Book 1: Chapter 27: The War-torn Border Region
Book 1: Chapter 27: The War-torn Border Region
The [Fierce Dragon] instinctively felt unease, as its surroundings were too silent, almost like the calm before a storm. As it was contemplating whether to make a run for it, its surroundings suddenly changed, it was no longer the Unnamed Forest that it was used to but a wide and open field of decay, the only things adorning it were the shriveled and withered trees. Its intellect was sufficient to realize that this was the action of another entity and not just some freak phenomenon.
This was the Land of Night, a place of legends where demon kings and gods train and cultivate, dark existences such as demons would receive a large boon to their stats while those who weren’t of the dark side had a disadvantage due to there only being dark magic particles in this dimension and none of any other element.
Night was eternal in this world, with the only illumination being faint red light coming from a bright moon the colour of blood, making this dimension further resemble something of nightmares. Legend has it that this moon was dyed red by the blood of all those who had perished in this place.
Bella looked at her, the other beauties had already shown their true abilities as this place was separated from the outside world and they no longer had to fear to expose their identities to outsiders. Bella, Eleanor, and Dolores began to summon their exclusive demon kings’ blades while Mia, Angel, and Noesha began to unleash their demon god-level powers.
What surprised Bella most was that Kriss’ human body wasn’t affected in this dimension, Kriss had already switched her sword from ‘Darkness’ Torment’ to the sword that belonged to her past life’s best friend as well as her worst enemy, 【Sword King】 Klaudia’s weapon, ‘Tenderness of the Dark’. The blade radiated a gentle dark aura that enveloped Kriss.
Demon King transformation? After seeing the changes in Kriss, Bella was finally able to confirm that Kriss did have a dark-side, previously she had only seen it for a split-second in the eyes of a Sword-spirit, but now she was finally able to see the dark-form of the hero.
Who was more surprised than Bella was Hadias, today was quite an eye-opener for her; in the flash of an eye, 4 demon kings and 3 existences that she suspected were demon gods had appeared out of nowhere. She had thought that she was the strongest amongst the party but now it seemed that she was actually the weakest one here.
___
Back in the Dark Sanctuary’s demon kings’ hall, a sudden change came over the 12 demon king thrones who had remained still and silent all this time, the thrones of the 【Prime King】, 【Heavenly King】， and【Blood King】 were enveloped in a flash of light and then flew following the beam of light that they had given off into the skies.
Apart from the 3 thrones having taken off, the entire Dark Sanctuary was shaking; below the demon kings’ hall, three gigantic blurry figures slowly materialized and then took off following the thrones before them.
“The demon king-samas and demon god-samas are showing their force!” Seeing the events unfolding before them, the remaining dark suzerains left within the Dark Sanctuary kneeled as the demon king thrones being deployed and demon gods’ shadows being materialized meant that things were about to hit the fan.
“It seems that nee-samas are about to use their full power, messenger! Send a notice to the all the void monarchs, tell them to get to this location as fast as possible and support our demon gods and kings!”
Beside the remaining thrones, two petite lolis were giving orders to the awed dark suzerains. These two lolis were the human forms of 【Devil’s Wisdom】 and 【Demon’s Heart】, the two of them were highly intelligent and while they didn’t doubt the abilities of the demon gods and kings, they still decided to send reinforcements to help Bella and the others.
“Princess-samas, 【Bone-corroding Duke】 Adrian has sent a report that a massive fleet is approaching the sea line, from their flags they seem to be the expeditionary force from one of the demons’ four great empires, the Mephyr Empire.”
“Princess-sama, 【Skeletal Dragon Sovereign】 Brant has reported that another large beastmen army has been discovered near the borders of the Priestly continent and is asking for directions on how to proceed.“
“Princess-sama the Gabriel Empire’s(Swordsmen) reinforcing army has finally been deployed, Clement’s forces have already withdrawn from the Laerte line and are awaiting new orders!”
“Princess-sama, 【Shadowless Demon】 Tanpur in the Unnamed Forest region has discovered…”
“You all don’t need to continue with the reports. Pass my orders down, this entire region here belongs to the Dark Sanctuary, expel any outsider that isn’t female, those who won’t cooperate can rest here forever.”
The two lolis didn’t want to listen to all these reports, while they hadn’t expected for so many different forces to assemble in this region but they had already created 6 void monarchs and they should be able to deal with all these outsiders. Bella and the other demon kings and gods did not have access to their full power and potential yet as they were all somewhat incomplete, the Dark Sanctuary’s strongest firepower right now was definitely the 6 void monarchs that they had just created.
___
Back in the Land of Night, Bella’s party was currently preparing for their offensive on the [Fierce Dragon]. The demon kings’ thrones had already appeared behind Bella, Dolores, and Eleanor, and with the thrones, the three of them had also changed into their exclusive armours that were made from their own materialized demon king power, so each one of them had a differently styled armour.
Bella’s armour was pitch black with mysterious runes and symbols engraved on it. The name of the armour was ‘Black Fantasy’, along with the high amounts of dark power it gave Bella as the Prime King’s designated armour. The armour also had the passive ability 《Dark Silence》 that would activate when an assassin or a similar class launched a stealth attack on Bella, the armour would provide a dark shadow that blocks the attack, while the attacker will be blinded by the shadow for five minutes, giving Bella the ability to retaliate against her attacker.
There was no limit on how many times 《Dark Silence》 could activate, but it was only usable when an assassin attacks Bella without her noticing and also had a cooldown of ten minutes so there was still some openings.
After changing into ‘Black Fantasy’ she walked up to her exclusive throne and unsheathed the long black blade from behind the throne. The body of the blade was adorned with the same engravings as Bella’s armour but the runes also gave off a ghostly blue light that gently pulsated, as if it had a life of its own.
The name of this blade was ‘Dark Hymn’, the exclusive blade of the Prime King, its attacks passively applied 《Assault of Darkness》 which would bolster Bella’s attacks with strong dark power that got stronger with each time it was applied in a certain period of time, Bella didn’t know if any limitations existed on how powerful it got, but she had not yet found it. ‘Dark Hymn’ would also buff nearby evil existences by massively increasing their defensive and offensive abilities, the most broken part about it was that it would also apply to stronger existences such as demon kings and gods, albeit to a lesser extent.
After Bella finished equipping her ‘loadout’ she looked towards Dolores, her armour was a dark purple and was engraved with what seemed to be the wings of demons and angels alike, which was rather strange as angels and demons were two very conflicting things and theoretically shouldn’t coexist on the same piece of equipment.
Dolores’ armour, ‘Falling Atonement’ was the only one amongst the 12 sets to have the holy attribute, later she would also be the only one of the 12 new demon kings to have holy abilities, due to her unique bloodline. ‘Falling Atonement’ had the passive ability 《Unpurified Sin》, that gave Dolores complete immunity to any light or holy magic, as long as they didn’t have at least twice her power.
Apart from her armour, Dolores’ weapon, ‘Legend of Light and Shadow’, was also the only one amongst the 12 exclusive weapons to have the holy attribute. The body of the blade was dark purple, with the wing of an angel on one side of the hilt and the wing of a demon on the other side, the weapon had the active abilities 《Judgement of the Divine》 and 《Trials of Hell》, skills that were targeted against light and dark existences respectively.
As for Eleanor’s demon king equipment, it consisted of a crimson armour engraved with various beautiful flower petals, when Eleanor had equipped her armour, red flower petals started to appear out of nowhere and fall slowly in a wide radius around her.
Bella was quite jealous of this armour that had its very own ‘special effects’, if it wasn’t for the fact that demon kings couldn’t interchange her equipment, she would definitely have asked Eleanor to switch armours with her already.
The name of Eleanor’s armour was ‘Hell’s Rose’, apart from the special effects, it also had a passive ability, 《Blood Temple》, an aura ability. The range of the aura was that of the falling petals, and within it, Eleanor and her allies would be able to enjoy rapid healing, even being able to rapidly regrow lost limbs, so the only real ways to kill them would be to either behead them or straight up vaporize them before they could regenerate.
Apart from healing allies, the enemies who entered the radius of 《Blood Temple》 would receive the debuff,《Blood Curse》, if they were to accidentally get wounded, no matter the size of the wound, the wound would be effectively fatal as 《Blood Temple》 would continue to drain their blood until they were dry. The only way to survive once a wound was inflicted on the body would be to quickly leave the range of 《Blood Temple》 or be in the possession of an equally high-tiered equipment.
Eleanor’s blade, ‘Crimson Nightmare’, also wasn’t simple. While the thin and elaborate blade that was a faint shade of red didn’t have the domineering air of Bella’s ‘Dark Hymn’ and wasn’t as eye-catching as Dolores’ ‘Legend of Light and Shadow’, the special ability of ‘Crimson Nightmare’ wasn’t any weaker than that of her peers.
《Scarlet Heaven》 was also 【Blood King】 Eleanor’s current signature finisher, to onlookers, it looked like a swathe of rose petals flowing with the wind following a slash with ‘Crimson Nightmare’. While the ability looked rather flamboyant, its killing ability was actually terrifying. The petals were merely a ruse, the true killer was the floral scent hidden within, those that smelled it would have all their blood sucked out by the petals around them and back into Eleanor’s 《Blood Temple》.
《Scarlet Heaven》 had only been tested on humans so far to rather excellent results, but Eleanor hadn’t had the chance to use it on other races like demons or beastmen. The last time that she had used it, she had instantly wiped out an entire mountain’s several thousand bandits, it would be a rather interesting scene if she were to ever use it versus an army that numbered in the tens of thousands.
Compared to the three demon kings, Angel, Mia, and Noesha’s change were more lowkey. Their equipment didn’t change from the clothes that they had been wearing prior, it was just that there was a giant blurry figure behind each of them, and they seemed to be standing on the figure’s shoulders high above the ground, quite different from Bella and the other demon kings who had manifested their own wings from their power.
Mia and Angel had removed the eyepatches that they had been wearing all this time, which were just for the purpose of hiding their differently coloured eyes. Now that they were about to unleash their ability, they no longer needed to wear it. Bella was finally able to see the colour of Mia’s other iris, different from the other side’s pink, this one was a mysterious light purple.
Angel and Mia’s power was not complete as their true god forms weren’t here, and they hadn’t summoned it, or else their transformation effects would at the very least be at the level of Bella and the others. Noesha chose to conserve her power as she was constantly running things from other worlds and their Creators to Bella, she had to ration her power so she doesn’t run out when she actually needs it.
The thing that shocked Bella the most was that the evil aura Kriss’ demon king gave off wasn’t any less than that of Bella and the other ‘professional’ demon kings, even seeming to be a bit stronger. Kriss also had a throne similar to that of Bella and the others’ appear behind her, the only difference was that hers seemed to be an illusory shadow, exuding a mysterious air.
The back of Kriss’ throne had seven sword slots, each filled with one of the seven swords that Bella had seen at the centre of Swordhaven that formed the constellation of the 7 Compass Stars. The seven of them were arranged in a fan shape on the back of the throne, with three on the right, three on the left, and one in the centre.
Even though the throne was just an illusion, the swords attached to it were completely real, the contrast between illusion and reality made the throne all the more mysterious.
Apart from the 7 at the back, on the armrests on either side had a unique sword slot, one carried a pure white sword with a thin blade, while the other one carried a dark red blade that exuded an intense aura of darkness. Bella had also seen these two swords, they were the most powerful within Kriss’ massive collection of renowned blades.
Of these 9 blades, Kriss didn’t use a single one of them, it felt as if she had summoned her throne only for show. She looked lovingly at the ‘Tenderness of the Dark’ in her hands, to Kriss, this weapon was more precious than any of the other swords in her collection.
Kriss had also changed into a set of dark grey swordsman’s armour, rather similar in style with that of Bella’s, being engraved with various strange runes. Bella had learned a little about these runes from Mia before, they seemed to be something used to contain the power of transmigrators with power so strong and rampant that they may lose control of themselves.
This meant that Kriss currently had not demonstrated her complete power and that this wasn’t even her final form, which with how strong Kriss was right now, might even be able to easily solo any of Bella’s 12 demon kings after she gathered them all.
Mia and Angel sunk into thought as they looked at Kriss, Mia had quietly activated the ability 《Evil God’s Gift》 which would buff all the demon kings but was completely fatal to any humans unfortunate to be caught within it.
They had already thought it strange when Kriss was able to enter the Land of Night without being affected, but now she was able to remain unscathed within the range of 《Evil God’s Gift》, Mia even received ‘friendly’ identification signals from the power radiating from Kriss, this discovery had dumbstruck the two loli demon and evil gods. The two of them also had no recollection of Kriss’ illusory throne, meaning that Kriss was very likely, not a demon king from the Worldbreaker faction.
“Earth to Mia, Earth to Angel, we can ponder the problem with Kriss-nee after we defeat this [Fierce Dragon], isn’t demon king just a title, should be simple enough for you two to give! Look, there’s something off about this [Fierce Dragon].”
With a reminder from Noesha; Angel and Mia finally returned their attention to the monster ahead of them. Not just the three lolis, Bella had also discovered something wrong with this [Fierce Dragon], it was too calm when faced with 4 demon kings and 3 demon god level lolis, while it had been shaking to the bone just moments before.