-Growl…-
A Gammaz growled while checking the area that was before the territory of the now-dead Barak, looking around together with its band of other 9 Gammaz. Behind the Gammaz, there were some Dark Fairies that also wanted to take the remains of what the Gammaz would leave behind, flying around and looking for goods that would interest the Gammaz. They worked for the Gammaz in exchange for being protected by them, forming a little hierarchy within the monster ranks.
-QIU!-
A loud and high-pitched signal resounded from somewhere near a fairy, and the entire group of fairies and Gammaz rushed towards the respective sound. There, a fairy pointed at a ripped backpack hanging by a rope on a ruined building, a thick smell of protein bars emanating from it.
-GROWL!-
The Gammaz in front growled delightedly and signaled the fairy to bring whatever there was that smelled so well to him. As told, one fairy went and easily cut the rope, making the bag fall from the first floor onto hard concrete with no cushion.
.
-BOOM!!!-
“T-the bag actually exploded?”
Multiple explosions resounded from a distance as a large pillar of smoke rose in the sky, showing the area where the bag blew up completely.
Initially, Aria had doubts that the plan of blowing up scouting monsters with such an obvious trap would work. But Darius was more than sure it would, since these monsters, unlike the ones between the four main border cities, aren’t familiar with what grenades look like. So even if a high-ranked or even a boss-ranked monster were to see a round metallic globe, they wouldn’t suspect it to be some type of explosive, ignoring it or playing with it like a ball.
“Now that we directed other monsters’ attention towards that area, we can now thread forward without worrying about other tails left behind by our subordinates.”
“What about the mana they can smell off of us?”
“I’m already working on that.”
With his miasma glove, Darius was able to cover their trail with miasma clouds that completely nullified whatever residual mana Aria might leave behind unconsciously as a mage.
They were unable to find the radio station to ask for reinforcements, so they ended up going by foot. But thankfully for Darius, the trails left behind by the heavy armored vehicles were still visible and gave them the right direction towards the military base.
.
-Grr…-
-SLASH!-
A Nightmare that wanted to go behind a corner suddenly got cut in half by a plasma knife, disappearing in black smoke right after. Darius peeked behind the corner, and after seeing the area free of monsters, he signaled Aria to continue on forward, with his miasma glove continuing to snap his finger and send out sonar-like waves, making him detect the movements of other organisms around them.
“You’re full of wonders. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“A few times.”
While Aria was amazed by his resourcefulness, Darius detected another Nightmare on the 3rd floor of a building, happening to look out the window right at that moment. He took out his gun, and with his mana-glove, he energized the bullet, making it able to damage even spiritual entities.
He aimed at the clueless Nightmare and just as he shot, the monster turned to him, only to have its head blown to bits and turn into black smoke right after.
“Let’s go.”
They ran from there and behind another block; the place where they were just a while ago is now completely swarmed with monsters attracted by the loud gunshot.
“Incredible. You can actually tell the location of every monster around."
“Pretty much……… Okay, the front is free. Let’s go before anything else appears.”
Darius continued to answer Aria without a mind while immersed in detecting any other monsters around. She tilted her head at how familiar he seemed with this scenario and asked simply out of curiosity,
“Have you been in such situations before? You seem awfully familiar with all of this.”
“Pretty much. I worked as a mercenary… To the right.”
“A mercenary? So you left the army? How did you join again?”
“Captain Aaron discovered me, so he contacted me for this position if interested… Now, left.”
“And by the looks of it, I guess you already have experience with commanding as well, right?”
“Had the role of a leader while working as an elite before as well. Commanding a large or small group, it’s all about how wide your vision is- wait… The front, it’s blocked.”
After snapping his finger one last time, Darius detected about a few hundred monsters in front, and the numbers continued to rise, a deep frown appearing on his face as he never saw so many altogether in such a small place. Aria also prepared herself, her serious face on.
“I understand we can’t go to the sides, right? How many are there?”
“Hundreds, if not almost a thousand. Their positions are too chaotic, so I can’t really count them… Behind this building, something happens.”
Darius signaled Aria to climb the building, and both of them did so, with Aria climbing faster since her physical abilities were much greater than Darius’.
“W-what is this?!”
Aria exclaimed baffled at how an army of about 200 to 300 golems from ranks mid-tier to boss-tier grouped up against an even larger army of double the numbers of Gammaz assisted by even more fairies, with the Gammaz ranking from low-tier to high-tier and the fairies ranking from lowest to low-tier.
-BOOM!-
A boss-ranked golem from the front slammed the ground with its full power. The miasma inside of it channeled through the ground, and all over the front area, dark circles formed on the ground that exploded right after, sending pieces of gammaz into the air. Gammaz also used their tails, and from the tips, they shot out dark beams that penetrated through the mid-ranked golems’ enchanted stone armor, trying to block the beams with their strong limbs. The higher-ranking golems punched the ground and created a wall of stone in front that blocked the beams. Then they punched the wall and sent debris flying like a shotgun, killing large waves of fairies and low-rank gammaz. The fairies would also swarm the mid-ranked golems and rip bits and pieces off their legs to make them collapse, then dig through their necks or backs towards the core, destroying it completely.
The sight was rather incredible, and explosions, miasma beams, and shockwaves from destructive blows resounded all over the battlefield. At this sight, Darius simply explained, while looking around for an opening they could take to traverse the battlefield towards the other side of the city,
“A fight for territory. Nothing really that strange, especially in a city void of a common enemy like humans.”
“T-then you’re saying they might group up once we start our reconquest of the Dead City?”
“Only the nearer groups. They aren’t that friendly to start fighting together. But for sure, they might coincidentally start a joint battle where we might get attacked by two types of monsters at the same time… That’s why we need the base. We’ll be able to find a lot of heavy weaponry able to fend off even boss-ranked monsters. Together with the assistance of mages that can naturally damage monsters, we’ll be able to grow our territory fairly quickly.”
“You are surprisingly confident.”
“I have no reason not to be.”
“Even after seeing all this?”
“Especially after seeing all this.”
His eyes shone with cold confidence, and he surprised Aria, not expecting his answer. He then pointed at the back of the golems’ forces, and Aria saw how, behind them, another group of Nightmares started pushing in for a pincher attack, with the Nightmares taking advantage of this to also grow their territory.
“We just need to see it as a free-for-all war. As long as we examine our enemies and prove to have the advantage, other monsters might actually give us a helping hand. And if we get to see our neighbors fighting, we can just pitch in and eliminate both forces after they exhaust their forces. All we need to do is choose who to strike and when, while keeping our defenses strong. We might have lower overall power, but we sure have the brains and momentum. And that’s more than enough.”
He smirked calmly, and Aria wasn’t sure if to be amazed or afraid.
Combat-wise, he’s unparalleled. He’s incredible at strategizing both small and large-scale battles. He has an all-time cool mind, while his infiltration abilities are top-notch with great knowledge of weaponry. Add to this some incredible practical abilities as a mage, and here you have the most terrifying human being one could ever ask for.
She shook her head and, in the end, just asked what the plan was for reaching the other side. Darius looked to the sides he just sighed and pointed at the back side of the Gammaz’ army.
“Since the golems’ back has been occupied by the Nightmares, our only option is to go behind the Gammaz.”
"Impossible; the fairies will detect us in a second. Their mana-detection is especially strong.”
“Yeah. That’s why I’ll have to do this.”
Clenching his left fist, the two of them got sealed in a thick energy field of miasma. The miasma field wasn’t strong enough to protect them from physical objects, but it worked perfectly to completely cut off any mana from the outside. As long as Aria won’t use her abilities, no string of mana would evade that barrier, while their appearances would also be completely hidden since the field looked like a simple cloud of miasma from the outside, camouflaging them perfectly.
“You’re terrifying…”
“Compliment received.”
.
After three more hours, on top of the front watchtower of the Military Base, an elite soldier in full combat-suit waited rather nervously, turning his head to sides. He was atop a watchtower right beside the gates and looked around, at times taking his sniper and looking through it if he felt like he saw what he searched for, only to curse out disappointed from mistaking some monster.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Damn it… Darius, don’t you die on me…!”
After the elites and mages escaped the Barak, loud explosions and tremors made the whole place shake while the dragon’s roars made the miasma around to vibrate and the clouds in the sky to swirl. At this sign of power made not just the elites but the mages as well to fidget nervously inside the vehicles, wondering whenever they should turn back or continue on. And after that large explosion resounded and a shockwave pushed even their vehicles a bit off their track, some mages became more and more agitated, wanting to return for their captain, the elites ignoring them and going on forward abiding to orders.
As they went on forward, it so happened at that exact moment they passed through the central square of the city, more and more monsters gathered up perhaps scared by the rampage caused by Barak.
Because of the chaos, they were able to push through the monsters and make way, partially because the mages and elites united forces to strike whatever monster, be them golems, fairies, or gammaz happened to get in their ways, but most of it because the drivers set the AM-Sonars to the maximum, making it annoying even for the mages, some of them asking about a very low sound that made them feel sick in the stomach.
In the end when they finally arrived, they focused mainly on defense and waited for their commander and leader. Now, they were already waiting for more than 3 hours and there was no sign of them, the most nervous from them all being Jack who has been looking through the sniper ever since they arrived.
[Hunter. Any news about our superior?]
He received a message through the cult’s phone from another fellow elite and Jack quickly typed two letters, not liking to use the cult’s way of communication in the least.
[No]
[Alright. Be sure to inform us before anything.]
Seeing this message Jack frowned and asked somewhat bothered by the message.
[Why? What are you planning?]
[Nothing? But obviously we must know first. After all, the commander it’s in truth one of the Generals of the cult. We can’t be placed on the same level with these moronic superhumans.]
At this statement Jack rolled his eyes and simply closed the phone, not interested to continue this conversation.
He had no love for superhumans either, that’s true. But for sure he wouldn’t take it to such childish levels as to exploit information of this type and leave the mages out of this. They were in the most dangerous place they’ve ever been so far, and all the other soldiers could think of was how they could pull a quick one in front of the mages. Even he felt like sighing at his brothers.
I swear these guys sometimes are just so……. Huh?
Two silhouettes made him look wide-eyed. He took his sniper and looked through it and he was able to confirm, that the ones he saw through were exactly the ones he has been looking for, shouting out in excitement.
.
.
.
“Sigh~ so this is the base. Not bad at all.”
Darius sighed impressed by the sight in front of him, the base appearing more amazing than he expected.
After returning back to the base and having both their wounds treated the first wish Darius had was to check the insides of the base, starting with the main garage.
All the lights lit up rows after rows as the garage alone was as large as half a football stadium. But what made Darius truly smile were the heavy weaponry in the form of: Anti-aerial Wildcat EBBA, tanks like the Challenger 2 MBT model 1997 or T-14 Armata, a lot of LAV-type vehicles, of the -300, -25, or –III model. Weirdly enough, there were even two improvised wagon models that had an anti-aerial turret model Phalanx CIWS, known to shot between 3000 to 4500 r/m (rounds per minute) that shoots 20 mm calibers. There were only two of each such wagons, since the Phalanx alone valued about 67 tanks together.
However, what was truly a game-changer for Darius’ troops were the heavy mechanical armors with exoskeletons incorporated with great dexterity enchantment. The Titan Armor.
These things were used by the three main guilds whenever a large wave of monsters appeared. And unlike the normal armored exoskeletons that Darius and his crew use, these ones would let a normal human be able to confront even a High-ranked monster in a frontal battle without the fear of losing a limb from the first contact.
They were as expensive as a tank and the resource they used were energy crystals found from monsters, so they were also extremely wasteful. However, for those who fought in the front rows, such metal beasts were the perfect weapons, and Darius needed exactly this, a wide grin visible on his face at the 100 titan armors.
That proved just how ridiculously powerful such a weapon was, normally mounted on main battleships to defend against any aerial strikes, rockets included, shooting them down before they could reach even close to the battleship.
Afterwards, there was the weapons’ barrack.
“Damn.”
“Why are you amazed? You’re the one showing me this.”
Jack exclaimed surprised and Darius smirked amused.
“Well I didn’t get the chance to look too much. Now that I do… just… damn.”
A hallway of more than 20m long with the walls filled with rifles, there being rows on sides as well filled with heavy rifles and snipers, together with 2m tall metallic closers at the end of each hallway that were filled with different types of handguns and knives.
“I see we have enough toys, but what about the necessaries to make them work?”
“I recall it should be around here…”
They both got out from the weapons’ barracks and walked right beside, there being two bunkers that were made to be as sturdy as possible. After they opened the door, they had to go down more stairs underground until they arrived at another door. After opening the lights inside, crates upon crates of ammo could be visible everywhere around, filled with either bullets, filled magazines, shells for the tanks, large calibers for the armored vehicles, explosives of all types, and what made both Jack and Darius to remain frozen for a moment, were two large bombs, about as big as a human, the symbol of radiation having been plastered on them.
“You don’t think this is…”
“…Why would it be here? From what I know, this thing should be useless against these damned lands.”
“Only if… they don’t want to use them against these lands, but against some other place…”
““…………””
Both of their faces turned dark at these thoughts, unsure what to think of this. In the end Darius broke the silence and turned back.
“Let’s go. Show me what else there is to know of this base.”
“W-what? What about these? There are two nukes in our base’s basement!”
Jack reacted rather normally for someone who knew the true danger of such explosives, his face completely pale. But Darius calmly turned to him and signaled to go once again.
“There’s nothing we can do right now. Until we learn more about why such things appeared here, we can’t make any hasty decisions if we don’t wish to suddenly disappear off the face of the Earth.”
“… Understood.”
They left the area in deep thoughts and as they walked down the road towards the main building, with the corner of his eye Darius was able to discern the silhouette of an old man.
… Wait. There were no such people between my men or Aria’s squad. Who?
He quickly turned to the old man and saw him simply brushing the way from the barracks to the main building. This normally peaceful image made Darius quickly react by taking out his gun and point it to the old man, a loud shout escaping his mouth.
“STOP! Who are you?!”
“Dar- Commander?”
From the shock, Jack almost blurred out Darius’ real name, quickly correcting himself to commander.
He has never seen Darius so shaken and after seeing at who he pointed the gun, he quickly tried to explain,
“W-wait, commander! This old man has been brought here to maintain the base! He’s the only one who took care of this place all this time after the city got invaded!”
“How many years ago was it? 2 years? Are you telling me this old man survived here on his own for two years?”
“There is an underground automatized garden right below the training grounds. He had all the necessities to keep living.”
“And water?”
“There is one large underground vein of water that also aliments with electricity the whole base. Thankfully the water from that vein it’s yet to get corrupted by miasma, but the old man said Is but a matter of time.”
“… When was the last time you got in touch with the cult?”
Darius asked the old man as this whole time he didn’t break eye contact with him. What made Darius feel especially uncomfortable was the fact that not even once has he showed anything else other than composure and calmness, making Darius only more agitated.
At his question, the old man finally opened his mouth with a smile, his eyes soft and warm while asking calmly,
“Are you asking me that to see if you can kill me or not, is it?”
“?!”
It was exactly so. Normally, one wouldn’t suspect Darius of doing such a thing since he was on the same side as the cult, but the old man saw right through him in that exact moment, as if already knowing he was hostile to the cult- no. Darius was more than sure, he instinctively knew that the old man knew everything, and this only made his hair stand on ends, unsure just what gave him right away.
Should I shoot him? I’m not sure of his rank, so I don’t know if I can do it in the first place… Looking at him, I see no sign of mana, unlike Aria or the other superhumans who ever so slightly have their pupils shine with a blue light now and then. This shows he’s either a normal human or has mad control over his own mana. No matter, I still need to get rid of him since he already knows I’m hostile to the cult.
Just as he wanted to shoot, the old man smiled and opened his mouth again, something akin to happiness being visible in his eyes, puzzling Darius for a moment.
“I understand your hostility, young General. But you don’t need to have your guard up against me. Just like you, I wear my title not with pride, but with shame.”
“Y-you… who are you?”
“…Darius. By title, is he referring about the cult’s ranking system and you being a [General]? Just how did he find that out? Has the superiors informed him already?”
Jack also started feeling like something wasn’t quite right with the old man, stepping closer to Darius and whispering while also taking out his knife and gun.
Darius also thought of the same thing at first, but the more he stared into the old man’s eyes, he began to feel more and more like that wasn’t the case.
Thinking for a bit, Darius decided to take a gamble and quoted the words he found out of after he became a [Demon Lord].
“After the final stand of humanity will fall, the Dark God will finally cover the world…”
“-and the gates to Hell will finally close, turning this world into Hell itself, thus making us its lords."
“You’re really…!”
The old man finished the quote and made Darius stare at him completely frozen, not sure what to do.
He’s at least a [Demon Lord]…! Shit! Just what should I do-! Wait, do I even have a chance? I can’t do shit with the way I am right now against a damn Demon Lord!
He gritted his teeth in frustration, but then Jack attracted his attention, a deep frown visible on his face,
“Darius, what… does that mean? That’s… not a premonition, is it?”
Jack’s face was white after hearing the words spoken by Darius and the old man. Visible confusion and even some desperation started to manifest on his face, making Darius only more agitated as he didn’t know what to do at this point.
“Jack, listen. We need to get away from this old man.”
“Then what…? We are surrounded by monsters and cultists from all sides…!”
“Well, since I've been found out anyway, then I don't see why I should hide myself.”
With a wave of his hand, Darius felt a wind, as if something just got sucked from right beside him. After he looked, Jack completely disappeared, the space itself now as if cracked beside him, slowly reconstructing itself.
Time-Space manipulation?! W-what the- I don’t remember anyone in my past life except for gods being able to have such abilities! And I’ve never seen this old man!
At this point, Darius froze in place. He thought for about 10 whole minutes as his body froze completely still while his mind was racing faster than ever. After reaching a conclusion, Darius’ beating heart slowed down. All that tension from before suddenly turned into smoke as he sighed out heavily. He placed the gun back on his belt and calmed down.
However, the true reason he calmed down wasn’t because he found a way, but because he gave up. There was simply no way of fighting a god, and sure enough, not as a simple soldier with the imitated powers of field bosses. From desperation to acceptance, Darius jumped other steps as he simply accepted the possibility of death without further struggles, almost feeling amused by his predicament.
“Alright. I get it now. Yeah… all makes sense now, haha~.”
Why I’ve never seen him despite his crazy powers, who the bartenders tried to hide, and who I tried to overcome... Damn, was I stupid as a corrupted being or what? Even at my strongest, I had no fucking chance from the start.
He chuckled while biting his lower lip till he bled, finally aware of the missing piece from his past life. With a self-mocking smile and fury in his eyes, he glared at the old man and asked confidently.
“You… are the [Devil], aren’t you? Old man.”