Chapter 490: Shadow of Despair
Plomux-East Headquarters
Blacksea Garde
May 10th
531st Divine Year
The highest-ranked General on Eastern Plomux was on the verge of pulling out his hair due to the sheer amount of stress he had gone through in the past hour.
When he heard about the damage to the coastal bases, he thought it was simply because the Demons had taken them by surprise.
But when he saw the size of the Armada with his own eyes, he realised that was NOT the case.
’They’re here for a full-on invasion! There are even more ships than the ones in the West!
More importantly, there are Two of the ’Four Star Generals’ here!’
The Four-Star Generals of the Gozonian Army on Aramis were the four highest threats to the Coalition forces.
Just one of them was enough to turn the tides of any battlefield they were on, and despite being nearly 5 months since the last time 2 of them had appeared at the same time, the scenes of the Triton’s Ark and the ’January Disaster’ in Gledea were still fresh in the minds of the Aramisians.
Even worse, was the fact that the undisputed strongest of the four was now knocking on their doors.
Now, this alone was already cause for serious concern, so the General didn’t hesitate to request reinforcements from the High Command in Plomux-Central.
The reply he received, however, wasn’t good.
[The Demons are attacking the East too?! How did they get past Yedrist and his Sea Monster Army?!
Did that bastard finally betray us?!]
The General from the High Command was livid at the thought of Yedrist’s supposed betrayal, but his colleague in the East couldn’t care less about his anger.
"We don’t know or care about that! What’s important is that we need reinforcements IMMEDIATELY.
Alvey Sargon and McEnda III are here for god’s sake! They’ve got the Triton’s Ark too, manned by Agriker!
You and I know how dangerous that Fortress is, and the Demons put their best Admiral on that thing to use it against us.
There’s no way we can hold on with the number of forces we have here."
[...]
The High Command General understood exactly what his colleague was insinuating without him having to say it. Still, he did so anyway.
"We have to use the reserve soldiers!"
[But the god Kings ordered that we shouldn’t use them yet!]
"Fuck their orders! If we don’t use those forces, we’ll all die here! Plomux would become the third Gledea!
What’s the point of getting reinforcements from other worlds if we’re not allowed to use them?!"
[Watch your tongue!
Do you think I don’t have the same sentiments as you do? But no matter what, we cannot disobey direct orders!
The extra forces we have here at Central are already being sent to the West since we’re facing an attack from Guwos as well! We have that ’Viper’ Four Star Demoness here, and she brought a fleet of Black and Demonic Dragons!
I’d already released some of the dragonslayers there since there were just too many dragons!]
Just as the East General was about to respond, someone barged into the room he was in, holding up a tablet with an image displayed on it as he cried out.
"General!! This is bad! You have to see this!!"
He rushed over, not even sparing the other General on the other end of the video projection a glance as he showed the East General the Image on his screen.
When the General saw it, his eyes widened in shock and he nearly dropped the tablet.
[What?! What is it?!]
Hearing the Central General’s words, the East General silently turned the tablet over and the other man shut up at the sight of the screen.
On it, was a single picture.
There were four very eye-catching ’entities’ in this picture.
From Left to Right, there was a colossal pillar of rock that soared thousands of meters into the sky, crowned by the enormous, scaled head of a reptilian leviathan.
Its eyes were wide open in shock, and the neck, still dripping fresh blood, hinted at its recent death; and the rest of its massive body was coiled tightly around the stone pillar.
Not too far away, a giant spear of demonic light, equally towering, impaled the severed head of a much larger leviathan. This head, too, was familiar to the two observing Generals.
Like the smaller one, the leviathan’s body which extended for kilometres was wrapped around the spear’s shaft.
The scene was heart-wrenching for the Generals, yet it was not the sole source of their distress.
Atop the severed heads sat two figures.
On the left, perched on the smaller leviathan’s head, was a young boy with dark silver hair, his face obscured by a featureless black mask, leaving true appearance a mystery.
He was dressed in the Demon Army Uniform, and had two stars on his chest, denoting his Major General Rank.
Despite his brief activity period of barely six months, he had wreaked enough havoc on the Aramisian Coalition forces, prompting even the god Lords to descend just to attempt his assassination.
Seated on the head of the larger leviathan was a man whose features were well-known to the Aramisians—someone who even the god Kings wished they could kill.
With black hair, pale skin, and piercing crimson eyes, he radiated an air of authority that could not be ignored. The four stars on his uniform gleamed ominously, a symbol of his high rank and a harbinger of despair for any Aramisian soldier who glimpsed them.
The Leviathan that the Central General had been accusing of betrayal, was innocent.
How could he betray them, when he was already dead?
Not just him, but even his son whom they hadn’t known about, was also dead.
The Leviathan had been around a thousand years and in defending his territory from outsiders, had inadvertently protected Plomux from attacks long before the Gozonians discovered Aramis.
Because of this, Yedrist was worshipped like a ’local guardian deity’ on Plomux.
Millions of Aramisian soldiers had more faith in Yedrist, than in the gods of the planet.
To them, no matter what the Demons did, they didn’t need to worry about the East because Yedrist was there.
Heck, even Barron Agriker, the famed Demon Admiral had been repelled by Yedrist twice in the past.
They were completely confident in the Leviathan, and it was precisely because of this high confidence and faith in him, that the sight of Alvey seated on his severed head would send them to the deepest levels of despair.
Heck, if any Emotion Law user was present, then they would be reaping a harvest from the sheer amount of ’despair’ the Aramisians on Plomux were feeling right now.
Arthur, being himself, was the one who suggested for them to sit on the severed heads of the two Leviathans.
He then assisted Alvey in creating numerous videos, which were being projected across the continent. These videos showcased scenes of him and Alvey defeating Crarox and Yedrist, respectively.
With Alvey’s shadow demons disseminating them, even cities in Plomux-Central that were initially unaware of the attack on the East were now informed of Yedrist’s death.
It took less than a minute after seeing this footage for the Central General, who was on a video call, to have his office stormed by a group of worried aides.
They urgently showed him the circulating projections, one of which they had obtained from an unlucky shadow demon they had captured.
First, Yedrist was killed.
Then Crarox followed.
They destroyed over ten coastal bases and unleashed Leviathan and Infernal Devils upon them.
Finally, they paraded the corpses of Yedrist and Crarox, spreading videos of their deaths across the continent.
The battle for Plomux had just begun, but the Demons were already leading 4-0.
And to top it off, it was only 10:30 in the morning!
◇ ◇ ◇
"Arthur really has horrible taste."
"Tell, me about it."
McEnda III replied to Evan’s words with a shake of his head as he and the Rogue hero gazed at the sight of the giant Leviathans’ severed heads hanging in the sky.
Atop them, Arthur and Alvey were seated, discussing how to create a new combination technique which they’d use to nuke a few more military bases before lunchtime.
"But despite his ’bad taste’, his plan is working wonders for us."
Evan couldn’t help but agree as even those who did not despair at the sight of the dead Yedrist, did so at the sight of Alvey.
Long before Alvey was summoned to Aramis and appointed General here, the man had already made a name when he was called in as part of the Gozonians’ ’Wild Card Protocol’.
This Protocol was invoked when a Planetary Invasion reached a stalemate.
The Gozonians summoned their compatriots from their armies on other worlds; whose identities and powers were unknown to the denizens of the worlds being invaded.
The temporarily summoned demons would launch blitzkrieg attacks on strategic locations or assassinate key figures before returning to their original worlds.
As a Mid-Rank Demon Major General, Alvey had conquered a Mid-Level World, earning the ’World Conqueror’ title. His strength was also high enough to match Inferior Transcendents, so he was summoned and ordered to take out two figures who were particularly annoying to the Demons.
These Aramisian Divine Human Generals led armies who stalled the Invasion of Gledea for the longest time, and Alvey was the one who put an end to them.
They also happened to be Rachel’s biological parents, but that detail was irrelevant here. What mattered was that from this mission, Alvey became known as the ’Demon of Light’ to the Aramisians.
He randomly appeared, killed two Generals and fought Duskhand to a standstill, before suddenly vanishing.
From then, he had already been a despair-inducing presence, and his actions in the past eight years hadn’t made things any better.
"I can already predict the Headlines on Aramisian papers tomorrow."
McEnda laughed as he spoke, only to suddenly turn silent as his gaze snapped in a seemingly empty direction.
"Come out."
