313 Small Setbacks
Quartez had been laid waste to.
The stench of death permeated as far as the eye could see, buildings had been wantonly destroyed, castles wrecked like defective constructions.
With flames wantonly spreading because of the destroyed houses.
Along both the streets and gutters of every city in Quartez lay corpses of every kind.
The powerful, the poor, the elderly, and the small, half-breeds and tamed beasts.
Death did not discriminate, and neither did he.
Those that had proved their loyalty, promised power and indoctrinated with demon blood weren't spared such fate either.
Rather, they were the first to be killed, for their scent was unique and as a demon, their souls were bound to be bigger than others.
Lest Numar and Goceron, who just happened to be outside of Quartez at this time, all other members of the demon cult had also been killed.
As the one to welcome him, Crea was allowed to hold on to her life, and by his side she watched all her friends die to their 'lord' as sacrifices, never showing any bit of emotion.
But in her mind, she was already panicking, panicking greatly.
She could see that the lord they had placed so much of their faith in, was just as expected and also not.
Ruthless and extremely powerful.
BUT, the foundation of their movement and ideal was the salvation of humanity.
At least that was where she took her stance on their faith.
As a race beyond redemption, they were to be cleansed, they would either willingly become demons, or be exterminated.
Such self-contradictory species should not be allowed to exist.
So, why was their lord killing all those who'd sworn allegiance, people who were halfway towards salvation, going farther to kill everyone of her friends.
People who'd attained salvation, practically entrenched in it.
Being in the cult from a young age, they were the only people she was acclimatized to.
For them to die in such a manner was inconceivable.
Yet she dare not raise her voice, not to talk of resisting.
Alvarach had told her it was for the good of the cause, and she simply nodded in affirmation.
But she wasn't buying it, for the first time in over three and half decades, she questioned her path.
Alvarach was kind enough to allow her to heal herself back to full health.
How? By killing a whole town and absorbing their souls.
What? She was already a demon and reached a point of no return decades ago.
So what if she regretted it, it didn't change what she'd done and what she had to do.
While her faith had been shaken, no, it was better to say it was uprooted, her instinct to survive was intact.
All she'd done was ultimately for survival, and so will all else that she did.
At this point, there was very little she could do to reverse the situation.
By this time, everything killable was dead.
Not surprising, considering the great war had hacked away much of Lexon's population as a whole and Niton's subsequent siege didn't help.
—-----
Five days earlier, just as he began his massacre of those on the battlefield, he soon noticed a problem.
Taking such a massive blow at point blank range gave him substantial wounds.
While such was commonplace for all demons, the problem lay in that the injuries incurred from the Emperor's imploding weren't healing.
The residue of mana stuck on the exposed flesh prevented them from doing so.
As an unwelcome guest, his body wasn't acclimatized to Orion's atmosphere.
Moreover, his forceful intrusion made him a sole target of Orion's suppression.
Even without Zydrax actively directing its thinking, the world will had a pseudo-consciousness.
Enough capacity to identify enemies.
So apart from his vast depth of power, Alvarach was unable to increase his strength.
Mana was akin to poison for him.
And it would remain as such lest he patiently integrated it into his body.
A process that would take anywhere from three months to ten years.
Of course, as a Mythic rank demon, he wouldn't do his status justice if he simply accepted the situation as it came.
Proving his title, he sought to force his way through the curse, for that best described its effects.
He shoved multiple souls at once, trying to forcefully push away the effect.
As he hoped, the flesh grew to cover the wounds, but then the mana within flared uncontrollably, returning it to a state only slightly better than it originally was.
It appeared that he'd suffered more damage than he anticipated.
Nevertheless, Alvarach remained unfazed.
This was only a hurdle in his path.
A small setback.
He tried again, shoving more and more souls, but the effects were minuscule.
After several attempts, he gave in, leaving the wounds to fester.
While he wasn't healing, the mana was unable to expand the injury any bigger.
At this point, pushing ahead was nothing short of insanity.
He had to think of something else and quickly.
All the while, he didn't stop scooping souls out of the living.
A day later, Crea brought a dozen adventure who had wandered into Quartez.
Looking at their get up alone, she had determined that they were scouts.
But what were they scouting?
With little effort, they divulged all that they knew, and by the end of their short briefing, Alvarach was grinning.
For one, the outside knew nothing about his arrival, or even the death of the Emperor.
The most likely scenario was that the escapees purposefully kept it a secret, or something else had befallen them along the way.
The cause didn't that mattered much.
Thanks to someone spreading rumours, many now believed Quartez held a Manite vein.
Crea had confirmed that it was false.
She'd been to every part of Quartez, if a Manite vein was here, they would've long found it.
But thanks to this lie, Alvarach confirmed that guests would be arriving at time, and possibly en masse.
And to present himself in good light, Alvarach had to be ready to treat his guests.
The question of what to do was immediately answered.
He wrote out a formation across the entirety of Quartez with the most mana concentrated part of his victims blood.
One that would prevent guests from leaving once they stepped in, except for the formation's master.
Though ever arrogant, he drew rune seals alongside it, all of them with debuffing effect.
This was for the inevitable occurred in which Grandmaster came in.
Now injured, he had to be more cautious.
He strengthened both the formation and the seals by infusing souls into it.
That was that.
Last but not least, Alvarach changed up his plan of attack.
As per Crea's advice, he took into account the appearance of multiple Grandmasters at the last battle.
The possibility of it reoccurring could not be forsaken.
In fact, seeing as how just four Grandmasters gave him trouble, it would per expected if six or even ten of them came along next time.
If he was caught lacking, he would suffer.
Moreover, he could not get injured a second time like he was now.
So he played his best card-summoning subordinates.
As a Mythic rank figure, he had a number of Grandmasters demons under him.
The aim was to summon them all.
Having summoned three previously, that left the remaining two.
What? Even in the demon world, Grandmasters didn't grow on trees.
With that set, Alavarch quickly made preparations.
He made another formation, right where the demon lair originally was.
While the original demon lair had been destroyed, the soul essence concentrated here was second to none.
Even if only a quarter of the essence remained, it would be beneficial in stabilizing the connection between both worlds.
With the usage being far more complex than the last dimension, Alvarach was force to tame his wild nature as he carefully inscribed the formation.
Any mistake meant his Grandmasters would be torn apart.
It took two whole days to complete, now the fifth day, he directly used himself to stabilize it, and it eat into the reserves of his power.
Better weaker than dead.
Moreover, once the passage was successfully established, energy from the demon world would come through, allowing to recover the used energy.
The sigil-like formation made in blood shone, and the demon world came into view.
Putting more effort, he located the two Grandmasters.
He'd left them to act in his stead.
If the other two realized he wasn't around, they would come to cause trouble and do serious damage.
In any case, it wasn't too bad to return them after the impending battle.
Focusing his power, hangout their attention, with a few words, his intentions were relayed.
They quickly got there closest aides to stand guard in their stead, telling them that Alvarach had called them into seclusion.
That was his cover while conquering Orion.
Having moved out of sight, Alvarach opened the portal slowly.
After the five minutes, the portal opened up enough for them to pass over.
With pace, they dived in, arriving on the other side in a minute.
With Crea, they were five demon Grandmasters.
"Welcome-
Right then, the formation shook, alerting him of an intruder.
Moreover, from this presence-it was actually a Grandmaster!
"We have a guest" he proclaimed with a happy tone. "You should go and greet him"
The two Grandmasters pounced, the message was clear.
—-----
'Hmm?'
Winfrey had immensely shocked seeing the carnage wrought on Quartez.
It didn't make sense that no one that no one had said any thing about it.
As such, he decided to investigate.
By the moment he crossed the border, he felt something ripple.
Immediately cross-checking, he realizes that a barrier is now in his path.
He punched, kicked and slashed with his sword, both had very little effect.
He focused his power to forcefully breakthrough when his senses tingled loudly, alerting him to incoming.
Ever since ascending to Grandmaster rank, only Andrew and Augustus warranted such a reaction.
Brandishing his sword, Winfrey got ready to meet the enemy, looking closer at the state of devastation wrought on Quartez.
'So many corpses!' his eyes flashed.
One had to be a demon to do such a thing.
On cue, he picked up the presence of two individuals.
Both of Grandmaster rank.
But he was perplexed, something was different about the approaching entities, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
Once the entities entered this sights, his eyes widened.
'Demons?!' He was alarmed.
All power were watching keenly as Niton attacked Quartez, but there no news on anything that transpired.
He'd guessed it was because they were held themselves up guarding the Manite vein.
He was wrong.
No, something was fundamentally wrong with this situation.
Moreover, the formation was doing more than just maintaining a barrier.
It was inhibiting his senses, which was why he hadn't Crea and the last two at Alvarach's side, nor Alvarach himself.
He'd come earlier to get a headstart on everyone else, a unique situation indeed.
Even Ezra wouldn't expected a Grandmaster to come to secure loot from a manite vein which was said to be guarded against five Nitonian Grandmasters.
Was he not afraid to be killed.
Enough contemplating, the demons had reached him.
There was a reason he dared come here in the first place, the demons were about to find out what that was.
"Come, you vile beasts!"
—---------
Atop sand turned red from bloodshed, Alvarach overlooked his surroundings.
It was the sixth day since Ezra escaped from his grasp.
Right now, he was lamenting the loss of one of his Grandmasters.
Winfrey battle prowess was above average for a Grandmaster and he fought two Grandmaster rank demons to a halt.
As the fight became one of Attrition, Alvarach told Crea and the last two to join in to end it quickly.
What he hadn't expected was for Winfrey to promptly gave up on trying to survive the moment he registered their presence.
He fought without restraint onwards, using a flurry of attacks to separate demon Grandmasters before lunging onto one.
He had a artifact that could deal a lethal blow to a Grandmaster, it was to be his element of security if the Nitonian Grandmasters wanted to kill him.
Detonating it without hesitation, both him and the demon were covered in the explosion before the others could understand.
They both died, dealing a massive blow to Alvarach's overall strength.
As one would expect, he was livid.
But all was done and said, there was nothing could do.
With all his Grandmasters here, he focused on recovering his strength.
While keeping the portal open sapped his energy, the energy was able to recover was slightly above.
As for bringing Master rank demons to bolster forces, that was backwards military thinking.
In a battlefield with Grandmasters would serve as fodder.
Moreover if they were a problem he couldn't solve personally, no amount of Master rank demons could solve it.
When all was said and done, he would have to rely on himself to his ambition to fruition.
That was the plan in first place so all that happened didn't shake his resolve one bit, it did serve to enlighten him on the things the Grandmasters might pull in the next battle, and-he would never admit this-they couldn't be underestimated.
Reagardless, nothing would stop him from conquering this planet.
Whew! We're about to reach a mini-climax, hold onto your sits
VOID_
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