With his plan to bring explosives being discarded in its infancy. Cedric began to prepare for other plans.
He first calculated the time he had left until the demon king appeared.
Including the one-year advancement that’s caused by a sudden increase in Negative Energy caused by that woman. He should have around three years remaining.
[The System has just done a detailed calculation, and the exact time should be two months and eight days.]
“It felt quite short. But I guess it’s enough for some preparation.” Cedric asked the System.
“Can you estimate where the demon king will appear?”
[Based on the current situation. It should either be on the battlefield between Lacius and Gratian, or inside River Stone city.]
Cedric nervously asked, “Which one has a higher chance of being the birthplace of my world’s demon king? Or will I need to face two demon kings simultaneously?”
[At your current level, only one demon king should’ve appeared. As for the exact location, it’s kinda fifty-fifty.]
Cedric could feel his head ache once more. The System that’s usually reliable at important moments isn’t even sure about it.
The distance between River Stone city and the battlefield requires around an hour’s journey by horse.
Because the chance is fifty-fifty. It means he needs to create two forces capable of delaying the demon king for at least an hour to wait for reinforcements from other places to arrive.
“Let’s push this matter for later. For now, I need to tell Lacius to evacuate everyone in River Stone city just in case the demon king appears there.” Cedric quickly acted and sent a message to Lacius.
[The demon king will appear in two months and eight days. It will either appear on the battlefield or River Stone city.]
After sending that message, Cedric recalled something and checked the granaries in the human race’s cities. Just like he has suspected, those granaries are mostly empty.
The battle against demons, coupled with a population boom, has caused a strain on the human race’s food resources. Currently, they are just a small drought away from a world-ending level food crisis.
Cedric doesn’t want another mess to happen. So, he gritted his teeth and bought a [Species Fertility Blessing] for 100 GP and blessed the plant that has become the human race’s primary source of food.
After another big spending, he checked the remaining GP he had left.
[Name: Cedric Hills
Level: Pseudo Lesser Divinity (Actual level: 0)
Law: None.
World: Crystal Cube World
World Level: 1
World’s Average Potential: Lower Level 0
GP: 12.295
Annual GP income: 0.8]
After he blessed the three races and increased their population. The amount of his annual GP income has steadily increased to 0.7.
It’s only during the last few years, when the amount of blessed in the human race has increased and they occasionally died in battle, does his annual GP reached 0.8. But compared to his spending, the amount of annual GP income is still not enough at all.
Except for the amount of GP and annual income. There is no other change in his panel.
***
More than two months quickly passes by amidst everyone’s busy preparation.
In preparation to fight against the demon king, Cedric has split the combat force in the Crystal Cube world into two.
One part consisted of Yuma and several top blessed. They’re stationed in the empty River Stone city as a small elite force that could handle battle in urban areas more easily.
As for the second combat force, it consisted of Lacius and the army he led.
Thanks to Cedric’s timely use of [Species Fertility Blessing], which caused an explosive increase in recent harvest. Lacius has successfully gathered resources to utilize a thousand-strong army with a considerable amount of low-level blessed.
After checking the preparation, Cedric nervously observes the entire human territory repeatedly. ‘Nothing must go wrong in this battle.’
While doing his third check, Cedric suddenly saw the Negative Energy that existed throughout the human territory suddenly condensed into the battlefield between Lacius and Gratian.
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Just like dark clouds that gathered toward the eye of a storm, the Negative Energy in Crystal Cube world slowly gathered there before condensing into an extremely thick cloud that obstructed Cedric’s view.
[Warning! A demon king has appeared in your world.]
Even without the System’s warning, Cedric knew the demon king would appear, and the place it had chosen was the battlefield where Lacius was currently.
He quickly informed Yuma’s group who were staying in the River Stone city to quickly move toward the battlefield. After some thought, Cedric purchased a [Paper Airplane] so Yuma could arrive in advance toward the battlefield.
***
At the battlefield where Lacius and Gratian previously fought.
Lacius rode on a horse in the rear of a thousand-strong army. Inside the army, there are two hundred blessed, which is already the most he could gather without greatly weakening the defense from the human city in case of sudden demon attacks.
Next to him, there are Hars, granny Maude who has become even older, Rumina who has become a guard captain, and Lacius’s other trusted subordinates.
While they’re preparing. Everyone saw the light in their surroundings begin to dim. The massive amount of NE gathering around the place has caused it to take a faint physical form that obstructed the view.
With the darkening sky, some soldiers with weak willpower began to hear some auditory illusions. Even those with good enough willpower began to feel uneasy.
Lacius saw the scene and shouted. “Don’t be afraid! Every soldier, prepare for combat! We have the god’s blessing for this battle!”
He used an ingenious method to control the earth and allow it to spread his voice to the surrounding soldiers. A method he has learned after training his earth manipulation power.
Hearing Lacius’s shout. Although the soldiers felt nervous, they forcefully suppressed it and sternly stood. It seems the time and resources Lacius spent to train his armies haven’t gone to waste.
Amidst the tense situation, the earth below them began to tremble and a vortex of dust appeared.
The vortex continued to gather dust and the faintly visible NE before slowly solidifying into a two meter egg like ball.
Seeing the two-meter ball that continued to solidify amidst the vortex, Lacius shouted. “Prepare the formation!”
The soldiers began to move into a formation. Those wearing shields stood in front, while behind them, there were many spear-wielding soldiers and almost a hundred blessed with divine strength who had prepared their throwing spears or shields.
Since a few years ago, the amount of blessed awakening divine strength has been increasing. Right now, almost half of the blessed humans awakened divine strength as their blessing. This can be said to be a good thing because the destructive power and endurance of a divine strength blessed is much stronger than others at level 0.
After the formation had been prepared, Lacius commanded once more. “Target that ball and commence a wave of spear attack!”
The army heard it and the spear-wielding soldiers threw one of their throwing spears toward the egg. The spear thrown by the people blessed with divine strength is especially fast and becomes the first one to arrive near the ball.
Upon arriving close to the vortex, they are affected by the strong wind and most of them miss their target. As for those that successfully hit the ball, they failed to cause any noticeable damage to it.
Lacius tested the defense of that ball once more."Every blessed, commence a wave of attack!"
The hundred blessed began to gather their abilities and shot them toward the ball. For a whole half a minute, the space around that ball has been filled by many abilities chaotically thrown toward it. Yet, the ball didn’t seem to be affected. There aren’t even any cracks seen on it.
Inside the Divine Space, Cedric could see the surrounding Negative Energy continue to enter the vortex and solidify into the ball.
Watching Lacius’s futile attempt, Cedric felt slightly nervous.
If the demon king has such a powerful defense. Then, he is done for.
After several waves of attack from Lacius, the vortex slowly settled down and the ball began to crack.
From it, the silhouette of a human can be seen.
Even though his mental power has been hindered by the Negative Energy surrounding that silhouette. Cedric is still the first one to see through the other party’s identity.
His eyes widened in disbelief. “It’s actually Gratian? Does Negative Energy have the power to resurrect someone?!”
[Nope, that’s just his resentment that has been given form by the gathering of Negative Energy. You don’t have any sort of afterlife system, so every dead soul simply returns to the universe after being cleansed by the process of death.]
While Cedric listened to the System’s answer. Lacius’s army has also seen Gratian who has appeared from the ball condensed by Negative Energy.
Right after he opened his eyes. Gratian who has been recreated from Negative Energy immediately looked toward Lacius’s direction and smirked. “Long time no see.”
Lacius felt a sense of threat and quickly shouted to the surrounding soldiers. “Commence attack!”
Without much nonsense, the two parties began to fight against each other.
Gratian calmly looked at the hundreds of throwing spears and blessed power chaotically thrown in his direction and grinned. His left arm exploded and turned into three five meters long purplish black tentacles enveloped in mist. Those tentacles danced erratically and easily parried or blocked most of the attacks.
Although the tentacles also received some damage. They absorbed the mists surrounding them and began to heal at visible speed.
After a whole minute, the attack sent toward Gratian began to die off and he counter attacked. The three tentacles somehow combine into a single ten meter long tentacle and sweep down toward the shield bearing soldiers standing in front. With each swipe, dozens of soldiers are either injured or immediately died.
Gratian’s sweeping attack only slowed down when many blessed with divine strength began to raise their shield and joined forces to stop him.
Gratian saw it and changed his attack pattern. He now began to whip his tentacle arm around like a whip. Every attack of his tentacle whip once again easily caused many casualties in the army.
While causing massive havoc to the army. Gratian slowly walked towards Lacius’s location.
Lacius occasionally created a massive hole and swallowed Gratian. But, it only caused Gratian some delay as he easily destroyed them and dug himself out.
Inside Divine Space, Cedric activated Divine Sight and checked Gratian that has been condensed by Negative Energy.
[Life Level: Upper Level 2
Potential: Upper Level 1]
“Sigh, what a headache! He is one small level higher than Yuma who’s at Mid Level 2.” Cedric held his forehead and sighed. He moved his mental power from the battlefield and checked Yuma’s location.
Luckily, Yuma has already arrived halfway and only needs around a minute to arrive there.
Cedric felt grateful to whoever or whatever created the [Paper Airplane]. That item with a stupid name has actually saved his ass twice.
With the [Fire Sword] in hand, Yuma should be able to defeat Gratian as long as he uses the remaining Fire Slash at the right moment.