The King of Ketterburg bowed to The Hero Canon. He shook as he kneeled there, the disgrace shattering his plentiful pride.
“What has become so important that you are forcing the king of the strongest nation in the world to kneel to you?”
“Normally we’d use different methods, but Ketterburg isn’t all that important anyway. To shatter their plans, we will be using you. Plus, for future events to take place, humans need a couple advantages.”
“Who is ‘their?’ And how can the most powerful nation be not all that important? How can my hard work--my legacy--not be important!” He glanced up from his kneeling position. He was a mix of hesitant, terrified, and frustrated, a scared toddler in the middle of throwing a tantrum; a medley of emotions. Canon kicked him in the face, tossing him across the room. Canon had a smirk that barely held back his disgust.
The king coughed desperately. He felt the blood dribbling down his chin and fear coursed through him. Perhaps, only at that moment, he was once again in the hands of his brother—begging for his life. “I-I-I’ll do anything! Just spare me!”
“I never intended to kill you,” Canon walked over, bent down and held the king's bleeding chin tightly in his hand, a smug grin etched upon his handsome features. “But I can also replace you, so tread lightly. We need to destroy Theseus’ nation and eliminate Dream. If we strike now, we don’t have as much of a risk. We need to tear down Dreams' country because we can’t kill him without tearing the place down first. Galaxy seems to be protecting the nation at the moment, likely because of Ozymandias, so I can’t just waltz up there and expose The Church of Prime as the group that keeps undermining him. Not to mention, it will attract unwanted attention to the monster nations and the church to just up and destroy a nation. Just in general, it’s ideal to work in the shadows to destroy everyone. But Theseus is a little too large to destroy from the darkness, so something larger will happen for that--much larger.”
“I-I don’t understand! Please, I’ll do anything! I thought me and The Church of Prime were allies!”
“Yes. Yes. Don’t worry your pretty little head off, just destroy the will and nation of King Dream. And, with much more cautious movements, begin weakening Theseus as well and challenging him in smaller things; placing yourself as a contender. The weaker his nation, the better. We want to continually destabilize his foundation so he’s weaker when it comes time to strike with venom. I’ve been entrusted with this task, and I will complete it in a way befitting of a hero.”
“But why now? What changed? Are the humans making a move under your control? And contender for what?”
“Hah!” Canon threw back his head in laughter. “You believe you’re in a position to be asking questions? You’ll be lucky to be alive by the end of this. After all, you’re trying to undermine the nation all you monsters gather under in the event the humans make a move. You are to challenge the crown jewel of monster-kind!”
In a distant throne room, a man whispered into the ear of Theseus. The words brought a challenging grin to Theseus’ face.
~
”The third estimate has arrived.” The servant told Dream. “They say this should be the last and most accurate one. They told me to apologize to you, but that it was difficult to estimate the casualties when Ozymandias was so much stronger this time than normal.”
Dream nodded and held out his hand for George to bring him the papers. He rifled through them.
“You’re dismissed. Good work, make sure to bring any more high importance papers direct to me—none of this delegation nonsense.”
The servant left and George examined the room. Dream nodded to him that nobody was present that couldn’t hear what was going to be said. All the soldiers present were trusted members of Dream’s inner circle—that is, the remnants of that inner circle.
“Dream, as an update, the story that an Enderian snuck into the castle seems to have stuck with the general public, though GeoSquare has published a paper calling us out on the lie. He claims that it was a single individual and we failed to even capture him. Guy knows everything somehow—not that that’s new.”
Dream nodded. “I’d say we should kill him for treason, but I doubt we could get our hands on him. He’d flutter out of our grasp again. No point wasting more resources on him than normal.”
George cringed when he glanced at the paper. “How much more is that than last time?”
“Before this? The average was two to six million per attack, this one… something must’ve changed. I’m glad Ketterburg is calling a meeting so we know what to do the next time he appears. I don’t know if the world can take another attack from him.”
The paper read:
Casualty Report:
Average Per Continent: 6.8 million individuals killed.
Percentage Of Casualties per Species:
38% Human.
62% Monster.
Total Killed: 41.8 million out of 815 million combined monsters and humans. Roughly 5% of world population.
Kingdoms/Nations Collapsed: 11
Economic Damages: 33 years (human) average per nation to recuperate.
Most Damaged Monster Nation in Casualties: Ketterburg and Greater Talentare, Casualties roughly even; 3.1 million each.
Population of Ketterburg pre-Ozymandias: 56 million.
Population of Greater Talentare pre-Ozymandias: 49 million.
Most Damaged Human Nation in Casualties:
Takia: 1.2 million casualties.
Takia Population pre-Ozymandias: 41 million.
Most Damaged Nation In Percentage of Population Massacred: Yaveria: Related Incident; The Massacre of Seven Weeks. This massacre occurred when Ozymandias first showed himself again.
Total Percentage of pre-Ozymandias Yaverian population killed: 89%. 75k dead.
Relevant Demons:
Cragmaw: Alive, involved in one battle, escaped with little to no damage. Total kills in 5th attack: 26k. Ranking; above calamity, below Blood God, below Spoke, stronger than Galaxy, stronger than an Enderian.
Ranking Amongst Relevant Group: Strongest recorded demon of Ozymandias.
Extra Information: precautions are being taken for the next time Cragmaw appears, but he is powerful enough that it is unknown how Ozymandias summoned him. It is believed he may be the product of an extremely powerful magical object that amplified Ozymandias’ Create Demon power. It is believed he can overturn up to level 9 runes without a magic struggle and only struggle with level 10 runes.
Silent Scute: Dead, involved in the assasination of over 300 important people.
Involved in the assasination of The Librarian, who’s successor is now in charge of the magic library. See Outlawing of Humans from magic library
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Contender of Life: Dead, main perpetrator of the “NO ESCAPE” massacre ordered by Ozymandias, which holds this name due to the message from Ozymandias to this general, intercepted exactly two minutes before the massacre began. Involved in many incidents, still debatable whether truly dead. Full breakdown in Full Detail Reports.
New Abilities Ozmandias used this war:
Instant-Create, Greater Superior Demon: this attack seems to allow Ozmandias to summon a Greater Superior Demon instantly. Greater Superior Demons are extremely powerful, and are known to lead large groups of Upper, Greater, Elite, and even Greater Extreme Demons. A Greater Superior has a strength stat that is within 60-80% of an Enderians, with a magical power measurable by subtracting three times an average demon's physical force from the strength of the enhancement. They differ in agility but it is common for a stronger Greater Superior Demon to be less in speed and agility. Amongst their kin, they seem rather intelligent: they are believed to be able to see 4-7 layers, which is more than the common monster can see—2-4–-and significantly more than the average human can see—1-3.
To contrast, an Upper Demon can see roughly 1-3 layers at any given moment. The activation parameters of this skill seem broad and the magical drain seems minimal.
Destroy Lesser Being: this attack seemingly allows Ozymandias to instantly kill an individual with just his mind. The activation parameters and magical drain are both unclear, but Ozymandias used it multiple times on different individuals; the weakest was a warrior with ten years experience and a magical power of a elite mage; the strongest was a Legendary Warrior who trained directly under Galaxy and has completed the feet of driving an Enderian away from a city, though it cost him an arm. This skill seems to drain Ozymandias of magical energy substantially, though it’s believed the drain may be proportional to the strength of the instantly killed.
Average Casualties in Previous Ozymandias attacks Worldwide: 5.8 million. Less than a million per continent.
Average Economic Damages in Previous Ozymandias attacks: seven (human) years to recuperate.
—
Dream rubbed his temples. It kept on getting worse and worse. Ozymandias had shaken the world everyone had built up for centuries to the core.
“That bad?”
“Yup. I’m hoping we can get Takia to stop stalling on that Enderian watch team. If we wait much longer, they’ll be so far apart we’ll never catch all of them. I can get them being low on resources, but we need to get our shit together or Ozmandias might kill even more the next time he shows up. I’m hoping he can’t get any stronger, otherwise we could be looking at a war between The Demon King and The Gods Council.”
“I find it ironic we rely on the gods so much. You think they wouldn’t sign away our lives? What if they decide a war is not worth getting into?”
Dream shook his head. “While I’d be inclined to agree that it’s stupid normally, you’re wrong this time.” George cocked his head. “The gods would never risk creating a power spectrum like that. They’ve become stable enough by now, with the Good Gods of order dancing in the palm of The Blood Gods hand, that they just have to keep on fighting amongst each other. The good gods fear someone being tossed into the mix and throwing off the delicate spider web they’ve spun for hundreds of monster years, and the Chaos Gods fear the Good Gods receiving the support they need to free their messiah earlier than planned. Both consider our lives too short and worthless to be worth risking everything over. So the good and bad gods pressure the neutral to deal with it and the neutral garner ridiculous amounts of support and wealth in return—magical objects being the main thing they aim for. It’s beneficial to the neutral so they don’t mind ganging up on a few powerful mortals. Gods are strong enough to beat pretty much any mortal with numbers, but not so ridiculously strong that they don’t think us monsters and humans pose no threat.”
“This,” George points at the tall pile of papers on the desk, “seems stressful, so why don’t we finish up with training later today?”
Dream laughed and gave a small smile, raising his mask to the right so he could look at George normally. “You’re just trying to get out of your work hunting Geosquare!” Dream made sure to remember to bring up possible tariffs to respond to the humans. After all, the humans had placed a bunch of tariffs when they were outlawed from the magic library.
“Yes I am!”
“Fine,” Dream playfully said. “The guys a bitch, but we probably couldn’t capture him anyway. He’s just a tricky journalist, he’s got no footing to make a move at the moment. We don’t need to let him know our movements just yet. He’d need crazy resources if he wanted to do anything besides risk himself. Plus, Sapnap is taking a trip to the capital—GeoSquare doesn’t even have anyone close to Sapnaps level—so we don’t need to worry about an attack.”
A man in a warehouse flicked a lighter switch on. He grinned as an arrow was pulled back and aimed at a man crossing a bridge miles away.
~
In a distant land, a poor peasant cleaned his hands of blood. He looked to be about fifty, but a childish grin settled on his face.
“Ugg. This is soooooo boring.” His gaze seemed to face… somewhere distant… his grin spread farther across his face. It was crazed and uncontrollable despite the marks of age on his face and the calluses of hard work on his hands. “Where are all the interesting people to fight?” His face melted into some kind of gray goo. Taking its place was some kind of staticy, well built man. He kept on seemingly blurring, with different bright colors spreading across him sporadically. “It’s been so long since I’ve killed an above-Calamity person? Maybe I’ll go for someone like that next.”
He turned to look around. His eyes were somewhere distant again. His brow was creased. “I swear I’m being watched.”
~
Sapnap fell off his horse suddenly. He immediately assessed the situation like he had so many times before.
There was an arrow in his side.
Past his enhancement magic, armor, and enchantments, the arrow had gone so deep into his side he could only see the fletching and a bit of the arrows shaft poking out of his side.
He could barely process what was going on as his vision swimmed. The arrow had decay on it, and it clearly had multiple other enchantments attached to the bow, not to mention possibly runes to make the arrow even more deadly. Sapnap was going to rot away quickly, and there was nothing he could do about it.
—
The warehouse was blazing with the flames of hell. It was as bright as the sunrise and as hopelessly unreachable, too. People tried to put out blazing infernos as over a dozen buildings were simultaneously set on fire. The fire spread like sin spread into the minds of man and monster alike. Some flames were brilliant, beautiful colors like the sunset. Other parts were a deep blue, a never-ending pit in the ocean. Some were black and some white.
“You know,” said GeoSquare to the mysterious man who had allowed this all to happen. “They say monsters,” he stared at the flaming abyss below, “are supposed to be perfect beings in nature. They should not be able to kill each other or harm each other needlessly normally, but it is outside things that taint them—that turn them to sin.” GeoSquare grinned as he watched innocent people catch on fire and entire neighborhoods go down in terrible smoke. “I think that’s a load of crap.”
The mysterious man, who wore a butler's suit, smirked.
~
As the people in the palace received hundreds of messages talking about fires and attacks on bridges, they scrambled to escape or fight as well.
There were no special forces prepared to buy time and soldier after soldier fell to the blades of the group invading the palace. Amongst the group of invaders stood two special men.
One possessed a wicked curved blade and an array of different enchanted armors, most prominent amongst the armor was a midnight black chest plate which hummed with power. He stood at an impressive 6 feet of height with a couple inches more to spare. He had a spiked tail and patches of purple skin, which was not weird for a monster. His shoulders were broad and the signs of muscle were prominent below his armor.
The other wore a red cloak and held a long spear he wielded with incredible skill and efficiency. He was as well built as his partner, though not quite as tall. He possessed no obvious monster-like characteristics but he seemed clearly to be a monster like his companion.
They chopped, burned, exploded, and sliced dozens of soldiers with powerful magic and enchanted weapons, and wasted no more than ten seconds even when faced with knights and warriors.
“Not one more step, this is the palace of the king. Not a place for rogues and criminals like you.” A man with goggles stood in their way.
“I see,” said the man in the red cloak, “you believe my tainted flesh cannot dirty the pristine floors of the corruption that founds this place.”
George grinned. “I never said that. Maybe you’re just self aware.”
~
“But if I may ask, why?” asked GeoSquare, swirling the half-empty contents of the wine glass. “Why help me? Hell, why help anyone at all? What purpose is there to crushing this nation? You’re clearly not in the same power class as us.”
“You seem to believe I am an agent of chaos, perhaps someone sent down to wreak havoc for the mysterious Grand Scheme of Things, or a disciple of The Blood God. I will tell you, I do this for something entirely different.”
GeoSquares gaze averted to look the butler directly in the eye. “Oh?” An offer as good as this one was too good to pass up, but if necessary GeoSquare would choose the country over control any day.
“We live in a world where man eats man and monster consumes monster, where the snake of sin resides in the minds of humans and monsters casually, like eggs in a bird's nest—it almost belongs. When taint is so deep into the minds of monsters and men, what will happen when a person encounters hopelessness? What will happen when everything someone has built is torn down long before its expiration date?”
GeoSquare was intrigued, and much more wary. “And what does that have to do with all of this?”
RangTrue smiled. An earnest, soft smile. GeoSquare could’ve sworn a chill spread through the room, icing his weak mortal mind. Every nerve felt like it was on fire, and his fight or flight responses were overwhelmed by sheer terror. “Because you are the first step to creating my favorite tool again.”