As soon as the gate connects shadow beasts come pouring out, it is as if they were waiting for it to open. Then again, if it has been opening in the same spot each time it connects, they might have been. Either way, I don't have time to watch the fight, I need to alter the enchantment.

  I have to say that altering an enchantment with a battle going on around me is not easy. Just the noise of all the beasts roaring is really distracting and that is only part of it. Some of the fighting beasts are so close that I could reach out and touch them.

  Trying to do something as delicate as altering an existing enchantment with that going on is challenging. Luckily, the changes that I need to make are not complicated and I complete them quickly. With just one little change, the gate will no longer keep trying to reconnect to hell.

  That alone should be enough, but I will go ahead and make another change as well. Since the gate is already connected, I just lock that connection in place. Now, the only way to disconnect from the shadow plane is to destroy the gate.

  Once those changes are made, I go back to hiding and watching the battle. Now the demonic beasts are slowly losing, they no longer have the numbers advantage. The shadow beasts are now the ones that are getting constant reinforcements.

  This allows them to kill more demonic beasts and slowly push them back. Once the fight moves away from the gate a bit, I go back to working on the enchantments. My goal is to make it harder for the demons to destroy the gate and at the same time allow me to destroy it.

  I do this by taking the extra energy the gate is collecting and turning it into a shield. This will protect the gate from any attacks the demons launch, but I also leave a hidden weakness. That way, if the gate becomes a problem later it will be easy for me to destroy it.

  All this will become pointless if the shadow demons become more of a threat than the hell demons. My plan is for the two sides to fight and weaken each other until I can wipe them both out. If the shadow demons that come through get too strong, I will destroy the gate.

  Although, I don't know if shadow demons can come through, so far all I have seen are beasts. I also haven't seen anything but demonic beasts, so maybe there is another problem with the gate. Since I have the time, I study the gate further to see if I can figure it out.

  The gate itself doesn't seem to have any problems and the connection to the shadow plane is good. However, when I take a look at the tunnel between them I find a problem. For some reason, the tunnel through space is unstable and weak.

  This is what is causing the limitation on what can come through the gate. If anything too strong tries to go through, the tunnel breaks open and dumps them into the void. Or at least that is my best guess as to what would happen, I can't be completely sure.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Honestly, I have never really paid any attention to the tunnel between two ends of a gate before. Now that I have found what I think is the problem, I look for what caused it. After a bit of study I find that there is a mistake in the enchantments of the gate.

  They are not directing enough power into the tunnel itself, leaving it weak. From what I can see, this is a flaw in the understanding of the demon lords. In designing the gate's enchantments, they did not pay enough attention to the way the tunnel was formed.

  This should be why the other gate I found was only able to let demonic beasts through. For me, it is easy enough to fix it, but I don't know if I should or not. Shadow demons would cause a lot more problems for the hell demons, but would it be too much?

  I don't want to just trade the hell demons for the shadow demons, that wouldn't help me. I think that for now I am better off leaving the gate as it is and keeping it limited to beasts. The beasts should be enough to cause problems for the hell demons and reduce their numbers.

  Besides, this place is a little too close to the southern empire for me to feel comfortable letting shadow demons through. I already had enough trouble rooting them out from Mercy's kingdom, I don't want to do that again. On the other hand, watching the southern pantheon try to deal with them could be entertaining.

  Although, knowing my luck, they would somehow find out that is was my fault. It probably isn't worth the risk just for a little entertainment, but it is a fun thought. In the end, I leave the gate as it is and just set up the shield and weakness.

  By the time I am done with the enchantments, the fighting has moved away from the gate. Since they are just laying around, I collect some more materials and cores. Once my pouch is completely full, I sneak away from the gate until I find a quiet spot.

  I am not sure what opening another gate near an active one would do and I don't plan to find out. When I am what I consider a safe distance away from the gate, I return to beastman form and gate to the tower. As soon as I arrive, Yui greets me and directs me to where Lin is, the library.

  I sit down with Lin and tell her and Yui everything that has happened and that I have learned. It actually takes a while, it seems that I have been a little busy lately. I end up talking all the way through lunch and it is almost time for dinner when I am done.

  Lin says "So, what do you plan to do next?"

  "I am going back to the fort and will probably do some crafting while I wait to see how things turn out in the empire. Oh, before I go, I want you to help me cast the detection spell again."

  Lin says "Sure. So, no plans for other adventures?"

  "Nope! Then again, I almost never plan my adventures, they are just as much of a surprise to me as they are to everyone else."

  Lin says "I doubt that! Are you going to do anything about the goddesses being mad at you?"

  "Krenocia isn't really mad, more annoyed. Seronia will probably forgive me once I send her all of the cores. I don't think I need to do anything else."

  Lin says "Alright. Have you decided what you are going to do about the empire? Are you going to take it over?"

  "No, I haven't. Right now I just want to rescue the slaves. Once that is done I will pull my people out of the empire. I think I need to finish unifying the beastmen before I try to take more territory."