“After our blood pact here today, our empires shall act as one. Aiding each other in the time of our need, and in the time of war. Should you call for our aid, we shall arrive as your allies. I look forward to our better future, Aru von Carda.” The demon queen bows her head in respect of the new allegiance between our empires.
“The feeling is mutual, Lord Aineura.” Though it is taboo among other tower nations to find peace and prosperity living among the demons, I do not find any reason not to accept the demon’s offer for a peaceful settlement among our empires. First, neither of us could fight each other with one having the advantage. In comparison to our armies to theirs, we could fight each other on equal ground that one kill will instantly be traded for one death. If such a conflict would happen, it would be pointless to fight knowing that neither will triumph over the other. The only thing that would really determine the victor would be a duel between its leaders, between the heroes and the demon queen. We have yet to know what the demon lord has in store for her skills. Appraisals are detectable at most when cast even in silence. Neither I nor Demon Queen Arika Aineura knows each other that well in terms of our skills and abilities. However, in our peaceful trading and interaction between the West Cardavenia Empire and their Aineura Demon Empire, we became the closest of friends. She would bring letters and papers for their traders and other economic problems that require approval from their empress if that is how the title for a leader of an empire should be since some empires are not usually led by kings or queens but rather their respective ‘heroes’. If one such empire would have a king or queen, it would just be a figure to represent the people. The heroes have the true power and depending on what title they have other than being a hero, they shall be addressed accordingly. In the demon’s case, they have their queen reaching out to us about having to request for more resources for something they lack. At some point, we too lack whatever they need but their queen had other plans to have a joint party of our men and theirs to find what our empires both need in other far places. Lord Arika would even come to me in person and even goes as far as to unnecessarily kneel in front of me asking for something. Back then, the East Toratoga ships would raid our fleets on their way to Charon City, the main and only city of the Aineura Empire. I had to go there myself along with Eura to defend the fleet from the pirates only to find out that the demons did the same. We found Lord Arika herself, wounded on the deck of the Transylvania when it was not yet refitted to be the flagship of the Cardavenia Fleet. Knowing that other tower empires would most likely go to take on and kill the demon lord at her weakest state right there, I and Eura went beside, Lord Arika to heal her and take her to rest. From there on, the three of us would be the closest of friends until then. Then, when that dragon held my sister on the edge of her blade while setting the cities of West Cardavenia ablaze with her breath and spell.
“You seem to forget the purpose of why you are in this world as heroes… The demons are the enemies of this world and so are yours! Aid them again and your empire shall perish with you!” That dragon, that true evil among the heroes, Turea Icaru Aliatera, would follow their unknown god to the letter of their prophecies of true peace when the demons are vanquished. So much to the point where the dragons would hold the most influence on the actions of each of the tower nations. I do not understand as to why the other heroes of the towers are not trying to fight her. Most of them may have been under the blade similar to us perhaps, but some are blind to the truth. Their religion made everyone slaves in their beliefs and minds to whatever the dragon’s cause is.
For months, no cargo of supplies or any trade came to the demons as if we have completely cut ties with our alliance. Letters from Arika would arrive every day asking for what has happened to us. If I would reply, that dragon will definitely bring whatever chaos appropriate for our actions. However, we did not just stop there in trying to inform Arika of the dangers, of the risk of an invasion of The Alliance of the Eight. Posing as an invasion fleet towards Charon city, we sailed to try to meet Arika secretly among the orchestrated chaos. I was only left in utter shock, seeing that the demons are nowhere to be found. The city was a burning ruin and ships of the East Toratoga Island States are there seen leaving with the captured demons. I ordered the fleet to pursue the pirates but was met with the answer from the dragon that burned our cities. It was one of their guardians that is usually patrolling the seas at the edge of the Norden Reach. It must have been ordered to take our fleet knowing that it came all the way from the edge of the world. We happen to escape it when the Toratoga Fleet aided our ships. The time when I tried to attack them after they drove it away but instead their hero, Admiral Petrel himself was there to finish the Aqua Dragon Queen. Thus I was forced to accept a treaty with them to prevent my people from being raided by their pirates. In the cover of darkness, we tried to take the captured demons back to West Cardavenia only to be met with the dragon again. She then forced us to create a spell that forcefully turned the demons into vampires and other forms of species including humans. This spell is unstable and is against the natural order in which it is meant to fail most of the time. Eura and I had to make a choice of where our loyalties resided, the demons or the world. We used this spell to convert everyone in which most died soon after due to their bodies and souls rejecting the conversion. It was torture. I had to hear the screams of the demons… the children were lined up and crying. One child would lose half of their body, another would turn vampire and their bodies would instantly burst. A little girl once turned into slime and lost their sense of being. The dragon was supervising this entire massacre. The demon lord is still alive since she was not here as the dragon seemed distressed.
With the new alliance with the East Toratoga Island States as well as being a member of The Eight, Eura and I had to make sure we would look like we were ready to take on the demons when in reality, none would. That is why we fled the battle against the demon’s “flying fortress” and their tower as Eura had seen. It was not because of the fear of the power, the pure magic that the demons managed to have but the fear that we would kill our own allies. Now, someone presumably from the demons has arrived in Toratoga as felt by Eura with the massive magic energy, we intend to surrender to them. Their flying fortress happened to destroy the entire Toratoga fleet which is something a dragon would take some time to do. It was a good thing we did not take the opportunity to betray Arika right back there. Their fortress must have been what Arika activated when she fought Admiral Petrel. The demon lord’s death was inevitable against Admiral Petrel if our spies were right about hearing the rumors of Arika being at the starting level. I refuse to believe such a rumor. However, the fact that Arika is on the run, it may very well be possible that it pains me to not be able to do anything.
The vampires under Eura’s command began to observe the two people that had reached the base of the 7th tower under the guise of the fallen elites. Knowing Arika, she would have used the vampire clothings we sent her as a gift. These people are definitely not under Arika’s command. They look… human? They do not resemble demons as they are missing their horns behind their ears. The spies in the city did not even see how they got on the docks in the first place.
Eura has then silently ordered by hand signal to the vampires to surround the target after she casts a Dark Cage spell which is only possible if one has mastered Darkness Control. The two targets have been surrounded by the bubble of darkness which then the vampires moved in to block their paths. Eura and I also went in and stood in front of the two intruders’ paths. It would have been in the best of our interest if we managed to question the intent of the two impostors mimicking our ranks without fail and without bloodshed.
But why. How have we managed to intimidate them?! They did not look like they journeyed all the way here just to fight. In the obvious sense, they wanted to scout and spy on the empire they don’t know has perfected such art.
One of the intruders is lying headless right in front of our view, her body spilling the blood of red color and then later turning blue. Her headless body gushed out a fountain of whatever there is in her body. There is no such creature has their blood turned blue after getting killed? Just what in the gods are they?! The one that tried to introduce herself is left kneeling on the solid white tiled ground of the castle entrance. She then stood up in an odd motion, moving and stopping her limbs like some sort of doll being pulled by strings. All of the vampires reactively changed their stance and prepared for whatever attack she might give. That first attack against Eura was unusual. The one lying dead now aimed something strange when she attacked Eura which let out a short beam of pure mana. Pure mana?... Is it… no…
“EURA! Wait! Can you feel that? This magic source… It is emanating from one of them and it is still rising! These large amounts of pure magic. There is only one monstrosity that could achieve too much pure magic beyond what any great hero could achieve from any of the other towers… Could it be?!” I do not know the source until I saw it with my own eyes. The last-standing intruder is generating enough magic to destroy an entire continent in an instant. Only special skills and divine spells use this much pure magic. Perhaps appraisal will show me who or what we are dealing with here. Before one would tell me that we should have used appraisal the moment we detected them from a distance, you should know that we vampires are weak to use such a skill to appraise another by sight alone. A vampire's method of appraisal is far different from that of humans and other races. We simply cannot accurately appraise using sight as this skill has more affinity for us vampires to be used when we bite our targets. Despite the same name, the other towers unofficially named our appraisal under the term “Blood Appraisal” or “Vampire’s bite appraisal”. Despite the difficulty and inaccuracy of it, I appraised the intruder standing in front of us all.
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[ Appraisal Lvl. 75 - (Sight) ]
Target Name: @#$%!!!KL Ai Magicnet ADF@%!!#%$%
Race: Machine (Artificial Intelligence)
Faction: Aineura Demon Empire
Lvl: 00010100
HP: 500,000/$%!500,000!!LK
ATK: 0DSE
DEF: 789JM
MP: 53BDG9
XP: 543B9
State: [ 45EF BNDFSWUY 03T WRGV- T ?] [ DFSH3458FSGN ] [ ADF3RAF 35642 ]?
Titles and Roles: 3rd Demon Lord | Current Queen of Aineura | 3rd Ruler of Aineura | Ruler of the Ninth Tower
MAGIC:
Passive Skills: [ Armor: Lvl. 463N ] [ Speed: Lvl 3CAS3 ] [ Fear: Lvl. 23DW ] [ Rapid Calculation: Lvl. 045F ] [ Reaction Haste: ADFUJR ] [ UHE9342NF W80S ] [ NEFW-EFW NDSVSUEF ] [ WQWNDA NWW A ]
Instrument Skills: [ Appraisal: Lvl. 25 ] [ ASDERTFG B563] [ RTYFDB Y54] [ ERTGFDBVB 567 ] RGDR DTGHDFGVDB ]ETRY[][] ][]
Extra Skills: [ Blood Ray: Lvl 3 ] [ SDF AUHBE4RUFBA9SDVAU09 ]AWESFSDN FA9UFAB W9UF UFBASD AEFAW OEFAWEFA[ ]AWEF] DRETHGSD] TS[ ]
Special Skills: [ Demon Lord ] SADFOUBSD PARWFGVB SZKR S VEIUTRNBADVC 0 21352872 563DAFA
As I expected, there no point in doing sight appraisal to know how powerful she is. Pieces of crucial information about our current adversary mostly missing in my appraisal. Everything is even showing inaccurate statuses as well as vague skills and descriptions. It does show that they are part of the Aineuran empire as we thought they were, however. It seems she is not a descendant of Arika as I would have hoped to make things easier in explaining our circumstances. That would explain why they attacked first at us, their old allies. Hmm? ‘Mah-shine’? ‘Artefesiyal intelligense’? I do not know what even that means in the slightest but… Wait… 3rd demon lord?! If this appraisal is indeed telling me the truth despite its inaccuracy… Ohh it can’t be!
“Hold it! Everyone lay down your arms! Stop! We all surrender in your presence, Demon Queen! Please, spare my people and the people of the Toratoga at the least! Take my life as atonement for the death of your companion!” I am not in my right mind when panic comes to fill my body. My pleas will most likely be in vain to the 3rd demon queen that succeeded Arika. She seems to have enough of our inhospitality and has tightened her resolve to decimate everything around us all with that massive amount of pure magic she is massing.
From her recent pose, her head tilts and her right hand aims a small black rod toward the ground. Her left arm lifts to the side aligning her hand with her shoulders. The black rod let out something so fast that none of us even had time to react to see what it was. The speed of it was faster than a vampire’s ability to vanish and appear behind an enemy. We only later noticed the blue light that reflected on the edges of the Dark Cage. The entire ground along the Dark Cage was covered in this completely blue liquid.
“... ?! I can’t move!” The vampire elites are slightly panicked.
“I can’t turn into a bat either! I can’t use anything to move!” Eura exclaims. I tried shooting Void Arrow at the ground but none seemed to take effect. The others tried to even cut their way through, not a single one succeeding. Panic gripped me closer as my feet are completely stuck in this strange liquid. Loud and high-pitched crying that almost sounded like a screaming wyrm emanated from the demon lord. For her, it is dark and none has ever broken the Dark Cage’s darkness in blinding one’s sight. The new demon lord, however, is full of surprises, and regret and despair seeped through me as the demon lord faces me and turns her gaze toward my eyes.
“...?!!” The eyes, the bright glow of dark red pierced the darkness and saw through my soul. At this moment, my hands tremble and my body weakens in the fear. Those eyes stare deep and true that everyone can see their gaze and react to the terror. The glow may be too bright but none of it reached the edges of the Dark Cage as if it was only made for our eyes to see. The black rod on the demon lord’s hand slowly charges a spell of unknown ancestry as it slowly glows brighter red. The new demon lord herself is increasingly glowing in the color of pure magic. It is utterly impossible for such a being to hold this much pure magic that she might be a higher entity herself, perhaps a spirit or a goddess. No, that is not what my Appraisal has told me about her race. This race called ‘machines’, if each of their people could hold such magic, they would be the most powerful allies… or as to us at this moment, the greatest enemies.
“..Wha…What should we do, Lord Eura?! Lord Aru?!”
“...They are not the usual intruders from the human guilds!”
“...A…Attack!! Hit her with everything you got!” Eura and I are left stunned at what must be done next that we are left speechless. Panic among the elites has ensued and taken over their minds, ignoring my previous orders of standing down. I do not blame them, I have all dragged them here to their graves. Most of them are the remaining survivors of the dragon's attack back when Turea first appeared. They were the last line of defense and they failed. Now, they see that failure again, and the memories of that fateful battle visit their minds again. They do not want to die like their brothers and sisters before, but they also do not want their children to die because of their failure. Some are now attacking the demon lord, throwing enchanted daggers, spells, and whatever it is in their sleeve at her. Some break down and are left wanting to kneel, but are unable to because of the liquid hindering their knees to bend. All of the attacks are deflected by a strange transparent and multicolored crystal that had an odd shape that appeared out of thin air. Even void spells and void-infused weaponry managed to pierce the crystal, much less scratch it.
At this point, there is no use in doing or thinking about anything. Every memory seems to flash in front of my eyes. My mind could not believe what has happened, and it left me standing here and bracing for whatever special spell or skill the demon lord is casting. Eura still tries to fight the inevitable as I see her infuse every dagger she has and throws it at the demon lord. Her face shows despair but also a determination to fight at the very end. Ohh… Eura. You have always been there to protect me from our father and mother. I am sorry I could not help you while I am still this weak. You have always been the bigger sister to me. Sorry, Eura… Older sister can’t do is so weak to protect you...
The sweat followed by the tears starts to fall down on my face. Eura manages to instantly notice it and her determination is completely wiped off her face. Despair and hopelessness remained on our faces. I closed my eyes to await death as the black rod and the demon lord were almost as brighter as the sun and the screaming is at its highest pitch. There is nothing more to do.
“Mother! What’s wrong?! Calm down! I am still alive and operational. My structure self is affected by this! Remember?! Structures can have multiple bodies, unlike machines. This machine body I used is far too fragile. I am sorry if I managed to trigger something in you! Calm down now! Mother!”
“Eh...?!” The sound managed to catch all of us off guard and the head of the first intruder spins around, facing the demon lord. All of the vampires ceased their attacks as some are left in confusion while most are terrified.
The demon lord’s eyes instantly went back to their original state of not glowing at all but it is all too late. The black rod fires a red beam of light towards the ground and the last thing I saw was the entire Dark Cage collapsing and a red light pierced my eyes.