The Demon King is unfathomable

Chapter 560 Clash of the Black Hands
The summer evening breeze caressed the still-warm, scorched earth, and trenches, like ugly scars, snaked across the nameless hillside.

This is the front line of the Wanren Mountains, an unnamed mountain that has just changed hands.

The First Mountain Corps was stationed in this mountainous area, and the flag of the Ryan Battalion was planted on a pile of rubble not far from the tents, next to several charred ratman corpses.

in the tent.

Sir Dickbin sat on an overturned ammunition box, writing something in a dirty notebook by the light of a nearly burned-out candle.

His fingers were rough, and his fingernails were filled with indelible black dirt and bloodstains, making it impossible to tell that these were once the hands of a nobleman.

However, he did not resent Edward, who had sent him here.

If he hadn't personally walked into that cave and seen the Ryan people locked in cages and treated like animals, he probably would still be acting like an ignorant and arrogant fool, uttering some ridiculous and laughable things.

"On the night of July 6th, we captured another hilltop."

"The officers at Gutaf told us that if we advanced another ninety kilometers northeast, we could cut through this damned mountain range and meet up with the dwarves of the Mountain Kingdom. It doesn't sound like a long distance, but I'd rather march nine hundred kilometers across the plains..."

As Sir Dickbin wrote this, his feelings were somewhat complicated. He paused for a long time before continuing to write down what he had seen and heard today.

Just a few hours earlier, before the sun had even set, they had cleared the ratmen's burrows on this hilltop.

The situation there would probably surprise even the devil. The only word that comes to mind is slaughter, but perhaps massacre would be a more accurate description.

Because the eyes of those who were rescued looked just like those of fish that had been thrown onto a chopping board and stunned; their empty, dry eyes showed little will to live.

It's hard to believe they actually came from Roland City, sharing the same hometown as me...

"...I once thought I was a noble person chosen by the Holy Light, a knight fighting for the holy cause, but I never imagined that the palace and church behind me were crawling with maggots, and I was completely unaware that I had become one of them."

"At first I thought they were just a little greedy, which was not a big deal. But I never expected that they would not only be satisfied with the grain grown by the serfs, but also want to chop up their flesh and blood into mincemeat and swallow it."

“Saint Sith, if you truly exist, why hasn’t your thunder fallen yet? Or is it… that everything we are suffering now is your revenge for our arrogance and blasphemy?”

The candlelight flickered, casting dappled shadows on Sir Dickbin's stubble-covered face, highlighting the complexity in his eyes.

During this time, he had been pondering why blasphemous acts kept happening, but he could never come up with an answer that could convince himself.

However, there was one thing he did understand.

And they believed it without a doubt.

If superhuman power were to fall into the hands of someone unworthy of their position, it would surely be a disaster.

Whether one is deeply involved or pretends to be detached, all will bear the shared consequences of arrogance.

The ratmen are using human magic to prevent a group of humans from rescuing their brethren... This is what he witnessed firsthand on the front lines.

Right now, they only have rune crossbows and magic scrolls; he has no idea what terrifying things they might encounter next.

The rats were stunned, but clearly not defeated. Once their masters react, the battle will likely be far from over…

Dickbin closed his diary and let out a long sigh, as if to expel all the pent-up emotions from his chest.

However, just as he was about to put the diary back in his bag, a strange noise came from outside the tent, which caught his attention.

The sound was neither like the wind nor the footsteps of patrolling soldiers; it sounded more like burning firewood, and it came from a very, very far place.

Dickbin instinctively grabbed the bolt-action rifle leaning against the table, blew out the flickering light behind him, and crouched down as he crawled out of the closed marching tent.

The area outside the camp was deathly silent, save for the distant chirping of insects.

He squinted, warily scanning his surroundings, trying to find where the sound was coming from, but he couldn't see anything except the low-hanging night sky above him.

"Is it just an illusion...?"

He muttered something and was about to turn around and crawl into the tent when suddenly something unexpected happened!
The pitch-black sky seemed to be torn apart by an invisible giant hand, and a blinding demonic light exploded above the clouds without warning.

In that instant, the night was as bright as day!
Dickbin's pupils contracted violently as he witnessed a scene that terrified him, illuminated by the orange-red firelight!
The clouds are burning.

Countless burning fireballs, trailing long flames, rained down on the newly captured hilltop like a divine meteor shower!

The thunder that punishes sins has not arrived, but the flames that burn the redeemers have already reached the skies above Camp Ryan!

"By Saint Sith..."

Dickbin forced a desperate curse from his throat.

Before his curses had even finished, the first burning fireball had already struck the ground near him!
boom--!
The enormous explosion took half a second to reach his ears, the earth trembled violently, and Dickbin was thrown to the ground.

He coughed and spat out the dirt in his mouth, hurriedly got up from the ground, and hugged the diary that had fallen into the trench to his chest.

The piercing alarm finally sounded, but it was too late; countless soldiers turned to ashes in their sleep.

And the ignited ammunition—

Explosions rang out from the trenches!

"Enemy attack!"

"Damn it! Which direction is it—"

"Forget about which direction, just get the hell out of here—"

"Go into the hole! Go into the rat hole!"

Ignoring the mud in his mouth, Dickbin ran wildly toward the rat hole, shouting at the barracks that hadn't yet been burned to ashes.

His shouts did save some lives, to some extent.

The Ryan Battalion soldiers, who had just been jolted awake from their dreams, rushed through the inferno in a disheveled state, not even having time to put on their shoes, and frantically made their way towards the filthy rat holes.

The relentless rain of fire fell from the sky, turning the hilltop where Ryan's flag had just been planted into a living hell once again.

Perhaps it was fate that brought them to this.

Perhaps the debt hasn't been paid off yet.

Sir Dickbin miraculously escaped, tumbling and crawling deep into the mouse hole with his confessional diary.

A sharp stone chipped his knee, but he felt no pain. Then a burnt smell filled his nostrils, and he realized that his hair had been burned into a clump.

In the past, he probably would have screamed and pulled out a comb. But now he didn't care about that; he was just panting heavily, greedily inhaling the stale air—

It's good to be alive!

Outside the cave, a bright red light filled the sky, turning the once pitch-black mountain into a dazzling display of daylight.

The raging fire engulfed the entire battlefield, like a writhing serpent licking the rocks outside the trenches, igniting dry branches and creating crackling explosions, as if the entire mountain was howling in agony…

This rat-man's lair, which could hold hundreds of people, was now eerily empty.

Of the more than 700 men in Ryan's camp, less than 100 escaped!
The remaining brothers were either blown to pieces in their sleep or turned into burning torches on their way to the cave entrance.

The young men carrying rifles looked at each other, their faces covered in dust and tears, their eyes filled with the shock of surviving a disaster.

"Damn it!"

"What is that thing?! A shooting star?"

Curses echoed in the enclosed space.

Dickbin swallowed hard, forcing himself to look away from the distant sea of ​​fire and back into the dark rat hole.

As a nobleman, he knew exactly what that meant.

That's a power that those burrowing ratmen could never wield...

"It's a combined spellcasting..."

Dickbin nervously explained the truth to the panicked young men, but they remained completely bewildered.

"Combined spellcasting?"

"what is that?"

A large hand landed on his shoulder.

The company commander from the next company dragged over with an injured leg. Half of his uniform was soaked in blood, but his eyes remained resolute as he stared intently into Dickbin's eyes.

"Do you know who did it?"

Dickbin took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice from trembling too much.

“I don’t know who did it, but I think I should know what it was. I read about it in an ancient book about the history of war; it was the most classic tactic of the Ottoman Empire, which they called ‘the spellcasting group’.”

Facing the gazes fixed on him, he slowly pointed his index finger at the embers still falling outside the cave.

"Tens of thousands of steel-grade fireballs, amplified by a special magic array to offset the distance attenuation, converge in the same area, just like... our volley of guns."

"Through clever division of labor and cooperation, they can achieve a qualitative leap through quantity. Often, a spellcasting group composed of dozens or even hundreds of magic apprentices can weave area-of-effect spells that only diamond-level mages can perform. If they also use magic crystals to input power from the outside, they can weave an even larger range and greater power for the spells..."

This should not be hard to understand for Campbellians, as a well-organized factory can easily outperform the workshops of skilled artisans in terms of production capacity.

Although there are almost no Campbellians here...

After swallowing again, Sir Dickbin spoke in a hoarse voice.

"The Empire couldn't possibly deploy a mage corps of this caliber here, and they, who are currently defending Brass Pass with the dwarves, have even less reason to fight for the ratmen. There's only one place left... the Academy in the northern wastelands."

"Fire Meteor..."

The company commander chewed on the word, his face so gloomy it could drip water.

"These bastards!"

A young soldier cursed, his teeth grinding together, "This is an act of war! They dare to ally with the ratmen and declare war on us!"

"Don't be naive, they won't admit it."

Interrupting the soldier's impotent rage, the company commander turned to Sir Dickbin and calmly spoke.

"Corporal, since you know about this stuff, based on your experience, what will they do next after they've finished this round of explosions?"

Dickbin's Adam's apple bobbed, a chill ran down his spine, and he voiced his suspicions.

"I didn't see which direction the demonic light came from; clearly, they launched the attack from beyond visual range. The fact that they could hit us so accurately means they must have eyes and ears around our positions..."

"Either fly in the sky, or... hide underground."

Almost the instant he finished speaking, the sentry crouching at the cave entrance let out a piercing gasp.

"Undead! It's undead!"

Upon hearing the exclamation, the company commander, disregarding his leg injury, grabbed his weapon and rushed towards the cave entrance.

Dickbin followed closely behind.

By the light of the fire burning outside the cave, they finally saw the "things" that had surged into the trench, and their blood froze in an instant.

Those were not ordinary undead.

Instead, it was a monster forcibly stitched together from countless broken limbs, its rotting belly sewn shut with rough black thread, and its dark green internal organs almost bursting out of its shell.

Some of them have rat heads attached to human arms, while others are the opposite, with human heads stuck in rat bodies.

They crawled through the flames without feeling any pain, emitting eerie roars from their throats. Some of the new recruits with weaker mental fortitude couldn't help but vomit.

Calling that thing a spirit would probably be considered blasphemous even by the spirits themselves...

"Ready to fight!"

The company commander roared, pulled back the bolt, and shouted as he pulled the trigger.

"We absolutely cannot let that thing get near the cave entrance!"

There was absolutely no need for him to remind them.

Sir Dickbin had already pulled the trigger.

boom--!
The flash of light from the bursting barrel illuminated his panicked face. He hurriedly took out a cardboard cartridge, loaded it into the chamber, pulled the bolt, and fired another shot!
While the Roxay Model 1054 rifle had a slightly lower rate of fire than the Model 1053, it was still much faster than traditional muzzle-loading muskets.

Even so, the surviving soldiers were still outnumbered and outmatched by the tens of thousands of stitched rats.

Thousands upon thousands of deformed rat-men, stitched together, surged across the scorched hillside like a tidal wave of corpses bursting its banks.

They trampled over the corpses of their own kind, emitting sickening roars, and foul pus and blood seeped from the flesh beneath the sutures.

The two sides' troop strengths are not even in the same league!

Even if these hastily stitched-together monsters weren't particularly strong in combat, they were enough to overwhelm Sir Dickbin's company in the horde of zombies!
Without much effort, a stitched rat quickly broke through the defenses, its sharp claws piercing through the skull of a young soldier.

Hot blood splattered on Sir Dickbin's face, and although the stitched rat was quickly pierced through the head by a bayonet, it still sent a chill down his spine.

It's over-

The thought had barely crossed his mind when a string of dazzling fireworks suddenly lit up a distant mountaintop. What was that?
Just as Sir Dickbin was pondering what the light was, a sound of tearing cloth suddenly rang out above his head.

A dense hail of bullets rained down from the sky, like a torrential downpour falling into the trenches, instantly cutting down the stitched rats that had jumped into the trenches!
Blood and flesh flew everywhere, and severed limbs danced on the trenches!

The dozens of stitched rats at the forefront didn't even have time to scream before their bodies were sucked into the invisible millstone!
The pressure on the front lines has decreased dramatically.

Just then, a long, drawn-out beastly roar came from the air, and everyone standing at the entrance of the rat hole looked up in astonishment.

Four enormous black shadows roared in from the night sky, their wingspans of nearly ten meters tearing through the smoke-filled night!

Before anyone could see what was flying in the sky, several heavy oak barrels fell from the claws of the four dark figures.

The wooden barrel smashed into the densest part of the zombie horde, turning into orange-yellow flames with a loud bang!

The shockwave from the explosion instantly engulfed an area of ​​hundreds of meters in radius, wiping out hundreds of stitched rats along with the trenches below the mountain from the top!
[He downed the chemical pool in one gulp]: "Hahaha! An air raid is coming!"

[Innocent Female Donkey]: "Holy crap, bro, this thing you made is so cool!"

[Grilled Lamb Skewers]: "What are the ingredients?!"

[Drank the chemical pool in one gulp]: "Yellow explosives—plus a tiny bit more magic!"

A cacophony of sounds came from the air, mingling with the howling wind and explosions, like the incantations of an evil sorcerer.

Sir Dickbin ignored the bloodstains from the corners of his eyes and stared intently at the sky, trying to make out the outline of the flying monster.

Pterosaur?

No, that's not right!

Their necks weren't as long, their wings looked shorter, and their outlines were more humanoid. Those seemed to be... the lizardmen of the Wind Howl tribe?
Sir Dickbin wasn't surprised by the appearance of the wind lizards, but he was surprised by the group of creatures riding on their backs... He always felt that they were neither lizardmen nor humans.

However, the firelight on the ground was too bright, and the sky was too dark. Even with his eyes squinted, he could only make out a few blurry, wild silhouettes.

"What was that just now?"

Staring blankly at the pile of stitched rat carcasses riddled with bullets in the distance, a young soldier lowered the muzzle of his gun and muttered something.

His comrade standing next to him had the same look on his face, his eyes wide as he stared blankly at the wave after wave of bullets raining down on him—

Their advanced rifles were completely useless here.

Saint Sith above...

Are there really an entire battalion of musketeers flying in the sky?!

"The bullets seem to have come from the opposite hilltop!"

"What kind of gun can shoot that far?!"

"I don't know, but I'm more surprised by their rate of fire..."

The Rhine people of 1054 in the Os calendar had never seen the rotary machine guns of the Great Necropolis.

In this respect, the lizardmen of the Kingdom of Gutaf were indeed ahead of them, getting a head start on experiencing the new version.

Before these young Ryan men could recover from the shock of the "air raid," an even more bizarre scene unfolded.

Accompanied by a battle cry like a tsunami, countless white figures suddenly rushed out of the darkness on the flank of the position!
Tens of thousands of skeletons surged up the hillside, holding the same rifles as them, their eye sockets glowing with eerie green fire.

A bloodier battle than before has begun.

Ignoring the hail of bullets raining down from the sky, the group of eerie white bones charged straight into the stitched-together giant rats!

They feel no fear, no pain; they shoot at any shadowy figure they see, followed by a fierce hand-to-hand combat.

A stitched rat swung its claws and smashed a skeleton's ribs, but the skeleton not only didn't fall, it used the momentum to stab the ratman's eye with its bayonet, even letting out a strange "crackling" laugh, looking both eerie and ferocious.

The human soldiers standing at the entrance to the rat hole were completely dumbfounded.

On one side are stitched-together ghouls dripping with black blood, and on the other are armed skeletons charging forward with princely rifles... Is this still a mortal kingdom?!
"By Saint Sith..." The company commander felt his rifle trembling as he stared intently at the group of skeletons that had appeared out of nowhere. "We...we were actually saved by the undead?"

"No...that's not a ghost!"

In the crowd, a veteran from the Twilight Province suddenly shouted excitedly, his eyes gleaming with fanaticism.

"That is the Holy Spirit!"

"The Holy Spirit?" a young man who had recently enlisted asked blankly. "What's that?"

“It’s the souls of our ancestors!” The old soldier continued with unwavering conviction, his eyes fixed on the skeletons fighting bravely. “I heard from a brother who returned alive from the Dusk Province that, at the most critical moment of the war, Saint Sith allowed the souls of our ancestors to return to earth, using the remains of the dead to save their descendants! And it was also thanks to the help of those holy spirits that Princess Eileen’s Northern Rescue Army was able to successfully eradicate the corruption of Chaos from the Dusk Province!”

At this point, the veteran let out a heartfelt exclamation.

"By Saint Sith, I thought he was talking nonsense at the time, but I didn't expect him to be serious!"

"Ancestors..."

The recruit stared blankly as a skeleton skillfully loaded a rifle and then shot a stitched rat in the head.

His smooth and fluid shooting and loading movements were like those of a seasoned veteran... at least more skillful than that of a new recruit like him.

Saint Sith, these ancestors were quite fashionable; they even knew how to use a rifle that had only been produced in 1054.

I have no idea where they learned it.

Sir Dickbin's mouth dropped open, his expression incredibly interesting, even more so than when he saw "Combined Spellcasting".

As a nobleman who had received a proper theological education, his reason told him that the term "Holy Spirit" was utterly blasphemous.

However, he ultimately swallowed the word "blasphemy" that was already on the tip of his tongue and chose to remain silent.

Compared to "ancestors who borrowed the bodies of the dead," it is clearly more blasphemous to throw fireballs at the heads of the Lions and stop them from advancing at all costs.

Whether these guys are demons or undead, at least one thing is certain—

They were saved.

……

Behind the billowing smoke, tens of kilometers away, the breathtakingly powerful hum of magic echoed in the silent evening breeze from the mountain peaks!

Two hundred young apprentices, draped in rune robes, stood like lifeless sculptures on the rune-covered magical nodes.

With their left hands holding the rapidly dimming magic crystals and their right hands raised high with their wands, they pointed in unison at the sky dyed red by the firelight.

The overload of magic made their eyes bloodshot, and their pupils reflected a pulsating orange-red, as if a ball of fire had been ignited.

However, no one noticed that a giant cave spider had already broken through the many barriers they had set up and silently clung to the shadows of the higher rock wall.

Standing on Alakdo's furry back, Luo Yan let the noisy evening wind blow around him without making a sound.

The Butterfly of All Things can pass through any obstacle without being observed, including magical barriers.

Looking down at the sophisticated "war machine" in operation, he wore a playful expression, like a professor checking students' homework.

In terms of seniority alone, they should indeed call him professor... although he would never admit to having taught such blasphemous students.

“Back in Xuebang, I always heard that graduates of the Elementalist School went to the Imperial Army, either to pioneer in the New World or to eat sand in Huangtong Pass.” Luo Yan tapped his fingers lightly. “But now it seems that quite a few people have been diverted here to do the dirty work.”

The scene before him was indeed somewhat unexpected.

Two hundred steel-level magic apprentices, led by a silver-level quasi-magician, were able to project spells more than ten kilometers away through array resonance, achieving a "strategic magic strike" with destructive power and range that rivaled that of diamond-level magic!
It's hard to say whether this thing or the Magic Crystal Cannon is better.

However, considering that the Magic Crystal Cannon is comparable to the Empire's artillery, the two should not be compared.

Standing behind Luo Yan, Sarah stared at the apprentices who were mechanically casting spells, her amber eyes filled with indifference.

"I never expected Xuebang to go so far as to directly intervene and abandon all pretense of decency."

"Unexpected, yet reasonable." Luo Yan smiled faintly, not taking it to heart.

Beneath him, Alacdo shifted restlessly, his compound eyes gleaming with a greedy and excited light, his mouthparts making a clicking sound as they rubbed together.

"My Lord Demon King, could you hand these delicate fellows over to your loyal Alakdo? I've never tasted the life of a magician before..."

Ever since he ate Shrek, he felt that he was on the verge of a breakthrough again. He figured it wouldn't be long before he could catch up with that lucky, stupid cat and become a platinum-level demon general!
"Stop your appetite." Luo Yan gently stepped on his head and said calmly, "A living person is more useful than your excrement."

Alakdo quickly shut his mouth and remained silent.

He would not hesitate for a moment to eat what the Demon King allowed him to eat, and he would not dare to shed a single spittle for what the Demon King forbade him to eat.

As soon as he finished speaking, Luo Yan raised his right hand slightly, flicked his index finger forward, and a restless current of air suddenly appeared in the darkness.

With a sharp "crack," the protective barrier surrounding the area shattered, just like a glass window broken from the inside!

At the same time, countless little demons whizzed past him on the evening breeze, like crows that had smelled blood, swarming down towards the mage's position below!
There was no dazzling flash of magical light, only a shrill scream that pierced the night sky, carrying a mental shockwave that struck straight to the soul, attacking the weakest point of the magic circle!

At this moment, all the magic apprentices' minds were focused on the array's core beneath their feet, leaving their spirits almost completely undefended.

No one expected that someone could silently pass through their barrier and launch an attack on them at the same time!
The apprentices who were maintaining the spell suddenly stiffened, as if they had been hit in the chest by a heavy hammer.

The backlash from the magic turned their faces pale, and they clutched their chests, curling up in pain as the chanting abruptly stopped.

In the center of the array, the silver-level mage in charge of guiding suddenly awoke.

"It's a demon! Damn it!"

He screamed in terror and, in his panic, tore open a scroll.

A sudden gust of wind arose, and a giant azure wind elemental spirit, over three meters tall, roared as it emerged from the demonic light, wielding a massive airflow fist to slam into the dark figure in the sky!
However, before that arm, as thick as a giant python, could even extend, it collided with a tyrannical, crimson undercurrent!
boo——

This time it was the sound of a soap bubble being popped. The majestic wind elemental giant instantly disintegrated and merged into the noisy evening breeze on the mountaintop.

"Hehehe! You little bastards! Your Lord Yuxi is here! How dare you block our king's path! I'll rip your guts out and make you eat them back!"

Yuxi hovered in mid-air, flapping her wings, holding the lingering remnants of wind element in her hand, and giggled like Queen Sissi.

She looked down at the ashen-faced mage, her crimson eyes filled with mockery of a nobody.

Dispel the magic!

Simple, straightforward, and efficient!

Seeing the magician raise his wand to retaliate, her eyes widened, and an even stronger mental pressure descended like a torrential downpour.

The silver-level mage didn't even have time to chant the second spell before he collapsed to his knees, clutching his head, his face contorted in agony, letting out a bloodcurdling scream like a pig being slaughtered!
The little devil who stands with his people is invincible!
In particular, Yuxi had already broken through the Silver level bottleneck a year ago, and now he has reached the Gold level!
Bullying a silver-level mage is something you can do however you want, let alone when a sneak attack has already succeeded.

Looking at the mage group below who had been paralyzed in an instant, Luo Yan nodded in satisfaction. Just as he was about to order the capture, his brows furrowed slightly.

A strange scent wafted through the magic circle he had set up earlier, almost following closely behind the little demons.

If it weren't for that familiar chill that gave it away, even with his Amethyst-level strength, he wouldn't have been able to detect its presence!
The wand slipped through the sleeve and landed in Luo Yan's hand.

Seeing this, Sarah also gripped her dagger tightly, keeping her eyes and ears open... Only Alakdo was still swallowing hard.

At that moment, a sudden change occurred!

The two hundred magic apprentices who had collapsed in agony suddenly felt as if an invisible hand had gripped their throats, and their bodies began to convulse violently.

Black, foul blood seeped from the corners of their eyes and nostrils. The magic apprentices opened their mouths to howl, but they couldn't utter a sound. They died in a gruesome manner.

The same thing happened to that silver-level mage, and he died even more quickly.

Luo Yan's pupils contracted slightly, and he shouted sharply.

"Yusi, come back!"

Upon hearing the Demon King's voice, Yuxi didn't hesitate for even half a second. He quickly folded his wings and swooped down the mountain.

The other lesser demons scattered like birds and beasts, but they were still a step too late.

A dozen or so little demons that were flying a little slower suddenly stopped in mid-air, then their chests collapsed, and they were blown away by the noisy evening wind like kites with broken strings.

A deathly silence enveloped the mountaintop.

Amidst the haphazardly laid corpses, the silent night distorted slightly, and an old man dressed in a gray robe slowly appeared.

Luo Yan narrowed his eyes slightly, staring at the old man who exuded something strange, ready to leave at any moment.

If he wanted to, he could jump to another planet in the next second, and even Chaos couldn't catch up that far in an instant.

Seemingly sensing the Demon King's intentions, Sarah wisely stayed by his side, remaining vigilant against any danger that might appear behind him.

However, the old man in the gray robe did not seem to have any intention of launching a sneak attack. He even stopped in good faith and did not continue forward.

With a warm and polite smile on his aged face, he nodded slightly like a gentleman seeing an old friend.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Roxie Collin."

"or--"

"I should address you as Your Majesty the Demon King."

(End of this chapter)