Chapter 121: Slaying the Demon Archduke
“Hold one more enemy by the ankles, even if it means severing limbs and spilling intestines. For that is all you are worth on the battlefield.”
The serfs recoiled at the open invitation to die.
“What!”
“And you call yourself a knight of justice!”
“Don’t be ridiculous! I became a serf just to die like this-─!!!”
The serfs couldn’t even answer Leon’s glare, and they were shuffled to the front of the line like stiff puppets.
“You have already accepted your punishment, and you will not die easily until you ‘complete your punishment’.”
All serfs in Lionheart are reduced to serfdom by the judgment of Tatar, God of the Sun and Judgment.
There is no “freedom” for serfs who are not freemen.
It’s not just a meaning or a symbol, it’s a real deprivation of the concept of freedom.
“Ugh, ugh, ugh…….”
They were forced to move at the command of the Lionheart King, to fulfill his orders against their will.
The demons looked on in disbelief as the serfs marched right up to them.
-Are these people insane?
-Go back to your villages! What are you doing?
“Charge!”
King Lionheart commanded and the serfs charged.
“Arrrrrrgh!!!”
“I don’t want to die!”
The serf meat shields, deprived of their physical freedom and forced to do as they were told, clashed with the demons.
Naturally, a one-sided massacre and slaughter was expected, but they held up surprisingly well, thanks to Leon’s favor.
[Lionheart King’s Serf Charge]
Effect:
-Grants Meat Shield.
-Grants Tenacity.
-Increases Strength.
-Increases Survival Instinct.
-Increases Vitality by 250%.
Using even his serfs as a viable “resource,” King Lionheart’s serfs have proven to be meat shields, even in hand-to-hand combat with demons.
They are even healed by the Holy Grail as soon as they are injured, what a gracious gesture on the part of King Lionheart!
“Send the hunters into the chariot! Use the gap to flank the enemy!”
While the serfs held off the demons, Leon spread his hunters out like two wings and surrounded the demons.
The demons were a large army, over three thousand in number, and of great quality, but they were being held back by the five thousand serfs.
“Our flanks are empty!”
“With so many flanks, this is what you get!”
For the Hunters, who are used to 50-man raids, the overwhelming number of allies is a new experience.
Easily flanked by meat shields, the Hunters became powerful hammers, pounding away at the demons.
“Argh!”
“The humans…!”
The demons fought back, surrounded on three sides, but their numbers were too great.
“Whoa, something’s coming from the rear!”
Leon and his 40 knights, including Holy Knight Yakt Spinner and Death Priestess Beatrice along with Han Ha-ri, a priestess of two gods.
Leon let out a thunderous roar as he rode the war bull of Petos, the god of war and flame.
[Mightiest Charge] is applied to the troop. [War Knight’s Protection] and [Terror of the Evil Species] are combined]
-Troop Upgrade: Increase Charge Bonus by 400%.
-Troop Upgrade: Increase Charge Bonus by 120%.
-Troop Upgrade: Increase Charge Bonus by 100%.
-Troop Upgrade: Increase the Physical Resistance of your Assault Troops by 35%.
Weaken Enemy: Demon races have 80% less Charge Defense.
[Warbulls of Petos grants friendly Legions the attribute: <Flaming Sword>]
[ 【Supreme Demon Butcher】 applies reduced physical resistance, reduced holy law resistance, reduced melee defense, and automatic soul retrieval to all demons in a 1 km radius]
“Slaughter!!!”
In the moment of clash the demons were torn apart and literally pierced.
Thousands of demons were cut in half by 50 charging knights.
Leon’s holy lances skewered the demons, and the Yakt Spinners’ railguns and chain-guns ripped them apart.
Beatrice’s blitzkrieg blasted the demons with pinpoint accuracy, while Ha-ri and Jae-hyuk’s holy arts slaughtered the more advanced demons.
The battle was a landslide victory.
-Your Majesty, 3,243 enemies destroyed. 300 prisoners taken.
“What will you do, Beatrice?”
Leon turned to Beatrice for her opinion since in this battle, her devastating magical bombardment, ranked her first in terms of contribution, except for Leon.
“Could you please give me thirty of every rank, the higher the rank the better.”
“Evil is supposed to be destroyed straight away… Why?”
“Hoo hoo hoo.”
Beatrice replied with a smirk.
“Your Majesty, the more chances we have to open the Demon Gate, the better, right?”
“Oh…….”
She was indeed an intelligent magician.
Leon gladly agreed to hand over the captured demons, and as he was sorting through them, the Japanese S-class Hunter Takeda approached.
“Your Majesty.”
“What is it?”
“Would you be willing to hand over some demons to our raiding party?”
“No.”
“……Why, our hunters have bled too.”
In short, he was asking for victory spoils. While he understood the idea of sharing the spoils, Leon said no for another reason.
“There are many spoils to plunder this gate but the voices of the demons will tempt and test you.”
“We will not fall for the devil’s twists!”
“Are you so sure you won’t?”
“…….”
Takeda could not answer. But he also wanted to prove that they had captured the Demon Gate.
A captured demon would be a good propaganda piece.
Now that he had split from the Alliance, Takeda needed an excuse.
“Hmm… It’s unreasonable to keep the demons alive… but if there are only three of them…….”
Leon turned to the captured demons.
The demons of murder and destruction are the most unruly and destructive of all demons, they were not easy to capture.
Even though they were in a cage, they seemed to have the energy to break the grate.
“Damn it, tie them up!”
“Don’t get too close!”
The Hunters were barely tying them up as they tore off additional binding scrolls, but the snarling demons were menacing.
“We will destroy you and open the slaughterhouse! You will be doomed! Wahahahahahahahaha!”
Demonic voices that would drive a normal human insane just by hearing them and even the Hunters trembled in fear at the demon’s insane curses.
“Shut up, you demon!!”
The Lionheart King’s chop crushed a skull.
The demon whose skull had been crushed by Leon and one of its eyeballs had popped out, stuttered, unable to get the words out.
“These fiends try to curse people with their sly tongues every chance they get.”
-Hiss!
-Bam!
The demons fell silent at Leon’s entrance. Some of the shivering demons were even leaking yellow liquid from their crotches.
“Hmph…….”
As Leon rolled his eyes like he was judging a fish at a slaughterhouse, the demons tried to avert their gaze. ‘They’re like dogs that met a groomer,’ thought one Hunter as he watched the demons close their mouths as if making a promise before the dreaded Lionheart King.
The demons that the other Hunters had poked with spears and tied with ropes were now as docile as dogs in a cage.
“This one and that one should be okay.”
Leon points to a few demons and opens the cage. The demon that had been rattling the cage earlier shook and ducked as Leon opened the grate.
“Huh?!”
It is yanked out, its face and torso slamming into the grate and shattering it. It bounces back and is slammed to the ground by Leon, who grabs it by the tail.
“Bam!”
The demon’s skull cracked as it was thrown from the back and Leon handed it to Takeda.
“……Your Majesty?”
“This is enough to make the demon stop thinking and start drooling. They are said to be ornamental, except that when they see a butterfly, they break free and chase it.”
Did he know anyone close to him who enjoyed such things?
Takeda couldn’t bring himself to ask the question that would lead him to that abyss. Anyway, a demon who drooled and said he liked the leash around his neck.
Leon stood up firmly as he took over these demons.
“Two days. We’ll deal with them two days after you return, so you know.”
“Ah, yes…….”
Takeda snapped a few pictures of them, thinking that he should just hand them over and move on.
“Then let’s get to their leader.”
“You’re going to use…serfs again?”
Seeing the serf meat shields, which were somewhat of a culture shock to modern humans, Takeda was fed up.
“We’ve hunted a lot of demons, but the damage on this side is still pretty heavy.”
The total casualties reached nine hundred. Most of them were dead.
“Yeah, a lot of them are hurt, but ten… no, maybe more than twenty dead.”
“What?”
Takeda scratched his head at the strange math.
“Your Majesty, in the battle a little while ago, over nine hundred died.”
“Hmm?”
Nine hundred and sixteen to be exact.
Almost 1000 of them were killed, which is a serious mortality rate for a war.
Even after hearing such casualties, Leon stared at Takeda as if he couldn’t make sense of it.
“Are you… are you including the serfs in your numbers?”
“……?”
At that moment, Takeda remembered the numbers he’d been briefed on.
Hunter casualties, 34. Serf casualties, 882.
Of those, if you exclude the serf casualties…….
“34 hunters…….”
“Yes, that would be correct.”
Leon patted Takeda on the shoulder while Takeda stared at Leon’s back and felt a profound internal conflict.
Are humans…are they really better than demons?
* * * *
After fleeing from Leon, Akasha locked herself in the castle of her estate.
“Ugh.”
Pain radiates from the mouth of Chun Ji-so. Though he had lost his body and borrowed the form of a sword, her host’s pain was her own.
‘The wound from the holy sword is deep.’
The blow of the holy sword, imbued with the power of all the gods, was intimidating to Akasha, and it is a wonder that his power is not comparable to his prime.
Moreover, Akasha’s wounds weren’t only caused by the holy sword. The effects of the Holy Law left by Leon’s holy spear at the moment of the gate leap were still slowing down her physical regeneration.
Indeed, the Lionheart King is the demon’s nemesis.
‘After all… it must be a monarch.’
The pinnacle of all evil, the Demon Lords.
Though most of the Demon Lords perished in the expedition, their strength was in no way inferior to the Lionheart King.
In fact, most of the Demon Lords were more powerful than the Lionheart King.
‘It was the addition of his knights that allowed him to defeat Dothraddon, Lord of Pleasure, Malus, Lord of Chaos, and Caracael, Lord of Wisdom, in the Great War.’
The Lionheart King is strong, but it is the strength of his Holy Knights and Kingdom Knights that make up the Lionheart.
In the distant past, the Lord of Chaos, Malus, reduced the Lionheart King to nothing.
If it weren’t for that flame monster, the Lionheart King would not have survived.
‘He is at his weakest now. Compared to his former power, he’s a joke.’
He must be defeated before he regains his strength.
‘Indeed, preparations are already underway. Soon, Rakshar…will awaken.’
The reason she had abandoned her new slaughterhouse and headed to Korea was to support him.
“Archduke!”
It was then that the demon butler, a lowly demon in the castle, rushed into Akasha’s room.
“What’s going on?”
“They’re here! They’ve come to the front of the castle!”
“Kr—-”
Akasha snarled at the Lionheart King, who had marched to the front of her castle.
She didn’t know what he did, but he opened the gates and invaded her territory.
He was definitely insane, to think of coming directly into the demon realm.
“What happened to the… support request?”
“That, that…….”
The demon butler hesitated for a moment, as if to say, “I’m sorry. There were plenty of Archdemons in the nearest estates, but…….
“They… did not… answer the call. They said that the Archduke is not worthy…….”
“Kr–”
The Demon Archdukes are definitely the second most powerful beings among the demons after the Demon Lords.
However, only a Demon Lord has the right to summon the Archdemons who have territories and lead the Demon Legion.
Among the demons of slaughter who have ‘lost their lord’, there is much confusion as to who is in command.
‘If only it weren’t for that orc.’
The Lord of Slaughter and Destruction died at his hands and the Archduke herself was disembodied by the creature and has been a wanderer for the past decade.
“Murka…that bastard.”
Like the Lionheart King, the Orc High Khan is feared by all demons and stirs up trouble.
If it weren’t for him, the battle with Lionheart would have been a battle involving all the lords and demons.
“Release…!”
“Archduke?”
The butler’s head snapped up at Akasha’s suddenly loud voice and Akasha’s brows narrowed.
‘The host bastard…….’
It wasn’t Akasha who had just spoken. It was her parasitic host, Chun Ji-so.
The host’s consciousness was awakening due to the depth of Akasha’s wounds.
“Not good.”
Akasha had been searching for years for the perfect host with the gift of the sword to resurrect her body.
Of the six hosts she’s had so far, Chun Ji-so was the best, but there was a genius body with a talent beyond even Chen Ji-so.
“Chen So-yeon. I must find her.”
Chen Ji-so’s body was no match for Leon but what about Chen So-yeon?
If she could take her body as a host, and fully blossom her potential with her own power…….
One of Akasha’s eyes flashed with greed.
“So-yeon…run away.
While a fatherly tear rolled down the other.
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