Gonna Be a Demon King!-Chapter 46: Crossing the Ravine

Unnamed Forest

Cinder Region

Ohlion Continent

April 5th

Year 9025

Long before the morning chickens even stirred awake—much less crowed—Xaren and Ilya were already awake, packing up their campsite.

The sky was still shrouded in darkness, but they needed to move early.

Their destination, Zlego, lay beyond a massive ravine nearly a kilometre wide. Even at full speed, it would take them about twenty seconds to cross—a short time, but not insignificant given the circumstances.

That wasn't even considering the time to get to the ravine.

First, they had to make their way through the forest to the ravine, descend its steep walls, cross the river at the bottom, and then climb back up to reach the city on the other side.

Crossing under the cover of night was far safer than attempting it in daylight when patrolling guards on the city walls could easily spot them scaling the cliffs or sprinting across open ground.

Once they made it across, they still had to widen the cracks in the barrier enough to slip through, avoid patrols, and find lodging too.

With such a schedule ahead of them, there was no room to waste time.

As Xaren thought about their schedule while getting ready, he felt a burning gaze drilling into his back.

Over the past two months of wing training, he and Ilya had grown considerably closer, and in that time, he'd learned quite a bit about the stoic demoness.

For example, he knew that she would keep watching him in silence until she couldn't hold her curiosity back anymore—at which point, she'd unleash a barrage of questions.

Rather than delay the inevitable, Xaren picked up one of the earrings from the case he was holding, clipped it onto his left ear, and spoke without turning around.

"What is it?"

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"I know the logic behind it, but I still don't understand why."

"Why what?"

Xaren raised an eyebrow as he fastened the second earring, and Ilya pointed at it as she responded.

"Why you have to change your skin colour."

As she spoke, Xaren infused magic power into the earrings, activating them. A thin film of energy spread rapidly over his skin, forming a second layer of skin of a much different shade—tanned brown, just like Ilya's.

He glanced down at his arms to assess the artifact's effectiveness before answering.

"Didn't the Lieutenant Colonel explain it? Unless they've got mixed blood from another race or they're mutants, humans aren't naturally born with 'grey' skin like mine.

If we're going to infiltrate a human town, walking in without doing something about that is basically advertising that I'm a demon spy."

His gaze flicked up to Ilya, whose skin tone had served as the reference for the artifact and continued.

"But your colour—while uncommon in certain parts of the world—exists naturally. There are plenty of humans like that."

"..."

Ilya remained silent even after he finished speaking.

To someone like her, who had always been surrounded by demons with animal heads, insect wings, and all manner of strange features as far as she could remember, grey skin hardly seemed noteworthy.

'True, I haven't seen any grey-skinned humans or elves in the places we've attacked... but I just assumed they were in a different part of the world.

I never considered that they might not naturally exist at all.'

Ilya had only ever seen human towns and cities amid attacks. Most of the time, the only humans she encountered were the soldiers left behind after civilian evacuations.

That was why she was burning with curiosity—she wanted to see what a human city looked like under normal circumstances, before the demons arrived to bring destruction.

With that anticipation and various expectations in mind, she and Xaren set off, heading south through the dense forest.

'On this Ohlion Continent, the demons control most of the northern territories, with the Cinder Region sitting somewhere near the north-southern border.

If cities like Zlego fall, the demons would push further into the south.'

Such thoughts crossed Xaren's mind as he studied the map in his hands, ignoring the snake slithering toward his legs.

The moment its fangs bared, poised to strike, Xaren's foot blurred. A sharp crunch echoed as he stomped down with triple gravity, crushing its head instantly.

"We still have some distance before the ravine. Let's pace ourselves so we aren't exhausted when we get there."

As he spoke, Xaren lightened his body and leapt onto a tree branch, sending a flurry of startled birds into the air before hopping to another.

Ilya followed close behind, using wind magic to achieve a similar effect as they dashed through the treetops.

They leapt from branch to branch, their movements disturbing the silence and alerting creatures lurking in the darkness.

A pair of nocturnal beasts launched themselves from the shadows, aiming to catch the two demons off-guard—the worst decision said beast ever made, and their last decision as well.

Xaren twisted mid-air to dodge the attack, then threw a gravity-enhanced kick that shattered one of the creature's skulls before it even hit the ground.

Simultaneously, Ilya sent a razor-thin blade of wind slicing through the air. The second beast barely had time to react before its head separated cleanly from its body.

The two continued forward, cutting down any monster that dared to chase them, not slowing their pace until the thick cover of trees began to thin.

The forest abruptly ended, giving way to an open expanse of land leading straight to the edge of the ravine.

A 500-meter stretch of rocky terrain lay between them and the cliff's edge.

The city was visible in the distance, its massive walls standing tall on the other side of the ravine. Even at this hour, patrols moved along the walls, their lanterns bobbing as they surveyed the surroundings.

But the light only reached so far. At this distance, Xaren and Ilya were invisible to the human guards.

They could see the bridge leading to the city gate despite how far they were due to the lights illuminating it, as well as the other security lights on the city walls.

Not stopping for a moment, the two dashed forward, reaching the cliff in seconds. Their wings unfolded in near silence, catching the air as they leapt from the edge.

With controlled descents, they glided downward, adjusting their movements to avoid turbulence and unnecessary noise.

The bottom of the ravine came into view, the rocky terrain stretching ahead, split by a wide river that snaked through the depths.

The moment their feet touched the ground, they dashed forward again, heading straight to the river before them. Though it spanned a large portion of the ravine's floor, areas with land existed on either side.

As for the water, that wasn't something either of them wanted to interact with. They didn't know what creatures lived within and weren't about to find out.

Without breaking stride, they spread their wings once more and launched into the air, soaring over the river in a swift arc.

A faint ripple in the water below hinted at movement, something large shifting beneath the surface. But by the time it stirred, they were already landing on the other side.

They rushed towards the other end of the ravine, quickly ascending just as effortlessly as they descended. They unfolded their wings and took off, staying close to the rocky surface as they flew up.

It didn't take long for them to reach the top of the cliff, and the moment they landed, they moved towards the eastern side of the walls.

The northern side which faced the direction they had come from was more heavily patrolled, and not long after they left their initial landing spot, beams of light swept across the area they had just vacated.

A patrol.

If they had lingered even a second longer, they would have been caught in its glow.

Without looking back, they pressed on, staying as close to the city walls as possible to avoid being seen by any other patrols.

As they moved, Xaren reached into his magic pouch—the one provided for this mission. It contained everything they needed, and now, he pulled out a device.

It was small, handheld, and emitted a faint hum—similar to a Geiger counter.

Activating it with an infusion of magic power, he kept his eyes on the readings as they advanced. However, the device remained silent even after they'd run several hundred metres along the side of the wall.

Just when Xaren was considering increasing his speed to cover more distance quickly, the device finally reacted.

Its constant hum shifted in pith, fluctuating as they got closer to a specific point in the barrier. After around 20 more metres, they came to a stop as the device's gauge was now reading its highest possible value.

"Oh, even I can see this..."

Ilya muttered silently as she noticed the weaker magic power concentration of the barrier wall. They'd arrived at one of the weak points in the barrier—the exact entry point they were meant to use.

'It's the first weak point when coming from the east, alright.'

This was the same entry point the previous demon infiltrators had used to enter the city. Since it still hadn't been compromised, they were making use of it too.