Book 7: Chapter 413: Dark Dispute Above the Central Beacon Tower at Ancient Saxton Battlefield
Book 7: Chapter 413: Dark Dispute Above the Central Beacon Tower at Ancient Saxton Battlefield
In the Ancient Saxton Battlefield, inside the Demon King’s Passage, Bella successfully invaded this space where a Demon King had already appeared using her identity as Demon God. According to the Demon King summoning rules, the later Demon King was not allowed to take the place of the previous Demon King during a summoning.
However, Bella had invaded with her identity as a Demon God, so these rules did not apply to her. So far, she had met three females of the original Twelve Demon Kings from the ancient past. They were Dark Night Demon King Aggy, Ocean Demon King Victoria, and Demon King of Death Melinaz. Other than Demon King of Death Melinaz, who was able to escape due to time constraints, the remaining two had both let Bella take advantage of them to varying degrees.
The Demon King Bella ambushed this time wasn’t any of the three, though. Her target was much smaller in stature than all of them and was a female Demon King with a loli figure. The Loli Demon King fainted after Bella tapped on her acupuncture point.
This Loli Demon King had silvery-white hair covering her shoulders, and she was wearing a black dress. Bella could not tell her eye color since they were shut. As for her body, it was similar to President Lucia. They were both tall lolis but had contrasting bust sizes. Bella would feel a little sorry if she wasn’t flat-chested.
The Loli Demon King was soft to the touch. Bella had just lightly squeezed her cheek, yet she could feel how soft and tender it was. A pair of red demon horns adorned her head, looking like a headdress that had been put on as an accessory. Not every Demon King had horns, with very few born with demon horns. However, for the sake of keeping up their image as a Demon King, they would get a pair of demon-horn headdresses. This Loli Demon King was one of those hornless Demon Kings.
The mana of the Loli Demon King was more abundant than the three she had met before. If she wasn’t wrong, then this Loli Demon King should belong to the type of Demon King that focused on magical attacks. Her body wasn’t that strong. Otherwise, Bella definitely wouldn’t have been able to knock out someone who was also at the level of Demon King. She was out temporarily, so Bella could only squish her cheeks a little. She couldn’t touch her sensitive parts. A breast attack or whatnot might cause the loli to wake up.
Fortunately, this wasn’t any other Demon King. Else, Bella might have to spend more effort. Based on the dark rules, if this Demon King couldn’t open the summoning door, then another Demon King could take over her task as a substitute. When Bella saw the Loli Demon King’s petite body floating with the magic fluctuations of teleportation magic, she knew that she was going to be teleported back to her original position before she was summoned.
Bella didn’t think she was going to be summoned back so soon. She had wanted to take this opportunity to remove the clothes of this Loli Demon King and give her the standard gothic lolita type outfit, but it seemed she didn’t have the time.
Bella sprang into action. She went over to her with hairbands and quickly put the loli’s hair up into a double ponytail. Before the Loli Demon King disappeared, Bella even slipped a few gifts into her arms as an apology. After all, she had just stolen work from her peers.
Somewhere atop a dark secret mountain in the Human Continent was the female Demon Kings’ stronghold, the Night Rose Palace. At the summoning array at the center of the palace hall, the Loli Demon King was sent back. As soon as she appeared, the other Demon Kings noticed her.
“Ow, my head! Seriously, you guys! Speak! Who followed me and stole my summoning door?”
“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongues? I treat you guys as my sisters, but you plotted behind my back! If you wanted the summoning door, you could have just told me. We could have talked about it… Why knock me out at the back of my head? I’ll turn into a dummy if you hit it too much!”
“No? None of us left. See for yourself!”
Dark Night Demon King Aggy came forward to pass a mirror to the Loli Demon King. Only then did the loli realize that someone had tied her long silver hair into twintails. Also, there was a gothic lolita outfit in her arms and a large gift box containing lollipops. The gift-giver had visually measured her three sizes and gave her a matching set of cutesy underwear commonly worn by lolis without any size mistakes.
The other Demon Kings couldn’t figure out if she was angry or happy when they saw the blush on the Loli Demon King’s face. Even though she had puffed up cheeks, she didn’t seem to have any intention of letting the box of lollipops and the outfit go at all. If she really was angry, she would have destroyed those things immediately.
The other female Demon Kings did not have such things, and the male Demon Kings definitely would not gift these items. For a moment, the Loli Demon King had no idea about the ambusher’s identity. She only knew that someone had molested her since several of her buttons were loose when she came back. If there wasn’t a time issue, then the baddie who attacked her definitely would have taken her clothes off.
They must be really brave to dare to take off the clothes of a Demon King. The Loli Demon King finally realized how suggestive her thoughts were. She packed up the gifts, got up, and left with a straight face. The other Demon Kings just stared at each other. They had no idea what had happened, but they also couldn’t ask, so they went their own way.
The Loli Demon King was ranked very high in terms of combat power among the Twelve Demon Kings, much stronger than the three female Demon Kings Bella knew. On a whim, Bella had managed to molest another member of the Ancient Twelve Demon Kings. The Loli Demon King was not disgusted by the gift she gave her, but it would be nice if she could change the means of gifting.
Bella had no idea that the Loli Demon King was already mulling over the attacking bastard’s identity. Bella came out wearing a black cloak commonly worn by Demon Kings and a pair of blood-red horns on her head. Whoever it was, if they came out of the Demon King’s Passage with horns, their identity as Demon King was unquestionable.
The place where Bella reappeared was the beacon tower in the central area of the Ancient Saxton Battlefield. As the base command camp of the human allied army, this place witnessed the glorious moment when the human’s allied forces defeated the Demon King’s allied forces over ten thousand years ago. After more than a thousand years, it had changed a lot and became dilapidated.
Bella finally saw the person who had summoned the Demon King. It was the terrorist group of Evil Spirit Curse Masters from the Gates of Darkness. At the moment, they were surrounding the summoning array while chanting strange spells. They only stopped when they realized that the Demon King had descended.
“O Great Demon King, lend us your power! Our offerings are disrespectfully meager, but we still pray that you, Great Demon King, can help us!”
The offerings the Evil Spirit Curse Masters had prepared were Dark Energy Crystals. Even though Bella’s figure was severely inconsistent with the Loli Demon King they were trying to summon, the black Demon King cloak was the real deal, and she had also come out of the Demon King’s Passage. There were no issues calling her a Demon King. Besides, there were no returns when you summoned a Demon King this way. Even if you summoned the wrong one, you still had to carry out the deal.
A deal with a Demon King could not be easily terminated. It was taboo. If you made a summon and did not strike a deal with them, it was considered an insult to the summoned Demon King’s dignity. Even if it wasn’t originally necessary to give one’s life as a price, it did now.
Bella swept her eyes around and didn’t see any female Evil Spirit Curse Masters. This made her disappointed. Those Dark Energy Crystals were similar to the Divine Crystals Bella had given God Princess Suzia. They were tools used to store large amounts of energy of a specific race. As a Demon God, by essence, Bella did not need these Dark Energy Crystals. The necessities of a Demon King had instead become the least important things to those at the levels of Demon God and Evil God.
After confirming that there were no living people around, Bella cast her Demon King attack move, “Dark Incursion”, killing all the members of the Gates of Darkness who had summoned the Demon King. Bella had found out the motive of these Evil Spirit Curse Masters for summoning a Demon King the moment she arrived. They were hoping that a Demon King would be able to help them accomplish certain evil deeds.
“Dark Incursion” was one of the Demon King’s great entrance moves, with four balls of dark energy being shot out with the Demon King at the center. Enemies hit directly by it would be cut straight into several segments. Because of the excessively bloody effect, the warriors that hunted down demons did not dare to fight too close to the Demon Kings for extended periods. They could only rely on archers and mages to use long-range attacks to drain the Demon King’s energy.
These Evil Spirit Curse Masters were utterly defenseless. Usually, a Demon King would not kill off the summoning devotees as soon as they arrived. Even the most ruthless ones would not do such a thing. They generally listened to the requests of their followers before deciding on what to do next. Bella, however, belonged to a special type of these Demon Kings. She had no “professional ethic” to speak of. Her principle was to see whether the other party was pleasing to her eyes or not. If not, she won’t take the commission even if they were offering her a huge sum.
“Got it. You’ve all worked hard, so have a good rest!”
“Great Demon King, we…”
The faces of the Evil Spirit Curse Masters were filled with disbelief. They still had yet to react to the Demon King’s sudden attack when they had all been killed off. Following the annihilation of these Evil Spirit Curse Masters, the evil summoning array was also considered scrap. Even though the energy fluctuations could still be seen, the summoners had all been killed. This magic array was not destroyed simply because it didn’t seem like it was the Evil Spirit Curse Masters who had created it in the first place.
Bella was a little confused. According to the conversations she had with one of the three great Holy Maidens of the Darkness Church, other than demons, only someone from the Darkness Church would usually know how to prepare a Demon King summoning array. These Evil Spirit Curse Masters of the Gates of Darkness should have no idea about setting up a Demon King summoning array. Their usual arrays were for Mutant Holy Beasts and were not eligible to summon the Demon Kings.
Could it be that someone from the Darkness Church was secretly helping them? Following Bella’s discovery of the magic array that controlled the thousands of Corpse Demons and Corpse Kings, the answer was finally revealed. Her guess was correct—the Darkness Church really was helping out in this. In exchange, the Gates of Darkness helped them set up the Evil Corpse Manipulation Array mentioned earlier.
The Evil Corpse Manipulation Array’s layout was even more terrifying and bizarre than the Demon King summoning array, which was just a pile of purple lines drawn onto the floor. On this side were dark-red energy lines running through the ground. Seven open coffins were placed on the ritual magic array, each of them with a Ten Thousand Year Corpse King laying inside. Compared to the Corpse Kings outside, with hard-to-make-out faces, these Corpse Kings had clear features that looked as if they would wake up at any time.
The ones in charge of controlling this dark ritual were the female priests of the Darkness Church. A total of seven priests, all naked, were sitting next to each coffin. Their snow-white skin was particularly striking in this dark environment. Bella judged them to be the Holy Maidens of the Darkness Church, simply because of the cross necklaces at their chests. These crosses were the exact opposite of the Radiant Church’s. The Darkness Church wore inverted crosses, and the material was either bone or some other material with dark attributes.
The priestesses of the Darkness Church were all beautiful, around sixteen to eighteen years old. The easiest one to spot was a black-haired twintails loli sitting at the center of the Evil Corpse Manipulation Array. Her face was way prettier than her compatriots. However, a surprised expression decorated her cool and delicate face. She was puzzled as she looked at the blonde beauty who had suddenly appeared by the array’s side.
Bella had already taken off her Demon King cloak and the blood-red horns, currently donned in her light-silver Mythril Holy Knight armor. In this dark environment, Bella’s outfit was more conspicuous than the naked dark priestesses. The probability of a Holy Knight entering this place was almost zero. Even a dragon knight would have a hard time coming here, much less a Holy Knight.
Bella couldn’t care less about the surprise on that twintails loli’s face or the warning in those deep blue eyes as she walked toward the Evil Corpse Manipulation Array. The cross on the black-haired loli’s chest was different from the other dark priestesses. Bella had seen a similar style on Dark Holy Maiden Liz, so she could just about guess the identity of this loli: one of the three Holy Maidens of the Darkness Church, Netherworld Holy Maiden Livina. Bella had heard about her from Liz, who was also a holy maiden of the Darkness Church. Netherworld Holy Maiden Livina was the twintails type, so now that Bella had encountered her, she wouldn’t be able to escape easily.
“Stand your ground, Holy Knight! This is no place for you to be. Leave!”
“Livina, be a good girl and come back to the church with me. Confess your sins! You are the one who should stop. This magical array is very dangerous. You and your companions will lose your lives here.”
“So what? It doesn’t matter if I can obtain power! Liz, that girl. Her power has been surging up recently. If I don’t raise my strength, I’m going to fall behind.”
This Evil Corpse Manipulation Array had a grave price. The cost to control the strongest Corpse King was the caster’s own life. Once those seven Corpse Kings were resurrected, they would devour the sacrificers next to their coffins, and the two would become one. Only a place where the Evil Spirit Curse Masters gathered, such as the Gates of Darkness, would dare to study this type of evil and insane ritual.
Netherworld Holy Maiden was planning to sacrifice herself to merge with a Ten Thousand Year Corpse King. This way, she would be able to control all of the Corpse Kings and Corpse Demons here. Bella was indirectly responsible for this. The competition between the Darkness Church’s Holy Maidens was even more serious than those from the Radiant Church.
Bella had unintentionally supported Dark Holy Maiden Liz, who had ambiguous relations with her. As a result, Liz, the weakest, became a steady force over the other two Dark Holy Maidens. Netherworld Holy Maiden Livina was forced to resort to such extreme measures out of anxiety. She desired greater power so that she could counter Dark Holy Maiden Liz.
Bella didn’t want to see this beautiful twintails loli get devoured by the Ten Thousand Year Corpse King. Livina, like the other priestesses of the Darkness Church, was also “inexperienced”. It would be a waste to just send them off to be devoured as sacrifices by the Ten Thousand Year Corpse Kings. Bella wouldn’t allow it.
In addition to Netherworld Holy Maiden Livina and the six other priestesses sitting outside the array, thirteen beautiful and cool nuns from the Darkness Church were doing psychic dances around the ritual circle. The strange dance looked terrifying in the middle of the night. If not for the fact that their bodies were completely uncovered and the fanservice Bella got as they gyrated their fair and dainty bodies, causing “turbulent motions” in front of their chests, Bella would probably have averted her gaze.
Thirteen was an ominous number. Once the ritual finished, these dancing nuns would likely find it hard to escape their fates of becoming living sacrifices. Bella could vaguely see faint figures around their bodies. They were demonic spirits urging them to dance. Even if they wanted to quit midway, it was impossible. This might become the very last dance in their lives.
As Bella approached, she could feel a distinct air resistance. The demonic beings in the evil ritual array were emitting strong spiritual pressure and were trying to obstruct Bella’s approach. The ritual had already reached the final stage. If Bella hadn’t come to interfere, the seven Corpse Kings would have devoured the sacrifices and resurrected. Once that happened, normal light energy wouldn’t be able to suppress them.
Beside the cold temperature around the area, Bella did not feel any spiritual force. She was no ordinary Holy Knight. By now, a typical Holy Knight would already have put up a barrier, such as the “Holy Guard”, to resist the evil force. Once the “Holy Guard” was activated, you wouldn’t even be able to take another step further. You would be stuck in place, unable to move.
“Damn, Holy Knight, get out of here! This is our territory. You have no right to—”
“You are the ones who should get out of here. It’s been ten thousand years, yet you still want to stick around to scourge the living? Go to the other side and repent!”
“No, wait! We can talk about it…”
Bella took out the “Praise of Light” and “Tears of the Goddess”, given by Creator of Light Vianne, from her storage ring, and the tremendous force of the light instantly lit up the entire beacon tower. The sight caused the Corpse Kings on the opposite side to feel fear.