Everywhere the eye could glance, skewed bodies could be seen. On the faces of those bodies were looks of utter shock and despair. They didn’t even have the time to react. Over ten thousand soldiers, dead within a few seconds. A battlefield that was filled with cheers of victory seconds ago was eerily silent. Only the cawing of crows filled the air, as if they knew death was close by for these unlucky humans.

  “Aarrr…”

  An out of place sound that didn’t fit the cawing of the crows escapes from a survivor of the massacre. Impaled on the side of his stomach, Houlwa bites through the pain and pulls himself out from the black spike imbedded on the ground. Barely able to fully dodge the spike, it managed to impale him on the side, leaving him in his current state.

  He falls on his knees clutching the gaping hole from the side of his stomach. Using the last bits of mana he has left, he slows down the trickling blood and stands up on his feet. He is sure that he is in hell as there is no way in the world a scene like this exits. His fellow swordmasters are skewered up like animals, eyes open revealing pure horror. Everywhere he looks, he sees the same expression from all the soldiers. It didn’t matter whether they were weak or strong as all had the same fate.

  Disbelief and despair. His stomach roils from the stench of blood and the scene before him as he lets go of the last lunch he had ate.

  “To think one survived?” a cool, unrestrained voice enters Houlwa’s ears.

  Sweat trickles down his brows as his eyes dart around until they land on a figure within the maze of black spikes. Houlwa lifts his sword weakly and before he can even open his mouth to speak…

  “Not interested.” With a slight swift of Roy’s foot, a thin black spike sprouts from the ground, impaling Houlwa under his chin straight through his skull, killing him instantly. This mission was done so effortlessly that Roy wondered why Boruta had to send him, a Demon Guardian of his calibre, on this mission. Roy believed a Guardian Candidate would have been enough for this job.

  Even though that was the case, he didn’t refuse the mission since he was the only demon who knew about Boruta’s true plan.

  ***

  A few months ago.

  Within the walls of the Demon Lord’s castle. It was after the meeting of the Demon Guardians where Roy had intercepted Boruta in his office.

  “I don’t quite understand your intentions of this war with the humans. So, tell me what you’re really up to Boruta,” said Roy without much of an expression.

  Boruta looked at Roy with an indifferent look and spoke.

  “If I were to say it’s to avenge the Demon Lord, would you believe me?”

  “I’m not like the other muscled brained idiots who only seek to fight without knowing the real reason. And besides, we demons don’t have much sentiment for each other, now do we?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  That was true. Powerful demons rarely had any emotional attachment to anyone, even their offsprings. The only thing they cared about was power, and there can never be enough of it. Even with the Demon Lord’s death, none felt any remorse. It did, however, make them wonder how they would survive the ‘day of the coming’.

  “How many wars have we demons had with the humans?” Boruta asked Roy.

  “Two and counting.”

  “Well, actually it’s one and counting. The only war we’ve waged with the humans is the one from 200 years ago. The one from 350 years ago can’t even be considered a war as we didn’t even cross a mile of the human realm before ‘he’ showed up and defeated everyone. Including the Demon Lord.”

  That was true. By a single human, their army and half their Demon Guardians and their Demon Lord were suppressed with barely any effort. Boruta was there to witness it. Luckily for Roy, he stayed behind as reinforcements, so he didn’t have a share on their humiliation.

  “200 years ago, he waged another war with the humans only for us to be defeated again.”

  “What are you getting at exactly, Boruta?” asked Roy as he furrowed his brows.

  “We had an incompetent Demon Lord. One who didn’t take the time to think and instead acted. Yes, he was powerful yet so weak. We couldn’t have predicted the results of the war 350 years ago as it was still our first war however, the loss we suffered 150 years later could have been avoided. Yet, he let his emotions cloud his judgement.”

  Roy sensed the tinge of rage behind every word Boruta spoke. The man who was always hard to read actually showed emotion.

  “We chose the wrong Demon Lord to follow,” Boruta added in a muffled murmur before speaking again.

  “The point is, in this war, we’ll avoid all of that. We’ll target our biggest threats, draw them out in the open and eliminate them.”

  “Biggest threats?” Roy raised an eyebrow.

  “Right now, we have three threats that need to be annihilated. One is the person responsible for the Demon Lord’s death,” Roy nodded in acknowledgement to Boruta’s choice.

  “Two is the Witch of Mist,” another nod from Roy, “And lastly, potentially the one who is the biggest threat of all, the Priestess.”

  Roy’s nodding head abruptly stopped as he stared at Boruta in surprise. Why was the priestess categorised as the biggest threat by Boruta.

  “There’s only been two Priestesses to ever exist. That just shows how hard it is for the Holyland to cultivate them. The first appeared during the Demon King’s reign. The Demon King had estimated that the demonic energy created by the ‘ancient relic’ would spread across the entire continent within a decade. The demonic energy didn’t even take a single year before the Priestess of that era used her holy powers to disperse the corruption of the demonic energy. Afterwards, she disappeared leaving Zone towers to continuously purify the demonic energy using her powers as their source. And that’s how the border between the two realms formed.”

  Roy stood quiet, amazed by the story. Even he, didn’t know that story. That just showed the expanse of Boruta’s knowledge.

  “I understand now. However, even if we managed to draw out these individuals and by some stroke of luck, eliminate them. The sheer numbers we would have to sacrifice just to draw them out is unimaginable. Coupled with the ones needed to actually eliminate these individuals, we wouldn’t even have any army to invade.”

  A smile crept from Boruta as he gestures for Roy to follow him. Using the secret tunnels found under the Demon Lord’s castle, Boruta lead Roy to an underground cave filled with luminous stones. Instead of white or yellow light, these luminous stones illuminated an eery purple hue, due to the demonic energy having corrupted the luminous stones.

  The cave lead them towards an opening which was a giant gorge, resembling a mining site. In the middle of the gorge was a monster that was strapped with demonic steel, holding it in place from all sides. Around it were thousands upon thousands of eggs illuminated by the purple hue of the luminous stones everywhere within the gorge.

  “W-what are these?” asked Roy bewildered.

  “These, my friend are our ‘numbers’.”