Chapter 440: The need for more manpower
"Mind telling me why you’re automatically assuming that there would be no Transcendents?"
"Because they’d have their hands full with McEnda and I."
While tidying up his files, Alvey continued explaining.
"You may be a high priority but McEnda and I have been thorns in their sides for years. Both of us would be appearing on the Frontlines and we’re taking most of our Greater Generals with us; all of which are High Ranked Demons.
The Aramisians are not stupid and neither are the gods behind them.
McEnda and I leading over a hundred High-ranked Demons each and you who’s just with one High-ranked Demon, it’s clearly obvious who the greater threat is.
They’d pool their Transcendents together to deal with us, leaving you to deal with Sovereigns and below."
Now things made much more sense to Arthur. The Aramisians were definitely going to put more focus on Alvey and McEnda due to the much greater threat they represented.
They would probably be expecting Arthur to be with Alvey, but even after they eventually discover he’s not around, they would not be able to spare too many forces to search for him.
"Still, just to be safe."
Alvey dipped a hand into his subspace and pulled out something that looked like a small Bluetooth tag.
"If anything strange happens, press the button. It’d send an emergency signal to McEnda and me."
He passed one to Arthur and Aravae each and told them to keep it close at all times. After this, Aravae left to go make her preparations while Alvey continued speaking.
"Even if we can’t come ourselves, we’d at least send help.
While I’d like to have you go with two High-ranked Demons, our forces are currently spread too thin."
"Some have to stay back to watch the territory in the South and prevent any detached forces from coming while you’re away and some are still on the Triton’s Ark."
Alvey nodded in response to Arthur’s words, citing that he had informed the Five Star General Cruz Orkorin about this and asked the man to get them some more Transcendents.
"I’ll talk to my old man as well.
Aramis is resisting as much as any Prime World would. We can’t afford to do this with just Demons alone.
While we can still win, it’d diminish our race’s numbers a bit and I don’t want that. It’d be bad on the interstellar stage."
McEnda was confident in Gozon conquering Aramis with just its Demon Forces alone, but he knew there would be a fair number of losses. As such, he wanted to introduce other races into their armies like he did on the High-Level worlds he conquered in the past.
"What Races do you suggest we bring in, then?"
Alvey posed this question and McEnda replied with the name he already had in mind long ago.
"The Dark Elves of Orithyia have a bone to pick with their light elf counterparts. Let’s start with them."
Sigesi who had retaken her seat near McEnda recounted her experience in her last battle against some Divine Flugels.
"Those pigeons have been getting arrogant recently, I say we draw some Fallen Angels into the mix to put them in their place."
McEnda nodded in affirmation, remembering that Gozon did have some Fallen Angel-dominated worlds under its control. Just that there were not many of them in Orithyia so it meant they’d need to call in some from other galaxies.
"What about Vampires?"
Arthur was the one who posed this question but McEnda shook his head in reply.
"Unlike us Demons who have Demonic Energy, Vampires are far too susceptible to Divinity and light magic. There’s also the Sun we need to worry about so they might not be a good addition."
Vampires were a race with a nasty weakness to certain solar rays mixed in within the light of Suns. It made them weaker, and lower-ranked vampires spontaneously combust to death.
Higher-ranked vampires still combusted, but unlike the lower ones, they did not burn to death. Still, this meant that they were perpetually burning until they were pulled out of the sun’s path.
Noble Vampires did not have a burning problem, but their strength was not 100% in the daytime.
"Just have them fight at night.
Their being susceptible to divinity and light magic is inevitable due to their inherent Negative Polarity, but those skilled enough in manipulating blood energy can deal with it.
The way I see it, it’d make the Aramisians more on edge and they’d end up spending more resources.
After all, they have to fend off the Demons, Dark Elves and Fallen Angels in the day, but would not even be able to rest at night since they’d have to be on the lookout for Vampires."
"...when you put it like that, it can actually work."
"It’s a brilliant plan."
"Of course, it is, It’s my plan."
Hearing Arthur’s reply and seeing his smug expression, McEnda rolled his eyes and muttered something about him and the Elven Emperor getting along very well.
"Alright, Dark Elves, Fallen Angels and Vampires."
McEnda got up to his feet and said he was heading to Rhigor so he could talk to his father. He looked at Sigesi and asked her if she wanted to come along and she nodded in affirmation.
"Alvey, can you have someone put these Serial Killer files on my desk?"
"Okay."
"Thanks. Shadow Teleportation."
As he spoke, his demonic energy melded in with his shadow and then a wave of darkness surged up and covered him and Sigesi. The two of them sunk into McEnda’s shadow and disappeared, with Arthur recognizing this as what he did to evade being bathed with water on his birthday.
"When are you guys going to hit the Aramisians?"
"Within the week."
"That’s awfully close."
The Demons planned to attack the Aramisians before they could fully get their forces ready. This was Alvey’s suggestion as he wanted them to have the initiative in the coming battle.
It was also on that same day that Arthur and Aravae were to head to Cheigh and rescue the captured Demons there.
"Guess I’d go make my final preparations. I need to let those guys in Githal know I’m not gonna be around for a while."
"I’ve been meaning to ask but what is it that you’re doing in Githal?"
In response to Alvey’s question, Arthur silently gathered his spatial power and held up his hand before replying.
"A little Mercenary work. It’s for my ’Aramisian identity’."
With that, he snapped his fingers and teleported out of the room, leaving behind the Greater Demon who silently went back to his work.
◇ ◇ ◇
The next few days passed very uneventfully, but it was clear to anyone that this was just the calm before the storm.
When Arthur went to Githal to inform his team that he’d be away, they were fairly surprised as they had just accepted a mission in relation to the upcoming battles.
He told them that while he indeed planned to take part, he was going ’solo’ due to certain ’circumstances’.
After this, he met with Rachel and she warned him to be careful because she feared the demons were planning on making ’big moves’.
The boy only smiled wryly and told her he would not be anywhere near the frontlines and that he was going to a more remote battlefield. It ended up with him warning her to be careful since the Starlight Fortress was definitely going to send soldiers to the frontlines.
He once again saw a certain white-haired girl with time powers that were quite high for her level but didn’t bother going to speak with her as he had to return to Militopolis.
From there, he and Aravae set off with an Army numbering around 80,000 demons, most of which had power at the Legendary Realm and below.
McEnda and Alvey also set off with their armies, which were on a totally different scale from Arthur’s detached force.
Each of their armies contained hundreds of thousands of soldiers, not too surprising considering they were going to be facing similar numbers on the Aramisians; side of things. Besides, Arthur’s force was just only going on a Rescue mission so it made sense that their numbers were over 10 times lesser than Alvey and McEnda’s armies.
Also, it was only about 30% of these forces that had power levels of 700 (Legendary Realm) and above.
For Arthur’s rescue mission force, the percentage was even lower.
The fluctuations of power coming from the frontlines where dozens of Transcendents battled each other simultaneously were so great that they could be felt all the way from Cheigh which was far east.
Considering the size of Aramisian Continents, they were over 20,000 kilometres away from the frontlines and yet they could still feel the magic power and law energy fluctuations, showing how fierce the battles over there were.
Arthur left that part of things to them and focused on his own side of things. He and Aravae had already had discussions to familiarize themselves with each other, as well as plan their strategies.
He had also met with the Sovereign Realm Demons who would be participating and worked out plans of action.
With all the various ’plannings’ behind them, all that remained before them was the battle itself.
