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Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 539
Chapter 539
Serandia, the largest metropolis in the southern region of Rizeln.
Thus far, the Demon King’s forces had been splitting up into five units to help secure the path ahead of the Allied Forces. Now, though, they were launching a preemptive strike to clear out the monsters at what could only be described as the heart of the storm.
Five Vampire Lords, along with the holy knights of the Holy Order, mages from the Vampire Council, and other powerful demons were all gathered.
Olivia, Harriet, Riana, Airi, and I were all there as well.
Our entire force was overlooking Serandia from high ground, concealed within the barrier Harriet had deployed.
The city’s layout was similar to the imperial capital. It was a vast city divided into two, north and south, bisected by the massive Razier River that flowed through its center. However, the infrastructure of the city had been reduced to nothing, and was swarming with monsters.
“Monsters...” Harriet muttered in a daze.
Gwoooor!
Kyaaaak!
Krrrrroooar!
Monsters of a size that could be rightfully called great beasts, as large as the skyscrapers from my past life, roamed around, while countless smaller monsters swarmed like ants at their feet.
Flying monsters darkened the sky, and among them were those that exuded overwhelming majesty.
“Dragon type...”
Though this was not the otherworldly dragon that we would have to face at the last gate, large monsters resembling dragons had already appeared.
The monster hordes were growing more numerous and more powerful. Ever since humanity’s response to the Gate Incident had intensified, the monsters seemed to have begun guarding the warp gates.
Fortunately, there were only a few of these so-called boss monsters.
There weren’t many monsters spewing forth from the warp gates, which were visible from our elevated position, perhaps because the area around them had been fully saturated. However, if the monsters close to them were wiped out, more beasts would start pouring out again, at an incredible speed.
Krrrrroooar!
No matter how elite our troops were, it was impossible to exterminate this massive horde of monsters, which seemed to number over four hundred thousand at a glance.
A hell teeming with monsters had unfolded in the present world. It felt as if the world had been corrupted.
This was what we had to face now, and things would only grow more dangerous from this point onwards.
Even the non-humans and those accustomed to slaughter grew tense at the sight of this overwhelming hellscape, and I was no exception.
“They’ve detected us.”
No matter how much we concealed ourselves, the monsters were diverse and unpredictable.
Even though we were on the outskirts, we were still visible from within the city’s boundaries. It was only natural that we were surrounded by monsters, and some of them could detect us despite our attempts at magical concealment.
“Let’s begin.”
At my command, the Vampire Lords and the clan’s mages began chanting spells.
Riana, who had already prepared herself, was also focusing on her abilities.
When it came to a large army attacking in a frontal assault, Riana’s weather manipulation ability could not be used offensively, as it would sweep both friend and foe away.
Once again...
Kurururung!
A massive tornado formed near the horizon, beginning to blow away the monsters in its path.
The wave of monsters surged toward us.
“Everyone! Battle positions!” Olivia shouted, wielding the demon sword Tiamata.
Kuruk... Kururuk...
Though their numbers were absolute, Olivia could summon an army. An army of the dead.
Guheheheh...
Hundreds of Death Knights began to crawl out from the ground, responding to the Divine Power of Kier and the demon sword Tiamata.
Even a single Death Knight had been able to overcome me before, someone who had been accustomed to Mana Reinforcement.
“Death, guide us.”
Numerous other holy knights of the Holy Order began to draw on this dark Divine Power to enhance their bodies and the bodies of the Death Knights summoned by Olivia.
The monsters did not employ strategy or tactics. However, the best strategy was always to have more troops and a stronger army than your enemy. More and stronger was often enough. Numbers themselves were already a valid strategy.
The overwhelming number of monsters began to charge at us. While the mages cast large-scale spells and Riana conjured up weather anomalies, Olivia Lanche and the priests of the Holy Order, along with the Death Knights, protected them.
And that wasn’t all.
“Please take care of us today, Ugren.”
“Grrr... Human, give it your all.”
A priestess, riding on the shoulder of an ogre over five meters tall, began chanting a holy spell, and the ogre’s body was enveloped in a radiant glow.
The veins on the ogre’s forearms, thicker than a human finger, bulged and throbbed.
Humans, vampires, and demons were all present.
Grrr...
Two shapeshifters transformed from human form into bear form and took up their positions.
“For the great ancestors and the Demon King!”
Gwoooor!
The orcs, too, were enveloped in a blue aura.
Strangely, they acknowledged Galarsh as the third in command, after me and Charlotte, perhaps because he was also an orc. Galarsh seemed to dislike it, though. Galarsh had lived too long to still align himself with that racial identity.
Undead, demons, and humans... We were a small army of barely a hundred.
Kwoooor!
The horde of monsters and the strangest army in the world clashed.
The ogre wielded a massive iron rod imbued with holy light.
Clang!
Gwoooor!
The ogre roared as the head of a giant monster that had been charging at it exploded.
“Ah! My ears!”
The wave of monsters crashed against the wall of the Death Knights. Olivia and the demons protected the mages and Riana against the monster wave.
Kwarang! Kwarang!
As she conjured up weather anomalies, Riana summoned a lightning barrage from the sky, exploding more of the approaching monsters.
They were certainly holding the monsters off. But the monsters who had not managed to detect us at first were starting to recognize the threat and were moving to join their brethren.
It was a daunting sight. A huge tidal wave of flesh surged toward us, threatening to engulf us.
I was right up there, holding the line as well.
Kurururung!
I activated the Flame of Tuesday, projecting mana toward the approaching monsters. Flames erupted from the ground, engulfing a vast area in fire.
Kwoooor!
Medium and small monsters that weren’t strong enough to withstand the flames and those that were not naturally resistant to fire burned to death as they charged through the sea of fire.
Nevertheless, the surviving monsters continued to surge in, only to be crushed by Olivia and her Death Knights.
The cries of monsters, the roars of ogres, and the howls of lycanthropes shook the earth. The flying monsters in the sky also caught onto us and darted toward us.
“Hup!”
Blue mana lines surged throughout Harriet’s body, and space began to warp around a point in the sky.
Zziiiing...
Dozens of strange points of light appeared, refracted within the sky, as if the world itself was warping.
Then...
Kwarururung!
A massive shockwave erupted outward from a point in the sky, pushing outward with such force that the ground itself trembled as the shockwave hit.
The wings of the flying monsters that had been diving toward us were torn apart, and their bodies burst open.
The shockwave in the sky shredded nearly a thousand monsters that had been flying toward us, causing them to crash to the ground.
Individually, each one of us could comfortably hold off a hundred. However, even if we could each stand our ground against a thousand, it wasn’t enough. There were just too many.
A third tornado summoned by Riana began to tear the earth apart. Even though it had been formed far away from us, we could feel the gale-force winds tearing apart the earth. Trees were uprooted, and giant monsters screamed as they were caught in it. However, since it was far enough away that it could thin out the monster hordes without sucking us into it, it did nothing to eliminate the threat that was right in front of us.
Those who could wield fire and lightning fought from range, while the Death Knights and demon fighters crushed any enemies who came too close.
It was hard to believe that there could even be this many monsters, and even more difficult to understand that more were pouring out of the gates every second.I felt a vague sense of despair at the absurdity I had created. No matter how many we killed, they kept coming.
The warp gates that had once been such a boon for humankind had become their greatest tragedy. The disaster, or rather the absurdity, that I had callously created with a shallow and petty thought made me realize how shallow a person I was.
Gwoooor!
Waves and waves of creatures threatened to overwhelm us. In the midst of it all, I was doing all I could in search of salvation. Even though I knew this tragedy would eventually end, how many would have to die? How many lives would have to be sacrificed?
Who would die? Who would survive?
Kwarururung!
A large monster spewing lightning turned a Death Knight to ashes. Olivia planted a leg on its knee, acrobatically vaulted over the top of it, and drove the demon sword Tiamata into its head.
“Die, and answer the call of power,” Olivia whispered almost as if it were a curse, and a black flash from the demon sword pierced the monster’s brain.
Swoosh!
The monster that had been spewing lightning suddenly turned its head and began to unleash its lightning against the other approaching monsters.
Kwarururung!
The lightning that had incinerated the Death Knight now began to burn through the approaching monsters. Olivia raised Tiamata, and the darkness pouring from it seeped into the bodies of the countless slain monsters.
Monsters with severed heads and torn limbs were resurrected by the power of the Demon God, and they began to turn on the other approaching monsters, biting, tearing, and ripping them apart.
This was the power of death, a power that grew stronger as more enemies died and more corpses piled up.
The wave of monsters that had crashed down on us now became a wave of undead, charging in the opposite direction.
Despair was piled on top of despair. Olivia Lanche, wrapped in the power of the Demon God, was dominating the battlefield.
As the dead monsters rose and began to push back what had once been their brethren, the tide of battle turned. Instead of just having to mount a defence for the mages in the backline, our forces began to slowly push back the monster horde.
Necromancy was one power that could resurrect the dead. Anna de Gerna from Class B also took to the battlefield in this way. However, Olivia did not use dark magic to achieve this end, but divine authority. The scale and impact of her power were overwhelming. Even so, it was only a small breakwater against the tide.
As the battle dragged on, the monster hordes around Serandia would gradually focus on this small commotion. As the scale of our battle grew, more monsters would converge on us, and we would reach our limits.
A hundred or so combatants were far too few to wage war against such an overwhelming horde of monsters. Even if each combatant could take on a thousand, the enemy numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and were being continuously replenished.
However, we weren’t mounting a suicide mission. We were buying time. Time for Riana to summon tornadoes, and...
Wooooong!
Time for the five great mages and the vampires of the Vampire Council to complete their magic.
Kururung!
The storm of mana from the completion of a tremendous, grand spell shook the earth like an earthquake.
I had never seen it before and didn’t know what would happen when such a level of magic, drawing on such a level of mana, was unleashed.
When the Archlich Lucren manifested his power, he had drawn forth countless meteors from the sky.
When the Vampire Lord Antirianus manifested his power, the barriers of the Temple had been shattered and crushed.
And now, this grand spell, created by the five ancient beings and the mages they had nurtured.
Meteor Shower Summoning.
The blue sky above, a mirror named heaven, was torn and shattered as though struck by the fist of a god, revealing a pitch-black night sky. Within it was the darkness of the void, shimmering with the constellations and the stars of the Milky Way. From within it, beams of light began to fall.
Even in the midst of a life-and-death battle, it was an unreal sight that left one momentarily stunned.
Hundreds and thousands of beams of light began to arc downward from the distant sky.
The meteors, burning up because of friction with the atmosphere, glowed with such an intense white light that they seemed to set the sky on fire, even in broad daylight, as they descended toward the earth.
Though they seemed slow, the hundreds of beams of light descending toward the earth were actually moving faster than the speed of sound, and were continuously tumbling out of the rift in the sky.
“Is this...”
All of this was part of an attempt to try and stop the Gate Incident, but could it actually bring about the end of the world? Was this what was meant by the saying “burning down the house to catch a flea?”
The overwhelming sight of such a large meteor shower was enough to provoke such anxiety. Though they seemed slow, the meteors were indeed descending toward the earth, and their speed became more apparent as they drew closer.
It wasn’t that they were getting faster. Their speed of descent just seemed more visceral, as though one could feel it on one’s skin.
Along the ground, three tornadoes raged, and from the sky, hundreds of meteors fell.
It was literally a rain of meteors. The hell underneath, teeming with monsters, was being crushed and buried under a hell of natural disasters.
A meteor exploded near the horizon, a distance away.
Flash!
A massive explosion accompanied the blinding flash of light, covering a large area in dust..
That was just the beginning.
Flash! Flash!
Kururururung!
With a deafening roar that tore through the atmosphere, the meteor shower began to vaporize the area around Serandia.
I could only hope that those flashes would also destroy the warp gates under them. And at the same time, I prayed that this meteor shower would not shatter this world.
Hundreds of beams struck the earth, and the impact sent the flying monsters tumbling through the air, tearing them apart or causing them to crash.
The monsters on the ground vanished, replaced by massive craters. To my despair, while the meteor shower was powerful, it didn’t erase all the monsters.
The meteor shower had targeted an excessively vast area, and there were gaps in the landscape that remained unscathed. Many monsters survived, and their numbers were still greater than ours.
Kukwakwang!
Hoping for a meteor to score a direct hit on the warp gate was akin to striking the lottery. It was like hoping for a single raindrop to fall on my head when only a hundred or so raindrops were falling over an entire city.
While the mages could summon a meteor shower, they couldn’t target it precisely. The warp gates were inherently sturdy, and could withstand the impact and explosion from an indirect hit.
Though I hoped the massive meteor strike would score a direct hit on the warp gates, that did not happen. However, the falling meteors managed to strike the mass of monsters swarming about the city, which was good enough.
The monsters were being thinned out slowly, even as their numbers were being replenished through the warp gates.
“Harriet!”
“Yes!”
At my call, Harriet traversed through space and arrived right next to me. It was time for the second round.
“Let’s go.”
I charged into the hellscape of meteor showers and storms to destroy the warp gate with my own hands.
By the time the Allied Forces arrived, the monster hordes would have been replenished. Even if they did not reach the numbers previously seen, they would still be overwhelming.
This was the one moment in which the number of monsters was at its lowest. If a small elite force was to act, it had to be now.
I didn’t know how far we could go, but we would destroy as much as we could and then retreat.
Only two of us went charging in—myself and Harriet de Saint-Ouen.
Kwarururung!
The storm of lightning summoned by Riana cleared the path as we raced toward Serandia.
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