The War Begins
As days passed since Kim Jae-hyun had descended into the Intermediate World, the Dark Empire had swiftly moved to hold weddings. First came the union of Kim Jae-hyun and Irene, followed immediately by the forced marriage of Tarzan and Lucretia. Pregnant Lucretia was then handed over to countless demons, then to humans, and finally to the beasts themselves.
Simply calculating the numbers, Lucretia had been forced to service over a hundred men without rest, at least five at a time. Once the saint, she had now become the ultimate whore.
While the saint transformed into a whore, Kim Jae-hyun had no intention of wasting a single moment.
“Kuaaaah! Kuek! Kuek!”
William let out agonized screams, foam bubbling from his lips.
He was completely naked, his massive, muscular frame glistening as he thrust his hips desperately, driving his own cock deep inside the girl beneath him.
“Haaah… Aaaah!”
Sophia, a gray-haired girl with a slender body, moaned as she took in William’s enormous penis. She felt intense sexual pleasure from her great-grandfather’s cock and obediently swayed her hips in rhythm.
William’s cock was squeezing her tight, and he himself was experiencing considerable pleasure from the forbidden act, yet he was committing the ultimate sin of incestuously raping his own great-granddaughter against his will.
“Kuaaaah!”
Separately from the pleasure, he was screaming in horrific agony he could not stop. Countless black things clung to every part of his body—too many ants to count, burrowing into his flesh and devouring him alive.
William screamed in endless pain as the ants gnawed at his skin, and Kim Jae-hyun, seated on the throne, watched the spectacle with Irene still dressed in her wedding gown resting on his lap.
The reason he had been able to reach Gallia Kingdom without any hindrance was thanks to the World Tree.
The territories surrounding the Dark Empire were completely surrounded.
Every nation on the continent was an enemy of the Dark Empire. All other races, including the dragons, were on high alert, preparing for war.
There was no mercy to be expected for those who surrendered; the nobles would set aside their quarrels and unite their forces. Of course, they would not fight to the death, but political maneuvering would continue while they tried to minimize damage to their own factions. Still, the most important thing was to unite their strength.
If the dragons moved, the other races would follow suit. There was no way Kim Jae-hyun could be defeated, but he had not relaxed. He had carefully used the World Tree to bypass their surveillance network and reach Gallia Kingdom.
The space-connection power of the World Tree had been blocked inside the Dark Empire by the interference of demonic energy.
As the Demon King who dominated all demonic energy, Kim Jae-hyun had used the power of the Demonic Sword. While the Holy Sword created a barrier that protected its user from the damage of holy power, the Demonic Sword created a barrier that protected its user from the damage of demonic energy.
Even if the target possessed holy power, the Demonic Sword’s power could completely protect them from demonic energy without the World Tree falling to corruption, while also allowing the space-connection power to function without interference.
Using the perfectly protected space-connection power of the World Tree that had not fallen, Kim Jae-hyun and Irene had instantly crossed the Elf Forest in Gallia Kingdom, slipped in unnoticed, crossed the kingdom, captured William, tortured him, and dragged him away to make him suffer eternally.
By now, even the dragons were smart enough to realize how dangerous it was to freely use the power of the Holy Sword and Demonic Sword. The World Trees in the Elf Forest would also be watching, so they could not use that method again.
However, since they had been able to make the betrayer William suffer, the space-connection power of the World Tree had proven its worth.
“Now the time has finally come to test my work.”
As the Demon King and the strongest archmage in continental history, Kim Jae-hyun smiled, anticipating how his creations would perform.
The Forces of Darkness would now begin a war against the Forces of Light.
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Venice Kingdom.
A small nation with the smallest territory and military strength on the continent, located between the Dark Empire and the Sardinia Kingdom.
The fortress near the border between Venice Kingdom and the Dark Empire.
“Haaam!”
One of the soldiers standing on the wall let out a yawn. Yawning was normal when tired, but the fact that he was doing it on the wall of a fortress right at the front line against the Dark Empire was the problem.
That he was yawning meant he felt no tension even at the absolute front line against the Dark Empire.
It was not because he was some elite warrior or hero from another world. He was just an ordinary soldier, and his lack of tension was because four days had passed since the nation ruled by the Demon King, the Demon King himself, had emerged.
On the day the Dark Empire was born, everyone had despaired at the news of the Demon King’s descent and the fact that the Demon King was the former hero Kim Jae-hyun, who was even stronger than the previous Demon King.
The reason for the betrayers’ ugly betrayal was that all the monarchs of the various countries were either directly involved or connected through nobles, so the truth had been thoroughly hidden. The world only knew that the hero Kim Jae-hyun had fallen and become the Demon King.
Most people did not know why the hero who had supposedly died ten years ago was alive and had become a Demon King, but the events that had occurred in the Holy Kingdom of Astraea had been discovered by the monarchs only after the dragons revealed them. The events that had happened inside the Dark Empire were not public information controlled by the monarchs, so unless one knew the truth, no one could resolve the mystery.
Therefore, everyone had harbored hope for the hero’s survival and the Demon King’s fall, but rather than trying to resolve that hope, they desperately prayed that the war against the Dark Empire would not happen as soon as possible.
On the first day, everyone had naturally despaired and been terrified. On the second day, they had remained tense while trembling with fear. On the third day, the tension had gradually eased. And on the fourth day, when the moment had come, the tension had become far too weak.
There was still unease that the Dark Empire might invade at any moment, but three days was enough time to weaken that tension.
However, several soldiers on the wall spotted something beyond the horizon.
“W-what is that?!”
“M-my god!”
Shouts of shock rang out one after another among the soldiers, and the commander who realized the situation shouted orders at the troops.
“All on alert! Alert! Hurry!”
In addition to the knight in charge of the commander, many knights began hurriedly preparing in surprise. Various weapons rose onto the wall.
Most of them were magic cannons, shaped like real-world cannons, also called magic cannons. These weapons, which used magic stones inside monsters or mana stones scattered throughout the Intermediate World, were converted into magic power and used. They were magic artillery that could fire consecutive 5-circle magic spells like Fire Cannon and Wind Cannon.
Fire Cannon and Wind Cannon were 5-circle attack magic that launched flaming cannonballs and wind cannonballs respectively. Their power and explosive force were considerable.
Among cannon-type magic, Fire Cannon, which caused the strongest explosions and spread flames in all directions, and Wind Cannon, which had the shortest casting time and delay among all cannon-type magic and created a whirlwind that cut through the surroundings, were both highly useful. The magic cannons that Kim Jae-hyun had created as weapons had demonstrated powerful effects in war.
Even without 5-circle mages, they could fire large quantities of 5-circle magic, and as weapons using magic cannons, they had the advantage that magic like Dispel could not cancel the activation of the magic itself.
“Prepare to fire!”
Commanders ordered the magic cannons to prepare for firing at the numerous enemies visible beyond the horizon.
Hundreds of magic cannons were already prepared and waiting to fire, and countless mages had also prepared their spells.
This was to eliminate as many enemies as possible before they approached.
Yes, not to kill, but to exterminate.
Because the enemies crossing the horizon were not living beings but already dead undead.
“Uwaaa…”
Dak-dak-dak—
Countless undead staggered forward. An enormous horde of undead that seemed to have no end.
The largest number were undead made of human bones—skeletons. In addition, there were zombies and monsters made of animals or monsters, as well as skeletons. Especially the undead made from the bones or corpses of large monsters like trolls and ogres were incomparably more threatening than those made from humans.
The fear of undead was that they never tire and continue moving as long as they are not completely destroyed.
Even if they were severely damaged, they could be revived by necromancers infusing black magic, so recycling was always possible. At worst, they could be recycled, but since severely damaging them required far more black magic for repair, in the war against the Forces of Darkness ten years ago, they had maximized the damage and, if possible, turned them into dust to waste as little magic as possible, solving the problem by creating new undead at a hundred times the cost.
In any case, the undead horde had been a nuisance among humans, and the number of undead approaching from beyond the horizon looked to be over fifty thousand just by sight.
A terrifying number of undead over fifty thousand attacking like this meant the Dark Empire’s invasion had finally begun.
“Oh! Oh, Goddess!”
Someone had called out to the gods. Five days ago, no one could have imagined they would be attacked from the direction of the Holy Kingdom of Astraea. Since undead were beings of darkness, they were weak to holy power, and the Holy Kingdom of Astraea, a sacred land where countless priests and paladins lived, had been a natural enemy to the undead.
And thanks to Kim Jae-hyun’s scheme, countless priests and paladins had fallen to the Forces of Darkness. The forces of the best natural enemies—priests—had plummeted.
There were no priests or paladins at this front line. They had to face those terrifying undead without the help of holy power.
“Damn it! All of you, snap out of it and prepare to fire! Hurry if you want to live! We have to attack before they get any closer!”
The commanders shouted at the terrified soldiers to snap out of it. Fortunately, many of them were veterans who had participated in the war against the Forces of Darkness back then.
From that experience, seeing such a massive undead horde had not broken their spirit.
And although Venice Kingdom had no heroes and was the weakest in territory and military strength, it was still a single country. The effort invested in the front line of a single country could not be small, so the defenses here were substantial.