Chapter 353 The Second Negotiation
After Roy made his decision, all of Ur-Hekal began to prepare for war under his will.
When Xeron still occupied this city, he built a large number of altars of Gates of the Abyss here to summon and expand the army. Now that Ur-Hekal had fallen into Roy’s hands, he used these altars.
Under the leaders.h.i.+p of Julia and Benia, they summoned numerous demons from the Gates of the Abyss every day. Bloodthirst and greed for souls made these demons respond to the war summons and rapidly expanded the numbers and scale of Roy’s demon army. They flooded the army with low-level low and middle-rank demons, while Roy appointed the few but powerful high-rank demons as commanding heroes of the army. Three days later, the first wave of twelve 10,000-demon formations set out. These 120,000 demon troops, under the lead of twelve demon heroes, marched out of Eeofol and toward the kingdom of Heresh. Next, they would attack the cities of Heresh from all directions, and Giovanni, as an informer, would be responsible for supporting them.
Although these opponents were undead and would not yield much to the demons—these skeletons without flesh and blood could not bring them any souls-Giovanni said that the necromancers of Heresh actually had countless souls in their hands. The quality of these souls was relatively high, and they used these souls to study necromancy. If they could kill them, they might be able to obtain these high-grade souls.
This news at least cheered the demon heroes up a little…
When the demon army stepped out of Eeofol’s border again, the outposts set up by the various races immediately discovered their traces. Many smoke signals rose and issued warnings to the races. For a time, the entire world Ashan was in a state of panic.
Julia and Benia did not set out with the demon army. They were not interested in attacking the undead kingdom of Heresh. From their point of view, with Giovanni, a traitor who was familiar with the internal situation of Heresh, there was no suspense in attacking Heresh, so they stayed in Ur-Hekal and were in charge of gathering more troops to deal with the possible siege of the various races.
Roy also stayed in Ur-Hekal. First, he did not need to partic.i.p.ate in such a war, and second, to him, attacking the kingdom of Heresh was only to fulfill the demon contract with Giovanni.
Although many demons would think of ways to exploit the loopholes of the demon contracts and entrap the contractors, no matter what, demons would choose to fulfill the demon contracts, regardless of what methods they used. This was one of the few credibilities of the demons…
Roy had two contracts, and one of them was with Rafaro. The content of the contract was to resurrect Rafaro, which Roy had done. Although he had turned Rafaro into the Sky Dragon and ultimately had him become his mount and tool, wasn’t Rafaro resurrected after all? Moreover, he had obtained a more powerful body than before.
The content of the contract with Giovanni was to help him ascend to the throne of the undead monarch. This contract was actually simpler. With a steady stream of demon troops pus.h.i.+ng forward and eliminating the necromancers who were unwilling to submit, wouldn’t he settle it soon?
At that time, even if Giovanni became the undead monarch, he would not dare to rebel against Roy. This way, Roy could use the forces of the undead.
In these past three days, besides familiarizing himself with his power, Roy had been constantly using various channels to understand the current situation of Ashan. He was clear that although the various races of Ashan hated and were wary of the demon camp, in fact, a demon camp led by a demon lord and a demon camp without a demon lord were entirely different threats in the eyes of the various races.
From the calendar of the Ashan world, it had only been less than a thousand years since the beginning of the Seventh Dragon Age. During these thousand years, even though the demons had escaped from Sheogh by taking advantage of the lunar eclipses and launched the War of the Blood Moon several times, they had not caused too much harm to Ashan. The various races had been developing, struggling, and fighting until now. But why was this? Because the Seventh Dragon, Sar-Elam, had sealed all the demon lords in Sheogh!
Without the leaders.h.i.+p of a demon lord, the demon camp could be said to be useless. Even if there were some high-level demons, most of them were plotting against one another. Such a demon camp could only be regarded as a small matter.
But as the seal weakened, the situation gradually changed. The first demon lord, Kha-Beleth, had escaped, and not long after he came out, he made a big move. Not only did he capture the queen of the kingdom of Erathia, but he also caused the birth of the Dark Messiah. Kha-Beleth had been hiding in the dark for nearly twenty years, and as soon as he took action, he immediately attacked the vitals of the human race.
If Roy had not appeared, given some time, Kha-Beleth could have used Biara to bring calamity and chaos to the entire kingdom of Erathia, causing it to fall apart. Then he would have brought the matured Dark Messiah to release all the imprisoned demon lords. When the demon lords appeared together and led the entire demon camp to counterattack the various races of Ashan, perhaps the world would really end.
Now, Roy had replaced Kha-Beleth’s position and caused his scheme to fail. But the news of the appearance of a demon lord was known by the various races, especially the birth of the dark savior in the Prophecy of the Demon Messiah. As long as the leaders of the various races had not lost their minds, they would understand a grave crisis laid in front of them. If they still wanted to preserve their strength and not go all out, the catastrophe brought by the demon army would destroy the entire Ashan world…
Roy was well aware that he might face a war launched by the various races with the powers of their kingdoms. The top combat forces that they hid might also appear… Roy was not afraid of war. He had basically completed his goals of coming to this world. Xeron was dead, and he had achieved the demon lord achievement. Since he already completed these goals, he could leave or stay as he wanted. On the other hand, it would be good for him if such an immense war began because he could harvest many souls.
It’s rare to come, so I have to get enough benefits! This was Roy’s idea.
“Ca.s.sandra! Ca.s.sandra, where are you?” In the demon hall, Roy finished his work and summoned Ca.s.sandra to see him.
Ca.s.sandra soon appeared. She was wearing the petal-shaped lich robe, and her skirt fluttered as she slowly walked into the hall. A Book of the Dead floated on the right side of her body, and she was carrying a baby in her arms. “Master, you called me?” Ca.s.sandra greeted Roy after entering.
Roy looked at the baby in her arms, the Dark Messiah, Sareth. In this period of time, Ca.s.sandra had been taking care of him. Roy had not asked much about him, but he did not expect Sareth to grow so much in merely half a month. When Ca.s.sandra carried him in, he was still awake and neither crying nor making trouble. He looked at Roy curiously with his dark eyes.
“Let me see him!” Roy walked to Ca.s.sandra’s side and stretched out his hand. She did not dare to disobey his order and handed Sareth to him, but she was nervous as she looked at his expression worriedly.
Roy held Sareth in one hand. His small body was almost like an egg to Roy now. Holding this child, Roy immediately felt something different. The aura of darkness and flames was slowly spreading out from Sareth’s body.
He was just a baby who was not even a month old, but his body was already full of so much magic power. This surprised Roy. Even a low-rank demon needed a long time to acc.u.mulate before a magic power aura could appear in their body. To truly understand how to use it, they needed to become a middle-rank demon. Should he say that Sareth was indeed a Child of Taboo?
With Roy holding him with one hand, Sareth looked at Roy with his dark eyes and suddenly giggled. He stretched out his small hand to grab Roy. This child did not have the slightest fear of Roy’s ferocious demon face.
Looking at Sareth acting like this, Roy rubbed his chin with his claws and pondered. He suddenly thought of something. If a demon like me and a lich like Ca.s.sandra raises this child, what will he become like?
If I find a chance to bring him to the Devil May Cry world in the future, I wonder how he would compare to other Dante and Vergil, these Children of Taboo.
Interesting! Roy suddenly became interested.
“Master, pardon me for being presumptuous…” Ca.s.sandra said nervously. “Will… Will you kill this child?”
Roy asked in surprise, “Why do you think so?”
Ca.s.sandra did not say anything, but he could see that she was very worried. After all, although he had completed her revenge for her, made her a powerful lich, and granted her power, Roy was still a demon…
He immediately guessed what she was thinking. “Don’t worry. I’ve said that I won’t harm this child. Since you have feelings for him, you will be his mother from now!”
After getting his promise, Ca.s.sandra was finally relieved.
“But…” Roy changed the topic and looked at Sareth in his hand. “Before that, I still need to make use of this child.”
“Follow me!” Regardless of Ca.s.sandra’s reaction, Roy turned around and brought her to the secret room in Ur-Hekal.
It was time to start the second negotiation with the Sheogh demon lords. Whether or not he could extract the greatest benefits from them depended on this…