NOVEL NEXT Chapter 245
“Damn it! You pathetic, worthless insects!”
Upon hearing the reports from the Febria Bay battle, the Demon King erupted into a flurry of curses like a broken machine. The messenger trembling in fear worried that the King’s rage might also turn on him, but the Demon King wasn’t foolish enough to execute the messenger for simply bringing bad news.
Accurate information is always crucial. If someone is punished for delivering bad news, only distorted information that sounds pleasant will reach the ears, leading to ruin. However, she couldn’t suppress her own emotions and yelled angrily as she chased the messenger away.
“What are you standing there for? Bring the Succubus Queen at once! Tell her to lead the army east. She is the only one who can hold back the Great Sage right now!”
“Um, Your Majesty, the Succubus Queen… is currently leading her forces to suppress the rebellion in the west.”
“Another damn rebellion has broken out?!”
“It’s a significant goblin uprising in the western region. The Succubus Queen deemed it an emergency and moved without reporting to the Great King. She said she will report after the matter is resolved…”
“Well done. With a talent like hers, she can act without reporting to me each time. But how is it that a rebellion in the west coincides perfectly with an advance from the east? What kind of fortuitous coincidence is this…”
The Demon King briefly fell into deep thought, grinding her teeth.
“Does it seem like the Succubus Queen anticipated the rebellion beforehand?”
“I’m not sure, but it seems she had been keeping an eye on the west for a few days now.”
“In that case, some intelligence must have been caught in our network. There’s an outside force instigating the rebellion, and it is undoubtedly Harker. She has likely convinced my demon kin under my command that they could live safely in the Empire by surrendering, using her half-demon heritage as a pitch. I thought she despised being a half-vampire…”
The Demon King frowned deeply.
“It seems like a human who has changed her mind is trying to fully utilize the assets she can use. She has become even more cunning and vile. Why is it that every time the enemy is on the verge of collapse, these monstrous beings pop up like pesky weeds? A true crisis for the nation has arrived. If we cannot fend off this attack, we will have no choice but to resort to a disaster evacuation!”
In reality, Jenis’s strategy was partially a failure. She had successfully coaxed the monsters in the western region to incite a rebellion as she advanced, but due to some vagueness in the information, it raised the suspicion of the Succubus Queen.
Though unsure of the rebellion, the suspicious Succubus Queen acted quickly, successfully quelling the half-demon rebellion with her own troops before it could spread further. However, as she was in the west dealing with this situation, she could not come to confront Jenis’s Southern Alliance approaching from the east.
The Demon King was not particularly joyful about this unfortunate blessing.
“There’s no other choice. I will lead the charge.”
The Demon King made her decision. The skeleton lich in charge of the messenger lowered his head and asked, “What kind of forces shall I prepare?”
“Raise 30,000 fast cavalry. With such a strategic operation in play, the Eramenia army will respond promptly. We must defeat the alliance forces before the elves can join, push them back, and gather the remnants to starve them out.”
“Understood.”
By observing Jenis’s unyielding advance, the Demon King concluded that she had no time to gather a large army. The 500,000 elite troops that had been assembled were now completely scattered, so tracking them was impossible. It would be manageable to regroup roughly 400,000 of the scattered remnants later, but Jenis was rapidly approaching the Demon King’s Castle with the intent to strike before allowing them any opportunity to recover.
If she was allowed to break through and abandon the Demon King’s Castle for the west, the Moriarty Machine, which was just starting to recover, would be burning again, and it would be back to square one. If she could reclaim the resurrected James Moriarty, it was not that it wouldn’t be possible to remake the machine, but the country might fall before recovery succeeded. The approaching Jeongjae was no small threat either.
Moreover, the very instability inherent in the western evacuation could not be overlooked. The west of the Demon King’s territory was an area currently embroiled in rebellion, and even without it, it was too close to the Dragon Lord’s directly governed territory. If the Demon King’s power were to be significantly reduced and she had to entrust her safety to the Dragon Lord, the worst-case scenario could be that Violet might have to cede her throne to the dragons and retreat into the mountains.
With national collapse looming and the Demon King’s army teetering on the brink, Violet Moriarty was desperately gathering the last of her elite reserve forces for an interception.
“It’s a do-or-die fight.”
However, from the Demon King’s perspective, the situation was not entirely bleak. Jenis’s own circumstances weren’t sufficiently secure either. She was advancing without leaving a retreat behind.
In other words, if the Great Sage did not achieve victory, she too would face total annihilation. If she succeeded in completely defeating this army, Eramenia would have difficulty advancing alone in the north. The Great Sage would practically be unable to avoid losing her position, and the Empire would lose one of its most powerful forces.
In that event, Jeongjae’s Northern Expeditionary Force could not continue to push forward. Rather, the Demon King’s Army would seize the advantage and press south after the rear threat had been eliminated.
The stage was set for a decisive battle that would determine the fate of each faction. While hope had not completely vanished, it was but a lamentable situation for the Demon King, who just two years prior had stood in an absolute offensive position, now bereft of considerable southern and eastern territories and cornered.
“If Diana had survived, things wouldn’t have reached this state. In hindsight, I’m the one who caused her death…”
The Demon King murmured softly, so as not to be overheard.
The loss of the Gargoyle Queen was one of the most painful blows to the Demon King. The Gargoyle Queen, a race that had essentially become extinct within the warlord coalition of the Demon King’s army, was a lone figure with no power base relying solely on her personal strength.
In the early days of the regime, apart from the Dracula and Succubus clans, which were essentially blood relatives, Violet had no absolute basis of loyalty. She had been carefully watching the existence of the Gargoyle Queen for over a hundred years, nurturing her as her ‘iron hammer.’ The Gargoyle had always played the roles of guard or assassin due to her lack of education, but during the war against the Audrich Empire over a decade ago, her position had started to grow significantly.
The active utilization of the Gargoyle Queen was a deliberate choice by the Demon King, who had no reliable generals. The Gargoyle was not particularly sharp-witted, but she understood the basic fact that her status and life depended almost entirely on the Demon King’s favor.
Over a decade of long war gave Diana the experience to grow into a figure capable of performing a commander’s role in the truly brutal charge scenes. The moment the Demon King realized she had lost the Gargoyle Queen due to a strategic miscalculation, she felt frustration boil within her to the point that she momentarily forgot about the report of Walter’s death and the news of the Moriarty Machine’s destruction.
Whether this frustration stemmed merely from losing a trusted subordinate she had painstakingly raised or from some inchoate personal affection for her remained unclear. However, as she witnessed the pathetic fall of the ogre ruler she had picked to potentially replace the Gargoyle Queen – one who performed even worse than the Gargoyle of a century ago – the Demon King couldn’t help but miss her former aide deeply.
“The dead are dead. No amount of tears will bring the dead back.”
Necromancy is an imperfect and limited art. Even the resurrected James Moriarty serves merely as a library of stored information, and cannot replicate the cunning and craft he possessed in life.
Moreover, the ability to extract any degree of intelligence from the brain is an act only possible through exceedingly powerful and high-level necromancy. There is no magic that can bring the dead back to life and use them exactly as they were alive. If such a method existed, just resurrecting the dozens, even hundreds, of mid-tier Demon King generals killed by the hero in the war over the past ten years would significantly bolster the army’s endurance.
The scars left by Walter’s exploits during the ‘Hero Party’ era were causing a debilitating aftershock at a critical moment. While movements on the frontline had been stagnant due to a solid no-member line, Walter Hellhound had begun a large-scale military offensive against the Demon King’s army, targeting elite heroes and high-ranking monster nobles and obliterating the human foundation of the Demon King’s army.
Once the Demon King, who had once believed she would undoubtedly win without being pushed back, had even laughed at the actions of such a hero. But when the Northern Expedition truly began and the tide of war turned, and her highest-ranking demon officials began to fall, the Demon King realized what Walter Hellhound had done over more than eight years had been.
Once the supreme high-ranking officials at the top perished, there was no one left capable of filling those positions. When she recalled the names of demon commanders, all she received were answers stating they had already died at the hands of heroes or the Crown Princess years ago. Had many of them still been alive, suppressing the rebellious forces that were currently lurking behind her would have been an immensely easier task. Even Harker’s rampage could only occur on the board set out by the giant Hellhound.
Violet had to acknowledge it. The failures happening now were not due to bad luck or divine abandonment. She had been deficient and had overlooked crucial aspects for an extended time. The careful plans woven by the hero during the protracted years were still haunting her even after his death. She could now understand why her father, James Moriarty, would grind his teeth just at the mention of Holmes.
“Is this the family motto of your clan, that you fight your enemies even after death?!”
The Demon King stood from her throne, murmuring into the air.
“Preparing Scotland Yard in London and throwing oneself into the Reichenbach will remain unchanged, whether ages pass or worlds shift. However, I will not become like our father.”
The Demon King slowly descended from her throne, wrapping her black cloak around her. From behind, enormous black wings, far larger than any vampire or succubus, fluttered. Her sharply honed claws gleamed with a sharp shine.
Instead of the lich she had sent to convey the gathering of interception forces, the Demon King pointed to an orc officer and issued a command.
“General, prepare the castle’s defenses as a last resort. I cannot trust dragons; even if they were to come, they would not venture west. Prepare supplies and activate the moats. Check the walls, gather the defensive forces. Build fortifications around the castle or dig trenches. Assemble every conceivable defensive stance. At least 100,000 regular troops must be ready to defend this castle. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes, Your Majesty!”
The orc grunted, bowing his head to the Demon King. Of course, it was not a reassuring measure. Not only was there the lack of faith in the foolish demon preparations, but allowing enemies to approach the castle could mean Violet had effectively lost this war.
However, even if defeat were imminent, the determination on the Demon King’s face to make one last stand was stronger than ever. Frankly, she was confident she could win this confrontation.
“Don’t get too arrogant over your successive victories, rookie.”
The Demon King whispered, targeting Jenis.
“This cousin will show you what real war is.”
At this moment, as Harker’s forces marched west, the Demon King was moving to face Jenis in the east. In Eramenia, another queen was mobilizing her army to join the battle of queens.
Margaret of Eramenia donned a crown of leaves.