devil at all, you're the kindest person I've ever known!"

Speaking of that, it seems like I still thought of myself as a human. Facing off against devils, I barely batted an eye even after killing so many of them...yet when it came to humans...I tried my best to save those in need. Whether or not I was able to do so, I didn't wish for anyone to die as a result of my actions. That was why I decided to stay behind; not just because of some sense of responsibility but also because of this bit of compassion.

Compassion...a friend from China once told me: What makes a human a human is not his appearance but rather his compassionate heart. Without such a thing, what makes us any different from a bunch of beasts?

Just think of how we categorize benevolent people as "good people" and psychopaths as "beasts" or "monsters". That's roughly what that phrase means, at least in my humble opinion.

I paused for a moment, pondering her request. In the midst of that, she reached forth and took off my mask. Staring at my crimson red skin, she sat there in silence for a long while before gently caressing my face, the tenderness in her actions showed just how much she cherished me.

Before I could reply, she closed her eyes and leaned in with her face slightly raised and her back straight. As her lips got ever closer, I could distinctly feel her warm breath washing over me. She had the distinctive scent of a woman on her. Perhaps it's because she was no longer a virgin or perhaps it could just be my mind at work, but either way that scent didn't seem as pleasant as Nicole's, not that I hated it.

Feeling her lips close in, I anxiously tried to come a decision. Whether I was going to avoid it or accept it, I should take a stance either way. Yet all I felt for her was compassion and not love. Even if I really wanted to experience the embrace of a female, I just can't bring myself to take advantage of her...plus….my pee pee is still...should I reject her?

Just as I was about to make my choice, she didn't pulled away from me, her eyes opened and glistened in the dark as drop after drop of what looked like pearls fell from her eyes...she's....crying...?

Was she hurt by my hesitation, or did she suddenly remember something hurtful? Sh*t, I had no experience with this sort of situation...where do I even put my hands?

This bit of clumsiness didn’t escape her eyes as she giggled amidst her sniffling. She lowered her head and without wiping off her tears, took a few steps back and said: “Like this is fine, this distance is fine…”

Was she belittling herself? I guess if a fat ugly chick were to force herself on me...I would want to kill myself as well. Even if Duran was handsome, it still felt bad as long as it wasn’t consensual.

Should I give her a hug and tell her it’s alright? Wait, that would make it sound like we had a special relationship though….and it sounded so hypocritical as well. Would I be any different from that bast*rd if I did that?

Besides I didn’t even have a pee pee...wouldn’t it make me seem kind of immoral to talk about that stuff now?...No that wasn’t right, I meant to say, shouldn’t I at least have some moral standards if I wished to start a harem? Oh...why am I even talking about standards when I’m trying to start a harem?! Damn it, could someone please tell me what to do?!

However, in the midst of my delusions, the problem solved itself the moment Regine squeezed herself into our already small enough tent, and fell asleep without a word on my lap without her mask on. Was this...the legendary lap pillow?

Regine’s hair felt slightly wet to the touch, she probably just took a bath...didn’t she just take one three hours ago though? So why was her hair still wet? Did she take another shower again?

Speaking of which, she was a rather silent character most of the time, but who knew that she could be so considerable at the right moments; to think she could do something so charitable. From her stiff body and twitching long eyebrows, I could tell that she wasn’t that comfortable about this either.

However, after ten seconds of lying on my lap without being chased away, she finally calmed down; she gently turned her body and hugged my right leg with both of her hands. This posture...she almost seemed like a baby…

Seeing my panicked reaction, Ancarin gave a sniffling laugh as she wiped her tears dry and without saying another word, took over my other leg; hugging it in the same fetal position as Regine.

If all of you are sleeping here, then what about our carriage? If the matter about Duran was found out we...forget it, as long as you guys were happy.

This was the first time I had ever slept with a beautiful girl other than Nicole, yet I felt no lust towards them…only...pity. They had suffered so much already, if possible, I hope that they could live a happy life from now on.

Not knowing how to react, we ended up spending the night in this manner without saying another word, until finally we all fell asleep unknowingly.

The next day, I woke up to find both of them already gone and both my legs numb from a night of being used as a pillow. Thankfully, it wasn’t so serious that I couldn’t move.

As if nothing had happened last night, Ancarin prepared breakfast for me as usual while Regine quietly checked her gear. After ensuring that Duran was still safe and secured, I made way towards George to enquire about the day’s mission.

If everything else went as planned, Dawson would arrive with a large group of bandits to exact his revenge. The spot we chose was a route he had to take in order to reach Plateau Village. While there were other routes as well, this was the nearest; while the others required a large detou

Yet despite waiting past a third of the day, the bandits had not show up. Instead we found several people from the other villages. Their numbers were not many, with a total of over ten and all of them were injured. Though they weren’t serious injured, due to the fact that they had to rush over to us, they were deathly pale by the time they reached us.

Some of them were let go on purpose by the bandits while others were those fortunate enough to escape right when the attack started. While their survival was fortunate, it also brought with them a terrifying piece of news.

The bandits hadn’t followed George’s plan, and instead attacked the other three villages first; kidnapping all of the villagers...taking into account the time they needed to move the kidnapped villagers, they should be arriving in Plateau Village soon.

Reality was no game after all, while we were busy plotting against them, they were busy plotting against us as well. Due to our recruitment, the four villages were basically defenseless right now and could barely defend against a wild beast attack. The bandits didn’t even need to send that many men to raid them in that state.

What a devious backstab on his part...now the bandits had a grasp on our lifeline; if they used them as hostages, this entire coalition could fall apart. While the other three villages might not agree to turn on us, the bandits could still force them to stand aside and leave us alone.

The command tent immediately erupted into chaos; with Io and Eddison requesting for leave to lead their hunters away in order to save the other villagers. As for George and Moranthal, they wanted to stay behind and defend Plateau Village instead. They felt that the situation wasn’t as simple as the other two thought it was and allowed no rashness on their part.

At that, I could no longer stand by the sidelines and watch. “Stop arguing! Right now the most important thing is to try and save whoever we can and not turn against each other. All you’re doing now is playing right into the palms of their hands. Whether or not you wish split up to save the other villages or defend Plateau Village, we still have to make that trip to Plateau Village.”

“Our first goal right now should be to save the one village that hasn’t fallen, rather than start regretting once even that is gone. Arguing is the silliest thing we can do right now!”

No matter what they thought of the situation, that scolding did indeed touch upon the crux of the situation; thus they unanimously decided to return to the village.

Thankfully, the spot we chose to set up camp at wasn’t too far from Plateau Village, so by the time we returned to the village the bandits had not arrived as yet; they were probably delayed by the sickly and elderly they had to move. Seeing that, the hunters who wanted to split off stirred once more, and soon the four three-stars were engaged in another verbal fight in the old village chief’s home.

While Eddison’s words weren’t all that helpful, George couldn’t refute it either as the fact was only Plateau Village was unharmed while the other three had been raided.

“Eddison, you’ve gone too far with that remark,” said Moranthal, the calmest of the three at the moment. He knew extremely well what the true goal of capturing those villagers were: to stir up conflict and hopefully destroy their coalition without lifting a finger. While he was anxious as well, he knew that the best thing to do now was to remain calm.

Unfortunately Eddison wasn’t the only one who had lost his cool, Io was ready as well with some choice words: “Of course you aren’t worried, you don’t have a family to care about, my wife and son are still in the hands of the Wolf’s Fang...oh right, wasn’t your fiancee kidnapped by Dawson, haha, I guess you’re already used to such matters.”

“...you bastard!” Yelled Moranthal with fists raised. However, all that earned him was a scornful spit by Io and another insult: “Oh, the cuckold is angry?”

Seeing that the two parties were about to fight, George immediately stepped forward to stop them. “Everyone calm down, now’s not the time to fight amongst ourselves.”

At that, Eddison who wasn’t too willing to join us in the first place, lost his temper and snapped: “Easy for you to say, the ones who got captured weren’t from your village.” Like a raging fat bull, he shouted with eyes fuming: “What dog sh*t opportunity, I just knew that I shouldn’t have joined!”

To be honest, even if you didn’t join us the outcome would’ve just been the same; seeing as you would be the last village standing once we lost. The Wolf’s Fang were afraid of all four of the villages uniting, not just one or two villages.

The old village chief stepped forward to try and mediate this dispute, yet was completely ignored by both Eddison and Io; which left him in an awkward position. Thankfully, both of them still had the state of mind to not insult the old man.

Had this continued for any longer, the two men would’ve probably lost their cool and started fighting. Lucky for us, the bandits showed up before that could happen. Congregating slowly in front of the village was a contingent of bandits with a stream of villagers they captured in tow. This black mass of people was at least 3,000 strong.

The over 2,000 villagers were kept under heavy watch by several hundred bandits with over a hundred trained wolves backing them up. Their fierce growling, glistening fangs and predatory green eyes were more than enough to scare the children into tears. The remaining young men in the village had been bound up while the other women, children and elderly were forced into one spot.

The one silver lining in this whole situation was that due to the lack of time, the bandits weren’t able to violate the women. Still, there were some women who were visibly underdressed and shaken. There were a number of young women who were dressed in nothing but rags and had to walk around with their hands wrapped around their breasts. Evidently, they had been targeted by the bandits.

Standing at the front of the bandit horde were two towering men; who by the looks of it were probably the two bandit chiefs, Dawson and Dohby. They were both mounted, with one riding a black horse and the other a chestnut brown horse. Beside them were over ten other mounted subordinates who were probably their personal guard.

Horses were luxury goods in this medieval world, with a normal carriage horse already costing several dozen gold coins. For horses trained for combat like theirs, each would probably set you back at least a thousand gold coins.

Having rushed here right after receiving the urgent message from the fleeing villagers, George immediately recognized the rider of the black horse. With a force that could shatter the teeth he was grinding, he yelled hatefully, “DAWSON!”

Riding silently atop that black horse was a handsome faced man with a head of medium length white hair; I could already imagine how that cool image of his managed to attract women. He was clad in a form fitting suit of leather armor, which showed off his toned but not overly muscular body. Slanted behind him was a giant greatsword that towered over his entire body.

Riding next to him was a bandit that, judging by his uncanny similarity to Doran, was probably the other bandit chief, Dohby. While he wasn’t exactly ugly, he had that typical bad guy look and wielded a similarly large greatsword.

George led his furious pack of hunters out of the village and had them take up positions a hundred meters away from the bandits. Having recognized their trembling loved ones amongst those being held at blade point, the enraged hunters nearly rushed forward in a bid to save them. Luckily, they were held back in the nick of time by their more rational companions along with George and Moranthal’s command to hold their ground.

“Dawson! You despicable bast*rd!” Having calmed his own men down, George was the first to step forth and rail at the bandit chief. “Hurry up and let go of those villagers, they’re innocent! This grudge is between us only, don’t bring in these innocent people.”

The head bandit chief sat atop his black horse and coldly glanced at George, but said nothing in the end. Instead, it was his second-in-command that spoke up having lost all patience with the man who killed his brother. Pointing his horse whip at George, he yelled: “So you’re the one who killed my younger brother, this chief is here today to exact revenge for him!”

“Every debt has a debtor, I hope you’ll find it in your heart to release those who are innocent,” said Eddison with a pleading look. Amongst those captured, he spotted his female servant who thankfully was still unharmed but had a blade to her neck.

“Haha, isn’t that Eddison? Do you still remember that beating I gave you then? You’ve recovered so fast? I guess you should thank me for being so merciful!” Dohby had a scornful grin on his face as he taunted the fat man. With a casual wave of his hand, he commanded his men to bring the female servant to him.

Bending down, he pinched the girl’s chin and tried to force her to look up at him so that he could admire her beautiful face. As they were in a hurry earlier, he barely had any time to spare; now that he did, he was going to admire his prize. However, who would’ve thought that the girl was such a fiery one; as he laid his dirty hand on her, she immediately turned her head away and tried to evade it.

Clearly, the lecherous bandit didn’t expect that as well. Having missed the first time, he forcefully grabbed her jaw and forced her to look up, not showing anymore softness in his actions as a show of his displeasure. The moment he saw her unyielding look, he couldn’t help but chuckle: “Haha, a virgin. Good! I like them fiery like that! Lads bring her away, once we’re done killing them off I’ll be sure to head back right away and make her bend to me in the great hall!”

Random minion:“Hah, don’t you get it, Second Chief means to share her with us. Just look at those curves and that white skin…”

Random minion:“You’re the trash, just watch! I’ll show you my indomitable golden pole right after the Second Chief is done with her!”

Dohby gave a boisterous laugh and said: “Hahahaha, very good. Once we’re back, you guys can have your way with her once I’m done! Now hurry up and bring her away, make sure not to injure her once the fighting starts or we’ll have nothing to play with, hahaha…”

Eddison and his hunters were even more incensed by his declaration, but because of the hostages, there was nothing they could do about it.

“Marie!” He cried, calling out the servant’s name as he helplessly watch her back disappear into the crowd. The girl bravely turned around and gave him a reassuring smile before disappearing for good.

I don’t know what she meant by that smile; did she mean for him not to harp on this matter, or did she mean to say that she didn’t regret being implicated in this? Either way, I could clearly sense that she wanted him to be well.

Eddison’s eyes grew red as they almost burst out of their sockets, he immediately reached for his sword but was held back by an equally enraged George. With one hand holding back the fatty, he pointed a finger at the servant and yelled at Dawson with unblinking eyes, “I always thought that you at least had some morals in you!”

“You shouldn’t have killed Doran.” In the face of George’s accusation, he blandly stated the purpose of this attack. “The moment you killed Doran, you should’ve been aware of the consequences.”

“Innocent?” Dohby laughed as he said that. He swept his right hand over the villagers, after which he swayed back and forth in an insane manner and rebutted: “What do you mean innocent? Don’t tell me these villagers aren’t the kinsman of those bow and blade wielding hunters behind you.”

As the majority of our fighting force came from the three villages, that move by him was nothing short of ingenious. Using those hostages, he could easily nullify this threat by forcing them not to attack. This was exactly what I was worried about.

I had not been here long so I still wasn’t familiar with the routes to the other three villages. However, being the local criminal gang, the bandits were definitely aware of these routes, and probably had their own spies among the villagers. In all likelihood, our movements were already made known to them.

“Gill! You brat, get out here!” Instead of arguing with the man further, George inexplicably called out an unfamiliar name, after which an extremely familiar person stepped forth...that’s the...that’s the small fry who kept taunting George on the day Doran died!?

“Don’t call me big brother, you aren’t worthy! Good, very good, is this how you repay me?” George yelled from the bottom of his now broken heart.

“Big Brother...I…” he stammered as he tried to find an explanation but couldn’t in the end. Dohby casually rode up to the kid and patted him on the shoulder, “Don’t blame the kid, I spent a large sum of money to recruit him.”

So that’s why...it wasn’t that George believed in Dawson’s moral standards, but rather he already had a mole in the Wolf’s Fang from the beginning. Unfortunately for him, that mole wasn’t a dependable one and sold him out at the critical moment. Man...the memory of those two quarreling is still fresh in my mind too.

Back then I thought those two had a grudge of some sort...to think a mere fight between a medium sized bandit troupe and a village actually turned into such a treacherous game...how deep does this rabbit hole go?!

This bit of treachery instantly raised the stakes in this otherwise run of the mill confrontation. I had to admit, I underestimated these otherworldly hicks...they weren’t as brainless as I thought. Just the opposite, they were just as conniving as anyone you’d meet on Earth. If you transmigrated over with a high and mighty attitude, you’d definitely get destroyed in seconds by their cunning.

“They promised me...as long as I gave you false information, they would let go of Little Red…” said the bandit with an anguished smile that stabbed right into George’s heart.

Later on, I found out that Little Red was Gill’s girlfriend; whose actual name was Scarlet. She was a lovely lass that had the misfortune of being kidnapped by the Wolf’s Fang and ended up on rifle cleaning duty. As long as a bandit wished for it, he could fire as many shots as he wanted into her. She wasn’t the only poor soul either, as of right now, there were several dozen other girls just like her who were still alive.

Most of them were kidnapped by the bandits while a small number of them were prostitutes who were cheated into coming to the hideout. However, there was no way these women would ever get paid for their services.

It was precisely because of Scarlet that Gill ended up joining the Wolf’s Fang as George’s spy. Unfortunately, his love for his girlfriend superseded the hate he held for the Wolf’s Fang. Each time he saw his lover lifelessly cleaning the rifles of the bandits, his heart would bleed from pain and guilt. He hated the bandits for their savagery, but he hated himself even more for his weakness…

That unbearable pain accompanied him each night as he went to bed. It was as if a giant hand was squeezing down on his heart each night as he stared at the ceiling with wide open eyes...so one day, he capitulated. Even though his lover had long since given up on life; even though she now bore the child of some man that she didn’t know; even though she had turned into a base creature that couldn’t live without cleaning rifles...he still loved her.

Why was it that everything I witnessed ever since returning to the Western Human Realms had been nothing but tragedy after tragedy? Were humans truly worse than devils? At least under my supervision, my potato men didn’t do anything like force themselves on a female devil.

Yet what did I see right when I was summoned back to the human realm? A mage who abused his powers to cheat over a dozen beautiful girls, turning them into his toys and even allowing his henchmen to have their perverse ways with them...these bandits weren’t any better either.

Not only did they commit a bunch of atrocities that even heaven wouldn’t stand for, in a ordinary confrontation, they actually kidnapped their opponent’s entire village and used them as hostages. Didn’t they know that the sins of the parents do not make the child!

(TL: I’m not even sure if he said that but this is a popular saying. Whether or not Confucius actually said it, I’m not sure or at least I haven’t been able to find the line itself. Also, I’m not sure if there’s an “official” translation for this but this is the best I’ve got)

Apparently others found this to be reasonable as well, as every gang movie ever made featured this theme. However, was this really so in reality? No, just the opposite, those gangsters would use any means necessary to get what they wanted. Whether or not you were a brother or a friend didn’t matter as long as you stood in their way. All that talk of loyalty and family was nothing but drivel the directors added into those movies.

One shall not be judged for the iniquity of another; sounded pretty good, but reality was never that merciful. After all, while movies were just works of fiction, they had to have certain limits as well. The good guys always win and the evildoers always lose.

Another example would be the ghost films in China: if those films actually had ghosts in them, they would’ve never passed the review board, as China is pushing for a more agnostic and scientific view in recent years. The government has basically adopted a “no supernatural” stance regarding this matter.

Thus horror movies in China do not actually possess any “real ghosts” in them. Instead, any supernatural incidents within these films are all man-made constructs. Everything you see must be explainable by science and as a result of actions made by man, even if it meant zombies…

Did you think that Gill was a pitiful person? His girlfriend was turned into a RBQ (Rifle Brushing Queen) while he himself ended up joining the bandits in order to exact revenge. Yet, this man ended betraying his principles in order to save his pitiful girlfriend, he betrayed the friends he trusted…

Thus, our greatest weakness was laid bare before the bandits, and by the time we knew of this, they were already waiting for us to step into their laid out trap!

Even though he was also a victim here, and I did not deny that he was one, it was precisely this that made him that much more despicable.

Unfortunately, Eddison wasn’t the only one who risked having his will broken, there was also Io. His entire family, his wife, his son and his father-in-law were amongst those who were captured. ly, he became a drunkard as he couldn’t deal with the guilt of being unable to avenge his father. Because of this, his wife left him with his son in tow for her parent’s home.

Her intention was to provoke some sort of reaction from him while she temporarily stayed over at her parents’ home and awaited his arrival. After a round of persuasion, he finally came to his senses and intended to bring them back after he wiped out the bandits; however, it looked like he would no longer have that chance…

With a wave of his hand, Dohby commanded his minions to fetch Io’s family. “So this is your wife, Io. Isn’t she just a beaut’, such a pity she chose a worthless man like you.”

He forcefully cupped the chin of a thirty-odd years old lady from his horse and stared at her face. Without waiting for Io to respond to that, he released her and turned his attention onto Io’s six year old son. He swiftly grabbed the back of his collar and lifted him up to his eye level. Ignoring the kid’s struggling, he let forth a sinister laugh and said: “And this must be your son, he’s pretty lively isn’t he? How about giving him to me?”

“You aren’t willing? Well that’s alright, once your trash father is dead your mother will belong to me. When that time comes, remember to call me Daddy.” He gave a conceited laugh and tossed the kid back onto the ground. Having been thrown back onto the floor so abruptly, he wasn’t able to react in time and fell on his butt with a loud thud. He paused for a second before wailing in pain.

“Heh heh heh.” He chuckled arrogantly as he stared at the helpless Eddison and Io; after which he signalled for his minions to bring the hostages away.

Seeing that it was about time, Dawson stepped forth to play the good cop in this farce: “We’re only here to destroy Plateau Village, as long as the hunters from the other three villages do not resist, I guarantee that your family members will be returned to you safe and sound after the battle.”

“...” Everyone, including Moranthal instantly fell silent at that offer. After all, it was one thing to die, but it was an entirely different matter when one’s action would cause the death of one’s family as well.

There were probably those who doubted his words, but with the hostages in his hands right now, what else were they to do? If they resisted, their family would definitely be killed to set an example for the others.

As if he had just been given a lifeline, his guilty feelings immediately got the better of him. “Will you really let them off?” He asked in a pleading tone.

“Yes, as long as you all don’t resist.” He swept his eyes over the agitated Eddison and a mulling Moranthal before smiling for the first time since he showed himself. “Other than those of Plateau Village, the same offer stands for anyone else. I don’t require you to do anything else but stand aside. After this matter is over, I’ll return your family members to you safe and sound. I swear.”

“Shut up!” Dohby tried to say something but was immediately cut off by a sharp rebuke from Dawson. He knew exactly what his second-in-command wanted to say, but he wouldn’t allow him to say it here. He then turned towards the hunters, lifted his head slightly and coldly stared at them. “Fight or not, make your choice.”

Oaths weren’t something you could make lightly in the Western Human Realms as there were actually divinities in this realm. While there was no guarantee that those high and mighty gods would pay attention to such trifling matters, there was also no guarantee that they would not. Could you bet your entire life on this ‘what if’? All it took was one misspoken oath and some god in charge of oaths might just smite you.

“I’m...I’m truly sorry…” Having made his decision, Io turned towards George and gave the man a solemn bow with his eyes closed, not even daring to look him in the eyes as he did so. “I can’t lose my family again…”

“Hmph, how can you even be sure that he will uphold his end of the bargain after this? He’s a bandit, breaking their word is as natural as breathing for them.” Dioh looked at the man as if he was a traitor and continued in a sarcastic tone. “For all you know, he might just turn on your family members once he’s done with our village.”

“I...I have no other choice...truly...I apologize…” He apologized once more and returned the magical tools we lent out to him, which left himself with only his bow and short blade equipped. Using this gesture as a sign of his determination, he turned to Dawson and sheepishly said: “I choose to back out, can you return my family to me now?”

“No!” Dohby immediately objected to that; he seemed to have set his eyes on the man’s wife and didn’t wish for him to surrender. However, he was immediately silenced by Dawson once more with a glare, and smartly chose to keep his head down.

Having reprimanded his henchman, he promptly reassured Io with his words. “It’s definitely not possible to release them now, I’ll do it after the battle.”

“Don’t worry, once our boss says something he will turn it into reality for sure. Why would he lie to a wuss like you.” Having been scolded twice indirectly because of this hunter, he made sure to sneak in an insult as a way to vent his frustrations. “If you hesitate any longer, I might just decide to have some fun with your wife right here and now.”

In order to contain the villagers who surrendered, Dawson specifically designated a zone for them. Right as Io stepped into it, a bunch of minions promptly stepped forth to accost him. He immediately tried to resist them; if they were to bind him now, there would be nothing to stop them from going back on their words later.

“Put down your weapons and I won’t tie you up. Don’t give me that look, I don’t have the time to bother about you once the battle starts. If I don’t confiscate your weapons, how would I know that you won’t cause me trouble later on?” Don’t worry, once I kill off George, I’ll release your family members as promised.”

As he finished saying that, he threw a look at the minions who then disarmed Io but didn’t try to tie him up anymore. With one hunter settled, he turned his gaze back to the others: “Anyone else who is willing to surrender, I guarantee that you’ll be treated well and your family won’t come to any harm. If there is anyone foolish enough to test me, I don’t mind taking you on. I just hope that your female kin aren’t in the hands of my henchmen.”

Seeing the beaten figure of their leader leave, the hunters from Io’s village began surrendering as well, seeing as their family members were in the hands of the bandits also. As long as they resisted, they would die. Eddison was the next three-star to surrender. As he did so, he gave the same apologetic bow to George and returned the equipment we loaned to him before he left with a tired look on his face.

In just a short span of five minutes, the hunters we recruited from the other three villages had all left us...except for...wait, why was Moranthal still here?

ly, there were some members of his village who tried to persuade him to leave, but he rejected them all. He even persuaded the hunters who tried to stay behind out of loyalty to leave. He told them not to implicate their family members in this decision.

I had to say, Moranthal was a good man, it’s just that he was too nice of a person; to the point where everyone just took it for granted. In fact, there were probably those who misunderstood him as just being stupid. How do I know that? Because I was just like him as well in the past...looking at him, I was reminded of my past self as well.

With that, everyone except for Moranthal entered the designated zone. With their weapons gone, there was now no turning back from their decision.

As for our side, there were only 114 people left if you excluded me, George, Moranthal, Dioh, Kevin, Ancarin and Regine. Of those 114, only 12 were two-stars. The only silver lining in this whole mess was that each and every hunter returned the enchanted gear that I loaned to them; which I then divvied out to the other two-stars, temporarily boosting their combat prowess.

“And now all that remains are you guys.” The bandit chief pointed at George from atop his black horse and said: “Honestly, I’m a really merciful person. How about this, other than George and his family members, I’m willing to let you all live as long as you surrender. If you choose to be stubborn, the consequences are yours to bear!”

The moment he said that, the remaining hunters immediately began to waver. Given the choice to live, who would choose to die after all?

Noticing this change, George realized he couldn’t drag this on any further and took the initiative to challenge the bandit chief. “There’s no need for all that trouble, as long as you defeat me, the village will naturally surrender to you! Come on then, let’s finish that battle we started long ago!”

In order to prevent their morale from dropping any further, he had no choice but to do this. Without waiting for Dawson to reply, he nocked his bow and fired an arrow at the man.

With a casual wave of his left him, Dawson deflected the incoming arrow and jumped off his black horse while unstrapping the greatsword on his back. “You actually dare to challenge me, let’s see how much you’ve grown in this period of time since we last fought.”

Dawson’s greatsword was at least two meters long, while in comparison, George’s blade was laughably small. Right from the start, this difference in weapon size put him at a severe disadvantage. With their roughly similar strength, Dawson was able to suppress him, while George couldn’t do a thing to break through Dawson’s barrage of attacks.

With their Fighter’s Aura enhancing them, their clashes ended with Dawson coming out on top constantly. For every strike, he would merely get pushed back half a step; while George was pushed back over ten steps in total since the start of the fight.

It was in such a disadvantageous situation nearing defeat that George reached for his waist, and with a flick of his wrist, fired off a throwing dagger at the man’s head in a flash of silver light.

However, this wasn’t the first time they fought, Dawson knew of his tactics beforehand. He promptly twisted his head evading the dagger calmly; which caused it to miss him by a hair's breath.

Without giving him any time to counterattack, George rushed in with a swift slash from the side that whipped through the air. Greatswords were not suited for close combat thus Dawson had no choice but to back away from this confrontation. George knew of this fact as well and immediately closed the gap between two, not letting him gain a single step on him.

The fight seemed pretty even up until now, but that rumor still nagged at the back of my head. If Dawson truly was able to defeat a four-star, then it would be impossible for George to win this fight.

However, whether or not Dawson was hiding his might was a matter for the future; as trouble came knocking on the door right as their fight started. The Second Chief, Dohby, wasn’t in the mood to watch some duel between experts; so he turned towards me with a bored look in his eyes.

“I heard my little brother wanted to take off a lady’s mask before dying, I wonder who that lady is?” Dohby threw me a mirthless smile while staring intently at me; clearly he had already determined that I was the lady in question.

The only masked people here were me and Regine, but there was only one person with Shadowfang on his back and a sword by his waist. It was only to be expected that he managed to recognize me instantly. However, calling me a “lady”......was something I just couldn’t accept. Before I could correct him, Dohby did something that stunned everyone present. He jumped off his horse and pointed his greatsword at a defenseless old villager.

The old man was at least 60 years old and had an almost emaciated look as he stood there with a bent back. Being rushed here by the bandits had almost cost him his life, yet before he could even catch his breath, he was immediately taken hostage by Dohby.

Even so, he didn’t show any sign of weakness; instead, he stared right back at the man. His gaze plainly said that even if he was old, he still knew how to resist silently. That man must have been a hunter when he was young.

Before I could even react, Dohby sliced the old man in twain and callously flicked the warm blood off his greatsword and onto the faces of the nearby villagers…

The sudden death of that old man instantly stoked the flames of rebellion within the hostages; especially in people like Io and Eddison who immediately stirred at that cruel display. Unfortunately, they were immediately suppressed by the surrounding bandits. Without weapons, they weren’t able to put up a proper fight before they were put in place by a single sentence of Dohby.

“Have you made up your mind? If you choose to be obstinate, I’ll continue killing more villagers. Every ten seconds I’ll kill one more till you take off that mask or until we run out of hostages.”

The moment Dohby killed an old woman who screamed “Old Coot” with her dying breath and turned his demonic hands onto a crying boy, I finally relented.

Ancarin shouted at me out of concern the moment she noticed me reach for my mask. Taking it off was the last thing she wanted, as my identity was one that must never be revealed.

“Ah…” wailed an elderly villager. He had originally been set aside by the bandits, but the death of that little boy was simply too much of a shock for him. He desperately tried to save the little boy, but unfortunately for him, this action was seen as resistance by the bandits. With a kick and a punch, a nearby bandit swiftly knocked him down and began to beat him into submission.

With tears of blood in his eyes, the old man miserably crawled towards the severed halves of the little boy and tried to piece them together. Yet just as his wizened hands were about to touch the boy, a boot descended from the heavens and cruelly destroyed his futile efforts. With both of his hands and legs pinned down, all the old man could do was cry in pain.

However, his pitiful cries fell on deaf ears as the bandits continued to beat him while laughing uproariously. These bandits knew no pity, only cruelty.

I didn’t know what his relation to that boy was, but one thing I knew for certain was that he wasn’t going to take it like that. As he laid sprawled on the floor, he ignored the savage beatings of the bandits and fixed his bloodied eyes towards me, hatred clearly reflected within.

“Why won’t you take off your mask!? All you had to do was take it off and my grandson wouldn’t have died! My son and his wife are all dead, all I had left was my grandson...why wouldn’t you save him...you cold blooded monster, you aren’t fit to be human!”

Cold blooded monster...not fit to be human...haha...but the bandits were the ones who killed them...not me...why am I the one getting scolded in the end.

“Hahaha...come to think of it, it’s precisely because she showed up that you all ended up in this mess. If it wasn’t for her, my little brother wouldn’t have died and our bandit troupe wouldn’t have bothered to be so rough with you guys. So in the end, everything started because of her.” He declared with a finger pointed at me.

Taking a couple of steps to the side, he walked up to the old man who hated me and stomped on the man’s back with his left foot. With his greatsword hanging just centimeters above his head, he counted: “There’s still 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0!”

Then another head rolled onto the ground. Even in death, the old man never once looked at the bandit; instead, he stared right at me, his eyes full of hatred, hatred of me that even blood could not wash away…

Four hostages had died as of now. The villagers’ already frayed nerves threatened to explode at this very instant as some of them began cursing at the bandits’ cruelty while some of them merely kept silent. There was even a portion of them who began throwing me strange looks. Within their eyes was distrust and coldness. To them, the real reason why the hostages died was that I refused to take off the mask, in spite of the fact that real murderer was Dolby.

Without any weapons to speak of, the unarmed hostages could only swear at me; while the hunters of Plateau Village were a lot more direct in their response, with their bows aimed right at me.

“No! I’m sure Lady Mo Ke has her own reasons!” At this very moment, the last thing I expected was that Dioh would step out and defend me; yet he did just that. Standing before me with outstretched hands, he stared down the pointed tips of his companions’ arrows and their equally as sharp stares.

Unfazed by that, he yelled: “It’s not like Lady Mo Ke is the one who killed them. If you all are so great, why don’t you go after the real killers instead. What kind of men are you that bullies a girl like that?!”

At that, the majority of the hunters came to their senses and finally lowered their bows; except for three hunters amongst which was a hunter who was roughly the same age as Dioh. “No matter what, the hostages died because she refused to do so. It’s just her face, what’s so hard about taking off a mask? Don’t tell me her mask is more important than the lives of the hostages?” Rebutted the teen.

“That…” Dioh was left speechless by that rebuttal. To him, the lives of the hostages were obviously more important than my mask. After all, once you’re dead, you’re dead forever; not like someone could kill you just by looking at your face. There’s no such absurd method of killing people in this world.

Furthermore...I was merely a stranger who wandered into their village and brought them misfortune. In comparison, those who died might have been their kin. Weighing the two, it was obvious which was more important.

As the two argued, another hostage died. It was a fat uncle around 40 years of age. Apparently, he was a bachelor who, because of his laziness and gluttony, led a poor lonely life after his parents died early.

That was the fifth person...Dohby really meant what he said. His plan was obvious. He wanted to slowly but surely turn the villagers against me. To them, this was merely a matter of my appearance and not some matter of life or death. Neither was it something that insulted my modesty; so was it truly worth all those deaths?

Yet to me, this was in actuality a matter of life or death. In their eyes I might be a cold, heartless monster, but in Regine and Ancarin’s eyes, I was merely defending myself.

Was it truly alright to sacrifice your life to save a stranger’s? Back when I ended up getting ran over by a truck while saving that loli and that pretty boy, I would’ve answered yes without a doubt. Because back then, my life basically had no meaning.

Rather than continuing to rot like that, it made more sense to save a couple of lives who still had limitless possibilities in their future. At the very least, it showed that I wasn’t rotten to the core. With my dying breath, I was able to contribute to society and die as a brave, heroic person. Back then, with no other goal in life, there was basically nothing left for me to live for.

As for that fight to the death with the goblins and ultimately saving Yi Yi, that was a worthy death without a doubt. There’s no way I could’ve lied to my true feelings and let a loli become tainted by a bunch of stinking goblins. In order to protect her chastity and to prove that my life wasn’t unnecessary, that it wasn’t useless, I was more than willing to exchange it for her safety even though I didn’t know her then.

Ironically, all this happened because I found out that Nicole loved Sares. Realizing that I had no right to snatch her back, the powerless me ran away from home and ended up dying again to save someone else.

As for now? Should I sacrifice myself again? To save a bunch of strangers? Devils had a notorious reputation in the Western Human Realms, and it was also my presence that caused them to suffer such a tragedy in the first place...if my identity was revealed, how would they treat me? Like a jinx? That’s probably the best scenario.

To take it off or not to take it off? I don’t know...why must such a decision be forced on me! Why must I endure such pain? I didn’t even do anything wrong...all I wanted to be was a good person who performed good deeds...so why did all the blame get pinned on me! Why why why why why why...why…

All I wanted to become was a happy person who had the power to protect his own loved ones. That’s all I ever wanted, to be needed, to be treasured and to be recognized. I never wanted to do anything wrong or kill anyone. Everyday, I did my best to contribute to society so that I could make this world a better place.

That’s why I saved those kids who were about to get run over; that’s why I saved that loli Yi Yi who would rather kill herself than be tainted by those goblins; that’s why I promised the old chief that I would stay behind...after taking care of this grudge I would simply leave without implicating the village any further…

The two girls tried to stop me, but no matter what, I must not remain silent anymore; because in that moment of hesitation, a one year old baby and his mother were just killed before my very eyes.

“Oops, I accidentally killed an extra one.” After ripping apart her clothes, he gave the breasts on her headless corpse a couple of squeezes before he picked up her dripping head and kissed her still warm lips. Having done that, he casually tossed aside the head before pointing his greatsword at the next target while smiling at me: “5, 4, 3, 2…...”

With his goal accomplished, Dohby no longer had any interest in killing the hostages but instead turned his attention onto my obscured face. “Raise your head and take off that hood!” He yelled impatiently.

Now that we reached this point, there wasn’t much point in hesitating any longer thus I obediently did as he said. As the golden rays of the afternoon sun shone onto my exposed face, I couldn’t help but close my eyes from the glaring light.

Having been exposed, the person who reacted the most wasn’t Ancarin or Regine but rather Dioh. Even after seeing my face, he couldn’t seem to accept the fact that I was a devil. The kid seemed to have gone mad with grief as he continuously tugged at his hair, turning it into a tangled mess while he wept hysterically.

“Impossible, there’s no way Lady Mo Ke is a devil...it has to be a lie, it has to be...Lady Mo Ke, tell me, tell me you’re not a devil, say it!”

How should I face this kid who trusted me so much...it’s not like my identity was something I could decide. The notion that devils were inherently evil wasn’t something that could be changed overnight after all. Plus, you seemed to have gotten something wrong kid; it’s not Lady Mo Ke, it’s Mister Mo Ke. Please do not call me Lady. Damn it, now’s not the time to be thinking about this.

“*spit* So it’s a beautiful Lady Devil, no wonder she travels around with a mask on.” He said excitedly as he pointed a finger at me while lightly tapping on the other villagers with his other hand.

“I was wondering why your village seemed to be so unlucky recently, it turns out you had a devil hiding inside your village. No wonder I kept getting this urge to kill people today, haha, so it’s because of you.”

“...” I, had nothing to say to that, such was the fate of a devil in the Western Human Realms; your mere existence would be blamed for any calamity and be used as an excuse for any evildoer. If I tried to explain myself...all I would get was a “the words of a devil can’t be trusted”. Thus the moment my identity was exposed, I was destined to be the center of a maelstrom.

No matter how evil those bandits were, they were, in the end, humans. As for me, I was only a devil, a devil that everyone wanted dead.

The villagers began clamoring for my death as they turned their hate-filled eyes towards me. Had it not been for Dioh being so close to me, the hunters would’ve probably fired their arrows at me already.

At a corner of the battlefield, the two three-stars were still in the midst of their fighting when the clamoring began. The clamoring grew ever louder to the point where even George and Dawson were startled by the reaction and ended up calling a temporary ceasefire as they turned around to face me, a broken horn devil.

George’s face underwent a gamut of changes as he took in the revelation; how he felt about this wasn’t clear at a glance. As for Dawson, he was just as silent as George; however, he had a nonchalance to him as if this matter didn’t concern him.

In the minds of the villagers, I was the source of this calamity since I was the one who killed those tamed wolves and gave those bandits an ex

However, humans didn’t care about such nuances, all they needed was an excuse, an excuse that will explain “why is it always me that is so unlucky”. My appearance just so happened to fulfill this role; especially given the fact that Dohby had been trying his best to slander me since he arrived.

With his murderous greatsword and a few choice words, he had already begun pushing me to the opposite side of the villagers. The moment my identity was revealed, his plan experienced an unprecedented level of success.

Right now, there was nowhere for me to run, all that awaited me was certain death. No wait, I could still kill off Duran. Without him as my medium, I would be sent back to the Prison of the Dead. But if I were to leave now, what would happen to Ancarin and Regine? Should I just leave them here? The angry villagers might...no, no way!

“Regine, get to the carriage now, the moment Master is in danger, you must destroy that thing.” Ancarin gave out that instruction with an undisguised anxiety in her voice. Due to all the witnesses nearby, she didn’t dare to say “kill him” but instead referred to him as an object.

I immediately grabbed ahold of their hands and tightened my grip on them. Shaking my head, I said: “Don’t do anything silly.”

If I were to get sent back like that, there would be no outlet for their fury, and these two pitiful girls would most likely end up as sacrificial lambs; frenzied beasts weren’t known to listen to words after all. If it’s possible, I would claim that these two were bewitched by me to become my followers. While some people might still detest them, at least this would garner some sympathy from them and guarantee their survival.

Sensing my intention, they no longer tried to leave and instead hid behind me without saying a word. It was then that a hunter finally couldn’t rein in his anger and fired an arrow at me while yelling: “Devil, let go of those girls!”

That’s right, my action just now was misunderstood as being evil. To them, it seemed like these two wanted to escape but were forcefully restrained by me after I realized their intention. A mere change in identity caused them to view my actions through rose tinted glasses. No matter what I did, it would be branded as sinister, as evil, as something that shouldn’t be allowed to exist.

Just as well, this saved me the trouble of having to explain to the villagers. As long as they were seen as innocent, that’s enough for me.

I drew my enchanted blade and sliced the incoming arrow apart, after which came a volley of arrows that forced me to use the Grimoire of the Dead as a shield.

“Stop! All of you!” Just as I prepared to block another volley, the man who everyone had nearly forgotten about, Moranthal, stepped forth and yelled with a never seen before ferocity. It was as if his body was lit with a raging flame that threatened to engulf the hunters who he turned his fiery eyes towards.

He walked towards me step by step, and after getting a stable footing, yelled once more: “You bunch of ungrateful bast*rds! Our real enemies are the bandits, and yet you guys are busy stirring up internal conflict amongst ourselves, do you not have any brains!”

“Hahahaha, I’m brainless? Yes, I’m brainless but at least I have a pair of functioning eyes!” Pointing at his eyes, he yelled in an even louder voice: “All I saw was Dohby killing villager after villager while you all blame Lady Mo Ke who had been standing there all this while without even moving a finger. Now, you actually claim that she’s the murderer? Hehe hahahaha...laughable!”

Refusing to give up, a villager stepped forth to give his own interpretation of the situation “Dohby just said he couldn’t control himself, that must be the work of that devil’s curse!”

“Alright then, since Lady Mo Ke is able to curse people so stealthily, why didn’t she curse you all then? Don’t tell me you’re unaware of that fact that a curse’s accuracy is affected by the strength disparity of the two parties.”

“Lady Mo Ke is merely a two-star. Instead of cursing a bunch of one and two-stars like you all, you’re telling me she instead decided to take a huge risk and curse a target an entire tier higher than her? Do you think everyone has a pig brain like you?! Go on, prove me wrong. Don’t forget that you’re all closer to her than Dohby.”

The opposing villager shut his mouth at that. Clearly, cursing a bunch of lower stars was more efficient than cursing a higher one since there was a greater chance of success and it cost less mana to do so as well.

The mana cost of a curse was directly related to the strength disparity, distance and strength of the curse itself. Not only that, but a number of curses required a medium of some sort on top of a number of stringent requirements in order to succeed.

“In other words, if Lady Mo Ko wanted to harm you all, she wouldn’t even need the Wolf’s Fang to do so. In the period she was staying with us, she could’ve done a lot of harm already. Besides, if she truly cursed Dohby, he wouldn’t be so adamant about removing her mask since doing so was the worst possible outcome for her!”

Moranthal flashed them a scornful smile as he pointed at one of the hunters who had his bow raised: “If Lady Mo Ke was truly your enemy, none of you would’ve even been able to fire an arrow at her because you would all be dead by now! Dead, you hear me!”

Yet the world simply wasn’t one where a person could act unimpeded just because he had logic backing him up. There were some people you simply couldn’t communicate with because they only recognized an unchanging set of beliefs.

Raising it above his head, he strode towards Moranthal. “Moranthal, don’t be deceived by the devil, devils can’t be trusted. Come, hold onto this Bible of the Light and recite with me - [The Goddess’ light illuminates the world, her benevolence reaches beyond the heavens and is vaster than the plains. We are the beloved children of the Goddess. We are borne of her blessing and grow under her gaze…].”

Reciting the verse, the old man slowly made his way towards Moranthal with a gentle look in his eyes as if he was looking at a lost sheep.

Moranthal shoved the book aside and ignored the old man yet the elder didn’t mind this one bit and continued to look at him with a benevolent look in his eyes. However when he turned those same eyes towards me, I could see a myriad of thoughts within them, and not one of them had anything to do with gentleness.

“Devil begone! Go to the hells where you belong. Goddess please bless me with the might of the heavenly kingdom so that I may steel myself against the threats of the devil! Please, oh merciful Goddess, deliver this lost child before me. His soul has been corrupted by the devil, please bathe him in your warm, sacred light and cleanse his soul…”

The old man continued with his chanting as if there was no one else there while Moranthal’s face got progressively darker by the second in the face of his foolishness. Because of the old man’s antics, the villagers began to sway against me once more.

“Stop causing trouble! Your Goddess isn’t coming to save us at all! Because the people threatening our lives isn’t the devil! It’s…” Moranthal swept his finger over Dohby and the other armed bandits and yelled in a voice that was beyond agitated:

“IT’S THEM! IT’S THESE BANDITS! Do you think that these bandits will magically disappear once Lady Mo Ke is gone? No, you’re all wrong! Before Lady Mo Ke showed up, these bandits had already existed!”

“Who was the one who prevented us from trading with the outside world? Who was the one who bought our goods with copper coins even though they were all worth at least silvers? Who was the one who stopped us from seeking outside aid? Who was the one who stole our goods? Who was the one who bullied our sisters and murdered our brothers? Was it Lady Mo Ke? Touch your hearts for a second and ask yourselves, who was it?! It’s them! Everything is because of them!”

“In order to help us exterminate these bandits, Lady Mo Ke made an arduous trip around the other villages asking for aid. After killing those tamed wolves, she originally could’ve just distanced herself from this matter, yet she chose to stay behind in this village in the end. Why? Because she’s a kind person.”

“It might be ironic to call a devil a kind person but you, you and you, just take a look at what you’re holding in your hands right now. What is in your bags right now? Magical tools, potions all of which are top-grade goods that can fetch a combined sum of over ten thousand gold!”

“And where did all these items come from? Did they come from you all? No, it was all Lady Mo Ke’s. She was worried that you all would get injured, she was worried that you all would get defeated, that’s why she chose to selflessly loan out these treasures. Yet what did she get in return?”

“You all are nothing but an ungrateful bunch of trash that fell for the bandits’ simple lies. To think that you would actually point your arrows at someone who sincerely wished to help you. Do you mean to say that even after all she has done for you all, she still isn’t as trustworthy as a bunch of low life bandits? You guys aren’t blind, you’ve closed off your hearts!”

That rant of a yell ended up suppressing the old man’s prayers completely, who even now was still in the midst of praying even though no one gave him a single look anymore.

While it was an effective outburst, it was also an unexpected one. Ever since we met, the impression Moranthal gave me was that he was soft. So soft that he even chose not to take revenge after his fiance left him for another man….. though he did say that his fiancee did so willingly and wasn’t forced...alright, I guess I shouldn’t stick my nose into another person’s love affairs. However, it’s precisely this matter that cemented his soft image in my mind.

Yet nothing in this world was absolute. A short while after I pinned the image of a wuss onto him, he suddenly stood up and showed me a entirely new side to him.

He actually stood up for me, a devil, in front of all these people...that took a lot of courage. Perhaps he used up his entire life’s worth of courage to do that but the fact remained that he did. Without any regard for himself, he took on the risk of being labelled as a devil’s accomplice and defended me.

After that performance, my impression of him couldn’t be any better. This fellow was definitely someone you could entrust your entire life to. However, I’m a guy so this rating was kind of pointless to begin with...

Not only did his stirring performance win me over, it successfully turned the tables on the bandits. The hunters were completely invigorated by his speech leaving only that babbling old man who was still busy praying to his Goddess to send down her heavenly wrath and smite me.

The fact that matters would take such a turn was completely unexpected even by Dohby. He had actually turned everyone against me but was foiled right at the crucial moment, and now he was nothing but a tool to prove my innocence.

Naturally, he wasn’t one to take this loss lying down. Tossing aside the hostage in his hands, he dragged his greatsword towards me: “I see his mouth has been pretty well trained. Seems like he has fallen under your skirt. Not a bad showing, he’s rather protective of his master.”

“Cut the slander!” Moranthal immediately stepped in to deny those allegations. “I don’t have any relation to Lady Mo Ke. It’s true, I admit that I have feelings for her and want to pursue a romance with her, but what I just said came from t

Having lost the war of words, Dohby gave up on his initial plan and simply attacked the man. With sudden sweep of his greatsword, he forced Moranthal back a few steps.

Compared to Dohby’s greatsword, Moranthal’s short blade was clearly lacking not only in quality but in weight as well, so he had no choice but to retreat while simultaneously looking for a chance to approach the bandit.

At another corner of the battlefield, George was currently in the midst of a tenuous ceasefire with Dawson. “You believe in that devil?” Asked Dawson as he threw the hunter a look.

“I don’t know if she is trustworthy or not but...at the very least she hasn’t hurt anyone yet and is even contributing as hard as she can to help us fight you.” He gave a shake of his head as he said that. With a mix of doubt and determination in his eyes, he continued: “However...until I see her hurt someone, I choose to believe her.”

“Haha, such an interesting rating.” After raising his sword, Dawson charged in. “Come then, let the battle commence once more!”

Back on our side, Moranthal had been forced on the defensive since the beginning. His combat strength was roughly the same as Dohby’s, but thanks to the bandit’s larger weapon and the fact that it also had a low-grade strength enchantment placed on it, Moranthal didn’t dare to take his attacks head on despite that enchantment being run of the mill. All he could was constantly retreat backwards.

Seeing that his defeat was only a matter of time, I promptly began channelling a fireball to aid him. With the enchanted blade in my hand, my fire magic actually gained a boost in casting speed; a fireball which usually required 10 seconds now only required 5 seconds.

Seizing that window of opportunity created when Dohby forced Moranthal back with his attack, I threw a glance at the retreating hunter before swiftly tossing out my fireball. As the crackling ball of flames burned through the air, the astute hunter had already taken a couple of extra steps backwards having received my warning beforehand. At a safe distance of 5 meters, there was basically no chance of him getting hit.

By now, the fireball had gotten to the point where even Dohby could feel its scorching embrace. However being a strength type fighter, he didn’t have the speed to dodge it at such a close distance; thus he had no choice but to ignite his Fighter’s Aura in a last ditch attempt to block the attack with his greatsword.

The spell exploded with a thunderous boom that resounded across the battlefield. The shocking noise even reached the two other three-stars; who momentarily halted their battle and reflexively threw our side a glance.

As the fiery cloud dispersed, a pair of tracks could be seen trailing backwards from where Dohby once stood. While Dohby had managed to block the attack successfully, his aura had been scattered while he himself ended up getting pushed back several steps. The title of the strongest attack spell wasn’t just for show after all; even with a tier difference, the spell was able to push him back a significant distance.

“Blasted girl, you’ve done it now!” Yelled the furious bandit as he noticed the singed hairs on his head and his aching body. Wrapping his body in aura once more, he charged at me with his greatsword readied like a raging bull. Moranthal immediately stepped in to try and block him, but the force of the charge was simply too much for him to handle and he ended getting knocked back by a single swing of Dohby’s sword.

Originally, I planned on firing off another fireball, but seeing the approaching bull, I had no choice but cancel my channelling and immediately focus all my attention on dodging Dohby’s lethal attack.

Yet the enraged bandit was simply too fast even for me. Even though I managed to dodge his greatsword, he took that opportunity to throw out an aura clad fist which barely grazed me. While it was just a graze, the fist of a three-star wasn’t something that was easily countered either; that short moment of contact was enough to send me flying away, tumbling several times before I finally crashed onto the ground.

As I picked myself up, a wave of lightheadedness hit me; which I forcefully suppressed with sheer willpower while I promptly went to pick up the blade I dropped. In the meantime, Moranthal used this chance to close in on Dohby as fast as he could in order to buy me time to recover.

In such close quarters, his smaller weapon had an advantage over the cumbersome greatsword. Yet their strength disparity was such that even with this advantage, Moranthal could barely hold his ground.

“Damn it all, you adulterers actually dare to team up on me?! Well, I’m done playing around.” He gathered his aura into a mighty punch and knocked away the pestering hunter. However, instead of pushing his advantage, he instead turned around to face his minions and yelled: “Lads, I want you to kill all the villagers here!”

One of the squad leaders immediately chimed in with a question. “Second Chief, are we really killing them all? Killing the hostages?”

Upon receiving that command, only a small portion of the bandits defied that cruel order while the majority of the bandits eagerly began massacring the villagers. In an inhuman display of barbarism, they began targeting any man or elderly woman that entered their sights.

“Dawson!” Seeing their savagery, George immediately yelled at the bandit chief. “Is this what you wanted? Hurry up and stop them!”

“...” Without wasting a single breath, Dawson swung down at the hunter, using his actions to show his intent. Perhaps in his eyes the moment that order was given, there was no room for reconciliation anymore; thus he might as well double down on this order. They could simply sell off the women and children and relocate to another location right after.

“Damn it!” George’s attacks grew even more frenzied as he desperately tried to rush off to help the villagers. However no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t shake off this persistent opponent who made sure to stay as close as possible to him. Thus, he started attacking with reckless abandon, sacrificing any form of defense he had in order to boost his attacks. His goal was to settle this battle as soon as possible even if it meant a pyrrhic victory.

It was only now that Io and Eddison finally realized how foolish they were; there was simply no reasoning with a bunch of bandits. They were struck with a deep sense of regret at that very moment, regret that they chose to abandon their weapons, and most of all, regret for their stupidity.

As the hunters were all unarmed when the order was given out, the first wave of attacks ended up taking the lives of over ten hunters right away. Thankfully, even without their weapons, the hunters could put up a fight. Some of the stronger hunters managed to arm themselves with the weapons of their defeated opponents right away and began a counterattack of their own.

The weaker ones on the other hand banded together and teamed up on a bandit. Their plan was to use their numbers advantage and swiftly rearm themselves.

Amongst the surrendered hunters, two stood out in particular. Even without any weapons, Io and Eddison were able to take on dozens of armed bandit minions by themselves.

With their backs to each other, the pair’s combat strength exploded as they formed an invincible duo. At their current rate, they would be able to massacre all the bandit minions within five minutes seeing as the bandit’s around them had no three-star of their own. Once that was done, they could finally go and rescue the hostages.

On the flip side, the fact that they were able to mount such an effective counter offensive and turn the tables on their captors meant that what the hostages had to face was a one-sided massacre by the rest of the bandits. Because of the previous recruitment drive, there was hardly anyone left within the three villages who could stand against the bandits, especially not in their unarmed state.

The only reason why they could even put up a smidgen of resistance was that there was simply too many hostages for the bandits to watch over, so their bindings weren’t that thorough. Thanks to that, the remaining hunters didn’t have to fight with their arms bound. However, the amount of hostages was simply too much for this tiny band of hunters to defend.

In just a short span of ten seconds, over a hundred hostages died. What made things even worse was that they had to face the terrifying jaws of several hundred tamed wolves while fighting the bandits.

Their participation in this battle frightened the defenseless hostages into a panic, all of whom wanted to escape but were blocked by the bandits and their wolves. Faced with such a difficult situation, the majority of them ran about in a panicked frenzy and ended up becoming a hindrance for the remaining hunters.

At this very moment in the hostage section of the battlefield, there were around two to three thousand people and wolves running about in muddied field of flesh and blood.

Because of Dohby’s order, the scene turned into a chaotic bloodbath in an instant. In the midst of the chaos, Ancarin, under the cover of the hunters, saved any villagers she could from the backlines while unleashing spells on the bandit minions. As for Regine, she stood guard by our conspicuously expensive looking carriage, killing any bandit who tried to approach it with her now well practised assassination techniques.

Sigh, how could a human give the order to massacre others so easily...the whole point of me staying behind was to prevent this worst case scenario from happening and yet I seemed to have helped it along instead…

The fear and panic was thick in the air as the bandits ran amok amongst the defenseless villagers. The old were cut down and the children were trampled while the women could only watch helplessly, crying their anguished cries as the bandits had their way with them...this was the tragic fate of the weak. If nothing was done soon, there would be no more villagers to save.

By now, the situation had spiralled out of control, even if Dohby or Dawson were to give the order to stop, it would probably be too late to prevent the impending disaster. The only option now was to kill off these two heads and shock the bandits into submission.

If their leaders were to die, the bandit horde would naturally fall apart and flee. Of course, this was the best case scenario; it was entirely possible that they could, in the midst of their bloodlust, continue killing even if their leaders died.

Even without the Inverse Cut, Shadowfang was still an epic weapon that I could wield. Being such a powerful weapon, there’s no way it was just an unstoppably sharp blade, there must be even more secrets hidden within it waiting for me to unlock. Even though there’s no time to unlock its potential, I could still use its sharpness to pull a sneak attack on Dohby.

Just one chop, that’s all it took and he’ll be in halves just like those two bald brothers; one chop and their bodies were bifurcated, defensive enchanted gear and all.

The enchanted straight blade had a three-star fire spell engraved onto it which Ancarin identified as being an offensive spell. Although she wasn’t entirely sure what it did exactly, judging from its engravings, it was probably an immensely powerful fire arrow type of spell.

However, wasn’t fire arrow a one-star spell? With enough mana, a powerful mage could boost its power to two or three-star but shouldn’t a high-grade blade like this at least have a three-star spell engraved on it? ...did someone make a mistake somewhere?

As the channelling dragged on, a circular magical array formed of flames appeared half a meter in front of me. From within it rushed forth a flame arrow that sped right towards Dohby.

Just one…? As that question flashed through my head, the flames coagulated once more into a flame arrow and fired off followed by a third, a fourth...soon, an unending volley of flame arrows could be s

Having been warned beforehand, Moranthal expanded all his efforts into stalling Dohby till the instant my spell was finished channelling at which point he immediately leaped to side. A giant sword sliced at where he was just seconds ago at which point the first flame arrow reached the bandit.

Feeling the scorching heat up close, Dohby knew there wasn’t enough time to dodge it so he swiftly raised his greatsword in front of him as a pseudo shield while focusing all of his Fighter’s Aura into defense.

Despite that fearsome display, I knew that he was still alive even without any visual confirmation. His soul was still there, it had merely been weakened so it probably meant that he only sustained some minor injuries.

I promptly sheathed the straight blade and charged at the bandit. As my feet drove into the ground, I reached for Shadowfang just in time to see the burly silhouette reveal itself amidst the dispersing smoke. It wasn’t exactly a clear target but it was more than enough for me to confirm that it was Dohby.

I lowered my back, gripping down tightly on the hilt and with the aid of my running momentum, swung it over my back in a---diagonal iaijutsu slash!

While it wasn’t exactly a traditional iaijutsu slash, this was still a slash by an epic grade blade. If he dared to block it, all that awaited him was death!

“Hahaha, bring it on!” As expected, he knew of my presence before I even reached. Standing there without even bothering to put up a defensive posture, he activated his Fighter’s Aura and nonchalantly put up his greatsword in an arrogant display of overconfidence. “A two-star demoness like you actually dares to fight me head on, hah, you’re either retarded or overly confident...you…”

It goes without saying what the outcome of that clash was. With his brimming confidence, it never once crossed his mind that I was a threat at all and yet I was. His greatsword was merely a low-grade enchanted weapon and simply wasn’t a match for my Shadowfang.

As Shadowfang parted the metal like butter, it swiftly descended onto his Fighter’s Aura and sliced it apart just as easily. With nothing left to block it, it cleanly cut the bandit in two, from his left shoulder down towards his abdomen.

Due to that magical explosion, our fight had already drawn the attention of most of the combatants. All of whom were staring at me right now with eyes as wide as saucers and mouths wide open especially Moranthal whose eyes almost popped out from shock.

“Mo...Lady Mo Ke?!” He stammered with an astonished look on his face as if he couldn’t believe what he had just saw. A three-star was sliced apart so easily?

“Behead him.” I said with a hint of disgust in my voice. While it was I who killed the man, I just couldn’t get used to the gore. As long as it was possible, I would rather not dirty my hands like that.

Moranthal stood there mutely not understanding my instructions. Thus I had no choice but give him a quick explanation. “What are you standing there for! Hurry up and cut off his head and make sure everyone sees it!”

“Oh oh, got it.” Having understood that, he swiftly beheaded the dead bandit with a slice of his short blade and raised it high into the air before yelling at the top of his lungs: “EVERYONE, STOP! DOHBY IS DEAD!”

As the booming voice washed over the battlefield, even the fierce fighting wasn’t enough to blot out the shock created by the words “Dohby is dead”.

The remaining combatants immediately turned their attention to us, their faces frozen in shock as they glanced at the hunter who continuously shouted “Dohby is dead”. As the words registered in their heads, the weapons in their hands unknowingly fell to the ground as their eyes remained rooted to the hunter and the bloody head in his hand.

Dohby was dead and his head had been taken. As it surveyed the battlefield, it stared at the battlefield with a haunted look in its eye and a million things it wanted to say reflected within it. Unfortunately, he was now a dead man.

Dawson had clearly heard the incessant yelling as well. With a forceful shove of his greatsword, he pushed away George and turned around to find the lonely head of Dohby hanging off Moranthal’s hand. The moment he saw that, a veritable maelstrom ran amok in his heart. He was very familiar with Dohby’s strength. With that low-grade greatsword in his hands, he was only slightly weaker than him in a head-on fight so how did he die in such a short time?

This fellow actually recognized Shadowfang? There’s no way he didn’t recognize it given that reaction. But how did he recognize a weapon I brought out from the Prison of the Dead? That blade was given to me by the demonic werewolf, Habano for saving her brother and had been basically rotting in there all this while...so how did he recognize it? This doesn’t make any sense!

Yet, reality was as such whether I accepted it or not. His reaction upon seeing that blade however wasn’t to snatch it but to run. Run, with everything at his disposal to shake off George.

With the death and flight of the bandit leaders, the minions of the Wolf’s Fang were swiftly routed. The tamed wolves were all trained by Dawson and upon seeing their master flee, naturally fled as well. Without the wolves, the bandits were clearly outmatched and started fleeing in all directions.

Thus, what was to be an even bloodier fight ended inexplicably with the death of Dohby thanks to his overconfidence and the unexpected flight of Dawson.

It was only when the last of the bandits disappeared from our sight did everyone, including me register the fact that the battle ended. Even now, we all couldn’t believe what had just transpired. Yet, no matter how rapidly the situation changed, the living merely had to adjust to it in order to live because the situation never changed itself for mankind.

Io, Eddison and George brought along a team of hunters and chased after the fleeing bandits while Moranthal stayed behind to clean up the battlefield. In truth, that just meant tallying up the casualties, processing the bandits who were unable to flee and gathering the bandit corpses.

There were no surprises here as they employed the tried and true method of throwing them both over the cliff. With their relations already strained before this massacre, there was naturally no need for mercy.

With that settled, next came the casualty tally. The living were mostly injured with a varying range of severity. Thankfully, the death count wasn’t as horrific as I had first imagined. Even though the bandits and wolves attacked mercilessly, the hostages still had some hunters guarding them.

Yet, 600 was still a staggering amount of deaths. One had to know that the combined population of those three villages was less than 3000 which meant they had just lost 20% of their population in one go and that’s not counting any further deaths among the injured.

The wolves were extremely vicious in their attacks and this resulted in a large portion of the villagers being severely injured despite not dying. Treating them was going to be a pain because of rabies…

Even in such a backwater world, the fact that wolves could cause rabies was still common knowledge. As people who had been hunters for generations, there was no way they wouldn’t know of this either. Even after being trained thus having this risk lowered, the chances of getting rabies from the wolves were still high…

Thanks to this massive battle, I had gained countless souls yet I didn’t consume a single one of them and instead handed them all over to the Grimoire of the Dead...looks like I still minded my human identity a lot after all.

By the time Io, George and Eddison came back with their pursuit team, the clean up work was just about finished. They managed to kill off a large portion of the fleeing bandits but the key figure, Dawson, managed to escape their pursuit.

All in all, while the human cost had been great, their deaths weren’t in vain either, we were able to defang the bandit troupe in fell swoop leaving them with only Dawson left as their fighting force. There were merely less than 200 bandit minions left over but given that they still had the tamed wolves on their side, hunting them all down was going to be difficult as the wolves were proficient not only in tracking but escaping as well.

If Dawson were to engage in guerilla tactics with the remaining bandits, the villagers would find themselves hard pressed to counter him. After all, it wasn’t possible for the hunters to constantly act in a hundred strong grouping. Hunters were independent fighters who usually acted in small teams rather than large groups due to the restrictions that would pose on their lifestyles.

Naturally all that was for the future. At present, with the main quest done, I think it’s about time we left though there were still some matters that had to be settled before that.

The harrowing battle had left the villagers with simply too many casualties thus I instructed Ancarin to share our remaining recovery potions with the villagers. While some of them were still wary of my identity, the majority still accepted my goodwill except for a bunch of villagers who were devout followers of the Goddess of Light.

Notably, the bible wielding old man was amongst this stubborn bunch. Even with a knife wound in his chest, he was still vehemently opposed to accepting my goodwill. Accepting help from the person who he felt was responsible for this tragedy was something he couldn’t abide by even at death’s knell.

Truth be told, walking away from this stubborn old man did cross my mind but watching an elderly man lie gasping on the verge of death in a pool of his own blood was just...something I couldn’t bear to do.

It’s not like I had some kind of blood feud with this man; it was merely a religious matter that pushed us to opposing sides. I’m definitely not some moral nutcase who felt the need to save everyone but it’s just a potion after all...being able to save a life with it sounds like a pretty good trade to me.

Yet the man refused to relent. Even with the impassioned pleading of his family members, he refused to accept aid from a devil like me. The reason? Because accepting anything from a devil would cause his soul to fall into hell…

In the end, his family members decided to force feed the potion to him. However, just as that decision was made, the old man heaved violently, coughing out a mouthful of blood before dying a short while later from the agitation.

The recovery potions were all looted from Duran’s mansion and weren’t that many to begin with. With nearly all of the villagers being injured, that tiny stock of potions simply wasn’t enough to heal them all. The best we could do right now was use it to on the fatally wounded and save them from the reaper’s scythe. As for those with light injuries, they were on their own; a potion was worth a life after all.

(TL: Going to try something new here. I will mark what I consider as fluff with { } so that you can skip it if you truly wish. If you do not like this new method, want the fluff removed completely etc., just head to our discord/comment to let me know. Discord guarantees that I will see your response by the way.)

Let’s be real here though, only the extravagantly rich would choose the former. } The villagers were poor to begin with and given that they even shot arrows at me, accepting such an expensive boon from me was just…

Perhaps they were merely reacting to my goodwill but ever since then, their gazes had become noticeably friendlier or at the very least they weren’t hostile like they were in the beginning.

Unfortunately, that didn’t change the fact that we didn’t have enough potions to go around which was truly a shame. Like that old man who refused to accept my potion, I truly believed that he wasn’t afraid of some nonsense like his soul being dragged into hell but rather he knew that there weren’t that many potions to begin with; he wanted to do his part and pass on this bit of hope to the younger generation who might be severely injured.

The reason why I had this view was because this same scenario played out several times with the other old villagers who, just like that old man, refused my potion and died from blood loss…

With their dying breath, the majority of them expressed their wish to leave this valuable potion to the younger generation. To them, the best treatment should be left for their kids.

{Back in the days, I remembered that the heavenly dynasty experienced a particularly horrific earthquake. If you were to ask any of those present that day, they would all say the same thing: the apocalypse had come. It just so happens that I had an internet friend who was studying in one of the cities affected.

Their school was a particularly sturdy one and thus withstood the tremors unlike some of the other neighbouring schools. Thanks to that, the majority of the student body and the staff survived that initial wave while they could only watch in horror as the neighboring elementary school collapse in an instant like tofu...according to him, no one in that elementary school survived that day.

The use of heavenly kingdom feels particularly problematic in this instance so I decided to leave it as is unlike previous instances. Normally, the author would use the word heavenly kingdom or dynasty to refer to China. In those cases, I would translate it as China directly since the tone seemed neutral.

However, after multiple instances of the author/s using this term, yes, other authors used this term as well, I decided to do some cursory research into this term. The most neutral explanation was just that ACG authors tend to favor this term. Netizens use this term often as well. Another explanation had to do with the historic usage of this term and was a more ironic usage that could be interpreted as mocking.

Heavenly dynasty was the term a kingdom referred to itself especially if it was a particularly strong or large one. It stems from the view that that country was the center of the world and etc. A particularly famous instance would be Emperor Qianlong’s letter to the King George III in 1793:

“Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its borders. There is therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce”

The condescending tone is particularly apparent in this letter and is rather ironic in retrospect seeing as his dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, was the last dynasty in China and not by choice either. The conceited attitude was the chief reason attributed to its fall by later generations and the use of this term Heavenly Dynasty/Heavenly Kingdom/Celestial Empire/天朝/tianchao by modern citizens can be interpreted as a jibe at the chinese government.

Considering this was a paragraph about earthquakes and shoddy architecture, I decided to leave this term as is since the author might actually intend for it to be mocking in this case though I’m sort of on the fence on this.

They then spent the next few days awaiting rescue in the open field without food, water or clothes. Other than dead bodies, they were pretty much lacking everything else. It was under such dire circumstances that the male students decided to give up their portion of rations from the rescue effort to the more sickly female students.

Back then I was still young and basically spent all my time at home then so I had never gone through such an experience personally. I couldn’t understand the meaning behind such an action till my online friend messaged me and said this: “Back then, everyone had goodness in their heart.”

Hearing that, I finally understood the weight of the sacrifice they made that day. They were using their lives to save another who needed those supplies more.}

While the earthquake was a natural disaster unlike the man-made one like this bandit raid, the decision by the old villagers gave off the same solemnity. As I watched them die off one by one, each death felt like a stab at my heart.

It turns out that in the face of a disaster, the virtuous side of humanity showed itself after all...perhaps people might be willing to commit unspeakable acts for a simple meal but on the flip side, there were also people who were willing to go to any lengths to save another even if it meant giving up their own...these were virtuous acts.

“Master, we’ve run out of potions…” Ancarin scurried up to me and reported in an anxious tone. All her potions had been used up yet there were still so many more villagers to save; that amount of potions was merely a drop of water in a vast desert.

The lightly wounded could survive without the potions but the severely wounded desperately needed that healing liquid in order to survive. The best they could hope for was to suffer in agony for two more days before inevitably dying.

“I know of a store that sells potions under the counter. I’m sure they will have recovery potions there, if we whip the horses, we can probably make a round trip in a day. The only problem is…we don’t have the money for it…”

Being a merchant, Eddison naturally knew of such matters but the matter of money had truly stumped him. After all, all his money had just been stolen by the bandits so where was he to find the gold at such short notice? Steal it? Like those bandits? Putting aside whether he could do that, even if he could, he would be hunted by the security forces of that town.

“Then take out 5000 gold coins and buy 50 recovery potions, the 100 gold coins type.” While recovery potions could go as low as 10 gold coins, those potions barely had any visible effect. The cheapest we could get was the 100 gold coin potion which just so happened to give a round number with 5000 gold coins.

“Eddison, I’ll get Ancarin to pass you the gold in a moment, I’ll have to trouble you to make the purchases since you’re probably the only one who knows where that store is.” There’s no way Ancarin will leave my side and Regine still has to guard the carriage. Thus, this important task could only be completed by Eddison.

The portly man turned towards me with a shocked look and exclaimed: “But...that’s 5000 gold coins, that’s not a small sum!”

Several minutes later, Eddison rode off on Dohby’s chestnut horse with 5000 gold coins in hand. Hopefully he will be able to make it back in time with the potions to save the villagers. With so many severely wounded villagers, every minute wasted could lead to a death.

At that, George gave me a torn look that seemed to say he didn’t want to get too involved with me given my sensitive identity. My aid might end up attracting the demon hunters from the Church of Light.

The Church of Light was the religion which worshipped the Goddess of Light. It was also the largest human religion without any close competitor. According to legend, the Goddess of Light was the arch-nemesis of all creatures of darkness. Devils, vampires, werewolves, undead and other monsters were all targets of purification by the Church of Light.

While I did say that being a devil was a sensitive matter in the Western Human Realms, it’s not exactly true that they will be killed on sight. However, these exceptions came with the requirement that you did no evil and was sufficiently strong. This was the only way a devil would be allowed to travel freely in the Western Human Realms. Unless of course you were a devil raised by some king or nobleman, if you were, you would be allowed to travel unmolested even without those requirements.

However, if you were some wild devil...sorry bud but get ready to be hunted by a team of demon hunters. If, in the process of being hunted you hurt someone...then that’s your fault. If you were to be killed then, you would be judged as deserving death and your corpse will be turned in for a bounty. In short, this was the legendary “dying in vain”.

Thankfully, Eddison’s female servant was unharmed during the chaos and was even helping out with the wounded after reporting in to Eddison. This was the reason why he even had the mood to go on this errand.

Io’s family were basically unharmed as well except for his father-in-law who was slashed in the arm trying to save his daughter. It was a deep cut that couldn’t be healed with normal herbs and without proper treatment, he was sure to lose his arm. Yet the moment he was offered a potion...he gave it up right away. He rejected it saying that there were plenty of others who needed it more than him and that not treating this arm would at most cost him an arm unlike some who would die without a recovery potion.

After that major defeat, the defenses of Dawson’s stronghold was sure to be at its weakest. With that in mind, George suggested that we form a punitive expedition and finish Dawson off once and for all seeing as this was the best opportunity we would ever get. If we were to forego this opportunity, Dawson might just kidnap some hostages again...at that time, no one could predict what would happen then.

With no better opportunity than this, this suggestion passed unanimously. Thus George, Io, Dioh and I formed an expedition of 400 hunters and advanced towards the Wolf’s Fang Bastille. In the meantime, the village would be guarded by Moranthal, Kevin, Ancarin, Regine and 100 other hunters.

To be precise, Ancarin and Regine were to guard my carriage. While I had basically gained the acceptance of the villagers, they were still wary of my devilish identity. If they were to find that human doll in the carriage...that would probably spark another crisis of trust.

Perhaps they might consider him a villain deserving of such treatment after learning of his deeds but more than likely, they would judge me as cruel at first sight and suspect me instead of trying to find out what he did…

I had originally intended to leave right away but after seeing the sorry state of the village, not to mention that the biggest threat, Dawson, still wasn’t resolved, I suppressed the strong urge to leave and search for Nicole.

He hoped to borrow my powers in the coming fight while simultaneously paying back the loan with the money looted from the Wolf’s Fang Bastille. They were, after all, the local tyrants of this region, there’s no way they don’t at least possess 5000 gold coins.

It goes without saying that he didn’t do so out of the kindness of his heart. More than anyone else, I knew of the wariness he held towards me because of my identity. If it ever came out that they were connected in any way to a devil, even if it was just a loan, some of the more extreme elements of the Church of Light might just take offense to this.

These extremists had no qualms about slaying anyone who ever had contact with a devil no matter who they were, common folk or nobility. A loan would probably be seen as colluding with a devil for financial reasons. No matter what reason you had. Thus, George insisted, vehemently, on returning this loan.

This was a common saying in the Western Human Realms that spanned several ages. According to it, a devil would employ whatever means it could to ensnare a human’s soul. Given that they would rather die than lose out on a deal, there was no way a devil would help a person without any ulterior motives.

Wolf’s Fang Bastille was relatively near to the village being roughly a day’s distance away on foot. However, thanks to the expedition leaving right after that intense battle, most of the hunters were thoroughly worn out, forcing us to set up camp for the night and setting off the next morning.

Taking into account the time we took to set up this expedition, the bandits should reach the bastille before us though not by much given the mobility of both our parties.

Wolf’s Fang Bastille wasn’t that much different from the typical mountain bandit stronghold. It had a wooden palisade reinforced by mud surrounding the perimeters. As predicted, the stronghold was already manned by bandit minions though they seemed to have

The villagers had always been the ones being bullied so it had never once occurred to them that they would take the initiative to assault their stronghold. Yet as reality would have it, the villagers did just that. With several hundred hunters at our backs, we came knocking on their front door.

The minions immediately gave up on resisting and instead fled for the back exit. For this purpose, a fight even broke out between the bandits; not a single one of them doubted what fate would befall them if they were to get caught.

By the time George and Io broke through the unmanned gates of the stronghold, all we saw was a scene of chaos with injured bandits groaning on the floor and loot scattered all over the stronghold grounds. This was the result of the bandits turning on each other. The reason was not only because of their rush to escape but also to take revenge in the midst of this chaos.

“Camp False Alarm” or “Panicked Camp” was a common phenomenon in ancient times among the troops. One reason was the lack of nutrition during times of war that contributed to night blindness among the men. As military camps were exceedingly harsh back then, the soldiers tended to be in a constant state of stress while fearing that the next day would be their last.

Exacerbated by their lack of education and the oppressive methods of their superiors, this tension resulted in the soldiers being in a constantly high-strung state. Not only that, grudges were easily formed thanks to the tyrannical methods of the officers.

Any strange sounds at night might spook the soldiers into hysteria given their night blindness. Once a critical mass was achieved, things that these soldiers would normally not dare to do...ended up happening. Thus, taking revenge during the chaos of a “Panicked Camp” was a common occurrence but then.}

(TL: There wasn’t an english equivalent for this phenomenon so I decided to use a more literal translation in this case. I know it sounds horrible but it’s accurate and honestly, it’s a pretty stupid term that describes a very specific set of circumstances. Plus, the author really didn’t need to put in this paragraph…

“Panicked Camp” just means mass hysteria among stressed out soldiers in the night, in the middle of a military camp as a result of some innocuous trigger.)

Naturally, the scene before us wasn’t that bad but just from a glance, the ten or so dying bandits was more than enough of an indicator of oppression and revenge killings.

Ignoring the scattered gold coins, George strode up to a bandit who had been injured in the legs and questioned him. As he did so, Io led the rest of the hunters around and gave the prone bandits a finishing blow; whether or not they were alive didn’t matter to the hunters, just give them a stab and let the gods sort them out.

“Big Chief...Big Chief hasn’t even return yet…” Fearing the same fate as the other bandits, the minion smartly followed this up with a recounting of all he knew. “After we fled yesterday, we ran all the way back here and awaited the return of the Big Chief but he never came, even up to the point you tore down those gates...we all thought that the Big Chief would come back to organize the stronghold…”

As the saying goes, a headless snake cannot slither and a headless human cannot walk, without their Big Chief here to lead them, they naturally didn’t put up any fight after seeing us. The more cowardly ones fled right away the moment they learned of our arrival while the daring ones took this opportunity to raid the treasure rooms before leaving.

As for those scattered and cracked coins, those should be the result of the bandits robbing the ones who raided the treasure room. They probably felt that there wasn’t enough time to raid the treasure room themselves or simply couldn’t be bothered to do so and decided to prey on their former comrades.

The bandit being questioned right now belonged to the daring category. Unfortunately for him, he was ambushed by a comrade who had he had an alright relationship with. Not only was he robbed of several hundred gold coins, his right leg was permanently crippled during this sneak attack.

This was the first time we had ever stepped foot in the Wolf’s Fang Bastille, not even George had done so before, thus this crippled bandit became our guide through the stronghold. Our sole guide to be exact, seeing as how Io was a little too diligent in his clean up work.

The bandit had a crippled thigh that prevented him from walking so we ended up dragging him along with us...that’s right, drag. At first, we planned on carrying him but given the hatred the hunters had for the bandits, there’s no way that could feasibly happen.

The hunter originally in charge of carrying the minion promptly dumped the man onto the floor and began dragging him by the collar of his tunic. Seeing that, George didn’t make any move to censure the hunter which essentially meant: just don’t kill him.

This minion was a rather astute fellow that immediately picked up on our dislike for him. He knew not to test our patience and instead diligently performed his duties as our guide even while enduring the burning pain through gritted teeth.

To speed things up, we had Io lead another team of hunters around to search the stronghold while George and I continued onwards with our team led by the bandit guide as we searched for the treasure room.

Under the guidance of the minion, we ended up in the hidden stash of Dohby which for some inexplicable reason was an underground hidden room located in a remote corner near the stronghold’s gate. As the majority of the bandits who escaped were close subordinates of Dohby, this tiny room was the first target of these bandits the moment they decided to flee. This was also the reason why we ended up meeting our guide near the gate.

Even so, the room was still filled with treasure despite the bandits raiding it prior to our arrival. There weren’t that many who knew of this hidden stash after all; only his close subordinates and a few others who caught wind of this even knew that it existed. Most likely out of sheer lack of time, the entrance to this treasure trove wasn’t even shut when we arrived. In the midst of the dreary darkness, the shining coins and treasures were particularly luminescent.

By my conservative estimates, this mountain of treasure was worth over 20000 gold coins which wasn’t really that surprising when one thought about it. There weren’t that many who knew of this stash and those who did couldn’t bring too much with them or it would hinder their escape.

According to our guide, this stash wasn’t always so full of treasure. It had only gotten this way thanks to the recent death of Doran. Because of his sudden death, Dohby had no choice but to transfer the treasure over to his own stash in a hurry and this led to the stash being exposed. Before that, the number of people who knew of this stash could definitely be counted on one hand.

While I wasn’t too familiar with the customs of these bandits, it looks like some truths didn’t change no matter where you were…

Now that we had cleaned up the Second Chief’s stash, it was about time we moved on to the Big Chief’s. Yet the moment we questioned our guide about Dawson’s treasure room, he gave us a stunned look instead before telling us that no one knew where Dawson’s treasure room was given his secrecy.

“If you dare to lie to us, I’ll kill you.” At this, the little brother who came along to participate in the festivities couldn’t help but jump out and threaten the bandit. If the combined wealth of the second and third bandit chiefs were already worth over 20 000 gold coins after being raided, then exactly how much was the Big Chief’s portion of the loot worth? 50 000? 100 000?

“Nno...I’m really not lying...the Big Chief was a secretive man, even his wolf training was done outside and not in the stronghold…”

The guide threw the teen a terrified look before swiftly explaining himself. One had to know that amongst the clean up crew, this teen was the most vicious of the hunters. “The Big Chief said that wolves who had been caged up would lose their wildness so he always trained them outside and for the most part, they don’t stay in the stronghold either.”

“Then why don’t the trained wolves attack you?” Asked George, immediately picking up on a key problem of his explanation. If the wolves were all trained outside of the stronghold, didn’t that mean that they basically didn’t know the bandit minions? In that case, how did they communicate with the wolves and how did the wolves tell friend from foe?

“Because...because of this...” The injured bandit pointed at his tunic as he stammered. “As long as we wear this kind of clothes, the tamed wolves won’t attack us.”

In truth, there was no reason to doubt the man at this stage. It wouldn’t make sense for him to hide too much information from us as he himself knew that his life was over the moment we judged that he was worthless. It was precisely this reason that led to his compliance all this while. As long as he showed off his value, his life was safe.

The fact that his clothes were made of a special material had escaped all of our eyes till the bandit guide pointed it out. Now that he mentioned it, everything finally clicked. No wonder the wolves didn’t attack them and even listened to their simple commands, those wolves thought that the bandits were their kin thanks to the scent of the fur.

“So that’s why the bandits of Wolf’s Fang smelt like wolves, I always thought that the scent of the wolves had rubbed off on them since they spent a lot of time together.”

Leaving the hidden room, we made our way to the other portions of the stronghold, slaughtering any bandit along the way who was foolish enough to attack us.

“What’s going on over there?” Asked Dioh who had his curiosity piqued. Yet as he did so, he sneaked a glance at me before looking away a split second away.

“Spit it out!” Yelled Dioh, startling the injured bandit. He jumped backwards reflexively and shut his eyes for a moment before stammering out an answer: “That’s the pros...prostitute camp…”

Hearing that Dioh gaped in shock for a moment before swiftly understanding the meaning of those two words. He sneaked another glance at me and after seeing that I had no reaction, turned around and said with ears crimson red: “Pros...prostitute camp...alright, I got it.”

With a wave of his hand, George signalled for the group to head towards that direction. It wasn’t long before we stumbled into Io and his hunters who were currently facing off against ten bandit minions. These minions were particularly noteworthy in that they were currently surrounding several dozens of naked women and from the looks of things, these women were their hostages.

At this very moment, Gill was holding the hands of one of the girls and seemed to be protecting her as he kept her hidden behind his back. While he had a slightly guilty look in his eyes as he faced off against Io, he absolutely had no intention of backing down now as he argued loudly with the hunter.

In front of Io were several bandits whom I wasn’t even sure if they were still alive or not. Their bodies were riddled with arrows and blade cuts which I assumed were from the hunters.

With a finger pointed at the bandits and the prostitutes, Io gave a basic rundown of the situation: “Not long ago, I heard some screaming from the prostitutes and brought some people over to investigate. As for what happened after that, the situation is as you see right now.”

If I’m not mistaken, these bandit minions were probably trying to take the women away with them but were unfortunately interrupted by the hunters who were lured here by the din they caused. With their arch-nemesis status, the two parties naturally engaged in battle at first sight with the outcome being obvious; a complete victory for the hunters who had the three-star hunter, Io, aiding them.

“Massacre everyone?” George gave a cold laugh as he said that. “Dawson seemed to had no qualms about massacring us just recently. What’s the matter, are you all afraid now? I don’t remember you questioning Dohby when he called for the massacre of the villagers!”

“...” Gill kept silent at that. Back when the order was given, he hadn’t participated in the massacre. While he had sold out George and Plateau Village, he had still had some basic humanity left in him and didn’t kill the innocent villagers. Plus, if he had stood out then, Dohby would’ve killed him on the spot to protect his reputation.”

(TL: I think the word is called hypocrisy not humanity. Potato just doesn’t want to dirty his hands for something he single handedly caused.)

The moment Gill sold out George to the Wolf’s Fang, there was no turning back. A meeting between the two would have to end in the death of one.

It was then that a middle-aged, towering bandit with three blade scars running down the right side of face, pushed past Gill and took the center stage. He had a burly build with the back of a tiger and the waistline of a bear while his arms were probably as thick as a normal person’s thigh. Judging from his stature, he was probably some troop leader within the Wolf’s Fang.

This troops leader clearly wasn’t afraid of these two three-star warriors as he boldly pointed his blade at George and threatened him with his own unique yelling technique: “I don’t care what you all are here to do but right now I have these hostages in hand. If you’re smart, you’ll stand aside or else I’ll murder all these women!”

Hostages huh...so the camp prostitutes ended up as a negotiation tool. These women were the poor souls who had been kidnapped by the bandits over time. They came from a variety of backgrounds: some were Plateau Villagers, some were from merchant families while a small portion were born into prostitution.

Putting aside those who couldn’t stand the humiliation or died for being too old, the hostage group did indeed contain some villagers. In fact, some of the hunters even recognized some familiar faces within the bunch.

Seeing as the enemy held someone they cared about, saving the hostages was basically a must now. With that, Io began negotiating with the troop leader.

The troop leader wasn’t a fool either and knew that having this many hostages wasn’t a viable option so he asked to exchange the hostages for me...

By the way, why did this end up being about me again...does this world have to troll me so many times? I was just here for some soy sauce (idling)...

Well, now the question is whether or not I should give in to their demands. Truth be told, I’m not really keen on risking my life but those dead fish eyes on those girls...each of them was a young beauty in their own right with the youngest being slightly over ten. The oldest was definitely younger than thirty as normal girls who had no Fighter’s Aura like them would start to age more prominently from that point onwards. Older girls like them would definitely find it hard to even stay alive in the prostitute camp.

While their ages might differ, they all shared the same tragic fate. Had it not been for this twist of fate, they should have had a bright future ahead of them with a husband that loved them and a pair of lovely children instead of being humiliated by these beasts clad in human skin as they lived a life that was worse than death.

Besides, a number of the hunters were already giving me a torn look. I bet there was someone they cared about amongst those hostages. In their hearts they probably wished for me to step forward once more and save those girls. But no matter how you looked at it, this was an unreasonable request and they knew of this as well which was why they kept quiet.

Glancing at those dead eyes and turning back to those hunters...I’ll admit that my heart got the better of me once more. Even though they were strangers, I still wanted to try it. After all, all he asked was that I be his hostage. A life for ten was definitely a worthwhile trade especially since it only required putting me in danger for a moment.

Without Dawson backing them up, these bandits had no three-star warriors on their side at all. As long as I unleashed my full arsenal on these small fries, none of them stood a chance at all. With my Shadow Guardian and spells such as my Bone Wall to aid me, there’s no way these two-stars stood a chance against me.

“Alright.” Under the shocked gaze of everyone present, I accepted the troop leader’s offer. “However, you must release the hostages first.”

Hearing me accept his offer, a look of elation crossed the troop leader’s face but was instantly replaced the moment he heard my conditions. “Laughable, if I was to do that, what would happen you reneged on your word?”

Just as we entered a stalemate with neither side willing to give in, the silence was suddenly broken by a pained cry: “Damned whor*, let go right now!”

It turns out that a certain prostitute who couldn’t have been older than 20, suddenly bit down on a bandit who promptly sent her flying with a kick.

“Damn bit**, do you think I don’t dare to kill you?! Today, I’ll...hmm? Aren’t you that newbie? I heard your technique is pretty shitt*. Hmph, since I haven’t had a round with you why don’t we go for a spin right now?” The bandit raised his blade high into the air as he prepared to kill the offending girl.

Yet as he was about to kill her, his lower half suddenly interceded on her behalf. Any girl who managed to survive in the camp was young, beautiful and had a petite figure that probably couldn’t survive a round with so many bandits. Killing such a specimen was truly a waste without first trying it out.

Thus, in front of our disbelieving eyes, the bitten bandit actually undid his pants while pointing his blade at the girl...who would’ve thought that he was actually sick enough to do that. Damn, was he actually planning to clean his barrel in front of us right now?

As he did so, that girl quietly stared him down with a defiant look in her eyes. At the side, the bandit’s comrades actually cheered him on instead of stopping him.

Recorded within the Bible was the lives of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Initially they spent their days naked but after being lured by Satan into eating the forbidden apple and gaining knowledge, they found their nakedness shameful and thus put on clothes. It was this act that gave away their treacherous deed to Jehovah.

Based on this record, it’s obvious that knowing shame was one of the characteristics of humanity. These bandits were clearly no longer fit to be called humans.

Seeing this, the hunters were clearly incensed by it as well but that was the mere extent of their anger. None of them dared to speak up or save that pitiful girl out of fear of agitating the bandits further.

“Stop, don’t touch her! I’ll accept your offer but you had better hold up your own end of the bargain and release the hostages.”

There was simply no way I could watch this tragedy unfold before me without doing anything. She was already pitiful enough and shouldn’t have to suffer such inhumane treatment. Thus, I decided to acquiesce to his demands and be his hostage.

“Don’t worry, bringing along so many hostages is a pain for us as well.” The troops leader clearly had the self-consciousness to know that he wasn’t in any way a trustworthy character and thus he reassured me with a very practical reason: “These women are too weak and won’t be able to travel long distances.”

“Let’s hope you keep to your word then.” I gave a deep sigh before nodding towards George and Io after which I took my first step towards being a hostage.

According to legends, the ancestor of the werewolves was a giant wolf know as Nightblade. He used to be the mount of the Moon Goddess till one day he decided to confess his love for his master. The Moon Goddess had never once thought that he would confess to her as Nightblade was merely a mount in her heart. Thus she felt insulted by his gesture which she felt had profaned her. In a fit of anger, she banished the wolf to the mortal realm.

Nightblade’s banishment pained him greatly as he couldn’t understand why the Moon Goddess treated him this way especially since she had treated him so well prior to his confession. Every full moon, he would let forth an extended howl at the moon to express his longing for the Moon Goddess. It was his hope that one day the goddess would take him back and make him her mount once more.

Unfortunately, this wish was dashed not long after as the Moon Goddess found a new mount. It was a giant wolf just like him except that it was a white wolf whose name was Frostblade.

Having lost all hope of returning to the goddess’ side, the heartbroken Nightblade was stricken by a deep sense of anger and despair as he realized that it was no longer possible that the goddess would ever come for him.

This anger overwhelmed the wolf causing him to go on a murderous rampage where he tore apart any living creature he came across. Whether it was an animal or a human, none escaped his all-consuming wrath. As he continued his rampage, the number of victims rapidly ballooned. Among his victims were countless humans who mostly died except for a miniscule fraction who barely managed to survive.

“No, that’s too dangerous Lady Mo Ke, you mustn’t go!” Shouted Dioh who hadn’t talked to me since I revealed my devilish nature,

“Saving lives is more important.” I threw him an expressionless look and while he had his head lowered in guilt, emphasized this next point: “I’ve said so many times already, don’t call me lady, I’m a man.”

In order to win the trust of the bandits, I silenced all the opposition and slowly made my way to the bandits. Yet just as I took a few steps forward, a bandit minion jumped out.

Disarm myself? There’s no way I would do something as foolish as that...without my weapons, I was basically a sheep walking into a den of wolves. But would they release the hostages if I didn’t do so? They didn’t seem that dumb either.

Seeing as I refused to disarm myself, we entered another stalemate once more. However, this continued for only a few seconds before one of the bandits whispered into the troop leader’s ears after which he gave a grandiose wave of his hand and said: “Let her come over, just her alone. As for her weapons, so what if she has them? With so many people on our side, is there even a need for us to fear her?”

“...” Are you sure that’s cerebral fluid in your brains and not glue? Is there even a person dumb enough to allow the hostage to keep her weapons of his own accord?!

Thus, my armed self ended up as their hostage. The first thing they did when I reached them was to immediately surround me as a precaution. Putting aside my concern for the girls for now, I coldly swept my eyes over the gathered bandits. The majority of them were merely one-stars with the strongest being the troop leader who was a two-star. As for their weapons, they were ordinary weapons without any unique attr

Seeing him try to go back on his words didn’t surprise me one bit but given that I was already a part of this mess, I might as well see it through to the end.

With unwillingness in their eyes, the hunters could only watch as I was brought out of the Wolf’s Fang Bastille. In the midst of all that, the bandits tried multiple times to get acquainted with my body but was rebuffed by my unyielding attitude. I don’t know why but it felt like he didn’t want me to fight with his subordinates. It was probably because George and the others were still nearby so they didn’t dare to act.

So we continued onwards till it neared nightfall. Even after a day’s worth of tracking, the hunters were still doggedly following our tracks so the troop leader made the decision to actually release the hostages just as he said. To think he actually he went through with his promise...and here I was mulling over what to do should he decide to go back on his word.

Was it truly as he said that bringing them along with him was a burden? Either way, this was an unexpectedly better outcome than what I had envisioned.

By now, the girls were indeed starting to lag behind because of their frail, battered bodies so perhaps he really did let them go in lieu of our mobility. Of course, it could just be that he was fulfilling his bargain. As the bandits began chasing away the women, they turned to me with moistened eyes which revealed a gamut of emotions within them.

Some were stoic as they passed by me, some with stunned as they shuffled past me while some bowed as a sign of gratitude, either way, no matter whether they acknowledged me or not, they all left with tears in their eyes.

A while later, I found out that not all the girls left as expected. Gill’s girlfriend was the sole exception to that rule as she decided to stay behind while holding onto Gill’s hands. In her eyes, I couldn’t any trace of envy towards the leaving girls.

I guess in the end that’s the sad truth isn’t it? After going through all that, those girls would probably never regain their bright future again. Even if they managed to get married, they would most likely be mistreated because of this sordid history. While they didn’t ask for such a fate, reality wasn’t one to bend to mankind’s will. Whatever you did in the past, whether it was done of your own volition or not, might end up causing irreparable damage to your future.

{In the past, I remembered watching a drama called Do Not Talk to Strangers. In it was a female lead that played the role of a female student who had been raped in the past. After getting married, her husband often throw out this phrase whenever they got into an argument: “Don’t forget about your past!”

Despite being ridiculed for that, the husband still thought that the girl had a part to play in being unable to safeguard her chastity.

In of that light, Gill’s girlfriend was extremely fortunate to have found a loyal boyfriend like him. If I’m not mistaken, her name was Scarlet?}

Forget it, talking about all that now was pointless, I just hope that the girls will be able to have a better future ahead of them. Perhaps they could flee to a place where no one knew them.

As I saw them off silently with my eyes, I was unceremoniously dragged forward by the bandits. Yet, I held my tongue for now. Now wasn’t the time to turn on them yet...these bandits might turn around and go after the girls once more if I were to attack them now. After all, I still wasn’t completely confident in my ability to handle 10 bandits at once.

By now, the sun had set completely and darkness had fallen. It was roughly seven or eight in the night when we came to an open forest clearing.

As they had left in a hurry, the bandits didn’t have time to pack any dried rations for themselves. Thus, having not eaten for an entire day, their stomachs were on the verge of revolting from hunger. For the most part however, their hunger didn’t affect me. What was concerning on the other hand was the sporadic wolf howls I heard in the background. Night time was the hunting time for wild animals after all.

Having roughly determined that the hunters wouldn’t catch up to us for a while, the troop leader suddenly halted and stretched out his arm in a bid to confiscate Shadowfang.

“Don’t forget you’re currently surrounded by us and those hunters won’t catch up to us for a while. I suggest you don’t endanger your life needlessly.”

“You actually dare to lay your hands on me despite knowing that George and the others are in the vicinity, aren’t you a bold one.”

“Hahaha, do you think they’ll even have the chance to catch up to us? Those hunters are probably too busy to care about you right now.”

“What do you mean?” According to what I know, Dawson had already left the bastille for god knows where and there was no other leader figure left in the troupe who could stand against those two three-star hunters.

Wolf howls! I get it now! Those wolves weren’t out hunting in the night but were instead attacking George and the others...but how is that possible? The only person who could control such large numbers was Dawson but didn’t that man leave the bastille already? Wait, we only determined that based off what those minions told us and not with our own two eyes.

Considering that the village still needed to settle some matters, the village needed a three-star warrior and some hunters to stay behind as an insurance against another raid. Thus, Moranthal had to stay behind. Furthermore, with all those casualties they suffered after that chaotic battle, recovery potions were a must in order to save that many villagers.

However, such potions were expensive and posed a safety problem of their own. If the person buying them didn’t have a large sum of money with him, he wouldn’t be able to purchase enough potions. Yet if he did, he ran the risk of being robbed. In other words, Eddison was the only logical choice here that could safely run this errand especially given his merchant background...

In other words, the villagers could at most send out two three-stars along with some hunters to chase after the bandits; in this case, it was George and Io leading the expedition.

“Dawson’s over there?” Even though I didn’t state a direction in particular, the troop leader understood the meaning behind my words.

“The Big Chief is indeed commanding the wolves.” The troop leader admitted nonchalantly. Looks like he was pretty confident about capturing me seeing as he had 10 people with him. Thus, he had no qualms about revealing Dawson’s ploy.

“Big Chief knew that you all would come knocking so he ordered us to put on this show for you all. Who would’ve thought that you would actually be dumb enough to risk yourself for a bunch of whor*s. Even I’m starting to wondering if you’re really a selfish devil. How about you take off that mask so I can have a gander right now. If you’re pretty enough, I might just spare your life.”

“...Dawson’s after this blade isn’t he?” I gave the blade on my back a pat. “Too bad for him, I’ll never hand it over. If he wants it, he can come get it himself.”

“Hah, you’re still trying to act tough in a situation like this, Demoness?” To some extent, the troop leader still had enough brains to not overestimate himself and instead commanded the other bandits to act. “Get her! The Big Chief has spoken, as long as we bring him the blade, everyone will be heavily rewarded. As for that for demoness, her life or death is of no concern!”

The bandits minions immediately fanned out and surrounded me, slowly closing in on me with blades pointed forward and ready. One by one, their blades swung down on me without any reservation, their aim, to kill me. Thankfully, my identity had already been exposed so there was no longer a need for me to hold back.

The moment the bandit troop leader barked out that command, I had already begun channelling my mana into a spell. As cold steel rained down on me, a bone wall rose out of the ground beneath my feet and propelled me into the air in a burst of dust and soil. With the rising momentum and the bone wall as a stepping stone, I kicked off into the air and flipped over the bandit encirclement.

With my body slightly curled up, I drew my enchanted straight blade mid-air and swung downwards on a bandit minion who just happened to be in my flight path, cleaving through the unfortunate minion in a ruthless chop boosted by the momentum of my fall. Straightening up my crouched posture, I turned around to face the remaining minions, their comrade’s corpse crumpling to the ground behind me with a thud as I began channelling my mana once more.

The flames roared to life in my right hand and engulfed my straight blade in an instant as I willed my mana to materialize. In less than 2 seconds, a 7 meter long whip born of the flames crackled to life and flew out towards the minions. As the flames seared through the air, it carved out a fiery line across the battlefield that scorched the air itself along its destructive path.

Having been strengthened by the enchanted blade, the flame whip not only grew two meters longer but had its offensive power boosted significantly as well. Those unfortunate enough to stand in the way of its serpentine body instantly caught fire and in just a few moments, were burnt to a crisp. It didn’t take long before the clearing was polluted with the acrid smell of burning flesh and blood.

Perhaps they chose this clearing as it made it easier to surround their target but this bit of cleverness ended up backfiring on them. With no trees and foliage standing in way, there was naturally no need for me to hold back on my fire attacks out of fear of causing a forest fire.

Truthfully, the moment I discovered that my enchanted straight blade had a fire enhancement property, I immediately began formulating a new battle plan. This whip attack was definitely not something I did in the spur of the moment but was instead a tactic I had deliberated on.

Like the fireball, the flame whip was, strictly speaking, a growth type spell which meant it grew stronger the more mana you spent on it. However, unlike the fireball, the flame whip was all about sustained control while the fireball was more about a sudden and explosive burst of power. If one was to channel a fireball for too long, it would most likely cause a magical backlash from the volatile buildup of fire elements.

Speaking of which, close quarter combat was the common weakness of all mages especially when fighting against an assassin who could take advantage of his weak physical defenses. Even so, this weakness wasn’t enough to cancel out the sheer power magic afforded oneself.

Mages were after all, an occupation of the nobility while warriors were merely commoners. Nowhere was this difference in power more apparent than in their range capabilities. A warrior had to close in on his opponent before he could harm him while a mage merely had to fling a spell.

Not only that, a mage of equivalent stars was significantly more powerful than a warrior, not to mention that a mage was able to control the weather and terrain once he reached the higher stars. Thus, a mage was in every

Right now was a textbook example of how a mage was stronger than a warrior. Thanks to my sword training before reincarnating as a devil, I was more of a magister now (TL reminder: warrior+mage) and had both close and long range capabilities. With my snaking flame whip, I was able to easily keep the bandits at bay with a flick of my wrist. Even in the face of their throwing knives, I was able to rely on my warrior background to nimbly avoid their projectiles.

In just under a minute, over half of the bandits were downed by my flame whip. As the flames licked their bodies, all they could was roll around on the floor while screaming in pain. Yet no matter how much they tried, the flames simply couldn’t be put out.

Seeing their encirclement fail spectacularly, their morale swiftly plummeted. Knowing that this mustn’t continue on any further or he risked losing the remaining half of his troops, the bandit troop leader finally took to the battle himself.

“Move aside you lot, I’ll deal with this demoness myself...die devil!” With his long blade raised high into the air, he broke into a sprint and lunged at me. Noticing this newcomer, I immediately lashed out at him with my whip yet his furious charge wasn’t one to be stopped so easily. Ignoring the coils of my whip, he broke through the fire while swinging his blade downwards at me with his all his might.

Given my horrendously low strength which was barely able to defeat a human agility focused warrior, strength type warriors like this troop leader were clearly opponents I couldn’t take head on. In fact, that thought didn’t even cross my mind as I promptly back stepped while attacking once more with my flame whip. With a flick of my right wrist, I swung the flames back towards the bandit in another coiling attack.

Naturally, the troop leader was able to react to this and immediately tried to deflect the whip with his long blade. However, the flame whip was made of pure fire energies and naturally couldn’t be damaged by such physical attacks. The flames wrapped around blade, dancing around its steely edge as it wrapped its crimson tendrils around the troop leader.

Being a strength type warrior, agility clearly wasn’t his forte. At this distance, there was simply no way for him to prevent the flame whip from coiling around him.

“AHH….” yelled the man as his body burst into flame right away. As the scorching pain tore through his body, it instantly robbed him of any ability to fight back. All he could do was roll around desperately and hope that this would put out the flames. Unfortunately for him, his minions had already tried this and that didn’t work for them.

In the end, the bandit troop leader was merely a two-star warrior and two-star warriors weren’t able to wrap their bodies in Fighter’s Aura like the three-stars. This meant that they basically had no defenses against magical attacks and could only soak the damage with their bodies; last I checked, humans weren’t born with an innate fire resistance.

“How...RUN…” Seeing their leader get taken out in a move, the remaining minions immediately fled, leaving their leader to fend for himself.

Magical attacks were the biggest weapons in a mage’s arsenal so the outcome of this fight was essentially decided before it even began. Without the ability to wrap oneself in Fighter’s Aura, a mage could easily dominate a warrior.

Assuming, of course, that there was sufficient distance between the two parties and that there was enough time for the spell to fire off and hit its target...mhm, hitting a target is important as well...don’t forget, most mages were basically geeks.

Regarding those who fled...I’ll leave them be for now. The most pressing matter now is to check up on the hunters. Don’t tell me they were really ambushed by Dawson and his wolves...and what about those prostitutes? Will the wolves attack them? And why hasn’t Dawson shown himself yet? Isn’t his goal Shadowfang? In that case, why…

Hearing that, my head whipped around to find a cold pair of eyes staring back at me. His lips cracking into a slight grin that seemed to flaunt his control of the situation as he said, “Lucky for me I decided to put in the extra effort to check up on this area otherwise I would’ve missed out on this opportunity.”

That’s right, the person standing before me now was Dawson. Standing 10 meters away from me was the bandit chief clad in the same outfit as yesterday, with his signature greatsword clasped behind his back.

Without wasting any more words, he cut straight to the point and pointed at Shadowfang: “Hand that blade over to me and I might just spare your life.”

“You want it? Come get it.” I knew right away that was no reasoning with this man. From the look on his face, I knew that he recognized Shadowfang. Even if he didn’t actually know of it, he definitely recognized its power which meant that even if I handed it over to him, he definitely wouldn’t let me go in order to prevent this news from spreading. Seeing as it was going to lead to a fight either way, there’s no point wasting time on words.

As I said that, I preemptively cracked my whip towards him, however this was easily dodged by Dawson with a quick flash to the side. By the time I located him once more, he was already on the opposite side of where he stood. With another flick of my wrist, I sent out the whip once more in a similar attack pattern.

Dawson was naturally able to react to this but just as he was about to dodge it, his body banged into the bone wall I had summoned beforehand. With his escape route cut off, all he could do now was take the whip head on.

Got him! With the hindrance of the bone wall, the whip was able to coil itself around the bandit chief; all that’s left now was to burn the man. Yet Dawson didn’t seem the least bit concerned about his impending demise. Glancing nonchalantly at the whip, he let forth a thunderous shout after which a burst of Fighter’s Aura exploded from his body and tore apart the fiery bindings in an instant.

Strictly speaking, the strength of the flame whip lied in its ability to deal continuous damage, the whip strike itself didn’t do much instantaneous damage so it was particularly vulnerable to instantaneous abilities. Naturally, I knew of this weakness as well when I struck Dawson with my whip...it’s just that I didn’t expect his aura to dispel my whip’s binding so easily...maybe he’s just a unique case, mhm.

Damn it, if only my flame wall could be erected instantly as well...I guess there’s no ifs in life huh...the whole point I favored my bone walls was because they could be cast instantly in the first place while the flame wall had a short casting phase.

With the flame whip taken care of, he immediately pounced on me with a lightning fast speed that barely gave me enough time to dodge let alone chant another spell. Focusing my will, I swiftly erected a bone wall to block the bandit but this was promptly destroyed by Dawson’s charge. To the three-star bandit, these quick-cast bone walls which barely had any mana infused in them were nothing but a bunch of paper walls.

Damn, here he comes again! I rapidly took a few steps back. In terms of melee combat, there was no way I’m a match for him; he might even be able to kill me off in one move. Unfortunately for me, my retreat barely accomplished anything seeing as his speed was faster than mine in the first place. As I watched his looming figure close in on me, the only option left was to activate my Shadow Guardian, hopefully it will be able to restrain him for a moment.

The shadowy skill activated with a mere thought and rapidly elongated itself in a strange manner as it shot out towards the approaching bandit. As its attacks came from the ground, its stealth factor was rather high. Dawson was completely clueless about the origins of this strange black attack even after he was hit but the...it’s not like he needed to know either.

Thankfully, it was still able to buy me some time. With the straight blade in hand, I used it as an interim magical staff and boosted my casting speed to swiftly erect a flame wall right in the path of his charge.

However, this fiery obstacle didn’t even cause the fearsome man to bat an eye as he plunged straight into it with his aura clad body. It didn’t take long before he charged through the wall and appeared right before me with greatsword poised for a deadly hack!

Not daring to face that attack head on, I had no choice but to perform an emergency tumble to the side. As I scrambled to my feet several meters away, I unsheathed the straight blade and drew Shadowfang as fast as I could.

“So you’ve finally pulled her out.” Seeing me reach for the epic-grade blade, he didn’t make a move to stop me. In fact, he seemed excited as he declared: “This is fine as well. Before I attain her, let me have a look at her prowess!”

As those words left his mouth, the epic-grade blade pierced through the gigantic sword in his hands like tofu...without a shred of doubt, his weapon had been destroyed by Shadowfang.

Thanks to his inhuman reflexes however, Dawson managed to retreat a step right as the metallic blade gave way and thus narrowly avoided being skewered.

“Hahahaha, you were actually able to destroy my weapon in one blow, as expected of that legendary blade…” He tossed aside the broken chunk of metal and nonchalantly entered a barehanded stance. With a provocative wiggle of his fingers, he instead taunted me, all the while wearing a crazed look on his face: “Even without my weapon, you’re still no match for me. Come, I’ll make you understand the difference between me and you.”

I’m the one who should be teaching you the power of Shadowfang! To think you dared to take me on barehanded and even wanted me to attack first...how much of a reckless idiot can you be?!

Shadowfang, just from the name alone, you could tell that this blade was probably of the darkness element. When I used the straight blade as a staff, it enhanced my fire magic so did that mean that my darkness magic will be enhanced when I wield Shadowfang?

Focusing my will onto my shadow, I instantly activated the Shadow Guardian once more. Having experienced its attack once before, Dawson naturally noticed the shadowy tendrils snaking across the ground towards him but instead of dodging it, he arrogantly allowed it to wrap around im.

In a split second, the shadowy snake zipped around his body and coiled several times around him, binding him tightly. Under normal circumstances, its binding prowess was able to contain a two-star devil. As for a three-star warrior, that was clearly not possible. However what if Shadowfang’s effect was added onto it?

As reality soon proved, my assumption was right. While the shadow didn’t undergo any visible changes, Shadowfang had indeed boosted its power. Dawson had already tried a couple of times to break free but failed to do so.

Logically speaking, if Shadowfang hadn’t boosted the spell, he would’ve broken free already so clearly it had an effect on the Shadow Guardian.

“So this is your shadow? Interesting...HRRGH YIELD BEFORE ME!” With a thunderous yell, he stimulated the Fighter’s Aura in his body and broke through the shadowy tendrils in an instant. Without wasting a second, he broke into a furious charge and hammered his fist down on me with a running leap at the end.

I immediately faced the edge of Shadowfang towards the incoming blow; in a headon clash, Shadowfang should be able to cleave his fist apart.

Yet how could a fight with Dawson end so easily? Right at the very last second, he withdrew his fist and with a twist of his body, flashed to the side and gave me a quick but heavy jab on my shoulder.

With his speed, that jab was one that I couldn’t dodge at all and like a lone boat in a roiling sea, the punch sent me tumbling head over heels for quite a distance before I finally stopped

As a result of his heavy punch and the subsequent crash, I was severely winded for a while. My mouth opened to let forth a cry but nothing issued forth from my throat. to my neck, I could feel a throbbing pain in my shoulder which could barely lift up my arm now.

Thanks to that punch, I was knocked a substantial distance away from Shadowfang. Being unable to stand up for the moment, all I could do was watch from my prone position as he strode towards Shadowfang. A wave of anxiety hit me as I desperately willed my body to move but no matter how much I tried, it wouldn’t listen to me. That punch was simply too powerful; I couldn’t even crawl over let alone stand up.

Just as he was about to start trash talking again, he suddenly paused. A second ago, just as he bent down to pick up the fallen blade, just as his quivering finger was about to make contact with the blade, it suddenly moved?

Hmm, it really moved. It’s the Grimoire of the Dead! I don’t know when you flew out of my pocket but good job! You’re normally such a rascal but who would’ve thought that you were actually so dependable when it really counted! That’s right, keep tugging on that chain, pull it away and don’t let that bandit touch my Shadowfang!

Seeing a strange book suddenly deny him of his greatest desire, I bet his heart must’ve felt like bursting apart right this instant. As he stared at the fluttering book, his eyes were practically fuming out of their sockets.

“Don’t you dare make fun of me! I’m a warrior who is about to advance into four-stars!” His arms flailed wildly about as he furiously jumped into the air and tried to catch the grimoire. It was as if I was watching an agitated hound trying to bite at its offender.

Unfortunately for the bandit, the grimoire was able to easily evade his arms. As the anger overtook him, he began cursing nonsensically, “ARGH! I dare you to come down and face me. IF you have the balls to do so!”

So he’s about to become a four-star...that explains his overpowering strength. But just look at you now...jumping about like a madman while ranting at a book...by the way, why does it seem like you’ve become dimmer?

With Shadowfang as a bait, it began leading the bandit around by his nose as it flew around in circles. Thankfully, a defeated foe like me wasn’t worth his attention so I ended up gaining time to recover my strength.

It was times like this that I’m thankful for being a devil. Their constitutions were truly hardy; just moments ago, I was writhing in pain and now I was already on the verge of recovering.

So...what should I do now? The grimoire is currently keeping him busy but it can’t stray too far from my side. Furthermore, Dawson seems a little off right now.

If that plan to capture the villagers and use them as hostages was his idea, then even if this man didn’t have an impressive foresight and intelligence, he was at least an ingenious schemer. So why was a man like him losing his cool over a blade? Was the appearance of this blade that much of a shock to him? Or was there some other reason for his sudden stupidity?

Damn...I didn’t expect this fellow to be so strong. Looks like the best plan right now is to stall for time and wait for George and the others to arrive. But exactly how many wolves were attacking them right now? What was their current status? Were they overwhelmed by the sheer number of wolves?

There were simply too many questions and uncertain factors yelling at me to rely on myself instead of praying that someone else would come to my rescue. Then that raises the question of what could I even do? Rather, what other trump cards did I have that could defeat Dawson?

My strongest trump card, Shadowfang, was already defeated so easily so what’s left for me right now? The grimoire’s ability to move had its limits after all, seeing as it relied on souls to fuel it. While it had a degree of mobility, it would start to slow down as time passed.

Wait, if Dawson were to successfully attain that blade...would I die? Or would I be captured? Shi*, what if someone were to do that and that to me...wait, I’m a man, why am I worrying about

“Who’s there?” The sudden appearance of that frivolous voice startled the unprepared me back to reality. I wildly whipped my head around trying to find anything suspicious nearby.

“Haha, little brother is just as interesting as ever. Every time this one sees you, you’re always in a prone position. Must be pretty hard...expending so much effort just to cheer this one up. Just looking at you makes this one want to laugh.”

Found it. That mature female voice was communicating directly to my mind. Which means, even if I wanted to shut her out, I couldn’t do so.

“Oh, little brother sure reacted fast. You actually found this one so fast although technically, this one isn’t in your head but is in your heart. Also, is it really that important who this one is?”

Second time? And I definitely didn’t say a word yet this voice was able to discern my thoughts... she mentioned “nap” and second contact...so, this fellow had been in my body all this while?

Ahhh, you’re driving me crazy right now. You actually still have the mood to nitpick on such piddling things. Fine, fine, you have a name right? So what is it? And how did you end up in my head?

“Hmmm? Now isn’t exactly the time for idle chatter. Little brother seems to be in big trouble right now so how about this sister give you a helping hand?”

How long has it been since I evolved? I don’t even remember anymore, either way it’s a really long time. (Author: About one to two hundred thousand characters ago. That’s not too long.)

The most primitive devil was born as a zero-star small imp after which they evolved into a large imp and grew bigger. Once they evolved into a head imp, their foreheads would sprout a devil horn. When they evolved into three-star, they would grow a corresponding devil tail. The me right now belonged to the tail-growing stage.

My body grew taller while my ears started narrowing into a point similar to an elf’s ear. While all that was happening, I felt a tingly feeling in my tailbone as if it was growing...rather, it was actually growing!

As I noticed that growing sensation, a thin tail rapidly sprouted from my stub of a tailbone. It was a traditional tail alright, long and slender like the other demon childs but unlike theirs which was shaped like a triangle at the end, mine had an inverted heart at the end. The very traditional kind. The type you used to represent love.

Just as I thought the evolution was over, my body underwent another change. Right after my tail grew out, a scale-like tattoo began appearing all over my body, from the fingertips of my left hand all the way up to the shoulder, neck and even my face, stopping just below my left eye. What’s even stranger was that even though I wasn’t looking at a mirror right now, I could clearly feel and even “see” the changes happening to my entire body.

Even though my face was now filled with a bunch of strange tattoos, they weren’t ugly in the least bit but rather had a sort of unknown charm to them. It was as if one would become intoxicated by it after staring at it for while.

“Oh my, the original sin of Envy chose such a moment to surface. This one has really sinned haha, to think that this one has been suppressing your original sin’s blessing all this while.”

Your mouth might be apologizing but you don’t seem the least be remorseful about it at all. In fact, why does it seem like you are pretty happy about this. I say, do you even intend to apologize at all?

“This one has already apologized, what else does little brother want? Sex? Well, this one doesn’t mind but this one doesn’t have a body right now. Plus, this one already has a person she loves so sex is out of the question.”

What the heck...what’s going on here! This brother is still a virgin and he doesn’t plan on giving it up for anyone other than Nicole!

Werewolves the unexpected side product of Nightblade’s rampage. Normally, they would spend their time in human form and only transform during the night. This transformation couldn’t be done whenever they wanted to but could only happen at night and was best done under the moonlight.

Werewolves who had less control over their bodies would begin to lose their rationality during this transformation, turning into a monster like Nightblade who only brought destruction. As time passed, the werewolves slowly learnt to control their emotions thus allowing them to stave off the frenzy even when they transformed. Of course, this wasn’t effective all the time.

The full moon was a notable exception. In Nightblade’s eyes, the full moon was the period in which he was closest to the Moon Goddess thus he used this moment to vent his anger as a way of reminding the Moon Goddess of his existence. This irrational emotion ended up infecting the newer born werewolves who were thus forced to transform during the full moon.

Not only that, whenever they transformed, their rationality would begin to decrease. You could also consider it as their intelligence being lowered. There were basically no werewolves who could control themselves during a full moon…

I was just thinking it...I definitely didn’t expect you to answer like that...wait, now’s not the time for this. I should be inspecting my new powers instead and taking care of Dawson.

The powers I gained were more complex this time around due to that unexpected mutation. Based on “This One”’s words, I seemed to have gotten some kind of blessing from the original sin of Envy which means I’ve gained some new powers apart from my fire and darkness magic.

Unfortunately, I no longer had the time to slowly analyze these changes. Because of my sudden evolution, Dawson gave up on catching the grimoire and instead turned his bloodshot eyes onto me. That’s right, bloodshot. I don’t know when but his eyes had turned blood red. Reflected clearly within them was a sort of beastial quality you would only see in a wild animal.

“You’ve evolved?” He asked. However, before I could answer, he let forth a long sinister laugh, salivating profusely as he said: “Ahh, you seem rather tasty right now.”

“...” Does this “eat” refer to the more traditional form of “eat” or the other kind of “eat”, both maybe? And what’s with that salivating? There’s practically a tiny pool of drool at your feet right now. You’ve got to take care of your image man, you’re one of those “cool guys” after all.

Thanks to my evolution, my strength and speed had gained a significant boost, especially on the agility front which had been boosted to unprecedented heights. While Dawson’s speed was still as swift as ever, I was able to handle his attacks by a comfortable margin now.

Well, comfortable wasn’t exactly true either. It’s just that he had entered some sort of frenzied state which made his punches a lot more haphazard as if they were thrown by a beginner or worse. His opening motion was simply too large and the pause between each attack was so long I coul

Thus, no matter how many times he tried to punch me or kick me, none of them were able to damage me. However, dodging was all I could manage as his attack speed seemed to be getting a lot faster by the second.

By now, our dance of death had already taken us a full circle around the clearing yet there was still no end in sight. During this time, all his punches had missed me but trying to dodge them took up every bit of focus I had, leaving nothing for offense.

Just when it felt like I was about to be overwhelmed by his relentless attacks, he suddenly stopped. His arms hung limply by his side as he leaned forward and began panting heavily, letting forth a loud gasp each time he breathed.

As those perplexing words left his word, his body began trembling violently. It started with his torso, his limbs and mouth elongating itself, then the hairs on his body rapidly grew out before my very eyes, taking on a greyish hue as they became thicker and longer. His ears shifted to the top of his head and tapered out to a point.

At the end, his elongated mouth had a taken a lupine form with rows of razor sharp teeth...this...I’ve seen this before...it’s just like Habona’s demonic werewolf form...Dawson is a...a werewolf?!

That’s right! It all made sense now. Not only did he possess the ability to train wolves, he even knew of Shadowfang which originated from the Prison of the Dead and used to belong to Habona...no wait, Shadowfang’s original owner was Habona’s mother who she mentioned was a werewolf…

According to legends, werewolves were forcibly transformed during the full moon due to a curse from their ancestor, Nightblade. This curse was also the source of their fearsome strength. During this period, their emotions would go berserk and slowly affect their mental state. Some signs included: their actions becoming simpler, more violent and their rationality would start to disappear. I heard there were even some werewolves who couldn’t remember what they did during a full moon!

Back when Eddison mentioned that Dawson had once killed a four-star warrior, we all began guessing that he might have advanced into the next tier. Yet during the battle at Plateau Village, his performance seemed a bit lacking.

Yes, he managed to suppress George but only by a margin. He seemed a lot weaker than the four-star we were expecting. So, this was the reason why…

A werewolf’s transformation gave it frightening strength and speed along with a monstrous regeneration ability. Seeing as he was at the peak of three-stars to begin with, it was only natural that his werewolf form could take on and kill a four-star warrior.

That was the last lucid statement issued by Dawson. As those words left his fanged mouth, he completed his transformation into a werewolf. A werewolf covered from head to toe in gray fur and stood at a towering 2.5 meter. By now, the leather armor he wore had already been forcefully torn apart by his expanded body.

As his bulging chest heaved with each heavy breath, a terrifying growl could be heard echoing in the silent night, a growl so frightening it could terrify a weak-willed opponent into submission...so this was a werewolf!

This immediately reminded me of Habona and the way she tore through the horde of harpies like a terrifying juggernaut, bathing in their blood with each cleave while wearing a chilling smile on her face. It was as if a demon god had descended.

“Stand your ground, you have nothing to fear from this werewolf. Against a dimwit like him, all you have to remember is this: “Hold firm and kick his as*!”

“...” Into those eyes? I guess I don’t have any other choice but to believe in “This One”, do I? His speed was leagues above mine so escaping wasn’t even an option, all I could do now was pray...assuming the Goddess of Light didn’t mind that I was a devil.

Turning towards that bloodthirsty gaze, I forcefully suppressed the terror in me as I locked onto his bloodshot eyes, all the while ignoring the part of me that screamed for me to run.

“Very good, now you’d better calm yourself down. Imagine a terrifying monster, the scariest monster you can think of and make it quick. Then focus your will and channel your mana into that thought.”

Screw that, what’s with all the steps and how do you expect me to calm down in this situation?! And what do you mean by channelling my mana into that thought? Fine fine, I’ll do as you say...only because I want to live.

Howling at the moon. That was the one thing every werewolf had to do after transforming. It was because of this habit that I was able to follow “This One”’s instructions. I would’ve probably been ripped to shreds if not for that particular quirk.

The scariest monster I could think of huh? Alright, if you’ll pardon my lack of imagination...the scariest thing I could think of now was...a dragon of course, an eastern dragon!

A cow’s head, a scaled mouth, antler horns, long whiskers, fish scales, a snake’s body and a pair of eagle claws...bigger, as huge as possible, vast enough to cover the heavens. That was the eastern, five-clawed, golden-scaled dragon that came to my mind.

“That’s a “dragon”? Why is it different from the dragon in this one’s memories? There’s no wings so how does it even fly? Forget it, at least it looks stronger than those lizards. We’ll go with that then. Now, focus your will into his eyes and picture...picture that “dragon” chasing after him.”

As I narrowed my eyes and began focusing on his, he had just finished his howling and proceeded to charge at me. With his hands and feet to the ground, he crouched down and kicked off with his muscular hind legs, his arms pushing him forward as he shot through the air in a beastial posture.

I still didn’t get what she meant by “channel your mana into that thought” but at the very least, it seemed my body did. As that command flashed through my head, the magical energies in my body naturally condensed around that image. This motion came as naturally to me as breathing, like it was an innate part of me.

By now, the meat tank was less than ten paces away from me at which point, his seemingly unstoppable charge suddenly came to an abrupt halt. He turned to the side and whimpered weakly into the empty space before him.

What wild animals were known for weren’t their ferocity but rather their honed instincts that allowed them to detect danger and the strength of their opponents. Simply put, preying on the weak and avoiding the strong was their basic nature. This was especially so for animals living in the untamed wilds. Without this ability, they wouldn’t even be able to survive.

Right at this very moment, a fearsome golden dragon that blotted out the sky was glaring right at the whimpering wolfman. Beside it, the winds howled and the skies raged with thunder and lightning.

A bolt crashed into the ground beside his furry paws with a deafening crack, startling the werewolf. He was afraid. Right through to the deepest recesses of his heart, he was afraid. Dawson began quaking where he stood as his whimpering grew even weaker and shakier.

“The original sin, Envy, clan name, Leviathan. Each and every one of their members are born with a gift for illusions. Their complete form is a seven-star Greater Illusion Demon.”

“Who would’ve thought that this one would end up absorbing so much of your energy while she slept and who would’ve thought that returning some of this energy would cause this unexpected awakening of your second original sin...a devil with two original sins...that’s a rarity even in the infinitely long history of hell. Who knows, you might just be some sort of gifted genius.”

“That’s right, because his transformation wiped out all of his intelligence and rationality, the success rate of your illusions had been boosted to an unimaginable level. Under normal circumstances, there’s no way a newbie like you could deceive him.”

“Once you’ve advanced to a high enough level, you can kill off an army directly with your illusions. Unfortunately, you still don’t have that ability so the task of killing this werewolf still has to be done by you. This one has no body after all.”

Bloodkin weren't able to act during the day as they were afraid of the sun. Thus, the easiest way to kill them was to find their nests during the day and finish them off. Because of their sensitivity to sunlight, the Bloodkin were basically comatose during the day. Even being staked in the heart or burnt wasn't enough to wake them up; they would simply pass away in their dreams. In order to prevent the humans from using such despicable methods on them, Obscuria came up with a plan and that was to use the werewolves.

During the day, werewolves basically spent their time as humans. Only during the night were they able to transform. However, there were exceptions to this rule, a select few werewolves were able to control their bloodlines to the extent where they were able to transform at will through some sort of medium. These elites could be said to be the pinnacle of the werewolf species and were worshipped by others.

The pursuit of strength was a basic instinct of the werewolves, in fact, this was something they were more than willing to risk their lives for. To them, this was a pursuit they were more than happy to toil tirelessly for. Noticing this point, Obscuria promised these power hungry werewolves what they desired in exchange for loyalty towards him and his childes.

It was an extremely secretive ritual that had been kept under wraps even till this day. All we know so far is that werewolves who underwent this ritual could transform into their wolf form at will and even maintain their lucidity.

With the addition of more and more werewolves into the Blood Clan, the bloodkin gained the protection they wanted during the day. As for these bodyguards, they craved power and for that power, they paid the price of freedom by becoming the servants of the bloodkin. From the moment they joined the Blood Clan, they lost the pride of a werewolf and thus discarded their identity in the process. They were no longer werewolves but were instead a new lifeform---Lycans.

It was then that the Grimoire of the Dead came flying back to my side; it had probably noticed that the bandit was now under my illusion. With it, came Shadowfang which was still attached to the floating grimoire by a bone chain. I swiftly caught the dangling blade flying towards me and activated my Shadow Guardian.

In order to prevent any unforeseen problems, I maintained a distance of five meters while I summoned the shadowy minion. Same as always, the shadowy tendrils snaked towards the hysterical bandit and coiled itself around him. Feeling the bindings around him, Dawson struggled to break free but compared to his previous attempts, it was clearly lacking in power and naturally failed.

In his mind, the shadow guardian was probably the claw of the eastern dragon. Faced against such an overpowering opponent, all resistance was futile so he simply gave into despair and waited to be torn into shreds.

In that case, now's the time to strike while he's still occupied in that illusory world. Yet just as I moved to slice him apart, I accidentally activated a skill which I had never used before.

As the murderous intent flashed across my mind, the shadow guardian stirred. With a sickening pierce, spikes grew out of the shadowy tendril wrapped around the wolfman, perforating the bandit before I could even react and turning him into a strange looking sea urchin.

Ah...what's with this slight sensation of weakness? Was it that restraining spell I used just now? I must've used too much mana...I need to replenish it...then...so dark…

Eyes wide open, I jerked my head around and searched the surroundings frantically. Fortunately, it didn't take long for me to notice the grimoire silently lying on top of a counter beside my bed. As for Shadowfang, it was leaning against the wall in the corner of the room.

"Hey, this one has a proper name, stop calling this one this one all the time. Don't think that I can't hear you just because you didn't say a word. This one isn't rude, this one was just too bored."

"Hey, what's with that impatient attitude! A beautiful, noble, elegant, charming, (insert a million more adjectives here) female like this one doesn't deserve such impudence! The nerve, how rude!"

Heavens, putting aside whether any of that nonsense about being noble, elegant or charming was true, shouldn't you show me a picture before you spout all that nonsense!

"...this one's body has already died don'cha know, all this one can do is talk to you in this manner, don't you understand how difficult that is…"

Seems like I stepped on a landmine there...sigh, not having a body does seem rather pitiful, I guess I'll comfort "This One" a little.

"Hehe, this one doesn't need you to comfort her, but aren't you just precious. You're actually concerned about me, this one is so happy!"

"Hahaha, that's right, that's right. No matter what you're thinking of, this one can see it. Which reminds me, Little Brother, you'd better not lust after this one or else…*sinister laughter*"

Hey, cut it out with the teasing, are you trying to start something here! Also, there's no way I'll lust after a woman whose appearance I don't even know of! If I'm going to fantasize about anyone, that will be Nicole, who needs some shady character like you!

As that "dun dun dun" resounded in my head, an image of a tall, slender lust demon entered my brain. She wore a fiery red dress that hugged her entirely body and covered every bit of exposed flesh except for her palms. Despite that, she exuded a seductive aura. As for her face, it wouldn't be an understatement to say that the word beautiful existed just to describe her.

Her red skin didn't seem at all repulsive to me even though my sense of beauty remained that of a human's. It was as if that red hue was just the right color for her. Her long purple hair was tied into a bun behind her head revealing a pair of long sharp ears. On her forehead was a pair of devil horns that curved into a semicircle before tapering off to the back and pointing downwards like a queen's tiara.

Such a ruinous beauty...plus she had even that aura of a queen. If she wore a pair of high heels, I bet there would be a lot of fools who would gladly let her step on them!

Unbelievable, I had to admit, "This One" was really better than...NO, Nicole is the best! LOLI SAIKOU! (TL: Means supreme and this was what the author wrote.)

"Hahahaha, Little Brother has the most amusing expressions...hahahaha…" The image in my head doubled over in laughter, any semblance of a queen gone with the wind as laughed uncontrollably.

Alright, alright, how about telling me your name. Calling you "This One" all the time isn't a solution either. And, I guess it was pretty rude of me to do so.

"You've never heard of this one? It's only been over ten thousand years and this one's existence has already weakened to this extent?"

"Mana exhaustion of course, the cost of casting that Piercing Shadow varies depending on the opponent's strength relative to yours and the distance between you and him. Given the vast difference in strength and that you were even five meters away from him, managing to kill him was already an excellent result."

"Nah, it's normal to lose control over the spell's strength during your first try, cast it a few more times and I'm sure you'll get the hang of it."

In the midst of our conversation, the door swung after which entered a tiptoeing Ancarin who tried her best to be as silent as possible in order not to disturb my rest. The moment she stepped into the room, she spotted me sitting on top of the bed with a blank look on my face. Her beautiful but worried face immediately broke into a happy and surprised smile: "Master, you're awake!"

Near the start of the arc, I used the words Your Excellency instead of Master but I changed it to Master later on as I felt it sounded better and the meanings were pretty much the same. Both expressed respect and an elevated position so I didn't pay much attention to the change of words used by the author.

Long story short, any use of Master by Ancarin/Regine before chapter 121 means Your Excellency and anything after refers to Master. Sorry about that unexpectedly bad decision. )

"I just woke up." I replied blandly and promptly voiced the biggest concern in my head right now: "Hm, is the battle over?"

"It's over, and was that werewolf...Dawson?" She followed that question up with a brief explanation of what happened after I fainted.

Apparently, not long after I fainted, George and the others rushed to the scene to find me unconscious. Perhaps it was because of Dawson's death but for some reason, the wolves suddenly lost their will to fight and scattered to the winds. Following the tracks left behind by the bandits, George and the hunters swiftly found my mana exhausted body.

Also, it seemed like Dioh had eagerly volunteered to carry me back to the village but...since they had always thought of me as a female, they ended up getting a female hunter to carry me back...seems like this room belonged to that female hunter.

At the same time, George captured a few bandits who sneaked back to watch the fight and interrogated them. It was from their testimonies that he learnt that Dawson had turned into a werewolf…

All in all, the death of Dawson meant that the biggest problem plaguing the four villages was now gone. With that, I should be able to search for Nicole without any worries.

However, this mana exhaustion had left my entire body feeling a little under the weather and limp. I think I'll spend another day here and get a good rest instead...the road ahead is sure to be a bumpy one full of unknowns; not being in my peak condition might pose some problems down the road.

Originally, I intended to take a walk outside but in the end...that was interrupted by a visit from dumb and dumber, Dioh and Moranthal. I already told them that I'm a man so why must I still be courted by a couple of man...blergh...disgusting!

Well, at least their antics are amusing. However, their mutual backstabbing came to an icy end the moment the conversation drifted to a certain thorny subject.

How should I say it...apparently, they found Moranthal's former fiancee. Mhm, that woman, the one who chose to follow Dawson, apparently she followed the hunters back to the village as well. Dawson had hidden her in a secret room which they only found after a second search.

Having made her appearance once more, Elona was now a pregnant woman and thus lost some of her shapely figure though she now had the mature aura of a married woman. Elona's appearance came as a huge blow to Moranthal. No one had expected her to be alive after being brought away by Dawson and yet she did…

Moranthal had kept the details of her departure a closely guarded secret so most people had assumed that she was kidnapped by Dawson. If we hadn't heard the truth from the horse's mouth itself, even we would've thought so. After all, who would believe that a villager would willing leave with Dawson?

Under the assumption that she was "one of them", the hunters brought her away. Naturally, she didn't object to this either. With the death of Dawson, she had lost her backing and thus offered no resistance, instead pretending to be a victim as they "rescued" her.

However, Moranthal had no intention of reuniting with this woman and Elona didn't seem to want to rely on Moranthal either. The pair went on their separate ways and unless something unexpected were to happen, they would probably have nothing to do with each other from now on.

Activating Piercing Shadow required my Shadow Guardian to be active first. Given the utility of those spikes, it was an extremely practical spell that could not only function as a restraining spell but also as a offensive and defensive spell.

The next power I gained from my evolution was the Nether Flames. Three-star devils were known as demon childs and had the ability to control flames at a beginner's level. As I possessed the ability to control flames and darkness beforehand, my fire spells evolved along with my advancement, turning into Nether Flames. For example, my Flame Whip was now made of blackish-red flames and was several times more deadly than before.

Of course, all these came at a price as well: the mana cost of my Nether Flame Whip was ridiculously high compared to before. My other flame spells had experienced a similar evolution as well.

was my newfound ability to control illusions. In a sense, this ability reminded me of the genjutsu in Nar*to. It was practically an invisible way of murdering people. According to Ferti'nier,once my illusions were of a high enough level, I could even simultaneously dominate a large amount of enemies and force them to commit suicide.

Finally, it's time to talk about the Grimoire of the Dead. This lovable yet detestable little scamp had become significantly more obedient recently and even came to my aid of its own accord. The whole reason I was able to evolve was because it bought me time by stalling Dawson during that dangerous situation. In a sense, it was my benefactor.

This mysterious book would grant me reading privileges according to my level; the more powerful I got, the more pages I could access. This evolution brought me several new necromantic spells and while necromancy wasn't exactly my forte, learning more skills never killed anyone. Who knows, they might just come in handy one day.

The new undead I could summon were all...old friends: the skeletal horseman and the skeletal javelineer. Also, I gained access to a weakening curse.

It goes without saying that the horsemen and javelineers were rather decent summons, as for that curse, it had the ability to lower one's physical attributes. Truly, a detestable spell.

Lowering one's physical abilities...that entails applying a malaise on one's constitution, strength, agility and other similar physical properties. To some extent, this curse affected one's psyche as well. If a newbie mage were to be cursed by this spell, he or she might actually end up so befuddled that he or she might forget to cast a spell.

In order to celebrate the destruction of the Wolf's Fang Bandit Troupe, the villagers of all four villages hosted a lively bonfire celebration which nearly everyone participated in. Even those who had recently lost a family member put aside their grief and took part in the revelries.

Only a small portion of rather unique individuals didn't attend the banquet. However, compared to the number of villagers who did, the absentees were inconsequentially small.

Of those who didn't participate, the most noteworthy people were the prostitutes who we rescued from the bandits. These women had suffered a severe blow to their psyche and mending that wound was extremely difficult.

While time was a quack who could cure a thousand illnesses, being a quack meant that its treatment left a variety of lasting problems like how were they to survive from now on.

I'm afraid it will be difficult for these women to ever find a man that didn't mind their past, but...forget it, I'm not some kind of messiah, I can't help them anymore than I did already. Although, if it was just a matter of money, I could fix that.

Because I was the one who killed Dawson and had also contributed greatly to the bandit extermination, the villagers gave me a sizeable portion of the loot they recovered from the bastille. Not only did they return the 5000 gold coins I loaned to Eddison, they even gave me another 10000 gold coins which I promptly instructed Ancarin to divvy up between these pitiful women. Hopefully, they'll be able to lead a better life.

On the day of our departure, the whole village came to send me off. Dioh, that little potato, even tried to sneak into the carriage but was swiftly apprehended by George who dragged him away by the back of his collar. As for Moranthal, he was strangely obstinate about following me even after I told him directly that he wasn't welcome. After our carriage left the village, he even rode off on a horse and quietly followed us from a distance away.

"Oh that huh...that was an unpleasant memory that this one prefers not to recall...this one still remembers that very day. The weather that day was rather fine, this one was in her home at that time and had considered going for a walk or perhaps getting her nails done. Yet, when this one had just made the decision to take a bath first...this one discovered that she no longer had a body…"

"No idea, but she should be fine." With that indefinite answer, the mental image of Ferti'nier in my mind raised her head by 45 degrees. In a rather melancholic pose, she stared at the sky and said: "However, Little Brother, I bet you still don't know that...you've gained a fiancee."

Fiancee!? How could I ever be tied to such a stirring word! Impossible! Definitely impossible! Wasn't I cursed by the gods to be single forever? How could I ever have something as lofty as a fiancee? You must be still be groggy from your long nap.

"Little Brother, I suggest you accept your fate, you've really gained a fiancee." At that, she gave an exasperated sigh and continued: "Yi Yi was so touched by your selfless act that she signed a soul bond with you on your deathbed. Unless one of you were to die, this contract must be fulfilled."

"I have to say though, Little Brother is a fortunate man. Don't you know that Yi Yi is the daughter of the Demon King of Pride. She lives in the upper echelons of Gehenna and is the loftiest princess of her species. However, you shouldn't get ahead of yourself after hearing this news. Your marriage is sure to encounter a host of hindrances so you had better be prepared."

Ah, so it's Yi Yi, I thought it was going to be some ugly freak...ah, that's not right. I mean to say that the women who fancy me were mostly visually impaired or blind...no no, I mean to say...ah, the more I say, the worse it gets. Anyway, you get what I mean.

However, shouldn't my main wife be Nicole but Yi Yi has already sacrificed so much for me...it seems rather unfair of me to deny her the position of main wife. Sigh, both of them are just so exceptional, how am I going to choose between the two. How about I just make the both of them my main wife. Yup, sounds like a great idea, let's go with that.

Hahahaha, who would've thought that I would become a man with two wives. I must become greater than Wei Xiaobao, I must marry more wives than Wei Xiaobao and all of them will be unsullied virgins! Wahahahaha...ha---cough cough...got too excited there. Almost choked on my spit…

Ah, right...I still don't have a pee pee...won't that make it extremely awkward when I get a wife?! Wait a minute, since Ferti'nier has been in my body since I reincarnated, then that means she should know something about my body. I should ask her why can't I grow a freaking pee pee.

I turned my metaphorical disbelieving eyes onto her image. She shivered slightly! There's something fishy here! Most of the time, she uses "This One" to refer to herself so why did she suddenly change to "I" the moment I mentioned my pee pee!?

Female...female...among the seven original sins recorded in my hereditary memory, the only all female species are the lust demons...lust...Ferti'nier aren't you a lust demon? Not only that, you're the demon king of the lust demons, aren't you...are you absolutely sure that my "pee pee" disappearing doesn't have a single connection to that?

"Truthfully, it wasn't this one's fault. This one is the demon king of the lust demons, this one governs lust and an entire species of female devils...yes, Little Brother's soul aura is that of a male's but your soul was simply too weak compared to this one's soul aura...in fact, it's so tiny even a firefly was bigger than it. However, this one is an outsider after all and she has no intention of taking over Little Brother's body so…"

I'll admit that blaming Ferti'nier wasn't really going to accomplish anything seeing as she didn't scare away my pee pee on purpose. In light of that I should probably be more accepting of her as well but that still didn't tell me how was I going to coax my pee pee back.

"Once this one separates from you, all you have to do is undergo another evolution and the problem should fix itself." She promptly chimed in with a straight-to-the-point answer. Looks like she at least felt a smidgen of guilt for causing this.

Yi Yi huh...the legendary fiancee! Alright then, first we'll go find Nicole and then we can visit Yi Yi in Gehenna, that's settled then.

Having dealt with the bandit troupe, the remainder of our trip to Azure City went by uneventfully. While my masked and hooded get-up was rather strange, it was still in vogue amongst the adventurers although admittedly, mask wearing adventurers were still in the minority. However, with so much thoroughfare passing through the city every day, our addition didn't raise that many eyebrows. In short, it wasn't strange.

According to Regine, Nicole was a student of Azure's warrior academy so our first objective was naturally to head for the academy. With no time to spare for the city sights, we left straight for the academy, at least that was what I hoped to do...I still didn't meet the requirements to enter the school...should I pose as pizza delivery?

Standing in front of the school's gate were two burly men whose stature was akin to those guardian deities you saw in front of Asian temples. With backs straight and body at attention, their eyes which reeked of danger, swept back and forth over the entrance as they watched for any suspicious person.

Looks like the front entrance is out of the question with these two fellows guarding it...should I scale the walls? Hmm...that probably wouldn't work either, they probably had patrols and magical spells guarding the walls. For all I know, my reckless infiltration might end up triggering some magical alarm array.

Thankfully, our previous two opponents were pretty loaded so money wasn't an issue for now. I rented a couple of rooms for us while we staked out the campus entrance. Thus began my daily morning routine of loitering around the front entrance which swiftly earned the guarded stares of those two guardian deities. If it hadn't been for the fact that I hadn't done anything overtly provocative, I bet they would've already "invited me over for a cup of tea".

As time ticked by, my heart grew ever more uneasy. Was she even in this city? Did Regine make a mistake or perhaps she decided to return home...these worries and questions swirled about my head as I stared intently at the bustling gate while pacing back and forth. It was as if I was thrown back to my high school examination days except this felt a lot more stressful. /span

Just as my nerves began to fray, a diminutive silhouette caught my attention as it passed through the crowd of students. It was an adorable little girl that seemed to have come out of some 2D animation. She had long, blue flowing hair and a peach face which, judging by her youthful skin, was probably that of a 10 year old's. As she walked up to the fierce looking men, she would skip from time to time like an energetic and lively little girl.

As a devil, I was able to pick up the traces of a person's aura and determine certain facts from it. Nicole's aura was one that I was particularly familiar so there was no way I could ever mistake that aura I felt on the girl.

"Master, here's lunch." From the nearby inn came Ancarin, with a basket of bread and juice hung around her arm. Ever since I began this non-stop surveillance two days ago, it was Ancarin who brought me food and drinks while Regine stayed behind in the inn to look after Duran.

"Food? Hold on, there's something I must handle right now, just head back first." The little girl greeted the two burly men after which I saw them point at me from a distance away and mention something to the girl. She turned to look at me for a moment before answering them and leaving.

Now's the time! In order to find Nicole, I must catch up to her, she's the only clue I got right now. No matter what, I mustn't let her go!

"Master!" Ancarin immediately called out to me, worry written all over her face as she did so. Seeing that I stopped and knowing that I was in a hurry, she cut straight to the point and said, "I saw a number of robed people loitering nearby with a murderous aura surrounding them. They seemed to be searching for someone."

I immediately understood what she meant. Knowing her, she would never mention such a thing right now if she didn't think it was absolutely urgent, "And then?"

Duran's captives had all been freed by me and I even gave them a small fortune when I sent them off. Seeing as all of them knew of my identity and my goal of coming to Azure, that could only mean one thing...they were looking for me!

Ancarin wanted to dissuade me but I immediately interrupted her, "I know you're really worried about me but I have my own reasons. Just return to the inn first and wait for me there."

The little girl turned around and looked at me, anxiety written all over her adorable face, she whipped her head forward and immediately broke into a run.

Damn it, those burly men must have said something bad about me. That's the only explanation for her reaction. I need to catch her quick.

As I was chasing after the girl, I was similarly being chased by several strangers, six of them to be exact. Five of them were similarly dressed in loose robes that not only hid their faces but also their bodies and genders. Between them was a teenage girl dressed in a green skirt that was currently trending among the common folk. She was rather young and her face was one that I vaguely remembered...a girl that I vaguely remembered...there weren't that many to begin with...only those I rescued from the bandit troupe and those I rescued from Duran…

From time to time, the little girl would turn around and throw me a glance. Upon discovering that I was still tailing her, she would quickly whip her head back and make a turn into some convoluted alleyway. Behind me, I had that party of six hot on my heels. From them, I could clearly sense an aura of hostility.

"Yo, Little Brother, looks like you got yourself into some trouble again, this one smells the stench of a demon hunter from those six humans." Seems like I wasn't the only one who noticed their aura.

"I sensed a total of five demon hunters, one five-star, one four-star, and three three-stars. They seem to be out for your blood."

"Little Brother, don't think too much about it. You can always find that girl later but if you lose your life now, it will really be over for you. Don't tell me you expect to be revived again?"

In order to avoid implicating Regine and Ancarin, I made a turn into a crowded location in hopes that these demon hunters would stay their hands in lieu of the innocent citizens.

Speaking of crowded locations, the one place that came to mind immediately was the city plaza. While I wasn't familiar with this city, I ended up in the city plaza just by following the flow of the crowd.

The plaza was full of people as expected, yet my hooded appearance was still rather eye-catching. Looking at my robes, the citizenry immediately assumed that I was an adventurer and tried to avoid me. I briskly walked up to the memorial plaque in the center of the plaza. The over ten meter tall plaque was engraved with the history of Azure City and was apparently a popular attraction within the city.

Around the memorial was a variety of roadside stalls that sold everything from snacks to daily necessities. There were even a number of buskers littered about the crowded plaza, performing their various acts in exchange for tips.

"Not bad, Little Brother. At least you know to come to such a crowded place. However, this is only a temporary solution. Last I checked, there were no nightless areas in the human world, once night falls, the crowd will disappear as well."

That's right, working in the day and resting by night was how a normal human lived, to some faithful, this was the life dictated by God.

Must I really make my escape...I finally found my way into the Western Human Realms and even made it to Azure City. Even if I wasn't able to find Nicole, at the very least I wanted to let her know that I had been here…

Of course I am. After all that hard work, I still ended up like this, how do you expect me to be satisfied! All I want is to see Nicole, just one look that's all, is that too much to ask?!

"Mhm, mhm. Don't forget, this one is a demon king, a demon king with the title of Soul Bard no less. Even without this one's body, such a matter isn't a problem."

Soul Bard...so the reason why I am a Soul Bard was because of you...either way, as long as it helps, I'm fine with it. I'll leave this matter in your hands then, do you mind sending out the message of "I was here"?

"Little Brother, I think you're misunderstanding something here, this one only said that she had the ability to help you broadcast something. Whatever you wanted to say or wanted to do has to be broadcasted by you yourself."

What...then exactly what should I do? Broadcast "Nicole, I'm back"? No, that's not possible. If I reveal my relationship to Nicole, I might end up implicating her. Then how should I communicate with her in a way that only she understood?

Just as I was wracking my brain over this problem, the mental image of Ferti'nier gave me a thumbs up and said, "Little Brother, how about singing."

"That's right, this one is a Soul Bard not a Soul Whisperer, all this one can do is help you broadcast songs. Normal sentences aren't possible right now."

Ah, in that case, I'll sing then. All I have to do is sing a song that only Nicole understands. Mhm, let me think...back when we were kids, I used to sing a lot to Nicole, I'll just pick one of those songs then.

In the past, I died saving a loli and ended up coming to this world by accident. In order not to forget my true origins, I would often use Chinese while learning about the human languages of this world. I would pen my journal entries in Chinese; seeing as I was the only one who understood it, it felt kind of interesting to me.

Later on when my parents were murdered, I was taken in by Roscar. However, because he was the sole breadwinner and what not, the job of looking after me fell on Nicole. There was nothing much to do back then so Nicole ended up learning some Chinese along with me.

Back then, we would sometimes roleplay a make-believe family. Naturally, such a childish game was beneath me but since Nicole wanted to play it, I had no choice but to go along with her whims. Her role as the mom was settled but we ended up arguing over whether I should be the dad or the son.

I remembered throwing a tantrum and saying that I wouldn't play if I couldn't be the dad...so Nicole ended up relenting every time. Acting spoiled was actually rather interesting. We were really young back then, barely half our current heights.

Later on, we met Sares and our little circle ended up gaining one more person. However, Sares often went training so the amount of time he spent playing with us was little.

Thinking about that, I unknowingly started humming the words of a Chinese song. (Author: The name of this song is Insignificant Me, it's pretty nice, if you're interested in it feel free to check it out. TL: Youtube 《小小》by Joey Yung. )

(TL: When you propose to someone or talk about marriage in general, it's common to say 娶XX進門 which literally translates to marry "person's name" into the door. Just means bringing someone into the household, you can picture it as the groom carrying the bride into house or something; that's how I picture it.)

(TL: The next two verse aren't in the chapter so it's mostly for those who are listening to that youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ9PLCXYFyk)

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Back then how many times did I tell you this: once I've grown up I'll marry you. Yet you promised me back then so I had always taken your reply as an engagement because the tiny me back then felt, you were the only one I mustn't lose.

As my voice rolled over the bustling plaza, the entire city fell silent in an instant. The din of the hawkers and the sounds of argument silenced themselves as the busy workers lowered the goods in their hands. All around, the passersby stopped to listen with rapt attention.

"That's right, that's right. It's just...what is that language? I'm fluent in multiple languages and while I might not be familiar with all the dialects, I've at least heard of them before and yet...this language...I've never heard of it before...it's as if it's not even a language of the human realms or hell...don't tell me it's from the Underdepths or the Black Chasm?"

"How I wish I can listen to it again...it's a song about childhood love isn't it? How touching, if someone serenades me with such a song, I would marry him in an instant…"

An unending wave of lamenting was followed by the outburst of sobbing amongst many a person, most of them crying about their lost childhood lover.

The clink of gold coins resounded across the plaza as a twenty-odd merchant, tore open his coin pouch, scattering it across the ground without any intention of picking it up and wailed: "What's the use of earning all these coins...I rather return to that impoverished home of mine...Lina...please don't leave me...I'll treat you better in the future…"

"Scram! I don't want to see you anymore, if it wasn't for my parents' interference, why would I even date you! I detest fatties like you! So what if you have money, I don't care, I want to go home...I...I want to see my Dexter…"

As this scene played out across the city, more and more people started searching for the singer, soon the entire city was embroiled in this chaos.

This was the power of a Soul Bard! Using songs to pry open the doors of the soul and clearly injecting one's emotions within. How terrifying...if this power were to be used in the battlefield, it might even destroy the morale of an army in an instant.

"Little Brother, you're thinking too much. While the songs of a Soul Bard can destroy morale like what you said, there's no way the opponent wouldn't have a countermeasure ready. All it takes to counteract this is to get a warpriest to sing some warsongs. Every warpriest is able to rouse the troops with a song."

I guess that makes sense, while Ferti'nier's criticism wasn't pleasant, it wasn't without its merits. If a song could end a battle like that, why would there even be the need for armies, all these countries could just focus their efforts into grooming singers.

Taking advantage of this chaos, I promptly snuck out of Azure City. In order to avoid implicating Regine and Ancarin, I chose not to return to the inn at least till the heat had died down.

Seeing as the news about the demon hunters was given to me by Ancarin herself, I'm sure that intelligent girl would be able to figure things out on her own. What I really had to do now was watch out for my own safety.

Because I ran away from home, I knew nothing of what happened after that fateful decision. Even the news about Nicole being in the warrior academy was given to me by Regine...come to think of it, I had to thank Duran for all this as well...I should give him a good thrashing when I get back later.

Roscar might still be at home waiting for me seeing as I didn't leave behind any news of my death the day I died. Besides, I had nowhere else to go now. At least with Chaik Village, I'm able to ask for directions.

Also, while Nicole still wasn't fluent in Chinese, she at least knew some songs. Since I used my song to broadcast my existence, she must be searching for me right now. For all I know, she might even be at home waiting for me right this instant. After all, the first time I sang that song was in the backyard of our home. That song would definitely stir up memories of that day and from there she should be able to recall the spot where we made that marriage arrangement.

Travelling alone wasn't something I had experienced before but didn't people say that the road is in one's mouth; if there's something I didn't know, I could simply ask for directions.

Along the way, I saw no more signs of my pursuers, hopefully that meant that they had given up on the chase. If that's the case, I should thank the heavens. Looks like all I had to do now was check if Roscar was still at home waiting for me.

Chaik Village wasn't a large village, furthermore, it rarely had any visitors. Thus, it didn't take long before my arrival aroused the interest of several villagers. However, because of my unique appearance, none of them approached me and instead observed me from a distance with wary eyes.

Like his son Sares, Zarah was a blonde adonis that could charm a girl with a mere smile. He was in his thirties right now and usually wore the khaki uniform of the security forces, with a no helmet and a giant sword on his back. Even though he wasn't as gifted as his genius of a son, he wasn't that far off either. When I left the village, he was already a four-star and might even be a five-star now.

Apparently, his straight shooting temperament had gotten himself into trouble with his superiors thus he was thrown to this remote village to be a security chief. And that's why no matter which world you were in, being savvy was a prerequisite for public service.

Having been apart for so long, I couldn't help but call out to this familiar face. "Yo, Uncle Zarah, how are you doing? I see you're still patrolling as seriously as before, did you find any suspicious person?"

Shoot, I forgot that he doesn't recognise my reincarnated form...just as I was mulling over what to do next, the man threw me an alarmed look and said: "Woman? Forget it, I don't care who you are but how do you know my name?"

"Hmph, you'd better behave yourself here, I'm watching you. Don't think that I will cut you any slack just because you're a girl." As he turned around, he let forth a cold harrumph: "And what do you mean Uncle, do I look that old!?"

Phew...looks like I got through that with the skin of my teeth, however, it seems like my greeting had the opposite effect...when you think about it, a person who specifically asks for the name of the security chief can't be a good person…

Looks like Roscar left the house as well. Walking up to a nearby tree, I reached into the hole on its trunk and withdrew a dusty key that had probably been in there for at least a year and unlocked the door.

A year...this was the first time I came home in over a year and yet nothing seemed to have changed since the day I left. The only difference was the layer of dust blanketing the entire home. Judging by the looks of it, no one had been in here for over a year. In other words, the both of them left shortly after I ran away from home.

The flower garden in the backyard was one of Nicole's favorite spots and was normally meticulously tended to by her. Yet it was now overgrown with weeds, with the flowers barely having any space to survive anymore. It was in this garden that Nicole and I played, each time I would tell her this: when I grow up, I'll marry you.

As I stood in this familiar environment, memories of my childhood fleeted across my eyes as if it had just happened yesterday...a young Nicole smiling shyly at me with rose tinted cheeks as she allowed me to drape a red shawl over her; after which we went through the elaborate procedures of a typical Chinese wedding. Putting aside the flowers, insects and the lack of wedding guests, we were basking in the bliss of the moment.

Roscar was a good father...in order to raise me, he toiled day and night just to save up money to send a talentless child like me who couldn't activate his Fighter's Aura to become a mage. For my sake, he even sacrificed his one and only daughter's future. Even when she grew to a schooling age, he let her look after me just as before...all for my sake…

In actuality, I understood why he did this. Because I wasn't able to activate my Fighter's Aura and yet wasn't satisfied with a normal person's life, he pushed himself even harder in order to save up money for me. He must've thought that even if I lacked talent for the magical or warrior arts, he could at least save up enough money to purchase an elemental core and activate my aura perception…

Day after day, Nicole would selflessly care for me, no matter what she did she always put me first...the love these two showed me was...simply too heavy. It was because of this crushing weight that finally made me run away; it was simply too much to bear for me.

Honestly, there were a number of reasons for me running away from home. Being jealous of Sares was one of them, the other was that if I left, Roscar only needed to concern himself with sending Nicole to school. That way, Nicole wouldn't need to waste her schooling years away at home. She shouldn't have to waste her precious time looking after a piece of trash like me.

In the end, the main reason was that my departure would be a good thing for them...I had never thought about hurting anyone by doing so, I just wanted them to have a better life…

I don't know how long it had been since I started sitting in the backyard reminiscing, but suddenly I heard a set of hurried footsteps enter the house making their way through to the backyard within a few moments.

"Is it really alright to be so willful now…" After not receiving a response from me for a long while, Ferti'nier shrugged her shoulders in resignation and turned around, disappearing into the void in an instant. "Alright then, it's your choice." Her last words echoed in the recesses of my mind.

At this very moment, my back was faced to the intruders as I continued reminiscing about the past. Perhaps it was my bewitching aura at work but none of them spoke up for over a minute until I finally turned around.

The burly silhouette of Uncle Zarah was the first to enter my eyesight, beside him were three black hooded strangers. Perhaps calling them strangers wasn't right seeing as this actually wasn't our first meeting. These three strangers were part of the five man team chasing me in Azure. To think that they ended up catching up to me in the end, I guess they weren't called demon hunters for nothing. Just their tracking ability alone was enough to leave me in awe.

My dried lips quivered as I muttered those words in a slightly shaky voice. The fact that they were able to catch up to me so fast was completely unexpected to me.

When I stepped into Chaik Village, I had really thought that I had escaped their pursuit. Who would've thought that they not only caught up to me but did so with such celerity.

"The one who sang in Azure City was you wasn't it. It was a lovely song, so was that unknown language. It made everyone lose themselves in the melody, even more surprising was that your voice didn't cause any malaises. That made me curious about what kind of existence you were."

The hooded figure in the front took off her black hood, revealing a beautiful face framed by long flowing, blue hair that draped over her shoulders. On it was a complex mix of emotions, cold placidness yet tinged with a hint of kindness at the same time.

This girl couldn't have been older than 20 years old. She had a milky white complexion and a gallant disposition that seemed to bring out her beauty even more. Even though her robes covered up her figure, I knew that it must have been equally as beautiful.

Seeing that I had no reaction, the girl took the initiative to answer my question: "That little girl you followed gave us a hint. She said that her friend knew this language as well, seeing as you were following that girl when we found you, I made a bold guess. You must've had some relationship to that little girl's friend. So we searched for that girl who knew the song and found out about this place from her."

"Don't worry, she's fine, we have no reason to attack an innocent person. But I really wonder, what's your relationship with her?" After informing me of that fact, she introduced herself. "Oh right, I forgot to introduce myself, I'm Tilith Adolph, the vice-team leader of the 137th squad of the 17th Demon Hunter Division of the Church of Light."

"According to several testimonies, despite being a devil, you haven't harmed a single person and instead helped numerous innocents and even distributed your wealth to alleviate their burden. While I don't know what motive you have for doing so, you haven't done any evil yet as far as I know."

"That's why I do not wish to use force on you. If you're willing to believe me, please return to our branch with me and we'll conduct an investigation. If you truly haven't done any wrong, I guarantee that we won't trouble you any further."

Do you think I'm some kind of three year old or something? Do you truly believe that I will allow myself to be scammed by a few flowery words? What am I going to do if you go back on your words?

Seeing that I was as unresponsive as before, she immediately realized what I was worried about. Without wasting anymore words, she retrieved a sword shaped like a cross and raised it before her body with one hand. In a solemn voice, she declared: "I swear by my honor, that if you are innocent, I Tilith Adolph will trouble you no more!"

Adolph...looks like she's nobility seeing as she has a last name. A number of nobles place their honor before their lives, yet there were also those who didn't care about it. The girl before me was probably of the former, that was what her eyes told me.

Should I believe her? If I resist, I would have to escape again and there's no guarantee that I will be able to do so either. Just based off her aura alone, Tilith was definitely a four-star warrior.

In that case, should I believe her and follow her to the Demon Hunter's branch office? I heard that there are a lot of extremists in there that feel that devils should be put to death. If I enter such a place, will I even be able to leave there alive? But Tilith swore…

This robed figure took off his hood as well revealing a man's face. He had a muscular build that, coupled with his towering stature, made him look like a two meter tall mountain. His blonde hair had been shaved into a typical military buzz cut.

In his right hand was a 1.5 meter long morningstar while his left hand held a kite shield that covered a little under half his body. As he walked up to us, his eyes stared pointedly at me. His bushy eyebrows quivered as he broke into a grin: "There's no reasoning with a devil."

With a ridiculing smirk on his face, the seemingly rash man did something uncharacteristic: "Vice Team Leader Tilith, I see you're wasting your time once more."

"A certain portion of devils are able to acquire a person's memories by consuming their souls. It's a really unique and terrifying ability. Not only are they able to consume the other party's memories but also their experiences, strengthening themselves in the process. If such a devil were to consume an alchemist's memories, that devil might become an alchemist after sorting out these new memories."

"Even though there might be some missing memories, the ability to gain such strength without much effort is still an attractive one. Unfortunately, such an ability has a fatal side-effect, after consuming a large number of souls, the devil might develop split personalities and even assume the experiences of the consumed souls…"

"That's right, didn't that girl say so herself, the human that taught her that language was a eight to nine year old boy. Just look at the devil before you, is that the stature of a eight to nine year old boy? Plus, she's clearly a female devil and if I'm not wrong, she's a lust demon!"

With a sinister smile on his face, the Team Leader stated his conclusion: "In other words, your current personality is that of Mo Ke's isn't it?"

Mo Ke! Having not heard my name for a long time, especially from a stranger's mouth, my body jerked in reaction. This tiny reaction ended up being turned into the most concrete proof that I had consumed an innocent boy's soul…

"See, there's a reaction to his name. I bet you're wondering how I know of your name. Haha, you've probably forgotten by now, but you're different from the boy you ate, you're a female devil."

"Impossible...how could he have been eaten by a devil...wasn't he kidnapped by slave traders...he was only 8 years old when he left the village...no wonder you used Mo Ke's words then, I even wondered why you were so familiar with that language...so it's because you were still trapped within his memories, that's why you thought you were him…"

Hearing the news of my untimely "death" from the demon hunter team leader, the previously silent Zarah suddenly roared at me without even giving me a chance to explain myself: " You lowly imposter, bring back Little Ke!" Having seen me grown up, the sudden news of my death was in no way a small shock to him.

With a swift backstep, I avoided the incoming greatsword which crashed into the ground in a violent explosion having missed its target. However, this wasn't the end of his attacks as he immediately pulled out the giant sword and continued attacking; determined not to give me even a moment's respite.

My eyes flickered as I stared at the oncoming greatsword. I truly wanted to tell him that I wasn't an imposter; but how should I even do that? Should I say that I ran away from home and ended up sacrificing my life to save a fallen angel, and that very same angel helped me reincarnate?

No matter how you looked at it, that sounded like an excuse to avoid being hunted down...besides there was the matter of "Devils are liars"; this was the commonly held truth among every living creature.

Thankfully, Uncle Zarah was still at the level of a four-star and wasn't an agility type warrior either. I was still able to evade his attacks, although barely. However, there was still the issue of those demon hunters. Without a doubt, they were all experts in fighting devils, and any one of them would prove to be a troublesome opponent in a one on one battle; let alone in a four on one with their levels being higher than mine.

Swerving to the side, I narrowly avoided his Fighter's Aura as I felt the wind brush against me. Had I not reacted in time, that would've definitely resulted in a grave injury.

My mind immediately drifted to Shadowfang but I immediately banished the thought. The last thing I wanted now was for it to be recognized by these people. This was the Western Human Realms after all and not the Prison of the Dead. Humans, with their wealth of knowledge, were more likely to recognize famous weapons such as these.

If Shadowfang were to be recognized...they would definitely gang up on me in order to steal this epic-grade blade. At that time, escaping would be impossible.

As I retreated once more, I activated my Shadow Guardian and stirred up a dust storm in front of me. He had not expected me to use such a dirty trick; the man's vision was obscured by the airborne particles causing his greatsword to miss its target.

Just as I took my first step, a lead morningstar flew out from my peripheral view and descended right in front of my planned escape route, cutting it off in an instant. The latest newcomer, the demon hunter team leader, rushed out from the dust cloud and stood right before me like a giant tower of steel that seemed to obscure all light as it cast a giant shadow over me.

Startled by the sudden appearance of this towering hulk, I backstepped immediately in order to avoid any potential strike. Yet the man didn't attack me and instead restrained the rampaging Zarah and inexplicably smiled at me before picking up his morningstar.

"Tilith, this fight should be handled by you." Turning around, he flashed the girl a toothy grin and said: "No matter what, you mustn't show any mercy to a devil."

"..." Having just guaranteed my safety, the noble girl was truly in a difficult position. Just looking at her wavering eyes and silence, I could imagine the turmoil in her heart right now.

"You can't spell devil without evil." With eyes that brooked no opposition, his smile disappeared as he tapped his kiteshield with the morningstar. "If you aren't willing to attack him, then get out of my team."

My right hand reached for the enchanted straight blade at my waist and without showing any quarter, stared right back at her: "Can you tell me, why did that informant betray me?"

"Depending on the situation." Having determined that it was one of the girls I saved, there was no way I could forgive such an act of betrayal from such an ingrate. However...if she had some reason that made her do this, I could at least feel slightly better about it.

For money...didn't I already give her a sum of money? As long as she wasn't too extravagant, that amount would have been enough to last her for a lifetime, why did she betray me for money?!

Humans...truly a complex life form. Didn't I save you from the depths of hell? I even gave you a huge sum of money, yet you still betrayed me for even more money. This greed, it's worse than a devils!

If everyone was like this in the Western Human Realms then there's truly no hope left for this world. Even devils were more innocent than these people!

"The Demon Hunter Division has a rule, if a lead results in the slaying of a darkness creature, that informant would receive a portion of the loot without any questions asked. While this portion wasn't much, sometimes this sum is worth a fortune to some commoners.If they are lucky, they might even strike it rich in a night if the target was a rich one."

The team leader explained in an orderly fashion, while his morningstar continued to tap the kiteshield as he did so, albeit at a faster pace; clearly, he was starting to become impatient. "Tilith, don't tell me you sympathize with this fellow? If the other team leaders were to find out about this, it would put me in a bad spot, you hear!?"

"..." Tilith shut her eyes and inhaled deeply before letting forth a loud, drawn out sigh. The next time she opened her eyes, they had a cold sharpness to them. She glanced at the team leader before turning back to me: "I'm about to strike."

A split second later, her sword appeared right before me, ready to end my life. With barely any time to react, I narrowly avoided being skewered, but my posture had been completely destroyed.

Being a four-star warrior with exceptional sword skills, her cross sword was anything but slow as it darted at me like a snake's tongue. It wasn't long before her cross sword made contact with me, tearing apart the cloth material covering my right shoulder, revealing the crimson skin beneath.

"Red skin, so you are a devil." As he said that, the remaining demon hunters split up and formed a ring around us, sealing off any exit out of the backyard. Now, even if I was able to escape Tilith, I would still have to contend with the other demon hunters.

Fighting a four-star like her was already a tall enough hurdle for a three-star like me without the other added obstacles. With the difference in level between us, my speed was inferior to hers. Under her withering attacks, I barely had time to counterattack before I had to evade her sword once more.

It wasn't long before even my Shadow Guardian was defeated once more. Time after time, I activated it only for it to be defeated shortly after. All in all, I summoned it a total of three times in this fight alone. I had to admit, a fighter like Tilith countered me hard.

Not only was her speed superior to mine, her strength trumped mine as well. While her cross sword wasn't a heavy weapon, I wasn't a strength type warrior either. Just blocking her sword with my straight blade was enough to numb my arm!

The moment I thought that, Ferti'nier's mocking voice immediately resounded in my mind: "Yo Little Brother, it looks like you've stopped being willful."

Does it look like I have time to be willful now! Don't give me that sass in such a situation! If I die, you will end up as a homeless soul as well!

"Oh my, Little Brother is angry." She continued her teasing: "If you address this one as good sister, this one might just decide to help you."

As I was busy communicating with Ferti'nier, my movements ended up becoming sluggish. In my emotionally charged state, I ended up missing her attack. While the slash didn't end up injuring me, it sliced my mask apart…

The halves of my silver mask fell to the ground with a clang, revealing for all to see, my true face; a face tattooed with a snake scale-like pattern and a broken horn on my forehead.

"A lust demon, and that demonic symbol...an illusion demon!" Having seen my face for the first time, the team leader was first shocked into silence as he took in my bewitching contenance; however, that didn't last long before he came back to his senses.

With a tense look on his face, he turned to the other surrounding demon hunters and shouted: "Damn it, it's a dual-sin anointed apostle, what's a character like that doing here...you people better do your job properly, no matter what, don't let her escape!"

A dual-sin anointed apostle? Are they talking about me? Ferti'nier did mention that I was blessed by two original sins and was a kind of genius amongst devils. Looks like there's no chance of that so-called trial now...they are probably planning to kill me right here and now.

With that, the momentary respite was over as the girl launched a barrage of stabs. Rather than calling it an attack, it would be more accurate to call it a light show as each stab transformed into a flash of light the moment she thrust out with her cross sword. With no way to dodge them, I was forced back bit by bit until finally I felt a chilling whoosh from behind me. Before I could react to it, I was hammered with a crushing force that sent me flying away right back at Tilith.

"Team Leader, you agreed to let me handle this alone!" The girl glared at her superior and even seemed to have adopted a posture to shield me.

"Haha, I apologize, but this fellow is simply too dangerous. If we let her escape now, it would cause a lot of trouble in the future." The man smiled a smile that was anything but remorseful. Then he shrugged the shoulders which he had used to slam his shield into me, signalling to the girl to continue. "Do it then, the credit for this kill is yours."

Just from our short exchange alone, her principled and honorable nature was more than made apparent to me. Despite having just declared a one on a one battle, her companion had attacked me with his shield just a few seconds later. She burned with righteous fury at my treatment yet there was nothing else she could do about it. The person who broke the rules was her superior, and he had done so under the sanctimonious banner of slaying a devil.

If she chose not to attack me now, the other party could treat her hesitation as collusion...looks like these two had a rocky relationship.

As I struggled to my feet, the girl stared directly into my eyes; her eyes wavering as she did so. She was probably reluctant to kill me because she felt I was a kind soul, yet the cruel reality was that I was a devil and devils were the nemeses of demon hunters like Tilith.

"Perhaps you are a good person but...I apologize, I have no choice but to kill you." In a voice that only she could hear, she muttered to herself as she approached, sword drawn and pointed at my various weak points: "I do not know what you are looking for but I can feel your unwillingness, however the world is as such, the good aren't always the ones who live the longest."

"Haha, you make it sound like I'm so despicable." The Team Leader gave a dry laugh before rushing her once more: "Cut the crap and do it."

"Hmph!" Tilith turned her head around to avoid looking at her superior. At this distance, I could clearly see her knuckles whiten from tightly gripping down on the cross shaped sword as she prepared to send me on my way.

"Flames!" Thankfully, that short reprieve was enough for my hardy devil constitution to recover by around 50%. Gone was the devil who looked like she could barely lift a finger as I created a flame wall to block Tilith. After going through that recent evolution, my flame wall crackled with the blackish red of my Nether Flames, right from the very base of my feet...

The sudden appearance of the flame wall forced the girl back as she didn't dare to take on the demonic flame; she leapt back immediately as the flames roared to life. The Nether Flames had succeeded but it came with a price of its own.

The flames had engulfed my entire body by now, and while I had a greater fire resistance than other normal devils, this was not some ordinary fire. Nether Flames were known for their terrifying power and could easily reduce a weak person to cinders in an instant should they refuse to escape. Even me, their summoner, wasn't spared their fury as they ravaged my reddish hide.

"Nether Flames!? Damn it, how is a three-star able to control these forbidden flames! Tilith stand aside, leave this fellow to me!" The Team Leader shoved aside the girl who didn't dare to approach the flames while he himself dove right into them; a thick layer of yellowish aura wrapped around his body as he did so.

I had intended to deter Tilith by summoning this wall, and while this had succeeded, I had forgotten about her superior standing nearby. That man was a five-star!

With his kite shield whipped out in front of him, the five-star warrior charged right through my flame wall with ease like a raging bull.

I was promptly thrown backward by the titanic force, flying into the air like a helpless leaf within a raging tornado. After what felt like an eternity, but was probably just a couple of seconds, I finally landed on the floor with a loud smash, my body continuing to spin around despite that.

A wave of lightheadedness hit me as my body throbbed with a numbing pain all over. Without a doubt, this was the end of the road for me. There was no one who could save me now unless Duran suddenly died. Without him as my medium, I would be thrown out of this world by the natural laws and be instantly teleported back to the Prison of the Dead.

"Little Brother, this one will send you back this time around but this one will have to slumber once more. However, it was fun talking to you during this short period of time. Besides, Yi Yi had requested this of this one, letting you die isn't an option…"

My question went unanswered. As I sat there waiting for my death with a million questions in my head, my body was hit with a sudden sense of weightlessness…

Ever since he was summoned to this world, Mo Ke had done a lot of things; he had saved a lot of people, yet not all of them were thankful for that.

Of those girls captured by Duran, there was a portion who stuck with him because of money. Mo Ke had saved numerous girls and had even given them 300 gold coins each. Yet, while this might seem like a huge sum to ordinary people, it was nothing more than a pittance to some of the more spendthrift ones.

Samantha was one such person. When Mo Ke instructed Ancarin to hand out the 300 gold coins, her lips curled into a cold sneer. If one included all the magical tools in Duran's mansion, Mo Ke had at least gained several hundred thousand gold coins.

Hmph, must be great earning so much money, but what about us sisters who had suffer through those days? 300 gold coins just for our silence? Did you think we were beggars or something? That was what the calculative girl thought.

However, Samantha was no fool. She was extremely aware that Mo Ke held the upper hand at the time. If she were to protest, even a fool would know that she would lose. Thus, she chose to endure it.

When Mo Ke released those girls, Samantha was naturally one of those girls as well. It was a sense of freedom that she hadn't experienced in a while, so she put aside her dissatisfaction for the time being and proceeded to the nearest city for a shopping spree. As for her chastity, she didn't give a damn about that. It wasn't like she hadn't done it before either. Long before Duran, she had used her comely appearance to latch onto a number of sugar daddies.

In fact, her time in Duran's estate was more of a job to her than anything else. Thus when Mo Ke sent her off with 300 gold coins, she naturally felt that it was too little.

Samantha loved extravagant things. On the day of her release, she went on a spending spree, buying all the latest clothes she could find. However, money was something that was hard to earn and easy to use up. In just five days, she managed to spend all of her money. Her wallet was as bankrupt as her morals at that very moment.

Now that she was broke, what was she to do? As she basked in the pleasure that a male prostitute gave her, she suddenly thought of an idea, an idea that could bring her more money...

Because Mo Ke had revealed his destination during that meal, Samantha was sure that Mo Ke would visit Azure City so she contacted the demon hunters…

Everything after was as Mo Ke experienced it: being hunted down by the demon hunters and nearly dying in his own backyard without ever getting the chance to see Nicole.

The moment Gaywitz (Team Leader) knocked Mo Ke out of the flames and prepared to kill him, the space around him warped. A second later, Mo Ke disappeared without a trace…

All this was the handiwork of Ferti'nier who now slumbered in the swirling crystalline object surrounding Mo Ke's soul. As she slumbered, her aura would influence his soul while simultaneously absorbing the souls absorbed by Mo Ke. The fact that Mo Ke was able to subjugate countless devils despite his low level was precisely because of Ferti'nier's existence.

In essence, this body belonged in part to Ferti'nier as well, seeing as how her aura was infused into it. However, in her eyes this body was simply too low level to catch her interest, thus she had no intention of taking it over. Besides, there was still that promise with Yi Yi.

Seeing as Yi Yi had barely no mana in her when she sent Mo Ke into the Blood Sea, the majority of the mana was taken from Ferti'nier. Thus she had always been in a catatonic state until Mo Ke returned unexpectedly to the Western Human Realms.

Ferti'nier was once a demon king of the lust demon race and naturally possessed a vast soul. Compared to that, Mo Ke was like a tiny firefly standing before a full moon. Even if she had no intention of taking over his body, she ended up having an influence on him anyway, turning his body into one that was neither male nor female. However, such a change could be reversed as long as she left his body.

The skills he had picked up when he evolved were actually all from Ferti'nier who, because of their soul link, ended up transferring them over to him when he evolved. All these skills didn't need to be learnt, he merely had to unlock them in order to use them.

In order to guarantee that Mo Ke's jaunt in the human realm wasn't a fatal one, she influenced the souls of Ancarin and Regine without Mo Ke's knowledge, turning them into demonesses who would only serve Mo Ke. From that moment on, Ancarin began addressing Mo Ke as "Master" (TL: master-servant) instead of what she used to call him.

(TL: ly I used "Master" in both cases since it can be used as a way of showing respect without both parties being in a master-servant relationship. Obviously, this ended up causing some issues. Either way, Master now refers to a master-servant relationship.)

As a former demon king who almost created her divine core, she naturally had a host of unrevealed skills. Unfortunately for Mo Ke, her soul was still too weak especially after she transferred a vast amount of energy to Mo Ke during the fight with Dawson. Thanks to that, he was able to evolve on the spot, but that had used up most of the souls Mo Ke had absorbed up to this point.

Just as Gaywitz was about to finish off Mo Ke, she activated her secret arts and sent a message to Ancarin stationed far away in Azure City. Her order was to kill Duran and sever the only link between Mo Ke and the Western Human Realms. However, the price of this secret art was that she had to sleep once more. Thankfully, this plan worked just in the nick of time.

Gaywitz's morningstar crashed into the ground with a loud bang, sending a cloud of dust and soil into the air while leaving behind a conspicuous hole. Yet no matter how strong his attack was, it was nothing but a joke if it didn't hit its target.

The brawny man let out an exasperated breath before ordering his gasping subordinates to immediately reconvene with Samantha and their other teammate in Azure City.

At the side was a slightly befuddled Zarah who was still coming to terms with the fact that Mo Ke had been eaten by a devil. However, his own two eyes wouldn't lie to him; that devil just now had no traces of Mo Ke on her. Without hesitating any further, he decided to pass on this news as soon as possible to Roscar, his old friend, who was still in the midst of searching for his son. Hopefully, he could withstand this shocking news. As for Nicole...that will be up to Roscar himself to handle.

Regine unceremoniously plucked out the dagger she drove into Duran and wiped it off with a nearby piece of cloth. The evil man was finally dead...that unending nightmare was finally over…

Beside her, Ancarin threw a wary look at the hunter who shouldn't be here at this moment, Moranthal. Yet all the man did was return her doubting stare with a smile, ignoring the yet to disperse aura of murder surrounding Regine.

All this time Moranthal had been following Mo Ke. In his mind, he had basically resolved himself to spend the rest of his life in this pit known as Mo Ke. However, he, more than anyone else, was clear that he did so willingly and that this wasn't the result of some charm. He had truly fallen in love with this kind devil with a heavenly singing voice.

Originally, he had been stalking Mo Ke and naturally knew of the demon hunters as well. Yet, as he decided to step in and help, he was promptly bewitched by Mo Ke's rendition of Insignificant Me. By the time he extricated himself from the song, Mo Ke had already disappeared without a trace. Thus, he had no choice but to find Ancarin and stand guard over them.

"I believe in Lady Mo Ke. There's no way she would kill an innocent, so that man must've truly deserved it," he declared as he turned to Ancarin with unwavering eyes.

He believed in Mo Ke. More so than any theory he could come up with; he believed in his own two eyes and in the kindness he saw in Mo Ke that day. Not only did she spend all her wealth to help the village, she had risked her own life in order to save those prostitutes who had been taken hostage. He simply couldn't picture a saintly person...I mean, devil like her doing anything evil.

While the man had expressed his disinterest, not explaining this matter to him would still leave a shadow within his heart. Thus, as a devout follower of Mo Ke, she attempted to explain the situation to Moranthal in hopes that he wouldn't get a negative impression of her master, even if this meant that she had relive those nightmarish days once more.

After a drawn out sigh, she signalled for Regine to clean up any traces of the murder while she began recounting their traumatic experience.

After a few heart wrenching and infuriating minutes, Moranthal could barely contain himself as he lo oked at the lifeless meat puppet of an occultist. He truly wanted to stab his corpse a few more times with his blade or even grind his bones into a pile of dust and scatter it into the air.

Despicable...truly despicable! To think he actually laid his hands on innocent girls, and even worse, he actually tried to steal Lady Mo Ke away from him! If he didn't deserve death, who else did?!

By now, Regine had taken care of the bloody smell in the air and all that was left was the corpse-laden wooden bucket. Mo Ke had already returned to Hell and it was about time for them to leave Azure City as well. As for where they would go to, they had never really thought about it. At the very least however, Azure City was no longer a safe place for them to stay. If that snitch were to discover them, the consequences would be dire.

In the face of the hunter's question, the girls had no forthcoming answer to give. Ever since their master saved them, they had decided to dedicate the rest of their lives to him. However, now that he had been forced back to hell, they were temporarily at a loss for what to do. Without their master, they had lost the core of their group. Not only was Regine stumped, the normally quick witted and intelligent Ancarin was as well.

"!" As if they had just heard the most unbelievable thing in this world, the girls raised their heads simultaneously and stared at the hunter who had sent out that invite. Both of them were witches who served a devil, and last they checked, humans weren't exactly on talking terms with devils. Moranthal's offer seemed a little...unrealistic.

A witch: anyone who served a devil, evil god or any other strong, evil existence was labelled a witch. Witches were able to gain extraordinary powers from their masters and this power grew the more they were favored.

I remember back on Earth, Europe had undergone a painful period in history where the ignorant men ended up killing innocent women in the tens of thousands in order to weed out all witches. It could be said that they had nearly wiped out all the women.

Because the Western Human Realms had a tool to specifically detect evil creatures, that massacre didn't end up happening here as well...at least not to that extent. However, their treatment here was just as bad as what the witches on Earth faced.

If anyone were to find out that they were witches, what awaited Ancarin and Regine would be the cruelest of tortures. With that in mind, what was Moranthal thinking when he made that offer? Was it pity or did he have some other goals in mind?

"Don't give me that look, after all that Lady Mo Ke has done for our village, we have the obligation to protect you two. Besides, the villagers were saved by you all, not a single one of them has forgotten the aid Lady Mo Ke rendered. I'm sure they'll be more than happy to do something in return for you all. Besides…"

As he said that, his face blushed. "Besides, if you two stay in the village, Lady Mo Ke would definitely come to the village in search of you two when she returns to the Western Human Realms…"

Ancarin glanced at Regine, looking at the taciturn girl right in the eyes. Having gotten an answer from her eyes, Ancarin nodded at Moranthal, showing her acceptance of his offer before explaining in the sincerest tone possible. "Master...is...he's a guy."

However, whether or not he believed this explanation, Ancarin no longer had any intention of explaining this fact nor did she need to. She thumbed a horn-shape bump in her pocket, this was the horn that Mo Ke lost after he battled against Duran's Wind Blades during the first day of his summoning. Clasping it tightly, she closed her eyes and silently prayed.

The three swiftly left Azure City without wasting another moment. On the way to the village, they stopped by a deserted location and buried Duran's corpse before rushing off once more.

Currently, the four villages of Plateau were undergoing major reconstruction. Having learnt their lesson during the bandit invasion, the villagers now knew the importance of being united. Thus, under the guidance of their various village chiefs and elders, they began the work of uniting the disparate villagers.

Back then, they chose to split up because of some minor dispute and now they were once again going to be united, this time out of safety concerns. The location for the new village had already been chosen. It was the same location as the old one, at Plateau Original Village. Seeing as everyone was familiar with that spot, none of them objected too much.

Because of his important role in repelling the bandits, George was unanimously elected as the new village chief of the recombined village. At this very moment, George was engaged in a meeting with Eddison, Io and the various village elders about the upcoming village merger. Hearing that Moranthal had returned, they immediately left for the village entrance with a welcoming party in tow to welcome him.

Welcoming him back together was in essence a way of showing their attitudes regarding the merger: now that the four villages have merged back together, everyone is now one big family so we're here to welcome you together.

However, all these decisions including the decision to elect George had all been done after Moranthal left. Now that he was back, how would he react to the complete makeover his village had undergone? Would he be angry? Would he accuse George of trying to usurp power or would he simply flip out on the spot?

With these concerns in his mind, George led the party which included Dioh, to the village gate where they found Regine, Ancarin and Moranthal together next to Duran's carriage.

Seeing him return with the two girls who were deeply involved with a devil, his smiling face immediately cramped up. However, without waiting for his brother to say anything, Dioh immediately ran up to the party as if they were his kin and inquired about Mo Ke's whereabouts.

Ignoring the crestfallen boy, Moranthal didn't react too much to the news of the merger and George's election as village chief; he merely stated his hope that the village could shelter Ancarin and Regine.

However, George was noticeably silent about this. Had it been any ordinary person, the village was more than able to shelter them, but these girls were anything but ordinary thanks to their connection to a devil. The last thing George wanted was for the village to face another disaster should their identities ever be revealed.

The only reason he didn't flat out reject this request was because of all the aid Mo Ke had rendered during his stay here. If he were to reject them outright, that would make him seem like an ingrate; so he chose to remain silent as a way of expressing his rejection.

Seeing the expressionless look on his brother's face, Dioh immediately knew that his older brother didn't wish to shelter these two girls. He promptly tried to voiced his support for the girls. Like Moranthal, he didn't mind that Mo Ke was gone. As long as these two girls were here, Mo Ke would definitely return to the village one day.

However, just as he was about to open his mouth, he was silenced by a glare from George. Yet, the Dioh today wasn't like the Dioh of the past, he returned his brother's glare with a steadfast glare of his own. After confirming that his older brother didn't plan on accepting the girls, he immediately blew up.

"After all that Lady Mo Ke has done for the village, after all the villagers she saved, how could you treat her companions like this!" Yelled the teen in a voice that was loud enough to attract the surrounding villagers. Hearing that sensitive name once more, the nearby villagers began to congregate around the entrance.

In order to expand the village and create more living space for the villagers, the majority of the villagers were helping with the construction work near the gate. These villagers were all recipients of Mo Ke's aid and naturally reacted to Dioh's outcry. After learning of the situation, they unanimously expressed their hope that the two girls could stay behind.

Having just become their village chief, his reputation wasn't cemented yet. Thus George couldn't risk angering the gathered villagers and had no choice but to accept the girls.

Why was Dioh so adamant about helping Mo Ke? That's because he fell in love with him the moment he heard his voice. Thanks to his soul mixing with Ferti'nier's, Mo Ke was reincarnated with an irresistible charm. Not only that, thanks to his identity as a Soul Bard, his voice took on a feminine tone that naturally garnered the favor of any man he spoke to, even if they couldn't see his face.

His reckless actions against the Third Chief was precisely the result of this. It wasn't some sense of justice that drove him to attack the Third Chief; but rather that he fell in love with Mo Ke's voice the moment he heard it...the man's insistence that he take off his mask had angered Dioh greatly, so he decided to find an excuse to start a fight.

Naturally, all this was not only to protect Mo Ke; it was also to show off his gallant side, and hopefully in the process curry favor with Mo Ke.

In the end, the whole fiasco concluded with Ancarin and Regine being allowed to stay behind. However, the two girls themselves didn't stay in the village. With the help of Moranthal and Dioh, they built a small wooden house near the the village to live in.

As a way of repaying Mo Ke's sacrifices for the village, the female villagers would often send over supplies and chat with them. Naturally, there were male villagers who visited them as well. They were after all, single and beautiful girls. It wasn't a surprise that they had their fair share of suitors.

The ex-prostitutes who were saved by Mo Ke would visit the girls at fixed intervals, and at the same time, they would pray for the safety of their benefactor. As for Regine...she was just as stone cold as before towards everyone except for Mo Ke and Ancarin, of who she would reveal a sliver of emotion from time to time.

Regarding Gaywitz's failure to kill Mo Ke, while he was disturbed by the failure, he didn't think too much about it and simply chalked it up to bad luck instead of his excessive showboating.

Having returned to Azure City, the first thing Gaywitz did was send away that girl, Samantha. While her lead didn't result in a kill in the end, it was accurate. Thus, he generously gave her a princely sum of one hundred gold coins as a reward for her information, and expressed his interest in buying any further information should she come across any.

While the greedy prostitute didn't end up getting what she wanted, she didn't dare to doubt Gaywitz either. Instead, she tried to invite the demon hunter team leader to dinner in a bid to find a new sugar daddy. Unfortunately for her, Gaywitz wasn't the least bit interested in her advances and summarily dismissed the girl.

Seeing as his failure was due to luck, at least it was in his mind, he wasn't willing to give up on the hunt and tried to approach Nicole. Since she was the only one who understood that song, he deduced that the pair must have had some relationship. Yet, this pursuit didn't end up as smooth sailing as he had expected.

Nicole's master, in other words, the headmistress of the warrior academy, stopped the man from meeting Nicole. Her reason was that the freshman's competition was about to start and she didn't want Nicole to be distracted. Naturally, this ridiculous reason was rejected by Gaywitz. How could a paltry freshman competition compare to news about a dual-sin anointed apostle?!

Yet, whether it was ridiculous or not, he was immediately taught a lesson by the headmistress' fists about what the phrase "not listening to your elders will end up biting you in the butt" meant.

Nicole had never heard the song sung by the reincarnated Mo Ke, but she more than anyone else knew that there was no one else in the entire Western Human Realms who knew Chinese except for Mo Ke and herself. Unless...he decided to teach someone else.

Gaywitz's previous visit didn't give her too much information regarding this subject, but her sharp instincts immediately picked up on several clues. Seeing as it was the demon hunters who approached her, then this matter must've involved devils in some way. In that case, who was the person that sang the song and what was her relationship to Mo Ke?

Her headmistress was a ravishing beauty whose looks captured the hearts of numerous men. At a glance, she looked like a woman approaching her thirties yet her real age was actually 67. With a head of long, flowing, white hair and a beautiful but cold face, she looked like an otherworldly immortal.

Her almost boyish long robes would reveal a pair of shapely and perfect thighs as she walked through the academy. On her waist was an exquisitely decorated longsword that seemed more like a work of art than a killing machine.

She stepped in front of the girl cutting off her route out of the training room. Her beautiful yet icy face had an expression on it that clearly said no as she continued: "The competition is about to start, your mission right now is to focus on your training and not be distracted by other matters."

"Master knows that you wish to look for your younger brother, but how will you even look for him by yourself? Just let Master handle this matter for you, Master will expend all the resources at her disposal to find your little brother. His name is Mo Ke right?"

Originally, she had resolved herself to search for Mo Ke alone but who knew that her master would actually offer to help herself instead. She was well aware of her master's special status in Azure City and even in the whole of Tarnia. As long as she was willing to help, finding Mo Ke was only a matter of time.

"Mhm, as long as you obtain one of the top five positions in the upcoming competition, Master will definitely fulfill her promise."

With that promise in hand, she happily left for her sword practise. This was one of the rare occasions she smiled ever since Mo Ke left home. Only in front of her Master and Roscar would she throw them a forced smile from time to time.

Staring at her beloved disciples happy figure, she let out a helpless sigh. Having stopped that boorish team leader just now, she gleaned a great deal of information from the man. In her view, that boy Mo Ke was probably not coming back. However, in order not to influence her disciple's future, she made the ruthless decision to lie to her...at least for the time being. Such matters could be left for the future.

Having sent away Nicole, the headmistress returned to her office once more. Normally she wouldn't have to waste her time on such petty matters, but today was an exception. Just a few minutes ago, she received word from the Demon Hunter Division that their branch leader in Azure was about to visit.

After waiting for a while in her office, a thirty-odd year old man man walked into the room dressed in a blueish white attire that looked like it belonged to some wandering swordsman. On the man's waist hung a thin, longsword. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a straight blade.

The man had a dashing appearance and an aura that made him seem like a cut above the masses. His long black hair was tied up in a neat ponytail behind his almost expressionless face. However, looking carefully one could notice a slight smile on the man's face; the kind which naturally attracted people's favor.

Just as the wanderer-esque man stepped into the room, the headmistress curtly cut the man off and questioned him with a slightly displeased look on her face: "Clear Water Mirror, don't you have something better to do than visit me?"

In the face of her obvious dissatisfaction, the man didn't mind it one bit and merely shrugged his shoulders while adopting a relaxed posture. "Thousand Snow Crystal, don't give me that look right at the start, I've come here on serious business after all."

"You have something to discuss with me?" The headmistress asked with a cold laugh. "Don't tell me you've come here because of that boorish subordinate of yours? When did the branch leader of the Demon Hunters Division become so free all of a sudden?"

"Hah, are you talking about Gaywitz? Sorry to disappoint you but I'm not here because of that boy. He needs a good thrashing from time to time. No, I'm here for more important matters." Wiping off that mischievous smile on his face, he shrugged his shoulders once more and said:

"Not too long ago, the prophets in our branch received a prophecy. A prophecy that states that the devil who sang that song in an unknown language a week ago was going to destroy our world."

"It's true." As he said that, his face turned solemn. "It's because this matter is so important that I had to make this trip personally. I'm hoping you'll be able to provide me with some clues."

"She doesn't as well." Seeing as this involved the fate of the world, she dropped her hostile tone as she seriously explained her answer to the man: "My disciple doesn't recognize that devil as well. In truth, she is also looking for that devil, as for the reason...I'm sure you already know of it. If your subordinate wasn't lying, that devil should be in Hell right now."

Wearing a look that seemed like she was looking at an idiot, she snapped at the foolish man with eyebrows raised: "We haven't even seen the person, how do you expect to find a summoning medium!?"

"That's enough, how much trouble can a three-star cause? I bet your prophets must've suffered some kind of brain damage otherwise they wouldn't have made such a silly prophecy."

"Well, I feel that fellow is rather unreliable as well...mhm, I must be worrying too much. Clear Water Mirror let out a helpless sigh but tried one last time to get his way. "Will you ever let me see that beloved disciple of yours?"

"Sure, but that will only be after the freshman competition." Thousand Snow Flowers continued with an additional term: "Of course, that's under the condition that you gift that sword of yours to my disciple."

As he stepped out of the room, the smile swiftly vanished as he tightened his fists and muttered in a voice that only he could hear: "The destruction of the world...haha...hell huh…"

Having sent off the man, she was about to resume her training when her servant suddenly rushed into the room and brought her an explosive piece of news.

Ever since Mo Ke was inexplicably sent off to the human world, Violet Snow would periodically keep watch over the area Mo Ke disappeared from. This watch ended up lasting over a month.

It wasn't a particularly long wait, but it was a wait that gradually wore down on her patience. Out of sheer boredom, she crafted a tiny igloo nearby; later only to find herself bored once more as she rolled her eyes at it. How boring…

At her side, Mo En's little granddaughter would pace back and forth around her while staring intently at the tiny igloo. She desperately wanted to step on it when the little puppy wasn't looking, but unfortunately for her, her clumsy attempt was immediately discovered. Having been in an irate mood already, she slapped her tiny little paws against the floor and created an ice prison out of thin air, locking up the mischievous little devil.

"Hey, Little White Doggie, why did you lock this one up!? Release this one immediately! Hmph, so you don't want to release me!? This one can still tele…"

As a primal demon, she had the innate ability to control the space around her and teleport a short distance. However, despite multiple attempts, she failed to teleport out of the cage; which was to be expected. While she had the appearance of a little devil, she was still nothing more than a newborn baby and naturally couldn't control her powers well.

"Ah...how annoying, why can't this one teleport out of this cage…" Having failed to extricate herself, she began to run around the enclosed area in an anxious fit. Unfortunately for her, this tiny cage was only large enough to fit her body. With each spin, her wings would slam against the icy pillar…

Squatting down, she turned around to inspect her wings for injuries with a miserable look on her face. She glared at the bored puppy for a long while and...nothing happened.

"Or else what, what do you think you can do! Don't forget, this one still has a grandpa!" While her voice wasn't particularly threatening, the meaning behind her words were clear: don't mess with me or I'll get my grandpa to bite you!

Just as Violet Snow was about to return her a 'whatever', a tiny rift in space began to form nearby as space itself began to bend. A moment later, a black hooded figure bearing a two meter long black sword on his back appeared before the pair…the figure was lying down as he made his appearance…

By the time I fully came to my senses and opened my eyes, my ears were filled with a multitude of voices, some familiar, some foreign.

Looks like there really was a crowd gathering around me. Violet Snow, Mimiya, One-eye, Nine-finger, No.3, No.5, Big 4 and the demonic half-orc Baccarel. There was also Mo En whom I had only seen once and a tall lust demon who was clad in garments sewn together from some sort of fur.

"Are you sure you don't want to sleep for a while more?" Mo En was just like before, shaped like small imp with a face that could only be described as wretched. As he said that, he lowered his body in what looked like an attempt at sitting; however, this was immediately hindered by a discreet kick from the lust demon beside him. His relaxed legs immediately straightened up.

"Mhm, either way being able to meet like this again isn't so bad. This is my precious granddaughter, the fiancee I was talking about before."

"Yoo, how are you doing. Even though this one still thinks you look like a lust demon, this one is willing to consider your courtship assuming you're still interested." The primal devil raised her hands as if she was a kid in a classroom, and in a serious voice said: "This one will listen to grandpa."

You make it sound like I'm forcing you with a knife to marry me...the problem was that if I didn't do so, I probably wouldn't have been able to return to the Western Human Realms at all. As recent events have proven, I was right in making that decision. While I didn't end up finding Nicole, waiting to be summoned was the right move.

Even so, waiting patiently to be summoned wasn't an option either. Ancarin was still too weak for that, and by the time she got stronger, I would have evolved as well. By the time she was able to summon me...several decades might have already gone by.

The lust demon bowed before me with a faintly excited look in her eyes. In a humble tone, she asked, "Then may I hazard another question, are you a Soul Bard? Are you of the warrior or bewitching branch, and that tattoo on your face…"

This must be the legendary wife of Mo En. She's rather pretty, I have to admit. I bet she could be considered beautiful even amongst the elves who were known for their beauty, whether it was in terms of her figure or her face. Judging by her aura, she was probably a four-star as well.

"About that, probably both." I smiled weakly before pointing at the tattoo on my face. "Strictly speaking, I'm not a lust demon but you may treat me as one…"

"I don't really understand what you are saying...but I'm able to sense an exalted soul within you, as if you were born to be our queen...I...I'm not wrong, am I…"

"...mhm, because of certain reasons, I...you may see me as such." I initially intended to tell her about Ferti'nier's soul within me, but thinking about it, this news was too important to reve al so lightly. For all I know, I might end up committing some taboo. After all, devils were a life form known for their slyness and evilness.

Since I had become their master, that marriage with Mimiya was now nothing but a joke. In the words of that lust demon, she wasn't worthy enough to marry me since our relationship now wasn't an equal one. It was now of a master and his servants, rather than a marriage between equals.

As for why this even happened, it goes without saying that it was the effect of Ferti'nier's soul at work here. She was basically my transmigrator granddaddy now, though she wasn't a particularly dependable one.

Mo En's wife was known as Julia, and she was a four-star primal devil as well. She possessed all the physical aspects of a lust demon….the goat horns, the crimson long hair, the flesh wings on her back, her heart shaped tail and hoof shaped feet...mhm.

The way to tell apart the grades of a lust demon's bloodlines was by looking at their feet. If her bloodline was of a high grade, her feet would be similar to a human's while a low grade bloodline was indicated by hooves.

Julia's bloodline was of a lower grade; furthermore, she was of the carnal branch. Her strength didn't lie in combat but rather lied in tactics and charm. Julia was born alongside Mo En. While she was of the carnal branch, she didn't have a relationship with any other male devil. Not only that, thanks to his unique personality, the final say in their devil clan ended up lying with Julia.

Using a highly appropriate quote from one of Zhao Benshan's skits: "Before getting married, we had a discussion, serious matters would be decided by him while the minor matters would be handled by me. However, in these ten over years we've been married, we haven't had any serious matters."

Apparently, Mo En's son had already left the Prison of the Dead by himself, leaving behind a son and a daughter. The daughter was Mimiya while the son was a glutton who was rather fat. He was already a three-star and seemed to be an apostle of Gluttony. What's worse was that he seemed to have inherited his grandpa's unique characteristic; his brain wasn't functioning well…

Being a glutton, Mo En's grandson, Mo Xixidi was naturally chewing on a piece of meat as he lumbered towards us. Judging from his massive girth, at least two meters tall body and those gigantic horns on his head, Mo Xixidi was probably a primal horned devil. Horned devils were, as their name suggested, known for their giant horns.

He was essentially a tub of lard wrapped in the crimson red hide of a devil. His tail was noticeably thicker than an ordinary devil and his horns were at least two times as large as other devils. They were curved horns that almost reminded me of a bull's. While it might sound like a strange description, all you had to know was that it was a well-fed man sitting on the floor with a pair of bull horns on his head.

Most devils who saw me would immediately try to flatter me; however, Xixidi was different. The first thing this meat potato said was: "Are you edible?"

Based on the serious look in his eyes and the word eat, I could safely say that in his eyes any life form he encountered could be classified into three categories: Kin, edible, and inedible.

Naturally, the moment that stupid question left his mouth, No.3 and Big 4 immediately stepped in front of me, shielding me from the meat potato with wary looks on their faces, glaring at the meat potato who had a puppy dog expression on his face at the moment. Then, he received a solid whipping from Julia.

Only Mimiya seemed happy about that reply as she happily cheered her granny on and clapped: "Granny hit him harder, I can help out if you want, I've always wanted to whip Big Brother."

"...wah...nooo, I want to eat...ahhhh...Granny doesn't love me anymore…" He immediately broke down like a three year old kid and wailed. The hurt look on his face was at least a hundred times worse than when he was whipped.

"Alright, alright, it's not such a serious matter…" Feeling that his wife had overreacted and fearing for his grandson's stomach, Mo En tried to persuade Julia, but was immediately silenced by a glare from her. His head promptly shrunk back in fear and spoke no longer.

"Our Queen might still be immature but she is destined to become the queen of the lust demons. I hope that everyone will show such an exalted existence the respect she deserves, if not...don't blame me for being ruthless."

She swept her eyes over the scoffing Mo En, the crying Mo Xixidi and the nonchalant Mimiya: " Don't think for a second that I don't know what you lot are thinking. For the future of the lust demons, I'll do my utmost best to serve our Queen, till my very last breath!"

As she said that, a fire lit up in her eyes. With a fervent look on her face, she immediately got to her knees, humbly lifted up one of my feet with her hands and kissed its back…

"My Queen...your body is so exalted...your disposition is so saintly and pure, even the elven queen would lower her head in shame in the face of your beauty, your beauty has transcended the limits of this world…"

Word after cringey word spewed forth from her mouth, nearly making me want to cry. Didn't I emphasize the fact that I was a guy?! That whole part about beauty wasn't necessary, was it?

Just like that, I ended up gaining the support of Mo En and instantly gained 2,000 more devils; of which the four-stars were Mo En and Julia, while the three-stars were Mimiya, Xixidi and three other nameless demon childs. There were a total of 370 head imps while the rest were large imps.

It had to be said that this was a much needed replenishment of my army. In order to break through the legendary, unassailable prison exit, I needed a lot of devils, the more the merrier. Having witnessed the terrifying dangers at the prison exit, Habona's grandfather once told me that we needed at least 10,000 one-stars before he would pledge assistance to our cause.

Based on that alone, one could tell how dangerous that place was. It was said that anyone who had tried to break through forcefully were all dead!

Who would've thought that the problem I was mulling over when I woke up would instantly be lessened by 20% without me even lifting a finger.

Truth be told, I was beginning to feel that the old werewolf's aid wasn't even that important anymore. It wasn't like their numbers were that many to begin with. Of course if I could recruit them I definitely would, but if it wasn't possible it wouldn't be such a terrible loss either.

While the trip to the Western Human Realms ended without me finding Nicole, I ended up gaining an important lead while I was there. Thanks to Ferti'nier's hint, the next step for me was to break out of this prison and find Yi Yi in Gehenna. If everything worked out as planned, I would regain my male body, after which I could begin planning for my return to the human world. By that time, I should have the strength to protect myself and not get chased to the ends of the earth by demon hunters.

Mo En's nest was just as I expected, a cave dug out of the maze's wall. When I asked him how he managed to do that, he gave me an answer that made me want to bang my head against the wall. Apparently, you had to sacrifice souls to it in order to dig through it…

I remember back when I had just arrived in this maze, I tried every means possible to break through the wall but it ended up failing spectacularly. It was as if I was hitting a 3,000 DEF point wall with a 0 ATK sword.

Using a special ceremony to offer up souls, one was able to dig through the walls. This was crucial to setting up a nest as the maze would spawn undead from time to time which made resting in the open dangerous. Only by hiding inside a cave would the undead not notice your nest.

While this was an effective method to build a nest, not every race or clan knew about this ceremony. Take for example, the Abbadon rodents. Those overgrown rats had no cave to call their own and merely lived in a remote corner of the maze. That exposed location couldn't be considered a nest at all and was at most a camp of sorts.

The ratmen didn't feed on souls so why didn't they offer them up instead? The answer was simple, only the four-stars knew about the ceremony…

That was precisely why races like the harpies were able to construct a giant nest in the wall. It was all thanks to their four-star harpy witch.

Of course, there were also certain races who didn't have a nest despite having a four-star in their clan. The demonic werewolves were one such clan. Because of their marauding and nomadic nature, they chose instead to wander through the maze.

At the end of the wall, that wall of text was simply to prove a point: the Prison of the Dead had given birth to a culture of its own. Although this seemed merely like a caveman's culture to me, who knows what things might look like a thousand years from now.

"Master." Just as I was strolling through the maze and watching the guardsmen clear up a bunch of small fries as I mulled over that issue, I was interrupted by No.3's voice.

At this very moment, there was only No.3 and Big 4 by my side. These two imps were my elite bodyguards handpicked and groomed by me. During the one month stint in the Western Human Realms, my subordinates had undergone a massive change. Other than that potato, No.5, all my named subordinates had basically evolved into three-stars. With that, even their severed limbs had regrown.

It was an evolution speed that widely exceeded my expectations; although, thinking back on it, they were probably slowed down by my voracious appetite for souls. Furthermore, I had been observing the devils living in Mo En's nest recently. What I discovered was that, as a whole, they were slightly smarter than my devils...which was to say that, devouring souls actually increased their intelligence!

Regarding this matter of souls boosting one's intelligence, it wasn't that strange when one thought about it carefully. Different kinds of food had their own nutritional value. Take for example, if one didn't eat enough fruits during a sea voyage. They won't have enough vitamin C to sustain their body and would end up with problems such as internal bleeding or scurvy. Without a balanced diet, one's body might end up deformed.

Right now, my subordinates were all basically retarded to some extent except for that disappointment of a potato, No.5...no matter how much he ate, he didn't seem to evolve at all. Although...his intelligence seemed a lot higher than the other devils...so did that mean that...he had been nibbling on my soul rations?

Well, that's a matter for another day. No.3's words were clear enough to me, he wanted to say that One-eye was beginning to establish his own little faction. This probably had something to do with my sudden departure; which gave him the opportunity to control some of my devils.

Given that he was the next strongest person after me, this was to be expected, especially given that most of the commanding was done by him as well. In terms of leadership alone, he was a cut above the rest and commanded greater respect.

Prior to joining me, he had his own band of small imps other than Nine-finger; so it didn't come as a surprise that this former leader would try to create his own faction in my absence.

Strictly speaking, there were six factions in my army now; One-eye and Nine-finger formed one, Baccarel and his demonic half-orcs were another. While the half-orcs were the smallest of the six, their extraordinary combat strength wasn't one to be overlooked. No.3 and Big 4 formed another faction as my elite bodyguards; these two were in charge of my safety. Mo En, who had just joined us formed another faction.

The last was Violet Snow...mhm, while there was no clear master/servant relationship between us; she basically followed my will most of the time so her hellhounds counted as a faction within my army as well.

As for the other devils I didn't mention, No.5 was basically of the neutral faction while Big 5, who was the first devil to befriend a hellhound, leaned more towards Violet Snow's faction.

Regarding this problem of factions, it wasn't something I particularly cared about. As long as they followed my orders and refrain from internal conflict, I couldn't be bothered to micromanage such affairs.

"From now on, the guardsmen will be commanded by you, Big 4 and no one else. As for One-eye, I'll arrange for him to take command of the shieldbearers and the Mo Sabrewielders." I turned my expressionless face towards him, and amidst his averting gaze, said: "Among all my subordinates, you've been with me the longest. You are the person I trust the most so I hope that you won't disappoint me."

"Master, don't forget about me, I'll forever be loyal to you as well!" Big 4 immediately chimed in and knelt as a way of cementing his existence.

"Mhm, I know you two won't betray me. As long you two are by my side, I have the confidence to proceed boldly." Ever since these two joined me, they had always placed my safety above everything; their loyalty towards me was something that had been proved long ago.

However, my eyelids seemed to be twitching a lot lately as if my instincts were trying to tell me something was wrong but I just couldn't see where. Either way, it felt like something was up but what am I missing here?

Mo En's nest had now turned into my territory. However, the job of managing it was still handled by Mo En and the others. Leaving behind Mo En, Julia and Xixidi, I brought Mimiya and my other subordinates along with me as I continued recruiting allies.

Back then, I had left Habona with a squad of my skeleton archers and that bald apparition Vick, who basically spent his days bullying the skeleton archers who I ordered not to move at all.

When I came upon a row of motionless skeletons, I found a certain wretched looking apparition floating around the vicinity...Vick, this fellow had been having the time of his life weaving in and out of the archers' bodies while letting out a silly laugh from time to time...that image he painted was...truly idiotic.

"Mhm, a primal werewolf." Werewolves were a tight knit bunch and placed the lives of their comrades over their own. That matter of me killing Dawson...I don't know how she found out about it but this couldn't have been a good thing…

Shadowfang was, after all, a weapon left to her by their mother. Since she gave it to me, that meant it was now mine; so what was that man trying to pull by attempting to steal it?

Besides, our first meeting wasn't exactly a peaceful one either. At that time, Habona chose to let us off in the end; seeing as they were the ones who attacked first and she was in a hurry to save Harlow. Not to mention that she thought I was connected to Mo En at that time. Just from that alone, one could tell that Habona was actually a reasonable werewolf…probably.

"Not at all." My face slackened into a sullen expression full of resignation. Not being able to find Nicole made it a complete failure.

"Yes!" I immediately answered without any hesitation. "Truth be told, this is the exact reason why I'm here today. I was planning to discuss this matter with your grandfather. That...about Mo En, he became my subordinate."

I pointed at the little devil frolicking around Violet Snow: "This is Mimiya, Mo En's granddaughter, if you don't believe me, you can ask her yourself."

It wasn't long before the old werewolf made his appearance. Harlow still wasn't anywhere to be seen meaning he was probably with the medusas.

After a short discussion with the old werewolf, he expressed his willingness to consider working with us even without the 10,000 devils. He was initially just as shocked as Habona about Mo En's subjugation, but it was also this piece of news that finally put him at ease about cooperating with us.

Without a doubt, this was a good thing for me. As a sign of goodwill, I also expressed my willingness to craft more weapons for the werewolves seeing as he had not so subtly hinted his interest in them. During a casual chat with the old werewolf, he had brought up multiple times that the shields I crafted for them were rather effective in reducing casualties amongst their hunting teams.

This time we had Habona as our guide to lead us to the medusas. She was planning to visit her brother and sister-in-law beforehand, so she might as well make use of this opportunity to bring us along.

The trip ended up taking only two days since the two clans weren't that far apart to begin with. As expected, the medusas had their own nest that was guarded by a large number of medusas patrolling around. Seeing us, the medusas immediately entered an alert state.

As the Medusas were a female only race and had to rely on kidnapping males of other races to reproduce, their relationship with the other races were at best, rocky. Even the similarly all-female harpies had an adversarial relationship with them seeing as they were both in the same industry. Naturally, these harpies had a bad relationship with the other races as well.

The moment our entourage arrived at the medusa's nest, the patrolling medusas immediately took up defensive stances. Their snake hair puffed up in alarm with every tiny snake revealing their razor sharp fangs.

One of the medusas who obviously recognized Habona immediately commanded her companion to call for reinforcements. Against a four-star like Habona, they were clearly outmatched.

"That's right, hurry up and call them, make sure to summon Harlow at the same time." Habona gave the medusa who recognized her an emotionless stare before nonchalantly declaring, "Don't worry, I won't pull any tricks, I'll just wait here quietly."

"..." It was then that the medusa warrior finally remembered that Habona was Harlow's older sister and that Harlow was actually the vice-leader's husband...heavens, she was actually alive to see the day that one of their race would have a husband. That was...just fantastic, unbelievably fantastic!

Having realized that, she knew that Habona wouldn't do anything rash - thinking back on her anxious reaction - she immediately blushed in embarrassment. She wanted to invite the werewolf into their nest but couldn't find the words to do so.

Having not seen them for a while, the lovebirds' relationship seemed to have gotten even closer. The pair were basically joined at the hip now. Even while they were walking towards us, their arms were entwined with each other.

Harlow tugged on Majosha and quickened his pace while calling out to his sister. Majosha averted her eyes shyly and joined in as well, "How are you doing, sister?"

"Mhm." Habona nodded her head nonchalantly with a slight aura of superiority. Truth be told, the two races still had nothing much in common except for Harlow. Out of respect for this husband, the medusas would no longer lay their hands on males from the demonic werewolf clan. To the werewolves, this was naturally good news; though it seemed to Habona that she had sacrificed her little brother in order to achieve this. Thus, she still didn't take to this sister-in-law of hers; yet, seeing as her brother truly loved her, she chose not to say anything more.

"Master Mo Ke, I haven't seen you in a month, how have you been?" How she treated Habona was one matter, while how she treated me was another. Her face wasn't as icy cold as before, and while she wasn't smiling, at the very least she took the initiative to greet me.

"I'm fine, I guess." I smiled wryly. I briefly recounted my experience in the Western Human Realms and also informed them that it was merely an accident that I was summoned.

"Amazing, I want to see the outside world as well!" Based on that exclamation, one could clearly see her interest in my one month trip in the Western Human Realms. While the human world was dangerous to creatures of the darkness like us, human civilization had its unique points that attracted everyone.

"Mhm, I know." Manasha interrupted Majosha and turned towards me: "Master Mo Ke, I'm aware of the purpose for your visit today, it's to recruit us into your army isn't it?"

"That's right, I'm forming an army to attack the prison exit. Mo En has already joined under my banner and the demonic werewolves expressed their willingness as well. As long as you join us, our chances will be higher."

"I'm not sure, I do not wish to make any reckless guess about something I have no information on. But there's one thing you can be sure of, and that's the fact that I don't plan on seeking my own death."

"No one has ever succeeded in breaking out of this prison since time immemorial...we...alright, I understand." Manasha gave it some thought before relenting under the pleading gaze of her sister. She nodded at Majosha before turning to me once more: "My sister and I are willing to join your army but I can't be sure of the clan's wishes, I will have to ask my other kin."

"Persuading them…" Manasha raised her head and stared at the maze ceiling for a second before answering: "I plan to tell them that there's an endless supply of men to kidnap in the outside world…"

However, I couldn't find any trace of levity in her eyes as she said that. This goes to show how much they needed a male counterpart; to the extent where it had begun to significantly affect their reproduction rate. This prison really was lacking in everything except undead…

With our business concluded, Manasha invited us in for a tour of their nest, which I swiftly agreed to seeing as this matter had intrigued me for a while now.

Their nest was basically the same as Mo En's, though it wasn't as large; this was probably because their clan wasn't as large as his. However, their criss-crossing tunnels still fascinated me. I wonder how much souls they paid to dig out this much real estate.

In the entire Prison of the Dead, the number of people I knew weren't that many. Unless something else happened along the way, this trip to Numila's was most likely to be our last visitation. It was my hope that the entire harpy clan would join us given their vast numbers. In fact, their numbers were most likely on par with Mo En's.

The last time I approached her, she didn't accept my offer though she didn't reject too strongly either. She seemed to be hesitant about something and that something was an opportunity I planned to capitalize on.

I glanced at Majosha whose eyes sparkled from the mere thought of travelling. As she stood there looking at her husband, her tail discreetly tugged at his claws as if to remind him to accept the offer.

Yet the moment we told him of our destination, his face immediately paled. Had it not been for the fact that I knew the backstory surrounding this sordid affair, I would've thought that he saw a ghost or something. Even his words became garbled as he struggled to reply:

Seeing his disgraceful display, Habona glared at the werewolf as if to say: "Spineless thing, stand aside and don't embarrass this sister of yours any further."

Harlow shrunk even further at his sister's glare. By now, he seemed more like a bullied wife with that pitiful look on his face; a look that everyone found comical, especially Mimiya who doubled over in laughter before falling down with legs thrashing in the air as she giggled.

Truth be told, his fear of the harpies was to be expected seeing as those bird demons were famous rifle cleaners. Back when he was still a captive of those lascivious bird women, his rifle had been thoroughly cleaned out by them to the point where his entire self had gone limp when we tried to rescue him.

I truly had to hand it to his mental fortitude for being able to interact so normally with Majosha right now. After all, the medusas were known for their exceptionally long rifle cleaning sessions...in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if his rifle broke down one day.

However, that's enough nonsense for now. Having said our goodbyes to the medusas and Harlow, we made our way towards Numila's territory.

With Habona leading the way, we saved a great deal of time by avoiding any unnecessary detours. Along the way, we slaughtered a large number of patrols and rapidly refilled our food supplies.

Just as we reached the borders of her nest, wave after wave of ruffling feathers echoed in our ears. Looking up, I saw a flock of nearly a hundred harpies closing in on us with claws readied.

"We're here to see Numila, we have no hostile intentions…" Yet, just as those words left my mouth, the closest harpy dove in at us for an attack.

Seeing as they had no intention of listening, I had no choice but to order my devils to take up a defensive position for now and not attack.

For this trip, I brought along a large number of my named subordinates along with 20 of my strongest guardsmen. It was the shields of these guardsmen that firmly rebuffed the first volley of dives from the harpies without any casualties. Thanks to my timely command and the aid of Habona, Mimiya and Violet Snow, their first wave of attacks ended in failure.

Having failed in their first attempt, the harpies swiftly took to the air with a resounding whoosh, hovering several meters above us as they looked for another opportunity to strike. Amongst the mass of flapping feathers, I noticed a couple of shrinking silhouettes in the sky. These were probably messenger harpies on the way back to report this situation.

I turned to the towering werewolf beside me and anxiously asked: " Habona, do you have any method to stop their attacks without harming them?"

Being a veteran of the prison for many years, she immediately gave me an answer: "Of course, just give up all the males in our team."

...wasn't that just a bad idea? If anyone dared to say otherwise, I'll make sure their heads have a long chat with the corner of my grimoire!

She leaped into the air and swung her claws at one of the harpies who was diving at us. Both parties ended up missing each other, but just as I thought it was over, she swiped out once more with her claws and swatted the harpy down onto the ground. Making use of the reaction force, she leaped up even higher and in a logic-defying display of acrobatics, swatted a second harpy down onto the floor….followed by a third one…

*bang* Another harpy crashed into the floor followed swiftly by another. Each of them had been temporarily knocked out of commission, though none of them had been severely injured.

However, with some lingering doubts in my heart about her discretion, I couldn't help but yell a reminder at her: "Be careful! Make sure not to kill any of them!"

"Everyone! Form a defensive circle and fend off the attacks. Just leave the harpies to Habona, all we have to do is make sure no one gets caught."

Only after half of their flock had been swatted down did those more bird than human harpies finally learn their lesson. They began to spread out more and avoided clustering together so that Habona couldn't use them as a springboard.

Our first visit to the harpies' nest was to save Harlow. Back then, we made a complete mess of Numila's home and ended up in a fierce battle with her. The whole matter ended haphazardly only after the interference of Mo En and because Numila wasn't able to capture us. Before we left, I did bring up the matter of breaking out of this prison but she didn't agree to it at that time.

While Habona's overwhelming victory over these bird demons might lead one to believe that the harpies were nothing but a race of small fries unworthy of recruitment, their combat strength wasn't actually that bad.

There were a number of reasons why Habona was able to stomp on them so easily, chief of which was that she was a four-star. If you add in the fact that she was a demonic werewolf, one of the premier combat races of Hell that was known throughout the worlds, their defeat wasn't that unreasonable. Not only that, her mother had taught her, what was in my mind an overpowered skill, the Inverse Cut which put her at the peak of four-stars.

It was kind of like a bunch of nobodies ganging up on some Xiantian Martial artist. No matter how many nobodies you threw at him, that expert would naturally triumph over all of them. Even if he wasn't able to, he could simply fly away with his Flying Techniques and there was nothing they could do about it.

Against opponents at the same strength level as them, the harpies normally put up a much better fight seeing as they had the natural born advantage of flight. Against land-bound creatures, they had the advantage of the first strike and greater initiative while their victims could only defend helplessly.

All that was under the assumption that they weren't armed. If I crafted a bunch of javelins for them, wouldn't they turn into some sort of invincible aerial army?

It's worth mentioning that pilots would always receive a better treatment than the boots on the ground. Don't believe me? Just ask how much a pilot makes in a month and how much a truck driver makes in a month.

Habona brandished her claws menacingly, promptly scaring away a harpy who tried to sneak in an attack. Having received a thorough thrashing, these bird women knew not to mess with this hulking warmachine and merely floated quietly in mid-air. Thus, we ended up in a tense stalemate with both sides staring at each other but not attacking.

Numila had come, her crimson feathers blazed as she descended from the sky surrounded by scorching heat like a phoenix of legends. Her face was just as perfect as I had remembered it; of all the women I had met so far, hers was definitely one of the most beautiful ones, though Ferti'nier's was still a smidge prettier than her…

"It's you guys...the lust demon and the werewolf." She landed on the ground by herself and stood before us, face noticeably sullen: "Why have you all come? I don't remember capturing any of your people this time."

"Hey, it's not like we caused any severe injuries and they were the ones who attacked us first ." I shrugged my shoulders before continuing with my explanation: "We told them that we were here to talk to you but they attacked us anyway…"

After hearing our explanation, she heaved a sigh of relief and placed her hands on her hips as she said: "Since it's all misunderstanding, I'll leave that matter aside for now. Now, did you have something to discuss with me?"

Looks like she remembered what we discussed. I nodded my head: "That's right, Mo En, the werewolves and the medusas have all joined my army. If we add in your clan, the four most powerful clans in the prison will all be accounted for. With our combined might, breaking through the exit shouldn't be a problem."

"Sigh...now's really an inopportune moment for such discussion...I've encountered some problems recently…" She abruptly trailed off as she paused to consider her wording.

"That's all for now." She promptly ended our conversation once more, clearly not intending to continue discussing this matter. "There's something I must handle right now so I can't give you an answer for now. If you still wish to discuss this matter, we can do so after I've settled this problem."

Something serious must've happened from the looks of it. Even her usual arrogance was nowhere to be seen. Last I remembered, she wasn't so civilized.

Seeing as she might be one of our important comrades in the future and also the best choice for our air force leader, I immediately stepped up and made an offer.

Her eyes wavered, seemingly deep in thought as she mulled over my offer. Yet, just as I decided to strike the final nail in the coffin…

"This is strictly a clan matter, your assistance isn't needed." She flatly rejected my offer after which she turned around and prepared to leave.

However, just as she was about to take off, a gray harpy descended from the sky and landed three meters away from us. Unlike Numila, this harpy's body was mostly that of an eagle's with only her face being human. Disgusting...however, I suppressed my protesting sense of beauty and patiently stared at the harpy.

"Please help us…" As she said that, her claws tilted to the side and her wings flapped open before resting on the ground in what looked like a harpy's version of a kowtow.

"No buts!" Numilia's shout immediately silenced the dissenting harpy who immediately reeled back from her furious leader. Looking at her quivering eyes, Numilia couldn't help but sigh as she realized that her yelling had unfairly frightened the girl. "This is an internal clan matter after all, bringing in these outsiders isn't right."

"From time to time, an evolved harpy like me would appear within the clan. Harpies like me are known as harpy witches and are born with the ability to control a certain element. Depending on which element we can control, we are given different clan names. For example, I possess the power to control flames so I'm of the [Blaze] clan."

"Other than flames, a harpy witch can also be born with the power to control two other elements, namely [Icicles of the Skyfrost] and [Windstorm of the Raging Winds]." She continued to explain some basic details of the harpy clans before moving on to the main issue. "Recently, because of some disputes over resources, there's been some friction between us and the two other clans. While they were always weaker than me in a one on one fight, I'm no match against the both of them combined…"

Harpies were an all-female race who reproduced through the same methods as the medusas: forcefully mating males from other intelligent races. Which reminded me, if one only looked at their faces, they could be considered a race full of beautiful ladies. However, no matter what you do, do not look down...for your own sake, do not look down!

Since they weren't able to bewitch the other races with their looks, violence was the only option left to them. Thus, the harpies were also known as a race of female bandits. Not only did they steal your possessions, they stole your men as well…

Normally such conflict was rare in the outside world given the abundance of resources there, but this was the Prison of the Dead, and the Prison of the Dead was a sealed environment. Resources were scarce here, even feeding oneself was a problem that had to be solved via the exchange arrays.

The medusas needed men and so did the harpies. Furthermore, there was no way either race would let their males leave due to reproductive reasons. In light of that, the question then became, since males had such a sought after position in the prison, where could I find the immigration papers?

Oh...I mean, there was clearly a shortage of men especially since both races only gave birth to females. (Author: Harpies can give birth to male offspring but it is customary to consume the male babies.)

There weren't that many living creatures in the Prison of the Dead to begin with. With all the fighting and killing plus the disproportionate birth ratios, both races were put in an awkward position thanks to this shortage.

A lack of resources would inadvertently lead to conflict and conflict would breed war. Since time immemorial, harpies were a race that relied on their fists to negotiate; this was so for every clan member, from young to old, without any exception.

Thus, it shouldn't come as a surprise that not too long ago, the harpy witches of Skyfrost and Windstorm came knocking on Numila's doorstep separately in search of resources. Naturally, they were both given a good thrashing before they were sent on their way.

Having learnt their lesson, the two of them finally decided to team up on Numila and suppress her with their numbers. In a one on one fight, she naturally had the advantage, in a two on one fight however...

It was precisely because of this reason that her clan had lost a significant portion of their territories, and their patrols end up having to be on constant high alert for any invasion. Even a simple rattle of bones was enough to ruffle their feathers.

"While I don't know what this hard place you speak of is, besieged on all fronts is pretty accurate." She answered in a hurry as she prepared to leave for combat. "Now that you know the reason why, you should leave first. Once all this is over, I'll send a messenger to inform you."

"...that's my own business." She paused for a second, before continuing in a firm voice: "Besides, rules are rules. Internal conflicts within the clan have to be resolved without any reinforcements from outsiders."

"Just because we can't be your reinforcements doesn't mean we can't help you through other means." I reached for the straight blade on my waist and handed it over to her.

"This is...a human's weapon?" Slightly wary of the blade, Numila didn't accept it right away, but instead asked, "What are its uses?"

"This blade is able to increase the effects of one's fire magic, as for what that means exactly, you will know once you use it." Shoving the blade into her claws, I smiled thinly before pointing at the hilt: "You grip onto this and draw it out."

While Numila had no hands to speak of, gripping a hilt was still possible for her claws. With her left claw wrapped tightly around the hilt and her right claw securing the scabbard, she gingerly tugged on the blade. However, the blade barely budged as she fumbled around with the scabbard.

"Not like that, normally you use your right hand to grip the hilt since that's the main hand." I immediately corrected her while shaking my head.

"Oh." She flipped her claws around and this time the blade instantly flew out in a shower of fiery sparks. In just a few moments, the fiery blade was in full view of the harpy witch. "This blade...it's gorgeous!" She exclaimed with sparkling eyes.

"Ah, just lending huh…" She trailed off in a slightly dejected manner. Even so, that didn't stop her from waving the blade around enthusiastically with her right claw. With every wave, it seemed like the flames on the straight blade grew ever brighter until finally, even I was hit by a wave of scorching heat despite the distance between us being over two meters. This heat...wasn't it a lot scarier than when I wielded it?

"This temperature...this magical output...why does it feel like my flames have gotten hotter even though I infused less mana into it. Furthermore, this blade seems to be sharper than my claws! "Unbelievable! Was this really created by humans? So humans were actually such amazing creatures...uncanny...unreal...un…"

"Mhm, this blade was truly made for creatures with an affinity for fire. In the human world, such a blade could easily cost a fortune worth tens of thousands of slaves."

Even though she hadn't left the Prison of the Dead before, it seems like the word slave transcended cultural barriers. As a harpy, she naturally understood the term as referring to those poor males caught in her nest.

Looking at that stunned look in her eyes, I suddenly felt a sense of pride for being a human: "Such a powerful blade isn't something that can be crafted by any old craftsman, it's a high-grade enchanted weapon after all."

As she happily waved the blade around, within her she clearly felt the increase in strength caused by the blade. With a crazed "Wahaha" she laughed, "Kwah, you actually gave me such a treasure, I'm so happy!"

"...I'm lending it...not giving it…" How did this suddenly turn into me gifting you the blade? Was this the so-called bandit nature of the harpies at work?

"Don't mind those minor details, if a girl's too miserly, her kitty cat will start to shrink." After throwing out those words, which I couldn't find the energy to tsukkomi, she puffed up her chest and pointed her feathery weapons at me. Dang...those must've been a pair of 36Ds if those feathers were removed.

"How many times have I said this already, I'm a male not a female!" Just as that last word left my mouth, an alarming thought crossed my mind. What was her reaction again when I last said this? Didn't she inspect my lower ha---that, don't tell me she's going to do that again...no way!

"Lies, don't think for a second that I'm not aware of what a male has hanging down there, and you definitely don't have anything hanging down there."

"But I'm really not lying, that thing will grow out in the future, mhm, that's right, it will grow out in the future, definitely!"

"If you're really a male then I permit you to be my fiance, as long as you give me this blade." Instead of the predicted inspection, instead she seemed unusually embarrassed and...when did I say that I wanted to marry you? Please spare me sister, I know demonic ladies are a genre in of itself but that's in the 2D world. What do you want me to do with all those feathers in the 3D world?!

"Why'd you say no...isn't this one beautiful enough for you?" For a tomboy like her, who would've expected her to have such a charming side when she spoke in such a gentle tone…

"That…" How should I even say no to that? If I'm too forceful will she turn on me right on the spot? But if I'm too soft on her, she might just think that I was willing to marry her except that I had some other considerations…

"Are you worried about this one's "thing"...don't worry, this one's body hasn't been touched by another male yet. Harpy witches are different from harpies, we are absolutely loyal to our mates." As she said that, her bewitching face inched ever closer towards me...to the point where I was able to smell her scent, her musky...stimulating...scent.

"Men and women shouldn't...don't come so close…" Such an eyeful...there was nothing human-like about her except for her face and body shape, but that face of hers...it's just so pretty...and those curves…I bet any man would die for a chance to bury their head in those curves.

Hey, get a hold of yourself, me! At this rate, I might just give into that allure and nod my head...sigh...3D demonic ladies are just too dangerous!

"Hmm, isn't your face a little red?" She reached out and cupped my face with her leathery eagle claws. Strangely, they didn't feel as bad as I thought they would. They weren't hard like I thought they would be; instead, they had an unexpected softness to them.

As her thick musky scent filled every pore of my being, a haze seemed to form over my head. I subconsciously leaned in on her, lips parted as if I was going to kiss her neck…

"It's alright. You're a man after all, how are you going to show off your charm and status with so little wives. But the position of First Wife has to be mine."

As if she had discovered something inconceivable, she gave an interested smile and said: "Oh my, you are actually still able to resist, looks like those two girls are really important to you, then how about I compromise once more, the position of First Wife will be decided by our strengths."

"Since you've accomplished what you wanted, how about waking her up now?" That entire process took place in whispers, so other than the two of us, only Habona who happened to be beside us at the time was aware of it at all. Seeing that Numila had managed to fleece a marriage agreement out of me, she folded her arms impatiently and snapped: "To think that you're the head of a clan, you actually stooped to such underhanded tricks."

"Hng hng hng, it's one of our racial skills, what's wrong with me using it? Oh~ don't tell me you're jealous?" Numila threw the werewolf a derisive look and gave her a generous shove: "Hey, if you want to join us I don't mind, but just remember, you have to be the concubine."

Brandishing her straight blade, a fire tornado immediately roared to life while Habona activated the illusory powers of the Inversion Cut; what was a backstep ended up turning into a charge. The fire tornado rushed at the oncoming werewolf neither too quickly nor too slowly. Twisting her body at the last moment, she lunged sideways at the harpy witch and swiftly appeared at her flank.

Having never experienced the Inversion Cut firsthand, Numila wasn't aware of the skill's uniqueness. However, she was still a four-star just like Habona and wouldn't go down so easily, especially with the straight blade boosting her powers. Seeing the rapidly approaching werewolf, she spun the straight blade around, conjuring a fire whip which extended from the tip of the blade into a ten meter long fiery snake that immediately dove for the werewolf!

In her usual display of logic-defying agility, Habona twisted her body in between the crevices of the whip and leaped right at the harpy.

"This harpy won't lose in a contest of speed either!" She lowered her body slightly, and with a few flaps, took to the air while easily avoiding the werewolf's claws. "Don't forget, this harpy can fly!"

Just as those words left her mouth, she violently flicked the straight blade in her hand, transforming the fire whip into a dozen flame bolts that swiftly surrounded the werewolf.

"Hahaha, this weapon is practically made for me. This harpy's fiance is just too nice to her, with this blade, this harpy will be able to stomp on all the other four-stars! Fighting those two b*tches to a draw might even be possible, in fact, this harpy might even be able to win!"

"What fiance?" With some vague memory that I had just done something earthshaking, I was finally brought back to my senses by the sound of their battle. What are these two women doing fighting with each other? Didn't we just start talking?

Seeing that I had come to my senses, the two of them knew to stop fighting without my instruction. However, that answer had just given me the fright of my life. When did I suddenly gain another fiance?

Violet Snow immediately threw me a despising look as if to say "Scumbag men who try to start a harem should go kill themselves".

As for the No.3 and the other potatoes, they all had a confused look on their face. How could a female devil like me become another person's fiance?

Mimiya on the other hand, had an almost celebratory look on her face as she raised her voice: "Congratulations to Master Mo Ke for getting betrothed!"

Even though I had just inexplicably gained a fiance, the only fiance who was by my side in fact, why did I still feel this prickling sense of unease throughout my body?

Naturally, just based on her face alone, she was without a doubt a rare beauty...but once you factored in the bottom...I just can’t accept a demonic girl with a feathery lower half for my girlfriend!

Ever since I came to my senses, my growing unease had been the intense focus of Numila. Seeing my wavering eyes, she knew that I still had some apprehension about the whole deal, so she handed back the enchanted straight blade: “Even though you’ve already agreed, I won’t force you to fulfill that promise if you truly don’t want to.”

“I…” Honestly, she wasn’t that bad either...except for that demonic lady part of her. Besides, the whole adorable demonic lady genre was still thriving in my homeland; if those otakus were to ever find out that I was unhappy about being courted by such a demonic lady, they would probably lynch me.

“I just knew that you’re the best!” With a jubilant cheer, she rushed up to me and smothered her face against mine. Then, with hands grabbing onto my cheeks, lowered her rosy lips onto mine...did I just get molested…

As her tongue did a fiery dance within my mouth, a wave of lightheadedness hit me. My nose was instantly assailed by the heavy scent wafting off her body. Her tongue wrapped around mine and held it still as her fiery wings closed in and encased us. That sensation was simply indescribable. It was as if I had lost myself in that instant. That warm feeling was exquisite as well, kind of like I was in a hot spring but a million times more comfortable.

“Ahhhh…they’re kissing, they’re kissing!” The chaos-loving Mimiya exclaimed excitedly. At the side, she even began cheering us on while waving her little fist.

Violet Snow on the other hand, had her eyes wide open in shock. Just as it felt like I was going to faint from asphyxia, a snowy white paw shoved me aside and forcefully broke us apart.

Having had her fun interrupted, Numila glared at the offending puppy who had a similarly sullen look on her face as well. Squinting at the harpy, she pointed her tiny little paws at the sky and said: “Someone’s looking for you.”

She whipped her head in the direction of Violet Snow’s paws. At an ever shrinking distance away, was a horde of harpies led by two harpy witches.

Like her, both of these witches had faces that could only be described as gorgeous. Yet, while their body was mostly humanoid, their feathery torsos, claws and legs was clearly not those of a human’s. Their feathers were both unique in their own way, with one of them being snow white while the other being a beautiful shade of cyan and green.

“Yo~, isn’t that Numila, we were wondering where you ran off to all this while, seems like you were busy making out with that female devil over there.” It was Eugenia who spoke up first with that unabashedly taunting voice of hers.

Elena Skyfrost was noticeably silent throughout this entire interaction. Like her surname, her personality was as frosty as the snow and elegant like the heavens.

In comparison, Eugenia Windstorm was like a chatterbox, the kind who started off the conversation with a not-at-all veiled jibe, like the one she threw at Numila. Don’t you know that she’s now my fiance? Even more unforgivable was that you actually mistook me for a female!

“Hmph, so you’ve found some help I see. Well, it doesn’t matter even if you’ve broken the laws of our race and found these outsiders to help you. No matter who you bring in, your fate is to fall by my hands today, Numila Blaze!”

My brows furrowed at her provocations, yet before I could even refute her words, I was stopped by Numila’s pleading gaze. “My love, this is an internal dispute within this one’s race, it should be handled by this one.”

My love...when that normally crass harpy, who would usually address herself in the third person for no reason, suddenly shows a tender side like this...it’s just so enticing...I think I might just fall in love here…

“Thank you.” She sent a flying kiss my way before turning around to face her two unwelcome guests. With the enchanted blade brandished, she yelled: “I know what you’re here for, you’re here to steal my territory and position aren’t you? Well, you’ll have to ask this blade in my hands first!”

“Yo~, is that one of the so-called human weapons I heard so much about? Seems like an interesting toy.” Despite her lack of knowledge of its power, that didn’t stop the chatterbox from roasting it, “Come on then, let’s have a gander at what that toy can do.”

“Toy? Hmph, you’ll find out soon enough if it’s a toy.” Turning to face Elena: “Both of you can just come at me, I’m too lazy to take you all on one by one.”

The frosty harpy hovering above, gazed at her fiery counterpart from her lofty position and a second later, said: “You’re sure of that?”

“Bring it on!” Without answering her question directly, Numila took to the skies, weapon blazing as she preemptively lunged at the two witches. This was a declaration of war. She used her actions to tell them: I’ll take both of you on at the same time.

“Hahaha, looks like that thrashing last time wasn’t enough to teach you a lesson. Since you want to get beaten up so much, I’ll just have to grant that wish of yours! This time, I’ll make sure to hit you even harder so that you won’t forget the pain anytime soon!” Ignoring Numila’s domineering display, she turned to her ally: “Windstorm!”

Their wings flapped in unison, calling forth a maelstrom of bone-chilling winds formed from the union of Eugenia’s violent gale and Elena’s wave of frost.

The moment the crimson blade sliced through the air, flames roared to life along its path. Within seconds, a scorching flame wall materialized in mid-air, neither touching the ceiling nor touching the ground as it blocked the incoming maelstrom.

This fire wall...I’m able to conjure a fire wall as well, but under no circumstances am I able to do it without a point of contact like her...the fact that she was able to create one in the middle of the air was just...impossible! It was just as impossible as raindrops stopping in mid air.

A look of astonished disbelief flashed across the two witches’ eyes as they saw their combined attack thwarted so easily by a simple fire wall. While this wasn’t the full extent of their powers, it was still a combined attack. Had it been the Numila of the past, there was no way she could’ve deflected it so easily. But now...how did she do that? Was it that blade? That human weapon?

“Will she really be alright by herself?” Even though this fiance of mine came into my life without any warning, it was still a mutual agreement. In that case, I must honor my obligations; was she really alright fighting alone?

“Don’t worry, with that blade you gave her, her strength might even be higher than my own.” Being the only four-star present, Habona naturally knew that my question was directed at her, thus she promptly answered; an answer that completely caught me off guard. “Numila’s affinity with that blade is really high, I wouldn’t be surprised if it evolved in her hands.”

It goes without saying that an epic weapon’s might couldn’t be overlooked so easily. Just look at Shadowfang, despite my lack of knowledge of its powers, it still gave me a dominating edge over my opponents. It’s indestructibility alone gave me the power to fight those who were of a higher star level than me, not to mention it strengthened my shadow spells by a significant amount.

That enchanted blade had a similar strengthening effect on fire spells as well. Not only that, it functioned as a pseudo-staff of sorts. This attribute alone made her spells significantly more powerful; as anyone in the human world will tell you, the difference between a mage with a staff and a mage without one was the difference between heaven and earth.

There were even new mages who lost the ability to cast simple spells because they lost their staff, which wasn’t surprising in the least. The purpose of a staff was to aid a mage in spellcasting so true staves had the permanent effect of strengthening and simplifying spells. As for the extent of those effects, that depended on the quality of the staff.

Either way, the lesson here was to avoid fighting rich players(whales) who had all the best gears in a MMORPG. Numila was the whale in this case, and the other two witches were the plebs. Depending on the game, all you needed was your credit card.

This truth was confirmed once more as Numila’s dominance was apparent for all to see. No matter how cold the frost wave was, and no matter how fast the blistering winds were, Numila’s fire wall never faltered for a second. With the frost failing to put out the fire, all the wind did was fan the flames even more. It wasn’t long before the two witches were swatted to the ground in a giant explosion of flames, ending their one-sided fight with a flashy bang.

"How could you suddenly become so strong?" Eugenia slowly climbed to her feet. She had barely suffered any damage, instead it was the shock of her complete loss that inflicted the most damage on her. Until now, she still couldn't accept that their foe had trounced them so thoroughly.

"Hah, you want to know why?" A trace of elation could be heard within her voice. Having gained such a treasure, she naturally wanted to show it off; thus, without giving it much thought, she shoved me right into the spotlight and said: "Naturally, it's because of my dear fiance!"

"Impossible," Elena chimed in abruptly in a rare break from her usual silence, her eyes casting a doubting pall over the bragging witch, until finally, her eyes settled on the blade in her hands. "That blade!"

"That's right, that's the gift my fiance gave me! It's precisely because of this blade that I was able to get so strong!" As if to prove her point and leave a deeper impression on them, she activated the magic engraved onto the blade, despite never being taught how to do so. In an instant, over ten flame arrows fanned out in a row, spanning from side to side in an orderly fashion. Yet, instead of firing off like what she had intended, they actually combined together into a never-before seen form: a pair of wings made of actual flames.

A shocking amount of heat radiated from the wings the very next instant, at the same time sucking in the fire mana within Numila like a voracious beast. Immediately, the wings began to grow from the infusion of mana until finally it wrapped around the entire blade. This looks...it's almost like a cocoon.

"What's going on? What is it doing it? It...it seems to be absorbing my mana…" She immediately tried to toss away the blade, but it stuck to her hands as if it had taken root. No matter how much she shook her hands, the blade refused to budge and even began to rapidly wrap her hands in flames. At this rate, it would only take a few more seconds before it completely swallowed her whole in its fiery maw.

This was too much of a shock for the harpy witch who threw me a panicked look as if looking for help: "Dearest...the blade...there's something wrong with it…"

Truth be told, I was just as shocked by this turn of events as she was. Even though her feathers still weren't something I could digest, she was, in the end, my fiance. If she were to be burnt to death like this...wait, a flame harpy witch like her being burnt to death? That's not even a funny joke.

"Oh yea, it's burning! It's burning!" Not too far away, Mimiya, the little devil who couldn't wait for the world to crash and burn, was already beside herself in excitement as she pumped her fist into the air and cheered. Looking at her jump up and down like an excited child, she almost looked like a jester invited by a monkey.

"Hahaha, let's see how you brag while on fire." Seeing her foe in danger, Eugenia couldn't be any happier as she guffawed. "Burn faster! Burn that witch to death!"

to her, Elena was just as entranced by the strange sight of a flame harpy being burnt as her companion. She shook her head emotionlessly and with the radiant sight of Numila burning still reflected in her white pupils, she softly declared: "It's useless."

Not willing to stand by idly anymore as her fiance, I promptly rushed forward to save her from this predicament. Yet just as I took the first step forward, Habona's claws grabbed onto my shoulders: "Wait, observe the situation carefully for a moment."

"..." I was still as confused as ever by her words but their calmness did have an effect on me. I squinted my eyes and peered at the burning mess.

"Oh...now that you mention it, I feel nothing except that my mana is still being drained…" Hearing my question, she seemed to have calmed down as well and noticed that this out-of-control fire wasn't actually trying to harm her. Realizing this, she lowered her head slightly in embarrassment as she apologized: "Dearest...because this one suddenly lost control of her flames...she got scared and…you know..."

Though she didn't finish that sentence, I roughly got the gist of it. In her defense, this whole incident must've been a great shock to her. Being a flame harpy witch, she was born with an innate ability to control flames. Flames were basically like a friend to her, a friend that would never hurt her and would listened to her whims. Having such a friend suddenly "turn on" her, it wasn't hard to imagine why she would show such a panicked side.

Seeing that she finally calmed herself down, I breathed a sigh of relief as well. "Just as you were then, oh right, how much mana do you have left?"

Hasn't eaten its fill...meaning it still required more mana? I guess it was rather common to see magical implements draining their owner's mana once they ran out of charges but the fact that this wasn't planned was concerning. Would she even have enough mana?

Most of the time, such mana charging was done with ample preparations since a person's mana pool had its limits after all. In the past, there were cases of mages being turned into a dry husk by some exceptionally powerful magical arrays. Once a person's mana was used up, any further attempt to drain his or her mana would forcefully convert their lifeforce into mana. In other words, the mage was playing with their life when they pushed past their mana limits.

Want to experience the sensation of growing old in a day? All you needed to do was sign up over here right now, just place your hand right on top of this magical tool!

Didn't that mean that Numila was in grave danger right now? Heavens only knew what that blade was planning to do with all that mana! Was it storing it in a bank somewhere or was it snacking on it?

"It's definitely an evolution, there's no mistaking it." Unlike my pointless tsukkomis, Habona's observations yielded a much more useful conclusion of 'evolution'.

Throwing me a placid look for a second, she turned back to the harpy who was engulfed in flames from the neck down and waist up: "The blade you gave to her is about to evolve."

"Ah!" That straight blade was going to evolve?! It's already a high-grade enchanted blade so did that mean it was going to become an epic blade now? Wasn't that the same level as Shadowfang then!?

One had to know that when an epic weapon was wielded by an owner that it had an extremely high compatibility with, the increase in strength wasn't just a simple one plus one equal two kind of thing.

I don't remember it acting strange when I used it, so why did it suddenly evolve the moment Numila wielded it? Man, she has all the luck.

Just as I was lamenting about her main character halo, Habona chimed in with another sentence that squarely slapped me back to reality.

"You'd better think of something quick, her own mana might not even be enough for the blade to evolve. If it doesn't get what it wants, it's highly likely that Numila will be turned into a dry husk."

It was then that a Numila who was beginning to feel her mana pool empty, turned towards me and pleaded for help: "Dearest...my mana is about to run dry...what should I do…"

"I...don't you feed on souls as well, then you should also know how to convert souls into mana...you do know how to do that, right?"

"I got it..." I hurriedly turned towards No.3 and instructed him: "Quick, send over all the souls we collected on the way here. Big.4, I want you to go and hunt for more souls, wipe out all the non-friendly life forms you saw on the way here. Harvest their souls as fast as possible and get back here quick!"

On the way here, we had collected a substantial amount of souls from the undead, and while they mostly went to me, the grimoire, Mimiya and Violet Snow, I had set aside some of the souls as a gift, knowing that Numila fed on souls as well.

Having been attacked by those two harpy witches shortly after arriving, I naturally forgot about this matter entirely, but there was no better time than now to remember it.

Upon acknowledging my command, Big 4 immediately led his team away to hunt for more souls. No.3 immediately got down to work as well, commanding the devils to fetch the twenty over two-star undead soul fires with a wave of his hand. The souls were dumped in the vicinity of Numila seeing as she was still encased in flames.

While the enchanted blade had no intention of harming her with those flames, that didn't mean that the flames were completely harmless to everyone else as well.

Clearly frightened by the scorching heat, my subordinates hurriedly chucked the souls onto the ground before scampering off. Even so, there were still some poor souls who got caught in the flames and began burning...such a fearsome fire, even the flame resistant devils were afraid of it.

As for Numila's harpies, they knew to start hunting for souls even without her command, leaving only Elena, Eugenia and their respective subordinates left on site.

"Hey you...do you need us to help?" Eugenia pointed at the blazing Numila and asked: "We can't just stand here and watch her die, can we?"

"Move." Elena was even more direct with her words and simply threw down a "move" before taking to the air and leading her subordinates away.

Huh? Did she mean that the blade was worried about her? Wasn't it just an object? How could it worry about its owner...unless...this bit of consciousness was part of being an epic equipment?

With the advantage of flight, the harpies' speed meant that they were the first ones to return with souls. In just a short span of 3 minutes, the first batch of soul fires was delivered to Numila. It wasn't much, roughly several dozen souls. Thankfully, with those 20 two-star souls we gave her just now, she was still able to hold on. At the very least, the blade wasn't consuming her lifeforce.

Seeing her quietly endure the mana drain amongst the roaring flames, every second I stood there truly felt like a year. There was no feelings between us, yet when push came to shove, I couldn't help but be concerned about her thanks to this bit of connection we shared.

It was difficult to put my finger on what kind of feeling it was. Perhaps it was simply my possessiveness at work here? After all, setting up a harem was my end-goal, so recruiting every girl I liked, was in a sense, my current goal. Dang, when did I turn into some main character of a harem novel?

Time dragged on painfully until finally, at the one hour mark, the enchanted straight blade was finally satiated. Its metallic body began to melt slowly, turning into a rounded shape right at the end which looked a glowing ball of flames that was almost 10 centimeters wide.

The glowing ball of flames began flying around autonomously, leaving behind a brilliant trail of flames like a jet propelled plane would as it flew about. However, unlike a jet plane, what it left behind was pure fire elements that sparkled for over ten seconds before finally disappearing.

"This one's survival is all thanks to you, Dearest. This one loves you to death!" Somehow it felt like she was a completely different person.

With the danger gone, she leaped into my arms, and without caring about anything else, tightly pressed her weapons of mass destruction against my chest...surprisingly, they felt rather nice even through the feathers...especially that wafting scent and softness…

After struggling for a few arduous minutes, I finally broke free and quickly changed the topic: "That enchanted blade did not have a name previously, but now that it has evolved, I think you should give it one."

"Hmm, what would be a nice name…" She pondered it for a moment before promptly tossing the problem back to me; looks like she didn't have a knack for naming things. "Dearest should be the one who thinks of a name for this one's blade."

"In that case, how about..." Looking at the ball of flame circling a couple of inches away, a name immediately came to mind which was rather good, if I had to say so myself. "How about Flametail?"

"Flametail? Sounds great, this one likes it. You're the best, Dearest!" As she said that, she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me on the head.

Come to think of it, Numila seemed to have changed completely since we were betrothed. Instead of that fiery loose cannon we met previously, she seemed more like a teenager. A teenager in love…

"Hey, hey, hey, this Numila seems weird." Eugenia nudged her frosty companion, eyes wide open and a face filled with incredulity "What happened to that fellow who goes "this harpy, this harpy" for no reason?"

Numila loosened her arms and turned to the other two witches with a smug, authoritative look on her face: "I still have to thank you two for what you did just now, you two actually went out of your way to hunt those souls for me."

Not realizing the subtle change in Numila's attitude, Eugenia crossed her arms and dismissed her words: "It's not like we were planning to kill you, we just wanted to recruit you. All that was just a misunderstanding on your part not mine."

"What do I want? I want the two of you to submit to me." Numila's lips cracked into a smile that wasn't the least bit like one, the look in her eyes ever changing as she stared at them. At the same time, Flametail started to revolve faster around her, the heat in the air rising as it did so.

As the heat slowly climbed to sweltering levels, Elena was the first to back away from the fearsome weapon. While she hadn't suffered much injuries in the previous fight, her elemental nature made her particularly susceptible to the heat. However, it wasn't long before Eugenia had to back away as well from the blistering heat. /span

"Sigh…" The two witches stared at each other helplessly. Now that their defeat was basically set in stone, what else could they do other than submit to her as per their ancestral rules.

"Hahaha, good, you two may rise." Numila promptly accepted their pledge of allegiance without any intention of making things hard on them. However, upon noticing that she didn't intend to press the issue, the ever capricious Eugenia immediately rushed to my side.

With what looked like an awkward attempt at flirting, she batted her eyelashes at me and pushed her feathery self onto me: "Hello there, this one is Windstorm, Eugenia Windstorm. This one really admires you so can you give this one a blade as well? As long as you give this one a blade, this one will marry you."

Like a cat that had its tail stepped on, Numila almost leaped to the air in anger upon hearing those words: "Eugenia! I dare you to say that again! This harpy will pluck out all your feathers!"

"Hah hah hah, while this one has submitted to you, this one still has the right to pursue her partner, this one just so happens to like this lust demon, what'cha gona to do about that!"

"Hah, this harpy this, this harpy that, you haven't changed one bit. You're still as boorish as ever, what makes you think any man will like you. This one is so much better than you, not only is this one soft and approachable, this one knows how to be coy unlike a brute like you."

"Die!" Having obviously lost to Eugenia's cannon of a mouth, she immediately readied herself in a bid to teach this unruly subordinate of hers a lesson.

However, Eugenia wasn't one to be intimidated so easily either: "This one isn't afraid of you, don't forget, this one is about to marry Master Lust Demon, if you harm this one's body, Master Lust Demon will get angry!"

What the f*ck, when did I end up in such a relationship with Eugenia, didn't we just meet each other? We haven't even spoken more than a few sentences with each other. But, now's not the time for this, they look like they're about to start another fight!

"Alright, alright, stop fighting, you two. Can't you all learn from Elena, see how calm she is compared to you two. At this rate, my ear drums will be damaged by your constant bickering." I scolded the two witches while hurriedly stepping between them.

At that, Elena's pale cheeks reddened slightly before throwing me a bashful smile. Glancing at me for a second, she immediately lowered her head in embarrassment.

"Elena doesn't mind marrying either…" As she murmured those words which made me want to spit out more blood, she bashfully averted her eyes from my own.

Exactly...what's going on today, hmm? Why did all three of them propose to me in a day? It's probably that isn't it? They all wanted an elemental weapon that suited them; at the very least, I possessed that amount of self-awareness to know I'm not that attractive.

Seeing this spectacle play out before her, Habona couldn't help but throw me a sneer: "Your harem seems to have grown more chaotic."

"What harem are you talking about? I don't even know anything about this matter so don't just go around sticking that tag onto me!"

"Ah...I know that, I know that." Darn it, why must all the creatures of hell be so brain dead, don't they know how to solve matters without resorting to their fists? Can't we just have a nice, peaceful conversation and live in harmony together?

"Wooo! Fight! Fight! Mimiya wants to see a fight!" At the side, Mimiya once again stepped in to flaunt her existence. Her cheers grew as she watched the situation develop with rapt excitement. Devil knows what she was thinking right now, but it was probably something along the lines of this world wasn't chaotic enough.

Violet Snow on the other hand, was a lot calmer. After attempting to dig a tiny hole in the floor with her adorable little paws, she threw me a side glance and said, "Seems like you've gained even more wives, huh."

Hearing my voice, Eugenia immediately leaped at me with eyes that seemed to have turned into hearts: "Dearest, this one missed you so much!"

"B*stard!, Open your potato eyes and see clearly, he's this harpy's fiance!" In an amazing display of hand-eye coordination, she swiped her claw between us and prevented her from coming any closer to me.

"Shut up, you idiot!" Once again, Numila's mouth cannon came out short and it wasn't long before the both of them were on the verge of fighting again.

"Elena wants a hug too." Not willing to be left out, Elena promptly cut in as well. Taking advantage of their argument, she rushed in at lightning speed and hugged me.

Don't be fooled for a second by her cold demeanor that seemed like a block of ice; her body wasn't the least bit cold, not at all like what I'd initially thought. At most, it was slightly cooler to the touch but was still extremely comfortable. Plus, her body's scent wasn't like Numila's at all, it had a kind of minty freshness to it.

That's right, Elena was as stunning as a plum blossom to me. Not just because the only snow flower my tiny brain could think of was the plum blossom, mhm. (Author: What do you think of a snow lotus?)

Harpy Witches were all drop dead gorgeous, assuming you didn't look at their feathery body of course. Covering their feathers with a coat might work too; they would be angels if you did that.

"Ah, you actually dared to sneak in a hug! Unforgivable! This one wants a hug as well!" Eugenia swiftly broke off from her opponent, who was still in the shock from seeing me being hugged. With a leap, she grabbed onto my back; her breasts pressed firmly against me as she did so. A faint, elegant scent began wafting into my nose...so fragrant...why do all the harpy witches smell so nice…

"Hahaha, I hugged him, now he's my fiance. Now that you're this one's fiance, then this one wants a weapon stronger than Numila's as a meeting gift."

With me as the center, the three harpies began fighting again...by the way, I'm the innocent one here, can you not tug on my clothes… (Author: The black robes from the Western Human Realm.)

Adding up the harpies from Elena, Eugenia and Numila, that would mean that we had gained around 6,000 harpies. Adding that to the 2,000 from Mo En and the 1,500 or so from the medusas and demonic werewolves, we had almost reached the target of 10,000. However, one does not simply walk into battle like that. On top of numbers, there were a number of logistic problems to handle, for example, weapons.

The main reason why my subordinates were able to possess a greater combat strength than their peers was because of the weapons I crafted for them. By that logic, if I were to distribute some weapons to the various elites of the clans, the various races should experience an explosive boost in strength as well.

What was it like inside this so-called prison exit? No one knew for sure, but according to rumors, anyone who tried to forcefully break through were all dead. Plus, those four-stars who supposedly left the Prison of the Dead hadn't sent a single word back; so there was basically no news about this mysterious exit.

Since we had no information about the exit, this brings us to another problem; the problem of time. We had nearly 10,000 troops on our side; exactly how long did we have to sustain these massive numbers for? How much food did we need to bring?

Even though we had all basically agreed that a horde of undead awaited us in there, and we could sustain ourselves off those souls, I couldn't guarantee that there would be no regions that were just paved with traps. If we encountered such a region, what were we to do? Having no enemies means having no food too.

Without food, we would be lucky if the army didn't just implode let alone fighting against the enemy. There's no way we could advance while feeding on our own.

With the three harpy witches in tow, we returned to Mo En's nest. Until the day we set off for the prison exit, his nest was to be our temporary headquarters.

The location of the exit had already been determined; roughly half a month's march from our current location. Along the way, we would definitely encounter the territories of numerous other races. However, if they knew what was good for them, they would join us. My army wasn't just for show after all.

Initially, I had intended to turn the harpies into javelineers, but none of them had hands to speak of since they had an eagle's body after all; though with a female human's head. Strictly speaking, harpies were half-beast monsters. While their claws were able to wield a javelin, their flexibility wasn't on the same level as a human's arm.

I experimented with this idea several times but the result wasn't really ideal. The main issue was that their accuracy was too low, to the point where it shattered whatever pre-conceptions I had about them.

Originally, I assumed that they would be fantastic javelineers since they had an eagle's eye and all. Plus, with their high ground, they should have a better view of their target. However, the lack of arms ended up sinking this idea in the end.

Yet, taking into account that there were 6,000 of them, their individual accuracy wasn't such a crippling problem. After all, with 6,000 javelins raining down on the enemy, I'm sure at least a few of them will hit.

This wasn't some YY (Chinese Discord) novel after all, there's no way one could casually encounter some unknown flying species that so happened to fit one's requirements. These harpies were experts at diving and auditory charms, not ranged attacks.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but the undead were immune to psychic magic so their own deadly weapon was basically useless against the undead.

Right now, I was swarmed with a host of things to do since I was the only one who could use Dark Alchemy. As for the others...I tried to get them to help out, but the Grimoire of the Dead would have none of that. It wouldn't even allow any of them to touch it, or rather, it didn't allow any male lifeform to touch it.

Besides, not everyone had the talent for magic, even if they were devils. At the end of the day, it was only me who could use Dark Alchemy...so tiring...how I wish someone was here to share this load with me…

There were around 6,000 harpies so in order to arm them all, I would have to create 6,000 javelins. If I wanted to arm them with two javelins each, that would make it 12,000; if three, then it would be 18,000...someone kill me. There's no way this was possible with just me alone.

Thus, I decided on a different plan. Under my command, my subordinates began gathering up bones and sharpening them into stakes. The length of the bones didn't matter; as long as they were sharpened, they could be used as shortspears. With their height advantage, the speed of these spears would get boosted by gravity...given enough speed, even paper can kill a person let alone a bone stake. (TL: Science!)

The task of grinding these bone javelins were given to the devils. Though they were mostly simple brutes, sharpening bones shouldn't be a problem for them, plus, they had their brutish strength going for them. I ended up handing this task over to No.5, that little potato. This unevolved potato was no help in a fight, so if he couldn't even manage my army, then perhaps it's time to review my hiring policies.

With the matter of my aerial forces settled, next came the problem of my mounted forces. For that, I would have to rely on Violet Snow and her hellhounds.

Seeing as that oddity Big 5 was able to tame a hellhound and use it as his mount, that meant a hellhound cavalry was a possibility; at the very least, their backs weren't as weak as I had initially feared.

During my little jaunt in the human world, I made sure to keep an eye out for saddle schematics, so in a sense, that trip wasn't a complete disaster. Thus, with my Dark Alchemy and the hides I skinned from some creature, I created the first ever doggie saddle...doggie saddle...why does that sound so weird...I'll just call it a saddle…

The experimental saddle was basically a success; while there were still some kinks to work out, it performed its function of stabilizing Big 5 as he rode his hellhound. In a test fight between Big 5 and No.3, No.3 ended up being pushed back a couple of paces while Big 5 was still seated comfortably on his hellhound. Based on that, the saddle was a success. As for the kinks, I could work them out when I had more time.

Now that we have a cavalry unit, we don't have to cower in fear from those undead horsemen anymore. All we have to do is charge right at them and I guarantee my saddles would do their job.

The newly minted cavalry unit was naturally commanded by Big 5. However, due to our previous skirmishes, there weren't many hellhounds left, coming out at roughly 40. There were 5 other hellhounds, but those were Violet Snow's personal guard so naturally they couldn't be counted as part of the cavalry unit.

While I did leave the cavalry unit in Big 5's command, in essence, it was a unit led by Violet Snow since she was the princess of those hellhounds. Who else would they listen to if not her?

However, she didn't have much desire for authority, all she forbade was that I use her hounds as cannon fodder. It went without saying that I agreed to that. In my eyes, the hellhounds were basically an endangered species right now. Plus in light of my relationship with Violet Snow, these hellhounds were naturally treated as a sort of special forces and received the corresponding grooming.

In order to prevent any unexpected casualties amongst the hellhounds, I even considered creating hide armors for them. Unfortunately, armors for animals were different from the usual leather armors made for humans; the fact that I had no experience crafting leather armors didn't help either. Not to mention that such an armor design was inherently more complex that normal leather armors. If it was too heavily armored, it would affect their mobility, yet too little protection would defeat the purpose of it as well.

With Mo En's nest as our gathering point, we created an alliance of races that was, for the time being, managed by me. My mission right now was to make the preparations for the upcoming assault, procure supplies and craft weapons.

Coming back to the issue of food, I had to say this was a rather tricky one. Storing them was a whole issue in of itself. Souls dissipated easily while meat spoiled quickly. That was why we had only managed to bring close to two day's worth of food when we first entered the Prison of the Dead; any longer than that and the stench alone could probably cause us to have diarrhea.

Thankfully, the medusas didn't require any equipment since their innate abilities gave them a ranged attack. The demonic werewolves were basically the same as well though they seemed to like the shields I sent them last time; I'll just craft a batch and send it as a gift then.

Amongst my subordinates, the ones who required the most gear were actually the demonic half-orcs. While each and every one of them had a strength that was much higher than an equivalent devil, they had a habit of using weapons. Not only that, looking at their weapon clad selves, they almost looked like a proper army, not a very strict one though. Compared to their unruly devil counterparts, giving them a set of finely crafted gear would achieve much more than if I were to hand that same set over to the devils.

However, a more pressing issue was their small numbers. After killing off the head of the demonic half-orcs, there were less than 50 of them left alive, 49 to be exact. While I did make sure to prevent any losses, we ended up losing some anyway, and now there was only 41 of them left.

What I had in mind for them was a lot more complicated than anything I had ever crafted before. Javelins, shields, longswords, long spears and maces; pretty much everything but the kitchen sink. More than anyone else, how could I not know what kind of potatoes were in my army? Trying to find the a tall one amongst these midgets, I decided to make use of this opportunity to create an elite force.

(TL: "make the best out of nothing", essentially in a group of midgets you try to find the "tall" one, but in the end they are all midgets. It's just a slightly taller midget)

Their leader, Baccarel, wasn't the strongest of them but his ability to command wasn't half bad. He should be able to lead this team, which I had high hopes for, to victory.

Of my devils, a third of them were tasked to gather bones while another third was instructed to sharpen said bones. That left one third of my devils to hunt for food.

As for the werewolves and medusas, they were tasked with capturing more slaves for our army while finding food. The prison exit was a fortress that hadn't been captured despite the passing of countless years; one couldn't be too safe in the face of such a formidable fortress. Plus the fact that there was no news of those four-stars who had left concerned me deeply.

After tens of thousands of years, no matter how stupid they were, some of them had to have thought of some way to send a message into the Prison of the Dead.

It's called scouting out the enemy, dont'cha know? Even the half-orcs who had muscles for brains knew the importance of scouting out their enemy.

Even so, breaking through the exit was something I had to do. I simply had no time to waste here. More importantly, No.3 and my other potatoes were all subordinates that had been with me since the Blood Sea; I wanted to lead them out of this hell hole and into Abaddon. Once we were out of here, I planned to huddle up in some remote corner and slowly build up my power, while at the same time, look for Yi Yi.

Though my hereditary memory was rather lacking, there were still a mountain of useful information within. In Hell, power was everything; no matter where you went, your power was tied to your right to speak. Since I had already recruited a bunch of subordinates, there was no reason to abandon them was there? Besides, if I was alone, I might end up being surrounded by a bunch of brainless buffoons...so Ferti'nier, when do you plan on leaving my body!?

It felt like every single task required my personal attention. Not to brag, but without me, these potatoes probably wouldn't even know their heads from their tails. As for how I knew this, that's simple. Because they were potatoes.

Naturally, not all of them were that stupid, and simply lacked the required experience to complete the task; thus, their progress was painfully slow. Given time, I'm sure their speed would slowly improve. The main problem was that there was some devils who were simply potatoing around.

For example, remember those bone javelins I earmarked for my harpy air force? The materials required to craft them were bones and even more bones. However, bones from the undead skeletons weren't usable as they became brittle once they lost their soul flames. In that case, we had to use the bones from the other life forms in the prison.

We would hunt the Abaddon Rodents, the dogmen and whatever other weak races we encountered. The benefits to this was that we not only gathered souls and gained meat to feast on, some of their longer bones could be turned into spears...somehow, it felt like I was turning more and more evil by the day. I'm basically picking apart all my enemies at this point.

The task of grinding the bones was actually really simple; it was basically mindless labor. However, here's where the problem came in. Who was the one in charge of this task? No.5, that's who. This little potato...back when I asked if he could do it, he said yes without any hesitation; yet, just a few days later, he was basically back to his lazy self. The entire task was thrown to his adjutant seeing as I basically had no time to monitor him, at least that's what he thought.

After finally climbing out of that mountain of work I had to settle, I found that a certain portion of my devils were loafing around. The leader of these lazy bums was none other than No.5. Naturally, he received his usual serving of tender loving care from No.3 as his reward. However, that beating would knock some sense into him. If he didn't learn his lesson, I'll just have to get some of my more unique devils to clean out his chrysanthemum. Trust me, I'd do it if he forces me.

(TL: For those of you who don't know, the chrysanthemum is a flower that is used as a euphemism for the anus, and "clean out his chrysanthemum" *cough* you know where I'm going with this)

As for training the harpies to throw the javelins, I didn't have to worry as much about that seeing as it was supervised by my three lovely monster girls, Numila, Eugenia and Elena. They promised to do their best, and that they did. They worked so hard that they even started to argue…

"Elena, you pulled a fast one on us again! Damn it, this one wants a hug too!" Having said that, Eugenia leaped over as well and hugged me from behind…

This time, Numila was truly miffed. The perpetually revolving Flametail started to radiate a frightening amount of heat, then a chaotic battle started…again.

Speaking of which, Mimiya and her birdbrain brother Mo Xixidi were relatively well-behaved in comparison. Mimiya was satisfied as long as she had a show to watch. Getting this troublemaker to help out wasn't really a realistic plan; however, as long as she stayed out of trouble I was alright with it. Right now, she was probably busy with Vick. Regarding these two little scamps, the combination of their playfulness could only be described as torturous, I just hoped they didn't set their eyes on any innocent devils.

As for Mo En...he was basically the same as his son. Whenever I asked him to help, he would crawl pitifully while lying on the ground, all the while displaying a "I'm dying" look on his face. "Ah, once a devil gets old, there's no helping it…"

In the end, the only helpful one of this bunch was Mo En's wife, the lust demon Julia. Julia was an extremely intelligent girl. After a round of testing, I found out that her management skills weren't too bad, and best of all, she had the talents for Dark Alchemy.

While I still didn't understand why the grimoire was being such a pain about letting her touch it, it's not like I needed the grimoire to teach Julia Dark Alchemy; I could teach her myself.

Dark Alchemy wasn't really a complicated field; rather, I should say that the Dark Alchemy spells I knew weren't complicated. All you had to do was create a mana whirlpool, toss the ingredients inside, set the designs, input the mana and that's it, all done.

Julia didn't disappoint in this aspect. In just two days, she picked up the skill and was able to craft her very first alchemical weapon. Given her larger pool of mana, I'm sure that her crafting efficiency would be a lot higher than mine. At least that was what I thought…

"My liege, this subordinate is worthless. Despite being a four-star primal lust demon, this servant's crafting speed isn't even half of my liege's speed. Not only that, the strength of the weapons are...if only this subordinate wasn't so useless, your lordship wouldn't have to work so hard. It's all this servant's fault, this servant is worthless, please punish this servant."

Within this cave filled with bones, Julia was currently prostrating herself before me with her forehead lowered to the point that it touched the ground. Despite her hidden face, I could clearly hear the despair and sadness in her voice.

"Don't be like that, it's not your fault. You've done well already. You're the only one who can help me in this field so don't be so hard on yourself. Besides...the reason I'm able to craft so well is because of the Grimoire of the Dead."

I got her to stand up first before I began recounting how I obtained this miraculous book, while at the same time, telling her of its powers.

"Wow, so this grimoire is actually so formidable, the first time I saw it, I already knew that it wasn't some ordinary object…" As she said that, she threw me a fervent look of worship that was a little too impassioned for me. I bet if I got her to lay on the ground and let me have my way with her, she would probably do so...however, wouldn't that make Mo En a cuckold. Plus, my pee pee was still on a holiday. MORE IMPORTANTLY, I'm not kind of person. Back on Earth, this brother was known as the Prince of Morals!

The grimoire was able to reduce the mana consumption of my Dark Alchemy while simultaneously boosting its effectiveness. That was why my crafting efficiency was so much better than Julia's despite my lower mana pool.

"I bet you're tired by now, how about we take a rest for now. I'll take a walk outside and see how the others are doing." Having crafted nearly a hundred weapons of various types, both Julia and I were tuckered out from all the casting. While we both had an endless supply of souls to feed us mana, we were after all, living creatures, and living creatures would get tired after working for so long.

As she wiped the sweat from her forehead, Julia's body radiated the seductive charms of a young married woman. This was especially so for those dangerous weapons of hers that were wrapped in fur…

Each time she breathed, they would jiggle a little. Truly a terrifying sight...sometimes I worry that they might just burst out of their flimsy bindings.

Err, I'm not lusting after another person's wife, I just felt that she wasn't wearing enough clothes. Hopefully, she realizes this and corrects this problem. It's not like I could tell her this straight to her face. No, that's simply too embarrassing. That's why I have no choice but to communicate with my eyes; mhm, hopefully she will learn this art of eye communication one day.

Her task right now was to take charge of the hunting party, not only that, this hunting expedition wasn't any old hunting trip. It required that she hunted further away from the nest than usual seeing as she not only had to bring back food, but intelligence as well; intelligence about the surrounding races.

Our current alliance was basically set in stone already. It was mainly comprised of the devils, the harpies, the demonic werewolves and the medusas. As for the hellhounds and half-orcs whose numbers were simply too little, they counted as part of the devils' faction seeing as they were my subordinates anyway.

Habona's task was to find any other clans from these four races and recruit them into our alliance. If they weren't willing to join us, that wasn't a problem either. After killing their leader and enslaving them, I'm sure they would be a lot more receptive to our alliance.

The demonic werewolves and the medusas were simply too rare; other than Habona's and Manasha's clans, we didn't find any other clans of their kind in the prison.

During this trip, Habona stumbled upon a pack of lizardmen who she brought back with her...hmm, about a hundred of them. Putting aside the brief glance I got of them when we tried to rescue Harlow from the harpies, this was the first time I've gotten a good look at these lizards.

In truth, these strange lizards had another name, drakeman; in other words, pseudo-dragonman. Because the western dragons were basically giant lizards with wings, it wasn't really a stretch to imagine that these lizards had some connection to the fearsome dragons. Of course, it could just be them trying to cook up some sort of fake connection. In light of that, I couldn't really say for sure if that name was an insult or an honorable one.

The lizardmen were all over two meters tall. While they were still shorter than the demonic werewolves, it wasn't by much. Their scales weren't particularly sturdy looking, while their appearances were...well, they're lizards, what do you expect them to look like?

"They are the lizardmen from Abaddon, basically they aren't any different from any other lizardmen. For the sake of differentiating them, you may call them Abaddon Lizardmen if you want." Habona pointed at one of the despondent lizardmen and said: "Originally, I wanted to recruit them, but their leader wasn't willing, so I got rid of him and brought back these 108 slaves. Their combat strength isn't too bad, all they need is some training and weapons and they should be rather outstanding warriors."

Speaking of which, were the Abaddon Rodents in the same boat as well? The Abaddon tag was simply to differentiate their origins in the same way that there were Chinese, Americans and Japanese.

Before I could continue talking to Habona, I heard some stirring a distance away. From the sound of it, it was probably another hunting party.

Looking around, I came upon the sight of the hunting party led by Manasha. On top of bringing back some loot, she brought back a giant pack of slightly deformed looking Abaddon Rodents.

"Our hunting trip was a rather fruitful one. Not only did we procure a bunch of materials, we even managed to capture over two hundred Abaddon Rodents." Having said that, she pointed at the imps who were busy carting off the bones: "Your henchmen aren't too bad either. Their combat strength is kind of bad but they are pretty good laborers."

Regarding those captives, I had them sent off for training. For those that did well, they would be promoted to an official soldier in my army and lose their slave status.

Basically, this was all a grudge amounted to in this dog eat dog world. As long as you were alive, it was infinitely better than being dead.

Recently, Big 5 had been training the hellhound cavalry units while Violet Snow's job was to search for other hellhounds and hopefully recruit them. Unfortunately, the hellhounds were a rare species in this prison and after an extensive search, Violet Snow's pack were the only hellhounds to be found.

Thus, Violet Snow ended up being rather free recently. She would wander around with her hellhounds and help me monitor No.5's bone grinding while at the same time monitoring Baccarel and Big 5's training.

It was around this time that Habona and Manasha came back with their spoils, so Violet Snow came over to have a look as well. That's when things started to take a turn for the worse. The normally calm Violet Snow suddenly erupted in a raging fit of anger.

"*Awoof*" Her unique bark that combined a wolf and a dog's was particularly loud and clear today; especially so since it was brimming with raw, negative emotions.

Amongst the Abaddon Rodent captives, there was a larger ratman who so happened to turn around in reaction to that bark. Upon seeing the furious Violet Snow, this rat received the scare of his lifetime and immediately tried to run away with his claws wrapped around his head as if that would make him harder to spot.

Violet Snow let forth a roaring bark, and in the blink of an eye, an icy prison formed of ice spikes rose from the ground. The icey prison quickly closed in on the fleeing rat, and like a giant hand, secured it firmly to that spot.

At the start, I couldn't wrap my head around the sudden change in this little puppy, but after giving it some thought, the answer easily came to mind. Back when I first met her, she was engaged in a fight to the death with these rodents; in fact, it was then that Violet Snow and I teamed up to take on the rodents and their leader.

In other words, she had a blood feud with these rats. That dagger accessory around her neck was crafted by me from a hellhound's skull, back then I had a lingering feeling that this was most likely her mother's…

Back then, we defeated the rodent leader but accidentally let that rat escape. Don't tell me this rat had something to do with that ratman leader?

"Mhm, he's a subordinate of that ratman leader we fought." Violet Snow coldly nodded her head before turning all of her attention to the trapped ratman. Eyes dripping with murderous intent, she opened her mouth: "*chit chit chiit*..."

What the sh*t...what the heck was with that [chit chit chiit]? Last I checked you were a dog...weren't you...I mean wolf...that's not right either...you were a wolfdog weren't you? What's with that chittering? Don't think for a secon d that that rat would suddenly answer you just because you decided to change races, mhm!

"Do any of you understand what they are saying?" You two seem to be engaged in a rather important conversation there….weren't you? How about letting me in on that?

"We don't understand the ratman's language either." Manasha shook her head: "Most of the time we only treat them as our main source of food since they are so weak. The only reason I brought them back alive was because you needed fodder."

I guess you got me there, wasn't a snake eating a rodent the most natural thing in this world? Who would be so bored as to research the language of their dinner meal? Not like doing that made the food taste any better. If it could not be eaten, screw it!

Basically, this was what the Prison of the Dead was like, if it could not be eaten, don't bother with it. After all, if you couldn't even fill your stomach, why bother with such trivial matters. Like the ancients say, food and warmth begets carnal desires. If you couldn't even fill your own stomach, let's see how you plan on chasing after that meow meow. I bet you would end up freezing to death upon insertion.

Seeing as Manasha didn't know their language, Majosha probably didn't know it either. As for Habona and Harlow...I skipped them without a second thought.

Finally, their conversation ended. Her expression was noticeably better this time around; she probably managed to get the information she wanted. Even so, that chilly aura around her hadn't dissipated one bit and seemed to have gotten even worse.

Ignoring the struggling rodent, she trotted up to me. With gritted teeth and an extremely sour expression on her face, she said: "I remember you mentioned that you were in dire need of resources like bones, souls and meat."

Given the unknown dangers ahead, having a bunch of soldiers I could toss away without a second thought would help tremendously. In fact, it would help even more if the soldiers were edible as well, given the issue of food freshness. Mhm, edible…

"I just obtained some information from that rodent over there; he mentioned that there was a giant gathering of the rats somewhere. As of now, they've gathered over 5,000 rodents and were planning to sweep the nearby regions in order to conquer a region for themselves. If we don't take care of them now, we would probably end up encountering them near the exit anyway."

"...5,000?" You're joking, why would they be considered weak if they had so many kinsdevil? Oh wait, those rats were pretty good at reproducing and running away so I guess it's possible.

"Not 5,000, at least 5,000." Violet Snow emphasized that point and continued: "That rat couldn't even be counted as one of their lesser leaders in the outer regions, so this bit of news might be outdated already. Besides, there's no guarantee that he wasn't lying about the numbers either."

He might've let out this bit of fake news to lure us to his nest. Once we arrive and find out that the enemy was actually several times larger than our own, our morale would crumble in an instant and then…

If these rats were truly out to consolidate their power, encountering them was inevitable; rather, we already encountered them, it's just that our intelligence was full of holes that had to be filled.

"Alright, I'll be thorough about it." She nodded her head and accepted the mission. "However, I'm taking this lot of rodents away with me, any problem with that?"

"Mhm, I said so, go ahead and do what you want." If there's one thing I hated, it was rats. Even if I wanted to treat my prisoners fairly, this bit of kindness wouldn't extend to these filthy creatures.

Having receiving my confirmation, she turned around to leave. Suddenly, another problem occurred to me and I hurriedly called out to her. Staring at me with those doubtful but adorable golden puppy dog eyes --- so cute, I just wanted to hug you and cuddle you to death, however there's more important matters now: "About that, how did you learn the ratman's language."

After throwing down those words, she ordered the imps in charge to lead the captured rodents away, including that rodent encased in the ice prison. Looking at that murderous silhouette, those rodents probably wouldn't live past a few days.

To think that these rodents were actually forming a coalition, how unexpected. Thank the devil Violet Snow knew how to speak their language or we would've been caught completely off guard.

A rat momma and her kids were out stealing food when they encountered a kitty. After seeing the kitty, the momma immediately led her kids into a nearby rathole to hide. However, the kitty had already caught onto their scent and began camping outside the hole.

The hole only had one entrance, so if that kitty stayed there forever, they would eventually starve to death. It was then that the momma came up with a brilliant idea and began to roughly mimic a dog's bark. Hearing the bark, the kitty scampered away in fear.

Having escaped from the kitty, the jubilant but surprised momma began teaching her kids: "See that, kitty cat was scared away by Momma's dog barks, goes to show how important learning another language is."

"Err, is there anyone who knows the lizardman language?" If even these stupid rodents could scheme, who knew if the lizardmen could as well.

Just as I was pondering about a potential lizardman scheme, an unfamiliar voice rang out from a short distance away: "Your excellency, may I know what are your instructions?"

Tracing the voice back to its source, I found myself staring at a lizard...when did these lizards learn to speak the language of the devills?

"Please do not be alarmed, we lizardmen communicate in the devil language as well." It was a burly lizardman who spoke up. On his right and left shoulders were particularly large scales that fanned outwards. Beneath them, were a pair of arms that were slightly bloodied as if they had been raked by claws.

"Ah, that makes things so much easier then. I was worried that we might have communication problems." Amongst these lizardmen were the old, the young and even some mothers who were cradling a half meter long baby. Truthfully, it was a rather surreal scene. Unlike the ratmen, these weren't healthy, strapping young lizards. In fact, it felt like there hadn't even been a violent clash at all.

If there was actually a fight, Habona would've probably killed off the old and the young by now. After all, we wanted fodder, these lizards would only be baggages and a drain on our food supplies. In other words, they didn't put much of a fight after they saw Habona's power?

"That's right, we were all awed by Lady Habona's display of power." As the lizardman said that, he threw a worshipful glance at Habona. A second later, he withdrew his gaze and humbly asked, "May I know who this Excellency is…"

Regarding my slightly disrespectful questioning that left his own hanging, the lizardman didn't show any sign of displeasure but merely nodded his head respectfully: "I've heard of it, according to rumors, it has never once been breached successfully and only the four-stars are able to leave at will and return to Hell."

"At the very least, I've never heard of it succeeding." Without outright rejecting that idea, he proceeded to touch upon his own views: "The prison exit has always been a place of nightmares for us."

Having my excitement dampened like that, I waved the lizardman away without even asking for his name. Tugging at Habona, I invited her to the side where we discussed the matter of that lizardman.

"Not feeling too well?" Seeing my dejected look, Habona asked the question anyway despite already knowing the answer: "You should've already expected this sort of response."

"That's why I want to break out of this place even more! Honestly, I don't even think the four-stars are able to leave this hellhole." Walking up towards a deserted corner, I folded my arms while leaning against the bony wall. I began sharing the conclusions I had come to: "Have you heard any word from those who left the prison?"

"Hmm...not really." Habona's eyes narrowed slightly as she quickly picked up on the implications of my question. "You're saying that the rumors of the four-stars being able to safely leave is false?"

"I'm not entirely sure either. At least till we find out for ourselves, this is merely an assumption of mine. However, Mo En's son has already left the prison, did you know of this?"

"A little. Apparently his son seemed to have received some kind of shock from the death of his wife and decided to leave prison, abandoning his children while they were still young. Even though that happened some time ago, I did hear of such a matter."

"Then just send a few more!" Having shot down each and every one of her explanations, I then voiced my own suspicion: "No matter what, this is where his birth parents and children are held and yet he hasn't even sen t back a single word, even devils aren't that heartless. Don't you find this strange at all?"

This oddity wasn't just limited to Mo En's son. Prior to this, I checked on every other devil who had some relative leave the prison after reaching four-stars. All of them never heard from their relatives again as if they had never existed at all.

These stories were a common theme amongst the different races I surveyed. Not only did the medusas, harpies and devils experience this strangeness, I even heard rumors of the dogmen and the ratmen experiencing this as well.

"Numila told me some time ago that the previous leader of the harpies, her mentor, rushed off to the exit after grooming her to be a harpy witch. Before leaving, she mentioned that she would find a way to send word back to the prison. As for the result...not only Numila, even Elena and Eugenia experienced roughly the same situation."

Cupping my forehead with my left hand, I sighed deeply. "Based on these facts, I've come to the conclusion that all the four-stars who left had never been heard from again."

"I don't know...that was just a conclusion I pieced together after listening to all of those accounts. I can't say for sure if it's true but...choosing not to abandon your clan after reaching four-stars might be the smartest choice you ever had in your life." After all, if you had left your clan then...we probably wouldn't have met at all.

All these four-stars who stayed behind...Habona, Manasha, Numila and the other four-stars who couldn't bear to leave their clan behind or perhaps those who didn't care about where they lived like Mo En...no matter what their reasons were, choosing to stay behind might have inadvertently saved their lives.

"Let's put aside this weighty topic shrouded in eons of mystery for now, how about we talk about those lizardmen instead. How did you get them to eat out of your hands like that?"

"I'm sure you already know of their custom of worshipping the strong. A few days back while we out hunting, we happened to stumble upon these lizardmen. That was when I asked them to join our alliance but they said they only followed the strong thus I gave them a thorough thrashing…"

So you're saying that you took on a hundred by yourself? Sister, can you get any more bada**? As expected of the werewolf who knows a terrifying skill like the Inverse Cut, this little brother is in awe of your strength once more!

Back to the those lizards, while their scales might seem rather thin, in truth they were a lot sturdier than their flimsy exterior would suggest. Not only that, they possessed a razor sharp set of claws.

As for their fangs, they were not only sharp but they possessed a host of toxins and viruses embedded within them that could easily take the life of any ordinary creature. In a head on battle, these lizardmen simply had to stall for time while their toxins finished off whatever opponents their formidable claws couldn't tear apart. Without a doubt, this was a combat race.

In actuality, that lizardman who spoke to me just now was a four-star but strangely his clan seemed rather small, coming in at only 108 despite having a four-star like him. This question lingered in my mind till I finally found out from Habona that this clan was actually a split off branch from a much larger clan. Apparently, their old leader had died and this caused a succession war of sorts amongst the lizardmen. Obviously, their current leader was one of the failures.

"So you're saying that the main branch of the lizardmen is currently under the control of Westley's sibling?" Westley was that lizardman who surrendered to Habona. According to him, after failing to succeed the clan, he escaped with a group of his die-hard supporters and began wandering around the prison. It was roughly then that Habona stumbled upon them.

"That's right. Supposedly they are largest lizardman clan in the prison with over 3000 clan members of whom the majority are of prime fighting age." Habona casually relayed the information she learnt from Westley after which she asked: "You want to subjugate them?"

"If it's possible." Truth be told...I still wasn't sure if this decision was right or not. I had considered waiting till I advanced to four-stars before leaving safely but the fact that none of the four-stars who left had sent any message back was simply too strange...it didn't make any sense at all.

Besides, my levelling speed is abysmal and I don't have the time to wait for that. Even if I did decide to wait it out, that would mean that I have to leave my subordinates behind. Facing the great unknown alone...no matter how I looked at it, that seemed like a terrible idea.

Clearly, I wasn't the only one interested in this endeavour as Habona couldn't help but ask: "What do you think's awaiting us at the prison exit?"

"I don't know but the more fodder we have, the better. Habona...I'll leave the matter of subjugating the lizardmen to you. Help Westley wrest back control of the clan and then all you have to do is control him."

"Their numbers are too great though; there's simply not enough werewolves for this task." Pausing for a second, she continued, not intending to back down even in the face of over 3000 lizardmen: "I need the harpies to help me."

"No problem, I'll get Numila and Eugenia to help you. It has been a while since those harpies started training, I think it's time for our harpy squadron to prove their worth." Dispatching these harpies was something I had planned since the start. No matter how much practise they got, it was just practise in the end. Without any real combat experience, all that training would be for naught.

With two-thirds of the harpy squadron aiding the werewolves, those lizardmen shouldn't be an issue, right? It's not like we are actually going to war with them, the plan is just to support Westley's claim over the clan and help him retake what was originally his. I'm sure those unrelated lizardmen would stand aside after seeing our fearsome army.

As time passed, my sense of anxiety grew as our plans proceeded onwards. Slaves, fodder, prisoners...no matter how many there were, I wanted them all. Even if I had to pack the prison exit full of flesh and bone, I would do it as long as I could breach it!

The ground itself trembled as this 4000 strong army marched off towards the lizardman stronghold. Their goal, to snatch the reins of power back.

Because I still had to supervise the operations here and also because I still had to craft more weapons, I had no choice but to stay behind and leave this operation to someone else. Hopefully Habona's trip would be a smooth one.

Surprisingly, she wasn't alone. to her was a ratman who upon closer inspection, turned out to be a familiar face...hmm, wasn't that the ratman she trapped in that ice cage yesterday?

"I honestly thought you would kill them all off." Staring in the direction of Habona's departure, I teased her: "What's with this one? Are you going to torture him slowly later?"

"I need it to lead the way so I left it alive." As she said that, there was an emptiness in her beautiful pupils...this stubborn puppy was probably thinking of her mother again...my heart ached just looking at her…

Bending down, I gently picked up the little puppy and hugged her. Her plush fur gently brushed against my skin as I did so, it was a soft, slightly cold sensation that was extremely comfortable. Breathing in the light fragrance wafting off her, I asked in the gentlest tone possible: "Have you decided?"

"Alright, I understand." Looks like the matter of our rat slaves has been settled, either way our conquest requires more fodder. Seeing as we can avenge her mother at the same time, there's honestly no reason for me to reject such a good deal.

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Under her command were nearly 2000 harpies. Having gone through a period of training, this air force of mine should mostly be ready: the bone javelins were all stocked up and ready and everything was basically ready for a field test.

In actuality, Elena wasn't the only harpy witch in this air squadron, Numila and Eugenia were as well. Numila's and Eugenia's main job however was to support Habona in her battle against the lizardmen. As for what this entailed, their main goal was actually just to aid Westley in his bid for power. In other words, they were there as deterrents rather than as combatants.

If I wanted to gain some real numbers on my air force, the place to observe was still Elena's. The Abaddon Rodents weren't known for their combat strength and usually relied on vast numbers to overcome this fact. However, the medusas were basically the natural-born nemeses of such tactics with their fearsome long range attacks. With these snake ladies supporting the contingent, I have no doubt that their morale would suffer a huge blow right from the get go.

Manasha and Majosha were both four-stars while Harlow was at least a three-star. In terms of elites, this contingent shouldn't be in any way inferior to the ratmen they were challenging.

While the total contingent size was less than 3000, I wasn't that worried. With that many aerial assets, we simply had to toss our javelins into the enemy throng without ever coming into melee range.

Even so, I made sure to leave Violet Snow a reminder before she left. A reminder to be cautious and to retreat immediately should anything seem amiss. According to reports, those rodents number at least 5000. Given how much time has passed since those reports, I wouldn't be surprised if that number had grown significantly, these rats were a fecund bunch after all. It would be wiser not to underestimate their reproductive rate given that we still didn't know their exact numbers.

While I was in the Western Human Realms, Ferti'nier had transferred an enormous amount of energy into me, allowing me to directly advance into three-stars. Back then, the Grimoire of the Dead had gained a few new skills in response to my growth. However, I didn't have much time to test them out at least, not till now. With nothing much to do now, I guess a round of testing is in order.

As the mana rushed into the spell, the skeletal figure of a horseman armed with a small bone buckler on his left and a bone blade on his right began surfacing from the ground, bones rippling apart as if they were a body of water.

With regards to horses, I wasn't too familiar with the subject in general let alone a skeletal one. However, there was no doubt that these horsemen had an impressive charging speed. While they weren't that heavy and belonged to the category of light cavalry, mounted units had a natural advantage in charges so it's fine.

Summoning a horseman took up 80 units of mana, if I were to go all out, I could summon a total of three in one sitting. Having said that, this was merely a test so one was enough.

I had both of them stand 20 meters apart and after waiting for Big 4 to take up his stance, commanded the skeletal horseman to charge.

Big 4 was already a three-star demon child so taking on a two-star horseman should be easy. Giving the horse a nudge, the horseman broke into a blistering charge that seemed that much faster probably because it had lost all of his flesh. In just the blink of an eye, that 20 meter gap was closed and with bone scimitar raised high, the horseman swung down, winds screaming behind it as the force of the its charge propelled the blade towards Big 4's neck.

Big 4 was currently equipped with the usual set of gear I crafted for him a while ago, a bone shield and a bone mace. In the face of this furious charge, his first instinct wasn't to counter attack but rather to raise his shield in defense and take the charge head on...he actually wanted to use his body to take on a charge horseman!

In the very next instant, both sides collided into each other with a thunderous bang. Unlike what its frail appearance suggested, the horseman didn't shatter on impact instead, it was Big 4, the one who tried to stand his ground, who got pushed back a couple of paces instead.

Thankfully, a demon child's strength was a lot stronger than a horseman so even in the face of the horseman's swing, Big 4 still had the ability to block with his mace after which he gave the skeleton a heavy swing of his mace, sending half of the horseman's right shoulder flying away in the process.

With that, their fight was basically over after just one round. Using his superior innate strength, Big 4 blocked the horseman's charge and despite his disadvantaged position, managed to get a serious hit in. However, I could vaguely see his hands trembling from my distant location - looks like they were numb from taking on that charge.

"Halt!" Before Big 4's mace could shatter the horseman's skull, I yelled for the match to stop. Hearing that, Big 4 immediately lowered his arm while the horseman sat there stock still like a statue.

"It's okay, Master. That skeleton's power was really strong. I should've been stronger than him but I ended up losing that initial clash. My arm's was slightly numb just now but it's mostly alright now." As he said that, he waved his arms around as if to prove to me that it wasn't injured. "If there were more horsemen, I would've been in a lot of trouble."

In that short clash, the difference between a two-star and three-star was prominently brought to bear once more. Simply put, there was almost no way for a lower tiered warrior to win against a higher tiered one without any external aid.

Even so, once you allowed the horseman to break into a charge, they could still give a three-star a run for his money even if it couldn't win. Given sufficient numbers, I could see these horsemen killing off a three-star without much losses...too bad these horsemen cost too much mana and coincidentally, what I lacked was weapons, not soldiers.

up was the curse, Weakness. Of all the spells I gained, this was the more troublesome one. Chanting this curse takes at least 10 seconds though that was probably because I still wasn't familiar with it. Once I've completely mastered this curse, the casting time should decrease dramatically.

I cast the curse on No.3 and merely a second later, I began to notice some changes within him. Noting down his oral account, I gained a test sample to work with.

Curses were a branch of undead magic or necromancy, that specifically targeted living creatures. It was able to reduce the physical constitution of its target while simultaneously dampening the person's power and psyche. Perhaps it was my lack of experience at work again but, having gone through the curse himself, No.3 only reported an approximate 15% decrease in attributes.

At that magnitude, it would at most cause the opponent to slip up from time to time. Strictly speaking, this spell was a dud that fell short of my expectations. However, 15% was still a rather useful result especially when fighting against a stronger opponent.

Even so, it was a curse filled with weaknesses. (TL: No pun intended) Not only was it slow but it only targeted living creatures. Without a doubt, these were the two biggest problems it had considering that I was in the Prison of the DEAD and that I was assaulting an exit point full of the DEAD...in other words, this really was a dud.

Habona had sent word that Westley had basically taken control of half of the lizardmen clan. With Habona's help, the previous head was killed in front of his subjects leaving only a few pockets of resistance left in the clan. Unfortunately for them, what they were facing was a 4000 strong werewolf and harpy army that had air superiority. With no way of overturning this situation, all that remained was for us to subjugate the other neutral parties. This however, was a matter of time and couldn't be rushed.

With the lizardmen basically in the bag, my air squadron wasn't really needed there anymore. Instead, what was important now was Westley's own efforts. Thus, Numila led her 2000 harpies away, leaving behind Eugenia as support for this puppet ruler of ours.

Coincidentally, barely two days after Numila returned, Violet Snow sent word from her side as well. According to it, the ratmen's population had ballooned from 5000 plus to nearly 9000...those rodents were basically the overlords of a 1000 Li (500km) territory.

With numbers vastly superior than what was reported, Violet Snow quickly realized that confronting them head-on was a mistake after two clashes. Thus, she decided to switch up her strategy.

Before leaving, I emphasized to her the need to be flexible in her strategy, looks like she took it to heart after all. In order to avoid any unnecessary losses, she made use of the harpies' maneuverability and the medusas' ability to fire while slithering about to engage in multiple guerilla attacks against the ratmen horde.

With no way to catch up to them, it was a massacre. In just one day, her army was able to cross from the eastern side to the western side…

Yet, their numbers superiority wasn't something that could be overcome so easily. Having learnt their lesson about Violet Snow's superior mobility, the rats immediately hunkered down together and held their ground no matter how much Violet Snow prodded at them.

My final goal was to capture a large number of rodents to be our fodder, in other words, a meatshield that so happened to be edible. Thus, while she could technically chip away at the rodents till they finally died off, that defeated the purpose of this whole mission. In order to break this stalemate, there was no other choice but to use force to wipe out all the rodents who potentially could lead the pack and enslave the rest.

In that case, the purpose of this missive was clear: she wanted me to make a decision. If I still wanted to enslave these ratmen, I had to take to the frontlines myself. If I ignored this message, she would probably continue chipping away at the rodents till there was basically no one left to resist. By that time however, there would probably be less than 10% of the rodents left to enslave.

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Should I or shouldn't I? After giving it some thought, I finally decided to go in the end. Putting aside all the other considerations, losing that much potential fodder wasn't something I could ignore. If I were to allow Violet Snow to have her way, all the Abaddon Rodents would be slaughtered and I would have to find another fodder race and that, was just a bother. Better to capture them now and be done with it. Finding a new target takes effort after all.

"Dearest, I heard that white puppy sent some news back."Ever since that inexplicable engagement, Numila stuck to me like glue. Having just received that report myself, it didn't take long before she came visiting after receiving news of the report herself. "Are you leaving to help her?"

"Julia, you should go have a rest too." Ever since I had Julia help me with the crafting, our weapon production rate improved decently. Each day, we managed to craft over a hundred weapons.

Seeing that Numila was here, she might as well take a break now while I handled this. Pulling Numila out of the crafting area, "I expected hardly any resistance on the lizardman front. Since you're back already and since Violet Snow seemed to have run into some problem, I think we should pay her front a visit. Those rats are numerous, just capturing half of them alive would basically solve our fodder problem."

"So we're going to battle then?" Being a battle enthusiast, her eyes immediately perked up as she heard that. "Dearest, when do we leave to help? Those lizards were just too weak, all we had to do was toss a couple of javelins and they just gave in…"

Well, it's not like those lizardmen are idiots either. With no way to fly, why would they even take you head on. Besides, with that puppet ruler, Westley, as a mediator, I bet a majority of those lizardmen still thought that Habona was some reinforcement he brought in to contest the clan's leadership.

Truth be told, the defensive quality of their scales weren't that bad. Had it not been for gravity boosting the penetration of those sharpened bone javelins, those shoddy weapons probably wouldn't be able to penetrate their scales even if you stabbed them till their tips wore out.

Thus, Violet Snow's engagement with the ratmen was the true test of my air force. Furthermore, that was also the first time I deployed my hellhound cavalry. From the report I got, their performance wasn't that bad either and there weren't too many casualties.

"Alright, Dearest's the best, this one just knew that you would bring her along with you!" Grabbing my face, she firmly kissed me before running off giggling. Seeing as we were about to head for war, she naturally had a lot of preparation to do.

Originally, I only intended to bring her along while getting my bodyguard team leaders, No.3 and Big 4 to come along. However, Mimiya ended up tagging along out of boredom. On the other hand, her brother Xixidi didn't seem all that eager to fight.

Once I left, the daily operations of our base would be temporarily left to Julia who in all honesty was pro bably a better manager than me. She was an extremely capable lust demon and even though her combat strength was kind of lacklustre, her managerial capabilities more than made up for it. Unlike her, I was a deadbeat with zero leadership experience. From kindergarten all the way to college, I never even got the chance to be a team leader let alone a class leader.

With the army gathered and ready to depart, the rest of the devils in the base came over to send us off. For the foot soldier section of this expedition, I brought along 2000 harpies and 300 guardsmen. At the same time, I had Numila, Mimiya, Vick, No.3 and Big 4 to accompany me as well.

Speaking of which, Vick and Mimiya seemed to be getting along pretty well. In fact, these two potatoes seemed to had been made for each other, after all, every potato needed an accompaniment. However, at least these two potatoes knew to behave around me and were currently standing quietly behind me though, who knew if they were making faces behind me.

"Julia, while I'm gone, all the matters in the base will be handled by you. Just make sure nothing major happens and don't overwork yourself."

Other than this lust demon, there really wasn't anyone else dependable amongst my subordinates. Before knowing me, she already had experience managing over 2000 devils. Seeing as Mo En was basically a henpecked husband and didn't care about such matters, she handled all the matters back then as well.

"Don't worry, your Highness, I'll handle everything well in your absence. I guarantee the plan will proceed smoothly." Giving a stealthy kick to her husband, "You'll help me as well, right Dearest?"

"..." Initially, Mo En was standing in a daze beside her wife when she suddenly kicked him. Not being able to react in time, the potato groggily answered, drool still dripping from his mouth, "Mhm mhm, the souls were delicious…"

"..." Realizing that he was in trouble, he immediately got to his knees and hugged her thighs as he pleaded, "Noo...I still want to sleep on the bed tonight...you promised me already...you can't just go back on your words like that…"

Behind me, I could already hear the gloating giggles of Mimiya. As for Xixidi, he didn't seem to mind at all that his grandfather was currently embarrassing himself in public and was instead busy smacking his lips while gleefully hugging a piece of meat, a silly looking smile crossed his lips as he did so.

"Alright, while I'm not here, make sure to pay more attention, Julia. Make sure nothing goes wrong." With that potato of a teammate, Mo En, by her side, it looks like I really had to lower the difficulty of this task.

"If anything difficult crops up, just put it aside for now and wait till I get back. I'll leave the devil egg in your care as well, make sure to feed it souls constantly."

Other than that, there was basically nothing else for me to worry about. Training the troops in the nest was handled by One-eye while management was handled by Julia. Security's Mo En...there shouldn't be any issue there, right?

Just as I turned around to leave, One-eye took the lead in taking a half kneel and chanted, "May the Master forever fly the flag of victory!"

"May the Master forever fly the flag of victory!" Nine-finger and his cronies immediately kneeled as well and chanted like they were offering a prayer.

Having lost the initiative in his bootlicking, No.5 immediately noticed his failure as a professional bootlicker and promptly chimed in to prove his existence: "Ah...the Master is invincible, may the Master rule the world for a thousand seasons!"

"..." His bootlicking left me speechless as always but when did One-eye learn to do so as well? I honestly didn't expect that from him. Good, good, this kid has potential.

In order to speed up our progress, I had the harpy witches carry the devils. As for me, Numila was naturally the one who carried me. These harpies had an astonishing speed and carrying capacity. Even with a devil weighing them down on one claw, their speed didn't drop that much.

In this manner, we rushed to the edge of the ratmen's territory in just four days. As for why I knew that this was their territory, that's because I could smell them even this high up.

"Alright." Numila immediately turned to her subordinates and ordered them to search around the vicinity. Roughly ten minutes later, we got our first report. In the distance, I spotted a lone harpy closing in on our location to report her findings.

"Dearest, this one's kinsharpies reported that they found no trace of battle nearby however there were traces of the other races left behind. Even though it was faint, we can confirm that it belonged to Elena's clan. If you require us to track them down, we can follow this scent trail."

In this bony prison, there were undead cleaners who cleaned up the battlefields and repaired the maze in general. Even if the walls were to get damaged somehow, the cleaners would automatically come to repair them after leaving them alone for a while. In other words, it wasn't strange at all that they found no traces of battle.

With that, the order was given by Numila to set off in pursuit. The harpies picked up a devil as before and took to the air. As for me, I was pressed tightly against a couple of dangerous weapons.

Following the scent trail, we flew for another two more days before encountering Violet Snow. When we found them, they were already in the midst of surrounding a group of rodents and slaughtering them. Judging from the corpses strewn all over, these rats really stood no chance against them.

The majority of the rat corpses were peppered with bone javelins that were barely visible from a distance due to their short length. Compared to the hardy scales of the lizardmen, their defensive strength was notably lacking. Thus, it didn't take much for the airborne javelineers to skewer them.

If the javelin hit a fatal spot, a couple of them were even able to kill off a rodent on the spot. Let's not forget that I gave each of these harpies four javelins and that some of these javelins could still be reused…

At the end of the day, the ratmen's biggest weakness was that they had no ranged capabilities and neither were they able to fly...in other words, they were nothing more than a bunch of furry target dummies that moved...suddenly, this whole air force thing seemed so busted.

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"You've arrived." Long before our arrival, the scouts we sent ahead had already informed Violet Snow of our impending arrival so she wasn't all that surprised to see us now. She blandly acknowledged our arrival before continuing on, "There's exactly 300 captives here with us right now, do you want them?"

By now, the battle had already been decided. The hellhound unit was currently circling the survivors to prevent them from escape. Should they decide to make a concerted push, the cavalry devils would merely scatter before making using of their superior mobility to reform and charge. Naturally, the medusas would step in to stop the escapees as well.

However, with the rodent's natural fear of the medusas and the airborne harpies ready to toss their javelins, there was basically no chance of them succeeding. Their previous attempts at escape ended in their complete defeat with them shrinking back in fear before ever touching the hellhound encirclement, the reason being that those who didn't try to escape weren't attacked at all. That was the lesson the escaping rodents swiftly learnt.

Violet Snow's intentions were clear for all to see. Round them all up and wait for more rodents to show up. That was the tactic she was familiar with and employed to great effect.

After all, baiting their enemies into a trap was a lot smarter than foolishly rushing into their stronghold. They even let a few rat children escape to ensure that their leader would receive their cry for help.

"Initially, those rodents tried to fight us head on but the moment they realized they couldn't win, they immediately fled. After multiple attempts at baiting them out, we finally managed to capture these rats who tried to ambush us."

"The pack was mostly comprised of the young and healthy. They probably formed the backbone of their fighting force so as long as we keep them here, there's no need to worry about their leader not coming to save them. In fact, I'm betting those three-stars in there have some sort of relationship to the four-star leaders." Having roughly recounted what happened and what she was planning, she ended with this, "Right now, all we have to do is wait patiently."

"You're that sure that the ratman leader will try and save them? I heard that these rats are pretty fertile, shouldn't they be more cavalier about their descendants?"

"They'll definitely come." She barked without any hesitation in her voice. "As long as we kill off these little rats, there will be a gap in their clan's inheritance (TL: genetic memory) and that's something they can't allow. Besides, after that thrashing I gave them recently, it's about time for them to break their silence and counterattack."

Recently, these rats started to have ambitions of ruling the Prison of the Dead. Being pushed around like this probably stung especially since such a cowardly display ran contrary to their grand ambitions of subjugating the prison. In that case, were those rodents planning to strike back soon?

Despite what she said, there was still the option of running away if the situation looked grim . However, with Habona's smooth retake of the lizardman clan, Violet Snow's performance seemed rather lacklustre in comparison.

For a competitive puppy like her, it was truly an awkward development. Don't forget, these two ladies weren't exactly on the best of terms either.

Even though she already spotted me from a distance away, she didn't run over and hug me like usual but instead nodded her head and in an emotionless voice, said, "The scouts have just reported back, there's a horde of ratmen approaching us, roughly an hour away."

It was a short report but the moment those words left her mouth, Violet Snow's ears immediately perked up and a grin crossed her lips, an excited grin. "So, they've finally come."

Whether or not they were here to save their brethren or vent their anger, it looks like these rodents finally decided to put themselves on the chopping block. That's right, the chopping block.

Given the extreme speeds of these harpies, the information brought back by that scout was definitely up-to-date. With just an hour left, we should start preparing right away.

However, that report was didn't give me much to work with, for example, I needed exact numbers. Thus, I decided to press her for more information, "How many are there?"

"Roughly ten thousand." She replied, using that same, bland tone. However, the number that left her mouth was anything but normal.

We had less than 50 hellhound riders and we didn't have that many medusas either ---less than 600 or so--- other than my devils, we had roughly two thousand or so harpies bringing our combined numbers to roughly 4000 devils. Our opponent on the other hand was a whole digit higher than us…

Before the arrival of rodent horde, we still had a lot of preparations to finish. The first of which was handling those 300 rodent captives. What to do with them?

Violet Snow's opinion was that they were a bother and we should just kill them off. Manasha was neutral on this while Harlow and Majosha simply followed her decision. Elena was as quiet as always while Numila basically had no opinion of her own and simply followed mine. Big 5 wasn't a part of the decision making process.

As for my own opinions...I felt we should keep them alive for now. However, with the prison's desolate environment, there weren't any resources for miscellaneous objects like ropes. Thus, these defeated rodents ended up being handed over to Big 5's unit and 20 other medusas for safekeeping. Having been herded to a dead end, all they had to do was guard this singular exit.

Thus, Majosha began the task of herding the captives into their corner. Faced against their natural predators, these 300 rodents didn't even dare to squeak as they obediently entered that dead end. The moment all of them were accounted for, Big 5 immediately blocked off the exit with his riders.

With the other escape routes blocked off, the little rodents began to panic and tried to escape. Seeing as the riders stood in the way of the only escape route, they turned around and charged at the hellhound riders in hopes of breaking through the encirclement. Unfortunately for them, before they could even take a second step, the 20 medusas mixed in with the hellhounds, reared their snaky heads.

The young ratmen at the head immediately braked, legs trembling as they fixed their panicked eyes on the medusas. Standing right before them, was a predator who specifically preyed on their race. In the face of such a terror, it wasn't strange that they froze with fear. After all, using a meat bun to beat a dog wasn't the smartest thing to do either, though it was probably a rat bun in this case and it was a snake that was the target.

With the captives safely secured, the next thing we had to do was collect the bone javelins. Our previous clash with the rodents had basically expended all of the harpies' ammunition so recollecting these javelins was absolutely critical especially given our tight schedule. Hopefully, most of them were still intact.

If I had known that such a colossal battle awaited us, I would've instructed Numila's harpies to pack a couple more javelins before coming. Even though six javelins would slow them to some extent, these extra javelins could've been split with Elena's harpies.

A while later, all the serviceable javelins had been scavenged. Adding on the javelins that we brought and those that weren't used, we had over 10000 javelins to throw.

With that, the captives and the issue of ammunition had been taken care of, next was rest. The devils in Violet Snow's army had just fought a battle so they were now in the midst of a break. They feasted on some ratmen meat and souls while waiting for the ratmen horde to arrive.

Speaking of the horde, how does your mind even process 10000 over rats? The moment I laid eyes on such a sight with the help of Numila lifting me up into the air, I saw nothing but a sea of black flowing towards us like a wave. The prison hallway was filled to the brim with squirming furry dots with only the bony white walls serving a stark contrast to the sea of black.

Looking at the spearhead of the ratmen horde, I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for those poor souls. Without any weapons in hand, these ratmen rushed forward towards their death.

Numila's and Elena's harpies swiftly took to the air before the advance party of the ratmen even arrived and without any hesitation, fired the first wave of bone javelins. With claws gripped firmly around the javelins, they built up some distance between their targets before tossing their payload in a short dive of sorts.

The rain of javelins descended on the advance party and peppered their furry bodies. However, the first wave didn't accomplish much with less than a hundred ratmen dying while the others merely suffered minor injuries.

While it might not sound impressive, let's not forget that the harpies didn't possess a pair of hands but merely the claws on their feet. Given such circumstances, they naturally weren't able to control their toss. All they could guarantee was that the javelins left their hands, as for whether it hit or what it hit, that was all up to luck.

It was precisely this lack of accuracy that resulted in so little casualties. Even so, such a flashy method was perfect for damaging their morale.

This reminded me of the first time I played LoL...back then, I didn't know what last hitting meant. As long as it was an enemy creep(mob), I just hit it with my basic attack, all the way from 100% to 0%. Basically, I was able to snag a couple of kills per minute...later on, I found out that this was called "pushing".

Putting aside the matter of their accuracy for now, they clearly demonstrated the fruits of their training. Like a squadron of fighter jets, they were able dart around the air while firing off javelins. It merely took them two minutes to unload a complete volley. A total of four thousand javelins were thrown in this volley and the results were pretty good.

There were over a thousand casualties with half of the survivors losing their ability to fight. While this wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, don't forget we still had over ten thousand javelins to go.

As for why it took them two minutes just to throw their javelins, that had to do with the new method of reloading I taught them. Normally, the spare javelins were slung on their bodies. However, because they had no arms, they had difficulty reaching for their spare javelins. In fact, they would even drop the javelin by mistake...sigh, this racial trait of theirs was such a stumbling block. In fact, it almost made me abandon the idea after the first session of training.

Later on however, I thought of an idea to solve this issue. Now, a harpy javelineer worked in pairs where they would help each other reload. Instead of grabbing the javelins themselves, they would snatch it from their partner. Being a race that acted like bandits most of the time, they took to this method like fish to water.

Now that the first volley was completed, the four thousand strong squadron began reloading. Closing on each other, they promptly began the highly complicated aerial maneuver of using their claws to grab a javelin slung over their partner's breasts…

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The Abaddon Rodents had no ranged capabilities to speak of and neither could they fly though their wall climbing was nothing to scoff at either.

Unfortunately for them, these harpies were simply too agile for them to hit even if they scaled the maze walls. Using the time-honored strategy of kiting, these bird women managed to dodge the majority of their pounces. From time to time, a few lucky rats were able to catch a harpy. However, before they were even able to clip their wings, they were promptly tossed to the ground by the harpy’s comrades.

With the completion of another volley, the ratmen lost another pack of rats. Even so, there was nothing they could do to remedy this situation. Even when they tried to stack up like totem poles, the harpies were able to evade their frantics swipes with a mere dodge backwards. As long as my air squadron still had javelins to throw, they were basically untouchable.

By the time our javelins were used up, the battlefield was littered with rat corpses and maimed rats. In total, there were at least 3000 dead or maimed and another 4000 lightly injured rodents.

Having run out of ammunition, I immediately ordered Numila and Elena to lure the rodents to the designated spot, under no circumstances were they to allow their kinsharpies to land and engage in melee.

Glancing back at the scattered corpses, I couldn’t help but sigh in amazement. Truthfully, I was initially concerned that the casualties would actually scare off these ratmen, who knew that the ratman leader was so incensed that he actually tried to chase down the harpies instead. Seeing the hail of javelins stop, it probably thought that their chance for revenge had come so the ratman leader immediately gave the order to chase.

Naturally, there were some cowardly rodents who were terrified by the carnage they witnessed but the moment they tried to run, these poor souls were promptly executed to set an example for the rest. Truth be told, I had to thank the rat leader for his rash decision. It was precisely this decision that allowed my following plans to work.

With their attention fixed squarely on their aerial targets, the rodents didn’t even bother to look at what was in front of them. By the time they came to a T-junction, they were still chasing after the harpies like a bunch of possessed fools.

Suddenly, the rats at the forefront felt a disturbance behind them. Turning around, they got the shock of their furry lives. The entire rat army had been cut in half by the medusas!

The medusas had always been the natural predators of these rodents so the moment they noticed the medusas, they faces contorted with disbelief and terror.

Because the medusas weren’t present in the initial clash, the ratman leader made the foolish assumption that they had left the battlefield temporarily or perhaps they weren’t there at all for some reason or another. Never in his wildest dreams did he expect that they would suddenly descend upon them at this crucial moment...did this guy think that their appearance was merely a coincidence?

The existence of the medusas immediately had a suppressive effect on their prey, throwing the entire army into disarray with their mere presence.

However, instead of launching a volley of toxic attacks, Manasha had her kinsnakes lay down a carpet of venom on the bony ground which covered an area 10 meters long after merely 10 seconds.

With the way blocked off by a toxic zone, the rodents started scaling the walls in order to proceed. However, Manasha had already predicted this move and swiftly instructed her medusas to lay down a venom field on the wall sections connected to the ground. By now, the only safe zone was the ceiling yet there was no way the rodents could climb that high…

Given that the toxic zone was 10 meters long, even the elites of the ratmen couldn’t jump over it. The only rodent who could do so was the ratman leader but doing so was the same committing suicide!

Thanks to that, we managed to successfully cut off reinforcements to one half of the rat army. With only 3000 rodents in the front half of the army, the medusas could easily slaughter these rats.

Now that the plan had been enacted, Numila, Elena and the other harpies rapidly turned around and dived on the unfortunate rats who got caught in our trap. With nearly 4000 harpies descending at once, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that they blotted out the sky (ceiling) with one dive. The effect was, to say the least, terrifying.

The answer was nothing. The surrounded rats had basically given into fear while their comrades on the other side of the pond couldn’t rush to their aid even though they desperately wanted to do so. The ratman leader even went so far as to get a couple of the sturdier rats to test out the venom. However, the moment they came into contact with the venom, these lab rats immediately collapsed onto floor, eyes closed and body writhing.

The strength of the medusa’s venom was so extreme, it rendered an area impassable permanently. Even if you were to scrub it for a long time, it still won’t disappear.

Once it reached a certain volume, it didn’t even have to enter the victim’s body in order to poison him; merely touching it was enough for the venom to seep into the victim’s body through the skin(hide).

While this might sound terrifying, this extraordinary effect only showed itself once there was enough venom secreted, before that, it wasn’t that much of a threat. If one wanted a lethal venom, the medusas had a host of such venoms however only a few of them could penetrate the skin like that. Without a doubt, such a tranquilizing venom was exactly what we needed in a battle like this.

In a vast battle like this, even four-star experts weren’t able to decide the outcome of a battle. The ratman leader normally had over 10 other four-star lieutenants under his command. Unfortunately, the majority of them had been separated from the front pack. Within that 3000 strong half of an army, there were probably more four-stars than the medusas had but just in terms of army strength alone, the medusas definitely had the upper hand.

“Not a bad strategy, looks like the rats were successfully separated and we’ve gained an absolute advantage over them.” Violet Snow, like me, wasn’t at the level of a four-star yet so she stayed behind with me to survey the battlefield from the distance. From those words alone, I could tell she highly approved of my strategy.

“I didn’t expect it to work that well either. How should I say it, these ratmen were as brainless as expected?” I smugly stated as I swept my eyes over the perfection that was my trap...however, given that these were just rats...I couldn’t help but think that them falling for the trap was only natural.

However, now that the battle had progressed to this stage, it was time for my strategy to take the backseat while my army did its work.

The following battle was truly a hot-blooded one. Whether it was the medusas or the harpies, none of them disappointed me. With nothing to worry about from the back, Manasha led her medusas in a bold charge into the ratman army.

Swerving left and right, the medusas nimbly dodged the attacks of the ratmen before circling around to their exposed flank and raking them with their razor sharp claws. The snakes on their head functioned independently from the medusas and were essentially independent turrets that fired with deadly accuracy at long or short ranges.

However, it was the tails of the medusas that truly struck fear into the rodents. Despite their harmless appearance, these tails were the ultimate melee weapon they had. Often, rodents who managed to flank the medusas were swiftly and fatally swatted away with a mere flick of their tails.

As for the harpies, while they no longer had their javelins in hand, that didn’t mean that they were helpless either. Before meeting me, they basically employed a dive and raking tactic. Against the disorganized ratmen, it was like shooting fish in a barrel for them especially for Numila who gained an epic weapon, Flametail. With just a single flame spell, she was able to instantly slaughter a three-star rodent.

Explosion after explosion rattled the bony walls of the hallway. Soon, the maze was filled with the stench of burning fur and roasted meat.

Seeing that, two of the four-star rodents within the trapped army tried to sneak up on Numila. I had to say, they were pretty smart about it too. Making use of their numerous kinsrodents to camouflage themselves, they stealthily approached the harpy witch and pounced on her the moment she was in range.

Unfortunately, Numila wasn’t one to fall for such petty tricks. Before the two rodents even leaped into the air, she made the preparations for her own counter-attack, her plan, to meet their attacks head on with her own. Like a guardian moon orbiting around her, Flametail suddenly expanded and burned brighter till it resembled a miniature sun. Without even waiting for the two rodents to reach her, Flametail swiftly rammed into them. Bumped away by the orbiting sun, the two rodents fell flat on their rear ends.

Normally, their fur was already susceptible enough to flame attacks. Even a normal flame was able to set them ablaze let alone the not-at-all ordinary flames of Flametail which only required a mere lick to set them ablaze.

Initially, it was only their arms which caught fire. However, the moment they landed on the floor, the flames had basically spread all over their bodies. Eyes wide open in terror, they frantically rolled around in a bid to put out the flames. Unfortunately, their efforts were doomed to failure and all that awaited them was a painful, scorching end.

Not only were these poor souls doomed to die, their tumbling around ended up dooming their comrades as well thanks to the sheer density of the ratman army. Every tumble of their blazing body spread the incandescent plague to another unfortunate rat.

Furthermore, because these flames were just as inextinguishable, the unscathed couldn’t blindly run away either or they might end up bumping into another comrade who was already on fire...thus, a couple of tiny flames ended up burning a countless number of rats.

"This…" That was a thousand rats, a thousand rats burnt to death by a single attack, that's just imbalanced! Clearly, my companions agree with that statement as well!

Puppy dog eyes wide open in disbelief, Violet Snow was just as shocked as I was. "Isn't that Shadowfang of yours an epic weapon as well, can you do that?"

"..." You've got to be kidding me!? If I could pull such a stunt, do you think I would still be here? I would've wiped out that demon hunter team who forced me back to hell in the first place.

From across the pond, the remaining 4000 over rats were witness to this terrifying spectacle. Seeing the lethality of that attack, their faces immediately paled with a portion of them promptly breaking ranks. No matter how much the rat leaders tried to threaten them, none of them would have it.

"Don't let them escape!" I hurriedly reminded my army: "Numila, Elena, take your teams and stop them, the medusas can handle that front alone. Don't care about those on fire, prioritize the rats who managed to escape."

"Got it." Elena was the first of the two to react. Signalling to the rest of her kinsharpies, they took to the skies, abandoning the desolated ratmen in favor of chasing down the deserters.

"Alright, Sis." As she said that, Majosha smiled at her husband. With the aid of the remaining harpies, they got a lift to the other side of the inferno and blockaded it.

Thanks to Numila's fearsome display, the ratmen's morale was basically non-existent. All I could do to salvage this situation was to get them to focus on capturing the deserters.

Truly, that strike of hers was just too fearsome for its own good. Having burnt a couple of four-star lieutenants to a crisp in one strike, even Numila was stunned by its effectiveness. It took that reminder/yell from me to bring her back to senses. Truth be told, she only intended to fend off the two rodents with that strike. Seeing as they were both four-stars, she felt that she had to put in her 100% for that strike in order to stand a chance at all. However, things clearly didn't proceed as she had envisioned.

Wasting no more time, she rushed off with Flametail in tow and chased down the fleeing rats, her reassuring voice echoing across the battlefield as she flew off: "Don't worry Dearest, just watch this Harpy's performance!"

"Amazing!" It was then that Mimiya chimed in with her excited cheering. Perhaps it was due to the tension of the battle, she had remained silent up till now. Vick on the other hand, wasn't affected by it at all however, he was promptly restrained by Mimiya when he tried to float away.

Seeing how Numila wiped out a pair of four-stars in one strike, the already excited Mimiya practically erupted in flames as she exclaimed: "That epic weapon is AWESOME! Do you have another one? You do, right?"

"There's still Shadowfang." I pointed at the blade slung over my back and shrugged: "It was given to me by Harlow and Habona. Even though I still haven't unlocked its true power, wielding it felt really natural."

"If I find another epic weapon that suits you, I'll consider giving it to you." Given that Julia and Mo En had basically sold their lives to me, there's no reason for me to be stingy with their granddaughter, besides, she's pretty cute.

"Let's be clear about one thing though, epic weapons are something you encounter by chance, not something you search for. I can't guarantee that we will find one that suits your attributes."

"No problem, as long as you remember that!" With that promise in the bag, she happily skipped about, her adorable little devil wings flapping about as she bounced up and down. Her body lifted off the ground and did a strange twirl in the air. "Hahaha, Mimiya's going to get an epic weapon as well!"

Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself here? I remember saying that I would only give it to you if it suited your attributes, didn't I…

There was nothing much to talk about regarding the remainder of the battle. Thanks to the harpy nuke known as Numila, the majority of the rodents who she flew over smartly chose to surrender instead of resisting…

Even if they had over 10 four-stars on their side, these leaders had completely lost all of their confidence. I couldn't blame them for that either, that skill which wiped out a thousand rats was just that terrifying; as expected of a weapon that can support an entire kingdom!

Roughly half an hour after the battle ended, the battle report was compiled and ready to be submitted. With those rough numbers in hand, Violet Snow began her report:

"We lost 11 harpies in that battle, there were no losses within our cavalry unit, no losses for the medusas, no losses for the guardsmen...in total, we captured approximately 6000 Abaddon Rodents...the exact number is still being tallied."

Given that the guardsmen were basically on guard duty throughout that whole battle, it wasn't strange that none were lost. After all, I didn't even step into battle for a second so they had no reason to either.

As for that impressive record of 6000 captives, don't be fooled by it; that number included the injured rodents as well. For example, the rodents who were injured in the initial volley of javelin strikes were included as well. Not only that, the rodents who were still kept under watch by the hellhound riders were included in that tally as well.

Frankly, the rodents had suffered a crushing blow this time. The lightly injured ones were fortunate --at the very least, they could still be fodder after some minor tending. The heavily injured ones however, those were the unfortunate souls. With no other use for them, they were basically food for the army.

"Dearest, these are the leaders of that army, this harpy has brought them all over." Chest puffed up, Numila dragged a column of ten ratmen who were noticeably bulkier than the rest of their comrades.

"Elena helped as well!" Now that the battle has ended, Elena was notably livelier. Realizing that I was in the vicinity, she immediately pounced on me and with arms wrapped around my head, shoved it into her soft weapons: "Huggles…"

"..." I'm choking here, Elena...let go of me...I can't breath...ahhh, the scent is great and all but I'm really going to die at this rate...you want an epic weapon, I get it...don't worry, I'll make sure to give it to you once I get a proper one…

"Let go of my hubby right this instant, you shameless bit*h!" Seeing her pounce on me, the rather jealous Numila immediately stepped in to pull us apart forcefully before pointing her right finger at Elena. Left hand wrapped around my head, she shoved my face into her waiting mounds: "Dearest, this harpy is a lot better than ice block over there, isn't she?"

As I took in a couple of deep breaths to refill my oxygen-starved lungs, I suddenly felt a pointed stare behind me. Following that sensation, I turned around just in time to see Violet Snow coldly smiling back at me: "You seem to be having fun."

"...what's so fun about that." By the way, when did your tongue pick up that acid ability? Even though I really wanted to ask her that, I chose not to in light of that black expression she had on. Hmph, I'll endure your words just this once.

Apparently, not long after the battle started, a few of the more cowardly leaders turned tail and ran the moment they noticed that things weren't going well. In fact, they even escaped with their subordinates. The only reason no one noticed this was because their numbers were relatively small and the battlefield was extremely chaotic then.

"That grudge has been settled long ago." As she flatly spat out those words, a hint of relief flashed across her eyes, however, it was only for an instant before it immediately disappeared. All that remained was a cold aloofness.

"As long as it has been settled…" Regarding Violet Snow's private matters, I didn't wish to pry too deeply into them. As long as she was happy, that was enough. All I could do now was support her quietly from the background.

Since her nemesis wasn't a part of these rats, enslaving them shouldn't be a problem. With that in mind, I coolly turned around to face the rodent leaders. As my cool gaze swept over them, they trembled, claws dancing around as they flustered. Finally, I opened my mouth and said: "Submit or die."

However, these rats didn't understand the language of the devil and merely looked at each other in confusion. Sh*t, I forgot they can't understand me, how am I going to persuade them to surrender then,? It's not like I can suddenly pick their rodent language.

"I...I submit…" The moment they heard they could live, a number of the more spineless rodents immediately knelt and pledged their allegiance. Even though this was done in chit chits, kneeling down was the universal sign of submission.

As for the braver ones, they made the smart choice to surrender after sneaking a couple of peeks at Numila who was in the midst of arguing with Elena. Other than the stubborn rat overlord, the other nine were all on their knees begging for mercy.

As for that rodent, I didn't appreciate his bravery at all, I was merely curious so I asked him: "Ask that fellow whether he wants to die or not."

After a round of gibberish, Violet Snow turned around to submit the answer: "The rat overlord wishes to negotiate the terms of surrender with you."

Hearing that response, I burst out in laughter. Seeing me laugh however, that rat overlord mistook it as acceptance and smirked at his kneeling compatriots, a series of chittering escaped his mouth as he bragged in their faces.

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It was only when No.3 reached out for his furry shoulders did that foolish ratman finally realize that something was wrong. As he stumbled away from his captors, he desperately pleaded his case in his usual chitters.

Though I still didn't understand them, Violet Snow was here to fulfill that role of translator, which she did so faithfully even now. "He says that he's the overlord of the ratmen and that he commands a large number of clans. Furthermore, he says that he's an influential rodent and if we kill him like this, it would cause a mountain of troubles later on when we want to subjugate the rats."

"A mere captive actually wants to negotiate with me and even dares to threaten me? If I accept his terms now, then I might as well forget about capturing any other prisoners of war. No exceptions, get rid of him right this instant." With another wave of my hand, I firmly rejected this notion of negotiation.

Just looking at his panicked eyes, I bet he was thought something along the lines of "the devils will make an exception for me because I'm valuable and that's how this story always goes."

Fortunately or perhaps unfortunately depending on whose perspective you took, his stupidity wasn't ingrained into his bones. The moment No.3 tried to reach out and grab him again, the ratman knocked the devil away with a punch. Tail muscles flexed, he swung his long, thick tail towards the other guardsmen like a metallic whip and swept them away.

"Chit chit!"It was an angry chit directed at me. The ratman overlord immediately rushed off to my right where the defenses were the thinnest. Looks like he had planned this from the very start, he probably thought that it would be easier to escape the blockade that way. Well, I'm sorry for shattering that fantasy of yours but there's no escaping for you.

At that same time, Violet Snow chimed in with a "He swears that he will get his revenge." Even with this surprise development, this little puppy didn't forget her role as a translator.

"Understood, Master!" Having recovered from that punch, No.3 immediately got to his feet and rushed at the ratman overlord. However, No.3 was just a three-star Demon Child; in terms of strength, he was vastly inferior to the ratman. Dodging the morningstar in No.3's right hand , the ratman overlord used the centrifugal force of his twist to throw a forceful kick at No.3's bone shield and sent him flying.

The ratman overlord immediately tried to resume his escape but unfortunately for him, No.3's distraction bought the rest of the guardsmen enough time to rush over and surround him.

"Dearest, this Harpy is here to help you!" Because of the ruckus occuring at our side, Numila abandoned her pointless argument with Elena and promptly flew over to aid us. With a forceful leap into the air, she instantly appeared above the ratman's head where her trusty weapon, Flametail promptly started to revolve around her once more and radiate that terrifying level of heat she showed earlier.

"Elena is here too!" Not wishing to be outdone by the more assertive Numila, Elena flew over as well and a second later, threw the ratman overlord below her a pointed, dangerous glare.

Thanks to their extraordinary speed, it merely took the blink of an eye for the two of them to catch up and block the ratman. Now that he was beset by these two witches, the ratman slowed down his attacks on the guardsmen, instead choosing to focus on Numila and Elena.

"I detest rats." My right hand reached for the hilt of Shadowfang as I slowly walked towards the ratman overlord. Seeing that, the two witches came to the conclusion that I planned to handle this myself so they lowered their altitude and merely tried to block the ratman from escaping.

Even though an Abaddon Rodent was much weaker than their counterparts at the same star level, this ratman overlord seemed to be an exception to the rule. The strength he displayed so far was impressive to say the least and was several times stronger than the other four-stars under his command.

Thanks to the addition of Mo En's forces upon my return to the Prison of the Dead, my guardsmen were at the very least two-stars now with some of the squad leaders at the level of three-stars similar to No.3 and Big 4. Armed with my crafted bone shields and bone broadswords, they definitely held an advantage over the empty-handed ratman overlord. Even so, these elites were powerless before the ratman overlord who shattered their shields as if they were made of porcelain.

Fortunately, the arrival of Numila and Elena restricted his movements so he wasn't able to cause too much damage to my guardsmen. Every punch he threw, he made sure to reserve some energy to guard against the two harpy witches. This rodent knew full well that he had no chance of escaping.Still, he didn't give up his will to live and instead struggled desperately against the guardsmen surrounding him in hopes of a miracle happening.

As his thick tail and giant claws raked through the air, guardsman after guardsman were thrown into the air without mercy. This was the third time No.3 was thrown away and as he fell onto the ground with a loud crash, I saw his body stiffen. From the looks of it, he won't be getting up anytime soon. For a race known for their sturdiness to be injured so greatly by the ratman, it only proved my point about this ratman's formidable strength.

"Ooooh, looks like you're going to fight now." Seeing me walk towards the ratman overlord, the idle to the point of causing my nonexistent balls to hurt Mimiya clapped her hands excitedly and began cheering for me: "Wooot, fight, fight fight! Mimiya is cheering for you!"

At the side, Vick twerked his body as if he was dancing some strange dancing while smiling that silly grin of his. However, seeing how spooky his dancing was, I'll skip the description.

"That's Shadowfang, an epic weapon. Even though Master Mo Ke hasn't unlocked its full power yet, Master Mo Ke's stands a great chance of beating that ratman just by wielding it."

As the son of Shadowfang's former owner, he naturally knew how powerful its true strength as. His words weren't hard to dissect either: the blade's impressive grade was enough to suppress the ratman and allow me to defeat an opponent above my grade.

"I believe in Harlow." said Majosha. Though she was a four-star herself and knew how vast the gap was between a three and four-star warrior, she had no choice but to re-evaluate her views after seeing that awe-inspiring performance by Numila and Flametail. With such a terrifying power embedded within, she couldn't help but believe that even a weak three-star was able to challenge a four-star.

As I approached the scene, the guardsmen automatically made way for me. Noticing my presence, the ratman seemed to have realized something and roared at me.

No words were exchanged between us as we glared at each other. Within his eyes, I saw a faint trace of hope. He must've thought that his chance had arrived; as long as he took me hostage, he could make his escape.

The next second, the ratman overlord broke into a beastial sprint with all four of his furry limbs propelling him forward as he charged at me. Running at the fastest speed he ever managed in his lifetime, his elongated rat mouth briefly opened up and the pungent stench of his saliva wafted towards me.

On my side, I broke into a sprint as well. With my right hand clasped around Shadowfang's hilt,I lowered my body and adopted a running pose similar to the ninjas you saw on the big screen.

Just as everyone thought that we were about to collide, my feet seemingly stumbled for an instant. My body twisted in an unexpected angle and rotated away from the ratman, dodging his claws by a hair's breadth. At the same time I dodged that collision, I drew out Shadowfang.

The sinister blade left a trail of blackened light as it flashed across the air and, under the disbelieving eyes of the ratman, sliced into the back of his right leg…

Without his right leg to stand on, his body immediately lost its balance and stumbled away to the side several times before crashing into the bony wall nearby with a vicious crunch.

In that very instant I felt my blade bite into his leg, I merely felt a smidge of resistance before it sliced through whatever it was that blocked it. This move, with it's physics-defying body rotation was a move I created recently by mimicking the moves I already knew. In other words, it was born from the Inverse Cut.

The logic behind this move, which I named the Revolution Slice, was simple. It can be used on flat ground without any preparation of any sort or it can be used in a fashion similar to what I did just now. By faking a headon clash with my opponent, I could confuse and at the instant we were about to collide, rotate my body, cutting him with a slice reinforced by the centrifugal force of my nearly 360 degrees rotation.

Originally, I intended to slice apart his chest. Unfortunately, it failed because of my lack of familiarity with the skill and the fact that his speed exceeded my expectations. Thus, the Revolution Slice only ended up taking away his right leg. However, this was fine. A powerless enemy suited my needs just as well.

"An instant kill! Dearest, you're the coolest husband in the world, this Harpy has fallen for you all over again!" Seeing my crushing victory over the ratman, her unease instantly disappeared as she launched into a frenzied celebration. Just like always, she leaped onto me and pressed my face into her mounds with a tight hug. "Dearest, you're the best!"

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In the past, they used to treat as a commander cum auspicious item...truth be told, I kind of deserved that label seeing as my combat strength wasn't anything to write home about. Even after obtaining Shadowfang, I wasn't able to unleash its full power because I didn't possess the ability to use its corresponding skillset, and also because of a variety of other minor issues.

Even after mastering that flashy Revolution Slice, Shadowfang was in its sealed form. However, at least my combat strength received a substantial boost since I learnt a skill that suited it.

Just look at those quivering ratmen. In the past, they were only afraid of the influence I wielded, now they were afraid of me because of my influence and strength.

"Chit chit chit..."The ratman overlord used his unintelligible chits to try and communicate with me as before. However, this time I didn't need any translation to know what he was trying to say.

"It's begging for its life." Once again, Violet Snow chimed in with her highly appropriate translations. "It only wants to live, no matter what you want, it's willing to offer it to you."

"I don't want to listen to its nonsense, help me translate this to those nine ratmen, if you guys want to live, kill off that idiot together, if you can't do it, you can join him in death."

"Alright." Violet Snow turned to the quivering ratmen lieutenants and in the midst of their astonishment, passed down the message I gave her.

To kill or not to kill? In the face of death, was there even a need to hesitate? After exchanging a brief look with each other, all nine lieutenants came to the same decision…

Having done their ghastly deed, the nine ratman lieutenants turned towards me in unison and gave me a submissive smile. Needless to say, their intention was clear to me --none of them wanted to be the next sacrificial lamb.

Knowing the futility of resistance, their eyes burned with ingratiating fervor as they did their best to present their useful side to me.

After expressing their endless gratitude and thanks, they hurried off to gather the rest of their subordinates. Looking at them try to outdo each other, I bet they planned on stealing some subordinates in the midst of this chaos so as to better serve me.

As for me, I didn't particularly mind them gaining more subordinates. After all, with that terrifying Flametail under my command, there wasn't even a need for me to fear a revolt given that one blast was all it took to wipe out a thousand ratmen.

Besides, if they weren't able to defeat me with over 10 000 elite ratmen, I doubt any one o f them would dare to even think about rebelling now that they had suffered such heavy casualties.

From that battle, we gained almost 6000 ratman slaves. However, over a thousand of these slaves were severely injured to the point where they would never recover. Thus, there was only one fate awaiting these burdens: "ration duty". The worthless didn't deserve any pity from me.

Once we harvested their souls, bones and fed their flesh to our warriors, we would be left with nearly 5000 ratman slaves. Of these 5000, 9 were the four-star lieutenants I had just interacted with. Over 500 of them were three-star warriors while the rest were two or one-star warriors.

Honestly, I had to hand it to Violet Snow. Her guerilla tactics worked out splendidly. Thanks to her constant taunts, the rats were thoroughly incensed to the point where they emptied their nest of elite rodents. Their plan was to wipe her out but we all know how that plan ended…

The severely wounded rations were herded into a corner after which I left it to the medusas to handle their processing. Seeing as they didn't eat souls, there was no risk of them sneaking a few bites.

However, the moment some of the other prisoners saw their kinsrodent get dragged off so violently by the medusas, they became agitated. Some of the more hot blooded ones even tried to rescue them. Unfortunately, in the face of overwhelming might, resistance was futile and these foolish rats ended up sealing their own fate.

"Drag out all the rebels and process them as well." Naturally, the medusas didn't show any compassion as they carried out instructions. To them, these rats were nothing more than food.

It didn't take long before the dissenters were dragged out, their limbs broken and dislocated before being tossed into the pile of heavily wounded rations.

Well, tough luck, with that ugly mug of yours, how do you even expect me to forgive you guys? Don't you know that being handsome makes it easier for you to be forgiven?

An hour passed and the harpies in charge of moving the souls began delivering ball after ball of freshly harvested souls right into my waiting arms.

Speaking of which, the mouths I had to feed with souls seemed to have grown. First was those three distinctly different harpy witches, Numila, Elena and Eugenia. They didn't consume any meat and only subsisted on souls. That was the reason for their fragrant scent.

Second was Violet Snow for who some unknown reason, didn't eat meat as well. was Mo En's family. Other than Mo Xixidi, Mo En and Mimiya rejected meat and only consumed souls because of Julia's insistence. In the past, Mo En wasn't used to this lifestyle and would sneak a few bites of meat from time to time. However, his body gave off a foul odor whenever he did that which resulted in Julia kicking him off the bed every time...after that, Mo En learnt to be obedient.

Because Mimiya was a female devil, Julia tried to groom her from a young age to be a refined lady. Unfortunately, she was too wild for Julia's re-education. Getting her to abstain from meat was the limit of her success.

A flurry of feathers later, over 5000 souls were brought before me and dumped into a corner of the maze. Looking at the dazzling pile of souls, I suddenly felt like a rich devil. Yet the moment I feasted on 500 of the one-star souls...nothing happened…

I know that I'm a three-star and eating a bunch of one-star souls won't give me much of a boost but shouldn't the quantity have made up for the quality? That was 500 souls for crying out loud!

If I fed that terrifying amount of souls to a one-star, I could promote him all the way to two-star and perhaps even three-star. Yet, the moment I swallowed all those souls...nothing happened...that made no sense at all!

The moment I swallowed that soul, my body began to heat up and two seconds later...it stopped...it was as if what I consumed wasn't a four-star soul but rather a warm cup of coffee…

Truth be told, I had consumed quite a sizeable amount of souls recently. In order to craft those weapons, Julia and I would basically convert all the souls we ate into mana while we were in the base. Because of that, I barely gained anything from consuming them especially given my notoriously slow leveling rate. We were busy back then so I didn't pay much attention to it but now that we were out of the base…

Bah, forget it. She's my savior after all and was even assigned to protect me by Yi Yi. Besides, she's a pretty lady so I should at least give her some face.

Because we had no way to store souls, exposed souls tend to dissipate rapidly. The speed at which they dissipated was related to their star level while they were still alive. For the higher starred creatures, their souls tend to be stronger so they had a more corporeal look to them. That was why that ratman overlord's soul was noticeably different from the other souls.

However, it wasn't true that all environments chipped away at exposed souls. Certain environments were able to incubate souls. Under those conditions, not only would they not get worn out, these souls would even get refined. Given enough time, these souls would turn into soul flames and if their corpse was still around, the soul flame would be bound to the body, creating a zombie. If the flesh had rotted away completely, a skeleton was created instead.

Regarding the undead, their formation wasn't exclusive to the Western Human Realms. Even on Earth, there were such legends: ghosts, etc.

I still had no idea when was Ferti'nier going to wake up. In fact, I didn't even know how many more souls she required. Thus, I had no choice but to accept the situation as is and slowly accumulate, consume and digest more souls. As long as I consumed enough souls, she was bound to wake up one day.

However, I wasn't the only one who needed souls, the Grimoire of the Dead needed a vast amount of souls as well. Needless to say, the grimoire was extremely important to me so starving it wasn't an option.

As I continued feeding it, it became more and more lively to the point where I was beginning to suspect that some kind of beautiful girl would pop up the moment I fed it enough souls.

Because over 5000 Abaddon Rodents died in that previous battle, we weren't lacking for food at all. Thus, there was no need for me to be shy about consuming these souls. Of course, my other subordinates, namely Numila, Elena, Eugenia, Violet Snow and even my guardsmen had their own share as well.

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Having been deprived of his share of souls, Vick was currently floating around me with a resentful look on his face. Unfortunately, his atrociously ugly mug and shiny pinball of a head wasn't the least bit appealing as he tried to badger me for souls. Even so, I had to admit that having this potato float around me all the time was annoying. In the end, I gave into the pressure and gave him some souls, only then did he finally leave me alone.

Because those rodents sent out the majority of their elite fighting force and ended up getting defeated, their nest was extremely vulnerable now. According to our new road guides, there were only 15 000 rodents left...mhm, you heard me right, 15 000 or so rodents. However, this number wasn't as terrifying as one would expect because the number of combatants were less than 5000. The rest were the injured rodents or their wives and kids.

Thanks to the harsh realities of Prison life, there was basically no place for the elderly who couldn't fight. The wives and kids mentioned in that report were their pregnant wives and kids who simply weren't old enough to fight.

While boosting their strength also boosted their lifespan, the Abaddon Rodents as a whole were a lower race. Even if they wanted to boost their strength, their inborn talent limited their development. Thus, an ordinary Abaddon Rodent's lifespan was extremely short, roughly 30 years.

Because of that, they adapted to have an astonishing fecundity. Their pregnancies only lasted for less than six months and their infants only needed a year to reach maturity. Upon reaching maturity, they already possessed a certain degree of combat strength. While it wasn't much, their numbers more than made up for it. Using human wave tactics or rather rodent wave, there was nothing they couldn't conquer, most of the time anyway.

Within the nest, there were five four-star ratman lieutenants. Each had their own fighting force aiding them in the defense. Not long after they realized that their overlord's punitive force had been wiped out, our army, under the guidance of our new road guides, had already begun surrounding their nest.

In order to stop them from escaping, I dispatched a group of devils under the leadership of Numila and a few of our new rat slaves out to be our advance party while I rushed the main army along. The plan was to have them stall for time and catch up before the battle escalated to the point of no return. Yet, the moment we rushed onto the scene, I discovered a different scenario than what I had expected.

Littered around the entrance were a large number of rat corpses peppered with bone javelins. From the looks of it, these must've been the ratmen who tried to resist but were gruesomely shot to death by Numila's forces.

Having encountered our air forces before when Violet Snow attacked them, they knew to guard against our air squadron by turtling up in their nest. Should the harpies rush into the nes t, they would lose their advantage of flight. Without that, there's no guarantee that these shedevils could win in a fight against the ratmen. Thus, Numila made the wise choice of holding position in mid air while I brought the rest of the main army.

Given that stepping out of the nest guaranteed them a mouthful of bone javelins, those ratman defenders should be too scared to even show their ratty faces right now.

Yet, I found that they had no intention of giving up...that was clear from the fact they hadn't sent out an emissary to declare their surrender yet...hmmm, could it have been a communication problem…

Naturally, Violet Snow wasn't the one to deliver this ultimatum. Instead, it was delivered by one of the four-stars who surrendered, they were of the same race after all. Having a ratman persuade them would undoubtedly raise our chances significantly.

However, things weren't as simple as I had thought. Having just said a couple of words, a bone spear aimed directly at that ratman came flying out of the cave. Thankfully, that ratman was a nimble one and managed to sidestep in time causing the spear to barely graze against his black fur.

This sudden show of hostility was truly an unexpected one. Glancing at the fallen bone spear, I discovered that it wasn't one of the javelins used by my harpies. Because of the vast number of javelins required, the javelins I crafted were made from a bunch of short bones which resulted in each javelin rarely being over a meter long. That spear was clearly not one of my works.

Was that spear throw a sign that they were planning to fight till the end? Wait, that's not important right now. What was important was: were those rodents able to create bone javelins?

That wasn't good news for us at all. If they had such long range weapons as well, forcefully breaking into their nest was no longer an option. After all, they had the home advantage here. Compared to that, we had a bunch of ratman slaves who couldn't even be deployed because they had just surrendered to us.

Asking a disloyal army of slaves who had just surrendered to fight by our side was the same as having a ticking time bomb in our midst. Thus, I had Elena guard over these rodents in a distant location with 2000 of her brethren. Her mission was simple: just make sure they didn't cause any trouble.

So, when did those rodents learn to craft bone spears? Pulling out those nine rodent lieutenants, I questioned them one by one and got a very uniform answer from each -- a shake of their head and a simple "no idea". Even so, there was no ruling out the possibility they had colluded beforehand.

In that case, attacking them blind was our only option. Given that Elena had to guard those rodents, our attack force was left with 2000 harpies, around 600 medusas, 40 hellhound riders and lastly, 300 guardsmen.

Looking at the narrow pathway, it was clear that the hellhound riders were basically useless in this engagement thus I had no choice but to put them on reserve. At the same time, because we were fighting in a cave, the harpies lost their flight abilities. However, I couldn't exactly expect them to give up flying and turn into foot soldiers either.

Thus at the of the day, the forces we could employ for this assault was reduced to the medusas and my 300 guardsmen. However, that wasn't even a thousand troops...less than a thousand troops to face off against an enemy that we had no intelligence on. To make matters worse, they had the home ground advantage as well…

I guess I should be thankful that the medusas were experienced with fighting in constricted spaces. Given my guardsmen's equipment advantage, they shouldn't fare that badly even with those disadvantages either.

However, was it really that simple? As they say, a cunning rabbit has three holes to hide in; a ratman that knows how to craft weapons shouldn't be that stupid, right? It wouldn't be surprise me if they had another exit somehow.

After interrogating our helpful road guides once more, I found out that they did in fact have another two more exits just as I had expected. In that case, our job just got a whole lot harder as we had to split up our remaining troops to block off those exits.

The cave entrance wasn't small, in fact it could probably fit ten devils walking in a row and they wouldn't find it cramped either. With that in mind, I had five of the guardsmen line up in a row and advance slowly with shields raised in order to scout out the cave. The end result was, having taken a few steps forward, they were immediately met with a hail of bone spears.

Their accuracy was average at best so the majority of the bone spears were harmlessly deflected by the bone shields with only one spear making through and piercing the calf of a guardsman. Given that the shields were merely 80 cm tall and 50 cm wide, it wasn't that strange that a bone spear was able to make it through.

Having lost one of the shields, the five devil formation quickly buckled under the withering fire of a second volley of bone spears. Of the five guardsmen, three died. The lucky two survivors stumbled shakily out of the caves, their minds still in shock from the close brush with death they just had.

Gosh darn it, how do you expect me to wipe you guys out if you indiscriminately toss your spears like that...err, come to think of it, they probably learnt to do that from my army...in that case, I don't really have the right to blame them do I?

Darn it, their caves seem rather complicated as well, if I send in our newly-recruited cannon fodder…it would basically be same as letting the tiger return to its mountain...what if I led that army myself...would they still betray us and join up with their brethren?

The situation had definitely taken a turn for the worse yet I still wasn't willing to give up on capturing this batch of rodents. However, forcefully attacking them wasn't an option either since that would incur heavy losses for our army.

Damn, must I really give up now? No, I already made the long trip here so how can I simply return home like this? If I really gave up like that, how will I show my face in public ever again? I might as well just slap my own face and be done with it!

Thus, in order to avoid any unnecessary losses, the only other option left was to seek reinforcements. Though that was embarrassing as well, it was still a lot better than returning empty handed.

Come to think of it, weren't the lizardmen cave experts? With Habona's overwhelming might and Westley controlling them, the lizardman operation should be over by now. If that's the case, we could get them to send us some lizardmen.

With that in mind, I promptly had Numila deliver a letter to Habona in hopes that she could send us a division of lizardmen to aid in our war effort.

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The harpy messengers I sent out were extremely fast flyers. However, the nest wasn't exactly near us either. If you added in the fact that the lizardman reinforcement couldn't possibly be faster than these harpies, the entire back and forth would probably take over half a month.

While waiting for these messengers to do their job, I wasn't idling around either. I commanded the army to assault the ratman nest several times however they all ended in failure.

After the third assault failed, I experimented with dispatching our new slaves into battle. I had a hundred rodent slaves enter the nest to scout it out. The plan was to have them prod around the nest and return once the spears came raining down. Surprisingly, the rodents inside the nest didn't attack them right away but instead waited for the rodent slaves to enter the nest and then...well, that was the end of the story.

I couldn't hear any noise unique to fighting emanating from the cave and based on the movements within, it had basically been determined that they had left my control.

In the face of that, even I didn't know if I should consider myself smart or stupid. I already knew that those rat slaves didn't choose to be my slaves of their own volition but I still couldn't curb my desire to take a chance and finally dispatched them in an experiment. As for the results...having left the range of my supervision, they naturally went back to their visit their moms.

Faced with the prospect of an unassailable rat nest, Numila first reacted with disdain, followed by indifference before finally becoming the annoyed harpy witch we see today. They were nothing but a bunch of walking steaks so why were they so damned hard to kill!? Numila found herself screaming that in her head one day.

Strictly speaking, the whole reason for this stalemate was because I didn't want to suffer too much losses before we assaulted the prison exit. Besides, we didn't actually have any reliable intelligence on the interior of the nest. All we had was the information given to us by the lieutenants who surrendered. Whether or not that was even trustworthy was still up for debate.

Imagine you were playing League of L**ends and you were about to camp the bushes in order to ambush that lone enemy in the solo lane. Yet the moment you step into it, you found yourself surrounded by the five heroes from the other side...seeing you appear, they immediately pounce on you like a bunch of ravenous wolves and before you could even react, inflict an inhuman level of torture upon you -- Crowd Control skills, focused attacks, weakening debuffs, the whole shebang -- killing you in one wombo combo…

In order to avoid such an awkward situation, the best option would be to avoid the bushes entirely and find some way to gain vision over the bushes. After all, there's no guarantee that there wasn't a Gare* squatting in the bushes waiting to jump you.

Based on what we knew so far, the rat nest was in fact, occupied with enemies and their numbers weren't low either. They even picked up a ranged skill in the form of throwing javelins. In the field of ranged attacks, I dare say that I was the leading expert, at least when compared to the other creatures in the Prison of the Dead. With the enemy in the dark and us in the light, I truly didn't dare to launch a full-scale assault.

With regards to our passive situation, Numila wasn't the least bit comfortable with it at all. On multiple occasions, her temper would get the better of her but thankfully, I was there to stop her before she tried to assault the nest herself. What was hidden in that nest; who amongst us truly knew the answer to that?

Was that report about the 5000 warriors true? Were there only five four-star rat lieutenants waiting for us inside? These were all questions we couldn't answer. After all, just because the rat slaves said something didn't mean we should believe them as is. The only people who would take their word at face value were...fools and the gullible...without any way to verify those claims, there's no way I would allow my direct subordinates to risk themselves any further.

Naturally, Numila wasn't the only temperamental one here, Manasha was as well. However, after a round of persuasion, she calmed down as well. Since the medusas were lacking in numbers to begin with, that resulted in them picking up the excellent habit of not pushing themselves too much.

Thus, after calming down, she wasn't one to foolishly risk her clan. Of course, she wasn't being cowardly but rather it was a matter of perspective. Had it been her only, I bet she would've charged in already and slaughtered these rats, everything else can come after the killing.

The days we spent waiting for the reinforcements were drab but in order to prevent any unnecessary losses, we ended up sieging their nest for twenty days. On the twentieth day, the messenger we sent out finally returned along with a division of 2000 lizardmen.The lizardwoman leading the division was the sister of the current head of the lizardman clan, Westley's sister, Weslin.

Weslin was one of the lizardmen captured by Habona. As the sister of the clan leader, she naturally held an influential position amongst her clan. However, because Westley ended up pledging allegiance to Habona after she beat him up, it wasn't a stretch to consider Weslin as one of us.

Because we already made the decision to wait for reinforcements, we ended up digging a hole near the ratman nest to use as a temporary habitat.

It was Violet Snow who brought Weslin to my personal cave. At that moment, I was alone by myself so I decided to experiment with some new gear designs out of sheer boredom. I ended up crafting a few sets but because they were still ridden with flaws, I had no intention of using them immediately.

Westley had seen me before and knew of my relationship to Habona. Thus, the fact that he sent over Westlin confused me. If I'm not mistaken, he still had a younger brother so why did he dispatch Weslin? Shouldn't fighting and leading the troops be left to the males to handle?

Putting down the prototype in my hands, I raised my head just in time to notice the lizardwoman approach me. She didn't seem to be in the best of moods but upon seeing me, she suppressed the dissatisfaction in her heart and even went so far as to throw me a forced smile.

While her name, Weslin, sounded lovely, in reality, she was very bit a traditional lizardwoman. In other words, she was a bipedal giant lizard...in that case, how should I react to a female lizard smiling at me? As expected, it had to be that, didn't it: Flashing an accommodating smile amidst a shower of cold sweat.

"Now that Westley's the clan leader, are the other clan elders being compliant?" After exchanging some pleasantries, I immediately voiced the main concern I had. Regarding the progress of the lizard subjugation plan, Habona had sent some messengers with reports as well. However, these reports didn't contain much information and all I could glean from these reports was that the plan was proceeding smoothly though there was still some resistance.

Now that I had a first party source on hand in the form of Weslin, I naturally had to question her. After all, the lizard subjugation plan was of extreme importance to me. To the me who wanted to assault the prison exit, their cooperation was invaluable.

If the prison exit was akin to a dragon's roost or a tiger's nest, then the ratman nest which delayed me for over twenty days couldn't even be considered a childcare center.

"We did in fact encounter some resistance, however all these hindrances were nothing before the might of Mistress Habona." The moment she mentioned Habona, her face lit up.

Compared to that forced smile she gave me, the attitude she had towards Habona was rather...how should I say it, anyway all you had to know was that it sent shivers down my spine. Plus, whenever she smiled, my eyes would inadvertently stare at her wide open jaws...that's right, it wasn't some dainty cherry but rather, it was a couple rows of razor sharp fangs. Fangs that could rip your head in a single bite, don't cha know!

Whether it was out of the awkwardness of needing help or the spine-chilling rows of fang Weslin displayed, the expression I had on right now was a little awkward.

"Mistress Habona is the most dashing warrior I've ever seen, the power she possesses is enough to put her at the top of the prison's food chain. Not only that, Mistress Habona is so gentle and treats me so well...normally she's so cool as well, she's just so perfect!"

"How is she gentle? That wolf who casually swears at the drop of a hat and has violent tendencies…" Come to think of it, weren't Violet Snow and Habona still on horrible terms? No wonder this little white puppy jumped out the moment she saw Weslin gush over Habona.

'Habona isn't uncouth at all'? I seemed to remember her picking up Violet Snow and calling her a mutt on our first meeting. Exactly how did you associate the word elegant with this fellow? How was she gentle? How was she not uncouth?

"Err, Weslin, don't tell you've fallen for Habona?" It was merely a probing question but who knew that she would actually lower her head in embarrassment at that mere thought. Even Violet Snow lost the desire to bicker...if Weslin was a human, I could imagine her beet red face right now.

Seeing that look on Weslin's face, even Violet Snow was shocked into silence. Her jaws fell to the floor as if she was looking at the Lord Jesus himself. What the h*ck, this bit of revelation was just too stimulating, Weslin and Habona...a woman and another woman, was that truly alright?

Come to think of it, how did I even notice a lizard's embarrassment? Fine, I guess that wasn't the main issue now. The main issue was that the moment I asked that question, she actually acted in a way that left me at a loss for words. She, knelt before me…

Using a pair of pitiful eyes, she pleaded with eyes watering: "Truth be told, Brother hoped that I could follow Master Mo Ke and...if possible...if possible...engage in an in-depth relationship…"

Follow me...in-depth relationship...truth be told, I was disgusted. What the h*ck, we weren't even the same species and neither did we have the same sense of beauty, how does he expect us to get together? If I really had to fall in love with a giant lizard, I rather you killed me on the spot!

Hearing that, Violet Snow threw me a sinister smile that seemed to say, so that's it. Until now, I hadn't realized that the normally icy cold Violet Snow actually had such a gossipy side to her.

Were you picturing me spending time with that giant lizard? Well, that's impossible. All I can say to express my determination is: over my dead body!

(TL: The original line is "Your servant concubine is unable to comply!" You can substitute that in if you want, it's some line from a Chinese drama.)

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Violet Snow threw me a look that screamed "useless wuss". However, I simply couldn't bring myself to do it with a giant lizard so I distanced myself even more in spite of her scorn.

Oblivious to my look of utmost disgust, Weslin continued voicing out her true thoughts, head hung low as before. "Frankly, I didn't wish for it to be so...but I don't like you, I can't like you either...frankly I...frankly the person I like is Mistress Habona! So...will you please let me go…"

'Let you go? Aren't you making a mistake here? I should be the one begging you to let me go...also, it's fantastic that you like Habona instead, thank the heavens and the stars.'

Noticing that I had the look of someone who had just survived a calamity, Violet Snow nearly choked herself to death with her laughter. However, the little puppy promptly put on an obedient facade after a furious glare from me.

"Err, it's fine, there's nothing wrong with liking Habona. Even though I won't support you, that dare-to-love and dare-to-hate attitude of yours is worthy of respect. In that case…"

Initially, I had planned to continue talking in order to divert her attention but I was abruptly cut short when I discovered that she was looking at me with a shocked look on her face. Within her eyes, I could see a glimmer of expectation, gratitude along with a bunch of other hope-related emotions. Even her voice began to tremble a little as she said: "Ah, you...you aren't going to force me to marry you?"

'I dare you to chortle one second longer, Violet Snow. Do you believe that this brother will shave that fluffy white fur of yours in a second!'

Even though I really wanted to punish this little puppy, now wasn't the time for that. The most important task at hand was settling Weslin. Thus, I hurriedly put on the most casual look I could muster.

"Ah, ah,ah, not at all, not at all. There's really no need for that, I won't lift a finger to touch you...errr, I mean the fact that you like Habona seems extremely normal to me. Please don't worry too much about it. If you truly like someone, you should give it a shot. For all you know, Habona might swing that way as well."

'I'm really sorry, my dashing and valiant wolf-sister Habona, but in this crucial moment...all I can do is sell you, my teammate, off.'

'As the saying goes, I'm not going to hell, how about you go instead. Am I right? Even Bodhisattva Dizang agreed with me when he said [I'm not going to hell anymore]. So regarding Weslin, how about you be my fall guy, I mean fall wolf. I prefer girls who are more innocent and natural. As for the more eclectic girls, they really don't fall within my strike zone.'

"*sob sob sob*...that's simply wonderful, you are the first devil to approve of my decision to court Mistress Habona...you're really a nice guy…"

'Hey hey hey, don't just turn on the waterworks like that. What if someone hears you and mistakenly think that we did it? Also, I don't want to be issued the nice guy card…'

Eyes gleaming with mischief, Violet Snow swept her gaze over the two of us and, with lips curled up at a corner, she quipped: "Don't you know that Mo Ke's a devil? Is it really alright for you to call him a nice guy?"

Perhaps she finally noticed the dissatisfaction on my face but after wiping off her tears, she gazed weakly at me before saying: "About that, I'm really sorry, Master Mo Ke. To think I actually called you a nice guy, I truly deserve to die. I bet a devil like you, definitely don't want to labelled a nice guy. I apologize, from now on, I'll remember that you are a bad guy, the most baddest guy in the world…"

'Why does that make me want to cry instead? I feel you should give me that nice guy card instead, it's not that inappropriate now that I think about it.'

No matter how much I fumed, it didn't stop her from continuing to laugh at my expense. However, it wasn't that bad having her laugh like that either. Normally, she had an icy look on her face as if I owed her millions of dollars.

Truly, ever since we met, she seemed to have gotten a lot more cheerful. It probably had to do with her successfully avenging the death of her mother and finally letting go of that burden.

If it wasn't for the medusas' ability to petrify, the lizardmen would probably come out ahead in terms of combat strength. After all, the medusas didn't have a set of scales that could protect their vital points from all sorts of damage.

Both races had toxins within them but the medusas were able to fire theirs from a distance while the lizardmen had their toxins concentrated within their oral cavities. In order to activate this toxin, they first had to bite down on their victims. However, the lizardmen had an advantage over the medusas in that their mouth toxins contained viruses as well. Thus, they were able to poison opponents who had a resistance to toxins.

Both of these races had their own strengths but when you factored in the ability to petrify, it went without saying that the Medusas had a clear edge over these lizards. However, if one were to evaluate them based on defenses alone, the medusas couldn't even come close to the lizardmen who were born with a scale mail built into them.

Thus, my plan was to have these lizardmen equip a bunch of shields and form the vanguard of my army while the medusas and the guardsmen trailed behind.

Armed with my shields, they could basically ignore the bone spears of those rodents so all that remained was for them to cleave open a path for us. Naturally, I wouldn't mind if they were able to finish off all those who resisted us in one go.

While the combat strength of two thousand lizardmen was already scary enough, I wouldn't mind if they grew even stronger. With that in mind, I had a two-star guardsman square off against a two-star lizardman.

The scales of the lizardman were just able to deflect the slashes of my bone broadswords. As for that guardsman, should he ever get bitten, the outcome was obvious even without guessing…

Thus, the first thing that lizardman did after exchanging a couple of blows with the guardsman was to nimbly circle around him and latch onto his shoulders. Jaws wide open and teeth bared for all to see, he attempted to bite the devil…

Thankfully, this was merely a duel and not a fight to the death. Weslin stepped in before that happened and ended the match, narrowly avoiding a potential bloodletting.

The lizardman won and that was even under unarmed conditions…'if I were to equip them with proper weapons and protective gear, their combat strength would definitely go through the roof.'

Other than the four-star Weslin, the lizardmen who came to aid us, included 200 three-stars with the rest of the 1800 consisting entirely of two-stars.

Even though I kept myself busy crafting a bunch of equipment in the interim where we waited for more reinforcements, those were mostly experimental prototypes. They were still usable in a pinch but even then there still wasn't enough to go around. Tallying up the numbers, I was barely able to gear up 500 lizardman.

As I was mulling over the choice of whether or not to take the risk by attacking now or play it safe by crafting more equipment, Violet Snow chimed in with a plausible suggestion as to how we could send out a preliminary assault.

"I feel that we should gear up these 500 lizardmen first and send them on a reconnaissance mission. If we find that their resistance is lacking, we can dispatch a larger force then."

'So we should test the waters first then? That's a pretty flexible strategy that works well with others. Given that these lizards have an impressive level of defence, they can just run away if things start to look bad.'

Truth be told, I had considered a diversionary tactic, in other words, faking an all out assault on one entrance while we focused the majority of our forces on another. However, the outcome of doing so was that we confirmed this piece of intelligence: no matter which entrance you attacked, the rodents had a roughly similar defence force stationed there.

"That's not a bad idea, we've dragged out this battle with the rodents for too long already so let's just start this quick." I had Weslin hand out my assorted mix of 500 or so bone shields, swords, spears, hammers and whatever nonsense I concocted in my spare time. Having done that, these lizards even began to look the part of a lizard hero, what with all the weapons and armor I gave them.

"Leave the main assault to us." She confidently declared as she thumped her chest. "They're just a bunch of rats. Don't worry, we'll perfectly show off the most valiant side of the draconic race!"

"Understood!" With so many witnesses nearby, I chose not to reveal too much details. Weslin was no fool however and immediately understood what I was trying to say. Having gained my official assurance, her excitement skyrocketed.

As if she had taken a shot of pure adrenaline, she rushed into battle, shield raised and spear waving. "Follow me. Today will be the last we see of these stubborn rats!"

Having seen the effectiveness of my shields against their spears, Weslin wasted no time in having the three-star lizardmen form a mobile shield wall in front of the army. Behind them, the rest of the lizardmen formed up ranks after which they rapidly advanced through the nest.

Not long they took their first few steps, a hail of bone spears descended upon them. While a portion of these spears ended up making it through the shield wall, their scales surprised me once more with their sturdiness when they harmlessly deflected the vicious spears of the ratmen.

However, it wasn't actually that surprising once I gave it some more thought. Given that the spears were crafted from shoddy materials and that they didn't possess a height advantage like my harpies, it wasn't that surprising that their attacks failed especially since their opponents were three-star lizardmen. The higher one's star level was, the more sturdy their scales became.

"From the sounds of battle, it seems like the plan is underway already."As Violet Snow and I stood at the entrance, there was only so much we could see from the outside especially since the already narrow width of the cave was filled up by the sheer size of these lizard big brothers. For the most part, we had to rely on our hearing to determine what was happening inside.

Truth be told, the sounds of combat were actually rather easy to make out. The screams of pain all came from the Abaddon Rodents while the lizardmen hadn't even suffered a single casualty up to this point.

Two minutes later, a lizardman ran out of the cave and under my anxious gaze, reported the news that I had been waiting for: "Your Excellency, the fighting inside the cave was intense but the enemies weren't a match for our clan. Mistress Weslin has determined that it's alright to mount a full-scale assault..."

As expected, fighting a war was all about finding the right counter to everything. While the medusas' offensive abilities were impressive, their defensive abilities were lacklustre in comparison. Against the aggression of the rodents, they would've suffered heavy casualties even if I sent them in with shields. However, who would have known that such a difficult problem was nothing more than child's play for the lizardmen.

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Even though the medusas were technically rated higher than the lizardmen in terms of combat strength, the end result was that they weren't even able to apprehend a bunch of stick throwing rats… 'everything in this world had its own Achilles' heel I guess'.

"Well what are you all waiting for, ATTACK!" With a wave of my hand, I ordered the remaining 1500 lizardmen to join in the full-scale assault. Having had a few days of worth of pent up rage in her, Manasha was raring to go, which she did so with a furious charge. Behind her, Majosha and her husband, Harlow, exchanged a couple of helpless glances before chasing after her.

However, by the time they reached the battlefield, they found that there was basically nothing left for them to do thanks to Weslin's splendid performance.

"If there are too many of them escaping, don't push yourself too hard either, just do your best." Due to the lack of progress assaulting this cave, it truly felt like I had a fishbone stuck in my thraot these past few days. Now that we finally found a solution to that problem, it was only to be expected that I would go all-out.

Having finally some form of catharsis for my sullen mood, I said: "Don't push yourselves too hard, it's fine if some ratmen escape. Without their nest, it's only a matter of time before we round them all up anyway."

Slightly moved and slightly exasperated at the same time, I gave her a smile before giving her a peck on her featherless forehead. "Wait for my return."

"Mhm." The Numila standing before me right now seemed more like a docile lamb than anything else, gone was the arrogance she showed during my initial encounter.

Truth be told, I had a bad feeling about this nest. Even with our recent successes, I couldn't help but worry that the nest was hiding something else as well. After all, Violet Snow had been bullying these rats for some time now but they had never once shown any ability to craft spears.

That contrast was kind of like if you attacked what was supposed to be a bunch of cavemen from the stone age but found out that they actually had bronze weapons and wooden armor…'these rats were supposed to be in the stone age so how did they suddenly advance to the bronze age? That makes no sense!'

I had some of the hellhounds sniff the bone spears just to be sure. Based on what they sniffed out, it definitely was the unique scent of the ratman lingering on those spears.

As we navigated through the tunnels, we found countless ratman corpses scattered throughout. Just based on a quick count, there had to have been at lea st 500 corpses along the path we just walked.

With Weslin acting as our vanguard and clearing the path ahead of us, there was nothing to worry about as we proceeded forward. As long as we continued following the trail of corpses, it would only be a matter of time before we caught up with Weslin.

I had to admit though, the resistance these rodents were putting up was a lot fiercer than I had predicted. Normally, these ratmen were cowardly and avoided death like the plague, yet now these rats were actually engaged in a bitter fight to the death with us. Without any regard for their injuries or lives, they threw themselves at the lizardmen in a frenzied counterattack.

Thankfully, the lizardmen had their sturdy scales to protect them from the ratmen's attacks. However, the razor sharp teeth of these rodents wasn't something to be underestimated. Even with their scales, a particularly vicious bite could as just as well reap the life out of their bodies.

That was why I would stumble upon a few injured lizardmen from time to time. They were mostly covered in wounds that weren't too severe but even so, these wounds were starting to take a toll on their combat ability. In order to avoid any unnecessary losses, I handed them over to the guardsmen and instructed these devils to evacuate the wounded out of the cave where the harpies could take over.

After proceeding forward for another four to five minutes, we finally caught up with Weslin's vanguard army. As for why it took so long to do so, it was because the Prison of the Dead was a maze to begin with, this nest being dug out of said maze was naturally just as snaking and easy to get lost in.

Right now, Weslin was leading her lizardmen in a charge against the Abaddon Rodents' defensive formation. Opposite her, the ratmen were furiously tossing their spears as if they had an endless supply of them in hand. Unfortunately for them, the defenses of the lizardmen were simply too strong and no matter how extravagantly they wasted their spears, the most they achieved was cause some minor abrasions.

Of course, it was a different matter entirely when those spears landed in a fatal spot like the eye sockets. However, the throwing skills of these rodents were only a smidge better than the harpies so for them to hit a target the size of a coin was...difficult.

Having been forced to retreat multiple times, the rodents' morale wasn't even that high to begin with. The moment they saw us arrive with the main army, they immediately despaired. Soon, there were signs of a massive retreat. Only those who couldn't escape tried to fight back by biting the lizardmen.

'This seems a little too easy, so easy it's almost like taking candy from a rat baby. This just feels a little too smooth, almost unnaturally so.'

"What's the matter?" Seeing me stop and frown, Violet Snow who had been by my side all this while, lifted her tiny head and asked: "Aren't you going to advance?"

Manasha who seemed to have no interest in bullying these weaklings, so happened to be my side as well. Hearing my comment, she chimed in, voice slightly curious. "How so?"

"Don't you feel that everything seems a little too smooth?" I said while pointing at Weslin who was still in midst of slaughtering the rodents.

It wasn't that I didn't trust Weslin's capabilities, it also wasn't that I was unaware of how the lizardmen countered the rodents, but this was the nest of the Abaddon Rodents after all. These rats were simply too weak to the point where it felt unrealistic. But saying that this was all a set up...somehow, I just couldn't picture that.

"Not really, the lizardmen are really suited to taking on these rodents." While Violet Snow didn't understand my worries, she still patiently explained herself: "Their strongest point is their venom, as long as they are able to get a bite in, those who didn't have a strong resistance to poison would definitely suffer greatly."

"However, the lizardmen are different from their usual opponents. They are protected by scales which not only deflected their bone spears, but also deflected their bites somewhat. Furthermore, they have an extremely high resistance to poison so that bit of venom won't even be able to harm them. It's only to be expected that the battle has proceeded so smoothly."

"Don't overthink this matter. Truth be told, the medusas have an innate resistance to poison as well. If Manasha was more cavalier with her medusas, they would be able to achieve this much as well, albeit with some casualties."

Hearing that affirmative assessment, Manasha nodded her head as well seeing as she didn't intend to refute any claims that the medusas were stronger than the lizardmen. "Rats are just rats in the end, don't treat them as something bigger than they actually are."

Having been forced to accompany me, Mimiya probably felt frustrated by the lack of freedom. Upon noticing my hesitation, the ever-restrained Mimiya immediately activated her taunting skill with no regards for friendly fire. "All that talk about strangeness, are you sure you aren't just afraid?" At her side, Vick had an equally taunting look on his face ready to complement her, just as a competent sidekick should.

"Haha, perhaps I was really thinking too much into this." Ignoring the two potatoes, I banished the doubts in my head and proceeded onwards.

Whether it was the devils, the undead or the other lifeforms in hell, they basically all had one similarity, that was that their intelligence...tended to be a little low. Ever since I reincarnated into the Blood Sea up till now, I hadn't encountered a truly intelligent opponent and these ratmen clearly weren't an exception to this. I just couldn't imagine them digging a hole for me to jump in.

As Weslin hunted down the fleeing rodents with her troops, she revelled in the euphoria of being invincible. Unknowingly, she had lost her bearing. By the time we realized this, we found ourselves in a giant area which could hold over a thousand people.

I could understand how the rodents had an endless supply of spears; they had a habit of piling up the bones of their prey once they were done eating. Thus, it wasn't at all strange that they could amass such a number of bones for their spear crafting. However, such a vast cave was truly a rare sight in the Prison of the Dead.

Floating around right in front of us was a mass of green fog that was slowly spreading outwards. Peering through the fog, I could vaguely make out a gate over seven meters tall and five meters wide on each side of the gate.

(Author: Double doors are doors that can be opened on both sides, imagine those ancient doors.) (TL: He used the phrase double doors instead of gate, but honestly, it's just a freaking gate.)

As the green fog continued spreading outwards, it wasn't long before they occupied slightly less than half of the available space. By now, the fog was spread a lot thinner so I was able to notice the giant pit in front of it that was over 10 meters wide and had an unknown depth. Laying within it were countless rat corpses which got to the point where the bloody red mass was able to fill up the giant pit… 'How many rats had to die in order to fill that hole?! One thousand? Two, five or perhaps ten thousand?'

'Damn it, what's going on here? Don't tell me those rodents were into mass suicides as well...does the Falun Cult have a branch in this world as well?'

"The Door of the Dead is what we commonly refer to as the prison exit…" Having recognized the place, she knew there was no time to explain this matter so she turned around and tried to drag us out of this place: "There should still be enough time if we leave now, quick before…"

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine we would gain information on the prison exit under such circumstances. 'Yet when she said [There should still be enough time if we leave now], did she mean that we are in grave danger now?'

'No doubt about it, just looking at their deaths, even an idiot wouldn't think that they killed themselves because they had nothing left to live for. It had to be that someone set this all up while we were busy attacking them. He probably conducted some kind of evil ritual while the rats bought time for him and then had them lure us here with their lives…'

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Looking around, there seemed to be only one way out of this cavern, and that was the way we came in. Yet just as we were about to evacuate via that exit, we discovered, to our surprise, that the green fog had already blanketed our escape route.

Within that strange fog, I could vaguely make out a bunch of unknown silhouettes crawling out from beneath the bony grounds of the Prison of the Dead. These unknown entities didn't seem all that sturdy and would stagger with each step they took. As they did so, an audible click echoed across the vast cavern, it was a click that resembled the sound of bones colliding with each other… 'undead!'

"Charge through them!" Manasha was the first one to break the silence with her rousing yell. Even though the number of undead skeletons were still unknown, that didn't deter her one bit as she fearlessly charged into the unknown.

As she closed in on one of the skeletons, she swung her powerful snake tail and with a resounding crack, scattered the bony bodies of three nearby skeletons into the air.

To a four-star like Manasha, these newly summoned skeletons clearly weren't even a threat to her. Thus, it didn't take long before she managed to cleave a path to the exit point.

However, the moment she tried to charge out of the exit point, her body was abruptly repelled backwards as if she had collided with some kind of sturdy wall.

"Are you alright?" I asked as I rushed up to break her fall. At the same time, I turned my gaze to investigate what it was that repelled her. Strangely, I found nothing there. Other than that obviously non-solid mist, there was nothing but empty space.

"There's no need to keep looking, the exit has already been sealed. If we aren't able to defeat the guardian army of the Door of the Dead…" Manasha left her sentence hanging there, though it wasn't hard to guess what came next. Only an idiot couldn't guess that unless we defeated these undead, we were stuck here.

With the exit merely a few paces away from us, how could I be satisfied with just giving up like that? The answer was a definite no. I disbelievingly reached out to touch the exit point and as I did so, I gave the air in front of me a slight shove. To my dismay, I wasn't able to push past that point.

It was as if there was an invisible magical force separating the cavern ,where the Door of the Dead resided, from the Prison of the Dead.

"Sh*t, what should we do now?" With no way to escape and our location still a giant unknown, my mind was thrown into disarray. With hardly any time to digest what was happening to us, it truly felt like we were grasping at straws.

Beside me, Manasha had a visible look of displeasure on her face as she shook her head and said, "I should listened to you just now and been more careful, we wouldn't have ended up in this situation then…"

"Well, there's no use saying that now. We need to think of a plan quick. Exactly how are we going to overcome this dangerous situation?" Even while we were panicking, the number of undead continued to steadily rise. Weslin was already in midst of repelling the skeletons with her lizardkin.

In the midst of all that, No.3 and Big 4 swiftly rushed to my side while the other guardsmen sortied to reinforce the medusas' position. Because these were undead they were dealing with, the medusas were at a slight disadvantage. Given that their toxins were ineffective against the dead, they were forced them to engage in melee instead.

Regret was pointless. That was something Manasha knew very well. Still, that didn't prevent her from feeling extremely frustrated at the fact that she had just been tricked by a bunch of rats. It didn't take long before that anger got to her head after which she promptly snapped.

By now, the coverage of that green fog had widened significantly and with that, the number of undead rising had increased as well. The undead that rose were merely skeletons; there were no wraiths of zombies in sight.

Being skeletons, they were naturally just a bunch of weaklings. Yet, even for skeletons, they seemed weak. Their bodies would shake with every step they took as if they were on the verge of falling apart. Not only that, they were all unarmed. No shields, no weapons, nothing; not even clothing.

One thing that caught my eye was the variety of skeletons attacking us. There were skeletons with horns on their heads --most likely devils --, stubbier skeletons belonging to the dogmen, ratlike ones, reptilian ones, orcish ones and even centaur skeletons. However, there weren't just complete skeletons, there were skeletons that lacked arms and legs...while not having arms was still fine, not having legs meant that these skeletons were slowly crawling towards us...either way, there was a whole gamut of skeleton types heading towards us.

Standing in front of us was our end goal, the legendary Door of the Dead. Yet without making ample preparations, entering was definitely out of the question.

'What about retreating then...not an option as well…that invisible wall is still there blocking our escape route.' Since a mighty four-star like Manasha wasn't able to break down that wall, the thought of breaching that wall had never even crossed my mind.

The only option left open to us was to advance and kill every thing that tried to kill us, that was the only route to survival. Thus, without even needing me to give out the command, Weslin knew to buckle down and focus on the fighting. After all, griping about how careless we were wasn't going to change a thing.

With every wave of her spear, Weslin managed to sweep aside one skeleton at the very least. Armed with the shield I gave her, there was basically no chance of getting harmed either. In fact, it even functioned as a lethal weapon with the way she violently smashed a couple of skeletons that tried to approach her with a prompt shield bash. Though this was her first time wielding a shield, I had to admit, she wielded it well.

Once more, the physical prowess of the lizardmen stole the limelight in this battle. While they had no magical talents to speak of, that deficiency was more than compensated by their excellent power, speed and constitution. As expected of the mighty draconic race.

With all that said, it was worth noting once more how weak these skeletons were. I bet they weren't even a one-star mob, a gale could probably blow them away if the Prison of the Dead had winds.

Naturally, these weaklings weren't a match for my army of 600 medusas, 2000 lizardmen and 300-odd guardsmen. The hellhound riders weren't suited for such close quarter combat so I left them outside with the harpies. It wasn't a large army per say but that was precisely why I took pains to choose the elites before rushing into the cave. Against these zero-star trash, they were clearly overqualified.

Of the three races, only the medusas had one-stars amongst them. Even so, these one-stars weren't a hindrance to others in spite of the undead's resistance to toxins. They still had their frightening tails to aid them so all in all, their melee strength wasn't that bad either.

While all that was happening, the mysterious green fog continued expanding as usual. Yet it seemed to avoid any living creature as if there was some kind of will guiding it to do so.

Thanks to that, the rate of undead spawning had picked up as well. Thankfully, we still killed them at a faster rate than they spawned. With a mighty of sweep of her tail, the boss-class medusa, Manasha, easily took out a large swathe of skeletons.

Nearby, Harlow's own impressive performance showed once more why the demonic werewolves were a fearsome combat race. With his razor sharp claws, he tore through the skeletons as if they were a bunch of tofu.

However, the battle situation didn't seem to be changing despite our overwhelming kill ratio. With that in mind, I had no choice but to allow Mimiya to join the fray as well. With her dimensional magic talents, she pulled out a giant black scythe that was even taller than her from god knows where.

Flapping her devil wings, she took to the air and begun spinning around wildly while she swung the terrifying scythe in what looked like a frenzied reaper's dance. The moment a skeleton approached her, it was promptly sliced apart before it could take another step further.

As the little she-devil continued decimating the skeletons, another strange sight caught my eyes. Vick, the wraith whom I had pegged as an advocate of peace because he rarely attack anyone, actually joined the battle alongside Mimiya as a trusty sidekick should. With his incorporeal nature, he was able to freely float up to a skeleton and extend his ghostly hands right into their skulls in order to harvest the soul flames within.

As he did that to one of the skeletons, that poor undead promptly collapsed to the ground leaving behind a soul flame floating on the palms of Vick.

Speaking of which, that reaper's scythe was actually something I made for Mimiya. It had the soul pearl of a three-star wraith infused within it and thus possessed a frightening level of lethality. It even possessed a gruesome ability to cause bleeding to whatever it struck and had the ability to cast a random curse as well.

With regards to the origins of that scythe, there was one thing I had to say now: while Mimiya looked rather adorable, her personality wasn't the least bit adorable at all…

Back when she first laid eyes on Numila's Flametail, she fell in love with such weapons and clamored for her own epic-grade weapon as well. However, I only had a Shadowfang on hand so there was no way I would give her one.

I brushed her off by saying that I would find one later but who knew that she would end up losing her patience anyway. She said that it didn't matter if the weapon wasn't an epic weapon, just give her one for now so that she could play with it. Back then I was still busy with other matters so I rejected her. However, after being hounded by her for several days, I finally gave in and rushed out that black scythe for her.

I doubt anyone wouldn't do the same if they were in my shoes...after all, who would want a little devil flying around their heads throughout the day…

"Don't talk about me, aren't you here as well?" As she said that, Violet Snow rolled her eyes at me as if to say, one who ran fifty paces shouldn't laugh at one who ran a hundred. Yet the moment she turned around to look at me, her head froze. That was because she finally understood that I hadn't actually been lazing around at all.

According to the Chinese wiki, this saying originated from the Era of Warring States. Mencius was having a chat with King Hui and he brought up this analogy,

"Once there were two defeated soldiers fleeing from the frontlines. One of them ran away for fifty paces while the other ran a hundred. The one who ran fifty paces ended up calling the other soldier useless for fleeing so far even though, at the end of the day, they were both useless. The only difference was how far they ran."

Sometimes I had to admit, the Shadow Guardian was truly a useful spell to have. It could be activated stealthily and once it was activated, its shadow could extend itself to bind an opponent. That was precisely what I was doing right at this very moment: using my shadow to aid our side.

"Your shadow magic is really convenient huh…" As she said that, she couldn't help but feel that her words had come back to bite her in her fluffy white tail.

Truth be told, I couldn't blame her for not attacking. While her attacks were powerful, she didn't have much of a mana pool to back them up. In a long drawn-out battle like this, she couldn't sustain her attacks for long so it was only natural that she held herself back for crucial moments.

Now was clearly not a crucial moment. Our side had an overwhelming advantage in terms of strength and while their numbers were a concern, they were still zero-star trash mobs. I bet some random muscle man could defeat these skeletons just by wielding a stick let alone my battle-hardened warriors.

Yet even though that was the case, I could vaguely sense the falseness behind this security. Manasha probably felt the same as well otherwise she wouldn't have tried to escape in such a hurry.

As if to prove my point, what I feared finally happened. After ten minutes of slaughtering these skeletons, the bony ground finally produced the first ever one-star skeleton. If this was anything to go by, there might just be two-stars as well in the not too distant future…

With the appearance of that skeleton, the newly risen skeletons all had some form of basic weaponry and armor. While they weren't all that impressive to look at, their effectiveness wasn't anything to scoff at.

At least that would have been the case if they were facing off against another army. To us, the only difference between a one-star and zero-star was that one required a smidge more force to break…

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Initially, it didn't take much effort for us to farm these mindless replicating skeletons. However, after another ten minutes or so, the level of the risen skeletons increased once more. We now had to face an unending horde of skeletons consisting mostly of one-stars and a sizeable number of two-stars who formed an elite corp of sorts.

The arrival of these two-stars undoubtedly made our job significantly harder as, unlike their one-star brethren, their direct combat strength wasn't that inferior though they still weren't a match for the lizardmen and my guardsmen. However, these skeletons gave off that ominous feeling of being endless which ,I had to say, was a major psychological stress factor.

Just from a quick glance alone, I could see that stress being turned into physical fatigue that, in turn, made some of my troops lose focus as well. Given how they had been fighting at full throttle for over twenty minutes, I couldn't blame them for tiring out either. Thus, for the first time since this battle started, we were starting to show signs of faltering.

"Why won't these damned skeletons stay dead…" Exclaimed Weslin, voice exasperated and slightly ragged from the fatigue as well. This four-star lizardwoman was one of the first few to leap into battle and revel in that ensuing carnage. Yet at the same time, that meant she expanded a great deal of stamina and while her four-star status afforded her greater stamina than most, even she was beginning to tire out.

While this amount of fatigue was still manageable for her, the almost sisyphean nature of this battle was beginning to grate on her nerves and threatened to throw her into the depths of despair. What truly concerned her was how long more would this battle last. Did they really have to maintain such a ferocity for the entire day?

On the other hand, Manasha was noticeably more collected in her response. She seemed to have had experience with such battles before judging from how she calmly commanded her medusas. After suppressing the enemy, she had her troops split into two and set up a rotation where one stood guard while the other rested.

Noticing Weslin's panicked state, Manasha immediately reminded the lizard: "Keep it together, it's going to be over soon. Before we entered the cavern, someone activated the defensive magical array of the Door of the Dead. That person must've sacrificed a huge amount of souls as well, that's why the potency of this array seemed to have been magnified several times. After every ten minutes, the undead will advance by a level but under normal circumstances, it should stop at three-stars."

The two-star skeletons were noticeably stronger than the one-stars but thankfully, they made up less than half of the army, roughly a thousand or so. Yet, those one thousand two-stars were enough to give us a run for our money.

In light of that, our forces had to put forth their best in order to counter the undead. As for me, I decided that it was finally time for me to do so as well.

However, just as I was about to toss my conjured fireball, Weslin inexplicably led her troops in a charge towards the skeleton army. They violently dove into the skeleton horde and scattered their bony foes. All around them, the skeletons that stood in their way basical ly exploded in a shower of broken bones. Yet, they didn't stop there. She continued leading her lizards forward as if she was looking for something.

"Weslin? What do you think you are doing? Don't break away from the main force!" Unfortunately, my commands fell on deaf ears as she continued charging forward without even turning around once. Her reckless charge continued until, finally, they came to a stop in front of the valley of rat corpses that was more a blood pool by now.

Seeing that, I became even more confused. No matter how I racked my brains, I just couldn't understand her actions. 'Just what was she up to?'

Then, a mere second later...there was no longer a need for me to rack my brains because she gave me the answer herself. Weslin violently swept aside the skeletons approaching her and with one claw extended forward, reached for one of the rat corpses in the blood pools. Fangs bared for all to see, she viciously bit down… 'Was she hungry or something?'

It wasn't just Weslin, the other lizardmen who followed her all charged to the blood pool as well and began wolfing down the corpses. While some wolfed down the corpses at breakneck speeds, some of them just swallowed the corpses whole, bones and all.

'The way you guys are behaving right now...exactly how many years has it been since you all ate? That can't be right, can it? As the saying goes, the emperor doesn't lack hungry soldiers, I know this logic well enough. I fed them well before we assaulted the cave and I even prepared a surplus of meat just in case so I'm absolutely sure that they already had their fill of meat.'

"You potato lizard, if you don't get back here this instant, I'm never letting you meet Habona ever again in your lifetime!" I snapped, clearly displeased that my previous command was so thoroughly ignored.

Though I'm not sure what this lesbian had in mind when she decided to fall in love with Habona, her love for that shewolf should be genuine. Even though she probably knew that Habona would never love her, she still chose to hold onto this one-sided romance. Against such a lovestricken lizard, the threat of not seeing Habona was definitely a serious one. At least that was what I thought...even after throwing out the name [Habona], Weslin still didn't react to my words.

'Don't tell me that food held a greater position in your heart than Habona? That doesn't make any sense, it's too strange. How could Weslin ignore the word Habona like that?!'

"Is there something wrong with her brains?" Asked Violet Snow. Like me, she knew how much Weslin liked Habona as well. The fact that she would ignore the word Habona like that, struck her as strange. There was clearly more to this situation than meets the eye.

"There's definitely something wrong with her brains and there's probably some special reason for it." Even though I still couldn't figure out what was wrong with Weslin, I wasn't willing to give up on her either. Her position in my army was a delicate one so whether it was out of principle or out of deference to Westley's feelings, I couldn't disregard her safety.

What made matters worse was that those skeletons had begun to notice the fact that a small portion of my army had broken off to feast on the blood pool. While they were still brainless as before, they at least had the intelligence to perform the almost instinctual task of picking on the weak.

Soon, the skeletons separated a portion of their troops to surround the feasting lizardmen. Of these, the majority were one-stars while the rest were basically two-stars except for that one three-star thrown into the mix. That's right, the array was beginning to summon three-stars now.

Unlike their two-star brethren, they were noticeably better equipped both in terms of armor and weapons. Each of them wore a bone jerkin and the majority of them wielded a longsword and shield. There were some that wielded a pair of long spears and some that wielded a long shaft hammer. Fortunately, there were still no signs of them having long range capabilities.

By now, the nearest skeletons had begun to attack the feasting lizardmen but shockingly, they still didn't proactively attack the skeletons even after receiving their strikes. All they did was hunker down and swat at the offending skeletons should their actions directly interfere with their feasting. From time to time, they would flick their lizard tails at the annoying skeletons in order to shove them aside.

For now, they seemed to be holding up well. However, such a situation wasn't tenable. While their defenses weren't low, they weren't that high that they could allow the skeletons to freely attack them either.

It wasn't long before the first death appeared. It was a two-star lizardman who died under the spear thrust of a three-star skeleton. 'Damn it, these skeletons act fast...I need to find out the reason for their feeding frenzy as soon as possible.'

'It's not like she was a Mo Xixidi, her desire for food shouldn't be at that level where even the heavens shook and the earth wept, so why wasn't she striking back even after the being hit...it's so unnatural!'

"This situation...I think I've seen it before somewhere..." Muttered Manasha. I had to hand it to this medusa sometimes, her abilities were truly astounding. Even in the midst of this heated battle, she still had the presence of mind to observe her surroundings.

The moment she noticed Weslin's strangeness, her eyebrows jumped as if she just thought of something: "Weslin looks like she is under the control of some mysterious force...control...I've got it, it's an evil eye!"

Before I could recall where I had heard of it before, Manasha suddenly yelled, finger pointing above our heads as she did so: "Quick, look up there! It's up there!"

Floating right above us was a giant meatball. In the center of that meatball was a giant eyeball that at least took up half of its body...and that meatball was dangling upside down from the ceiling at this very moment…

The meatball was fairly rounded and had several feeler-like appendages that helped secure itself to the bony ceiling. Its giant eyeball was currently focused in the direction of Weslin and as it did so, an indescribably frightening red light flickered in its pupils. It was precisely this light that allowed us to spot this strange ball hanging above us otherwise we would have never been able to notice it thanks to its beige coloring, a color that blended very well with the ceiling.

'Ah! I remember now, aren't evil eyes those monsters from the legends that can control your mind!? I still remember that time when I employed such a unit in some war chess game, its main skill was to control the opponent's units and it looked exactly like that meatball dangling above us. However, shouldn't it be called a beholder?'

"Beholders are the next step in their evolution tree." Her eyes fell on me as she said that. In the meantime, the snakes atop her hair reared their heads back and took aim. Mouths wide open, they fired their toxic payload at the dangling meatball.

Countless thread-like streams of toxins flew into the air and precisely landed on the evil eye who was still focused on controlling Weslin. As they did so, this cavernous section of the Prison reverberated with the jarring hisses of melting flesh. All around the meatball, we could clearly see a mass of greyish smoke rise from the areas the venom struck.

Having been caught off guard by this attack, its paper thin defenses promptly crumbled and the evil eye immediately lost control of its body after which it fell off the ceiling. However, while a height of 15 meters might seem high, it wasn't actually so for creatures with a certain degree of power. At most, such a height would only cause some minor bruises.

As it fell, the evil eye hurriedly wrapped its feelers around its meaty body just in time to protect itself from the fall. A second later, it crash landed and like a rubber ball, it actually bounced several times off the ground…

The evil eye's feelers were probably around one and a half meter long while its ball, in other words its head section, was a meter long in diameter. It had no mouth, ears, nose or facial features to speak of, all it had was a giant eyeball. Truly, a strange looking creature.

However, that wasn't the only unusual thing about it. As it landed on the ground, its exterior began to change color, taking on a meaty hue at the end of its transformation. At the top of its giant noggin were numerous patches of scorched flesh, those were clearly the handiwork of Manasha's venom, though their toxicity had basically run out now.

Even so, it wasn't the sheer power of her venom that shocked me the most, rather, it was the fact that this meatball could disguise itself! Like a chameleon, it was able to change its skin color to suit its surroundings.

'I don't remember beholders having such a convenient feature back when I played that game! Weren't they just supposed to be long ranged units with an innate ability to hypnotize others and float? They also had horrid defenses and speed but that was about all I knew about them from the game.'

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Right in the middle of Manasha's explanation, the evil eye suddenly released the feelers wrapped around its body and,with its giant eye glowing a sinister red, fired off a psychic attack at the medusas in a bid to control her. Caught off guard, she abruptly halted her explanation due to the sudden interference.

Strangely enough, she managed to instantly shake off the psychic spell as if she was immune to it. Prior to this, she had assumed that the evil eye was harmless after getting burnt by her toxin. Truly, it was a huge mistake on her part.

Having lost control of its psychic spell, the resulting backlash immediately fired back at the evil eye's mind. Brains spasming from the rending pain, it desperately tried to alleviate its suffering by continually rolling around on the floor.

"You actually tried to control me, looks like you truly wish to die!" Her lips curved into a disdainful smile and a second later, her hefty tail lashed at the unfortunate meatball and sent it flying like a soccer ball. A few meters away, the meaty soccer ball collided into the Prison walls and then, bounced off harmlessly with its amazing elasticity…

'Come to think of it, why wasn't she affected by the evil eye's mind control?' While there hadn't been any clear indication of what level it was at, it had to have been a four-star given the way it managed to control Weslin and several dozens of lizardmen.

"Let's take care of the undead first, as for that evil eye...it doesn't have the ability to cause trouble for the time being, I'll just have Majosha look after it."

Now that the evil eye had lost its ability to fight, its control over the lizardmen and Weslin had been broken. The moment she woke up, she found, to her surprise, that she was in the middle of a skeleton horde. Around her, the lizardmen who had been placed under control were all in a bad shape with some even dying during their feeding frenzy. Of her remaining subordinates, only ten or so were still in fighting shape.

"What...what am I doing here?" She said, eyes slightly glazed over in confusion. Thankfully, even in the midst of her muddled state, her battle instincts weren't lost. Tossing aside the half eaten rat in her hands, she spun around in a deadly dance of tail and razor sharp claws. In just a few seconds, the skeletons around her were reduced to nothing but a pile of scattered bones.

Thanks to her formidable strength, Weslin made it through their feeding frenzy completely unscathed. Her four-star strength was currently working at full throttle as she furiously zipped around the battlefield and saved her wounded brethren. "Bring those that can be saved with you and follow my lead!"

Without wasting a single second, she violently charged into the dense skeleton pack and forcefully cleaved a clear path for her breathren. Behind her, the ten or so lizardmen, all laden with a injured comrade, obediently stuck close to her and ran for their lives.

Faced with a life or death situation, Weslin's mind was more focused than it had ever been and that caused her combat strength to skyrocket in response. No matter who it was, two-star or three-star skeleton, she swept through them, claws reaping a life with every swipe.

Up till now, the lizardmen who were fortunate to be spared from the evil eye's mind control were forced to mount a desperate defense to the death. Seeing Weslin lead the survivors back in a furious charge, their spirits were immediately lit on fire as they started charging into the skeletons in order to welcome their leader back.

Now that she was back, the battle had basically entered its closing phase. Just as Manasha explained, the highest level of undead the defensive array could summon was three-star with no possibility of anything higher. Without any elite forces of their own, our job naturally became a lot easier.

Watching from the backlines, I diligently fired off my fire spells into skeleton army, clearing a giant patch of undead in an instant with my fireballs and cutting them off with a roaring flame wall. While they clearly weren't comparable to Numila's fire attacks which were boosted by Flametail, they still managed to take a decent chunk out of the enemy.

From the moment the three-star skeletons joined the battle, Violet Snow began attacking as well. With a stomp of her tiny paws, she fired off wave after after of ice spells with ever growing ease. In fact, these ice balls and ice shards weren't just the usual ice spells from my memory, they had grown noticeably stronger and were even able to freeze a three-star skeleton with ease.

Right at the very end however, she fired an ice area of effect spell that summoned a giant icicle from the ceiling and sent it crashing down on the skeleton army, wiping out the last ten three-star skeletons. 'This power...there's no way that could come from a three-star!'

Thus, the battle came to an unexpectedly flamboyant end. On the whole, we didn't suffer much losses and instead gained over 100 000 soul flames, though the majority of that came from zero to one-star undead...also we gained a four-star evil eye captive!

After ordering them not to approach the Door of the Dead, I had my guardsmen sweep up the battlefield while I approached the evil eye who was still wrapped up in its feelers. I lightly kicked the motionless meatball but it didn't seem to want to respond at all.

However, just as that thought crossed my mind, the feelers unwound themselves rapidly, revealing the giant eye hidden beneath in an instant. Immediately, I was struck by an intangible psychic power as it turned its emotionless red eye onto me.

'Was this the psychic mind control of a evil eye?' It felt like a high powered drill had rammed into my head and was in the midst of drilling into my psyche in order to usurp control of my body. Thankfully, my psychic power wasn't weak either. After all, even after reincarnating I still possessed the APM of a 40 year old single man...I mean, the psychic reservoir of a sage; the boundless, limitless, infinite reservoir of a sage.

'Actually...all that talk about a sage's psychic reservoir...that was just me messing around. In truth, the reason I was able to resist its mind control was because the Mark of Envy activated.' The Mark of Envy (TL: the tattoo he gained when he evolved.) was the hallmark of an illusion demon and had a mesmerizing effect on living creatures.

Illusion demons were experts in psychic magic as well but unlike the demons, an evil eye's ability was to directly usurp control of a person's body. To be exact, it forcefully severed the connection between an enemy and his soul and asserted control over that body. In contrast, an illusion demon's magicks were focused primarily on illusions; spells that disrupted the senses and caused hallucinations.

Almost a second after he tried to control me, my mark automatically activated itself and dispelled his control over me. For his efforts, he was promptly rewarded with a decisive kick of my feet and the same horrific backlash he experienced just moments ago. Once more, the meatball rolled around in pain in a bid to distract himself from the pain.

"So this is the bast*rd that attacked me just now?" Looking at its pained figure, I was just about to give it a couple more kicks for good measure when Weslin came up to me with that question.

Judging from the tone of her voice, she must have had some lingering resentment over the fact that she was mind controlled… 'come to think of it, anyone would be uncomfortable with the way she embarrassed herself just now, even more so because I even pulled out the [Habona] card on her.'

'By now, everyone probably heard of her special relationship with Habona...oh, what I meant to say was, Weslin's one-sided hope that she could be in a special relationship with Habona.'

Without a doubt, that had to be a stain on her reputation, for all we know by tomorrow, no, perhaps even half a day later, that bit of gossip would've spread like wildfire amongst the other demons and devils and spawn a multitude of versions. After all, everyone was a little bored in this dreary hellhole.

"Hey, make sure you don't kill him…*thwack* I still have…*boing* a lot to…*thwack* ask it…"Seeing her approach the meatball eyes fuming and feet stomping, I hurriedly step in to remind her not to go overboard. However, before I could even finish my sentence, Weslin batted the rolling meatball away with a flick of her tail as if it was some kind of baseball and sent it bouncing against the wall. Flick, bounce, flick, bounce...thus this scene continuously played out with no end in sight.

"Don't worry, I'll take my time with him." As she said that, her head turned around for a brief moment after which her lips curled up into a sinister grin. Then, without missing a beat, she turned around once more and flicked her tail, striking the head of the evil eye just as it bounced back. "I'll make sure he has a breath left in him."

Finally, Weslin's venting came to an end and I was able to question the meatball. However, its condition wasn't really stable by now...or rather, it was about to die any moment.

A couple of its feelers were broken and its bouncy head was leaking some kind of disgusting green fluid. No matter how one looked at it, it gave off the impression of a dying meatball.

"Hmm, I think so too." Seeing the strange look I gave her, she was slightly embarrassed as well. I distinctly remembered telling her to not to kill him, that meant beating him half to death not as good as dead!

Thankfully, Manasha had some experience with such matters so she promptly had some soul flames delivered to the evil eye. The moment she did so, the evil eye practically rolled itself onto the soul flames and began absorbing them. A minute or so later, its condition was noticeably better. What were a bunch of bleeding wounds just a while ago had completely closed up and it seemed like a perfectly serviceable meatball once more.

'Sigh, why am I stuck with these bunch of potatoes who don't know how to hold back? Don't they know that I still have a lot of questions to force out of him...oops, I just said something bad, didn't I?'

Now that it was interrogation time, Majosha took the initiative to restrain the evil eye and prevent it from moving. As for Harlow, he had the self-awareness to hide in a corner to avoid any accidents.

"What language do these evil eyes speak?" Noticing its lack of a mouth, I was a little stumped as to how to proceed with the interrogation, like a rat trying to figure out a way to drag a turtle.

Yet in midst of my confusion, a strange voice that sounded neither male nor female entered my mind directly. This method of communication wasn't like Ferti'nier's method communicating directly with the soul. Instead, it employed a psychic means to deliver its message to the mind without going through the ears.

"You...you can talk?" I stared wide-eyed at the evil eye for what felt like half a day. Having inspected its spherical body for a while, I truly couldn't find anything that resembled a mouth on it. Even when it absorbed those souls, it did so through contact. Its feelers would extend and suck on the soul flames as if they were a pipe.

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As the evil eye made mention of his talents, it couldn’t help pitch his head high with pride. Unfortunately for it, it wasn’t exactly in the best position to be proud and it swiftly realized this as well. Soon after it did that, it lowered its rounded body in what looked like a show of humility.

However, since it was able to communicate, that made things a lot simpler. In the interest of time, I immediately opened up with the issue everyone had on their minds right now: “Let’s hear it then, exactly what is going on here?”

“Esteemed Lust Demon, can you elaborate on what you meant by [exactly what is going on here]? I’m unable to comprehend your question.”

‘Oh my, it actually knew how to play dumb as well.’ The next moment, a sinister smirk crossed my lips as I turned towards a slightly distracted Weslin: “Want to have another round with that squash ball?”

“Mimiya wants to hit it too, Mimiya wants to hit it too!” Mimiya on other hand was pretty quick on the uptake. Without needing an explanation or even a reply for that matter, she grabbed the meatball and rushed off towards the nearest wall like a gust of wind…

“Still alright...still alright...if you can give me some more souls…” Came the evil eye’s telepathic response after hearing my slightly rude question.

‘...I swear, does this meatball not realize that all I need from him is the ability to answer questions? To think its skin is actually thick enough to ask for more souls, does it look like I’ve forgotten about our grudge already?’

“No, no, I still want to live…” Hearing the dangerous tone in my voice, the evil eye immediately started begging for mercy: “Does the esteemed lust demon not have questions to ask, please go ahead, please.”

“If you’d just been a little more obedient earlier, you could’ve saved yourself a world of hurt. Some meatballs just love to get beaten up.” After that snide comment, I promptly questioned him about his origins along with whatever matters I wasn’t sure about.

“No, it’s just me.” It quickly answered. “Us evil eyes are actually a race of lone wanderers. While we are in the lower star levels, we cooperate with each other to hunt for food. However, once we evolve into three-stars, we leave the clan to form our own enclaves seeing as we now had the ability to fend for ourselves.”

‘So they are lone wanderers, and by lone it meant that they wouldn’t stay with other clan members but that didn’t mean they would stay alone forever.”

While the evil eyes were still in their infant stages, their mind control abilities weren’t strong enough to control the other races so they mostly stayed together. However, once they evolved into three-stars, their psychic abilities grew strong enough that they could start enslaving others to defend

This ability sounded pretty impressive and it naturally piqued my interest as well. Thus, I continued down this line of questioning: “Since your race tend to wander alone, how do you all reproduce?”

While it didn’t understand the meaning of those terms, it clearly got the gist of what wasn’t really a bunch of complex terms in the first place. It immediately sent a correction telepathically: “No, no, we’re hermaphrodites”

Following that, I continued asking a whole swathe of questions which the evil eye answered one by one, though the answers he gave weren’t really that important anymore.

The reason why the Abaddon rodents gathered en masse like that was because it was controlling them from behind the scenes. Throughout the whole process, only the head rodent , also known as the potato who tried to negotiate with me, knew of its existence.

Thinking back on that, its surrender terms probably would have included information on the evil eye. Unfortunately for both of us, I ignored it directly otherwise this evil eye wouldn’t have been able to ensnare us so easily.

As for those bone spears, that was another matter which arose from the death of that head rodent. The evil eye had implanted a soul mark on the head rodent, it was this soul mark which transferred the news regarding the head rodent’s death back to it after activating upon said death.

Thanks to that bit of foresight, it not only learnt of the rodent’s demise but also that its nest might end up in trouble. Thus, as a last minute measure, it ordered the remaining rodent lieutenants to have their subordinates craft those bone spears as a defensive measure.

As for why it didn’t do so from the start, it was afraid that the rodents would expand too quickly after gaining such an advantage and that could potentially derail its plans. Given that there were limits to its psychic power, it was only natural that it wouldn’t be able control everyone should such a thing happen.

‘So it was basically thinking like an emperor from the past where the more ignorant the masses were, the more advantageous things were for those in power. That’s how all that confucian nonsense about showing loyalty to your monarch took root. If the masses got too smart, you couldn’t even bone a couple of women or kill a bunch of pigs without ending up on some trending news article on the web...oh, I seemed to have gone off topic again.’ (TL: Word count whore.)

The Door of the Dead was the evil eye’s last card in his deck. In fact, the door was the very reason why he enslaved these rats and built a nest nearby. The evil eye wanted to leave the Prison of the Dead just like us but it didn’t dare to do so alone. Because it wasn’t a moron, it surmised that the rumor about four-stars being able to leave might have been false. Thus, it decided to forcefully breach the exit, hence all that nonsense with controlling the head rodent.

While the rodent’s had an average combat ability at best, their numbers were massive. It could be said that they were the most numerous race in the entire Prison of the Dead so it wasn’t strange at all that the evil eye targeted them.

Initially, it wanted to stabilize its control over those rats before expanding to the other races after which it would form a giant army with those rodents at the core.

Now that I’ve gotten the gist of the situation, I decided to recruit this evil eye. It was, after all, an intelligent creature and devil knows I’m lacking in servants like that who could share my burden.

However, there was no way I would trust the words of an intelligent eyeball so easily. Thus, I posed it another difficult question: “You’re a clever meatball. That’s why I knew that you would definitely accept my proposal. However, I have a condition to add to that, you must sign a slave contract with me. I want you to leave behind a piece of your soul for me to control.”

“Slave contract…” Those two words were extremely easy to understand. As the words suggested, anyone who signed that would become a slave and would never be able to make a comeback unless ,of course, the master willingly voided the contract and returned the soul.

A slave contract was an extremely domineering form of contract that, once signed, would forbid the slave from ever refusing the master’s commands and even more so, from betraying the master. In fact, even thoughts of betrayal weren’t allowed or the slave would face a backlash from the contract that would leave anyone wishing for death.

As for the master, he was able to force any command on the slave, suicide included. Without a doubt, this was an extremely lopsided contract that no one would ever sign unless they had no other choice.

All that knowledge came from hereditary memory so I assumed the other devils knew of it as well. However, such a contract wasn’t without drawbacks, rather severe ones in fact. If the strength disparity between the two parties was too large, the contract signing would fail the moment the enslaved party rebelled. Thus, such contracts were usually signed when one party was overwhelmingly stronger than the other or when the other party wasn’t resisting.

The evil eye was a four-star while I was merely a three-star so the only way this contract could succeed was if the evil eye was willing to submit.

However, it clearly wasn’t willing to. The moment those two words were spoken, it immediately shook its head profusely and even began to show signs of fighting back.

Thus, the signing proceeded without a hitch. As I finished reciting the last bit of the contract, a thread of soul energy separated from the evil eye and fused into my body. With that, it could no longer resist till I released it or it died.

‘Since a person that’s neither female nor male is called a man goblin, a evil eye that’s neither female nor male...shouldn’t it be called an evilin then? Mhm, makes sense.’

(TL: Man goblin is supposed to refer to trannies and the chinese pinyin for it is xie yao which is also a homonym for laxative which sounds like xie yao as well.)

“Mhm, now, I want you to enslave the rest of the Abaddon Rodents, didn’t you mention that several thousand rodents escaped while you setting up the defensive array? I order you to capture them immediately, I need fodder, lots and lots of fodder.”

“Alright.” Without much fuss, she promptly led a division of lizardmen away with the evil eye. ‘She’s quite an obedient one, isn’t she.’

It was at that moment that the soul flame collection finished up as well. Initially, collecting over 10 000 souls would’ve taken a much longer time but the area around the Door of the Dead was slightly special in that it automatically absorbed any soul flames within range after a set amount of time. Thanks to that, the amount of soul flames collected wasn’t as much as we had anticipated.

In total, we collected roughly 3000 zero-star soul flames, 1000 one-star soul flames, 700 two-star soul flames and 300 three-star soul flames. While it wasn’t the tens of thousands we had expected, at least it wasn’t nothing.

As for our losses...it had to be said that this battle was too much of a surprise for us, though our arrogance played a part as well. The lizardmen suffered over 200 deaths and 500 of their members were severely injured. My guardsmen suffered 100 deaths in total and the medusas suffered the least of us all. Their death count was less than 10 and in total, they had less than 100 casualties.

Back when the evil eye set up the defensive array, a number of rodents managed to escape because their mind control wasn’t able to encompass such a large army. Given that all the exits were blocked by my subordinates, these same rodents were definitely still in the cave. Thus, having the actual architect of the cave, that evil eye, hunt them down was definitely the most efficient way to do so.

As for those nine rat lieutenants who surrendered, I planned to hand them over to the evil eye to manage. In fact, whether it was the Abaddon Rodents or any future fodder races, I intended to hand them over to the evil eye to control. They were, after all, my contracted slave. That meant that they would never be able to resist me and had no choice but to be loyal.

The soul flames we gathered up were divvied up as usual with me getting a slice of the total spoils. Truth be told, most devils wouldn’t be able to eat as much as I did without getting stuffed to death. However, the Grimoire of the Dead and I both had rather unique circumstances, it was as if our stomachs were black holes. No matter what they were, all food was welcome and our stomachs were never satiated.

For me, my appetite was a result of feeding Ferti’nier, as for the Grimoire of the Dead...my guess was that it had an instrument spirit within it. In other words, it might have been a semi-divine instrument at its peak.

Discovering the Door of the Dead here was a complete coincidence but since we already discovered it, there was no reason to reject this bit of serendipitous fortune. I decided to turn the rat nest into another base of operations for us. All matters regarding this branch would be temporarily handled by the evil eye. Their responsibility was to control the rodents and have them guard the Door of the Dead.

In light of that, I had Weslin stay behind with 1000 other lizardmen to aid the evil eye with their task. Undoubtedly, those rodents would fall in line once they saw the lizardmen.

Recently, our plans felt rather rushed; I didn’t even have the time to wait for the capture of those runaway rodents before enacting the next step of our plans. After handing out those instructions to the evil eye, I promptly left for our main base with Numila and the others. As we travelled, I would continue crafting more weapons for our troops while waiting for Habona’s good news.

Thus, a month passed by in the blink of an eye. Habona had finally managed to settle the lizardmen succession. Westley was successfully installed as their clan leader and those who resisted had all been sanctioned as well. As of now, all the lizardmen in the Prison of the Dead listened to one voice, and that was Westley’s or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that, they listened to the voice of Habona who controlled Westley.

At the same time I received that bit of good news, the evil eye sent news as well. With the aid of those 1000 lizardmen , they managed to bring all the remaining rodents under his control. Because of that, we now had 8000 rat fodders in our army. Also, they sent another piece of good news.

According to their report, the dogmen gathered up a 10 000 strong army to take advantage of the Abaddon Rodents’ misfortune. Not too long ago however, they were promptly trounced by the evil eye when they fell into their trap. The rodents themselves barely lost anyone while we managed to capture 3000 dogmen.

As for the lizardmen, their numbers weren’t that low either. From the report sent in by Habona, we now had over 8000 lizardmen under our control. Of those 8000, only 10% consisted of non-combatants such as children and there were barely any elderly lizardmen in that 8000. This was mostly because of the harsh environments of the Prison.

The infant survival rate was extremely low and the elderly who lost their combat strength couldn’t survive well either. Thanks to the unending wars between the various races over what meagre resources were left in this prison, the young and old naturally found it hard to thrive.

However, all that was about to enter the annals of history as soon, I planned to lead all those races who believed me out of this damned prison and become the first batch of lifeforms to truly leave this prison!

Throughout the past month, my preparations had never once slackened and by now, they were mostly complete. Truth be told, there was no such thing as too much preparation, however there was only so much we could do. We basically had to make our preparations blind because of the overwhelming amount of variables and lack of information we had of the Door of the Dead.

As of right now, all we had to do was wait for Habona and her lizardmen grand army to meet up with us. Once they arrive, we would march on the ratman nest together.

Yet no matter how much mental preparation I made, I was still overwhelmed by the surrealness of the situation. The moment I laid eyes on the 7000 strong lizardmen army, I couldn’t help but think to myself… ‘I actually did it...the me who always failed in the past actually succeeded...I successfully created an unimaginably large army…’ (Author’s note: 7000 because the remaining 1000 were the lizardmen sent to help Evilin.)

Right now, the most important thing was to leave the Prison of the Dead, enter Abaddon and find Yi Yi. For my future, for Nicole, for Ferti’nier and for my pee pee…

It was worth mentioning now that there wasn’t any real leader-subordinate relationship between me and Habona. However, she didn’t have any intention of fighting over power with me, compared to leading, she much preferred jumping into the thick of a fight.

“8000 lizardmen huh...that’s not a small number at all.” It was a reunion after being apart for so long, seeing Habona approach, I couldn’t help but get a little excited as I greeted her: “As expected of the mighty Habona, such perfect control over these lizardmen.”

Nodding towards me, her face was as placid as before and her voice as cool as always as she said: “You aren’t too bad yourself, I heard you subjugated a pretty useful slave.”

That slave she was referring to was probably Evilin. Honestly, they were rather capable if I had to say so myself. Even before submitting to me, they were able to control over 10 000 rodents just by themselves. Though they were merely a mastermind working in the background, that was still an achievement that couldn’t be denied. In the future, they just might end up as my military strategist assuming there were no better candidates then.

“The reason I called for you is because I think it’s time we assault the prison exit. There’s no second chance so we have to bring to bear all our forces. If we don’t succeed, we die.”

At that, Habona didn’t refute my words but merely asked in a calm voice that almost seemed like she was about to take a stroll around some picturesque attraction instead of a potential deathtrap: “Have you finished all your preparations?”

“It’s impossible to finish preparing, there’s just too much variables and I can’t guarantee everything will proceed as planned once we step into the Door. Too much preparation might end up as wasted effort so I decided that rather than prepare any longer, we would use our absolute strength to overwhelm the exit!”

I wasn’t sure if there had ever been an assault on the Prison exit with over ten thousand troops but there was absolutely no doubt in my mind there was never or ever will be, an assault like this.

Over 8000 lizardmen, over 1000 demonic werewolves and medusas combined, 4000 over devils under my command or under the command of those under me, 8000 over ratmen, 3000 dogmen and finally 6000 odd harpies.

Adding all that together, our army came out to an astonishing 30 000 plus...with such a grand army, we could easily sweep through the entire prison unopposed!

‘With that much power, why should I cower before the Door of the Dead? Because of that legend that it was unassailable? No way, no one will ever be able to dampen my resolve to break out of this prison!’

Thus far, our operation had been conducted under tight supervision. By the time our grand army arrived at what was once the rodents’ nest, we were greeted by the evil eye leading a portion of their dogmen and rodents. From the looks of things, they had been waiting there for a while.

“Master.” As they floated in the air, Evilin whipped out a feeler and slapped it against their chest before performing what was probably a bow: “Your humblest servant, Evilin, welcomes your arrival.”

“Are the preparations complete?” Without wasting any words, I immediately cut straight to the point: “Our army is too large now and would be a drag on resources if we have to maintain a supply line for line. If it’s possible, I would like to minimize any time wastage and march on the Door of the Dead.”

What we were about to face was an unprecedented challenge. In order to streamline our command chain, I had my troops separated beforehand and each of my subordinates were already given their respective duties.

The four thousand over devils, hellhounds, demonic half-orcs were all a part of my faction and were assigned to my side to protect my safety. Numila, Elena and Eugenia were put in charge, as before, of their clans while Habona, on top of commanding the werewolves, had to support the lizardmen as well. After all, Westley was still more accustomed to Habona’s command and not mine.

Naturally, it wasn’t possible for Evilin to control over 10 000 rodents and dogmen so I dispatched No.5 to help them as well. His job was simple, command those 3000 dogmen and ensure that when the time came, they were willing to risk their lives for me.

By now, my guardsmen division grew to over 500 devils. They were still commanded by No.3 and Big 4 as always while One-eye was given command over the remaining 3000 or so devils. Violet Snow’s command over the hellhounds and the riders was unchanged as before.

As for the demonic half-orcs, they were still commanded by Baccarel. While there were only 41 of them left, their individual combat strength was not only impressive, they knew how to cooperate well with each other. Given their explosive strength, I had them assigned to my side as well.

The medusas, under the command of Manasha, were to cooperate with the werewolves as part of my special forces. Because of their impressive combat strength, their main purpose would be complete some of the more unique missions. Besides, their numbers were low to begin with so they wouldn’t be able to endure the losses involved in a direct battle.

Mimiya had the ability to fly so I made her my communications officer. Julia was my personal assistant and as for Mo En and Mo Xixidi...they were mostly here to act cute, though these two ugly potatoes weren’t cute at all…

It didn’t take long before we reached the cavern where the Door of the Dead was located at. Thanks to the efforts of Evilin, that ominous green fog was mostly gone by now. All we had to do was push open the Door of the Dead and enter.

Standing before the Door, I took a deep breath and slowly breathed out as I suppressed the furious thumping of my heat. It wasn’t just excitement that made my heart race, even more so, it was fear of the unknown.

“If I die, I won’t resent you because it was my choice.” A furry claw reached for my chin and roughly lifted it up and made me look at the owner of said claw: “No matter who it is, they have to be responsible for their choices.”

“That’s right, Master Mo Ke, you don’t have to worry so much. We all don’t like the Prison of the Dead in the first place. If given the chance to leave, all of us would naturally take it. For freedom, we’re willing to sacrifice a lot. Joining your army was our decision. Even if it means dying before making it out, we won’t regret it!” Harlow spoke up to console me. Though it almost sounded scripted, it did in fact touch me.

Speaking of freedom, I was suddenly reminded of a certain poem from Earth: Liberty, love! These two I need. For my love I will sacrifice life, For liberty I will sacrifice my love (Author’s Note: Sándor Petõfi Freedom and Love)

The interior of the Door of the Dead was almost the same as the outside; both mazes. Exactly like the Prison of the Dead, its hallways were 15 meters tall and 15 meters wide. In short, both of them felt the same to me.

Truthfully, the atmosphere within the Door felt oppressive to me though it might just be due to the overwhelming shade of black of around me. Upon entering the Door of the Dead, there was only one path laid open to us so we naturally took it.

For the next ten minutes or so, we didn’t encounter any enemies along the way as if this wasn’t the right way at all. Even so, we pushed onwards despite some lingering doubts. It was only at 30 minutes mark that something finally changed ---we came upon a fork in the road.

On the wall in front of the fork, I noticed a wall of strange text that would have looked like ghost scrawlings had it not been for the fact that I recognized the some of the languages. In actuality, the wall consisted of all the languages used by the various races in the Prison of the Dead.

Because of the sheer amount of races, there was truly a wide variety of letters written in blood on the wall and just looking at them made my eyes swim. There was even a bunch of letters that looked like tiny crow’s feet mixed into the wall of text. Apparently, these letters belonged to the Abbadon Hellcats. However, because they were a rather uncommon race, I didn’t manage to encounter them at all.

Of all the languages scrawled on the wall, the devil letters were the easiest to spot because they were placed in the most conspicuous location.

Scrawled on the wall were the words [Solo] and [Team] for each of the paths. Both paths were different from each other in a number of ways but the most notable was that the [Solo] path was filled with an ominous black fog.

In a sense, the appearance of these two methods of advancement made sense. After all, there were two known ways of leaving the Door of the Dead, one was leaving by yourself when you reached four-stars and the other was barging into the Door of the Dead with a team.

Just to be thorough however, I had a three-star Abaddon Rodent proceed down the [Solo] path to test what would happen. Naturally, the poor rat that was chosen wasn’t the least bit enthusiastic about this idea. Paws shaking, it warily stepped onto the [Solo] path and to its delight...it was repelled. That’s right, that black fog actually blocked the rat from entering.

‘Did that mean that only the four-stars were able to proceed down that path? Either way, I can’t think of any other reason it would be rejected.’

Just as I was mulling over the conditions for entry, Weslin yelled from behind me. Turning around to face the solo path, I found that three of the four-star rodents were actually trying to run into the solo path without my permission.

In the first place, they were positioned rather close to the solo path so the moment they sprinted for the path, no one was able to catch them in time. Most likely they felt that this was the one chance they had at freedom so they decided to ignore Weslin’s yelling and continue sprinting forward.

Right as those words left her mouth, the first four-star rodent caught up with that three-star lab rat and forcefully knocked it aside as it selfishly rushed into the path. The moment it stepped into the black fog h

“Ah…” Almost at the same time it vanished, the sound of its panicked screams echoed down the bony hallways as if something had happened to it right at that instant. And yet, merely half a second later, that screaming stopped.

came the second ratman lieutenant. Just like the rodent before it, it rushed into the black fog after which we all heard a scream echo from within that only lasted for half a second. It was as if something had forcefully sealed its throat.

Just as the third lieutenant was about to step into the black fog as well, Weslin finally caught up to the deserter and with a vicious smack, sent the ratman who still had a delighted look on its face flying.

“Damned rats, can’t you all be more obedient like the dogmen!?” Still annoyed, Weslin violently kicked the giant rodent who was just about to climb to its feet and knocked it down once more. Another punch and kick later, she still had that pissed off look on her face.

Turning towards Habona, she seemed to have a slightly wronged look on her face. Knowing her, she probably wanted to perform well in front of Habona but things ended up backfiring instead. Because she let her guard down for one moment, we ended up allowing two four-star rodents to escape.

However, Habona didn’t seem to pay any heed to her at all and merely stood quietly by my side with a cold expressionless look on her face.

Those two rodents who rushed into the black fog just now, did they scream because they discovered something shocking? Also, the fact that their screams only lasted half a second was suspicious as well.

Somehow, it felt like neither of those rodents bumped into each other and furthermore, the fact that both of them were cut off like that was extremely suspicious as well. Was there some formidable enemy lurking about in the black fog? Were they killed right as they entered the black fog? Yet as I turned my gaze to the ground, I wasn’t able to find any trace of blood on the floor.

‘Well, whatever, the solo path isn’t something we should be researching right now. Rather than waste more on this, it’s probably time for us to enter the team path instead. As for the matter of those deserters...I should have those rodents be my scouts, fodders and main fighting force, hopefully they’ll be able to last a few minutes.’

Seeing the displeased look on Weslin’s face that screamed of a blood feud, I said: “Don’t think too much about that matter, just treat them as dead. It’s time for us to move on.”

Fearing that her lingering resentment might affect her ability to command, I reminded her once more, “Just remember to keep a closer watch on the remaining slaves, if those two want to desert then just let them be, it’s a good excuse to have the other rodents be our vanguard anyway.”

Having said that, I paid her no more attention and nodded to Habona. Seeing that, she started to herd the remaining rodents into the team path.

The path ahead of us was a flat one, at the very least I couldn’t see anything resembling a trap waiting for us ahead. However, just to be safe, I had the rodents continue leading the way. Either way, this was a one way road so no matter how dim witted those rats were, there was no way they would get lost.

As they continued their scouting, Weslin continued her unhappy sulk. Initially, I had her assigned to Westley’s side but because she wanted to prove herself and attract Habona’s eyes, she asked if she could join Evilin in managing the rodents. Thus, I had 4000 rodents placed under her command. Who would’ve expected that such a mishap would happen so soon after she was given command...for two four-stars to escape like that…

Truly, that mistake made her seem so inept that I couldn’t blame her for feeling frustrated right now. All this while, her eyes had never once strayed away from Habona and that was how two four-star rats managed to pull a fast one over her...regarding this incident, I had only one thing to say: ‘lesbians…’

With that change of formation decided upon, the four thousand rodent slaves were placed at the forefront of our army. At that position, it didn’t matter what kind of plans they had when there was only one direction they could take, forward. Given that we had the way back sealed up, there was no way they could escape in the first place.

As facts would have it, my decision to have the rats scout out ahead was right. Not long after we entered the team path, the rodents suffered a major loss.

Initially, our scouting proceeded rather warily but after 10 minutes of nothing happening, the rodents, for some inexplicable reason, decided to let their guard down.

It was at that moment that a strange bone pillar appeared in the middle of our path and nearly blocked it off completely. The pillar itself was roughly 10 meters wide and was completely made out of countless skeletons that connected the ground to the ceiling.

And yet those giant rats didn’t seem the least bit worried about this strange pillar and merely circled around it while excitedly chittered about it. In fact, some of the more daring rodents actually tried to touch the pillar and then...tragedy struck, naturally.

The moment one of them approached the pillar, countless bony hands sprang to life and promptly grabbed that rodent, bones clattering in an eerie fashion. From a distance, it almost looked like a bunch of tree branches were whipping out at the rodent, at least that would be the case if that tree was made out of bones and wasn’t a plant.

Receiving such an unexpected attack, it was only to be expected that these timid rodents would immediately panic and start running amok. A portion of them started running ahead while some of them tried to retreat. However, because there wasn’t much leftover space for them maneuver, knocking into each was unavoidable and a number of them ended up getting trampled to death.

“What’s going on?” From my position at the back, I still had no way of finding out what happened at the front. Thankfully, I had some devils and harpies dispatched beforehand to monitor the rodents and they functioned as my eyes in the front.

“Master, there’s an odd bone pillar at the front. Initially, it wasn’t active but the moment the rodents tried to approach, the bones suddenly attacked them…”

‘Bone pillar? Sounds like a strange construct indeed, up till now, I still haven’t heard of such a thing appearing in the Prison of the Dead. However, since it was attacking us, that meant it was an enemy.’

I anxiously rushed to the frontlines to check out this bone pillar for myself and found that despite all its attacks against the rodents, it had never taken a step away from that position. Thus, one could conclude that the bone pillar wasn’t able to move at all. Plus, its attack range was limited so long range attacks should be able to destroy it easily.

“Have the rodents settle down for a moment and retreat.” As I said that, I turned to the jittery lizardwoman who was still eager to prove herself. “Weslin, be patient for now, let me have a try first.”

“Alright.” She obediently went off to pass on the message. “All you braindead morons better get back here right away. That bone pillar can’t even move at all so what are you all afraid of?! Truly, how stupid can you potatoes be, the amount of comrades who died to your trampling is so much more than the amount who died to those undead hands!”

Hearing that, her stern attitude seemed to take effect as the Abaddon Rodents finally started to calm down after panicking for so long and started to retreat in an orderly fashion.

Because the bone pillar wasn’t able to move, the rodents were quickly able to leave the danger zone. Yet when were things ever so simple...just as they were all about to make it back, the bone pillar, having realized that it couldn’t catch the rodents, blew up…

It was a bonafide explosion, one that sent a shower of bones into the air. To be exact, it sent a shower of skeletons into the air. Of these skeletons, some had a beastial form while some had a humanoid form, all of them however, looked dangerous. Plus, they turned out to be extremely fast as well.

As the skeletons flew through the air, some of them directly landed on the heads of the rodents and that resulted in a prompt death by bone claw and teeth.

A large number of the fleeing rodents ended up dying to this aerial ambush skill. Furthermore, because these were my fodders to begin with, I didn’t bother training them as a division. Thanks to that, there was hardly any order to their retreat.

Rat squeezed against rat as they hurriedly scampered back to our side. Yet, the more they hurried, the more chaotic things got. The more chaotic things got, the more panicked they became and that ended up causing even more of them to die from the skeletons.

Initially, I had planned to test out the strength of the bone pillar once they retreated but who would’ve thought that it would disassemble itself like that. Worse of all, these skeletons were noticeably stronger than the usual skeletons we encountered in the past. In the meantime, the morale of the rodents had basically crumbled to the point where none of them even considered fighting back.

“Stop them from retreating. I want them to hold off these skeletons right now. If anyone refuses to comply, just kill them!” Now that the battle had gotten so chaotic, I had to cancel all my previous plans so as to prevent the rodents from destroying our formation with their mindless escaping.

“Go, I want you to lead your brethren into battle. Make sure not to show any mercy, just cut down anyone who tries to escape.” I turned to Weslin as I gave out that merciless command.

“Alright.” Realizing that her chance to redeem herself had come, she discreetly threw a glance at the expressionless Habona before turning around to nod at me. Weapons raised, she boldly rushed into the chaotic melee while shouting for her brother, Westley, to send her five hundred or so lizardmen to aid her: “Follow me, kill off all those rodents who try to escape!”

Looking at all the fleeing rodents around her, a burning anger overwhelmed her as she bellowed: “No escaping! You filthy rodents had better turn around and fight or I’ll execute you myself!”

However, with how chaotic this battle was, only a portion of the Abaddon Rodents heard her threat despite her loud voice. Furthermore, not all of them understood the language of the devils as well. Thankfully, I had the foresight to assign her rat translator beforehand just for such situations.

Repeating her threat once more, the rodent translator loudly chittered. Unfortunately, it still seemed like some of them didn’t receive the message or perhaps they simply pretended not to hear it. All these rodents who were dead set on escaping immediately tried to penetrate the defensive line of Weslin’s troops but were easily slaughtered.

Picking one of the rat corpses, she callously tossed it aside and knocked down a couple of fleeing rodents: “Cowards must die, kill!”

As her five hundred lizardmen roared in unison, a cruel smile couldn’t help but grace her lips. A claw swipe later, the brains of one unfortunate rodent ended up splattering against the bony hallway. Right after that, the figure of a rodent could seen flying across the air from her mighty tail swipe. “We don’t need deserters in our army, kill!”

While all that was happening, the hapless rat translator was stunned into silence and momentarily forgot its duty. Seeing that, Weslin threw the rodent a withering glare that almost made its poor rodent heart jump out of its body. Realizing its error, it hurriedly translated that last order.

Now that the situation had developed to this stage, the fleeing rodents finally understood that running away was nothing but a shortcut to a quick death. At least by attacking the skeletons, they still had a chance at survival.

With no other choice, they could only turn to fight unless they wanted to face the ruthless lizardmen whose viciousness even made me uncomfortable.

However, because there were several thousands of these formidable skeletons ,who honestly looked rather terrifying as well thanks to their strange bony shape, the rodents’ morale was at an all time low. Yet with a supervisor like Weslin, the rats had no choice but bring out their will to fight to the death.

Truly, a textbook implementation of [broken pots and sunken ships]. With no way to retreat, they ended up having to bring forth their best.

Truth be told, I was truly worried that these rodents might end up destroying our formation with their escape. If that were to happen, my main force would be caught in an awkward position as they faced off against the skeletons. Thankfully, I didn’t care all that much about their lives and promptly ordered Weslin to stop them from fleeing.

And die they did. Thanks to the formidable offensive power of the skeletons, the hides of those rodents basically stood no chance against their bony claws and teeth. While all that was happening, I took the opportunity to observe the situation. The first thing I was able to confirm was that my previous concerns about an “undead virus” didn’t come true. Even after being clawed by the rodents, they merely bled and didn’t turn into undead after dying.

Given that revelation, all the intelligence that had to be gathered, had been gathered. Continuing to expend their lives would no longer reap any benefits. Thus, it was time for them to dispatch the reinforcements.

“One-eye, I want you to reinforce those rodents with your troops. Make sure not to break formation because of those rodents.”

‘That’s right, those skeletons weren’t a concern but rather what concerned me was that these rodents might end up selling out their comrades in order to live.’

It was time for my devil army to make its appearance. After all those days of tireless crafting to equip them and after all that rigorous training, it was time for their impressive power to burst forth.

Just as they entered battle, my well-crafted weapons immediately showed off their worth. Heavy shields raised, the bony claws of the skeletons barely left a scratch on their enamel exterior. Barely a second later, my razor sharp Mo sabres stabbed out from absolute safety and easily destroyed the first wave of undead.

With the front temporarily clear, the shield wall parted and my new troops, the Lucerne devils, rushed forth. Armed with hammer mounted polearms, they basically swept through all that stood before them thanks to the sheer power of these squarish warhammers that exceeded even my expectations. Just from one swing alone, the sea of skeletons became noticeably sparser and these losses only grew by the second.

Thanks to the reinforcements I sent out, the Abaddon Rodents didn’t experience a second routing and that meant that Nine-finger didn’t have a chance to smash these rodents either. Clearly, these rodents enjoyed fighting a winning war as well.

“Sweep through the battlefield and make sure not to leave out any spoils of war.” Now that the battle was over, One-eye led the soul collection himself.

It had to be said that this battle came as a huge surprise for us. Thanks to that, my first batch of rat fodder ended up shrinking by over a thousand. Some of these were caused by the skeletons while some were caused by my forces. As for the devils, their losses were surprisingly low, coming in at merely 17. In large part these results were thanks to my amazing heavy shields which forced the skeletons to climb over the shield wall in order to attack the devils. Naturally, my Mo sabres wouldn’t allow that to happen…

Given that our main fighting force didn’t experience much losses, this was almost a perfect victory for us. However, that sense of elation didn’t last long as One-eye promptly brought back a terrible piece of news.

‘A thousand?! That doesn’t add up at all! Those rodents were all living creatures so they should drop souls upon death. Just based on their losses alone, we should have collected one thousands. While that was accounted for, what about the soul flames dropped by the undead? There’s no way they didn’t possess a soul flame or else they wouldn’t be able to move at all so why was there only one thousand souls!?”

‘Did someone siphon away the souls? Was it One-eye? No, that can’t be right either, there’s no way he could’ve consumed so many souls in such a short time like the Grimoire and I. So, did the souls merely disappeared without a reason?’

Without a doubt, this was an issue that had to be solved immediately or it would impact our future survival. With that in mind, I tried to solve this mystery by placing a soul flame on the floor and observing it. My intention was to see if there was any difference between the soul flames we harvested here and those from the Prison.

And yet the unexpected happened right after. Right before my unblinking eyes, that lone soul flame actually disappeared after several minutes! ‘No, it didn’t exactly disappear, it was absorbed into the ground...sh*t, don’t tell me this place has the ability to reabsorb souls?!’

I had to say, that was a truly troublesome revelation for us. Because of our massive 30 000 strong army, our supplies were low to begin with. Originally, my plan was to fuel my battles with battles but who would’ve thought that we would be immediately stumped by such an unexplainable phenomenon…

‘You’re a maze aren’t you, not some kind of Pixiu, let’s get your identity straight for a moment!’ (Author: Creature from ancient legends that were known for consuming the treasures of the world. They were a legendary black hole where whatever went in, never came out…)

Based on that short experiment just now, I had basically come to the conclusion that the ground absorbed soul flames. However, it took some time in order to do so. Thus, as long as we harvested it quickly enough, we would be fine. If we failed to do so, our already tight supplies would become even tighter.

The moment I decided to assault the prison exit, I had already come to terms with the fact that it would be extremely dangerous, that was why I prepared a ton of fodder beforehand. Essentially, that was what those 10 000 over dogmen and rodents were for.

While both of these races weren’t particularly strong, they were really fecund and that made gathering a huge number of them really easy even with the harsh conditions of the prison.

Speaking of harsh conditions, the issue of supplies was something I had considered as well. Once more, that was why I prepared a ton of fodder beforehand. Not only were these dogs and rats great for suicide missions, they ended up as an alternative food source too. Plus, while conditions were harsh, it wasn’t as if we weren’t able to find food either, it was just hard.

In order to verify my theory, I had One-eye draw up the hexagram that made up an exchange array. While it might have looked simple on the surface, it actually contained a dimensional magic attribute. In this world, there were six basic attributes comprised of the following six elements, water, fire, wind, earth, light and dark. Other than these six elements, there were also derivative elements such as ice which came from water and thunder which came from wind.

By combining these six elements, one obtained the attribute of dimensional magic. That was what that hexagram represented. My guess was that this exchange array was probably crafted with the Prison of the Dead in mind: not only was it unique, it was painstakingly crafted in such a way that even the most dim witted creatures could use it. Based on this fact alone, one could see that not all devils were muscleheads who only knew how to fight, some of them had brains as well.

(Author: A reader pointed out that the hexagram was used for white magic and the pentagram was the one used by devils. Honestly, I chose a hexagram out of convenience because most people were familiar with it. At the same time, there was that whole setting of the six elements. Lastly, the ones who crafted this array weren’t actually the devils...I’m not sure if that reader is still reading this book or not...regarding the point that the pentagram represented devil magic,

The exchange array worked out smoothly, unexpectedly so even. After placing a few souls into the array, they promptly disappeared leaving behind a pile of meat in the center that reeked of blood. Based on that, I came to the conclusion that the prison exit didn’t forbid such exchanges. In that case, we just had to focus on harvesting the fallen souls as soon as possible in order to prevent any further losses.

“I know.” I then turned around to look at the expressionless Habona: “Do you think we will encounter more of those bone pillars?”

Till now, the dogmen had mostly behaved themselves so I didn’t make them scout ahead for us. Instead, I had them assigned to back support, for example they were tasked with moving the corpses of the dead rodents. That’s right, corpses of the rodents.

Truth be told, I only planned on using their corpses for food in dire situations but since these rodents were the first to defy me, it only made sense that I turned my blade towards them.

Along the way, we didn’t encounter any more bone pillars or any enemies at all during those ten minutes. However, that didn’t mean that I let my guard down either. After all, accidents happened when one thought he was safest.

Standing right before us was a strange looking shutter gate. Just as we approached it, the bony shutters gently rose up as it was welcoming us in.

Weslin, who had been by my side all this while, promptly commanded a few three-star rodents to investigate what was behind that gate. Of those who were singled out, every single of their ratty faces paled instantly. They knew from experience that such scouting missions weren’t pleasant at all. Just look at that bone pillar not too long ago: before they approached it, it was docile as can be but the moment they dared to approach it...thus, it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that the fear of the unknown was always the most

Having received their orders, the rodents left with an unwilling look on their faces, ratty arms shoving each other in order to not be the first to pass through the gate. Seeing that cowardly display, Weslin’s face immediately contorted in fury as she endeavored to teach these rodents a violent lesson.

“Don’t hit them, at a time like this, we should employ other methods instead.” I stepped forth and halted her in her tracks; violence couldn’t solve everything after all. Turning towards the ratman translator beside Weslin, I said, “Tell them, go and in scout a little, as long as that person brings me some useful information, I don’t mind releasing him from slavery and allowing him to be my subordinate. However, if they perform a slipshod job of scouting and bring back nothing or perhaps even false information...I’ll make them regret being born.”

Hearing those last few words, the ratman couldn’t help but shudder, eyes filled with terror as it lowered its eyes to avoid my gaze. Fortunately, for him at least, he didn’t forget a single word I said and dutifully tried to persuade his other rat brethren to scout to the best of their abilities.

The moment word got out that they could become a real subordinate under me, their passion skyrocketed. There were even some fearless rats who volunteered to scout ahead for us.

As the first rodent took its first steps past the gate, I couldn’t help but worry that the shutters would suddenly slam down on us but thankfully that didn’t happen so that rodent was closely followed up by a second and a third…

Soon, all the scouts had entered the area. From our position, all we could discern was that it was extremely vast and dark. Based on the dimly lit region revealed before me, it was clear that the area ahead was significantly wider than the 15m hallways we just passed through. However, that was the extent of my knowledge thanks to the limited sight range.

A short while passed and all ten of them unexpectedly returned as a whole without any injuries whatsoever as if they had just taken a leisure stroll within and came out...naturally, there wasn’t much useful information to be gained from such a scouting mission.

‘Dead end? What’s going on here? It can’t be a dead end, that sign clearly stated that this was the [Team] path so there has to be something strange waiting for us ahead. But those ten fodders I sent out all made it back safely...based on that, I can only conclude that leaving and entering through those shutters isn’t restricted.’

With that in mind, the next step would probably be to enter it then. However, before I could send in the army, there was another matter I had to handle.

“All of you have done well, though there was not much important information brought back, I’ve still decided to release you all from slavery to become my direct subordinates. As for what benefits that entails, well, I’m sure you all know already. Also, tell the other slaves that as long as they perform admirably, I’ll make an exception for them and release them from slavery as well.”

Needless to say, the first benefit was that until the fodders were all dead, I wouldn’t send my direct subordinates into battle right away. This was a form of protection for them and a sense of pride as well. At the same time, doing so had the benefit of encouraging these slaves; it gave them a reason to risk their lives.

Ignoring what rippling effects this translated message would have on the rodents, I called on the pouting and obviously bored out of her mind Mimiya.

“Bring these ten Abbadon Rodents to Julia and tell her to gear them up. As for managing them...I’ll leave it to Mo Xixidi for now. Oh right, tell your brother to control himself as much as possible. Who knows how long more this path stretches on so we might end up with a food shortage in the near future.”

“Alright, Mimiya understands.” Having received her orders, she obediently flew off with those ten fortunate rats in tow. While it might seem awfully generous of me to let them off like that, there was a practical reason for my decision.

After the departure of Mimiya, I had the Abbadon Rodents advance onwards. This time, my plan was to have the first batch of fodder pass through the shutters entirely in order to test out my theory. A moment later, all 3000 of them passed through the gates and yet nothing happened.

As of this moment, the medusas were assigned to the mid section of the army while Numila, Eugenia and Elena were to act as our rear guard along with their harpies. At the same time, they were to watch over the dogmen and the remaining 4000 rodents.

‘Forget it, I doubt Manasha would be able to provide a clear answer as well. Since ancient times, information regarding place had been perfectly covered up so I doubt any of us could provide any useful information. Those that could...they were probably dead by now.’

“Everyone just enter for now. First off, the remaining 4000 rodents will enter, followed by the dogmen, the demonic werewolves, the devils, the lizardmen, the medusas and finally the harpies.” I quickly read out the order we were to enter in. Honestly, it was pretty much the order we were in right now except that the slaves were now placed in front.

Stepping into the unknown, the first thing that struck me was how unremarkable the surroundings were. It was basically an endless field of nothingness. Other than that entrance, there was basically nothing inside the cavern.

Putting aside that door, this place was basically a world of pitch blackness but strangely enough, we could still see clearly, although we still couldn’t find a path forward.

The moment the last of the harpies stepped into this strange space, a thunderous boom echoed from behind us, closely followed by the surprised shouts of the harpies.

As I was about to say something, Mimiya took to the air and from her vantage point, surveyed our backlines . “The gate closed . ”

Now that the shutters closed up, our surroundings began to change as well . The pitch black darkness started to fade and even though there was still no light source, the walls and ground regained their enamel coloring . It was then that I realized that we were in a huge rounded room . Looking around, I wouldn’t be surprised if this room was able to fit another 30 000 of us .

The innermost ring of the room was made of the same bone walls we saw previously . There were, however, three gigantic shutter gates evenly spaced apart…’this architecture style…it feels so familiar, an arena for beasts? Yes, it had to be an arena’

Soon after the shutter gate slammed shut behind us, a black whirlpool appeared roughly one hundred meters in front of us . It had an almost translucent quality to it that made it seem like an illusion . However, there was something decidedly real about it . A second after it appeared, a strange object surfaced from within the whirlpool .

It was a fist that could easily contain a child in its palm if it opened up . That black fist had no flesh at all but was instead made entirely out of bone that seemed to have metal infused within it .

Because this entire situation seemed too strange, I decided to observe for now . Though the thought of attacking right away had crossed my mind, I restrained myself in the end as I was afraid something else might surface from the whirlpool before we could destroy it .

As the metallic bone arm pulled itself out of the whirlpool, its shoulders surfaced into view after which came its giant head . Peering into its eye sockets, I could clearly see the unusually active soul flame within it…

Sizzling audibly as it hurtled through the air, the fireball quickly collided into the whirlpool but unfortunately, it caused no visible damage to the whirlpool . In fact, the moment it came into contact with it, the whirlpool seemed to absorb the fireball and grew even bigger . At the same time, the speed at which the skeleton titan crawled out seemed to speed up as well…

“My magic seemed to have an opposite effect on the whirlpool instead, do you know what is that creature?” I asked the more experienced Habona .

“I’m not sure as well, perhaps granddaddy might know . ” Turning to her werewolf bodyguard, she said: “Have the elder come over…”

“There’s no need for that, I’m already here . ” Just as we mentioned him, the elder appeared right on que; he probably started making his way here the moment he spotted that strangeness in front of us . Pushing through the relative safety of the backlines, he quickly walked up to our side and turned his attention to the skeleton titan which was almost done crawling out by now .

Mulling over it for a while, he finally spoke up: “That should be an undead formed out of a titan’s corpse . Furthermore, looking at its black metallic bones, it was probably a black iron titan in life…speaking of black iron titans, I remember hearing long ago that several titans were thrown into this prison . ”

“They were a family and the weakest amongst them was three-stars while the strongest was six-stars . Back then, there was nothing that could stand in their way . One day however, they just vanished…some of us guessed that they left the Prison of the Dead…looks like they didn’t leave but were killed here instead…”

‘Weakest is three-stars and the strongest is six? I thought this prison was only able to confine creatures up to four-stars so how did a six-star…wait, I get it now…’

Just like the old werewolf mentioned, these titans varied in sizes . The largest was naturally that ten meter tall fellow that appeared right from the start and unless I was wrong for some strange reason, that fellow should be the six-star titan . The smallest amongst them was roughly five meters tall and according to the old werewolf, it should be a three-star .

Naturally, these titans weren’t content to just sit and stare at us while their brethren climbed out of the whirlpool . Right after the first titan appeared, it immediately tried to attack us but was stopped by a strange invisible wall . After that, it gave up on attacking and we ended up suffering nothing more than a little jump scare .

Soon after the ninth titan appeared, the black whirlpool closed up automatically . However, just before it disappeared, a strange psychic wave emanated from it and from this emanation, I received a chilling bit of news: between us and the titans, only one side could survive…

If we were able to defeat these titans, the giant gate in front of us would automatically open up and if we couldn’t, then it really didn’t matter what happened next .

A ten meter tall titan was no joke to fight . Putting it simply, all it had to do was roll around and a large portion of our army would get squashed to death . With that in mind, Habona was the safest bet we had against this titan . She was strong, that much was proven in all our battles . As for how strong she actually was, I wasn’t entirely sure but there was one thing I knew for certain, our strongest fighter right now wasn’t Numila and her Flametail but rather this female werewolf .

“Just because it was a six-star in life doesn’t mean that it’s a six-star now as well . There’s no way for an undead to retain its full power from life plus skeletons have their own unique points that can be exploited . They are faster than zombies but not by much and more importantly, they have no brains . ” Perhaps it was because this situation was rather unique, she was noticeably chattier

Having settled the issue of that six-star, that didn’t mean there was nothing left to worry about . The remaining titans weren’t weaklings either . The two nine meter tall titans were both five-stars and the two eight meter tall titans were four-stars . The remaining five to seven meters tall titans were probably at the level of three-stars .

With regards to those two five-stars, my plan was to have Numila, Eugenia and Elena handle them . With their wings and magic, they clearly had an advantage over these towering skeletons . While I couldn’t guarantee that they would win, if it was just a matter of stalling them, there shouldn’t be any issue . As for the two four-star titans, I had Westley and Manasha handle them .

Because this battle wasn’t suited for fodder tactics –their attacks wouldn’t even scratch the titans—, the remaining titans were handed over to our elites . Should all else fail, I would then throw the rest of our army at them .

With that, our battle plan was pretty much set in stone . However, the ones who I worried about the most weren’t those three harpy witches but rather Habona . After all, she was facing off against a legendary six-star titan while she was just a four-star herself .

“I might not need it . ” Though she said that, she didn’t reject my goodwill in the end and promptly secured Shadowfang to her back . She was probably aware as well that her claws alone weren’t enough to penetrate the defenses of a six-star .

Black Iron Skeleton Titan…just hearing that name alone was enough to conjure up images of an impregnable defense . Its black metallic sheen was almost a reminder to its opponents that it had a formidable defense .

Not long after our discussion, the titans finally couldn’t restrain themselves any longer and rushed at us . As they did so, their massive feet pounded the bony floor and the resultant impact actually made me mistake the quaking for a minor earthquake .

With nothing to interfere with her as she sprinted up its arm, she furiously attacked the bony exterior . However, she didn’t start out with Shadowfang but instead chose to test out her claws on the skeleton . In a frenzy of swipes, she wildly swung her claws in front of her without ever slowing down her climb . Unfortunately, the effects were as we had both expected: nil . She simply wasn’t able to penetrate its defenses . All her swipes accomplished were a spiderweb of faint claw marks on its otherwise unharmed exterior .

Now that she knew her claws were useless, she didn’t waste anymore time and drew out Shadowfang instead . Running up to its thick bony neck, she took up a quickdraw stance and readied herself for a powerful strike to finish the titan off in one strike .

Slicing through the air at a speed invisible to the naked eye, the blade swiftly impacted with the bony exterior and broke through its defenses, albeit with some difficulty . However, though she managed to cut through its bony exterior, the expected bifurcation didn’t happen .

However, such an outcome wasn’t because Shadowfang was lacking but rather it was because Habona herself didn’t have the strength to slice through its chunky neck .

While the long dead titan couldn’t feel any pain at all, it wasn’t foolish enough to allow an opponent to run amok on its body . It immediately halted its charge and tried to swat at Habona with its giant bone palms . Thankfully, the moment Habona realized she wasn’t able to behead the titan, she decisively withdrew with Shadowfang . Kicking off with her powerful wolf feet, she leaped off the titan’s shoulders just as its palm descended and landed on the titan’s ribcage .

*Bang* The palm crashed into the shoulder with a resounding bang that sent violent tremors throughout the fleshless titan . Down below, Habona barely managed to prevent herself from falling off by hanging onto its thick chest bone .

With the advantage of speed on her side, Habona was able to run circles around her opponent and while she wasn’t able to defeat it quickly, it was only a matter of time before she wore it down .

As per my instructions, Numila, Eugenia and Elena engaged the two five-stars from mid air by tossing their magicks at them . Though their spells weren’t able to inflict much damage or even break through their skeletal exterior for that matter, they were at least able to attract the attention of the titans .

Turning their empty eye sockets onto those pesky harpy witches, the lumbering titans chased after the three, arms wildly swinging about in a bid to swat these annoyances . Naturally, their attacks were useless against the highly mobile harpies . Thus, they were slowly but surely lured away from their undead brethren .

Seeing that scene play out before my eyes, it almost reminded me of someone chasing after a bunch of flies… ‘Oh…err…calling them flies would be rather rude . Those sisters were rather fetching after all…’

There were only two four-star titans in total and one of them was assigned to the medusa sisters, Manasha and Majosha . Using their snakes, they were quickly able to grab the attention of these mindless undead with a few acid spits .

For the most part, the spits didn’t deal much damage to the titans but despite that, the titans blindly chased after the medusas simply because they attacked them . I guess this was only to be expected since most undead below the level of seven-stars had no mind of their own . Had it been anyone else who fought the medusas, they would’ve instantly realized that this was a ploy to lure them away .

While they had no legs to run with, their speed didn’t suffer much because of that . Slithering in an S motion, their speed was a notch faster than the titan skeletons chasing them . In such a way, they continued kiting the titans around the massive arena and while they weren’t able to damage the titans, the act of distracting alone was advantageous enough .

On the side of the lizardmen, Westley and Weslin weren’t the only four-stars that came along for this final assault, there were at least six other four-star leaders . Not too long ago, they swore loyalty to Westley

With one more titan up for the taking, Westley led his sister and the six other leaders in a brave charge against the colossal skeleton .

Because the lizardman race possessed no magical abilities, they could only call themselves the draconic race rather than an actual dragon . However, each and everyone of them had astonishing physical abilities to make up for this defect, abilities that wouldn’t balk in the face of these titans .

Diving head first, the first thing these magic-less lizardmen did was rush the titan and topple it with a powerful combined collision . Yet just as I thought that the battle was decided, the titan violently jerked its body and without any warning, flipped over onto two lizardmen who couldn’t escape in time .

Thankfully, their draconic bloodline afforded the lizardmen an astonishingly thick hide that, even after being squashed by a titan, allowed them to crawl out from underneath nearly unscathed .

With no losses to speak of, the eight lizardmen, under the leadership of Westley, climbed onto the fallen black iron titan and tried to dismantle the skeleton with their brute strength .

As for the remaining four-star skeleton titans, the tallest among them, the seven meters tall one, mostly likely had the power of a four-star while the other three were at most three-stars . Thus, I had the the three of them lumped together in my considerations .

“Mo En, I want you to distract that seven meters tall titan with two other four-star dogmen . Mo Xixidi and Harlow, you guys will handle one each with the remaining four-star ratmen . As for the last titan, leave that to me . ”

Having said all that, Mo En wasn’t particularly receptive to my commands at first but thankfully, his wife Julia was here to save the day . Twisting him by his ears, she used her own brand of loving to make him submit . As for Mo Xixidi…

Lips smiling but eyes cold, I threw out the most effective weapon I had against this glutton of a devil: “If you refuse my orders, I will limit your rations . ”

Being the potato that he was, his brain couldn’t process the meaning behind my words . Face scrunched up in confusion as he scratched his

“…okay…I’ll listen to you . ” With my threat finally taking effect, he tossed the meat he had in his hands right into his mouth, swallowing it in an instant, and patted his hands while striking up a confident pose: “Speak then, who am I fighting?”

“Just that . ” I pointed at the five meter tall skeleton and smiled: “I’m not asking for much, just restrain him and prevent him from attacking anyone else other than you and the rodents assigned to you . ”

Throwing a pitiful look at Julia, he attempted a last ditch effort at garnering her support . Too bad for him, Julia was my staunch supporter and merely brushed him off with a cold snort: “If you can’t even finish our Highness’ task, I think you should lose some weight as well . ”

By now, Mo En had already engaged with the titan skeleton . Looking at his tactics, they were truly a strange sight to behold . Though they seemed really slow on the surface, each time the titan tried to attack him, he would always be able to dodge it safely . However, his offensive powers weren’t as impressive and couldn’t break through the titan’s defenses . As for the dogmen I assigned to him, they might as well have been spectators .

Unlike the slipperiness of Mo En, Mo Xixidi had a completely different approach to battle that was akin to the lizardman’s own style . In other words, he used his brute force to tackle the titan directly .

As a devil blessed by the sin of Gluttony, his evolution path took him down the road of a horned demon, purgatory devil and finally an abyssal devil . Devils of this branch of evolution were known for the being strongest in terms of physical power . Yet in spite of that, I was still astonished when I saw him take on that titan on equal grounds . Don’t forget, that titan was at least five meters tall and was at least twice as tall as he was

Being a demonic werewolf, Harlow’s style of fighting was nearly identical to his sister’s . His first action was to charge right up to the titan and cling onto it . With its clumsy and unwieldy attacks, it often missed the more nimble werewolf . However, because his opponent was only half the height of Habona’s, he couldn’t hang onto its body for long and could only dart in from time to time to try and extract its soul flame .

As for the four-star rodents I assigned to him…they were actually trying to actively participate . Unfortunately, their speed wasn’t on par with Harlow’s and were promptly swatted aside after a few attacks .

“Summon all the three-star warriors, if we aren’t able to take care of them ourselves, have them join the battle as well . ” While the battle wasn’t going too badly for now, it didn’t hurt to prepare for a rainy day . After giving out those instructions to Julia, I rushed to face the smallest titan amongst the three .

Behind me, One-eye, Nine-finger, No . 3 and Big 4 were all ready to substitute me for this battle . However, I knew very well that their attacks wouldn’t even be able to penetrate the titan’s defenses so I merely shook my head and rejected their goodwill:

“There’s no need for that, your attacks are too weak and you guys aren’t fast enough to dodge as well . Having you all attack would only put you guys in risk, just support me from the backlines . ”

“It’s not your fault, it’s just that this opponent isn’t suitable for you all to handle . ” I smiled at their crestfallen faces before promptly turning around . “Be careful everyone, make sure not to get hit!”

Without looking back, I charged at the titan I chose for myself . As his towering figure began to grow with every step I took, I was awestruck by its terrifying height . If I had to describe the situation right now, it was as if I was an elementary school student facing off against a Yokozuna . (Author: Yokozuna is the highest rank of sumo wrestlers . )

In the midst of my charge brimming with confidence, I reached for Shadowfang and to my horror, discovered that it was missing… ‘that’s right, I just lent it to Habona not too long ago…’

The fist which came my way was already bigger than my body and while it didn’t leave a hole in the floor as it impacted just to the side of me, there was no doubt in my mind that one hit would be enough to blow me away .

‘Hey…just wait a moment, stop chasing me, let me get my weapon back first…we aren’t meant for each other, really, so stop chasing me…damn it…all I wanted to do was show off my dashing side…’

While I was busy being chased by that titan, Numila and Eugenia had just fired off a composite magic spell . Combining their fire and wind magicks, the resulting power of that spell skyrocketed, especially given that Numila had Flametail to boost her fire spells . An instant later, a roaring pillar of flames rose up from beneath the titan and completely swallowed it up as it took to the heavens like a mighty fire dragon .

From the looks of things, its soul flame wouldn’t last much longer especially since the undead were susceptible to fire, not to mention that Numila was still channeling more mana into the spell while all this was happening .

At the other end, Habona’s own battle was about to reach its conclusion as well; Shadowfang lived up to its reputation as an epic weapon once more . In face of Habona’s nimbleness, its six-star power might as well had been zero given how unwieldy its movements were . From start to finish, Habona was able to run circles around the titan and when the opportunity came, she would sneak in a deadly slash from Shadowfang . After ten such slashes, Habona finally managed to behead the titan .

Body covered in a thick layer of white frost, there wasn’t a shred of joy to be found within its blackened bones . Thanks to the freezing effect of her spells, the titan skeleton’s movement speed had slowed down drastically . This made the already lumbering titan even clumsier and slower .

The giant lug continued waving its fists frantically in a brainless attempt at swatting Elena but unfortunately for it, she managed to nimbly dodge them all . It was at that moment that her other two harpy peers managed to clinch the first kill . Seeing that, she immediately called out to them for help .

Throwing a quick glance between each other, Numila and Eugenia promptly flew over to join her in finishing off that remaining five-star; looks like they remembered my words after all . Yet, in what should have been a moment where all three harpies combined forces to wipe out their enemies, Elena took advantage of the fact that the skeleton was currently distracted by Numila and Eugenia and flew off…

“Don’t tell me she’s thinking about deserting?” Said Eugenia as continued flapping her wings to gather more wind elements . Having accumulated enough power, she fired off her wind spell in concert with Numila’s own spell spell and summoned that terrifying pillar of flame once more . Roaring to life from the ground up, it quickly enveloped that skeleton which was still hindered by Elena’s ice .

“Leave her, take care of this skeleton first . ” Said Numila, eyes never leaving her opponent for a second in spite of Elena’s strange behavior .

That composite magic of theirs was a channelling spell which meant that before their opponent was defeated, the two of them had to continually channel more mana into the spell . Though they couldn’t move in the meantime because of the need to focus, they were able to process some basic thoughts . It just so happened that Eugenia’s basic thoughts tended to be affected by her active imagination…

“Your future husband?” Hearing that, Numila paused in surprise for a second and nearly interrupted her mana channelling: “Dearest is this harpy’s fiance, he has nothing to do with either of you

“Hmph, this harpy isn’t lacking in any way compared to you, it just so happened that you met him earlier, that’s all . What’s so great about?”

“…now’s not the time for quarreling, we need to stop Elena…but the enemy is still alive and Dearest said to take care of it…”

As of right now, I was still caught up in battle where my subordinates watched me continuously dodge the titan’s attacks with bated breath from the sidelines . Even though my attacks weren’t able to cause any damage at all, they rushed in to defend me after another wave of ineffective spells from me .

Perhaps it was because of the sheer intensity of the situation, but even without my consent, One-eye had already made the decision to rush in and even commanded the other devils to help as well . Thankfully, they still had enough self-awareness within them to know that any devil who rushed in without being a three-star was basically committing suicide .

It was worth pointing out at this moment that because Baccarel was now a commander in my army, he received more spoils and managed to become a three-star before I returned to the Prison of Dead . In light of that, I upgraded his equipment to the same level as my other three-star demon childs .

Naturally, my commander-class subordinates were all furnished with the finest equipment I crafted . However, the moment that titan skeleton knocked away the bulky Big 4, even with his shield raised, they finally realized how large the gap in power was .

Though my crafted gear were powerful, that was only if they were stronger than or at the very least relatively close in strength with their opponents . If they weren’t, then they would end up in an awkward situation like Big 4 . Thankfully, that bulky devil had a tough

After ten seconds of channeling my mana, I managed to compress the magical energies, which had grown to the size of a water vat by now, to their utmost limits . Tossing it, the reddish black fireball scorched the air itself as it raced towards the titan surrounded by my six subordinates…

Having fought with me multiple times, they immediately knew to abandon the fight upon hearing my command . With that, the Nether Fireball successfully collided with that titan without any friendly casualties . However, an explosion was unavoidable and the ensuing flash of light ended up blinding all of us .

That sudden yell from No . 3 sounded a little horrific . Turning towards the direction of his yells, I found the titan skeleton alive just as he said . With nether flames still wrapped around itself, it charged right at me but because No . 3 rushed in to hinder it, the titan very casually kicked the devil aside and set him on fire with my own nether flames…

By the time I realized this fact and tried to rescue him, it was already too late . His body was covered from head to toe with my reddish black flames . Just from a glance alone, I was able to tell that he was more dead than alive now .

I hurriedly ran up to him and absorbed the torturous flames into my palms . Naturally, these flames would never hurt me seeing as I controlled them . However, that harmlessness didn’t extend to others . Just the opposite, its terrifying heat meant that even the flame resistant devils weren’t able to get out scot-free after being burnt by it .

The burns were horrific . His reddish skin had turned completely black like charcoal and seemed like it would break apart at any time . Yet such a grisly sight didn’t scare me in the least because No . 3 only ended up in such a

“Get out of the way, all of you! Don’t touch that titan!” I immediately ordered them to avoid the titan in order to prevent anymore injuries .

From then on, it was a personal battle between me and the titan . Because I was the only one immune to the nether flames, there was no one else who could take it on .

Yet, things rarely proceeded in the way you envisioned . Just as I gave out that command, the burning titan suddenly collapsed…in the midst of its charge, it collapsed…

The titan skeletons were truly a formidable foe but my nether flames weren’t any old flames either . Their burning effect could even harm a person’s soul and was, without a doubt, a nemesis to the undead . Moreover, because nether flames didn’t possess a purifying effect, the titan’s soul flame wasn’t destroyed . As long as I put out the fire beforehand, its soul flame could be harvested easily .

“Give this soul flame to No . 3 for me, I still have to monitor the other battlefields . ” As I said that, I handed the soul flame over to Big 5 . Though I really wanted to check up on No . 3’s condition, the other battles were still ongoing and I had to live up to my responsibilities as their commander .

“Understood, Master . ” Acknowledging the command, he immediately ran off towards No . 3 without daring to tarry for even a second longer .

“Mas…ter…” Though I couldn’t see the expression on his blackened face, I could tell that No . 3 was extremely touched by my gesture .

With that settled, there was no longer a need to worry about No . 3; as long as a devil was given enough souls, he could recover from any injuries, it was only a matter of time .

Just as I took a couple of steps forward, Elena descended from the ceiling and hugged me in her usual fashion except that it was done from the side this time . Cooling scent rushing into my nose, she turned her expressionless face towards me and in an equally cold voice, said: “It’s defeated . ”

“Mhm, my battle has ended as well . ” With regards to these three harpies, I was basically accustomed to their shenanigans by now so her hug no longer fazed me, though I still didn’t understand why they were willing to tie

Perhaps it was simply a case of things being taken to an extreme and ended up reversing but the harpy witches were completely devoted to their partners unlike normal harpies . In fact, their loyalty trumped even that of an elf’s . Thus, even though I had my doubts about their attitudes…I accepted them .

Looking in the direction of her finger, I didn’t see the aforementioned harpies but instead found Habona in the midst of a rampage with Shadowfang . In other words, she was hopping from battlefield to battlefield and aiding those who were still fighting .

With her peerless speed and Shadowfang’s unparalleled sharpness, she managed to finish off the rest of the titan skeletons in under five minutes .

‘To think she had no attachments to such a godly weapon…the demonic werewolves really didn’t take to weapons, huh? Or should I say, Habona rejected Shadowfang in particular?’

Just as I received the blade from Habona, Numila and Eugenia flew over from a short distance away . Landing, they promptly hugged me and shoved aside Elena in what looked like a coordinated effort on their part . Naturally, Elena wasn’t all too pleased about that but there was something different about this compared to their usual fights . It wasn’t a free for all like always but instead it was Elena against the other two .

‘Something doesn’t seem right here, why did Numila and Eugenia form an alliance? Did something strange happen while I wasn’t looking?’

“Things seem to be as lively as always . ” Violet Snow, who hadn’t participated in this battle, trotted over and upon noticing their jealous antics, chimed in with her usual sarcasm: “So, have you decided on someone yet?”

I had to admit, Violet Snow truly knew these three witches like the back of her paws . With just a single sentence she tore apart what looked like a budding alliance and threw them back into the era of the Three Kingdoms .

Because only the elites of elites took part in this battle against the titan skeletons, there weren’t any mishaps on our side except for No . 3’s unexpected run-in with my Nether Flames . Having tallied up our losses, we actually came out without any deaths though there were a few severely injured members . Thankfully, none of them were injured to extent of No . 3 .

Now that the battle was over, it was time to split the spoils . The biggest reward we gained from that fight were the soul flames of those titan skeletons which were, unfortunately, useless to the lizardmen, the medusas and the demonic werewolves because they weren’t able to feed on souls .

In light of that, custody of those soul flames pretty much went entirely to me . As compensation however, I planned to use the bones of those titans to craft more weapons for them . Because their bones were particularly sturdy, that crafting job might just end up costing more mana than expected . However, the end result of my labors should end up proportionally stronger as well .

“Well then, Mo En, will you be able to evolve into a five-star if you consume this soul flame?” I pointed at the nearly one meter wide soul flame as I said so . While there was only a single star of difference between the two levels, the difference in power, however, wasn’t just a simple as one plus one .

It was worth mentioning that letting him have the most precious loot wasn’t just to simply raise his combat strength, there was another reason as well . Mo En only submitted to me because of Julia . To me, his entire family were irreplaceable allies in this dangerous prison break . Yet before this, I had no way to express my gratitude . While it was true that I gave Julia the art of dark alchemy, that wasn’t enough, not by a long shot . Thus, I came to the decision to give him that soul flame .

Eyes curved into crescent moons, he smiled a silly smile as he gazed at that soul flame . Clearly, he wasn’t going to reject it either way . “Sure sure, I can feel my evolution coming already,

“You’d better come clean here!” Julia suddenly walked out of his shadow and slapped this deceitful husband of hers on the back of his head . Only after giving a thorough thrashing did she finally stop: “You’d better come clean, if I see you lying to his Highness again, this wife of yours will break your leg!”

“It’s like this…” Julia glared at Mo En who was shuffling his feet about as we spoke before turning around to explain the situation to me . A short while later, I roughly got the gist of what she was saying . Truth be told, I had some rough theories regarding this matter but didn’t pay much attention to it before .

Why were there no life forms above the level of four-stars in the Prison of the Dead? Because of the restriction placed by the prison itself, that’s why! Initially, I thought that once a creature reached five-stars, they either left of their own accord or were forcibly teleported out of the prison . Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that the truth could be so far from my expectations .

In actuality, the prison wasn’t just a chain on our freedom, it limited our levels as well . Simply put, every creature was only allowed to evolve up to four-stars . Even if you were already a five or six-star, your level would automatically be suppressed down to peak four-stars upon entering the prison .

That was why Habona was able to match up so easily against what was supposed to be a six-star black iron titan skeleton . Those titans were strong, for sure, but their levels had all been suppressed to that of four-stars . Being at the same level as Habona, their lack of intelligence clearly put them at a disadvantage especially given the epic-grade Shadowfang .

However, while their levels had been suppressed, those titans were still stronger than the average four-star devil . After all, while the prison was able to suppress one’s level, it couldn’t suppress the innate strength of a six-star’s body . Given the fact that the titans were a race who specialized in defense to begin with, it wasn’t at

‘Speaking of which, if Mo En already knew that he would never be able to evolve even after eating that soul flame…then…wasn’t he just digging a pit for me to jump into?’

‘Forget it, in the first place, he’s kinda pitiful himself . Because of his wife, he ended up having to serve me for no rhyme or reason . Besides, that soul flame was meant to be a compensation of sorts for him . However, since it can’t raise his level, I’ll just give it to someone else . ’

‘Before you ask, this wasn’t me trying to kidnap a loli with candy, it was just that her father couldn’t benefit from it so I decided to have her eat it instead . As for why it wasn’t Mo Xixidi…that’s because it was Mo Xixidi…I did say I was a part of the Judging a Book By its Cover Society!’

“Mimiya can eat it?” Eyes sparkling while they stared at this sudden boon from the heavens, she practically leapt into my embrace as she yelled . Arms and feet wrapped around my upper half, she proceeded to viciously smooch my…face, of course .

Not long after I was stunned by that dastardly loli, my forced-upon-me harem arrived on scene, wings and claws ready to defend their meat . However, just as everyone thought that Julia was about to start another lecture, she instead revealed a radiant smile: “Remember to treat his Excellency well from now on, got it?”

“Looks like you gained another one . ” Violet Snow rolled her eyes back as she delivered her trademark emotionless tsukkomi .

After messing around, it was time to proceed on with the soul flame distribution . In just a few minutes, the remaining the soul flames were distributed as followed: the six-star soul was given to Mimiya, one of the fiver-stars was consumed by me while the other was given to Violet Snow . As

In what was most likely a lack of soul flames, only One-eye managed to evolve from consuming his share of soul flames . Because the majority of his soul flame was expended to heal his wounds, No . 3 wasn’t able to evolve as well .

In his new form, One-eye grew a pair of red devil wings on his back and his body became a lot bulkier . Assuming nothing else changed, his evolutionary path was most likely that of Mo Xixidi’s: the sin of Gluttony .

The fact that he was the first of my named subordinates to evolve didn’t come as a surprise at all . He was the strongest amongst them all and before meeting me, he was already the head of his own band of devils . His talents were naturally a cut above the rest .

However, the fact that Big 4, Big 5 and Nine-finger weren’t able to evolve still left me exasperated . Having three more four-stars would undoubtedly speed up our future progress . Because we still weren’t sure about what hidden traps laid ahead of us, growing stronger was of utmost importance .

Being a three-star prior to meeting us, Mimiya was naturally able to evolve upon consuming that six-star soul . Because she was born with the original sin of Greed in her, she was born as a primal devil destined to tread the path of an infant devil . Thanks to that, her form didn’t change much after evolving; it was still that of an adorable loli .

In order for her to become a newly-evolved infant devil, she would have to evolve to the level of five-stars first . Thus, her innate skills had only been partially unlocked . Her affinity with dimensional magicks had definitely increased substantially but it still wasn’t to the level where she could teleport . In order for her to do that, she had to at least be a five-star .

As for me…that five-star soul actually had no effect on me at all…undoubtedly, all those energies had been forcefully absorbed by the slumbering Ferti’nier within me .

Naturally, she made sure to leave me some scraps . As for how much that was… ‘let’s have a looksie, about two percent? That damned woman…no wait, damned she-devil, once you wake up, I’m going to make you cough up the rental fee!’

What was once a giant black whirlpool was now an immeasurably thick bone wall with a giant gate carved into it . The gate itself was over fifty meters wide and was already open as if it was inviting us in . However, that wasn’t the only thing strange about it . The location where it appeared, in other words, where the black whirlpool used to be, didn’t use to have a gate at all . In fact, when we first entered this cavern, those walls weren’t even there .

“There’s no time or mana to process those titan bones so I want the dogmen to take them apart and carry them for now . ” Having dumped that task onto the dogmen, I continued: “The Abbadon Rodents will continue serving as our vanguard . Weslin, make sure you watch them carefully, I don’t want any mistakes . ”

“Alright, I’ll be extra careful . ” She nodded her head and as she did so, she gave those thousand rodents under her an evil glare: “Listen up, if you perform well enough, you will get promoted . As for those cowards amongst you who don’t dare to advance, death on the spot!”

“Chit chit chit chiiit cccchit…” The ratman beside her furiously translated her words for its brethren who upon hearing its words, immediately trembled . Chits flying about, they immediately rushed towards the mysterious gate .

Truth be told, I didn’t care all that much about their shenanigans unless, of course, it affected me directly…which brings us back to this situation, wasn’t doing “that” in an open environment like this, immoral? That’s why I forbade any uncivilized conduct that wasn’t safe for work .

Because of that, those rodents were unable to find a wife to get their bones honed, poor things . ly, they used to be able to go spelunking in the slime cave whenever and wherever they wanted to; privacy wasn’t even a concept to them .

Compared to them, the dogmen were a lot more obedient and did their utmost to complete the task I set out for them —exactly like a real dog . In fact, I was starting to feel a little bad about treating them like back up rations .

Speaking of dogs, after consuming that five-star soul, Violet Snow didn’t end up evolving as I expected . Her body showed no outward changes at all and the only thing that was different was that her mana pool increased .

However, setting aside all these unnecessary things, it was now time to push onwards . Just like before, the Abaddon Rodents were on vanguard duty .

The traps I envisioned didn’t appear in the end, in fact, we weren’t even ambushed as we proceeded onwards . Naturally, there was no chance of us taking a wrong turn since it had been a completely straight road up till now without any forks . Thus, the days passed in such a peaceful manner and even I began to miss those undead attacks . As for why that was so…that’s because we ran out of food .

Prior to entering the Door of the Dead, I had no intentions at all of preparing too much rations . Back then, my plan was to fuel our battles with battles . Besides, food storage was extremely impractical in hell . However, as if fate itself was teasing us, we didn’t encounter any large scale undead assault other than that bone pillar and those titan skeletons . Truly, there was no danger to be had at all . But that didn’t make me feel happy at all because

As the saying goes, man is iron, food is steel, one meal missed is a day of panicked hunger . This was especially so since we were still faced with an unknown danger ahead of us; at any time, an enemy army could waylay and destroy us . Thus, our bellies had to be filled up in order to ensure we had enough stamina for any future battles . In the light of that, the only option available to us was what I had planned at the start…eat those rodents…

Just like that, with no food leftover to speak of, the Abaddon Rodents became our back up ration source starting from their lowest ranked members .

On the second day of our food shortage, I gave the command myself to slaughter two thousand Abaddon Rodents in order to fill our stomachs . Truth be told, giving out that order left me feeling extremely helpless . After all, those rodents were my slaves and as slaves, I had still had a host of tasks for them to complete such as, being fodder, lab rats, etc . However, for the sake of our progress, I had no choice but to send out that cruel command .

The moment that command was sent out, no matter who they were, whether they were the rodents who were about to be slaughtered or the dogmen who knew that they were only a little further up the totem pole, they all had a conflicted look on their faces . On the other hand, there wasn’t that much of a reaction from the other races . Feeding on each other was something they were used to already .

No matter how much those rodents protested, it was useless . In the face of absolute power, those rodents only had to obey . Those who resisted were slaughtered on the spot and became ration themselves .

If they were humans, I definitely wouldn’t have given out such a cruel command because I still identified as a human at the end of the day

Honestly, the moment those words left my mouth, I was struck with an indescribable sense of guilt . Yet, what was I to do if not so? Heading back wasn’t an option anymore so all we could do was advance .

Furthermore, allowing them to starve would have only worn down our army’s unity and might even cause a rebellion . Lizardman might turn on lizardman for food . Even my trusted allies, the devils, medusas and harpies would most probably start a war with each other let alone the temperamental demonic werewolves .

Thus, I had to nip this problem in the bud even though innocents would have to be sacrificed in the process . Besides, I enslaved them with the idea of using them as fodder and rations in the first place . Other than that sense of guilt, I wasn’t all that opposed to it…probably .

For the next few days, nothing really changed . There were still no signs of an ambush and we had to subsist on rat meat . Because I didn’t know how much longer this would last and also because our rat supply was dwindling to begin with, I had my warriors control their appetite to the best of their abilities . With each passing day, I lowered the number of rodents we slaughtered but even so, nearly all 8000 of those rodents were slaughtered in order to sustain us for ten days .

Once the eleventh day passed, all the rodents, barring those I sent to Mo Xixidi, were all re-accommodated into our bellies . Even so, our bellies were never satisfied, not even for a day . With the spectre of starvation wearing down on our sanity, we had to find a food source soon or the entire army might collapse .

As I had suspected, the lack of rations created a rift between the different races . The most combative race, the demonic werewolves, were already on the verge of revolting . Thankfully, Habona had an iron grip on her clan so the situation didn’t worsen any further .

Throughout those ten days, those dog headed fellows were in a constant state of panicked wariness . They received the least rations of the races and yet they had to lug those titan bones around while enduring the strange stares the other races gave them . Even while sleeping they had to wake up from time to time to check if their companions were missing or if they were missing a limb or two .

Without any warning whatsoever, the tunnel opened up into a vast clearing filed with tens, even hundreds of bone pillars . Each bone pillar were spaced far apart with at least a hundred meters between each of them

At the very beginning, we encountered that strange bone pillar that not only was able to disguise its intent but also possessed a veritable sea of skeletons within it . I wouldn’t be surprised if some careless idiot was caught off guard and ended up failing right away .

The next obstacle, those titan skeletons, weren’t a joke at all . Their defense could be said to be invincible amongst those of the same level . Any army who didn’t possess magical abilities able to counter such defenses or perhaps some weapon at the level of Shadowfang would have been shattered by those colossal undead…no, they would have been wiped out .

There was one simple reason for that . The strongest titan skeleton was a six-star . Even though it had its level suppressed to four-stars, its defenses were still that of a six-star’s . With no

The third obstacle was that Silent Hell we just endured…that was the name I gave to that stretch of road that forced us to feed on each other .

In those ten over days, we encountered zero resistance which meant we had no way of replenishing our supplies…to survive, you had to kill your comrade .

For example, devils would enter the Door with devils . There was basically no chance that another army of devils, lizardmen, medusas, harpies and demonic werewolves had ever formed in the long history of the Prison . In other words, even if those devils were able to make it past the second stage, they would most likely fail at the third .

Sticking to one’s race meant that said army wouldn’t have much numbers to begin . Take Mo En for example, he was basically a local tyrant in the Prison . Even Habona, with her formidable skills, showed deference to him . Even so, he only had 2000 devils under him…while that meant their consumption rate was low, their combat strength would suffer proportionally as well . Because of that, passing the first two obstacles would have been impossible to begin with .

Naturally, how our predecessors fared was none of my business . All I knew was that my warriors weren’t in a good shape right now and the prolonged fasting had caused their tempers to reach a boiling point . Had it not been for the fact that we still had 3000 dogmen handy, a rebellion might have already occurred . Those 8000 rodents were only able to sustain our basic functions and prevent us from starving to death .

Because of the food shortage, there wasn’t a single person who wasn’t eager to jump into battle right now . So hungry…so damned hungry…

The moment the bone pillars entered our field of vision, a certain bunch of potatoes, whose brains couldn’t rein in their desires, immediately charged ahead without a second thought .

“Woohhhhh!!!” Heads filled with nothing but hunger, the devils charged ahead like swarm of bees while howling nonsensically .

‘You pig-heads, can’t you see how many enemies there are in front of you?! Or are you trying to say that you rather die in battle than die of starvation?’

Being a primal devil of the horned devil branch, Mo Xixidi’s final form was that of an abyss devil which was known for being perpetually hungry . That was the biggest characteristics of those of the Gluttony branch . They loved to eat or collect treasure . Even if they knew that it was pointless to eat and even if they couldn’t take a another bite, they would still gladly indulge in their desires .

Given all that, the last ten plus days must have truly been torturous for him . However, even if I could understand his excitement, such disobedience mustn’t be allowed .

Because of Mo Xixidi’s wilful actions, the lizardmen ended up rushing into battle as well, led by those three four-star lizardmen heads . Upon noticing Mo Xixidi’s actions, they merely paused for a second before immediately rushing off as well . Perhaps they thought that I had given that order, or perhaps they simply convinced themselves that it was my order, either way, with that potato acting as the leader, they didn’t have to worry too much about the consequences later .

A single bone pillar was able to summon forth over a thousand skeletons . In that case, how many skeletons were 100 bone pillars able to summon? That was a question I didn’t want to consider mostly because I didn’t have the time to do so .

With their growling stomachs egging them on, Mo Xixidi and his band of a thousand plus devils had already charged into range of one bone pillar . Behind them, were two thousand over lizardmen who

Thus, as I had suspected all along, the moment Mo Xixidi set foot into the bone pillar’s range, it exploded in a shower of skeletons . Around it, the other bone pillars began summoning skeletons as well as if that single bone pillar had set off a domino effect amongst the neighboring pillars .

Ceiling darkening for a second, the giant pall of darkness immediately revealed itself as a shower of skeletons that crashed into the incoming devils . With no formation to speak, they were easily split apart in the first wave alone .

In contrast, the lizardmen put on a much better showing than those red-skinned fools . Though their gait were unsteady from ten days of food deficiency, they still managed to summon forth an impressive burst of strength in front of their prey .

Thanks to their draconic bloodlines, they were easily able to withstand the dives of the lightweight skeletons and even managed to rip apart several of their skulls before they could land .

Thus, I had two complete opposites play out before my very eyes: a bunch of devils getting pushed around by falling skeletons while a bunch of lizardmen easily swatted aside said falling skeletons .

Strictly speaking, the lizardmen held a distinct advantage over the devils because of their racial traits . On the other hand, the devils weren’t actually considered devils till they evolved into a five-star . The reason was that five-star devils all had a common trait: their original sin blessing .

Any devil below the rank of five-stars was basically a slave or fodder in devil society . The only exceptions to this treatment were those who were already blessed with an original sin and ended up evolving into their respective primal stages . For example, Julia, Mo Xixidi, Mimiya, etc .

Naturally, two to three thousand skeletons weren’t a problem for Mo Xixidi and his devils . However, what I was worried about was that the rest of the bone pillars might activate in response to their attacks . Not knowing whether or when they would explode, I knew that I had to recall that potato as soon as possible . It

Just as I was about to ask her to drag Mo Xixidi back here, the ceilings darkened once more and I knew that I was too late . One after another, the bone pillars began exploding in a shower of skeletons that swarmed towards Mo Xixidi and the others . Given their distance, it wouldn’t be long before they were overwhelmed by these newcomers .

And yet while I hated his wilful decision, I couldn’t leave him to die either . Whether it was out of consideration for Julia’s feelings or our future combat strength, I had to rescue that potato . Even if I couldn’t do so, I had to at least make an attempt .

Taking a deep breath amidst the anxious gaze of Julia, I had no choice but to announce the start of battle: “Everyone, charge!”

‘Damn it, I wanted to take this slowly too . We could’ve just activated those bone pillars one at a time given how far apart they were and slowly replenished supplies while recovering our strength at the same time, now however…heck, even if things ended up going awry, I could’ve at least made some preparations beforehand instead of running around like a bunch of headless chickens . ’

Thankfully, the worst case scenario didn’t happen and the activations stopped after ten or so bone pillars exploded . Assuming each had a thousand skeletons, that was merely 10,000 skeletons, roughly the same as our own numbers .

Moreover, the individual strength of these skeletons weren’t even that strong, the majority were one to two-stars with some random smattering of three-stars .

“Numila, Eugenia, fire off your composite magic . Elena, I want you to harvest those soul flames right away and carve out an exchange array . ” While I did say to charge, it wasn’t like I could brainlessly move my army to attack either . Some degree of planning was still required . “Evilin, I need you to command the dogmen and get them to rescue the wounded . ”

As for Mo Xixidi, his surroundings had long since devolved into a chaotic mess . Because the devils were able to consume soul flames directly, Mo Xixidi and his devils couldn’t help but rush into battle . Arms bulging with each grasp, he easily broke off a skeletal beast’s skull and sucked out the soul flame within as if it was a coconut .

Unlike the devils, the lizardmen weren’t able to feast directly on souls and had to rely on meat to sustain themselves . Upon noticing this problem, the lizardmen at the forefront immediately tried to carve out an exchange array in the midst of battle; it was a rather simple process after all . Unfortunately, they ended up failing because there were simply too many skeletons swarming them .

Being in a hungry state from the beginning, their initial burst of strength had already begun to wear off and soon the sea of skeletons began to overwhelm them as well .

Other than the dogmen and some harpies, most of my troops had already engaged the undead . In order to speed up our recovery, I had Habona spearhead a charge into the skeleton sea with a division of werewolves along with Manasha and her medusas . As for the soul flames, I had Elena and her harpies swoop in to snatch them before our surroundings could swallow them . Thanks to their flight capabilities, they were able to enter and leave as they pleased .

The werewolves and medusas were all the cream of the crop of my army, and this was made abundantly clear in the initial charge alone . Tails and claws flying about, my elites immediately took a chunk out of the skeleton sea .

A second later, the harpies dove in, talons primed and ready to pick up the soul flames as if they were hawks preying upon a field of mice . Roughly five minutes later, our first batch of soul flame were ready for the exchange array .

Because the devils had the ability to consume soul flames directly, I didn’t recall them right away . In a way, this was Mo Xixidi’s punishment for disobeying me .

It was then that Numila and Eugenia finished casting their spell . High above, the two harpies witches fearlessly flew off in the direction of the sea of bones . Around them, the elemental energies crackled . Upon infusing mana into Flametail which was still circling around Numila, the energies immediately condensed into a giant fireball of wind and flames . From my standpoint, it was as if they had in their talons, a miniature sun of unimaginable heat .

The instant the fireball stopped expanding, Numila tossed it right into the heart of the skeleton sea . By now, even more bone pillars had activated and the undead count seemed to be increasing without limit . It was precisely this reason that made her fire off the spell at this moment .

The world seemed to quiet down in the instant the massive ball of flames crashed into the ground with a deafening boom . Immediately, a wave of blinding light washed over us, followed by a scorching wave of heat . All around, the residual flames flew about in a veritable eruption of fire and sparks . Fanned by the howling winds, they immediately roared to life once more and enveloped the skeletons in a sea of flames that almost covered half of the battlefield . With just that spell alone, over ten thousand skeletons were wiped out and that was a conservative estimation on my part as well .

Once more, magic proved itself as the eternal king of group warfare . It was said that a hundred warriors wouldn’t even be able to output the same destruction as ten mages of the same level let alone a composite magic boosted by the epic-grade Flametail .

As the flames swallowed up the countless skeletons, that suffocating heat began to roast my troops as well . A number of lizardmen began to show signs of faltering . Not only that, even my devils, known for their fire resistance, began to show signs of discomfort .

Having witnessed its power multiple times now, I still couldn’t help but marvel at Flametail’s destructive prowess . As an area-of-effect weapon, it truly had no equal . Unfortunately, those flames of hers immolated souls as well…in other words, the moment Numila slammed her spell into the crowd, not only were our opponents wiped out, a sizeable portion of our spoils were destroyed as well .

However, with the situation as it was right now, we really didn’t have a choice either . There were simply too many bone pillars to the point where brute physical force wasn’t an option .

Truly, life was an annoying experience . A lot of matters ended up coiling around us like a tireless tendril, just like what we were experiencing now . Thinking back on our experiences, the moment we stepped into this strange pocket dimension, we were set upon by a horde of skeletons . Thankfully, our warriors were significantly stronger than the skeletons .

After that initial tug of war with the skeletons, we managed to gain some minor reprieve and split our rations . Thanks to that, our energy was able to recover somewhat . Sending in a new batch of lizardmen to take over, I had the demonic werewolves and medusas gradually retreat to the backlines in order to feast and recover some strength .

Throughout all that, the sea of fire erected by Numila continued to roar in the background . Because it was so massive, it managed to cut off a sizeable portion of the skeletons . However, even these brainless undead knew not to jump mindlessly into the fire . Clearly, their fear of flames had instilled an instinctive reaction in them .

With that in mind, we hurriedly finished off the remaining skeletons on our side and rotated our troops between feasting and fighting . By now, the battle had gained a semblance of order unlike our initial foray .

With time to spare, I turned my attention onto the sea of fire . Originally, I wanted Numia and Eugenia to expand the sea of fire even more in hopes that it would wipe out all the skeletons, however, I soon found that it wasn’t an option because there was nothing flammable nearby . Given how massive the sea was, maintaining it with just magic alone wasn’t viable . At most, the both of them would only be able to maintain it for two minutes .

Since that was the case, I saw no point in having Numila continue like that so I had her stop channelling mana immediately . It wasn’t like those skeletons were an actual threat anyway . It was merely their numbers that gave us a headache; the pressure itself wasn’t much . Furthermore, my plan to rotate the troops seemed to be working out . The power of

As long as they held out till Numila and Eugenia were done resting, the two harpy witches could easily roast these skeletons with another sea of fire .

Or so I thought . Once more, just as I thought that I held within my grasp, the greatest killing machine and that their numbers was no longer an issue, reality viciously slapped me in the face once more .

The moment the sea of fire calmed down, the bone pillars erupted once more . This time however, it wasn’t just skeletons, there was a sea of zombies as well .

At the beginning, these zombies were hidden from view as they laid firmly within the core of these bone pillars . Now however, they were out in the open for us to see .

Being known for their formidable defenses even amongst the undead, these zombies were slightly higher levelled than the average skeleton . Not only that, they carried a corpse toxin within themselves that was able to convert any race with low resistance to it into zombies .

Truth be told, the appearance of zombies took me by surprise . Ever since we stepped into the Prison of the Dead, the only we undead we encountered were skeletons and more skeletons .

It seemed like I wasn’t the only one caught off guard either, judging by the looks on some of my devils’ faces . Even those who had lived in the Prison for so long, like Mo En, had never seen an undead other than a skeleton appear within the Prison . Thus, it had always been the assumption that only skeletons could appear, till now at least .

Thankfully, devils had an innate resistance to being zombified . Unless they died, there was basically no way for them to turn into zombies while alive . Plus, these devils were all equipped with my masterfully crafted equipment . Under normal circumstances, they should be able to maintain some distance from the zombies .

What’s not so fortunate was that other than my devils, the other races didn’t possess a naturally high resistance to corpse toxins…in other words, the lizardmen, werewolves, medusas, demonic half-orcs, dogmen ,etc . , would mostly likely turn into zombies after being clawed by one . Thus, the bulk of our fighting force would have to come from the devils .

“To think there were actually zombies here…” Truly, their addition was like icing on the cake . Turning towards Harlow who had just finished his break, I

“Don’t worry, us demonic werewolves have a sturdy constitution . The usual corpse toxin won’t affect us at all . ” As he said that, he thumped his chest and grinned a broad lupine smile that was supposed to put me at ease . Honestly, looking at those fangs of his, it didn’t put me at ease in the least bit .

“Us medusas as well, in terms of poisons and toxins, we are the experts here . ” Basically stuck onto Harlow like a shadow, Majosha nodded at me before continuing: “We are about done resting now, it’s time for us to take to the battlefield . I’ll leave the commanding to you . ”

“Mhm, leave it to me . ” Although I said that with a slight tinge of guilt in my heart, I knew not to show my unease right now . More than anything, I needed to put on a strong front now . Only by downplaying the gravity of the situation could I give everyone the sense of security they needed . Only then would they have the confidence to tackle this predicament . Without a doubt, should I falter now, the army morale would drop and even cause us issues in the battlefield .

Harlow himself had the strength of a three-star and shouldn’t fare badly against these undead . Even so, I couldn’t help but worry as the unexpected tended to creep up on you when you least expect it .

Time passed and an hour ticked by just like that . By now, the bone pillars were about done with their eruptions and had filled the battlefield with countless zombies . While there weren’t many variations in the undead they spat out, that didn’t mean that their levels remained static . A certain portion of the newly minted undead were four-stars .

Of those four-stars, one managed to leave a scratch on Harlow’s arm . Trying to fend it off with an attack of his own, Harlow swiped at the offending undead . However, instead of dodging the attack, the zombie leaped onto Harlow instead and gave him a bear hug . Jaws creaking wide open with a sickening crunch, it then bit down on his shoulders…

“AHHHHH…” Screamed the werewolf . Yet, if he was going to extricate himself from this plight, he only had himself to rely on . Because of the hotblooded nature of his demonic werewolf bloodline, an uncontrollable bloodthirst overtook him the moment the battle started, spurring him to rush into the very front of the army where Majosha was situated .

Yet because the advent of the four-stars was so sudden and with such numbers, Majosha ended up being tied down herself and wasn’t able

As a proud warrior of the demonic werewolves however, he merely roared to suppress the burning pain and even drew strength from it . Knuckles cracking and claws bared, he raked into the skull of the zombie with a violent jerk, tore into the undead’s head and actually severed it right there and then!

Throughout all that, black blood oozed from his ghastly shoulder wound and yet that didn’t faze him in the least as he continued with his relentless onslaught . The undead who dared to stand before him were summarily tore apart in a frenzy of claws . It was almost as if he was a berserker .

However, their numbers didn’t seem to drop in the least bit and while we held the advantage in terms of combat strength, we were still living beings after all . In a drawn out slugfest with the undead, there was no way our stamina would hold out . With no other choice left, I ordered a shipment of souls to be sent to Numila and Eugenia in order to prepare for a second sea of fire .

For the most part, the skeletons were extremely brittle, falling apart with merely a swipe from our warriors . Ironically, that ended up creating problems for Elena who was tasked with collecting the soul flames with her harpies . Barely touching ground for a second, she immediately had to fly off in another direction to harvest the new soul flames .

“Numila, Eugenia, I want the both of you to immediately cast that sea of fire the moment you two are done replenishing your mana . With that many undead arrayed against us, a physical slugfest would only end badly for us . ” Right after I said that, I had Elena ship the souls to them before turning my attention back to the battlefield .

As I did so, I so happened to witness the scene of Harlow tearing apart that zombie and also the fact that his shoulder was oozing black blood . He seemed to have been infected . Majosha, noticing this wound as well, rushed to alleviate the pressure off him .

“Evilin, have the dogmen bring Harlow back, quick . If he’s not willing to do so, then…ah, there’s no need for that, Habona has already left . ”

Having entered a battle state of her own, Habona had worked herself into a frenzy from all the killing . Before her, these lowly undead were nothing but fodder to sharpen her claws and yet in the midst of all that, she didn’t forget her responsibility as the strongest fighter in our army . She made sure to monitor the situation of those around her at all times .

Thus, the moment she saw her little brother get bitten by that zombie, she immediately rushed off towards him in order to forcefully separate him

Unfortunately, Habona was a step too late and the toxin had already spread throughout his body . Although the demonic werewolves had some resistance towards zombification, it wasn’t, at the end of the day, at the same level as the devils . Furthermore, his furious activity only accelerated the infection rate of the toxin .

As she forced dragged her brother out of the battle, a noticeably shaken Majosha slithered behind them . Being the first to notice his bite wound, her worried self wanted to whisk him away as well but the battlefield being what it was, left her no say in the matter . Her strength simply wasn’t at the level where she could interject herself and extricate him .

As his wife, her concern for Harlow trumped even that of Habona’s . As she held him in a tender embrace, her tail coiled circle after circle around the injured werewolf .

“I’m…fine…” Though his body was wrecked with pain, he managed to force out a reassuring smile in a bid to try and calm his wife instead: “Don’t worry, my body isn’t that weak . ”

Perhaps she still hadn’t noticed it yet or perhaps she merely feigned ignorance but the Harlow right now reeked of death . It was the unique stench of decomposition that assaulted my sinuses as I looked at the fallen werewolf .

“We need to drain his blood, immediately!” Without wasting another second, Habona gorged out the wound on his shoulder before making a tiny incision on the artery on his wrist . Immediately, the black blood within Harlow gushed out followed by a pained grunt from the werewolf . Perhaps he didn’t want to seem weak but right after that grunt, he bit down on his fangs and forcefully stifled any further expressions of pain .

“If you drain too much blood, he might die instead, we need to transfuse some blood immediately . ” Looking at the water hose that was his wrist, I was struck with an ominous feeling in my heart . “Losing that much blood now might worsen his injuries and even…”

Just like before, this warning came too late . Harlow’s pupils suddenly widened and soon his body began to stiffen up . ‘Was there no hope now?’

“Harlow? Harlow? HARLOW?” Majosha continuously yelled her lover’s name but there was no answer to be heard . As of this moment, Harlow was like a statue . No matter how much she yelled, he wouldn’t answer . All he did was stare ahead with his eyes wide open and body motionless .

“Harlow!” Majosha screamed in disbelief as she tightly hugged the corpse of Harlow . Unfortunately, his corpse had already begun to turn cold and harden . By now, it had completely lost any previous signs that it was once a living thing . Furthermore, the owner of this body had died from corpse poison, which meant that he could turn into an undead at any time…

Knowing that, I wanted to persuade Majosha to let go of the werewolf but my words failed me at the last second . Deep down, I knew that she wouldn’t listen to me even if I tried .

Harlow’s death came as too much of a shock for us . Poor Majosha had her heart ripped to shreds by the news of his demise and immediately broke down in tears . She simply couldn’t bring herself to accept the death of her sweetheart . In contrast, Habona was a lot calmer despite being his sister . She gazed at his lifeless eyes without a single change in expression and then reached out for them . Yet just as she was about to touch his face, her hands were swatted away by a slap from Majosha .

Majosha desperately clung to her unrealistic version of reality . Moreover, you could tell from her gaze that she slightly resented this she-werewolf . She must have felt that if Habona hadn’t tried to drain his poisoned blood, Harlow wouldn’t died…at the very least, not that quickly .

“Master…the zombies are too strong…we need help…” Suddenly, the weak and almost non-existent No . 5 came running to me with an anxious look on his face . The harried imp hurriedly made his report: “The recent pillar eruptions have produced a ton of zombies and they are all at least Three-stars . The Four-stars are swarming all over us…we can’t hold out much longer…”

‘A horde of Four-star zombies?’ Shocked by Harlow’s sudden death, I had completely forgotten about the zombie issue till now . From his report, I learnt that the pillars had basically unloaded everything they had and that other than skeletons, there were also zombies hidden within . Just thinking about those Three to Four-stars zombies swarming at us like bees, I couldn’t help

Having heard No . 5’s report as well, Habona immediately turned around to join the battle, zero hesitation whatsoever . In fact, her decisiveness and coldness almost made me wonder if the Habona who had recklessly charged into battle to save her brother was the same Habona who was charging into battle right now .

Surveying the battleground, I found the situation to be just as No . 5 reported . The newly spawned zombies were all at least Three-stars and each had a varying degree of corpse poison stored within them, some more toxic than the others, The majority of those who were bitten quickly started showing abnormal signs and would probably fall dead if left untreated for long .

Fortunately, while the corpse poison was deadly, the zombification aspect of it wasn’t as quick as we had expected . Even Harlow, who had been bitten the earliest, hadn’t turned into a zombie yet .

However, that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t either . Living things who were bitten to death by such zombies would inevitably turn into zombies, even the poison-resistant devils . It was merely a matter of how long it took; the least resistant could even turn into zombies before dying .

Right now, the biggest problem facing us was that we had no way to deal with the corpse poison . In other words, anyone who got bitten had no choice but to pray to their maker .

While I did say that Habona was acting a little cold, I could still tell that she was affected by Harlow’s death . Right before leaving, she took Shadowfang from my back and rushed off without another word . Though there was no emotion to be found on her furry face, I could see the roaring flames reflected within her eyes . Looks like she wasn’t able to accept her brother’s death as easily as her placid face would suggest .

She needed to vent that anguish within herself, and so did I . Had it not been for me insisting on assaulting the Door of the Dead…Harlow would have probably been alive right now . He would have spent the rest of his life in the Prison of the Dead with Majosha . And even though that was basically the life of a small fry, at least

Stepping into the heat of battle once more, Habona opened up with a furious dance of death, slicing apart a score of zombies with a single wild single of Shadowfang . No matter who they were, Shadowfang sliced into them unhindered . Yet, the zombie horde was simply too numerous and the skeleton horde even more so . No matter how many she killed, the enemies around her didn’t seem to lessen one bit .

“Master, there’s one more thing…” No . 5 leaned in to whisper in my ears . “Just now, I spotted two ratman zombies . Their bodies bore no signs of decomposition at all, in fact, it didn’t feel like they had been zombies for long…”

Still affected by Harlow’s sudden death, my heart simply wasn’t able to calm itself down and naturally wasn’t in the mood for No . 5’s insinuations . “Exactly what are you trying to say here?”

Noticing my impatience, No . 5 dared not beat around the bush any further . Lowering his head in a fashion that almost made it seemed like he had been wronged, he continued” Those two ratman zombies are the two ratmen who tried to sneak into the solo route when we first entered the Door of the Dead . ”

Having been reminded of what seemed like such a distant memory, I couldn’t help but recall that day . I remembered warning everyone not to enter the solo route then because there was something fishy about it . Thankfully, because the legends stated that only the Four-stars could pass through it safely, only those two ratmen dared to defy my orders, no one else even tried to do so .

Back then, the two ratmen immediately screamed in anguish the moment they set foot on that road and that led me to suspect that they had met with some kind of accident .

“I’m sure . It’s definitely those two . ” No . 5 declared, cutting right to the chase . With a pat of his chest, he confidently reassured me: “I still remember clearly how one of those ratman had a slightly thicker tail than the others and that it had a rather eye-catching tuft of fur on its head . The other ratman had a darker coat of fur than the other ratmen

“Dead, One-eye and Nine-fingers killed them personally . ” In a slightly confused tone, he elaborated: “For some reason, even though the two of them had the strength of Four-stars in life, their combat strength seemed to have dropped after becoming a zombie…”

‘To think those two ratmen popped out of those bone pillars, not only that, their strength decreased as well . In that case, is it safe to assume that those pillars are zombie incubators? Or perhaps they converted and even strengthened zombies?’

ly, I had assumed that their strength regressing was an inevitable side-effect of turning into a zombie . Habona herself, once told me that living creatures, upon turning into an undead, would usually experience a drop in their strength . Most of the time, it would be impossible for them to reach their former peaks .

At the very least, there was something I learnt from all this: ‘So those who entered the solo route all turned into zombies…or should I say, they encountered something and then turned into a zombie . There’s a high chance that the solo route is some kind of teleportation array that teleported those who entered, into the innards of a bone pillar and directly turned them into zombies . Well, that’s my theory anyway . ’

With that in mind, another problem came to mind . Numila mentioned that her predecessor left the moment she handed over the reins of the clan to her . Before leaving, that predecessor of hers mentioned that she was going to enter the Door of the Dead…given that she was alone, she most likely took the solo route .

Then there was Mimiya’s father, in other words, Julia’s and Mo En’s son…I remembered Julia mentioning that her son wanted to leave the Prison of the Dead . According to common knowledge, there was only one way of leaving the Prison…

Adding on the Four-stars from the other races, the number might not seem like much on an annual basis . However, the Prison of the Dead had existed for a period beyond my imagination . Within all those years, exactly how many had died to the lie of “Four-stars can freely leave the Prison of the Dead”?

‘Exactly who was it that fabricated and spread such a lie, what were their motives in doing so? Perhaps the Prison’s creator himself spread this lie, for who though? Why did

Based on No . 5’s report alone, I managed to uncover an entire string of possibilities, each more shocking than the other . It truly felt like I had been implicated some kind of giant conspiracy .

“Dearest, we’re ready . ” Having spent some time digesting the massive shipment of souls, Numila and Eugenia finally finish charging up their mana, and were raring to go as they reported in to me . However, that liveliness went away immediately the moment they saw Majosha silently hugging Harlow in her arms . A look of sorrow crossed their eyes but they chose not to say a word in the end .

“The frontline’s not doing too well, I’ll need you two to cast your spell right away . If possible, widen the area of effect as much as possible and block off contact between the two armies, that way our soldiers can get some rest as well . ”

Not wasting another word here, the two harpy witches flew off to channel another sea of fire . In mere moments, a fiery line of separation was erected between us and the undead .

With that, the battle came to a temporary stop . Even so, that didn’t mean that our work was done . Elena promptly led her harpies to sweep the battlefield while Evilin instructed the dogmen to tend to the wounded . Those who were poisoned were all cordoned off into the same section after which food would be sent to them at a later time . The sturdier ones amongst them should be able to survive the quarantine, as for the weaker ones, only death awaited them .

A small division of lizardmen were stationed as guards over the quarantine zone . However, they weren’t there to guard the wounded . Instead, they were there to watch over the patients . Should they discover any zombification, as their guards, these lizardmen were to finish them off .

In total, the sea of fire lasted for five minutes . As ordered, Numila tried to expand the range of the sea in order to blow up some of the bone pillars which hadn’t erupted yet . As she did so, the undead, being deathly afraid of flames, desperately tried to flee but the flames were simply too fast for them and soon they were engulfed in flames .

Finally with some time on her hands, Manasha decided to comfort her little sister Majosha. Yet before she could even get a word in, Numila sent out a distress call: “Dearest, my mana can’t hold out for much longer, quick, get the others to prepare for battle…”

Thankfully, Numila and Eugenia’s composite magic so happened to be the bane of these undead. As long as we allowed them to recover their mana, they could blast off another sea of flames. Based on past experiences, a couple more should do the trick.

‘The two of them are going to need some time to recover their exhausted mana, I shouldn’t work them too hard in the meantime.’ With that in mind, I immediately had the others prepare for battle.

This time, I planned on taking part as well. Even though my Shadowfang was still in the hands of Habona, rendering me unable to engage in melee, my speciality actually laid in magic so I was still fine on that front. Moreover, my nether flames had shown themselves a potent force to be used against the undead, the only drawback being that they consumed a lot of mana and I simply didn’t have enough to support them for long.

The proceeding battle was a rather heated one and yet it was also a dry one. Upon recovering their mana, the two harpy witches would act in unison to cast another round of the sea of flames at which point it would be our turn to fight once more and buy them time. Thus, we rotated as such.

Because their rapid recovery required massive amounts of Soul Flames, we wound up spending a long time between rounds, harvesting the Soul Flames of the undead. Thus, our melee engagement with the undead had to be extended as well. Such an extension came at huge cost to our forces, not only did we have to endure an encirclement by countless undead, we had to deal with the stress of our massive losses.

Under those trying circumstances, we repeated this cycle of spell barrage followed by melee, without any rest whatsoever. After half a day, we finally managed to clean up all of the pillars. The

Upon discovering this little quirk of theirs, I specially instructed the troops to gather up the zombie corpses. After lighting up these flammable meat bags, I had the harpies toss them back into the undead horde. Thanks to this stroke of absolute genius on my part, the battle was shortened even further.

Like that, the battle ended up as a victory for us, albeit a pyrrhic one. At least half of our troops died in the battle and of the remaining half, they all carried with them a certain degree of injury, some severe and some even crippling.

All throughout the battle, the number of wounded in the quarantine zone continually increased. From time to time, there would be outbreaks of zombification but these were all swiftly handled by the lizardmen I stationed there. In total, these deaths accounted for over half of our losses this battle…

Thankfully, no one I was close to died except for Harlow. At most there were a couple of minor injuries between all of us. Looking at it from another point of view, wasn’t Harlow just unlucky?

Another noteworthy matter was that, despite having laid there for half a day, Harlow never zombified. As for Majosha, she had no intention whatsoever of leaving his side so she just sat there quietly hugging Harlow’s corpse. She neither spoke nor made eye contact with us. Other than breathing, she seemed to be completely motionless.

It almost seemed like she was making a point with her silence, one that life or death didn’t matter anymore and that she wasn’t going to bother with it.

With nothing to feed it, the flames soon died out leaving nothing but burnt corpses and scorched air that burnt our throats whenever we breathed in. However, before we could even go through our spoils and losses, the entire space suddenly lit up. Countless icy white marks sprung out of the ground and formed a formation of sorts. Judging by the pattern and the mana radiating off those lines, we were standing on

It was a massive circular array that spanned at least ten km wide. Right in the very center of the magical array was the spot where those hundred bone pillars once stood. Now however, there were three different colored motes of light that were five meters wide and seven meters tall. Looking at them, they kind of reminded me of those dimensional gates in World of Peacecraft. One of them was an eerie green, another was crimson like flames while the last looked more like a mass of black fog.

By now, I was so tired I could barely move a finger. As I tried to swallow a mouthful of spit, the parched air around me immediately assaulted my throat and eyes, forcing me to rub my eyes out of reflex. Pointing at those three strange motes of light, I asked: “Anyone knows what those are?”

“I think they are most likely the teleportation gates of this maze.” The one who answered was Mo En. As always, this lazy bag of bones was busy lounging about on the floor with his tongue hanging out. He was just as tired as I was thanks to his admirable efforts in that battle just now. Being one of the precious few Four-stars in our army, it wasn’t an overstatement to say that his powers carried us through that fight.

“Your highness, I think we should approach and observe it.” She then elaborated on this suggestion of hers: “In order to prevent any accidents, we can have a dogman enter each of the lights. If any of the lights end up being a trap, the dogmen should be able to give us some warning beforehand.”

As of right now, Elena and her harpies were in the midst of ferrying a boat load of Soul Flames to me for my personal consumption. I reached for one of the nearby Soul Flames and devoured it with a hungry gulp before nodding at Julia. “We’ll let the test dummies approach the lights then, the rest of us will stay somewhere faraway in the meantime.”

“Understood.” Julia acknowledged the order with a respectful bow. Before leaving, I passed her some Soul Flames to help her recuperate as well.

While she went about her work organizing the dogmen, I slowly swept my eyes over those around me. Most of them weren’t doing too well; they were either injured or too tired to move. Perhaps it was the tiredness at work here, but

‘That battle just now exhausted a great deal of our energy, if another enemy were to attack us now, it might just be game over for us…:’

A slightly dishevelled Habona stepped out of the crowd and handed me Shadowfang. Reaching out to receive it, I meekly gazed into her bloodshot eyes: “I’m really sorry, about Harlow…”

“That had nothing to do with you.” She immediately interrupted my self-admonishment. “A warrior’s fate is to die on the battlefield. The moment the battle started, Harlow decided his own fate. Following you into battle was a choice we made ourselves. Thus, we were only following our own will. Even without you, Harlow and I would’ve walked this path but with less people and a much grimmer outcome.”

The Habona standing before me right now was unusually chatty but amidst all that, I could tell that she held no resentment for me. ‘Perhaps she truly felt that Harlow’s death had nothing to do with me…but if I hadn’t encouraged them, the outcome definitely wouldn’t be like this…perhaps it might’ve been a lot worse or perhaps it might not have…”

Even though Habona didn’t blame me in the least bit, my heart refused to calm down. Yet just as I was wallowing in the guilt, a furry, meaty paw slapped me on the shoulders. Habona’s voice, completely devoid of anger, echoed over my head: “Without you, Harlow would’ve died in the harpy’s nest already.”

‘Is that so…I saved Harlow but he also ended up dying in Majosha’s embrace because of me. In that case, was my involvement in his life a good or a bad thing? Perhaps it was really like what she said, without me, Harlow might have really died in that harpy’s nest.”

Within the greenish light, a wasteland completely devoid of life was revealed. From time to time, one could see a skeleton or two wandering about. Having spotted a certain dogman running for its life, the skeletons immediately locked onto this piece of meat. Like that, with one side chasing and the other fleeing, the scene became one of a dogman sprinting away on all fours while a growing crowd

Within the crimson light, an entirely different scene played out. It depicted a river of molten lava with intermittent rock platforms thrown in an almost deliberate fashion. Glimpsing through the light, I managed to spot a dogman panting heavily at the banks of the molten river; it probably couldn’t stand the heat. In fact, it was sweating buckets as it laid there like a cooked dog. I saw it try to get up at times but failed due to the sweltering heat that made it lightheaded…finally, it fell into the molten river in a moment of carelessness, disappearing in an instant without so much as a bubble.

The last mote of light was a rather special one. Within, I actually saw countless vegetation and a dogman busily harvesting a variety of fruits; was that a three meter tall fruit tree I spied?

“Master, that’s Abaddon! That’s where we used to live.” Seeing the dogman harvest fruits, Baccarel excitedly ran up to the light and after confirming once more, said that.

‘Seems…seems like this is the end, huh…no, rather I should say that it’s our victory! We broken through the limits set by this prison! we survived…’

The moment the news came out that the black light led to Abaddon, everyone went into a frenzy. Some cried, some cheered…no matter what kind of reaction they had however, this represented a successful prison break. In an instant, a multitude of emotions came crashing down on everyone.

With this lifeline laid out before us, the dead no longer mattered that much. Bringing the injured with them, the troops began shuffling into the teleportation gate, watched over closely by the lizardmen.

Including me, everyone’s goal here was to reach Abaddon. The demonic werewolves, the demonic half-orcs, the dogmen, the lizardmen and etc. were all creatures of Abaddon. As for my reason for seeking Abaddon…that was to find Yi Yi. Ferti’nier once said that in order to recover my male body, I had to split off from her soul. For that, we needed to find Yi Yi. That was non-negotiable. Thus, no matter what my reason was for doing so, seeing Yi Yi had become my main questline.

As I stood there watching while the rest of my army entered the teleportation gate for Abaddon, my heart was filled with emotions that I couldn’t really describe. I was the leader of this expedition and I decided that I would be the last to enter the gate. However, it wasn’t just for the sake of appearances that I did so, rather it was because I wanted to persuade Majosha.

Even now, Harlow’s death remained a thorn in my heart that I simply couldn’t remove within such a short period of time. To some degree, it all felt like a dream. I’m sure Majosha felt the same way as well, that this was all a nightmare and that everything would be alright once we woke up.

It was this false illusion that caused even Manasha’s words to fail to reach her. No matter how hard her sister tried, Majosha wouldn’t even look at her let alone listen. She merely sat there hugging Harlow’s corpse, not caring at all that it could suddenly reanimate itself and bite her.

We won and yet there was no sense of jubilation to be had. Was it because I was numb to it or perhaps it was because of Harlow’s death?

Numila pulled me into a tight embrace and buried me in her fluffy mounds for a good long while…she definitely said that she was going to leave first, but somehow it ended up like that once more…

“Alright, that’s enough for now, just wait for me over there.” Resisting the allure of that inviting fragrance, I pulled myself away from her and did my best to smile for her: “Your clan still needs you to look after them, you should leave first, there are still arrangements to be made.”

Eugenia and Elena wanted to give me a hug and a kiss as well but unfortunately, they were dragged away by Numila before they could do so.

“I’ll be making my move as well.” Said Habona with an unreadable expression on her face. Her eyes on the other hand, were a lot more open with their grief. In the end, she threw her brother’s corpse one last look but coolly turning around to leave.

“Ah, Mistress Habona, wait for me.” Seeing the leader of the werewolves leaves, Weslin and Westley quickly greeted me before rushing off after her.

“I know that what I say now won’t reach you, but as your sister, I still have to say this one last time. For a male, will you really throw away your sister? What about the other sisters in the clan, do you wish to discard them as well?”

Deeply sighly, Manasha no longer tried to persuade her but instead turned around to leave as well. At the last moment before she crossed the gate, she threw her sister one last look and there she found her sister looking right back at her. Majosha had finally lifted up her head and was whispering to her.

Manasha sighed once more. Right now, all she could do was sigh and leave. The rest of the medusas continued streaming into the teleportation gate, each coming up to the crestfallen medusa to bid her farewell before leaving. However, Majosha was just as unresponsive as before. She was probably afraid to respond, afraid that if she were to respond, her heart would not be able to bear this separation and that she would leave with them as well…

“Your Highness, it’s time to leave.” Julia didn’t have much interactions with Majosha, neither did she really know Harlow either. In her eyes, this was merely a death and shouldn’t occupy so much of my time.

Looking at this loyal but frowning subordinate of mine, I ended up giving in to my emotions once more: “You guys go ahead for now, I’ll be the last to leave.”

Before leaving, Mimiya stuck her tongue out at me while Vick, who was floating beside her as any trusty sidekick should, pulled a face at me.

At the same time as Julia’s household departed, I left some instructions for my bodyguard, Baccarel, who had been guarding me nearby all this while. “I want you all to leave with Julia. Given that’s Abaddon, you guys should be more familiar with the surroundings than the other devils.”

“Understood, my Master.” He replied after a brief pause. He originally wanted to stay behind and guard me but upon seeing the injury-ridden members of his clan standing behind him, he accepted the order.

“Master, I wish to stay.” Said the severely burnt imp as he stood there supported by a female devil. Perhaps it was because of his severe injuries, his voice sounded exceptionally grating. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel touched by his concern. “I’m the Master’s bodyguard, ever since I recognized the Master as being the Master, I’ve never left the Master’s side. Unless I die, I would never leave the Master!”

As she said that, Violet Snow proudly turned up her little doggy head and gave me a small nudge on the knee cap. Smiling, I ruffled her fur: “I got it, my little princess.”

Sweeping my gaze over the surroundings, I was suddenly struck by the surrealness of the situation. Over ten thousand devils and humanoids, all gone, just like that. Rather, I should say that they left.

With regards to these teleportation gates, I had to admit I was really fascinated by them. Back on Earth, humans could take to the skies and penetrate the very earth, and yet they could never cross dimensions like this. Because of that, I always held a deep sense of respect for this world. What the Earth had, this place didn’t;what Earth didn’t have, this place had. However, there was one thing Earth certainly didn’t possess that this place had; the ability to raise the dead.

‘It’s about time for me to leave as well.’ Truth be told, I still wasn’t sure what I could do to persuade her. She had steeled her heart and resolved herself to accompany Harlow. Her sister couldn’t stop her and, even more so, neither could

Just as I was about to put forth my last ditch effort, she suddenly raised her head and stared me right in the eyes for several seconds before finally saying in a melodic but emotionless voice: “The Medusa clan do not have any males. In order to reproduce, we have to find a mate from the other clans. If we stumbled upon a female, we would kill them for food, if we met a male…”

Whether or not I wanted to hear her speak, she continued on without ever pausing. Seeing that, I gestured for the female devil in charge of the devil egg to pass it to me. With grimoire and egg in hand, I then played my part as a devout listener.

“Initially, when I first captured Harlow, he struggled for his life however he couldn’t escape because I had him coiled up in my tail, just like now…he was a Three-stars and I was a Four. After being captured by me, there was no way he could break free…after that, we mated…for a long time. He was a strong fellow and he didn’t seem to want to struggle the moment we started, in fact, he even took to it willingly…”

As I continued listening, the tale became stranger by the second, it almost felt like I was listening to some kind of audio novel…however, I astutely chose not to interrupt her.

“In order to reproduce, I had mated with a lot of males before. Each time, I would pretend to fall asleep after finishing. All of those males would then try to escape or even kill me. No matter what their intentions were, whether it was to kill or escape, they all failed and ended up ripped to shreds and eaten by me…”

“Harlow was the only one who didn’t try to escape but merely waited for me to wake up…I continued pretending to sleep as a way to test him. However, he didn’t seem to harbor me any ill intention at all…later on, I asked him why he didn’t try to run and guess what he did say then? He merely scratched his head with a silly look on his face and said that when he was young, his mother once told him that a man had to be responsible for his woman…”

The medusas ate their mates, that was common knowledge in this world. What people didn’t know however was that they did so because their mates feared them and tried to harm them or escape…while saying that might seem a little messed up, I knew that at the end of the day, they simply wanted love, to have a husband that loved them. Unfortunately, the heavens cursed them with a snake body and a voracious sexual appetite that would scare off any potential male…truly, Harlow was a strange one to claim responsibility after being forced like that.

“However, the happy days didn’t last long. When the both of us left to find Habona, we stumbled upon a flock of harpies. These birdwomen were similar to us in that they only had females…Harlow was captured, Habona came looking for her brother and couldn’t find him so she fought with my sister…”

‘Huh, I guess the harpies snatching away Harlow can be considered the appearance of a love rival, does that mean that this is now a romance novel…’

Majosha then proceeded to give a simple recount of what happened after. Somehow, I ended up being persuaded by her even though I was the one trying to persuade her. Throughout all that, her tone never fluctuated once, other than when she talked about Harlow’s good points. Thus, I came to the conclusion that she would never give up on Harlow.

Perhaps in our eyes, they hadn’t been together for long and shouldn’t be too attached; a few simple persuasions should’ve done the trick. I even considered finding her a new man in order to change her mind. However, we were all wrong, their relationship had deepened to a level none of us could imagine.

With Harlow by her side, Majosha felt that she was the most fortunate medusa in the world. Now that Harlow was gone, did she perhaps feel that she had become the most unfortunate medusas in the world?

After a lengthy exchange with me, Majosha finally came to a decision. Wrapping her tail around Harlow, she pulled herself right up to his face and, with hands clasped around his head and eyes locked with each other, she used her petrification power…to turn them both into a conjoined statue in one bright burst of golden light.

‘As far as I know, a medusa’s petrification power only works on living creatures so how did she petrify Harlow who was already dead? Well, thinking about that now is pointless, what’s more important is entering Abaddon, everyone’s still waiting for me.’

Taking a quick headcount of the remaining people, I counted One-eye, Nine-finger, No.3, Big 4 and two more female devils, one who was in charge of supporting No.3 and the other was the devil who normally carried the egg for me.

“I guess it’s just us now.” It was a pointless comment, in fact, I didn’t even know why I said it. However, I just felt that if I didn’t do that, my heart would feel even more uncomfortable so I said it. “Let’s go then, we mustn’t keep them waiting for too long.”

“Master, how about letting me carry the egg for now. Besides, I’ve been carrying it so much recently so it’s really not a problem.”

“Mmm, alright, perhaps I’m just worn out right now but even my hands and legs seem to feel a little weak. I might just drop it by accident.”

Like that, I handed over the egg to the female devil. With regards to the devils under me, I had long grown to trust them without much question. Yet who would have thought that this bit of trust would finally come to bite me in the back in a such manner. Moments after I handed over the egg, she betrayed me…

Hugging it tightly in her arms, she pretended to take a few steps forward before suddenly making a U-turn and dashing towards the gate that led to

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?! Get back here!” Before I could even consider my own actions, I jumped in right after her…

Unlike its ominous name, Abaddon of Sins wasn’t as hostile of an environment as one would think. Lush greenery made up the bulk of the scenery and the air teemed with life as if it was some kind of immortal paradise.

“Why hasn’t Dearest crossed the gate yet?” Asked a slightly uneasy and anxious Numila. Even amidst such an idyllic environment, she couldn’t bring herself to feel at ease at all. Ever since she used that bit of deception to trick Mo Ke into an engagement pact, she would constantly keep him in her thoughts.

As for why she fell for him, it was simply because he gave her Flametail. The harpy witches were known to be fiercely loyal to their mates, because of that however, they were particularly strict in choosing one. Under the circumstance where both sides weren’t familiar with each other, the fact that Mo Ke was willing to give her such a powerful weapon showed how trustworthy he was. Thus, he was a perfect mate for Numila.

Naturally, the fact that he was so insistent on leaving the Prison of the Dead helped draw her to him as well because of his bravery. As for the other two harpy witches…they simply believed in Numila’s evaluation and decided to jump on the bandwagon as well. After all, such a fine mate wasn’t something you could encounter everyday, they might not be able to find one as generous as he was even if they tried.

Because they were dragged away by Numila right at the end, Elena and Eugenia didn’t get a chance to say their farewells and the two witches were clearly incensed about this.

“Is something holding our Highness up?” Asked Julia with knitted eyebrows. “Don’t tell me there are enemies over there?”

“Impossible, since the gates have appeared, there shouldn’t be anymore undead.” As she said that, Violet Snow used her tiny little paws to fiddle with the lush carpet of grass beneath her. Sighing, “To think Abaddon was actually this beautiful.”

“Perhaps the Master was held up by something, let’s just wait here for a while. We demonic half-orcs are more familiar with this environment so leave the food foraging to us.” Offered the half-orc, Baccarel, due to their sheer experience with this place.

High above, Evilin continued to survey the surroundings with its giant eyeball, feelers dangling below it like a jellyfish. “The Master might have encountered some trouble, if we wish to wait for him here, it would be best if we constructed a base. Also, this location might not remain so peaceful for long…”

“I’m not entirely sure. I’ve signed a master/slave pact with the Master so should he die, I would die as well. Since I’m still alive and well, he must have just encountered some kind of trouble.” Tactly answered the evil eye. That harpy might one day be the Master’s wife so a casual explanation might end up coming back to bite him in the future.

“The teleportation gates are one-way, they are able to see into our side but we can’t. If this one didn’t know better, it would’ve sworn that the newcomers appear out of thin air. If the Master’s near the teleportation gate, he would know that we are still waiting for him. Yet he still hasn’t showed up, thus it can be concluded that the Master was held up by some kind of trouble or worse…he might have taken the portal to Purgatory or Gehenna for some unknown reason.” Explained the evil eye patiently.

“…then…” Numila wanted to ask what were they to do but just as she tried to enunciate the words, she realized that there was nothing they could do but wait. “In that case, let’s build a base…”

“I’ll take charge of choosing the location.” Evilin nodded. Beneath its calm exterior however, was an evil eye even more worried than Numilia. After all, it still hadn’t lived enough yet.

“80 000 years, the seal on the Prison of the Dead has finally been broken…even though we lost a number of potential soldiers…that deal…”

“That’s right, since we signed that deal, we must uphold its terms. Because of this deal, the connection to the Blood Sea was severed for over 80 000 years. Should this drag on any further, Lucifer might just lose his patience.”

“We have gathered enough troops already. Even without the constant supply from the Prison of the Dead, we should have enough undead to conquer a dimension.”

“80 000 years…truly it has been a long time.” Shimmered a mote of light as it spoke those words. “Should we investigate who it was that broke the seal?”

“Seems like his thirst for the mortal realm has reached a breaking point as well. I guess that only makes sense, given that it was the task handed down by the God of Creation.”

After Mo Ke disappeared from the human realm, Ancarin and Regine managed to return to Plateau Village thanks to the aid of Moranthal. By now, the villages had all combined into one.

Ever since they became Mo Ke’s demonesses, they began grooming other suitable candidates as well. Initially, they invited the women who had received his aid, such as that woman from Plateau Village or the women Mo Ke rescued from the bandits’ stronghold. If the situation would have allowed it, they would have loved to reach out to those women bullied by Duran.

Naturally, they wouldn’t say no to orphans born with excellent qualities. For that, Regine even made several trips to the city where she encountered a rather interesting pair of dark elf siblings…

In order to make preparations for Mo Ke’s eventual return, the two girls did what they thought was best, though it had to be said that Mo Ke wasn’t aware of any of this at all.

Because the people of Plateau Village had received Mo Ke’s aid in the past, they didn’t discriminate against the demonesses. In fact, some would even volunteer to help construct their house. In their own words, “If devils were all like Master Mo Ke then they mustn’t be as scary as the legends say.”

Because Ancarin’s stomach was growing larger by the day, Regine had a lot to handle as well. Ancarin would often stroke her own belly and say: “If it’s a boy, I’ll kill him.”

Clear Water Mirror had just given Nicole an Epic-grade weapon. With the aid of the weapon, she won the freshman’s martial competition. According to Nicole’s deal with Thousand Snow Flowers, she was now able to return to her hometown. However, upon arriving, she found traces of fighting in the village and no clues whatsoever. She inquired about that matter with Uncle Zarah but he purposefully avoided answering her question.

Even now, Mo Ke’s tracks seemed like such a distant thing. If it was possible, she hoped it was her who suffered instead, reality, however, wasn’t so kind as to allow that.

Stepping through the teleportation gate felt rather different from being summoned –simply put, you took a step forward and voila, you’re in a different place. It was similar to Doraem*n’s Dokodem* D**r in that sense.

It was a difference of one step from the Prison of the Dead to Purgatory, and yet it took me from the slight chilliness of the Prison to the scorching temperatures of Purgatory.

Purgatory was essentially comprised of two words, red and black. Red was the lava flowing throughout the area and black were the rocks that solidified from the magma.

Because devils were born with an innate resistance to a certain degree of heat, my first foray in Purgatory wasn’t met by a wave of sweltering heat but rather a more comfortable temperature. Standing in this fiery resort, I felt the mana in my leap in joy. However, now wasn’t the time to bask in the changes in my body. I immediately rushed in front of the betrayer and blocked her off before the molten river, right hand raised: “Return the devil egg.”

She was merely an ordinary two-star head imp and clearly wasn’t a match for me. Had it not been for the fact that she was still holding onto the egg and that I was worried that it would fall into the river, I would’ve snatched it back already or even chucked the Grimoire of the Dead at her from a distance away.

She was very afraid. Her eyes quivered in terror as she barely managed to look me in the eyes. ‘If you’re so afraid, why did you betray me in the first place?’

Before I could get it back however, a rush of air erupted from my flanks. I hurriedly tried to dodge but I still ended getting hit anyway and was thrown violently aside.

My body landed on the solid ground of Purgatory with a resounding thud and continued rolling off into the distance till I finally impacted with a stone pillar nearby. The shock of the crash stunned me momentarily as I laid there sprawled out on the floor, unable to lift my head at all.

“It seems like you still haven’t figured out your situation yet, my dear Master.” Came the voice of One-eye. He was completely relaxed at the moment as if he had just unloaded a heavy burden off his shoulders.

‘D*mnit…I get it now, he’s the mastermind behind all this! He used his position to bribe that female devil in order to have her lure me into this gate…that devil egg is an important legacy of Mo Ci’s that she left to me…he knew I would chase after it without any hesitation…if even One-eye betrayed me…who else has betrayed me? Nine-finger is his subordinate so they’re definitely in cahoots with each other. What about No.3 and Big 4? What are their views on this? Did they know that he was planning to revolt?”

‘But I don’t remember seeing One-eye interact with the female devil much, so how did…that’s right, that period of time when I was summoned to the human realm…it must’ve happened then…other than this female imp, who else did he bribe?’

‘Well, thinking about all that is pointless now, more importantly, what is he up to? What does he stand to gain from betraying me?’

“Master, I bet you’re wondering why I betrayed you, am I right?” As if he had seen through my thoughts, he coldly chortled twice before turning to the female devil beside him. Then, under the expecting and bashful eyes of that imp, he spat at her with a deafening *ptooey*. The look in her eyes turned into one of shock as One-eye swiftly withdrew the arm he had around her and gave her disdainful smile: “Did you really think that I was interested in you? Don’t you know that your body has a certain stench about it, the stench of a low level imp sickens me. I prefer a high-blooded female devil like the Master…”

Just as One-eye was about to reach the height of his pretentiousness, that potato, Nine-finger, appeared from the teleportation gate and began yelling for help the moment he made landfall: “Boss, save me quick…”

“You moron.” Snapped One-eye, his moment of triumph completely ruined by now. However, that didn’t mean he was going to give up on Nine-finger either. After ensuring that I was incapacitated for the time being, he turned around to

Right now, Nine-finger could be said to be a mess. There was a noticeable claw mark running down the right of his face and his left arm was broken. Grinning toothily, he sprinted towards One-eye, not even bothering to fully get to his feet as if he was a dog that had finally reunited with his master after a long absence.

“But…I can’t beat Big 4 and No.3 together…” Pouted the berated devil. Seeing me prone on the floor, his next instinct was to try and help me to my feet. “Master, what are you doing on the floor? Quick, let me help you up…”

“Scram.” One-eye swiftly kicked the devil, forcing him back four to five steps before he was finally able to stabilize himself. “I haven’t even had a chance to touch her yet so what makes you think you can? Also, you need to get your facts straight here, we are traitors now, stop with the Master this, Master that, so annoying.”

“Nine-finger, you b*st*rd, stop running!” It was then that Big 4 and No.3 appeared as well. Upon landing, they immediately set about chasing after Nine-finger. Unfortunately, Nine-finger now had One-eye, a four-star Demon Child, standing beside him. Even with the two of them, the power of a four-star wasn’t something they could hope to resist. All it took was a couple of kicks and punches from the traitor to defeat Big 4 and the already severely injured No.3.

“Worthless, you two have always prided yourselves as the strongest protectors of the Master, well look at you two now. Alone, I was easily able to defeat both of you.”

Completely confident in his victory, One-eye prattled on with his showboating. At the side, Nine-finger scratched his head in confusion before densely pulling out the rug from under One-eye: “Boss, I thought you said not to use ‘Master’ anymore? Why are you still calling her that then?”

One-eye broke the arms and legs of No.3 and Big 4 before slowly making his way to me. As he sauntered over, he let forth a sonorous laugh. “My dear Master, do you know how long I’ve waited for this day?”

Devils themselves were known as the representatives of chaos, betrayal, murder and cruelty…any of those descriptors could be aptly placed on a devil. To them, another person’s pain was their pleasure.

Even though I was a devil myself, I actually forgot about that point. All this while, I had lived under the protection of my subordinates. Thanks to that, I viewed myself as extremely fortunate and even began to treat myself as some kind of main character who could go around recruiting little brothers willy nilly, the kind with their loyalty maxed out at Lv.100.

As reality would have it, I was wrong. There were definitely a large number who were completely loyal to me, but there were also those who harbored ambitions and a traitorous heart. It just so happened that One-eye was the latter, a rather successful one no less.

One-eye threw me a heavy punch that felt even worse to my weaker-than-normal constitution. Adding on the fact that One-eye was a strength-type devil to begin with, that punch left me severely winded and gasping for air.

“Mas…ter…” Body severely burnt and limbs broken, No.3 miserably dragged his battered body towards me but was summarily stopped by a scoff and a stamp on his head by Nine-finger.

“Even though I don’t know why the Boss decided to betray the Master, but since the Boss told me to guard you two, you’d better behave.”

“Good, keep them under watch, once I’m done having fun, I might just reward you with the leftovers.” One-eye bellowed with laughter having said that.

“Perhaps our first meeting left too much of an impression on you, that’s why you always thought of us as fools. Truthfully, all that was just an act.”

“Shut up, you’re the moron here!” Nine-finger immediately his shrunk inwards from being scolded. “After all, no one would suspect a fool to be capable of betrayal.”

‘He’s right, no one would think that a fool would be smart enough to do such a thing. Even if said fool wanted to do so, he would mostly likely telegraph his intentions in some obvious manner.’

It was precisely because I saw all my devils as morons that I had never once suspected that the day would come where they would stand opposite me. Still, why was it One-eye who betrayed me and not the others? It was at that moment that a thought suddenly occurred to me. Around the time I returned from the human realm, No.3 reminded me that One-eye was busy creating a faction of his own and that he was one of the few subordinates who became a commander soon after pledging his loyalty.

At birth, if devils weren’t able to receive enough nourishment from souls, their intelligence tended to be lower than usual, in other words, a brain deficiency of sorts. Such a deficiency could not be made up for easily, no matter how much supplements one threw at the problem. As for One-eye, he was already a commander of a hundred devils before meeting me, back then he must have consumed all the souls just like me.

The reason was simple, Nine-finger was a moron…if One-eye had given him some souls to consume, he wouldn’t be so confused as he was right now. For all I knew, he still recognized me as his master, it was simply that One-eye held a higher position than me.

“Why did you think we submitted to you?” Even without waiting for my answer, One-eye rushed off to his next monologue: “At the very beginning, all I wanted to do was make use of you to leave the Blood Sea. My inherited memories told me that if we didn’t leave soon, there wouldn’t be enough time. Thus, I chose to submit temporarily. I originally intended to court you along the way but who knew that you would actually ignore me so thoroughly, did you actually think I was some kind of brainless fool?!”

‘So he was never loyal to begin with. He willingly played the role of a subservient little brother only because he had the foresight to butter me up…’

Honestly, he was a really competent devil during his time under me. His performance was at complete odds to the first impression he left on me but because that impression was so engraved in me, I ended up pegging him as a moron from start till finish.”

If I was a female devil, I might have really recruited him as a close aide. No matter how incompetent he might be, he would, at the very least, fulfill some bodily desires. Unfortunately for him, I was and still am, a man. Being a man, I wasn’t too excited about any form of close contact with another male, thus his plan had failed by half from the very start. Ultimately, this aversion made him decide on another course of action.

‘Me? A traitor? Are you kidding me, exactly who did I betray?! I don’t remember having any sort of relationship with you so what do you mean ‘traitor’?’

“One-eye! You dare to disrespect the Master like that! I’ll never forgive you!” Still sprawled on the floor, Big 4 bellowed with all his might before dragging his battered body towards One-eye. However, just as his show of bravado started, Nine-finger gave him a resounding kick on the head after letting go of No.3.

“Well said, even though I won’t share the prize with you this time, I’ll make sure to reward you the next time we catch another female devil.”

“…just look after those two pieces of trash, don’t let them spoil my mood.” Having reached a new level of being unable to read the mood, One-eye truly regretted not letting this subordinate of his have some souls in the beginning. However, having a silly subordinate did have its benefits as well; how else were they so loyal?

‘Not that saying all that would help anything right now…perhaps I had always been a woman in One-eye’s mind. To think he actually betrayed me because he thought I liked those of the same sex. He probably assumed, rightfully so I might add, that he no longer stood a chance so he had to use force instead…well, now that has been confirmed, it’s time for my own counterattack.’

Even while prone, that didn’t stop me from invoking my control over illusions. My pupils immediately blazed with a blue light and as my voice resounded amidst the slight bubbling of the lava behind me, One-eye couldn’t help but turn his eyes towards me. The moment we locked eyes however, his body shuddered and everything suddenly turned foreign in his eyes.

The boiling river of lava turned into an eternal river of ice. The sweltering heat disappeared and soon, even a tiny gust of wind chilled his bones. How was this Purgatory, this was clearly Gehenna! By now, One-eye was beginning to suspect if he had entered the wrong gate. But he was in Purgatory just moments ago so how did it suddenly turn into Gehenna?

“Don’t you think this magical tattoo of mine is rather strange? It’s an illusion demon’s.” I couldn’t help but embark on my own triumphant speech even though I knew that One-eye probably couldn’t hear a word I was saying.

“Even though I never expected that you would betray me, I still left a trump card behind, just in case…illusion magicks might not work against the undead, but against someone with a weak

Upon reaching Four-stars, a devil now possessed the basic defining features of a devil: a horn on their head, a tail similar to that of a bull’s, fleshy devil wings and the ability to control fire. Should that devil advance one more level, he would be gain the blessing of an original sin and become a true devil with a clan. However, One-eye’s evolutionary path was now at an end. Today, he had to die.

Bearing the burning ache running through my body, I slowly walked over to the ensorceled One-eye. By now, my numbed left hand was beginning to regain the majority of its mobility. As for my right, it reached for Shadowfang, still slung over my back.

Still under the control of my illusion, One-eye was currently experiencing a wintery hell that left him completely buried in layers of snow. Because of the perceived pressure of the snow and the cold it left on his body, he curled into a defensive and completely harmless ball.

Just as I was about to reach the incapacitated devil however, alarm bells began to ring out in my head. My chest suddenly felt constricted, my head felt light and my limbs began to weaken; these were all signs of mana exhaustion.

‘Sh*t, I have to finish him off quick or he might just make it out of my illusion. No time now…’ Shadowfang sliced through his body without meeting any resistance whatsoever. On my part, I felt no pity at all in killing off the head of this rebellion.

Dead. Ever so easily, a Four-star flame demon-child was slain by me. At the same time as his death, I had a taste of that familiar weakness once more. My limbs began to collapse and my body started to convulse uncontrollably, though to a small degree only.

“BOSS!” Still in the midst of torturing No.3 and Big 4, all Nine-finger heard was the dying grunt of One-eye before he turned around to see my blade cleanly leave the corpse of his boss. It was then that my mana was exhausted as well. Abandoning No.3 and Big 4, he rushed towards me with bloodshot eyes: “You dare to murder my Boss! I’ll trample you to death!”

As his feet stomped on my back with the weight of his fury, it felt like my body was about to explode from the sheer pain that ravaged my nervous system. However,

‘No…I mustn’t give up like this. That moron, Nine-finger, actually didn’t take away my Shadowfang, if only he used it, he would’ve killed me in one stroke already. Replenish, I need to replenish my mana. I need souls for that…souls…’

‘One-eye’s soul…that’s right, I can consume his soul.’ Thankfully, One-eye’s headless corpse was just lying there right in front of me. With hope laid out before my eyes, I summoned forth the last bit of strength left in my body to slowly drag myself towards the fallen devil. With every inch I covered, I would suffer a stomp from Nine-finger. Yet even with that numbing pall cast over my body, I felt that I could hold out just for a bit longer…till I ate One-eye’s soul.

In midst of my crawling, the devil egg bearing devil suddenly ran over. She paid no attention to me whatsoever as she dashed towards the headless One-eye and knelt beside his corpse weeping. She was crying…for some b*stard who threw her aside? Perhaps she truly did love him, however, he never loved her back.

However, I was too late. Just as I was mere inches away from his corpse, fate played a cruel trick on me once more. One-eye’s soul was suddenly sucked away by a mysterious force that swiftly sent the semi-translucent mass flying into the egg still resting in the arms of that female devil…

‘D*mnit…why now? Not like this! If it was me who absorbed his soul, I would’ve been able to recover a portion of my mana and slice Nine-finger apart…the script…it’s not supposed to proceed like that…’

Nine-finger’s stomping continued as viciously as before. It almost seemed like he enjoyed stepping on my back. Even with my armor, it wasn’t easy enduring the stomps of a Three-star demon child.

The problem was that I was still powerless to resist. No.3 and Big 4 were still severely injured and what was supposed to be my shot at a comeback ended up being absorbed by the devil egg in some cruel twist of

“Master…” My two loyal subordinates stared at me with bloodshot eyes that almost seemed watery with regret. However, tears were useless. They couldn’t heal their wounds and neither could they replenish my mana.

‘Is this truly it…even One-eye was slain by me and yet I’m about to die to this moron, Nine-finger…haha…cough cough…ah, there’s blood…the taste of Purgatory’s floor isn’t great at all…so painful…my body’s about to explode…’

‘Looking at him, I doubt Nine-finger is even capable of having any inappropriate thoughts about me, I guess that’s a silver lining?’

“Oh right, Boss said something about having a tumble with you? I don’t know what a ‘tumble’ means but there’s no way I’m letting you off the hook so easily.” As if he was talking to himself but at same time tormenting me, he scratched his head while pondering the meaning of One-eye’s words. He then turned his eyes towards the egg-hugging devil: “Hey you, do you know what a ‘tumble’ means?”

“…” Still in the midst of her grief, she was stumped by this strange question. Head slightly addled, she replied: “That’s…it’s doing ‘that thing’…”

“You dare to look down on me?” Perhaps her eyes gave away some sort of disdain; perhaps the long silence was all the answer he needed or maybe he simply wanted to show off his power, whatever the reason was, he tossed me aside and walked up to the female imp. Wrapping his hands around her neck, he lifted her off the ground. Having been strangled, the female devil finally released the egg in her arms.

“…”It was a forceful question by Nine-finger and yet his grip was just as forceful. The female imp desperately wanted to speak but her throat simply wouldn’t allow her to, thus all she could do was struggle. The female imp was merely a Two-star and naturally wasn’t a match for a Three-star like Nine-finger. Like that, she was strangled to death after a mere minute.

“Dead?” Feeling the warmth leave the corpse in his hand, Nine-finger realized the female imp was dead. Casually tossing the body aside, he inexplicably muttered to himself: “Ah. If you didn’t want to talk then just say so, is there a need to kill yourself?”

Tossing away the now-dead corpse of the female imp, Nine-finger turned his attention back onto me: “Since that moron killed herself, how about Master tell me instead; what exactly is ‘that thing’?”

“…” ‘For the love of all p0t@t0es, have you no decency?! There’s no way I’m telling you that, not even if you kill me! But then if I don’t tell him, would he strangle me as well? And kill me by accident before stupidly exclaiming with a shocked face: “If you don’t want to talk then so be it, was there a need to kill yourself?”…’

“That thing means that thing, what else can it be. Don’t you even know that, and you consider yourself a male, hmph.” Just as I was fretting over my inability to throw out a tsukkomi, the tender but clearly disdainful voice of a loli came in for a hard swing at Nine-finger. Looking down in response, I was stunned…

A conspicuous crack had formed across its egg shell and from within, a tiny loli head sporting an eggshell cap could be seen sticking out of it. She craned her neck around and surveyed Nine-finger, all the while keeping her body hidden within the egg shell except for her beautiful face and two little hands grasping at the sides of the egg shell. Looking at her, I was suddenly reminded of a manhua scene where a tiny dinosaur just popped out of its egg —just too adorable! Unfortunately, the little kid’s first words were just…

Even though there was an egg shell blocking the view, her face was fully unobscured; it was one of a human child’s, assuming you ignored that slight but noticeable tinge of reddish-pink.

“D*mned brat, what do you know?” Clearly not happy about being made fun of by a newborn, Nine-finger stomped off towards her with a sullen look on his face: “I dare you to say that again.”

‘Even her insults sounded so milky smooth and adorable…but now’s not the time for acting cute, Nine-finger’s a bad, bad devil, don’t you know?! There’s no way the little thing can handle him on her own…’

Just as I was worried that Nine-finger would flatten her into a pancake with his fist, the little kid gave a light ‘hmph’, extended forth her bare-skinned right hand and flicked her finger. Immediately, a snaking whip extended out from her finger in rapidly billowing clouds of darkness that finally gave a mighty crack before slamming Nine-finger out of sight and out of mind.

“Mama, did you see how great this one was just now?” She uttered a string of words that left me completely dumbfounded. However, that wasn’t the only surprise I was about to get. Her little egg home wiggled ever so slightly as she squatted down and then, with an adorable hop, leapt a feet into the air. Like that, she made her way towards me…

‘Hold on…laws of physics aside, what did she just say before hopping? Mama? What the heck is a mama? Is she calling me a mama?’

“Mama, this one finally found you!” Pressing her shelly half into me, the little scamp wrapped her tiny arms around my head and rubbed her baby-tender face against mine just like how an energetic and adorable house pet would.

Yet, the little scamp would have none of my explanation as she continued to rub against me in a satisfied manner: “Mama smells so fragrant, so so nice, there’s no way Mama’s a Papa.”

“…” ‘Ah…this again, breaks my heart just listening to it…just let me spend some alone time with Quiet, don’t ask me who Quiet is.’

“Blasted brat, you dare to hit my face, don’t you know that only Boss can do that?!” Before I could continue this discussion however, Nine-finger, who had just been sent flying by a whip, climbed to his feet once more and charged at us fist raised:

“You’re too loud.” Frowned the little scamp before swinging her darkness whip once more and sending him flying away. This time however, he flew much further, dropping right into the lava river with a resounding *ploop* and an anguished cry.

“Mama, did you see how great this one was just now?” Her eggshell-wearing head bobbed up and her eyes practically sparkled with pride as if to say ‘praise me, praise me more, quick.’

As time passed, the side effects of my mana exhaustion began to lessen. By now, I was at least able to sit up right so I decided to throw the little scamp another probing question: “Hey you, how about coming out of that egg shell for now?”

Hearing me mention the eggshell, the little scamp immediately blushed before answering in a panicked voice: “Ah, this err…I can’t, not right now.”

‘What do you mean, not right now, Don’t tell me you’ve really claimed that as your home? Or is she trying to say that she only hatched because that female imp accidentally cracked the eggshell due to a slip of hand. Isn’t that a premature birth then?! That’s bad!’

“Don’t tell me…you haven’t fully hatched yet?” Not knowing what else to do, I gingerly asked her that. “Do you feel any discomfort somewhere?”

“This one…this one…” She stuttered and paused for what seemed like a half day before finally breathing a deep sigh. Then, she scrunched up her face as if making the hardest choice of her young life, and closed her eyes: “This one is naked…”

A few minutes later, the little scamp put on my robes, my one and only possession which I brought back from the human realm, to comical effect as its obviously oversized sleeves draped onto the floor. As for me, I fashioned a simple set of armor from the bones of One-eye and the female imp, though it only covered my chest and pelvic region, revealing my thighs and belly for the world to admire. However, such a level of exposure was nothing at all. After all, I was and still am a bonafide male.

I had to admit though, dressing like that felt a little odd as if I was wearing a female swimsuit. Ever since I reincarnated as a devil,

While taking care of the issue of garments, I took some time to portion out the meat I harvested from One-eye and gave them to No.3 and Big 4. As a Four-star flame demon child, the energies contained within his flesh were massive. Even so, they weren’t enough to fully heal the injuries on No.3 and Big 4. At the very least however, they weren’t in a such critical state anymore.

With regards to these two loyal bodyguards of mine, I truly appreciated them. Despite just being betrayed by One-eye and Nine-finger whom I thought were loyal as well, I still believed that No.3 and Big 4 were genuinely loyal to me. To those that were loyal to me, I would never let down them.

In order for them to recover, more meat and souls were needed. However, Purgatory was an unfamiliar environment for me, to be sure. What were the factions here and how were they distributed? I still lacked such crucial information but the matter of their injuries was just as pressing as well. Without nourishment, their injuries would never heal up so I had to remedy this situation immediately.

“Mama, if it’s food you’re looking for, leave it to this one.” Said the little scamp sporting a no longer comically oversized set of robes. However, because there were thread and needles to be found here, I had no choice but to settle on a rough job by using Shadowfang to slice up the fabric. I shortened the garment so as to stop them from dragging all over the floor as she walked. Also, I cut a pair slits on the back just for the little scamp’s wings to flap freely.

Even so, its width was the one thing I couldn’t change so the robes remained rather strangely proportioned as if they were meant for a human but weren’t at the same time. In other words, it was still rather comical looking. Thus, I tied a sash made from the leftover fabric, around it as a temporary measure.

The little scamp was a lust demon, bearing the signature heart shaped tail end and elegant twin horns of said race. Her purplish black wings were just beautiful as well and

Her appearance could only be described as adorable and nothing else. The reddish-pink hue on her skin seemed so smooth and moist that you could probably squeeze water out of her skin if you tried. Her body had a faint milky aroma which seemed rather odd seeing as she hadn’t any milk at all. However, there was one thing for certain, and that was that she was going to be a ruinous beauty in the future.

The plan was to have No.3 and Big 4 wait at this spot while we make a foraging trip. While the meat of One-eye and the female imp should be able to sate my two subordinates for now, leaving them alone wasn’t safe so speed was crucial. Should we fail at finding anything, it would be wiser to return as soon as possible, at least that was how I thought. After all, in a foreign environment like this, caution was best.

“Oh, oh, oh,oh, time to find some good eats!” The little scamp flew into the air, momentarily flapping around in joy before plopping herself down on my shoulders, legs by the sides of my neck and hands on my head. “Mama, that way, that way…Mama, let’s go that way instead…”

Like that, I ended up letting her drive us around seeing as my guess was as good as hers anyway. Not only could we familiarize ourselves with the surroundings, we could take a leisurely stroll as well, though that ‘Mama’ part still stung a lot…

‘Still, this little scamp is just so adorable and I guess she isn’t wrong in saying that either. My current body isn’t exactly that of a man’s so I’ll just let her have her way for now. However, calling her little scamp forever isn’t an option either.’

“A name…how about Mo Na?” Naturally her name would have to follow mine and since my surname was Mo, hers was as well. To be honest, I considered naming her Brigittte, Moirah, Chaikah, Lorel and etc., but after giving it some thought, I felt that Mo Na was more appropriate.

“Mo Na…Mo Na…okay, Mo Na is a great name, Mo Na likes it. As long as it’s a name given by Mama, Mo Na will like them all!”

Having received a name, Mo Na gleefully hugged my head and rubbed her face against my own. “Mo Na, Mo Na, Mo Na has a name, it’s Mo Na, hehehe…”

“ Ah…it’s dark…Mama, Mo Na can’t see a thing…” Suddenly, the rubbing stopped and the panicked voice of Mo Na filled my ears. Worried that Mo Na might have gotten into trouble, I hurriedly brought her down and then, laughed. It turned out that because of her excited swaying, the hood of her robes ended up wrapping around her…

The robe she wore was a hand-me-down from me and naturally fitted my body. While it had been crudely altered by me, the hood’s size remained unchanged and it ended up covering her entire upper half because of that.

Gently taking off the hood, I returned her back to the world of light. Upon recovering her sight, the little scamp immediately hugged my neck and pecked me on the cheeks: “Thanks Mama.”

Now that the little interlude was over, we resumed our foraging cum exploration. As stated before, Purgatory was known for its scorching temperatures. But to a devil however, they were merely lukewarm and comfortable. In fact, the smell of sulfur wasn’t as bad as I had initially imagined.

Ever since we stepped into Purgatory, my memories gained a host of inherited knowledge which included the name of that worm, a young Demon Fire Worm. It was one of the main staple foods for low level devils in Purgatory. Apparently, its taste wasn’t all that bad but that appearance however…either way, I didn’t plan on eating worms no matter what people said.

Because those below the rank of Four-stars weren’t able to enter the lava lake, most lower levelled devils relied on tools to capture said worms. According to my inherited memories, a common tool was a netlike object crafted from the hide of a Demon Fire Salamander.

Demon Fire Salamanders were the evolved form of a Demon Fire Worm and were at least Two-stars, with the highest being a Seven-stars. There were no recorded sightings of any salamanders passing the level of Seven-stars. The more powerful the salamander was, the deeper they dwelt. In other words, those we saw on the surface were the most harmless members of their race. The further down one went, the more powerful and frightening the salamanders became.

The lava lake consisted of more than just Demon Fire Salamanders, a host of other strange and fantastical creatures lived there as well. For example, Fire Elementals, Demonic Fire Elves, the nemesis of the Demon Fire Salamanders, the Fire-eating Tuna, the Dark Flames Snails, etc.

Naturally, there were more creatures who lived in the lake but those listed above were the most representative of the ecology here. It went without saying that those of the Flame Demon evolutionary path loved living in the lava lake as well. At that stage, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that their bodies were formed of fire elements. Unlike the Fire Elementals however, Flame Demons were beings of flesh

Turning my gaze away from the lake, I found some foliage lying around the rock pillars nearby. Purgatory actually had plantlife, that fact alone shocked me. Truly, life was a miraculous thing but then, when one thought about it, living on the surface reall wasn’t all that when compared to those creatures swimming in the lava lake.

The plants themselves were roughly 20 cm rhizomes that grew upwards. Several dark red leaves sprouted off their tops which held a delicious looking red fruit the size of an orange.

According to my inherited memories, these fruits were an edible source of food as well, known as Red Lotus. They contained pure energy within them and were an excellent source of nourishment, both as food and as a material. Because Purgatory as a whole wasn’t conducive to growing life, such plants were rare and their fruits even rarer.

‘Come to think of it, we arrived here from the Prison of the Dead and that had been sealed up for god knows how long. Didn’t that mean that this location was uninhabited for a long time as well? Unless something strange were to happen, I doubt we will even encounter a devil, except for the odd scout or two.’

Truth be told, the moment I came to that conclusion, I heaved a sigh of relief. Purgatory was a foreign land for me and there was no way the highest level in this region would be Four-stars like in the Prison of the Dead. So how many experts were hiding out in this new land? To me, Four-stars were already experts because I was just some Three-stars small fry. For a Four-stars however, Five-stars were the experts and for the Five-stars….

Having harvested seven Red Lotuses, I rushed back with Mo Na. No.3 and Big 4 were still heavily injured and these fruits would most likely speed up their recovery. On the trip back however, my worries grew as I suddenly realized that the Grimoire of the Dead was a little too quiet.

Up till now, the grimoire acted in an almost sentient manner. It would float of its own accord, pull some pranks and even block attacks for me at critical moments. However, when One-eye betrayed me, it remained silent throughout, not even floating about at all…

I then experimented by opening up the grimoire and checking its content; they were the same as before, I could only flip up to the third page and nothing more.

“What’re you doing Mama?” Just as I was fiddling with the grimoire, the little scamp on my shoulders turned on her curious mode and bent down to ask me: “Mama, is this a book?”

Instantly, my mood improved. Although the silence of the grimoire left me rather sullen, the birth of Mo Na was nothing but a huge piece of good news for me. She reduced the sense of loss I felt towards the grimoire’s silence and as I ruffled her little head, I couldn’t help but smile.

The moment Mo Na came into contact with it however, the grimoire actually freed itself of my bone chains before turning into a thick cloud of black smoke. The smoky mass immediately wrapped itself around Mo Na and by the time I reacted to that, it had already tunnelled itself into her via her nostrils and mouth…

My heart leapt into my mouth as I watched the sudden changes unfold before my very eyes. What if something were to happen to her? Was the first thought that ran through my mind. Thankfully, nothing happened and after a couple rounds of color changes, her skin finally returned to its normal pinkish hue. Her heaving chest began to settle down and upon touching her forehead, I found her temperature to be normal.

The two of them laid there on the ground just as I had left them. Given that their limbs were broken, they couldn’t move anyway. Thank the stars nothing happened while I was gone. I fed them the Red Lotuses, two each to be exact. Right away, their injuries began to recover at a speed visible to the naked eyes and soon they even started to evolve…

No.3 and Big 4 were already Three-stars, so another evolution would mean that they would become flame demon childes…why did it suddenly feel like I was losing out to my sidekicks…

“Master…” Unlike One-eye, the two of them didn’t try to revolt just because they were now of a higher evolution form, instead they knelt before me weeping: “We’re useless, we’ve failed the Master and even allowed the Master to suffer such a humiliation…*weep*…”

“You mean Mo Na…?” Now that he reminded me of that matter, I couldn’t help but suffer another headache again. “Probably…”

“Mo Na and I just explored that side so you two can just take the other side, since you’re both alright now. Make sure to watch your surroundings, also, if you find some Red Lotuses, just harvest them.” Not wishing to spend anymore time on the issue of Mo Na’s comatose state, I sent No.3 and Big 4 away on scouting duty.

“It’s fine, I doubt anything dangerous will happen. Weren’t you two lying there helpless just now while Mo Na and I were off foraging? Nothing happened then so it should be alright now as well. Besides, you guys are just scouting the nearby areas, there’s no need to explore too far.”

Having been rejected, No. 3 didn’t seem to react too badly to it. Perhaps even he himself didn’t expect the suggestion to be accepted.

‘Sigh, exactly what’s going on with the little scamp? Why did the grimoire enter her body? I still don’t know the answers to all that, neither do I know when is she going to wake up.’

Like that, Mo Na slept the better part of the day away. By the time she woke up, I found a new marking on her forehead. It was a tattoo in the shape of a black, swirling mass of gas, about the the size of a soybean. Its outer swirl was faint in color and got progressively darker as it reached the center.

“Mama, Mo Na just had a dream, there was a book chasing Mo Na all day. Mo Na was scared at first but then she wasn’t. That book even played with Mo Na, it was so fun!”

Upon waking up, the first thing this daughter of mine did was to horse around while hugging my neck. She continued recounting all the fun she had in her dreams, completely oblivious to how worried I was because of her fainting spell, even the fruits we picked went untouched because of that.

“Nope, Mo Na feels great.” She batted her big, lovely eyes before giving me a confused look: “Mama, your face looks weird, did something happen?”

“Nothing, it’s just that you scared Papa a little by fainting just now.” Patting her little noggin, I handed a Red Lotus to her. “I bet Mo Na is hungry now, have some.”

“Yay!” She happily snatched the Red Lotus from my outstretched palm and gobbled it down, finishing it in a few bites. Having finished the fruit, her body suddenly grew hot and her face turned significantly redder than usual: “So full, sooo full, Mama, Mo Na’s feel a little hot right now.”

“Hot?” ‘Come to think of it, since the Red Lotus is like a supplement of sorts, isn’t it kind of bad to feed someone the size of an infant, basically a giant ginseng packed into a red fruit? Is that what’s happening to her right now? Because she was barely a day old, she couldn’t accept such a massive surge of nourishment?’

In the midst of my panicked thoughts, Mo Na’s breathless panting suddenly interjected themselves into the conversation: “Mama, Mo Na isn’t feeling that hot anymore but her think box is feeling kind of itchy.”

As she said, her head was undergoing a strange reaction at the moment. Before eating that fruit, her head was perfectly shiny and devoid of hair, now however, I could see a full head of purple hair growing out of her scalp at a speed visible to the naked eye, till her hair finally reached her shoulders.

“Ahh, is that hair? Mama, look, Mo Na has hair!” Grabbing the hair on her shoulder, Mo Na excitedly hopped around. “Mama, is Mo Na’s hair pretty?”

“Of course it is, honey.” ‘Of course, my daughter’s hair was pretty, was there ever any doubt there?’ Like that, I inexplicably felt a sense of pride well within me. However, that was mercilessly cast down by her next statement.

Fingers pointed at my head in excitement, as if she had discovered a whole new world by herself: “Mama, look, you’re bald!”

After that, I questioned her on what happened while she was unconscious, to which she responded: “There’s a ton of new things in my head.”

‘A magic to move bones? That’s probably the summon skeleton spell. Nothing out of the ordinary so far…the fact that she learned something new like that after the grimoire inserted itself into her, was within expectations.’

“Hmm, there’s also a magic to wake up the dead but those who wake up will become smelly and disgusting, Mo Na doesn’t like that.”

“Yeah, a lot lot more. There’s one to create a long spear, a shield and a wall. Also, there’s a magic to make people slow, stupid…and one more that can create a whole ton of thingies, so fun!” She flung her arms wide open to show exactly how many things she learnt before finally saying, in a slightly rueful tone: “But Mo Na doesn’t like that smelly wake up spell, everything else is great!”

From what she said, it was safe to assume that the grimoire performed a knowledge transference on her and taught her a variety of spells, including Dark Alchemy. As for the magicks to make people slow and stupid…those were probably curses.

Naturally, all that was just a guess, whether or not it was true…would become evident with time…in other words, it was all up to fate…

Because each Red Lotus contained a highly concentrated mass of pure energy, it only took one fruit to fill up Mo Na. As for the remaining two fruits, I ate them both and as expected, I evolved to Four-stars…

Or not, I guess that was just me being overly optimistic. There was no evolution to be found after consuming the first fruit and nothing as well after the second. However, that didn’t mean that those fruits had no effect on me. The moment I swallowed the last bit of the second fruit, my body started to heat up as if I had just ran a marathon. Furthermore, the heat seemed to be spreading even further, all the way up to my head.

My horn was severed by accident during that fight with Duran in the human realm, and remained severed ever since. Because of that, my magic always felt a little hampered. Adding on the fact that Ferti’nier had absorbed a large portion of my mana, my horn remained severed even after I evolved to Three-stars. After eating those two Red Lotuses however, my horn began to grow, along with my internal mana pool. Though I didn’t evolve in the end, my mana grew by at least a tier or two.

Not only did my horn grow out, I even grew a whole head of long, blueish-purple hair…that’s right, a whole head of sleek, shiny, deep blueish-purple hair that flowed all the way down my back.

“Mama, you have hair! And a horn too, so pretty!” Mo Na clapped her hands in excitement and surprise as she beamed at my unexpected change:

“What do you mean great, I don’t even know what’s going on here.” Reaching to grab her head, I couldn’t help but run my fingers through her silky hair as I patted her on the head. With each stroke, the feel on my hands just grew that much more comfortable.

“Mo Na wants to play as well.” Perhaps she thought that I was having fun playing with her hair, she decided to get in on the fun as well. Flapping the little wings on her back, she hopped into the air and leapt onto my neck where she promptly hugged my head and messed up my long hair. “Mama’s hair is so nice, so comfy.”

This was the third time they came back from scouting. The first two times, the report they brought back was basically identical: they didn’t encounter any other devils or danger. This time…judging by the expression on their faces, there was probably nothing new to report as well…

However, something of note was the worm like creature Big 4 held in his claws. It was wriggling about impatiently, not quickly but certainly it was a concerted effort on its part.

“Nope.” No.3 shook his head. “Basically the same except for some Red Lotuses we harvested. Oh right, we caught a Demon Fire Worm as well.”

The Demon Fire Worms could basically be described as a fireproof earthworm, even its wriggling resembled that of an earthworm and creeped me out just as much. Thus, with one simple wave of my finger, I gave the order: “Kill it.”

“Understood.” Big 4 took the worm and gave it a forceful tear, ripping it in half in an instant. However, the noticeably bifurcated worm was still struggling even in its newfound state, spewing blue blood all over the ground as it did so.

Big 4 obediently tossed the halves of the Demon Fire Worm onto the floor and lo and behold, something miraculous happened. Both halves immediately began crawling towards the lava river upon touching the ground. Even more strange was that they ran away in different directions…did it have earthworm genetics as well?

One boring day in the home of the earthworm family, the little earthworm had an idea to split himself into two for a round of badminton. The mama earthworm found it a great idea and decided to split herself into fours to play mahjong with herself. A while later, the papa earthworm turned himself into minced meat to which the mama earthworm asked, with tears in her metaphorical eyes: “Why are you so dumb, don’t you know that you will die when you split yourself so finely?” The papa worm weakly answered: “…I suddenly wanted to…play soccer…”

I pointed at the worm which looked half dead by now and signalled for Big 4 to act: “Split it into tens and see what happens.”

Even though he didn’t understand why I wanted to harm the worm even further, he enacted it without question. Realizing that Mo Na might get a little spooked by the sight of us harming little animals…I turned around out of concern and found her actually watching with glee. Perhaps the thought of seeing it split up like that seemed interesting to her.

Devils weren’t like humans at all. Simply put, they were a higher existence who possessed an inherited pool of knowledge that saved them a lot of learning time. They were born with an innately strong constitution and the ability to regrow limbs. Once they gained the blessing of an original sin, their fire resistance would rise to a certain degree. Furthermore, it caused their body to evolve from a very basic lifeform to that of a more advanced species.

No matter how one looked at it, devils were clearly stronger than humans and yet they never managed to conquer the human realm…thus humans could not be underestimated as well. Though they were born weak, they possessed infinite potential.

“There’s no soul?” I asked, clearly shocked. Every living creature had a soul, and this worm shouldn’t be an exception or so I thought. Upon dying however, the expected soul didn’t appear and instead, a husk of a soul could be seen dissipating into the air.

In order to figure the whole case of the disappearing soul, I had No.3 and Big 4 make another trip back to the lava river to catch another worm. Naturally, they were free to catch whatever fascinating lifeform they encountered on the way as well.

It had to be said however, lest I be confused for some sicko, I wasn’t doing this out of sheer boredom, rather it was in order to learn about the environment in Purgatory. Perhaps the two might have sounded unrelated but they were most definitely not.

In order to adapt to their environment, living creatures would change to meet the challenges they faced. For example, pesticides, when used often and without change, might lead to the pests evolving resistances to said chemicals. Those who couldn’t survive would be wiped out and this would continue till, finally, the pests adapted.

It didn’t take long for No.3 and Big 4 to return, having done the same not too long ago. As expected, they managed to catch another lifeform for me to experiment on. No.3 had two worms while Big 4 had in one hand, a worm, and in the other, he held a dark red fish and a salamander.

“Master, we caught something new.” Big 4 raised the fish and salamander as he called out to me: “While we were catching the worms, we so happened

The fish in question was most likely a Fire Devouring Fish. It was roughly half a meter long, had a giant mouth full of teeth that made it look like a piranha from Earth. Unlike those carnivorous fish however, the Fire Devouring Fish had a sturdy set of scales protecting it as if it was wearing a shiny set of armor.

The Fire Devouring Fish were the nemesis of the Demon Fire Worms, and treated them as their staple source of food. Based on their outer appearances alone, I concluded that these fish most likely had a powerful attack of some sort.

No.3 immediately set about doing his job. Stomping on one of the worms to prevent it from escaping, he then ripped the other worm into quarters.

Just like the previous worm we quartered, it slowly lost its lifeforce and just as it was about to die off, I spotted fragments of its soul dissipating into the air.

It went without saying that it would die in the end; that wasn’t the point of the experiment however. The moment the last drop of its blood left its body, the worm died as expected and an intact soul popped out of its body.

Looking at the intact mass, I roughly had an idea of what was going on here. However, just to be sure, (18)I had No.3 continue the experiments. No.3 fetched the last surviving worm from Big 4 and then I had them bifurcate it before bleeding it dry.

Upon dying, the worm produced two souls. Unlike the first soul, they were slightly smaller in size and significantly weaker. Judging by their faintness, any further damage to them would most likely result in dissipation.

‘So that’s how it worked, their soul split along with their body and that soul can only support one splitting before dissipating because of its weakness.’

“Mhm…help me hold this.” Big 4 handed over the salamander who had never once given up on struggling before grabbing the Fire Devouring Fish’s tail with his left hand. Using his right, he clawed its scales directly. Immediately, the sparkling scales shattered under his razor sharp claws, revealing a pinkish layer of meat along with crimson-red blood.

With its scales broken, the Fire Devouring Fish started wiggling about violently in a desperate bid to bite the devil who injured it. Unfortunately for it, that was all for naught. It didn’t even take the Four-stars Big 4 much effort to dodge all its clumsy attacks.

“Master, the strength of its scales are about the same as your shields.” Big 4 answered as he fingered some of the torn off scales.

The results of that hardness test was shocking, to say the least. ‘Its strength was actually comparable to my exquisitely crafted shields?!’

In conclusion, my experiments had shown that Demon Fire Worms had regenerative abilities and were able to split themselves. Their attack power wasn’t high but they were great at running away. The Fire Devouring Fish possessed an astonishing bite strength and sturdy set of scales, making them the perfect nemesis for the Demon Fire Worms.

The worm’s splitting and regenerative abilities were most likely a result of the Fire Devouring Fishes hunting them down. One bite from those deadly teeth would most likely kill them.

Big 4 immediately stabbed his right hand into the fish’s belly and ripped out its innards. However, even after such a grievous wound, the fish refused to die and instead it bit down viciously on Big 4’s hand. Unfortunately for that struggling fish, there was no way it could ever win in the first place.

“Mo Na, you can have these souls.” Rubbing the little scamp’s noggin, I smiled at her gently and continued: “That’s if you still have room for them of course.”

“Mo Na still can eat some more!” With a free meal placed right in front of her, it would be remiss of her to reject it and thus she happily gulped down the souls with a grin on her face. Having finished the meal, her eyes closed slightly, a look of pure satisfaction written all over her face. “Mama, those things were really tasty.”

“Then can I eat this as well?” Asked the ever curious little scamp as she pointed at the corpse of the fish discarded by Big 4. “That looks tasty.”

“You’ll have to pass on the meat, the souls are meant for us.” ‘Raw fish? My baby girl, aren’t you disgusted by it at all?’

We came to this foreign land known as Purgatory by accident instead of our true destination, Abaddon. Till now, we still weren’t familiar with this new environment; it wouldn’t be a stretch to call us blind at all. Furthermore, there were no signs of devils nearby and the harvesting rate of Red Lotuses weren’t ideal either. That meant that in the long term we would have to establish relations with the local powers in this place. Thus, this day of experimentation came about. Knowledge was the key to victories after all.

“Mama, can this be Mo Na’s toy?” As she said that, Mo Na pointed at the corpse of the Fire Devouring Fish, clearly excited by the potential she saw. “The pointy things can be daggers and the pretty shinies can be little shields.”

“Mhm, mhm.” Mo Na gave me an excited nod before continuing: “Mo Na’s head is just packed full of things to try out right now.”

“In that case, give them a try then.” Given how the grimoire was when it was with me, it most likely taught her Dark Alchemy as well. With that in mind, I neatly laid out the scales, bones and teeth of that fish in front of Mo Na and said in a voice brimming with expectation: “Sweetie, how about starting off with some daggers and shields for now?”

“Got it, Mo Na will get right on it.” A little proud of herself, she stuck her nose into the air and summoned forth a black mirror of mana with a wave of her right hand; the classic start to any Dark Alchemy, as shown by the grimoire.

With that settled, the rest of the process was basically grunt work and mana channeling. Naturally, I wouldn’t allow my little sweetie to handle such heavy lifting so I had No.3 help her toss the materials into the mirror instead.

“Toys, toys, toys, toys…” Mo Na nodded her adorable little noggin as she continued chanting –was it even accurate to call them toys?

Not too long after that, the black mirror disappeared and was replaced by an extraordinarily diminutive dagger lying on the ground. For the most part, it was an ordinary looking dagger that kind of reminded of a kunai from those ninja movies. At just 10 cm long, thanks to the lack of materials put in, it was the perfect size for a little devil like Mo Na.

“Look Mama, Mo Na made this herself!” As if she was making an offering to me, she handed over the dagger with both of her hands before excitedly hopping back onto my shoulders, legs apart and arms wrapped tightly around my head: “Mama, look at

“Alright alright, Papa will have a look.” As I lowered my not-so-willing daughter onto the ground, I asked, out of curiosity: “Other than a dagger, what else can you make, Mo Na?”

“A shield!” Eager to prove her point, she summoned another black mirror of mana and had No.3 toss the bones of the Fire Devouring Fish into it. Mere moments later, a little buckler, roughly 20 cm in diameter, took shape and was offered up to just like before with two hands and a wide grin. “Look Mama, this is the shield Mo Na made!”

Buckler in my left hand and dagger in my right, I ran the tiny blade across the surface of the shield. The moment they hit each other however, a resounding clang echoed in the air. ‘Don’t tell me those bones and teeth were made from metal?’

Receiving them, Big 4 started off by raking his claws across the shield –he managed to leave a scar along its shiny surface. , he gave the dagger a few test waves but soon discovered it wasn’t too suited to him so he just decided to munch on it. *Clink* The dagger snapped…

“Mo…Mo Na’s toys…waaah…bad man…Mo Na’s toys…” Seeing her handcrafted toys destroyed and damaged like that, Mo Na immediately turned on the waterworks and hugged me even tighter: “Pay up, Mo Na wants you to pay…WAAAHHH…”

“Master…” Big 4 groaned, throwing me a look that seemed to say that he had been wronged. To be fair, he was,in fact, wronged. It was me who told him to experiment on those weapons after all; although I didn’t expect them to snap like that either… ‘nice set of choppers by the way.’

Having signed that unfair pact, Mo Na immediately broke into a radiant but clearly devious grin, as she went back to hugging me once more: “Mama, Big 4 is going to serve me from now on.”

At the end of the day, Mo Na’s little bit of mischief was nothing but a short interlude in our journey. After that experiment with Big 4, I managed to confirm that the weapons crafted by Mo Na possessed a strength rating higher than the materials themselves. Although the boost wasn’t actually much, it was noticeable enough for Big 4.

Following that, I had Big 4 capture another Fire Devouring Fish which I used to craft a buckler and dagger. However, the results weren’t as stellar as Mo Na’s. Furthermore, because I no longer had the grimoire with me, I ended up spending double the amount of mana I usually would have…

My original goal was to find Yi Yi but because of a sudden forced change in plans, I ended up in Purgatory and my new goal was to, once again, find my way into Abaddon. After all, until I find Yi Yi, the issue with my gender would never get fixed. That was definitely the biggest problem facing me right now…I honestly don’t want to hear Mo Na call me Mama anymore…

Having wandered around for quite a bit, we managed to confirm that we were in a deserted region. In the week since we came here, we found no signs of other devils and our lives basically revolved around living off

For the most part, the creatures on the surface of the river weren’t too much of a threat, seeing as the majority of the creatures we encountered were Demon Fire Worms. From time to time, we would spot a Fire Devouring Fish chasing after said worm. During such situations, I would often have No.3 and Big 4 catch that fish, skin it and then reserve the materials for Mo Na to play with.

The fishes we encountered so far were mostly at the level of Two-stars though there were some One-stars. Because One-stars were considered infants, we rarely saw them loitering around.

The Demon Fire Salamanders were the evolved form of the Demon Fire Worms and looked remarkably similar to the Chinese Giant Salamanders back on Earth. However, they weren’t as pudgy looking as those lizards, in fact, they looked almost slender in comparison. Their skin was the color of the lava and magma, making them really hard to spot while they swam around in the lake. Another striking feature of theirs was a pair of horn-like objects that grew backwards in at a 45 degrees angle, and were covered in tiny spikes.

The first time I laid eyes on their impressive appearance, I couldn’t help but wonder exactly how did that, that being those earthworm-like Demon Fire Worms, turn into that…however, the moment I remembered those ancient Chinese myths about snakes turning into dragons…it suddenly didn’t seem all that strange anymore.

The salamanders were a hardy bunch of creatures, being at least as strong as those fishes. However, they didn’t possess the body splitting ability of the worms, though they possessed a powerful regenerative ability of their own as well. As long as they were given enough nourishment, they could basically recover from anything, even from losing their lower half.

The two of them ended their fight in a pyrrhic victory for one side. The salamander’s teeth weren’t any worse than the fish’s teeth in terms of attack power. However, the salamander didn’t possess those tough scales the fish had. Still, it made up for that by being stronger and having a much more advantageous body shape.

In the lake however, the fish was a better swimmer than the salamander though its lack of strength still caused significant problems for it.

For our experiments, I first had Big 4 rip off half of the salamander’s body, causing a waterfall of blue blood as he did so. However, mere seconds later, the bleeding miraculously stopped and the wound even began regrowing before our very eyes. Perhaps it was merely my imagination, but while it was regenerating, the salamander seemed to be almost shrinking.

Big 4 dutifully obeyed and tossed the fish into the injured salamander’s mouth. Clearly not possessing much intelligence, the salamander merely chomped down on the meat, not paying us any heed at all. In fact, it didn’t even bother spitting out the fish’s teeth and bones, choosing instead to swallow them whole in a bid to fill its own belly as soon as possible.

Upon devouring the fish, the salamander underwent an astonishing change. Its regeneration rate sped up to the point where I could see the meat reforming without any effort at all!

“Look Mama, that thing can grow itself.” She gleefully stared at the salamander as if it was a toy. As for what she planned on doing with said toy, I had no way of knowing.

“Go fetch some meat, any kind of meat.” I had No.3 fetch more meat for the salamander in order to further test out its regrowing powers.

No.3, upon receiving my order for more meat, jumped right away into the lake of lava and brought out two Demon Fire Worms soon after. These wormy creatures were so numerous, thanks to their splitting and regrowing abilities, that their numbers never seemed to drop no matter how many were hunted down.

Initially, I was worried that the salamander would refuse to eat the worm, seeing as it was basically an evolved worm and eating a worm would be akin to cannibalism. Yet, as facts would soon show, I was overthinking matters once more. Even without No.3 doing anything, the salamander immediately issued a weird cry upon seeing the worm. Naturally, we didn’t know what that cry meant, but that wasn’t important at all. What was important, was that the worm understood it.

The worm that was thrown before the salamander by No.3, immediately split into two with one bolting towards the lake while the other jumped into the mouth of the salamander without it even lifting a finger…

As the weird cries continued, we saw a stream of worms crawl out of the lava lake. All of them were noticeably smaller than an average worm; clearly, they were all split-offs from another worm.

With ample nourishment, the regrowing rate of the salamander sped up significantly. Its innards began to regrow, followed by its waist, its hind legs, its tail, etc. All in all, it took close to two hours for it to recover from what should have been a fatal injury. Had it not been for the newly grown skin being more tender than the old, I would have honestly mistaken the former for the latter.

However, the extent of its regrowing wasn’t the only thing that shocked me. What was equally surprising was how the Demon Fire Worms acted just now…to think they actually fed themselves to the salamander of their own volition…exactly what kind of relationship did the two have?

Before it could take a second step however, Big 4 swooped in front of him and cut off its path, claws and fangs bared. Immediately, the salamander shrunk inwards, stopped crawling and laid down on the ground. Its back straightened to form a line while its lower jaw dipped down to the level of its front claws. That was undoubtedly a prostrating action, seeing as such position was completely unsuited to a leaping attack; its hind legs weren’t arced after all.

From the way the salamander was able to summon forth worms and have them offer themselves as food, it was obvious the Demon Fire Worms were nothing in the eyes of the Demon Fire Salamanders. Most likely, their status was akin to that of slaves. These worms were the most numerous lifeforms we encountered so far and no matter how many we killed, there seemed to be no end to them. In short, they were expendable. The salamanders on the other hand, were almost an entirely different lifeform; they held a leadership position unlike the aforementioned worms.

Because we had no real sense of direction right now, I decided to just take a straight path in hopes that we would stumble upon some lifeform we could communicate with. Truth be told, I had mixed feeling about meeting any potential devil in Purgatory. While it was a fact that we didn’t know the way to Abaddon and that we would most likely have to ask for directions, I couldn’t help but worry whether or not those devils would take an interest in me…

Ahem…what I was saying was that my appearance was basically unparalleled amongst the devils right now. But I was still a male in the end…I definitely didn’t want to be captured and turned into some kind of trophy wife…

Ever since we met that salamander, we stopped attacking any salamander we met, choosing instead to hunt Demon Fire Worms and Fire Devouring Fishes. Like always, the meat went to No.3 and Big 4 while Mo Na and I absorbed the souls.

Devils were able to fly thanks to their wings. However, that didn’t mean they were able to fly well. Ever since No.3 and Big 4 evolved into Flame Demon Childes, they gained a pair of flesh wings. They would often practise flying with those wings but even so, their turning flexibility was still lacking. Most likely it had to do with their large bodies placing a lot of stress on their meaty wings.

Even more amazing was that I could see a bunch of humanoid flames leaping about at our distant flanks. Each of them had a look of joy as they frolicked about. Their bodies were made entirely of flames and they largely resemble humans except for the lack of their finer features.

Because they didn’t communicate in the language of the devil, I couldn’t understand a word they said. However, it was still clear to me that they were having the time of lives, running on top of the pond.

‘Are those the fire elementals from my inherited memories? Come to think of it, isn’t it natural for Purgatory to have such creatures since it’s basically a plane made of fire?’

Yet just as I was pondering how to face these elementals, the elementals discovered us. A shrill cry echoed across the lake for a few deafening seconds, and the mirror-like surface of the pond stirred in response. A mass of bubbles began forming all of a sudden, as if something was about to come rushing out of lava pond.

It was too late. A fiery pillar burst into the sky from the center of the pond and a horde of fire elementals came rushing out of it. Their numbers were so numerous, my eyes began to swim just from trying to count them.

“Mama, they’re coming towards us!” Completely unfazed by their numbers, she flew in front of me and with a flick of her wrist, summoned a long whip made entirely of dark energy. “Don’t worry Mama, Mo Na will protect you!”

The design, in general, was that of a medieval knight’s gauntlets, with allowance made for finger movement. Still, there was no helping the fact that there would still be some performance loss. Naturally, it wasn’t practical for them to put it on at all times so I had a bone chain affixed to the gauntlets for easy storage on their waist.

These black claws were specially designed by me with this environment in mind. Although No.3 and Big 4 were Flame Demon Childes, they couldn’t spend all day in the lava lake either. Plus, their opponents would most likely be fishes and worms so I decided on claws instead of the usual weapon designs I had. After all, I couldn’t expect them to go fishing with a bunch of maces or swords…that won’t do at all.

Upon assembling, the fire elementals didn’t rush at us as expected but instead maintained some distance between us as they exchanged gazes with each other. Even so, their aggressive stance was more than enough to put us on high alert. For all we know, a simple provocation might end up triggering a violent response from them.

Thankfully, the worst never came to pass. The moment they realized that we were just four lonely souls, they seemed to heave a sigh of relief. Naturally, they didn’t actually show relief on their faces. After all, the majority of their faces were a fuzzy mess and there’s no way anyone could discern a thing from that.

Right ahead of us, the elementals continued talking to each other in their own unique language while we simply stood there watching, unable to leave but also unable to stay.

“Mama, I think they aren’t gonna attack us anymore.” Mo Na stowed her darkness whip before pointing at the ring of fire elementals ahead, still in the midst of their meeting. Curiosity piqued, she asked: “Mama, what are those things?”

“They should be fire elementals.” I tenderly rubbed her little noggin and hugged her with my other free arm. “I’m not sure what caused this situation but from the looks of it, they seem open to talks. I don’t understand their language though…hopefully one of them knows the language of the devil.”

Just as I strongly wished for a chance to communicate with them, a fire elemental with comparatively more distinct features, stepped out and stopped roughly 50 metres ahead of us after which came a haughty, questioning voice. Because he spoke in the tongue of the devil, I heard every single word of his clearly.

“That devil over there, state your purpose, why have you come to the Raging Flames Lake?” The voice wasn’t grating on the ears but neither was it pleasant either; mostly, it was an average-sounding voice.

The one who spoke was a fire elemental roughly 170 cm tall (5’7) with a balanced, mostly humanoid physique and no particularly defining features except that his facial features were a lot clearer than the other elementals. At the very least, his nose had a bridge and nostrils unlike the other elementals who merely had two holes for a nose or just nothing at all. The elemental had nothing identifying his sex but because his voice tended towards that of a man’s, I assumed he was man.

“We’re just passing travellers, we have no motives in coming here. If you feel that we’re intruding on your space, we’ll leave right this instant.” Having said that, I quickly threw a glance at No.3 and Big 4, signalling for them to leave this place post-haste.

“Don’t even think about leaving! Do you think this is a place you can come and go as you wish!? State your affiliations and motives, or else!”

I honestly intended to make a break for it there and then but who knew that the haughty elemental would be so unwilling to let us go. However, there was nothing we could do about his bully tactics either because of his overwhelming numbers advantage. “I said so already, we’re just travellers with

“Still you lie! This place hasn’t seen a devil appear in 80 000 years, the fact that you suddenly appeared here must be part of some conspiracy.”

‘Ah, it’s that kind of person, isn’t it? The kind of blockhead that never listens no matter how much you try to explain yourself. Looks like we’re in for a fight then, but how do we handle a crowd of this size…’

Suppressing the exasperation in my heart, I replied in a calm voice: “Either way, I do not wish to fight you all so we’ll leave right now, alright?”

“Hmph, you’re just scared of us, aren’t you?” The haughty elemental folded his arms and then threw his head back, pointing his nose right at the sky as he did so. “I bet you’re worried that we might gang up on you.”

“We hail from the Prison of the Dead, our original destination was Abaddon but because of some unexpected hiccups, we ended up in Purgatory. Having come here, we found no traces of any other devils so we had no choice but to wander around aimlessly in hopes of finding a method to enter Abaddon.”

“That’s right.” I put on my most earnest look in hopes that it would be enough to convince him of the veracity of our claims.

Naturally, all that earned me was a scornful laugh and a raise of his right hand in what looked a rallying signal to surround us. “This might’ve been the territory of the devils in the past, and like you said, the entrance of the Prison is near here, but do you know how long the Prison of the Dead has been sealed up? 80 000 years, that’s how long! For 80 000 years, no living creature has been able to leave the Prison of the Dead! Do you honestly think I will believe your nonsense? There’s no way any devil can leave that forsaken land!” Was his

‘Ahh, why is it so hard to communicate with this potato, I guess we really have to duke it out then. I just hope they are a lot weaker than they look…hmmm, best if they just keel over from one hit.’

“No more excuses? Hah, I knew right from the very start you guys were lying. Bunch of audacious fools, I see those 80 000 years were enough for your race to forget the painful lessons they received.”

The intellectually handicapped elemental then pointed at us and yelled, in the most arrogant voice possible: “Well, what other excuses do you have?”

“Don’t bully my Mama!” Seeing that elemental point at me so rudely, my little baby immediately flew into a rage and took up a battle stance. Then, without wasting another word whatsoever, she swung her darkness whip at the offending elemental.

“You dare to strike me?! Everyone, stay back, I’ll be the one to handle these foolish devils!” While he might have said that, the whip didn’t actually hit him thanks to his impressive dodging skills. Clenching his right fist, he swung his fist in Mo Na’s direction and fired off a ball of raging flames with a whoosh and a sizzle. As the ball of flames pierced through the air, it seemed to suck in the air around it and grow bigger with every meter it flew.

Seeing that, Mo Na immediately withdrew her whip and flapped her tiny wings hard to make a swift dodge to the right. The telltale sizzle of the ball rushed past her ears an instant later, its fiery energies not even coming close to its target. Knowing that she had easily evaded the ball, she leaned forward and shot off like an rocket towards the fire elemental.

From a distance away, the fire elemental clearly saw the speeding silhouette careen straight towards him but chose to do nothing about it, even when he saw her draw what looked like a tiny dagger from her waist right at the very last second. Faced with a potential dagger through his heart, he merely stood there arms folded and blurry lips curved into a smirk; his figure, a picture of absolute confidence.

Seeing that, the fire elemental didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the ease at which she dispelled his skill, instead he gave an uproarious laugh of arrogance: “Hahaha, we fire elementals are born favored by the flames themselves, even though you devils might have some pitiful semblance of fire resistance as well, don’t think for a second that you are our match.”

Like the haughty elemental said, for the devils to hurt them or fight them was no easy task at all. Fire elementals were creatures born of the elements and could be categorized under the broad category of Elementals. There were two broad types of elementals in this world, one corporeal and one incorporeal.

Corporeal elementals were elementals who belonged to the earth element, magma element, ice element, etc. Their non-corporeal counterparts include those of the water element, the fire element, the wind element, the thunder element, etc. The difference between the two were obvious, those of the corporeal branch had a fixed body of sorts while those of the incorporeal branch couldn’t be interacted with physically as they had no fixed form.

Another difference, and arguably the biggest one, was that incorporeal elementals had the nasty trait of being able to remain permanently ethereal. Unlike undead apparitions however, their ethereal trait did not come with the side effect of receiving double damage from magical attacks. Notable, illusion demons also possess such a trait. For such creatures, they were able to remain immune to normal physical attacks while not receiving much drawbacks.

However, that haughty fire elemental soon discovered that his gloating was a little premature as the seconds ticked by and the wound in his belly refused to heal up. Even more frightening was that his energy

The fire elemental turned towards the smiling little girl, face aghast. Never did it ever cross his mind that there would actually be a weapon that could harm it like that. Such an unhealing wound could basically be counted as a mortal wound for these elementals since their bodies would start to lose their form after a certain level of energy was lost. Should that ever happen, death was the most likely outcome.

“Hah, scared aren’t ya!?” Came Mo Na’s lovely sounding but disdainful scoff, her dagger waving about in triumph. “Try guessing what this thing is made of, why don’t you?”

“The teeth of the Fire Devouring Fish, of course, you dumbo.” Having said that, Mo Na stuck her tongue out at the elemental and even pulled a face at the stunned elemental.

It was then that those behind ran up to the haughty elemental to check on his condition. In the meantime, I hurriedly beckoned for Mo Na to return quickly. She obediently flew over as ordered and stood there as if this entire scene had nothing to do with her.

“Get behind me, quick.” I dragged her behind me immediately and reached for Shadowfang with my right hand. “Once we start fighting, I want you to be careful. We’ll do our best to make a break for it in one direction.”

“Hmph, Mama’s a meanie.” She didn’t seem to take too well to my chiding and promptly snubbed me with a turn of her head. “Even though Mo Na is actually stronger than Mama.”

“…” I glared at the girl, telling her with my furious eyes to be quiet or be spanked for making me lose face in front of my enemies.

“Stop being so willful, now’s not the time.” I ruffled her hair to placate her. “Don’t worry, Papa will protect you.”

As he said that, I could feel the steely resolve within his words; he suggested that knowing full well that he would die! At the side, Big 4 nodded his head without any hesitation at all: “Master, please leave without us, we’ll cover the rear.”

“There’s no need for that, if anyone is going to leave, it will be together.” Their utter loyalty to me had been fully made clear to me. In the face of such devotion, there was simply no way I would ever think of sacrificing them unless the situation was truly dire.

“No buts!” I interrupted No.3’s anxious explanation and turned my attention to the fire elementals, eyes locked onto them unblinkingly. If they made a move, I would know immediately, and be there ready to exploit it. “These creatures spend their entire lives in the Rage Flames Lake, I doubt they would leave it easily. As long as we withdraw out of range of the lake, they will most likely give up on chasing us. Besides, if I left you two behind…won’t you two be dead then?”

The two of them, nearly moved to tears, exchanged a resolute gaze with each other and nodded their heads. “Even if it means dying, we’ll protect the Master’s safety.” They said in unison.

“Now’s not the time for dying.” I smiled faintly. “How many obstacles have we overcome already? Do you really think that I will lose to these bunch of firemen?”

Naturally, those were mere words of bravado, but at least they served as encouragement for No.3 and Big 4. Truth be told, I was terrified. After all they had over a thousand troops on their side. Looking at us, we only had four; such a disparity wasn’t something

No.3 and Big 4 were both equipped with Fire Devouring Fish weapons so their killing power was top-notch against these elementals. As for me, I had Shadowfang…till now, this Epic-grade weapon of mine had never let me down; I doubt it would do so now.

Just as we finished preparing for battle, that elemental who spoke to us at the start, turned around and whispered something to his companions after which they all charged at us, fiery feet a blur and ripples spread throughout the entire lake.

‘With so many of them rushing at us, there’s hardly anything we can do now. But then, just running away isn’t a solution either…let’s give it a shot for now.’

“Master, run!” Big 4 and No.3 strode forward to shield Mo Na and I, before hurriedly calling for us to run. They then charged at the oncoming horde without turning back.

“Mo Na, Papa is going now, if…and I mean if…just remember to run, okay?” Having said that, I rushed after my two subordinates without waiting for her reply.

By now, No.3 and Big 4 were already in the midst of a fight with the fire elementals. While their numbers were numerous, their levels weren’t actually that high at all. The highest was probably that moron that talked to us; he was probably a Four-stars. However, since Mo Na injured him, he refrained from entering the battle for now.

For the most part, the rest of them were around One to Two-stars. At times, we would encounter a few Three-stars. Moreover, being fire elementals, their attacks were all flame attacks with a limited range that was almost melee.

Having evolved to Flame Demon Childes not too long ago, No.3 and Big 4’s control over fire couldn’t be any better. Adding on their innate devil resistances to fire, the barrage

Thus, the two who heroically charged into a battle thinking that would be their last, found themselves in an unexpected, one-sided massacre; it wasn’t even us to boot!

The attacks of the fire elementals simply weren’t enough to restrain the two Flame Demon Childes. In contrast, their weapons countered their the elementals’ fiery nature completely. Thanks to that disparity, the battle ended up lasting longer than I had initially expected. As time grew, a fear grew in the hearts of the elementals; one of an undefeatable enemy.

Ironically, because the elementals were permanently in an ethereal state, they couldn’t use any physical attacks at all so they had no choice but to rely completely on their ineffective fire attacks. In light of that, was it any surprise that the battle proceeded in such a one-sided fashion?

Those who were injured by Big 4 and No.3 soon found out for themselves the terror of their fishy weapons. Their wounds refused to close up and as time passed, they began to weaken and perish. Seeing that, the rest of the elementals grew even more afraid. Before long, the army was routed; these elementals probably hadn’t been in a fight since the day they were born…

“Fiendish devils and your diabolic weapons…just you all wait…we’ll be back…” Throwing behind those last words of promised revenge, the moronic commander of the fire elementals dove into the lake without ever looking back. With his departure, the rest of the fire elementals followed suit and soon there was none to be found anywhere.

Looking at the calm crimson lake before us, I was suddenly struck with the surrealness of the situation: were those elementals ever here at all?

“Mama, are the bad people gone?” Not only was I confused, my precious little baby was dumbstruck by what she had just witnessed. “After all that bragging, they weren’t even that tough at all…”

To be honest, the only way they could’ve harmed No.3 and Big 4 was by attacking with at least a Four-stars’s fire attack. Anything less than that would simply be resisted by their frightening resistances. Unfortunately for them, the only person who had such strength had already been defeated.

Truly, the decision to craft those Fire Devouring Fish weapons was a serendipitous decision on my part. I never expected to encounter such a foe so soon; such a rousing victory could only be chalked up to a string of fortunate, or perhaps unfortunate, depending on who you asked, coincidences.

After all, when faced with weapons that could inflict an unclosable wound on you, would anyone be able stave off that fear? It was as if someone had their artery cut and was told that it wasn’t treatable…anyone would panic in such a situation.

(TL: A bit of disclosure of here. I shortened three whole paragraphs here because the author was simply repeating the fact that their weapons countered the elementals and etc. Non-repeated points were still kept so don’t worry.)

Thus, this battle was one we honestly had no way of losing at all. A wise man once said, “equipment, equipment, equipment.” Just like in a game, how else could you have an easy BOSS fight without equipping yourself well?

‘Now that this whole fiasco is over, what should we do now?’ I peered around the ripple-less Raging Flames Lake for a moment before deciding to leave in the end. After all, it wasn’t really fleeing if you already won the battle.

The salamander crawled up to us, neither too hurriedly nor too slowly, and called out in its unique language. Even though I couldn’t understand what it said, I could tell that it had no hostile intent. However, just as I was caught slightly surprised by the salamander’s appearance, the Raging Flames Lake stirred. A fiery pillar gushed out of the lava surface and a fire elemental sprouted from within.

The fire elemental had comparatively more distinct facial features and his belly had a noticeable hole…it was that potato who Mo Na injured not too long ago. ‘Didn’t he run away already? What’s he doing back here? Is he looking for a fight?’

“Why haven’t you guys left yet?” Seeing that we were still here, the fire elemental was visibly stunned. However, he immediately hid his flustered emotions and acted as if that never happened. “Didn’t you say that you had no motives in coming here? You mentioned you were going to leave, didn’t you? So what are you still doing here then, are you still looking for another fight?”

‘Shameless, truly shameless! How thick skinned can this guy be? He just had his butt handed to him by No.3 and Big 4 not too long ago and he had already forgotten about it? I swear some people just deserve to be beaten up.’

Towards such a person who didn’t know the meaning of shame, I said, without any mercy whatsoever: “Honestly, even if we fought again, I wouldn’t be afraid of you guys at all. All I want to ask is, are you really not scared of us?”

Having said that, I took a look at my two subordinates before them giving a sweep of my finger: “Those two over there, I’ll allow you to choose either one of them. As long as you can defeat one of them, I’ll leave right away without saying a word.”

“…Raging Flames Lake is our territory, don’t get too cocky outsiders.” Even though his words were still as tough as before, his stature had diminished significantly. Clearly, he knew that his own might wasn’t comparable to our own.

The salamander mooed a couple in response to the elemental who seemed to understand what it was saying. The two traded words for quite a while as I quietly listened in on the fascinating scene, taking care not to interrupt them.

“…I understand.” Their conservation ended but the fire elemental seemed visibly upset by its contents. Unwillingly, he turned to me and asked: “Hey, that devil in armor, even though the Demon Fire Salamander has vouched for you, I still have to ask you one more time, you are really from the Prison of the Dead?”

“That’s right.” I nodded my head. “Is there even a need to lie about such a matter? Besides, we don’t know a single thing about these surroundings lands or we would have spun a more convincing tale already.”

“I guess that’s true, looks like you really don’t know a single thing after all…” The elemental sighed though it seemed that he was willing to trust us at least. “Honestly, I chose to believe you all because of the salamander.”

“That’s right. It said that after capturing it, you didn’t try to kill it. Moreover, it saw you appear out of thin air and because your direction coincided with its own, it decided to observe you. However, it came upon a Fire Devouring Fish and in the midst of that ensuing battle, you captured it…” As he said that, he pointed at the salamander in question. Essentially, what all that was trying to say to me was that all

Right at the very end, the elemental even made sure to make that point extra clear to me: “All devils can’t be trusted with their words, even now I still can’t bring myself to trust you all.”

“Honestly, I don’t you need to trust us at all. We never intended to foster any sort of relation between us. So, if there’s nothing else, we’ll take our leave.” As I said before, this wasn’t me running away, after all, I beat him once already. I simply didn’t wish to waste more time here, mhm.

‘I knew it…they wanted something from us after all. I could sense that yellow exclamation mark above their heads from a mile away…yes, I played World of Peacecraft, I’ll admit it.’

“Fine, fine. What do you need of us? Let’s be clear here, if it’s too hard, I’ll still say no.” Once again, my soft heartedness got the better of me, forcing me to reach out to those in need. However, it wasn’t as if there were no merits to helping them either. Giving it some thought, I realized that since we were still unfamiliar with Purgatory as a whole, forming some connections with the local powers wasn’t all that bad either, even if said local power was kinda…

The natural world was truly a wondrous place, no matter what creature it was, they always had a natural born enemy or counter. At times, such a nemesis could be found just nearby or even from the same source. Take for example a snake’s venom, while it might be able to poison most creatures to

Similarly, while the fire elementals and the salamanders make their home in the flames, their nemesis could also be found in the same living space.

The Fire Devouring Fish were a ravenous species that devoured everything in their sights. At times of extreme hunger, they would even consume their own. Just based on their own merits however, the Fire Devouring Fishes weren’t all that strong. However, should they gather together as a school and start raiding their surroundings, they became the stuff of nightmares for those living in Purgatory.

For the most part, they fed on the Demon Fire Worms and because of that, the two sides had a blood feud with each other. The Fire Devouring Fish had an ability which allowed them to feed on the energies hidden within the fire element, naturally that included the lava in the lake as well. However, because the fire elements within the lake contained too many impurities, consuming too much of it would cause them harm instead. Thus, they chose to attack the Demon Fire Worms.

Truth be told, the fire elementals were a formidable bunch. Compared to the other elementals, they were more combative and aggressive. Unfortunately for them, all that was useless before the Fire Devouring Fishes…to them, they were just food.

By devouring fire elementals, the Fire Devouring fishes were able to evolve. Because of that, these fishes would periodically raid the settlement of the fire elementals. Being made entirely of fire, there could not be any worse enemy than those fishes for the elementals. Thus, they began searching for allies.

‘The enemy of my enemy is a friend.’ With that in mind, the fire elementals sought to ally themselves with the Demon Fire Salamanders who were feuding with the fishes. Like that, a close, symbiotic relationship was formed.

Two…the salamanders had no ability to devour flames. In other words, while the elementals might not be able to fend off the fishes, they were more than capable of fighting the salamanders. Moreover, while the fire elementals might have looked down on the salamanders because of their intelligence, in reality, the fire elementals were barely smarter than a rock…

Naturally, any one-sided relationship where one relied on the other completely, would never last long. The salamanders had the ability to defend the elementals from the fishes and in exchange, the elementals possessed a unique ability that aided the evolution of the salamanders.

Thanks to their elemental nature and body, any product of their body, even waste products, were considered rare ingredients in the eyes of human mages. Whenever an elemental was filled to the brim with energy and couldn’t evolve, they would expel this energy as a waste product. These would then coalesce automatically into a flame red mineral known as Flame Crystals, a magical ingredient.

Another thing of note was that the salamanders were able to evolve by consuming fire elementals as well. However, unlike the fishes, they didn’t have an ability that could counteract fire so completely. Thus, the only way for them to reliably get their hands on these crystals would be to trade.

In conclusion, the salamanders provide protection for the elementals and in turn, the elementals gave them crystals. Both sides benefitted and an alliance was formed, though perhaps they were more of customer-contractor than anything else.

Back to our current situation, the whole reason why the elementals needed our help was because the salamander had just brought them a most unfortunate piece of news. The Fire Devouring Fishes were making moves again. And this time, they actually gathered up several schools of fishes together to form an insurmountable force.

Because the of the abruptness of their attack, the distant fire elemental tribes were caught completely off guard and were mostly wiped out. The salamanders were just as unprepared as the elementals so by the time their response was prepared, too much time had passed. A number of smaller settlements like Raging Flames Lake were left on the wayside as a result.

The salamander came bearing word that the salamanders wished for them to evacuate Raging Flames Lake and find shelter in the designated location in the salamanders’ stronghold.

For their own safety, the elementals naturally wouldn’t say no. Still, even if they evacuated, they would surely meet some fishes on the trip. The salamanders weren’t able to provide too much support on this front so they could only make this request of us.

Even though we just fought with them, compared to the blood feud they had with the fishes, our fight was nothing but a little scuffle. Besides, with death knocking on their doorstep, who else could they rely on but us?

“All right, no matter what, we are acquaintances of sorts. Besides, I don’t like those fishes anyway. More importantly…I still don’t know how to reach Abaddon…” Suddenly, I had this strange sensation of being in some sort of RPG. Feeling lighthearted at the moment, I decided to ask another question: “If we help you guys, what’s our reward?”

“Reward…” The fire elemental pondered for a second as if hesitating over something. That hesitation didn’t last long however as he soon sighed and said: “I have on hand, two Five-stars fire elemental cores. If you can ensure our safe arrival at the designated safe zone, I’ll gift you two elemental cores as thanks.”

I was suddenly reminded of home by that nostalgic term. Back then, Sares told me of such an object which would allow those who couldn’t cultivate to attain power. It felt so distant back then…now, thinking back on that day, that scene…it almost felt like it just happened yesterday.

The birth of an elemental and its environment were tied together by an inseparable relationship. For example, a fire elemental can only be born in a place of flames while a water elemental can only be born at a point where a river flows towards or a giant body of water. The strength of an elemental is decidedly in large part by the environment it grew up in because of the vast amounts of elemental energy needed while growing up. Naturally, a purer source would produce better results.

The elemental production rate of such a special location was fixed on a daily basis. An elemental subsisted by absorbing a certain level of pure elemental energies from their environment. Only after meeting the basic requirements would any further absorption lead to evolution. However, that wasn’t to say that merely absorbing energies was enough to evolve, other requirements still held true as well.

“That Fire Elemental Core you speak of, what does it do?” Mo Na jumped onto my neck and curled her lips as if it was the most natural thing for her to do. “Just two? Isn’t that too little?”

“Those are the relics of the former head and the former former head!” The elemental cried, clearly agitated by her callous disdain. However, he immediately suppressed his anger upon realizing it: “There are a wide variety of uses for a Five-stars Fire Elemental Core. If you give it to your two subordinates over there, they will probably evolve right away into an Infant Flame Demon. Not only that, they would also gain the ability to transform into flames.”

“You don’t even know that?” The elemental scoffed at me. “Once a Flame Demon reaches the level of Eight-stars, he gains a new ability called Flame Transformation. It allows the devil to temporarily transform his body into that of a fire elemental’s, gaining unimaginable destructive powers in the process.”

I, however, wasn’t one to suffer such nonsense: “If that’s how you’re going to act, then I’ll just leave with my subordinates.”

With the deal settled, I asked the elemental if he knew about a method to reach Abaddon. His answer was a disappointing one to say the least but at the same time, it was only to be expected.

The entrance to Abaddon was most likely a closely guarded secret. The fire elementals themselves spent their entire lives in Purgatory, not because they couldn’t leave the place but because they couldn’t survive in areas with scarce fire elements.

Like how fish needed water and how humans needed oxygen, fire elementals needed a suitably rich environment of fire to live in. Thanks to that, these elementals rarely left their territory. Even if they were left it, they had to first ensure that their destination possessed a sufficiently dense level of fire elements in order to support them.

Naturally, such denizens were clearly not cut out to be travellers so was it all that strange that they didn’t know the entrance to Abaddon?

Normally, the mission of escorting the fire elementals would have been done by the Demon Fire Salamanders. However, their hands were tied at the moment and they could only spare that one salamander to be a messenger. If they needed an escort, it would have to be that lone salamander. Should they encounter a large pack of Fire Devouring Fishes in the interim, they were doomed. As such, the head of the fire elementals had no choice but to plead with us.

The temporary head of Raging Flames Lake was that fire elemental whom Mo Na beat up. His name was Arca, an insufferably arrogant moron.

In total, there were over one thousand two hundred fire elementals living in Raging Flames Lake. Arca was one of the few Four-stars present in the settlement. Because he wasn’t able to evolve into a Five-stars yet, he could only be considered a temporary head of the settlement. Should another fire elemental make it to Five-stars before him, Arca would then be replaced by this new elemental as the official head of the settlement.

With no time to lose, Arca immediately summoned his fellow fire elementals upon closing the deal. Just like before, a majestic pillar rose into the air and over a thousand fire elementals spewed forth from it.

Strictly speaking, the fire elementals were running for their lives right now and had no time to dally about. Thus, the salamander promptly led the way to the safe zone while Arca marshalled his tribe.

That salamander was to be our scout for this journey. Should it discover any signs of fishes, it would immediately let out a cry to warn us. That cry would then be translated by Arca after which we would act. Unless we encountered some kind of large group, it was mostly No.3 and Big 4 who took care of the fishes along this journey.

Like that, we safely made it through three days of fleeing. Suddenly, Arca stepped up to me and sighed: “You truly are an unusual devil.”

I was playing horsey with Mo Na at that moment so I didn’t pay much attention to his comment and merely asked: “Was that a compliment?”

“You can take it as that.” Was his irrelevant reply. He then shook his head and continued: “Honestly, I was extremely worried that you would go back on your words…after all, with your Fire Devouring Fish weapons, our powers…don’t even come close to yours.”

He finally admitted their weakness. Even though I hadn’t been with him for long, I could tell that he was a prideful elemental and admitting such was a big concession on his part. Truth be told, I knew their distrust of me as well. The fact that he even asked this of me was borne out of pure desperation. Besides, he most likely thought that if we really harbored any ill intent towards them, we could have done so by ourselves without waiting for the Fire Devouring Fishes to attack them.

Naturally, I would never do such a thing. That wasn’t me at all. I would never use my superior strength to bully the weak unlike the other devils. Normally, the most efficient method would just be

Even with that salamander vouching for us, Arca was still worried about us reneging on the deal. That’s why the elementals adopted a scattered formation at the start. With such a formation, they could at least avoid a complete loss should we decide to ambush them.

Perhaps in the eyes of others, I was some kind of unique devil but it wasn’t so for me at all. Because I never considered myself a devil from the very start. From the standpoint of a normal human being, all I was doing now was accepting a mission, collecting the reward, that’s all, nothing but a daily repeatable quest in a RPG.

In fact, my little baby suggested just such a thing with a wink of her lovely eyes. Her intentions were clear: rob them of the reward. She even tabled a viable plan of action to which I promptly rapped her on the head.

Mo Na nodded her head as if it was the most natural thing to do and answered: “If it’s Mama, she can do whatever she wants to Mo Na.”

Ahem…what I meant to say was that’s how a normal devil thought of things. The strong ruled and the weak served —that was their instinct. After all, not serving meant death.

The gathering spot the salamanders decided upon wasn’t that far off from the Raging Flames Lake. It roughly took a week of travelling for us to reach it, during which we didn’t encounter much problems. From time to time we would encounter some fishes but they were mostly lone wolves and easily taken care of.

The snails were a food source for the Demon Fire Salamanders and were often found at the edges of those strange platforms in the lava lake. Speaking of those platforms, they came in a variety of sizes from big to small. The smallest could fit about ten people while the large ones were about the size of a basketball court. There was a wide gap between each platforms so they didn’t look connected at all.

It was there the snails frequented, soaking in the lava while staying near the edges of the platform. Thanks to their shells being of the same color as the platform, along with the natural barrier of lava, doing so afforded two layers of protection from their predators. That camouflaging was the very reason why I wasn’t able to spot any snails till now.

Having seen them for the first time ever, I found them to be surprisingly large. The smallest I saw so far was about the size of a human head in fact.

Because their shells were known for being hard as rock, the Fire Devouring Fishes rarely preyed on them. While the fishes had a formidable set of teeth, it would still take them quite some time to chew through the shells of the Dark Flame Snails. Moreover, the snails themselves weren’t very meaty or large once you removed their snails so the reward simply didn’t match the effort required. With that much time spent, they could have just hunted down several worms.

If even the Fire Devouring Fishes wouldn’t touch them, it would seem like they had no natural predators within the lava lake at all. In reality however, that was simply a misconception on my part. Every living creature always had a nemesis. For the snails, it was the Demon Fire Salamander.

The Demon Fire Salamanders were of a sufficient size compared to the Dark Flame Snails. Furthermore, their teeth were comparable to the snail’s. However, the most important factor that made them the nemesis of the snails was that they had a shockingly sturdy stomach. One so strong, they could contain and digest the entire snail, shell and all.

For the most part, our escort mission proceeded smoothly except for some periodic encounters with the Demon Fire Fishes. By the time we arrived at the destination, a whole ten days had passed.

The gathering spot for the fire elementals was a giant volcano that seemed to connect the heavens and earths themselves. It was completely black with random streaks of red running down it; those were streams of lava.

Because the volcano itself was an elevated ground, the limbless fishes couldn’t climb it easily, thus making this a safe spot for the fire elementals.

Upon laying eyes on the towering volcano, the elemental, Arca, was visibly excited. From his puffed up chest and the slight glint in his eyes, I could tell he was welling with pride at the moment.

I casually asked out of curiosity. Who would have thought that one simple question ended up opening the floodgates to what felt like an eternity of gushing by Arca. Long story short, Flame’s End was the biggest fire elemental gathering in Purgatory. All the Six-stars fire elementals and those above it were afforded a place in this massive settlement.

Having spent over ten days with Arca, I picked up some basic knowledge about the fire elementals themselves. I discovered that they didn’t require food but had to absorb a certain amount of fire element every day. If they failed to do so, their body would become weak and perhaps even dissipate entirely if such a state persisted for long.

Back when Mo Na injured Arca, the wound in his belly refused to close up because the environment simply wasn’t able to provide enough energy for recovery. After resting in the lava lake however, the wound had gotten noticeably smaller. Thus, it could be seen how important fire energy was to these elementals.

The more powerful a fire elemental was, the more elements they needed to absorb from the environment each day. Notably, different regions had different supplies of such energy, which explained why these elementals weren’t able to settle

If like what Arca said, Flame’s End allowed all those who reached the level of Six-stars to live there and barred no one who met that criteria, it was only natural for the volcano to be considered a sacred ground for the fire elementals then.

“Whether or not it’s unlimited, I’m not entirely sure either. All I know is that those who met the requirements are allowed to join without restriction.” As he said that, his voice trembled. “I initially thought of the entire raid as a disaster but who would’ve thought that it would become a one in a million opportunity instead…”

Perhaps to Arca, this entire Fire Devouring Fish raid was some sort of opportunity, but somehow it all felt a little off to me. Logically speaking, such an incursion should have happened in the past as well. This instance was supposed to be a unique occurrence but for it to require all the fire elementals to hide out in the volcano…

Looking at it from another point of view, this couldn’t have been some simple Fire Devouring Fish raid then, could it? At the very least, it was at the level where the salamanders couldn’t handle it by themselves.

Seeing the elemental prattle on like that, Mo Na begun to get a little annoyed so she cut him off halfway: “Since we’re here, isn’t it time for you to give us those two Five-stars Fire Elemental Cores you mentioned?”

“The fire elementals keep their promises.” Even though he was still in the midst of his gushing, Arca suppressed the burning desire within him to keep on talking, and waved his right hand. Not too long after that, another fire elemental stepped out from behind him and held out two red pearls, both the size of a chicken egg.

The pearls were nearly transparent and didn’t contain a single speck of impurity within them. Their beauty was one that couldn’t be put to words and had to be seen for oneself in order to do it justice. Compared to them, those so-called luminescent pearls from Earth might as well had been marbles.

Even though he was reluctant to part with these pearls, Arca handed them over to us in the end. “We are extremely grateful…you are a trustworthy devil who keeps a promise…”

“Perhaps all devils might seem bereft of good points to you, and are a bunch of vengeful and erratic fellows, but at the very least, I’m not such a person. You should be glad.” I handed over the two cores to Mo Na before turning around to face No.3 and Big 4. “Let’s go, this isn’t a place we should stay for long.”

Just as I was about to leave however, Arca called out to me: “Wait, if I’m willing to offer another reward, would you stay to help us?”

‘Stay? No way. Since we got our reward, it’s time for us to leave, right this instant.’ Even though I only managed to gleam some tidbits of information during this escort mission, they were enough for me to piece together a terrifying conclusion: something big was about to happen. As for what that was, I had no idea, nor did I wish to find out. A battle of this level simply wasn’t one we could take part in right now. After all, with our current strength, we might just end up as fodder…especially since this volcano was the home of elementals who were at least Six-stars.

For such a mighty settlement, at least it was in my eyes, to end up as a refugee camp, things truly had to have been bad. More importantly, there was still the matter of devils having a horrible reputation. A reputation so horrible, even devils didn’t trust each other… ‘in short, don’t trust a devil.’

“I’ll have to pass on that, I’m sure you know about our abysmal reputation as well. If I stay, can you guarantee that I won’t encounter any problems because of that?”

“Wait, I know you have no concrete plan at the moment. Even if you leave now, you’ll just end up wandering around aimlessly. If you wish to find the area where the devils used to live, I might just be able to give you some clues regarding that…”

“The area where the devils used to live? Didn’t you say that you had no idea?” I posed a question regarding that not too long ago. Back then, he told me that he had no idea and I wasn’t all too surprised by that answer. What did you expect

Arca hesitated the moment I said that but he chose to fess up in the end: “I didn’t tell you then because I was afraid you would force me to speak…”

80 000 years ago, this entire region used to be the territory of a Devil King. As for what that king was called, that information was lost to time. One day, that Devil King simply vanished into thin air, and along with him, all his subordinates disappeared as well.

For some unknown reason, their territory ended up being shut behind a mysterious barrier and the devils who lived there simply disappeared without leaving much of a trace. However, that didn’t mean that all the clues were gone either.

The hint Arca gave us was to head east. As for what there was there, even he himself didn’t know the details. All he heard was that devils used to live there.

‘The east huh, I guess just knowing that is good enough for now. As for that disappearing Devil King and his subjects…thanks but no thanks…’

Having said our farewells to Arca, we immediately set off without stopping. In order to avoid any accidental clashes, Arca even assigned us a few fire elementals to be our guide, at least up to the point where we completely left the boundaries of Flame’s End.

As expected, we ended up meeting several patrols of Fire Elementals. Their first reaction to us was naturally one of complete wariness and even hostility in some cases. Thankfully, Arca’s bit of conscientiousness and foresight saved us from any potential clashes. He had specifically instructed the fire elementals guiding us to vouch for us.

While I still wasn’t able to understand their language, the gaze they gave us after that round of explanation was noticeably friendlier though there was still a tinge of suspicion buried deep beneath it.

The moment we left the boundaries of Flame’s End, our guides bid us farewell and left immediately, seeing as the area was no longer part of the safe zone.

With regards to her devious suggestion of robbery, my only response to pick her up by the cuff of her neck and slap her not-so meaty bottom thrice. Brows furrowed sternly, I chided her: “Papa doesn’t like children who are naughty so you’d better not do bad things, got it?”

“But devils are supposed to do bad things.” Bottom spanked, she showed no sign of remorse and instead gave me a harrumph of dissatisfaction before turning her head away to ignore me. “Devils who do good deeds are the devils who are bad instead.”

‘Devils who do good deeds are the devils who are bad instead? That sounded so weird. Either way, this calls for another round of punishment.’

I lifted her face up with my finger and made her look me right in the eyes from that position. “I don’t care about the others but I definitely won’t allow you to do bad things. I want you to be a good girl instead.”

“That’s for other devils, not for Papa’s little baby.” For her to lean towards such deviant behavior was only to be expected of a devil. After all, devils weren’t able to even understand the concept behind the term good samaritan. However, I was different. Even though that episode in the human realm left me sullen, I still couldn’t deny the human nature within my soul. Because of that, I did not want Mo Na to be bad either. It was my wish for her to be kind-hearted or at the very least, not be a wicked devil.

“Papa just has to look cool, not adorable.” Seeing as our little chat wasn’t going to work out, I returned Mo Na back to her perch around my neck before addressing No.3 and Big 4: “We’ll find a place to rest first, after that we’ll head east…I wonder how long this journey of ours will last this time.”

“No matter how long it takes, we’ll do our best to protect Master.” The two of them pledged their loyalty once more, never once mentioning the two elemental cores.

With regards to those two Fire Elemental Cores, I decided to put it aside for now after some deliberation. As for the reason why I did so…in part it had to do with my mistrust of No.3 and Big 4. However, the biggest reason had to be that I felt no sense of security at all.

In my mind, I knew very well that giving them the two cores would make our journey a lot safer but my heart simply wouldn’t settle down. I was afraid that once they evolved into Five-stars, the Four-stars Mo Na and I would…I was afraid of betrayal, that’s all.

The evolution of a Four-stars into five wasn’t just a simple raise in level. For the devils, it represented a turning point, a jump from one tier to another. The majority of the lower ranked devils found themselves stuck at the level of Four-stars for the rest of their lives. Those who managed to evolve however, were blessed with an original sin and a clan name. Compared to the imps they were before, such devils might as well have been a completely different lifeform.

If one wanted to see how huge the power gap between having a sin and not having one was, Mo Na and I would probably the best examples available.

Compared to an ordinary imp, we completely outclassed them in terms of raw strength. For example, when I evolved for the first time and gained the ability to use magic, none of the imps at my level were a match for me. When I advanced into a Three-stars, I was able to even challenge those of a higher level than me thanks to my original sin blessing countering some of my opponents completely; like One-eye or Dawson.

As for Mo Na, she was able to destroy Nine-finger in an instant with her magic despite being born not too long ago. While that might not have sounded all that impressive for Mo Na who was a Four-stars, one had to

Mo Na was a Four-stars Primal Lust Demon. Just from appearances alone, she seemed to be of the martial branch; I wouldn’t be surprised if she was able to take on No.3 and Big 4 alone even though they were of the same star level.

Naturally, if both of them evolved into Five-stars, she wouldn’t stand a chance at all…if those two were to harbor any rebellious thoughts then…it would be the end for us. Moreover, whether or not they would still be loyal to me after gaining an original sin, was in still in question.

That was why I didn’t give them the elemental cores. Originally, I wanted to have Mo Na consume the cores instead but unfortunately for me, she couldn’t use them. Fire Elemental Cores were able to aid a devil’s evolution, that much was proven. However, that only applied to Flame Demon Childes and Mo Na was already a Lust Demon. Her elemental nature was one of darkness, fire and death. A pure fire crystal like that wasn’t enough to force an evolution for her. Not only that, it might end up harming her instead.

By using such a pure elemental core of the fire element, her body might just get purged of every other element but fire. In other words, by using the elemental core, these three scenarios might happen:

Because Arca pointed out a general direction for us, our general goal was set for now. We simply had to follow the route and to be honest, it wasn’t really all that hard as it sounded since Purgatory’s terrain was rather simple.

Basically, you couldn’t get lost unless you tried. Neither would you encounter many problems as long as you kept your head down and went on your merry way. Naturally, we did just that. Other

After three days of journeying eastward, we came upon a huge school of fishes. From the looks of things, they were headed to Flame’s End. Thanks to the fact that they could only move about in the lava lake however, we were basically safe where we were.

With their countless numbers, these fishes were actually able to fill up the entire lava lake as they swam in unison towards Flame’s End. If someone with Trypophobia were to look at them right now, they would probably faint from all the swimming black dots. What was even more frightening was that the fish leading the school was actually the size of a shark, a Great White Shark to be specific. By my estimation, it had to be at least 6 metres long.

Initially, I didn’t even notice that there was a gigantic shark-sized Flame Devouring Fish swimming underneath lava. After all, that endless sea of black fishes behind it was enough of a shock already. The moment its humongous head broke through the surface, revealing a glossy coat of obsidian black scales that almost seemed like armor in the process, it turned its bloodshot eyes towards me. It was then that I knew what it felt like to have a reaper stare you right in the eyes. I could have sworn that my soul was being sucked into the bloody abyss that was its eyes. Yet amidst all that, I stood there paralyzed, unable to do a thing before the embrace of death.

Time slowed down and my thoughts seemed to freeze up there and then. Then, it all went black. I knew nothing of what happened afterwards and by the time I woke up, the school of fishes was already long gone.

Should I celebrate the fact that the fishes weren’t able to walk on land? Or perhaps I should thank the heavens that they weren’t interested in land creatures…

‘Even my little sweetie is shaking right now…I guess it can’t be helped…she’s a newborn after all and that had to be her first brush with death.’

Naturally, we weren’t the only two affected by that sharklike fish’s stare; No.3 and Big 4 were scared stiff as well. In fact, they literally stood there frozen, not daring to move a muscle, let alone cry or tremble.

“It’s alright Sweetie, Papa’s…” I gently rubbed her head and tried to comfort her. However, just as I was about to say ‘Papa’s here to protect you’, I abruptly stopped.

‘What If that happened again…what if a creature of that level were to take an interest in us or perhaps we stumbled on it while it was hungry…’ I dared not ponder that question any further. In a vast world like this, there existed too many unknowns for the current me to handle. Exactly, what kind of fate would await us if I wasn’t strong enough? That was something I didn’t dare to think about but most likely it wouldn’t be good.

For now, I should at least celebrate my decision not to accept Arca’s request otherwise we might just end up meeting that fish in battle…

With that in mind, I suddenly had the urge to consume those two cores right away. However, I abandoned that impractical idea in the end. Putting aside the question of whether or not my body was even suited to that, so what if I consumed them? The majority of the energy would most likely be absorbed by Ferti’nier, leaving nothing but scraps for me.

Who was this Ferti’nier, one might ask. Well, she used to be an existence who almost became a Devil God. At the very least, she was a demigod. While I might not know how powerful that actually was, it didn’t stop me from guessing.

Demigods were at a level beyond me, and Ferti’nier was the elite of elites even amongst such beings. Looking at that from another perspective, there was no way the energy needed to

In that case, the only option would be to raise Mo Na’s level. Thus began our frantic search for Red Lotuses and souls. Anything that moved was killed and its soul harvested for Mo Na. By doing so, I hoped to raise her level to Five-stars in a short period of time. Only when she evolved would I have the confidence to give No.3 and Big 4 those two elemental cores.

Perhaps it had something to do with her absorbing the Grimoire of the Dead, but ever since then, I’ve never heard her say that she was full. Naturally, that didn’t mean she starved all the time either.

Just like that, our journey proceeded uneventfully for over a month. Along the way, we harvested whatever we could and hunted whomever we found.

By now, I was beginning to wonder if Arca was messing with me with that so-called hint of his, but just as I did so, I found, to my great surprise, a lifeform that could be classified as a devil.

According to my inherited memories, Cerberuses had to at least be at the level of a Four-stars. That meant the hellhound spitting fire at a platform right in front of me was at least at the level of No.3 and Big 4. Even though we weren’t that far off from it, there was something obscuring our vision so I couldn’t discern what it was spitting at.

The moment I spotted it however, the Cerberus stopped spitting fire and turned all six of its eyeballs towards us. It opened its jaws and growled at us in a low voice. Naturally, I didn’t understand a word it said but having been with Violet Snow for so long, I could roughly figure out that it was warning us not to approach.

However, there was no way I would listen to that warning. After all, this was the first sighting of something devil-like in over a month! There’s no way I would leave without saying hello at least.

“We mean you no harm, if you require help, we might just be able to help you.” I let Mo Na off my neck and then opened my arms to show that I was unarmed. With that gesture of peace, at least it was one in my mind, I slowly approached the Cerberus.

“Grrr…” Instead of reining in its aggression, the Cerberus seemed even more agitated by my actions. The closer I got, the louder it growled.

Seeing that, I was reminded of a saying from Earth, ‘Dogs who bite, don’t bark.’ Clearly that didn’t apply here. Even with a river separating us, the hellhound didn’t let its guard down at all. Realizing its warning wasn’t going to work, it arced its back and a second later leaped into the air, crossing the 10 meter wide gap of lava between us in an instant.

With a hound as large as a bull closing on me like that, I had no choice but to make an emergency dive to the side lest I was rammed into.

The Cerberus crashed into where I was just seconds ago. So forceful was its ram that it took the combined strength of No.3 and Big 4 to finally halt the momentum of its leap and avoid being knocked away. However, because of the sheer power of that leap, the two were pushed back a significant distance before they finally managed to steady themselves.

“You dare to harm the Master? Unforgivable!” Hastily throwing on the Fire Devouring Fish Claws, No.3 lunged at the right most head of the Cerberus.

“Don’t kill it, I want it alive…well, just do your best.” Thanks to the efforts of No.3 and Big 4, I was able to safely extricate myself from danger. I reached out for Shadowfang with right hand just as before. But after giving

No.3 and Big 4 grabbed onto right and leftmost heads of the Cerberus, leaving the center one unrestrained to wildly flail about and bite at the other two, spitting fire at them from time to time.

Perhaps it was because it had been spitting fire all this while, but its flames weren’t as hot as I had expected and barely left a mark the flame resistant No.3 and Big 4. As if they were born of steel itself, the two devils stood there like immovable statues and held down the hellhound’s heads. Whenever one of the heads tried to bite, the other devil would apply more apply force and drag the hellhound more to his side. Like that, No.3 and Big 4 rotated between protecting each other while neutralizing the threat of the hellhound.

To prevent any potential accidents, Mo Na took this opportunity to tie down the last head with her darkness whip. At times, I couldn’t help but wonder how an object made entirely of energy was even able to do that; truly marvelous.

With that, the hellhound was completely restrained by us. Realizing that as well, the hellhound gave up on struggling though it still had that fierce look on its faces. Its heads were swiftly pressed down onto the floor, causing its limbs to follow suit soon after.

For now, the Cerberus wasn’t going to be a threat to us, especially since No.3 and Big 4 had their arms wrapped around its vulnerable neck. And yet while all that was happening, I couldn’t help but notice the unusual lack of strength it showed. My instincts were telling me that this shouldn’t have been all that it was capable of.

Violet Snow once told me that a hellhound only evolved into a Cerberus once it reached the level of Four-stars. Moreover, just because it was a Cerberus, didn’t mean

However, this Cerberus only managed to display the strength of two Four-stars combined despite being the size of a bull. No matter how one looked at it, something wasn’t right. Furthermore, taking into account that it had been spitting fire at a nearby platform…

Since I couldn’t fly myself and No.3 and Big 4 were on restraining duty, that left only Mo Na free to check out the platform. Before doing so however, Mo Na channelled even more mana into her darkness whip and lengthened it so as to maintain the binding on the Cerberus while she flew up there.

“Woof wooff…” Seeing her fly up like that, the Cerberus immediately broke its silence once more and began violently thrashing about. It clearly was on its last legs but that didn’t stop it from nearly throwing off No.3 and Big 4 with its last desperate attempt at breaking free.

“Don’t worry, Master, we aren’t that weak.” As Big 4 yelled out that reassurance, he threw a look at No.3 who returned it as well. The pair nodded before simultaneously leaping onto the Cerberus’s neck and gave each head a resounding punch, forcing the hellhound to its knees once more.

“Mama, there’s a really big egg here but it looks like it’s going to die.” Mo Na came flying down soon after but while she was empty handed when she flew up there, this time she came back with an egg almost as large as her body.

‘I guess it’s an egg? It looks like a chicken egg except for its pitch black shell riddled with intricate red engravings.’

Placing my hands on it, I was immediately struck by a slightly chilly sensation which was definitely unusual given where we were right now. By all accounts, one shouldn’t feel cold in Purgatory at all. And yet as I touched the egg, I could almost feel the heat being drained out of it in realtime.

If I wasn’t mistaken, that sensation had something to do with the Cerberus spitting fire at it not too long ago. It was probably trying to keep the egg warm by doing so. However, the egg was most likely unable to absorb the flames within the Cerberus’s breath or it could just be that the flames weren’t able to keep up with the loss of heat.

‘Of course, it could’ve just been cooking the egg…but then, I don’t remember the hellhounds having a habit of eating cooked food.’

“Is this yours?” I slowly walked up to the restrained Cerberus and found all six of its eyes fixed intently on the black egg in my arms. It was as if it was afraid to blink for even a second, as doing so might just cause the egg to vanish from its eyesight. Seeing that pleading look in its eyes, my heart sank; it almost felt like we were committing some sort of atrocity right now.

‘Honestly, I thought it was trying to roast that egg for food, mhm…well, at least now I know that’s a mistake on my part. After all, trying to roast an egg that’s already as black as charcoal is kinda…unthinkable.’

“I know you understand the language of the devil. As I mentioned earlier, we mean you no harm. This is yours I presume, I’ll return it to you but before that I need to make something clear, you are not to attack us once I let you go, got it?”

Creatures categorized as devils knew the language of the devil from birth; it was merely the biological differences between the hellhounds and normal devils that prevented the majority of them from speaking our language. Naturally, Violet Snow was an exception.

However, that didn’t mean that I trusted the Cerberus entirely either. While a peaceful talk would be best for us, there was no ruling out the possibility that it would not follow our wishes. Thus, as I told No.3 and Big 4 to retreat, I secretly told them to remain on guard for any sudden movements.

Having regained its freedom, the Cerberus didn’t pounce at us. Instead, as I had expected, it started spitting fire at the egg once more after confirming that we held no ill will towards it.

Barring any strangeness, this Cerberus was probably a hellhound that had just given birth and was most likely a Five-stars before pregnancy. For some unknown reason, the egg it gave birth to was the dying black egg we saw before us. Perhaps it was a failed birth from the very beginning or perhaps some other external factor caused it to be as such. Either way, it was an undeniable fact that the egg was unable to hatch and was slowly losing its lifeforce.

With each breath of fire it spat out, the Cerberus would wail mournfully into the air. Hearing its grief, I couldn’t help but share in its misery and tear up as well. My heart, which wasn’t all that hard to begin with, softened even more. No.3 and Big 4 each threw me a look asking for instructions but I merely shook my head and remained silent. My intention then was to observe for a while more.

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The Devils Evolution Catalog
The Devils Evolution Catalog 1-200

The Devil’s Evolution Catalog, Chapter 1 - Chapter 200

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© Copyright The Devils Evolution Catalog Размещен: 06/03/2020, изменен: 06/03/2020. 3431k. Статистика. Стихотворение: Foreign+Translat Other Иллюстрации/приложения: 201 шт. Скачать FB2		Ваша оценка:

The Devils Evolution Catalog The Devils Evolution Catalog 1-200

The Devil’s Evolution Catalog, Chapter 1 - Chapter 200

Annotation

The Devils Evolution Catalog
The Devils Evolution Catalog 1-200