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Path to Prosperity - B3 Chapter 59
🕑 Added 2025-01-04 11:00:03 +0000 UTCThose who kept fighting the flood of demons were strong-willed Gifted. Even the sight of thousands upon thousands of demons didn’t shatter their mental fortitude. The first line of defense may not be enough to block all Demons, but they were enough to pick out the strongest Demons and stall them, ensuring the second and third line of defense wouldn’t be squashed.
The first line of defense consisted of the Beast King, the Imperial Head, King Phillip, the Imperials, and the Beast Legions’ Apex. The strongest members of the Knight Orders and the Beast Legions also joined the first line of defense, but they were occasionally seen pulling back to ease the pressure weighing on them.
The Demon Lords and Greater Demons occupied the first line of defense, allowing the remaining demonic forces to push forward, where they’d collided with the Knight Orders, the strongest Adventurers of the Guild, and the rest of the Beast Legions.
Most Elite Demons and plentiful Lesser Demons faced demise in the face of the powerful Cardists, Egos, and Mythics. They pounced on the enemies with their numbers, but the defenders and their summoned Monsters didn’t give the demonic forces many chances to pass by and reach the final line of defense: the common soldiers led by the Pillars’ heirs.
As time passed, the battle’s pace shifted slowly. Many defenders broke through and ranked up after fighting demons for countless hours. They were inching closer to collapsing, exhaustion accumulating slowly. It was increasingly difficult to find time to take a deep breath, let alone to relax, however, the piles of bodies forming after hours of bloody battles were now blocking the Demons.
The piles blocked their view of the paths they’d taken the whole time and obstructed their movement.
Fewer Demons could strike the defenders in the second line of defense simultaneously. That was exactly what the united forces had been hoping for. They endured a gruesome battle on a small piece of land for hours to form piles of demon corpses, frozen solid or engulfed in rapidly growing vines before retreating a few steps.
The aerial demons were still a nuisance, but the Glacial Knights, Archers, and summoned aerial monsters were enough to eliminate the threats from the sky before they could inflict any more damage.
Unfortunately, not all problems were solved that way. Even as the number of simultaneous attacks decreased, the flood of demons never ceased. For every demon killed, three followed, trying to replace their lost brethren, whereas the remaining demons charged ahead, pushing past the second line.
Time passed gruesomely slowly. Every terrifying minute on the battlefield felt like ten minutes.
Nearly everyone was exhausted at some point, yet the pacing of the battlefield seemed to have stabilized. The defenders matched the demonic forces’ pace and devised a strategy to pull some of the united armies out of the war zone. They were pulled back to the makeshift camps where they could rest for a few hours and recover.
One demonic wave after another smashed into the defending forces, but everything seemed to be under control at this point. Those who’d survived until this point fought well. They were exhausted, but they had overcome their initial fear.
“How long have we been at this?” One soldier asked after crashing to the ground. The muscles all over his body were sore, but his legs and arms felt like jelly. Even if he wanted to lift his sword to keep fighting, he couldn’t. The soldier had already surpassed his limit and needed a break.
He was covered in blood, not his, but black blood of demons and the crimson blood of the comrades around him. The men and women who had been torn into shreds before his eyes.
“Three days,” A Mythic Healer commented in response. She used her Ancient Powers to infuse power into the soldier’s body, mending his sore muscles, “It has been three days since the flood started.”
The soldier sat up straight as the warm, soothing sensation of the Beastman’s healing powers swept through his body and looked ahead. The battlefield wasn’t far from them. They could join the last line of defense within minutes, but the soldier didn’t do that. He barely escaped the hell of a war zone and was glad to be resting.
He, just like the other soldiers, wasn’t like the Knight Orders, the Kingsguard, the Imperials, or the Pillars.
“It looks like they have endless Stamina, doesn’t it?” The Mythic Healer commented, a note of sadness appearing on her lips, “But that’s not the case. Of course, they have more Stamina than the average Gifted Ones, but they expend more mana than others, and carry an even greater responsibility.”
She looked at the soldier, “If they allow a Greater Demon, or even an Elite Demon, to reach the third line of defense, chaos will ensue. The defense will collapse, and demons will flood the Meiso Plains. But that’s only the beginning. It would only the beginning of chaos…of death and destruction.”
The soldier eyed the Mythic Healer, fear flickering in his eyes, “Why are you telling me that?”
“I don’t know,” The Mythic Healer shrugged, “All I know is that our current advantage is worth nothing.”
Other soldiers heard the Mythic Healer’s commentary and frowned at her.
“We are grateful for your healing, but why are you so pessimistic? The tides of the battle have changed in our favor. If not for that, we would have never been able to take a break. Our death would be the only break we would be given in the war zone if we were at a disadvantage,” another soldier spoke up in displeasure.
“I never said we weren’t at an advantage,” The Mythic Healer responded. She looked around, noticed dozens of human soldiers glaring at her, and sighed, “The losses are too great. Everyone is exhausted, and even the Pillars are showing signs of slowing down. Their exhaustion is accumulating.”
She raised her hand and added, “And the Devil has yet to join the battle.”
The Devil was taking his time entering the war zone. He was stalling time and did a phenomenal job at doing it. The Beast King, King Phillip, and the Imperial Head were still fine. They consumed a few potions to maintain peak conditions, but the Pillars and Apex couldn’t say the same about themselves. They were worn out and made more mistakes as time trickled by, and new enemies with full stamina charged them with full power.
“Being pessimistic won’t help us,” a soldier snorted. If you don’t think we’re going to win, the least you could have done was to keep silent…”
The Mythic Healer looked at the soldier and shrugged, “I never said we’re going to lose. I’m just telling you to be prepared for the worst.”
“We have not lost yet,” she smiled, her attention returning to the battlefield. We won’t lose.”
…
The first rays of sunlight washed away the darkness of the night when the dawn of the fourth day arrived. The bright moon had left, decreasing the enhancement of the Imperials’ lunar powers, but that was for the better. Fighting through the night was not an easy feat. It required ample preparation to illuminate the war zone, ensuring all Gifted without Augmentations like [Dark Vision] could see and fight the demonic forces head-on.
“The night wasn’t too bad,” One of the Imperials pointed out. He’d racked up once at night and was pleased with his contribution for the night.
Exhaustion was accumulating, overwhelming hundreds of members from the Knight Orders, yet the survivability of the last night had been the highest. Only a few dozen Elite Gifted died that night.
“The calm before the storm,” Glacia Knight Liam responded in a whisper, his expression hardened as he and others sensed something from the Moonlight Forest.
The hair of all defenders stood up to its end simultaneously as their perception perked up. Their eyes narrowed, and their bodies tensed up as a massive, pitch-black shockwave ravaged the Moonlight Forest, uprooting dead trees and shrubs. Dead monsters of the Moonlight Forest were hurled through the air, but nobody paid any heed to them.
The demon flood slowed down and turned around in unison. Yet, instead of giggling and roaring in excitement, as one would expect in a situation like this, the demons didn’t utter a single sound. They stared at the remains of the Moonlight Forest, their bodies trembling in excitement—or was it fear?
A large pair of crimson eyes glowed brightly in the darkness of the dead forest. They grew larger as the host of the crimson eyes strode closer to the Moonlight Forest’s edge. The ground tremored violently, yet the demons’ shivers were even worse.
A crimson glimmer flashed through their eyes and expanded. It took root within the Demons and intensified the longer they stared into the massive crimson eyes of their ruler…their king.
Extensive, leathery legs covered in black, jagged scales stepped out of the dead Moonlight Forest and into the light. The creature's upper body, wreathed in darkness, expanded as it took a deep breath.
It faced the defending forces head-on, the glimmer in its glowing eyes growing in intensity as it unleashed an ear-deafening roar that shook everyone in the vicinity to the core.
At last, the Devil decided to join the battle, his body rippling in incomprehensible power.
And endless hunger.
