Your Majesty's money, why don't you engrave my name on it?

"Just kidding," the Sin Demon waved his hand. "It does show that you're unlucky, but with your strength, so what if you're unlucky? Who can easily defeat you, hmm?"

"You dare to steal my prey, and you actually succeeded!"

The air in Avernus suddenly felt a bit hot for Raslaufer, causing the mercenary to break out in a sweat.

Offending a "Bronze-level Commander" was already bad enough; if he offended his direct superior as well...

“Please don’t say that,” Leslaufer handed over the documents. “This is all thanks to you, sir, and this military merit naturally belongs to you as well.”

He didn't receive any reward for Lulus's achievement of shooting the vulture demon, but instead had to give away his own. This damned Nine Hells, Raslaufer has had enough of it.

To his surprise, the Demon of Sin did not take the documents. Instead, he sneered, "Looks like someone has fooled you like this before, hasn't they? Heh, you don't really think that one person's military merits can be handed over to someone else so easily, do you? Don't forget, this is hell."

"Guess what, if that kind of situation really existed, would someone like me allow any of my soldiers to have even a little bit of merit? Even if they did, they would definitely be my confidants."

If that were truly the case, what would Hell become? The King of the Nine Hells would not allow it.

Beneath the heavy helmet, Muse observed Reslaufer's reaction. After a moment, she stepped forward and patted the man's strong shoulder: "However, you're only human, right? So we can't be too demanding of you on this. Just do as you imagine. But even so, you don't need to offer me any tributes—Reslaufer!"

Dubler instinctively steadied himself, facing this devilish commander as a soldier.

"From this moment forward, you are relieved of all duties in the regular formation. You will serve as my personal guard, protecting my safety! This decision is based on your recent act of saving my life—any objections?"

Chapter 696 Arrival at the Position

Leslaufer had no objection, and in fact, even if he did, it would be of no use—the Sin Demon was undoubtedly a high-ranking being even among the devils, let alone Leslaufer, who was just a mortal. No matter how unreasonable the request was, even if he took it to Philna, Leslaufer would not be in the right.

Fortunately, being a bodyguard isn't so bad. At least he can avoid being secretly sabotaged by Bael and used as cannon fodder to fill gaps in the battle line.

Even a great demon shouldn't send a sinful demon to its death, right? The queen of the sinful demons is Grand Duchess Gracia of the sixth level, and that princess is not a runaway princess like Angrita.

In short, when Raslaufer reappeared in the sight of the other creatures in the vehicle, he was already a bodyguard standing behind Museco.

He saw Karad, and the goblin was extremely surprised by Raslaufer's change. For a warlord who had seen countless plane travelers, such an attitude was indeed quite rare. However, Karad did not have much time to stay. After handing over the remaining goblin soldiers, he hurriedly left with two demons.

He didn't join the bloody battle in pursuit of a "just cause." Now that so many goblins have been lost before delivery, he has to find a way to make up for the shortfall in personnel and gold.

Muse calmed and tried to motivate the remaining soldiers. After confirming that the Hellfire locomotive was still operational, she allowed everyone to board and head to the front lines. However, she herself did not intend to travel with those "lower-class" people. Naturally, Raslaufer also had to give up her rare opportunity to ride and left in another direction with the Sin Demon.

"You don't seem to have much control over your wings?" Although Leslaufer summoned his dragon-like form and flew behind Museco, the Sin Demon quickly noticed the stiffness and lack of coordination in Leslaufer's movements. "You don't need to exert so much effort. Look around you, no one is flying as hard as you are—I'm panting just watching you."

Her adjutant noticed the look in her superior's eyes and quickly flew to Raslaufer's side, trying to teach this man, who hadn't experienced the feeling of flying in the past thirty years, how to move lightly and swiftly in the air. Raslaufer did indeed grasp the knack quickly, but as a veteran, years of muscle memory were very difficult to shake. Even if he tried his best to control it, it would only backfire, as if he had to exert all his muscles together every time he flapped his wings.

This posture allows for maximum body control during combat, enabling Raslaufer to handle various unexpected situations. However, when traveling, this posture appears too clumsy and even somewhat comical.

Muse couldn't help but sigh. She slowed down slightly, pushed her adjutant aside, and began to demonstrate for Raslaufer herself: "Watch carefully. Although I have wings and they are more magical, they are more than enough to teach you—soldier, you need to understand that we are an assault force. Poor mobility will leave you stranded—do you plan to fall into a sea of ​​tens of thousands of demons by yourself?"

Perhaps it was the half-threatening, half-encouraging guidance from Muse that had a miraculous effect. When Raslaufer saw the huge crack torn open in the ground ahead, he was already able to fly with only half the strength he used to. Although he was still not as agile as the demons around him, especially the smaller ones, he was at least able to travel at full speed without being left too far behind.

“See that hill over there? The one across the pontoon bridge,” Muse said, extending her hand. Where her finger touched, a multitude of small demons circled above the camp like scavenging vultures or crows from the material plane, emitting eerie howls that could be clearly heard even here. “This great rift was torn open by a demon lord. That half-wolf, half-serpent freak gained the opportunity to transform on the battlefield of the Blood War and immediately tried to annihilate one of our legions here. But my lord, Princess Gracia, personally slew it, nailing its corpse to this rift, where no one can touch it.”

When talking about these things, Muse was clearly quite proud: "Now, we are following in her footsteps, driving the demons back to the back of this grave! We can look forward to the day when everything behind this will become the graveyard of other demon cubs! And we, the 971st Legion, will be the first gravediggers in this cemetery!"

“I look forward to seeing that day.” Amid the cheers of the demons around him, Leslaufer didn’t want to stand out, but Muse gave him a half-smile.

“You will, Mr. Leslaufer,” the devil smiled maliciously. “I know your term of service is a full three thousand years.”

Perhaps the blood war will still not end three thousand years from now, but just as the war between devils and demons is more likely to last, three thousand years of service can basically be considered "forever".

Purgatory connects to almost endless planes, some of which might have a ten-hour day, while in others that number could be magnified a thousandfold—not to mention that in some places time is almost frozen. The devil has never said which plane's time system this year is based on.

“But you don’t need to be too pessimistic,” Muse said, standing in the air and landing in the military camp after being inspected by the air defense forces above the base. “No unit can engage the Abyss for too long. On the one hand, there are personnel losses, and on the other hand, if the time is too long, they may be corrupted by the power of demons—I’ve already seen this in you. I suppose you must have killed quite a few maggots of the Abyss back in the material world?”

“I tore the spine off a Nabasor Demon,” Leslaufer replied casually. “And a Soulbreaker Demon, but it got away.”

"The Soul-Slayer Demon?! Be careful not to blow your own horn!" The devil lieutenant was startled at first, then burst into laughter. "That's not a monster you can just talk about. But at least you've seen it and escaped from it, right? Don't be shy, that's something most soldiers can't do."

Faced with the doubts of his new colleagues, Raslaufer remained calm and simply followed Muse to the military camp: "His name is Volgas, and he claims to be a subordinate of the Skinners."

No further explanation was needed. The adjutant's relaxed and cheerful expression froze on his face. He simply couldn't imagine how a mortal could defeat a Soul-Slaying Demon.

“Very good, it seems we’ve got a really tough guy,” Muse nodded at Raslaufer with satisfaction, unlike the adjutant’s embarrassment. Then she beckoned over a bone demon that looked a lot like Osses back then. “Hey, take him around to see the surrounding area and let him get familiar with the environment. I’m tired and need to rest.”

"Oh, and don't forget the POW camps."

Chapter 697 Prisoners of War in the Pit

At first, Raslaufer didn't understand why the other person specifically mentioned the prisoner-of-war camp, but when he followed the Bone Demon around the encampment and finally arrived at a camp that should more be called a "dry prison," and stood on the edge of the deep pit looking down, he deeply understood the reason.

Since demons are also considered "demons," even a chaotic dance of demons is insufficient to depict the creatures living in what is described as a prisoner-of-war camp but read as a death row cell. From their appearance to their spirit, they all exhibit inhuman characteristics.

Perhaps they wouldn't be so wretched outside, but here, all pretense and disguise are meaningless, causing mortals, demons, and Yogg-Ross demons to reveal their most evil and chaotic side.

But Leslaufer was able to understand what some of them were doing.

The Bone Demon rolled its eyes and secretly glanced at the seemingly calm Leslaufer, secretly admiring him. After all, not every demon has the same will as this mortal.

“These are all creatures corrupted by the abyss. True demons rarely need to be captured,” the devil explained to Leslaufer. “Half of them were once the bravest and most fearless warriors on the battlefield, while the other half were seduced and persuaded by the demons and voluntarily joined them there. We don’t have a good way to deal with them. We can only temporarily house them here and wait for those with milder symptoms to heal themselves, while the rest will fend for themselves.”

In the Bone Demon's view, this might be a warning and advice. The centurion Muse was admonishing the warrior, whose body was covered in blood, flesh, and armor, not to get too caught up in it, lest he end up like this.

"Don't you have a way to cure them?" Leslaufer asked the question as the devil had predicted.

“It’s not easy. This is a pollution at the soul level. The only way to cleanse it is to turn them into inferior demons and start over,” the Bone Demon shook his head. “But if we do that, we will lose many skilled veterans.”

Most of these creatures corrupted by the chaos of the abyss are not completely driven to madness—those who are usually executed on the battlefield—they can still distinguish friend from foe, and some even have a clear sense of logic, though their understanding has been distorted to varying degrees.

This is a commando unit, not a sanatorium. Until they are cured, these prisoners of war will, if circumstances dictate otherwise, dedicate themselves to order to the very end: flesh and blood, spirit and soul.

"See that horned demon over there?" The Bone Demon gestured for Leslaufer to look at a demon at the bottom of the pit. He was currently piling the corpses of two fellow prisoners on top of the other bodies he had already arranged, seemingly building some kind of tower structure. "He has killed about twenty prisoners of war, dismantled their bodies, and arranged them in various ways. We have absolutely no idea what he is doing."

“‘I want to go out and fight…’, I guess it means ‘I want to go out and fight.’”

The Bone Demon twisted his pale skin, which was tightly bound to his skeleton, in astonishment, and looked at Raslaufer with some horror: "Excuse me, what did you say?"

Leslaufer didn't answer immediately, but listened carefully for a while longer before nodding in confirmation: "That's it, he said he wants to go out and fight."

"Can you understand what he's doing?" The Bone Demon thought the mortal in front of him was probably insane. He immediately pointed to another Bone Demon. "Can you tell what he's saying? He's been carving something on the wall with his fingernails, but nobody can understand it—it doesn't seem to be any kind of writing."

“Indeed not,” Raslaufer said slowly after a moment of observation. “He was painting his own portrait: he killed two demons that looked like giant toads and was standing on them.”

This is absolutely absurd!

The Bone Demon desperately wanted to say this, but he couldn't! Because he knew perfectly well that this fellow human had indeed killed two Mad Toad Demons before being imprisoned here, and was then taken away after the battle—if he hadn't really seen something, how could this mortal who had only been here for less than a day know all this?

"You...you really can see what they're doing?" The Bone Demon's mood suddenly became complicated. If this person hadn't become the personal guard of the Museke Centurion before even arriving here, he would have taken Reslaufer to examine him thoroughly. Even if the possibility of him being a demon spy could be ruled out, he was at least a deeply corrupted individual.

But how could a mortal who has just participated in a bloody battle, without even participating in a single battle, be contaminated?

“Actually, it’s quite easy to understand,” Raslaufer shrugged. He could see the Bone Demon’s shock and even terror, but what he saw even more was the disdain and jealousy in the eyes of the demons when they toured the camp with this demon earlier. “I think it’s more likely that after you captured these soldiers and brought them here, you never really looked at them properly again.”

Bone Demon gritted his teeth and led Leslaufer to the edge of another deep pit. Here, the stench was more than ten times stronger than before. Bone Demon pointed to one of the mortal mages who was vigorously smearing paint on the wall of the "dry prison": "These people over here are in even worse condition. Since you can understand it, why don't you help me see what this old guy is doing?"

“He’s been smearing his excrement on the walls for days, causing a lot of trouble for the cleanup. It would be much easier if we could figure out what he was doing.”

Raslaufer glanced at the devil, then walked over and crouched on the wall, looking down at the old mage below. This mage looked human, but he was not quite the same as the humans of the world he came from—his skin had a deathly gray color, whether it was natural or a change caused by being trapped in this battlefield of purgatory and abyss for too long was unknown.

Dobler's shadow fell over the other man's head. The old mage looked up and gave him a nearly idiotic grin, then worked even harder to smear the filth in his hands onto the wall in front of him, which was already covered with several layers of filth. Around him, Reslaufer noticed that many people were eager to stop the old man's "filth-smearing," but in the end, no one put their ideas into practice.

“The result is clear,” Leslaufer stood up and patted the bone demon’s exaggeratedly broad shoulder blades under its skin. “Your cell needs to be changed. Although I don’t know if you used magic or something to keep all the winged creatures in the pit, this old man obviously thinks it’s not safe enough.”

"He is helping you strengthen your defenses to prevent himself and other prisoners from escaping."

Chapter 698 Raslaufer's Team

Raslaufer could understand the behavior of most prisoners, which was not difficult for him, but it might seem like a different story to others.

“If I hadn’t gone to find you myself, I would have doubted just how much you had been corrupted by the abyss.”

A few days later, as news spread throughout the legion that Raslaufer could read the behavior of the prisoners of war, Muse finally couldn't sit still any longer and summoned Duple to her tent when she had some free time.

The demon was still wearing the same heavy armor and helmet, making it difficult to see her true appearance underneath, but judging from her tone, this demon was indeed somewhat helpless towards Leslaufer.

“Do you know how difficult those guys are to deal with? Killing them or turning them into lesser demons will shake morale. Executing them as cannon fodder would risk them turning against us in battle, not to mention some of them were traitors to begin with,” Muse regretted having specifically asked Leslaufer to see their fate, because she couldn’t even find a reason to punish Leslaufer. “Honestly, if you want to stay here, I’d rather you go find someone to fight, even if you get killed, it would be much better than this.”

According to Reslaufer's assessment, more than half of the prisoners of war still loyal to her side. What was she to do? Release them again? They were no longer as obedient to orders, and low obedience was completely unacceptable to the army! But after confirming their loyalty, should she continue to keep them locked up with the other prisoners of war?

otherwise……

“Come here, let me see your identification,” Muse sighed, extending her hand to Leslaufer. “You’ve killed so many demons before, you must have accumulated quite a few military merits, right?”

Leslaufer handed over the documents as instructed. The demon nodded as he examined the information, but then shook the sharp horn on its head.

“It requires far more merit than the promotion to corps commander, but it’s not enough to skip ranks and become centurion, as I don’t have the experience for the previous position. Special promotion requires a lot of extra military merit,” Muse seemed to be talking to himself, but also seemed to be explaining to Reslaufer. “In that case, the only option is to apply to reinstate the previously abolished rank—soldier. How much command experience do you have before?”

Throughout his career as a soldier, Raslaufer mostly led small teams of a dozen or fewer men to infiltrate enemy lines on the battlefield. However, recently, while supporting Felix, he had indeed commanded several battles, and he told Muse about these experiences in detail.

He needed to find a way back to the material world. If he failed because he concealed the situation and was subsequently handed over to a military court, it would be a terrible injustice to die.

“Hmm, I understand,” the Sin Demon did not interrupt Leslaufer, but let him finish recounting his experiences before finally drawing a conclusion, “Your military talent lacks sufficient case studies to support it, but fortunately, the soldiers you are about to lead are not exactly ordinary soldiers, and your position is not a formal one either, so let it be. I will apply for a temporary military position of 50th corps commander for you, directly responsible to me, so that you can practice to your heart’s content.”

"During this time, we need to select a team of fifty people, and they must be reliable enough."

“Wait, you don’t mean—” Leslaufer’s eyes widened, “those prisoners of war?”

"You're the one who caused this mess!" Muse suddenly roared at Reslaufer. "You think I've been having a good time lately? The mess you've created has spread to other units around here, and everyone's asking if these prisoners of war can be redeployed as calculable combat power. What am I supposed to do?!"

The devil cleared her throat, seemingly trying to calm herself. After a moment, she suddenly chuckled: "Don't worry, if you succeed, I'll make room for you as a centurion. You'll be the first human centurion under my command. If you fail... well, you can just squat in the pit with those guys. You don't have to worry about how you spend the next three thousand years."

Raslaufer simply couldn't believe that he, a mere "recruit," could cause such a commotion and become a celebrity within several regiments over such a trivial matter. He could easily guess that some great devil who had always disliked him was behind it all. But now, he had no choice but to refute it.

After all, the higher rank of the Great Demon was far too great for him, and without concrete evidence, any resistance would only create trouble for himself. Faced with the new appointment, Raslaufer could only obediently select his own madmen—or rather, "soldiers."

These beings, whom he is about to release, are undoubtedly powerful in combat. The fact that they survived to the point of corruption on the battlefield is a testament to their strength. The main question is how to make them obey his orders so that he can organize a usable force.

Raslaufer's solution was simple: first figure out what they all wanted to do, and then... give them a good beating.

Several days later, as a squadron of Thornfiends swept overhead and sounded their horns, Raslaufer emerged from his officer's tent. As his boots landed on the open ground where his troops were stationed, the soldiers he had recently pulled from the dry prison shuddered—as if this were a fear they had known since they were conscious.

"Charles!" Ignoring the fear, Doppler roared and strode up to the old mage crouching in the corner, kicking him to the ground. "Report on the spells you prepared today! Who said you could act on your own before completing the 150 ritual spells? You want the demons to break through our defenses, you old bastard!"

Caught off guard, the old mage had no time to react before Reslauver shoved him into the "building materials" he had created. His hands and feet were bound, and he tried to resist, but he was no match for Reslauver. He could only try to plead his case as he was submerged in the filth: "Sir... glug... sir, I just saw a crack in the wall here, and I wanted to... glug glug—"

“If you complete all the ritual spells, you won’t see a single gap!” Leslaufer kicked the mage hard in the butt. Each ritual spell he set up required ten minutes or more of preparation time, leaving Charles no spare time whatsoever. “Herzer, your drawing is utterly worthless! Just two Mad Toads. If you want to add more powerful prey to your record, you should do as I say—now get the whip and give this old man a good thrashing of his butt and back for his dereliction of duty!”

A strange laugh rang out from another direction. Reislaufer looked over and saw that the original fifty-man force had been reduced to forty-nine living beings. The missing poisonous insect, the Ross Demon, was now in the hand of a horned demon in fragment form, being assembled into another shape like building blocks.

Raslaufer charged forward, sword in hand: "Well done, Horn, but now you must pay for the slaughter of your comrades. Draw your sword, this is your last chance to absolve yourself!"

“I’m sorry, sir! I—” The horned demon knelt on the ground in fear, its muscles trembling all over, trying to beg for Raslaufer’s forgiveness. Dobler was about to speak when he heard the horns of the Thorn Demons above suddenly change, becoming sharp and urgent.

"Alright, get up!" Leslaufer raised his head, recognizing the horn's sound as an impending enemy attack, and punched the horned demon to the ground. "Listen up, since you're so eager for battle, this is your chance to atone—go and complete the 'kill quota' that Mozalaus couldn't achieve, or you'll be dead!"

For ordinary soldiers, such high pressure would be a trigger for mutiny, but Reslaufer knew that in the eyes of the guys under his command, this was the more normal way of communication, and only in this way could he communicate with these corrupted people.

Maybe they're all crazy, but the good news is, he, Leslaufer, isn't exactly normal either!

Chapter 699 The Devil's Stronghold

"Go find your place, don't make me say it twice!" The voice of the Sin Demon Museko came almost simultaneously with the alarm of the Thorn Demon overhead. "Damn it, these demon bastards are finally here!"

In the past, the Abyss's counterattacks here have been limited to small-scale harassment, and even for a thousand-man army, it was not a matter of needing to go all out. But now, the demons have finally regrouped their forces and are preparing to retake this bridgehead!

“Reslaufer,” Reslaufer looked up as the burning wings swept over Dople’s head, their eyes meeting. “I hope the men you’ve chosen will prove useful—the east is yours, with two companies to coordinate with—don’t disappoint me!”

The two companies each had a strength of roughly two to three hundred men. Including the men under Reislaufer's command, they already exceeded a quarter of Muse's strength. In fact, the eastern battlefield was indeed the second most important target of the Abyss's attack. If the enemy attacked from that direction, most of the army's supplies would fall into the hands of the demons.

As for the north, which Muse had to personally protect, the situation was even more dire: if it fell, the explosives in the armory would be enough to flatten the entire high ground by several meters, and more importantly, even the pontoon bridge behind them would be blown up!

"Lord Raslaufer!" Just as Raslaufer had finished dealing with his troublesome subordinates after the Sin Demon departed, a gargoyle-like Raslaufer demon landed before him. "I am the centurion of the Fifth Company. Lord Muse has ordered me to cooperate with you as much as possible..."

"Forget all that nonsense," Leslaufer waved his hand to interrupt him. "Get my men to the front lines first. I have a mage here who's very skilled in all kinds of ritual magic—Charles, get ready. Now's the time for you to really mend the cracks!"

The old mage blinked his cloudy eyes, and in the next instant, the filth covering his body melted away as if it had never existed, like snow in spring. He followed the crowd, hands clasped together, grinning foolishly. Upon reaching the eastern position, before the centurion could give any orders, a magical barrier pulsating with powerful magical energy spread above the heads of all the soldiers, obliterating a sudden burst of lightning!

"What the hell!" The centurion stared dumbfounded at the protective energy barrier overhead. "Lord Raslaufer, how did you get him to prepare defensive spells? I never knew that old guy had this trick up his sleeve!"

Raslaufer paused for a moment upon hearing this: "He has never cast such a spell before?"

"No!" Conquering Ross spat on the ground. "Don't think that he's been plastering the walls with his own excrement every day since he was locked up because he's good at defense. Actually, quite the opposite. His specialty is fireballs—Rising Ring Fireball, Silent Fireball, Attribute-Converting Fireball, all kinds of fireballs! He was locked up because in that battle, during the chaos, he ignited our own people and the Abyss's vassals, and even almost killed a supervising officer who came to the front lines to observe! The entire defensive line had a 'gap' because of him!"

“Then you can rest assured,” Leslaufer patted his forehead. “I didn’t have him prepare a single offensive spell. The only training I gave him was to prepare rituals without stopping for a moment!”

Charles's arrival gave the positions, which had been under heavy fire from the demons, a chance to breathe, and also allowed Raslaufer to finally see clearly what kind of enemy they were facing. It was at this moment that he finally understood why the Abyss was called the "Endless Abyss" and not the "Nine Hells" or the "Seven Heavens".

Maggots from the abyss crawled all over the twisted torsos, which in turn spread across the decaying wasteland for thousands of meters in front of them. These were the most despicable souls, condemned to the endless abyss, driven by impulse and persistent fear to launch attacks on the position without any tactics or strategy, just like a wildly spreading fungal carpet.

Even the demons don't bother to control them, but let these lowest-ranking demons do whatever they want, crushing them if they block the way.

Twice as disgusting as these "Primal Demons," but less than half as powerful, the Fearful Demons lurked in the gaps between the Primal Demon waves, waiting for their chance to strike; swarms of Quassai Demons vied for space in the sky with the lesser demons of purgatory; the Evil Ape Demons, like twisted giant apes, crushed the ground and the Primal Demons with their thick arms; the Kass Demons, the size of flies the size of horses, flew through the sky, emitting a buzzing noise that could drive anyone to the brink of madness. And there were many more bizarre and ambiguous beings, leaping like frogs and soaring like eagles, or rushing like pigs and snakes, as if each demon was launching a chaotic and suffocating charge toward the highlands in its own unique way.