Every moon beast and human that had gathered under the protection of the Mother Tree turned to where the voice came from. No one had expected it, yet they all felt drawn to look at where it came from.
The voice was like torture to the ear, Kai thought his ears would start bleeding after hearing those three words. It was grating, deep and sounded like whatever the voice belonged to had just clawed out from the deepest depths of hell. It was just too much.
But when Kai saw the source of the voice...
He trembled.
Standing at the edge of the Dome of the Mother Tree was a tall abomination with four arms. The abomination towered over any human present and wore nothing, its entire hideous body free for all to see. Even though it looked humanoid, it was easy to tell that it was anything but.
It's flesh looked harder than all the other abominations Kai had seen, which didn't really make sense, but it just did. Kai instinctively knew that he would never be able to deal even the smallest amount of damage to that terrifying creature, even if he went all out.
In the Demon's four arms were three weapons.
As for why it was three, Kai remembered that in the mural, the fourth was missing. Kai had no idea as to why that was, but if the Demon only had three weapons, it was better than if it had four, right?
Just like in the mural, the Demon wielded a rapier, a claymore and a double headed axe. Each glinted with malice as Kai swallowed as he gazed at the blades. Quite frankly, Life Eater could not compete. The three weapons the Demon had in its arms were almost as terrifying as itself.
It was a little unfair that the Demon got weapons while Aldred fought with his body, but what could Kai do about it? Complain to HR?
Sadly, it only got worse after the Demon emerged from the shadows of the forest. Surrounding the army of moon beasts, countless abominations emerged from behind the trees.
Majority had a crescent moon somewhere on their body, but Kai could see that there was still quite a few quarter and gibbous moon ones mixed among the crowd
Luckily, there was no other full moon abomination than the Demon.
There was also dozens of humans among the legion of abominations. Unlike the humans on the moon beast side though, each human had the same set of metal armour wrapped around their body's
It was a dark silver with a red crystal embedded in its chest. The crystal had a demonic gleam to it, like it was alive.
But while the humans looked like they were all about business, their expressions said the opposite.
They were all white with fear, scared for their lives. That was when Kai remembered what Failure said in one of their previous conversations.
That while he would not force any humans to fight in the war, the Demon most certainly would.
And it turns out that Failure was right once again. Each human looked like they did not want to be there. In fact, they all looked absolutely exhausted. Each one of them had deep, black bags under their eyes and looked as if they could pass out at any second.
But they also looked full of energy. But that didn't make sense, how could they be full of energy yet so tired?
There was two answers to that question, either they were injected with something, or the Demon had traumatised them and trained them into complete obedience.
"It is time indeed. I must say, it is quite rambunctious of you to challenge our dear Aldred to a duel like this, don't you think? Go on, answer me, Sir Dick- Oh, sorry, Sir Demon."
Kai bit his lower lip to hide a smirk at Failure's taunt, the others in the army hiding their own smiles and stifling their own laughs.
But even in the face of Failure's obvious taunts, the Demon did not react. It just stood still, completely unmoving from the position it emerged in.
"How disappointing."
It began speaking again, but then Kai realised that the Demon didn't have a mouth, so how was it speaking? It was creepy. But Kai had learned to put up with creepy, which was a thing that he wasn't sure if he should be proud of or not.
"I had thought that you would try harder to create a suitable army for your destruction to at least keep up the pretense that you tried."
The Demon then looked around, scanning over everyone that stood against it. But when Kai looked at it, he felt a familiar feeling well up in the back of his mind, a feeling he hadn't felt in forever.
A cold shiver that indicated a mind attack.
"But all I see here are useless pieces of flesh who's only purpose are to act as sacrifices to The Lord."
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
Kai gasped. Even with the medium resistance to mind attacks that Strong Mind offered, Kai still felt it. It was like he was back under the incinerating moonlight of that cursed moon.
His brain was on fire, like it was being torn apart torturously slow by countless miniscule creatures. The pain brought him back to those torturous few moments he spent under the excruciating light of the moon, the fear he felt when he thought he was going to die that day. If it was this bad for him, what was it like for the others?
All around him, countless beasts and humans alike fell to the ground, clutching their heads in agony.
Because of the howls of pain, you couldn't tell who was human and who was beast.
"Enough!"
Failure's shout echoed throughout the dome created by the Mother Tree's treetop, a beacon to guide those in pain.
The crown atop his head started to glow, a radiant shine of a mixture of the horrid purple and the beautiful gold. The shine of the crowd reached all those that were in pain, its radiance washing over them.
Kai's eyes widened in shock as the crowns light washed over him.
The agonising mind attack he had just been inflicted with... was gone. The crown on top of Failure's beautiful, beautiful head had somehow washed away the effects of the Demon's mind attack.
Kai had never been so happy to see such an ugly looking crown in his life. In all his seventeen years of life, he never expected it at all.
In fact, it wasn't just Kai who had his mind attack washed away, everyone who was fell victim to it was cured. One by one, the humans and moon beasts started shakily rising back to their feet.
But there was another problem.
While the beasts had some semblance of pride and composure as they had a reason to stand up and fight, majority of the humans were trembling in fear.
Kai had gone through the effects of the moons mind attack once before, meaning he was ever so slightly resistant to it, not that it made it any more tolerable, it was still torturous to endure. But these humans had not gone through that same pain.
They were terrified. No one in their right mind wanted to feel pain, not unless you were a masochist.
And sadly, none of the humans present were a masochist.
Their body's trembled, their eyes widened, their lips trembled, the hands that were holding on much to tightly to their weapons slowly turned white as their fingers threatened to loosen and drop the weapon they were holding.
But that fear didn't last for long.
"For too long you have oppressed these beasts. For too long, you have attacked their home. For too long, you have slain their kin, destroyed their lives."
Another wave of that golden light spread our from Failure's crown. The radiance spread out, all around the army of moon beasts and humans. The warm light enveloped everyone present, protecting them.
Even though Kai realised that everyone else was terrified, that didn't mean he himself wasn't scared. In fact, he should probably be the most scared out of anyone present, but Nonchalance helped deal with that.
But he was still scared nonetheless.
But when the radiance exuded by the crown wrapped itself around him for the second time, all that fear was washed away.
It was magical. All the signs of fear present on the army dissapeared in an instant. All of them suddenly became renewed with vigor and hope.
Their fingers stopped trembling, their breathing calmed and some semblance of peace returned to their petrified eyes.
Failure, the cause of this change, was not done speaking yet.
"For too long, you have remained loyal to that scumbag of a pervert you call a god. For too long, you stood in the way of my goal."
Failure's eyes flashed with something undescribable, anger so ancient and so pure that Kai couldn't help but shiver as he caught a glimpse of it.
"Today is the day. Today will mark the end of Eye of the Moon's tyrannical rule of a land that does not belong to him. Today is the day that I redeem myself so that I can finally stand to look at my reflection!"
Kai flinched. Failure really was going all out with this inspirational speech...
So why did it have to be so sad?
Everything that Failure started saying didn't seem to be an attempt to compose and calm the army, it was more of an attempt to calm and compose himself.
Kai couldn't even begin to comprehend what Failure had gone through to give up his name and willingly name himself Failure. All he knew was that Failure made a mistake that he thought was irredeemable. It would have to be something terrible for the charismatic man to dedicate every fibre of his being to trying to make up for his irreprebal mistake.
And it seemed like the Demon had something to do with the mistake that caused Failure to give up his name.
"While I may not be strong enough to smite you back to the pits of hell where you belong, our proud and powerful Aldred is more than enough. He has already bested you once before, destroying that weapon of yours and your arm that took you one hundred years to heal!"
That's when Kai realised why the mural was missing a weapon. It wasn't that someone was trying to erase it from history, it was that they had already destroyed it. It was a tally to keep track of what weapons the Demon had left.
"And while you spent those hundred years hiding, cowering in weakness, we persevered. We trained, we grew stronger. We did not hide, we did not falter. We pushed forward!"
More and more emotions began to stir within the hearts of everyone present. Failure's speech was moving them. His words struck their will like a gong hit by a mallet.
That was when Kai realised Failure's true goal.
The whole time, Failure had attempted to guide the crowd, like a beacon lighting the way. A passive thing, but a welcome thing nonetheless.
Now... Now Failure had truly become that beacon, the radiance of his crown acting like a guiding light to those who stood with him.
His light would never falter, never flicker, never burn out. It was eternal. As long as he lived, so would the beacon he had become.
He was their guiding light after all.
"So, Demon. You have come to us for a duel that I am more than happy to allow Aldred to oblige you in. You have no idea what is about to come. While you hid, Aldred hunted.
You cannot even begin to fathom how much he has grown in the time you spent cowering in fear."
Failure gasped, catching his breath. This act only acted for a second though, he then quickly composed himself as he glared back at the Demon.
"Are you ready to see who you are messing with?"
The Demon remained silent. The eye that contained its full moon twitched slightly.
That was when Kai felt it. An almost suffocating aura that tried to take his breath away.
The source of that was, of course, The Demon. But the lingering effects of the crown protected from from the aura.
But it was enough to tell how angry The Demon was. It was livid. If looks could kill, everyone present would be dead ten times over.
"You dare insult The Lord? You do not even deserve to speak his name! You have no right!"
The Demon's arms moved slowly as it got prepared, its three weapons following the motion. The Demon turned its fleshy head to Aldred, who was waiting patiently for his turn.
Aldred was more of a fighter, not a speaker after all.
"Now, you all die!"