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nDeath Mage Side Chapter 43 – In the absence of their natural enemy

nThere was a man who was confined inside a small room.

nA pleasantly soft bed with white sheets. White walls, a blue ceiling, and a wooden floor. The room’s lavatory and the modest clothes provided were clean.

nBut this was a prison. A place to confine the man, who was a criminal.

nThe man had originally been hired by a slave trader who had a store in the Alcrem Duchy. He had taken his work seriously, earned the trust of his employer and colleagues, and his pay hadn’t been bad, either. The problem was that the slave trader had bought and sold illegal slaves… people who had been kidnapped by bandits.

nThe man had been involved in his employer’s work despite being aware that his trade was illegal. He hadn’t felt good about it, but he had thought that this was just how the world was.

nHe had never felt a desire to save the people who were being sold, nor report his employer to the guards. If he did that, the organization would have simply made him disappear.

nThe people being sold were just unlucky. Surely it was better for them to be sold to the slave trader than be killed. By conducting this illegal slave trade, the slave trader and his employees were saving the lives of people who would otherwise have been killed by bandits.

nThe man had told himself this when he had first began working for the slave trader, but he eventually became numb to it and found himself able to sleep soundly without needing to tell himself such things.

nBut one day, the man, his employer, and several of his colleagues had been abducted and their faces torn off. Part of the man’s duties was to act as a bodyguard for the slave trader, and he had some confidence in his ability to fight, but he had been unable to put up any resistance against the black-skinned Goblins.

nThe man had fainted from the extreme pain of having his face skinned by a knife, and when he came to, he had found himself in this prison.

nThe man had been happy that his face had been restored to normal and that he hadn’t been killed, but that was when the days of hell had begun.

nHe was forced to drink or injected with unknown drugs every day, causing him to suffer from visual and auditory hallucinations. On days when his hallucinations were less severe, he would be allowed outside to ‘exercise,’ where he was forced to spend half the day digging a hole and the other half of the day filling it back in.

nOn days where he was less fortunate, he was used as a ‘teaching material,’ where students would use him to practice skinning faces and as a subject for lessons in torture. Once they were done, he would be healed back to normal and was given food and time to sleep, so he would not die… no, so that he could not die.

nHe was being treated like a criminal slave by some organization. The man understood that. But it would have been better for him if he had been sent to the slave mines that he had heard of instead.

nAround the time when the man began to desire death, he was brought to a large room instead of his usual prison room or the experimental facility.

nInside that large room was a thin, bearded man named Luciliano. The man could also feel the presence of various creatures in the darkness further inside the room.

n“Number 27, how is your physical condition?” Luciliano asked, addressing the man by his subject number.

n“… It’s relatively good today. What are you going to inject me with this time, you insane bastard?” said the man in desperation.

nBut he had no will to oppose being referred to as ‘Number 27.’

n“That is good,” said Luciliano, looking back down at the papers in his hand. “Today, I would like you to participate in a new experiment. You should be happy. You have passed our evaluations. Depending on the results of this experiment, you will be set free.”

n“… What?” muttered the man in disbelief, glaring at Luciliano with suspicion in his eyes.

nLuciliano smirked. “Among the experimental subjects in this facility, you are one of the better ones. You grew up in a poor orphanage, and we are inclined to think that if you had not chosen to join the company run by that slave trader, you might have lived an honest life. So, if you cooperate with us in this experiment, then your freedom is… well, not guaranteed, but we may allow you to live an ordinary life while we keep you under our observation.”

n“… So, what kind of no-good experiment are you planning to do?” asked Number 27, looking at Luciliano suspiciously.

nDeals that were too good to be true naturally came with a trap. In his line of work, he had heard countless stories of criminal slaves being lured by sweet-sounding offers of being set free and then being made to do dangerous work during which they were all but certain to die.

n“I’m happy to hear that you are willing to participate,” said Luciliano, his eyes shining with a mad curiosity, seeming to take no notice of Number 27’s reluctance. “I must do this now… This is my chance, as Borkus is not here to sabotage my research and prevent its progress by dragging me to Dungeons and Devil’s Nests to accompany him for physical training. Well then, let us begin the experiment right away. So, what kind of women do you prefer?”

n“Huh?” uttered Number 27, unable to immediately comprehend Luciliano’s words.

n“I am asking about your preferences in women. Appearance, figure, height, and race. It will be impossible to accommodate them all, but I have made preparations to accommodate them to the best of my ability,” said Luciliano. “Ah, but due to the nature of the experiment, I’m afraid I cannot accommodate your tastes if you prefer men.”

n“W-why do I have to tell you that?! Are you stupid?!” said Number 27, completely bewildered.

n“Why, you ask? Because of this,” said Luciliano, snapping his fingers.

nFrom the darkness further inside the room, several women emerged. They were in their teens or their twenties, and many of them were human, but there were some Dwarves, Beast-kin, Titans, and Elves as well.

nHowever, Number 27 let out a muffled scream.

nThe women were letting out low, quiet groans.

nTheir eyes were dull and lifeless, and their skin was completely pale. Several of them had stitches on their necks and torsos from having different body parts attached. These women were all Zombies.

n“I-I see. You’re planning to feed me to these things,” Number 27 muttered under his breath.

nWhat was about to take place was an experiment that doubled as an execution. There was no doubt that this experiment was to investigate whether there would be any changes to the Zombies if they were to consume Number 27 after he was injected with some special drug, or perhaps it would investigate what kind of Undead men turned into.

nThat was what Number 27 thought.

nHe would be eaten alive by Zombies. It would be a considerably gruesome, pain-filled death, but perhaps it was better than continuing to be pumped full of drugs and used as a practice dummy for torture lessons.

nAnd Number 27 had condemned countless innocent people to circumstances similar to the ones he found himself in. This was a fitting end. It was almost comical.

n“My preferences, huh. I don’t care how many there are, they can take as much as they like!” said Number 27, thinking that he would die faster if he were eaten by dozens of Zombies rather than just one or two.

n“That is rather manly of you,” said Luciliano. “However, you cannot have all of them, so let us ask the women their preferences, and… Hmm, seven are interested. Well, that is fine, I suppose.”

nThe seven Zombies who had raised their hands stepped forward. They approached Number 27, grabbed him and led him towards the other side of the room. A spotlight turned on, illuminating a king size bed that had previously been hidden in the dark.

nThe Zombies pushed Number 27 onto the bed and began undressing him.

n“… Huh? W-what are they planning to do?” he asked, bewildered by the Zombies’ strange behavior.

n“What are they planning to do, you say? We are conducting a reproduction experiment between you and them,” Luciliano told him. “Did you misunderstand, perhaps?”

n“R-reproduction?! By reproduction, you mean that?! You mean that, don’t you?!”

n“Of course. In other words, you will be creating children.”

n“You bloody fool! There’s no way Zombies can make kids!”

nBecause science was underdeveloped in this world and microscopes did not exist, the process of reproduction was not fully understood like it was on Earth.

nHowever, it was still known that one could not have children by planting seeds in a dead field.

nHowever, there were known exceptions. Live-dead – corpses that were forcibly kept alive after their deaths – were known to be able to bear children. They were considered to be a form of Undead, but processes such as the beating of the heart and respiration continued through magic, so their organs were alive.

nHowever, the hands removing Number 27’s clothes were cold, their lips approaching him were pale, and the pupils gazing at him were lifeless. For some reason, the putrid smell of corpses was absent, but these were completely and unmistakably Zombies.

nThere was no way that children could be created through intercourse with these creatures.

n“‘Bloody fool?!’” shouted Luciliano, outraged for some reason. “Do you mean to mock the sorcery techniques of me and my master??! Animal experiments for reproduction between Undead and living creatures have already succeeded! And in human experiments with subjects other than you, even though no children have been born yet because not enough time has passed yet, progress is good! You are cooperating in this experiment not for us to investigate whether or not it is possible, but for us to gain more detailed data! Given all of this, I am not a ‘bloody fool!’ Call me ‘insane bastard,’ ‘crazy,’ or ‘mad’ instead!”

n“W-what the hell is this guy saying?!” Number 27 said, feeling a newfound fear towards Luciliano.

nNothing Luciliano was saying made sense; Number 27 couldn’t understand anything.

nBut even during all of this, Number 27’s clothes were removed by the Zombies and they pressed their cold bodies against him… and he gave a piercing scream of terror.

n“No need to make such a fuss,” said Luciliano. “Moments earlier, you said that you did not care how many there are; where did your bravado go? Surely you are not a virgin… No, perhaps that is possible?”

nLuciliano felt a little sorry for Number 27, believing that he had become overly excited when faced with a large number of half-naked women and boasted too much.

nHe was aware that his perception of things was very different from that of most people. However, before he became Vandalieu’s apprentice, he had led a normal, if not a little dull, social life in human society. He was capable of imagining what other people were thinking.

n… However, there was no guarantee that his imagination of their psychology was accurate.

n“It will be no good if the subject loses his confidence as a man and becomes impotent for psychological reasons. Let’s prepare some aphrodisiacs,” said Luciliano, pausing his observations and report-writing to prepare drugs to administer to Number 27.

nAfter that, he received news that Vandalieu had arrived at the Demon King’s Continent and the underground world that existed beneath it, and that he had acquired the corpses of a new Colossus, Elder Dragon, and the Starfish Beast-King. Thus, his interest shifted away from Number 27’s experiment to these new developments.

nThe experiment continued, but perhaps it was fortunate for Number 27 that Luciliano was not observing him while he did the deed.

nMeanwhile, in the Demon King’s Continent. In a base that had been constructed beforehand and disguised to be invisible from the outside, the defensive force led by the Boulder Colossus Gorn gathered to organize their defense.

n“… We have accomplished our goal. We prevented them from approaching the goddess and protected her.”

nGorn had organized a defensive force in the Demon King’s Continent to protect Botin from Vandalieu on Alda’s orders. His objective was to prevent Vandalieu from devouring Botin’s soul while she was sealed away and unable to move.

nThus, even though they had been unable to defeat Vandalieu or even inflict any meaningful damage to him while he escaped, they had not been defeated.

nIn fact, they had succeeded in driving him away, so they could say that they were victorious and had achieved their goal.

nBut when Gorn looked at the state of his allies, it was difficult to say that they were enjoying a sense of achievement and victory.

n“Gah, my legs…”

n“Stop whining over losing a leg or two! I’m going to reattach them now!”

n“Harinsheb is on death’s door! He will die if we do not somehow put his shell back together!”

n“Ah, ugh… Gah…”

nDue to Vandalieu’s ‘World-piercing Hollow Cannon,’ the efforts of Borkus, Mikhail and the others, as well as the attacks of the Demon King Familiars, many of the Colossi and Elder Dragons had been wounded, and the Shellfish Beast-King Harinsheb was particularly heavily wounded, on the verge of death after his shell was broken to pieces.

nDemigods’ bodies were tough and had the vitality that one would expect of them, given their size. However, few demigods had the regenerative ability to regrow entire limbs in a single day.

nOf course, they would regenerate eventually, but… letting them heal naturally would take years, decades, or even longer in some cases.

nThat was why Gorn and the others were doing their utmost to treat the wounded. The wounded consumed the meat of monsters that had been hunted in order to replenish the blood and muscle they had lost. Their severed limbs were being sewn back on and their wounds were bandaged using enormous pieces of seaweed with medicinal properties.

nTo make up for the fact that they had been late to the battle, the God of War Horns Sirius and the God of War Drums Zepaon were performing songs that stimulated the wounded demigods’ natural healing processes.

nSirius, who was performing using a flute because his favorite war horn had been destroyed by Vandalieu, paused his song.

n“… With this, everyone should be fully recovered in a month’s time, except for Harinsheb,” he said to Gorn.

n“Can Harinsheb not be saved, then?” Gorn asked.

n“He won’t die. But we can’t fix his broken shell. It will be decades or maybe a century before he becomes able to fight like he could before.”

n“I see… We will have to ask for the support of Harinsheb’s children.”

nMortal worshippers could ascend to become familiar spirits or heroic spirits after death, who could later become gods. But no matter how devotedly they worshiped demigods, they could not become demigods.

nAs demigods possessed physical bodies, they produced more companions and family members not by having their believers ascend, but by having children.

nThe Colossus God Zerno, the Dragon-Emperor God Marduke, and the Beast-God Ganpaplio had created the generation of demigods that were their children using the energy of nature and their own blood and flesh. Gorn, the Colossus of Roaring Thunder Brateo, the Great Ocean Dragon God Madroza, Harinsheb, and Repobilis had been born in this way as well.

nHowever, Gorn and the others could not create their own children in the mysterious ways that the great gods such as Zerno did. In the age of the gods, there were incidents where they mated with gods to have children. Thus, demigods held a strong pride in their bloodlines.

nIt was Vida who had made use of that. She had mated with demigods, giving birth not to new demigods, but races of people such as Titans, Beast-kin, and Drakonids.

nThat was precisely why many demigods were disgusted by the actions of Vida and those who had sided with her. She had not only given birth to races with inferior strength to their parents, but also given her body even to evil gods of the Demon King’s army. Even though these evil gods had become allies in battle, the demigods were angered, feeling that the pride they had in their bloodlines had been disgraced.

nGorn was one such Colossus, but right now, he closed off his anger for Vida so that he could do everything he could to rebuild his fighting forces.

n“We will need help not only from Harinsheb’s children, but from Repobilis’s children as well. Their eldest children are governing their families in their place, so mobilizing them will be difficult. It would be a large problem if the children were to turn into monsters after being separated from the influence of their Beast-Kings,” said Sirius.

n“That is true, but… we will have to make up for it with numbers, so let us ask multiple of their younger children to come,” said Gorn.

nRepobilis and Harinsheb had many descendants, but each had only one child that were as powerful as their Beast-King parents – one child each who had survived the battle against the Demon King Guduranis alongside their parents.

nTheir other children were young and had been born after the battle against the Demon King; they were too weak to be considered demigods. One such child could not fill either of the gaps left by Repobilis and Harinsheb.

n“In that case, how about calling for aid from Peria-sama’s guards?” Sirius suggested.

nIn the sacred land where the Goddess of Water and Knowledge Peria slumbered, there was another force of guards that was around as large as Gorn’s. The Goddess of Flow Pargtarta was unlikely to move from her post, but the Elder Dragons and Colossi with her would be immediately useful as fighters.

n“No, that is risky. There is no guarantee that Vandalieu will not target Peria,” said Gorn.

nVandalieu had appeared in the Demon King’s Continent. There was no evidence that he was not after Peria’s soul.

nIn fact, it was plausible that Vandalieu’s plan was to draw the attention of Alda’s forces to the Demon King’s Continent, and Peria was his true objective.

n“But do you have any ideas on where to get more reinforcements?” asked Sirius. “If we had time, more demigods might join us, but…”

nGorn had spoken to many of the demigods belonging to Alda’s forces. However, not all of them had been able to join him.

nDemigods did not have free time to spend playing around; they performed duties such as suppressing the spread of dangerous Devil’s Nests, culling monster numbers in Dungeons that had formed in regions that made them difficult for humans to clear, and protecting the seals on Demon King fragments and evil gods.

nOf course, they understood the importance of Gorn’s task as well, but if a catastrophic event occurred in their absence from their regular duties, there would be even more dangers that the world was exposed to.

n“Indeed… The Colossi, Elder Dragons, and Beast-Kings of Vida’s faction that were sealed away in the battle a hundred thousand years ago, it would be good if we could convince them to join us. Could we not ask our lord about this?” suggested Gorn.

n“Don’t ask when you know it will be difficult. There is no way they will agree to join us, even if Alda-sama himself tried to convince them,” said Sirius.

nIn the battle between Alda and Vida that had taken place a hundred thousand years ago, many of the Colossi who had remained demigods without becoming monsters had sided with Vida’s faction. This was because the Sun Giant Talos, the most powerful of the surviving Colossi, had sided with Vida.

nThus, Gorn and the other Colossi who had sided with Alda’s forces were in the minority. The same could be said for the Elder Dragons; the Elder Dragons revered the Mountain Queen Elder Dragon God Tiamat, and most of them and their children had joined Vida’s faction.

nIn terms of numbers, the number of demigods who had joined Alda’s forces like Gorn was not small. However, they were a small portion of the whole.

nStill, Alda’s forces won the battle. In other words, many demigods on Vida’s side had been sealed away, and many had died as well.

n“They killed their own brethren; I cannot imagine that they will change so easily. I suppose it is possible to forcibly control them, but… Vandalieu’s mother is the incarnation of Vida. It is possible that they will regain their senses during battle and become enemies,” said Sirius.

nGorn was convinced by this argument. Even if they had once been enemies, he wasn’t happy with the idea of forcibly controlling members of his own race.

nHowever, the fact was that it was difficult to gather more fighting forces on short notice using ordinary means.

nAs the gods were nurturing potential heroes, recruiting some humans might have been an option, but… the location and environment of the Demon King’s Continent made that impossible.

n“To think that Nineroad’s plan would have a downside like this,” Gorn muttered.

nAfter defeating the Demon King Guduranis, the army led by Bellwood and the other champions had thoroughly purified – or perhaps more accurately, destroyed – the Demon King’s Continent.

nThe Demon King’s Palace, the evil temples, the forests of fungi, the black deserts. The champions’ army had thoroughly destroyed such structures and lands, turning them into barren wastelands, in order to prevent monsters and the remnants of the Demon King’s army from using them. Gorn, Sirius, and Gufadgarn – who was now on Vandalieu’s side – had taken part in this task.

nAs a result, the Demon King’s Continent had been saved from contamination by miasma a hundred thousand years ago… though it had become a barren continent without a single tree or blade of grass.

nHowever, it had been clear that Devil’s Nests would appear on the Demon King’s Continent once more – because the Demon King’s seal on Botin still remained. The faint traces of the Demon King’s Mana leaking from the seal would become miasma and contaminate the continent.

nIf left alone, the Demon King’s Continent would return to the way it was – no, it would become even more of a continent of Devil’s Nests than before.

nBut after that, the gods of the world, including Bellwood who had become a heroic god, had devoted themselves to the restoration of the world, and they did not have the ability to spend efforts on the maintenance of the Demon King’s Continent, where no person or living thing existed. After being exhausted even further by the battle against Vida, they had been unable to continue carrying out the task of remaining on the Demon King’s Continent to prevent the miasma from contaminating it.

nEven so, they had committed various efforts to release Botin from her seal, regularly culled monsters on the continent, and swept away the Devil’s Nests, but all of these efforts had gone to waste. The seal on Botin could not be broken, and the Devil’s Nests had continued to spread.

nAfter around fifty thousand years had passed, nature had recovered on the Demon King’s Continent – though in the form of the continent becoming one enormous Devil’s Nest, inhabited by countless monsters.

nThat was when Nineroad had come up with a plan.

n“Unlike the Demon Continent where remnants of Vida’s faction like Zantark and remnants of the Demon King’s army are hiding, there are no threats to us on the Demon King’s Continent. Why don’t we take advantage of that and gather the world’s miasma on that continent? If we do that, it will reduce the number of Devil’s Nests forming not only on the Bahn Gaia Continent, but also in the skies and seas,” she had said.

nBellwood had already fallen into his slumber, and Farmaun had escaped from Alda’s faction, so none had opposed her idea.

nAnd so, much of the world’s miasma had been gathered in the Demon King Continent, and the expansion of Devil’s Nests in many lands had been slowed.

nAs a result, the Demon King’s Continent became a difficult continent to even step foot on unless one was a demigod.

n“There is nothing we can do about that decision now. By concentrating the world’s miasma on this continent, the other lands have been kept in an ordinary state, and the humans have flourished,” said Sirius.

n“That is true, but… Hmm? Nineroad’s plan… Nineroad, huh,” said Gorn, seeming to have thought of something. “They’ll be an addition to our fighting strength, I suppose. And unlike Repobilis and Radatel, their loss will be of no consequence to us.”

nSirius asked Gorn what he intended to do, and was surprised by the answer. It was not the kind of method that would be thought of by a demigod who had pride in themselves.

nHowever, Sirius was convinced, knowing that this plan would indeed add to their fighting forces, and returned to his Divine Realm to report to Alda and Nineroad.

nSoon after Sirius left, Brateo, the Great Ocean Dragon God Madroza, and the demigods who had not been part of the battle against Vandalieu returned.

n“We have returned, brothers!” said Brateo.

n“You fought well. Now then, drink this and heal your wounds as much as you can,” said Madroza.

nThey fed the injured medicines made from their own blood, repaired their damaged weapons, and began making a replacement war horn for Sirius.

n“My little brother, I shall do something about your wounds and your armor,” said the Iron Colossus Nabanga, giving medicine to the Bronze Colossus Lubug and beginning to repair his armor.

n“U-ugh, brother…” groaned Lubug.

nThere was a plan to replenish their fighting forces, and it seemed that they would be able to make preparations before Vandalieu appeared again. Gorn felt relieved, but in the next moment –

n“So, when are you planning to pursue Vandalieu? Don’t tell me you’re planning to let him escape?” said Brateo.

n“W-what are you saying?! Pursue, you say? I already told you, we can’t take that risk!” said Gorn.

nWhen Cuatro escaped into the sea, Gorn had stopped Brateo from recklessly giving chase by pinning his arms back from behind. Brateo’s roaring lightning attacks would diffuse uselessly underwater, and Gorn had decided that there was a high chance that he would be killed by Vandalieu and his companions.

nBrateo had calmed down a while after that and helped Madroza and the others treat the wounded, so Gorn had assumed that Brateo understood the situation, but… it seemed that this was not the case.

n“What are you talking about?! If we do nothing but defend, we will never defeat them!” said Brateo.

n“That is correct. We managed to repel them this time, but next time, they are likely to bring appropriate forces. We must make our own move first,” said Madroza.

nNot only was Brateo not understanding the situation, but Madroza was agreeing with him. Brateo had lost his wife in the battle against the Demon King Guduranis over a hundred thousand years ago, and Madroza too had lost her husband. Thus, Madroza had a fierce hatred for the Demon King like Brateo.

n“Are you telling me to let them escape after they killed my son?!” Brateo shouted angrily.

n“As foolish as he was, Zvold was my son. Are you telling me to simply withstand my hatred?!” demanded Madroza.

nIt seemed that they both had impulsive personalities.

nHowever, most demigods were impulsive to begin with. Unfortunately for Gorn, many in the group voiced their agreement with Brateo and Madroza’s words.

nHowever, Gorn could not accept their demands.

n“Do not say such foolish things!” he said, cursing the fact that Sirius was not here to help him stop this nonsense. “Even if we were to chase after them now, they can escape anywhere with Gufadgarn’s teleportation; it is a fool’s errand! And if they wait in ambush, every single one of us will be destroyed. Do not forget that we were only able to repel them this time because we had strength in numbers!”

nAny of the demigods would have been defeated by Vandalieu and his companions in battle if they’d had to face him alone or in pairs. That was true not only for Gorn, but for Brateo and Madroza as well.

nThey might have been able to impose a difficult battle on Vandalieu and his companions, forcing them to exhaust their strength and maybe even wounding them, before they were defeated. But they would still be defeated in the end.

n“But when we attacked with ten of us, we felt it! We felt that we were able to fight them, and that we could win!” said Brateo.

n“If we gave chase and fought him with all of us who can still move – about twenty of us – we should be able to win,” said Madroza.

nGorn felt dizzy just from hearing these words. He wanted to point out that certain individuals had ruined the strategy that had made victory feel possible, but refrained from doing so, as this would only anger the two further.

n“That is true, but Vandalieu and his allies were not forced to their limits. And it is possible that they have already teleported somewhere with Gufadgarn’s abilities,” he said.

nBrateo understood that giving chase was likely futile. But even so, he could not accept Gorn’s words.

n“Then how about telling Alda to take advantage of this! Tell him, when the Dhampir appears here or in the land where Peria slumbers, or when he shows himself in the human city called Alcrem, we should attack his stronghold… the region inside the Boundary Mountain Range!” Brateo said.

n“Indeed,” Madroza agreed. “Gods cannot pass through the barrier, but us demigods are able to pass through it physically. In fact, we could even pick up the potential heroes being nurtured by the gods and take them with us. With this –”

n“… Are you being serious?” said Gorn, sighing at Brateo and Madroza’s unrealistic plan.

nThis plan, if it could be executed and victory could be achieved, was indeed an effective one. However, it was realistically far too difficult.

nFirst of all, Sirius and the other gods had already been fooled by Vandalieu once. They had been unable to discern that the Vandalieu in Alcrem was a fake, and as a result, Gorn and the others had been late to group up.

nUnless they descended upon the world themselves, even gods could only see what was happening on the world’s surface through the eyes of their believers. Thus, they could only see what their believers saw… what the mortals saw.

nEven if Vandalieu were to show himself again, the gods would not be able to tell whether it was the real Vandalieu or not. It was possible that a Vandalieu seen in the city was a fake while the real one was actually inside the Boundary Mountain Range.

nThen, there was the fact that the demigods would have to physically cross the Boundary Mountain Range in order to attack the region within it. The demigods, with their physical bodies, could not attack without swimming through the seas, running across the lands, or flying through the sky in order to cross the mountain range.

nColossi were around a hundred meters tall, and the Elder Dragons and Beast-Kings were similarly-sized. If they physically crossed the Boundary Mountain Range in such a fashion, Vandalieu and the gods of Vida’s faction would notice them before they could get close to their enemies.

nOnce they did, Vandalieu would likely lead his forces to attack them.

nIt was still possible to attack the stronghold of Vida’s faction by teleporting using space-attribute magic. If a large number of demigods allied with Alda were to appear and attack without warning, Vida’s faction would be able to do little to stop them.

nBut there were about twenty Pure-breed Vampires inside the Boundary Mountain Range. It could be assumed that many of them were responsible for maintaining the barrier around the mountain range, but if enemy demigods were to attack the region inside, they would abandon that task to join the battle.

nThe other gods of Vida’s faction were certain to descend upon the world to join the battle rather than wait for death, and there was no doubt that the evil gods of the faction would take part as well.

nNext, there was the fact that the resulting battle would be large-scale and fierce, like the ones that had taken place a hundred thousand years ago. Even if Alda’s forces were victorious as they had been in the past, if too many gods were lost in the process, the world would perish in the end.

nThat was the reason Alda had simply kept an eye on the Boundary Mountain Range without attacking the region inside it for the past hundred thousand years.

nFinally, Vida had been resurrected by Vandalieu, and Ricklent and Zuruwarn had become enemies as well. Looking at Alda’s side, Bellwood was slumbering, and Farmaun had abandoned Alda’s faction.

nThe losses suffered by Alda’s faction would be even greater than any previous estimates.

nBrateo made a noise of dissatisfaction. “But Vandalieu hears the voices of the dead. I don’t want to believe that Radatel, Zvold, or Repobilis would betray us, but it is possible that they will be deceived into doing so.”

n“Is it not dangerous to simply wait for Vandalieu to attack us again after gaining all of the information he needs about us?” said Madroza.

nGorn admitted that this was true. But he already had a plan to replenish their lost forces with a method that Radatel and the others didn’t know of.

nHowever, this replenishment could not be done immediately.

n“Half a month… No, ten days will be enough. Give me time. I will gather the Giants and Dragons of this continent who have become monsters,” Gorn said, praying to his deceased father Zerno that Vandalieu would not appear again before then.

n