I had always assumed a whole army would move much slower than a single unit. It seemed like a fairly obvious universal truth. After all, you would need to account for logistics, maintaining discipline, balancing rival factions, dousing the inevitable conflicts, and far more.

Apparently, that ‘truth’ did not apply to demons.

It took Crewe only two days to assemble his entire army and send all of us marching straight towards that unfortunate tree-city.

The lieutenant general had spared no expense, nor had he left us a way out if we somehow lost the battle. Every single combat-capable demon that could be spared was there. Only a bare minimum of demonic forces remained in each conquered settlement, just enough to keep the cities from crumbling into anarchy

Massive demons with war drums led the way, beating on their instruments. The tune somehow made the mana in the surrounding air vibrate and infuse into my body. It bolstered me, keeping me fresh without any strain or side effects that I could detect.

I could only assume the drummers had practiced this ability for centuries, if not millennia. That kind of skill with mana was not natural, even for demons.

On either side of our marching army slithered the monstrosities I had watched Crewe summon. As it turned out, the globe had deceived me. The worms were not as large as they had appeared to be in that moment.

They were bigger.

It was like something straight out of my nightmares. Each creature utterly dwarfed Glaustro’s snake construct, and that thing had transported eight hundred demons with ease. If these monsters attacked the gargantuan crystalline tree we were headed towards, they would resemble large snakes climbing up a relatively young sapling.

And there were so. Many. Of. Them.

Worst of all was whenever two of them got into a fight. Slithering all over each other as they were, it was inevitable that someone would get upset eventually. Then we were all treated to the spectacle of two beasts tearing into each other with their many maws, like two rotational saws clashing. Writhing limbs made of flesh strands erupted all over their bodies, blood flew everywhere, and they generally made a horrific nuisance out of themselves.

Each time, their handlers eventually got them to back off and march again. And each time, the creatures healed from their spats within minutes.

I still didn’t know what exactly the things were called, or even what they were. I never asked, because I didn’t want to hear some explanation that would stop me from sleeping for months. And that’s if anyone even knew. There was every chance Crewe had found them in that pit and decided they were cute, so he’d keep them.

One thing was for sure: whatever those creatures were, the jinn were not going to have a very good time fighting them.

In spite of the nightmare-inducing monsters and the relentless nature of our march, I was honestly quite comfortable. The drummers’ mana shenanigans kept us going without need for rest, and they even minimized the need to eat.

But the most notable advantage of our mass march was indisputably the lack of sand.

Crewe had decided he no longer trusted that shit, so a team of mages was constantly maintaining a mobile spatial barrier over the entire army. From what I understood, all they had to do was keep powering the artifact that served as the barrier’s source, but it was impressive nonetheless.

Crewe also had another team of mages travelling ahead of us. Each one wielded fire elemental powers. Those poor souls were provided with unlimited numbers of ascendant mana crystals, and then ordered to blast the road ahead of the army continuously with their flames.

The result was a massive stretch of sand melted down into glass, like a highway. This actually helped the speed of our march. Almost every demon had a superb sense of balance, letting them walk over the uneven, slippery surface with relative ease.

I got the distinct feeling Crewe had gotten more than a little annoyed when the jinn decided to play games with him. The show of force he was putting on was designed to attract attention and telegraph where we were headed.

There was absolutely no chance there wouldn’t be an army waiting for us on arrival at the tree city, one that would have at least a tiny chance of stopping the lieutenant general. What that would look like, I couldn’t imagine, but it didn’t fill me with warm and cuddly vibes.

In direct contrast to my worries about the upcoming battle, Mia was practically vibrating as we marched.

The cat girl hadn’t said it in as many words, but she was deeply upset about how little she had contributed in the last few clashes. The scorpion critters were too tough for her claws to pierce, and so magically resistant that they had snuffed out the flames of her sword. The golem battle had gone even worse, according to her, despite the fact that she had saved me repeatedly from getting blown away.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I tried to convince her that things with the golem would have gotten very dicey without her help, but she refused to listen. In her mind, she had never damaged the thing, so no contributions had been made.

The chance to fight an army of enemies, at least some of whom would be vulnerable to her? The opportunity to fight alongside monstrosities and so many powerful demons? This was, apparently, her version of Christmas morning.

I didn’t try to dampen her enthusiasm, but I did force her to train with me.

The march was orderly, there was no sand to bother us, and it didn’t take much concentration to walk in a single direction for hours on end. So, early on, I forced a mana crystal into her hands and made her absorb it. She grumbled and pouted, but I kept pushing her until I knew she couldn’t absorb any more.

Just like me, she benefited from her maxed-out ascension. She could absorb a surprising number of crystals before she had to stop for the day. In fact, whatever the drummers were doing extended our limits there, too. It blew my mind that their music could heal soul exhaustion, even partially. I couldn’t figure out how it was possible, but I also couldn’t deny the difference it made.

Between the incredible drum-power, my nagging, and her own desire to get stronger, Mia reached the fourteenth mana core layer as I got to the seventeenth. She was just a step away from joining me in the ranks of Grand Mages, but the process was turning out to be trickier for her than it was for me.

I had guided her past the first two hurdles easily enough, but it seemed like nothing I said or tried to do made the idea of condensing a mana core click for Mia. Maybe this was because, due to my interference, she hadn’t overcome the previous levels on her own. Or maybe I just had more natural talent with mana. I didn’t know.

Either way, she was stuck doing things the slow, hard way. She had to keep squeezing bit by bit, while constantly battling to minimize and then heal any damage to her core’s interior. She simply couldn’t manage both processes at once.

With so much to occupy my thoughts, I all but lost track of time as we travelled. I was genuinely shocked when I caught a glimpse of the giant crystalline tree on the horizon.

It was as beautiful and stunning as the last time I had seen it, but it was also not the same.

Its color had darkened. Instead of radiating throughout the tree, the light was concentrated at strategic spots, shining with the intensity of miniature suns. Huge swathes of thin crystal bark had bulged outwards and enclosed the beautiful buildings carved into the tree’s flesh, sealing them in while still allowing for some visibility. Thorns had emerged all along the trunk and branches, packed densely together like very pointy, very deadly scales.

Finally, of course, there was the army.

Camped out between us and the tree was a massive sea of people and various constructs. The locals and jinn mingled, training and preparing for war, while their constructs slithered, flew, and ran around underfoot.

The sheer variety of constructs the jinn could produce was staggering. Each looked both unique and uniquely lethal. I didn’t particularly want to go near any of them… especially the swarm of medium-sized hornet constructs. Even if I was offered ten times my pay in souls.

The most obvious threat, though, was the troop of golems.

They encircled the entire enemy army, pressing together in numbers I was not happy to see. At the moment, they looked relatively harmless, save for their immense stature. There was no wind howling around them, and no streams of sand wreaking havoc.

Obviously, I knew that would change the moment battle began. And with so many working at once? They would be able to weaponize the entire surrounding desert against us.

I hesitated to admit it, but maybe Crewe wasn’t just being petty with all his anti-sand preparations.

After all the training he had forced them through, I had little doubt the fire elemental mages would be able to glass over huge amounts of sand, so long as they were kept well-supplied in terms of mana. That might actually put a dent in the golem’s abilities, too. While the original jinn I saw in combat was capable of wielding flames and had transformed his sand into glass weaponry, the golem we fought hadn’t done anything similar. The question was, of course, if this was a universal weakness among golems.

I guessed I wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.

Still, I didn’t feel the most threatened by the jinn’s overt displays of power. The constructs were cool, sure, and the golems were intimidating. But these were all things we knew how to counter.

No, I wondered if the jinn knew we were aware of whatever was going on with Lagyel’s sand. And if they figured out that we were, in fact, in on their secret, what would they do? Were they hiding a tool or some unbelievably powerful individual, so they could ambush us later?

Unpleasant emotions coiled inside my gut. I hated not knowing. It made me feel like I had no control over my life, even if no amount of knowledge would actually rectify that.

To take my mind off my doubts, I kept a close eye on my commander as we approached the enemy front.

Glaustro had told us all the officers were in some kind of mental communication network. So, every moment, I kept expecting him to relay the order to charge. As soon as he gave the word, our long trek over Lagyel’s harsh landscape would culminate in one of the bloodiest battles the world would ever see.

That word never came.

Instead, when Glaustro’s voice rang out confidently, it was to communicate a different order. “Halt! Break formation and set up camp as we discussed.”

That threw me for a loop. We had discussed how to set up camp for our unit in the context of such a massive army, but thanks to the drummers, we never had to stop. To hear the order now, within sight of the enemy? It was odd, to say the least.

Nonetheless, we were soldiers of the Legion of Torment. It wasn’t our place to disobey. We instantly began setting up our tents.

Before long, Mia and I had ours arranged to our liking. It was our one frivolous expense: a large two-person tent with a whole host of comforts and conveniences. Individual tents were, for some reason, more expensive, and it wasn’t like we weren’t used to sleeping in the same space.

As soon as that was done, I went looking for our commander with an unhappy cat girl on my heels. When we found him at the core of the camp, Mia actually spoke first, before I could even open my mouth.

“Why are we not attacking?” she demanded, refusing to be cowed by Glaustro’s disapproving look.

Eventually, the demon sighed and shook his head, his expression changing to something like approval. Then he stated simply, “Because the lieutenant general ordered us not to, of course.”

That was that. Crewe was playing some kind of game with the jinn, and we had no choice but to play along.

Whether I was going to enjoy the game… only time would tell.