Chapter 66
Chapter 66
Chapter 66 You Guys Are Demons
"This... can't be..."
The knight of the Briton Kingdom who had hurled insults at me died with his throat sliced clean through.
I was curious about how sturdy Aura would be, so I wrapped Ganggi around my hand blade and collided with it directly, but the difference in our abilities was so great that it split cleanly in half.
It even went beyond simply breaking the sword—the shockwave traveled through to the back, cutting through his neck as well.
'He must have been someone with mediocre skills.'
It's definitely not that I lost control of my strength because I was angry. And since I had already beheaded him and killed him, I thought I'd test out the necromancy I had newly acquired.
Though I didn't want to admit it, I had already become capable of creating higher-level undead, confirming my suspicion that I had an aptitude for black magic.
An undead that could only be summoned if the target was a strong knight in life, died by beheading, and harbored vengeful feelings toward the one using necromancy.
It was the headless knight—a Dullahan.
He revived along with his horse, emanating an eerie aura from his entire body, and placed his severed head under his arm.
An entity weaker than a Death Knight but incomparably stronger than a Skeleton Warrior.
Seeing this sight, the demons cheered.
"As expected of the Demon King! Not only did you easily kill that human knight, but you even revived him as a Dullahan to give him endless humiliation... We shall learn from watching!"
Another demon nearby nodded.
"Is that all? What about the idea of disguising Doppelgangers as humans to make them open the castle gates? Truly the Demon King..."
There was also one cheering from the side.
"Right. Ordinary demons like us can't keep up. I always end up respecting you. You're truly a real demon, Demon King!"
'No, you bastards.'
The real demons are those guys, and I just imitated them slightly, but I don't understand why everyone's acting like this.
"The... the captain is..!"
"You are knights of Briton. Don't run away. Fight back... GAK..!"
When the captain died in one blow, the rest fell into panic despite being skilled knights.
Those who ran died even faster, and those who chose to fight to the death also eventually died.
And they regained their true forms, became my comrades, captured the lord who was originally their master, and offered up the castle.
By continuously using the same method to easily devour the Briton Kingdom, the erosion rate increased considerably.
[Current World Erosion Rate 15%]
The problem started from here.
Now that prophecies related to the Demon King's advent had completely spread, even the checkpoints of other nations' territories had procedures where they stationed priests to verify whether the other party was a demon or not.
In other words, it was no longer possible to get easy wins with Trojan horse tactics.
So there was another operation I prepared next.
The kingdom closest to the Briton Kingdom was Atlria. So I issued a declaration of war toward that place in the name of the Demon King.
I declared that Briton was already mine and that this place was a den of demons. Then other nations also sent reinforcements toward Atlria, and tremendous military power gathered at the border.
Therefore, even though I had turned all of Briton's knights into undead, the allied forces gathered in Atlria had even greater military might, and the castle walls looked like an insurmountable barrier.
'Then I just won't cross it.'
"Hey guys. Over here."
""Yes, Demon King!""
Having already conquered the first kingdom, our morale was unbreakable as we arrived at our next destination.
That place was not Atlria, but another kingdom near it—Maros.
Due to my declaration of war, they had sent considerable military power as reinforcements to Atlria, and thanks to that, their national strength had weakened.
"Demon King, how did you come up with such an idea? To declare war and then attack somewhere else entirely?"
"You're truly more demon-like than anyone!"
'This is also a human strategy, you bastards...'
It was a strategy commonly called Seongdonggyeokseo (Making noise in the east, striking in the west).
In the Chu-Han Contention, Liu Bang used it against Xiang Yu, and in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao used this strategy against Yuan Shao.
But the humans didn't expect demons to use their heads this much, so they concentrated all their forces in one place.
With numerous undead knights, demons strengthened by the increased erosion rate, and myself added to the mix, Maros was truly broken through helplessly.
Even the Holy Knights and priests, who were effective forces against undead and demons, had all been sent to Atlria, so it was actually broken through faster than Briton.
"How... how can demons use the power of spirits?"
When there were occasionally those who desperately held out with sacred-related equipment, I sent the Lower-Grade Spirit corps to that side to destroy their equipment first, so the other undead and demons quickly dealt with them.
Eventually, Maros also became ours.
[Current World Erosion Rate 25%]
"To think that even spirits would submit to the Demon King's evil... this aide is truly moved."
"As expected of the Demon King!"
Now I've come to accept these guys' exaggerations as natural.
'But the guys who frequently control spirits were actually incredibly evil.'
If you asked who was more evil between elves and demons, the answer would naturally be demons, but knowing both, I would confidently answer elves.
If I hadn't been there, these guys would have had a very high probability of being annihilated after just charging crazily trusting only their own strength. They're only demons in name—they're too honest.
And when we issued a declaration of war to Atlria but conquered Maros instead, the humans fell into tremendous chaos.
From what I found out, they seemed unable to even guess where they should defend.
And in this state, I issued another declaration of war. This time also saying I would attack Atlria.
They fell into even greater chaos. There was no way for them to determine the truth of my words.
The choices they could make were just two.
First, maintain the state of concentrating forces in Atlria.
If they chose this option, they could effectively block us if my words were true, but if they were false, they would have to give up another kingdom for free.
Second, withdraw the forces concentrated in Atlria back to their respective kingdoms or gather them in other kingdoms.
If they chose this option, they could gain a chance of victory if my words were false, but if they were true, there was a risk that Atlria, with weakened forces, would be devoured.
And their choice was a method that was neither here nor there.
It was correct to leave more forces in Atlria, which I had specifically targeted, but some of the gathered forces returned to their respective kingdoms.
Of course, the place we targeted this time was also not Atlria.
'I thought they'd come out roughly like that.'
Whether they maintained the concentrated state in Atlria or gave that up, I thought they would ultimately leave more forces in Atlria than anywhere else.
Because they couldn't completely rule out the possibility that my words were true.
But the kingdoms with only some returned forces couldn't stop our strengthened legion, and we could easily conquer the next kingdom as well.
[Current World Erosion Rate 35%]
[Erosion rate has surpassed 30%.]
[Additional demons can be summoned.]
[The Demon King's first authority is unlocked.]
The enemies were weakening like that, but conversely, we were getting stronger.
The number of demons increased, and this thing called the Demon King's first authority was an ability I desperately needed right now.
'Magic power is overflowing.'
The effect of the authority was connecting the Demon King's castle with my dantian, sharing the tremendous magic power that the Demon King's castle possessed.
Originally, the limitation of magic power would have put a brake on increasing the number of undead, but at least for this trial, I could increase them indefinitely.
"The place we'll attack next is Atlria."
I told them I would throw my fist at them this time too.
It was truly enough to drive them crazy and make them jump around.
It would be different if I didn't say which place I would attack, but I kept issuing declarations of war.
But since they had been deceived twice, they thought I would really attack Atlria this time and still had slightly more forces gathered there.
And my next choice was... naturally not Atlria.
'These guys don't know about the triple bluff.'
What came out once, what came out twice, can come out three times.
[Current World Erosion Rate 45%]
"Demon King... but is this okay? The humans are pitiful... no, never mind."
"I never knew the Demon King was such a scary person."
"I should never mess around."
Now, beyond praising me among the demons, there were even those who felt sorry for humans or felt fear toward me.
'You guys are demons. Demons.'
If they're demons, I wish they would please act like demons. I never expected to see demons who felt sorry for humans.
Perhaps I too had prejudices about demons?
"Right. Then shall we really go attack Atlria this time?"
At times like this, listening to subordinates' opinions is also a condition of being a good monarch, isn't it?
"Good! We'll taste proper blood after a long time!"
"I'm looking forward to seeing how strong humans at full strength will be!"
The guys got excited and raised their hands one by one, shouting battle cries.
So our next declaration of war was also directed toward Atlria.
But when we arrived at Atlria, the scene that greeted us was unexpected.
The grandeur we had seen when we first conquered Briton and headed toward Atlria was nowhere to be found, and it had become a place with only minimal forces remaining.
"Where did they all go..?"
I had honestly come to attack Atlria, but there were no humans left to believe me, as I had already become the boy who cried wolf.
As if they wouldn't be fooled anymore, they immediately withdrew all forces from Atlria and even sent support to other kingdoms.
Thanks to this, our forces achieved a bloodless entry all the way to the capital despite engaging in a frontal confrontation.
"I will... surrender."
The King of Atlria knelt directly before me.
Eventually, with just the fourth declaration of war, Atlria also became ours, belonging to us demons.
[Current World Erosion Rate 55%]
It was summer.