Chapter 29

  A hunting party, huh? Right, of course: Third Ring demons needed to eat, just like everyone else. And where else would they find food if not in the forests of the Wilds, the only place where wildlife spawned out of thin air and lived. They also needed some water, and I imagined their armies had taken smaller and less defended towns in the area already to access their water sources. It reminded me how dangerously low my supply of ration packs had become. I had left some of those with Flamey — along with seven Crunchymel bars — because at the time I couldn’t really accept that a Hungering Flesh-snatcher, a Staring Hunter of the Abyss or a Swarm of Scorching Blood were in fact edible, despite having observed my demon-squad happily munching on brutally filleted and magically roasted slices of the critters. The only one I had not seen them eat was the Flamescythe, on account of the bone-creature having next to no meat on it; if it had, I was sure the demons would be hunting them for food and not just EXP. If things went well and I was still alive a couple of days from now, I would have to start sampling the wildlife because I wouldn’t have any proper food left; no more concentrated ration bars, no more drinking water, and most importantly, no more coffee. Life was going to be rough from that point on. Not that it wasn’t rough already; while my SAC’s filters failing to keep the stench of my unwashed body away from my nose was nothing new, eating and answering nature’s call away from the eyes of my squad for fear of being recognised as a human was a new and difficult thing. Luckily, I still had enough Crunchymel bars and cigarettes left to lift my spirit every once in a while, and with strict rationing they’d last a bit more. This was a problem I’d have to worry about later.

  Less than half an hour after I and my retinue had hid ourselves behind the outermost trees of the forest, the first of the minotaur hunters appeared and climbed over the white rocks lining the edge of the plateau — one, then another, then another, until fifty or so of them were marching towards us along with twenty other creatures I had not seen before. I was inclined to say most of the non-minataurs were “werewolves” or perhaps “dogmen”, as they showed a striking resemblance to the traditional versions of those animals — except these were bipedal, less hairy, and had way too much muscle-mass for their own good. They were smaller than the minotaurs — albeit just as vicious looking — standing at around 2 metres tall, so about my size with my SAC on. A few others in the procession of the Third Ring’s beast type demons were something I could not identify on account of showing no similarities to any members of the animal kingdom I knew — at least not to those of Earth. They were a similar size and height as the werewolves, but their pitch-black, heavily muscled bodies gleamed as if covered in an ungodly amount of an army mechanic’s favourite engine oil mixed with his own blood. The creatures didn’t seem to have eyes — or maybe I just couldn’t see them as I was peeking out from behind a tree — and their faces were split in half by their large mouths, their long, forked tongues twisting and twirling like a snake’s.

  ‘What in the fuck are those?’ I whispered to Grashon, who was hiding behind the next tree.

  ‘Never seen a Caver demon, Boss?’ He grinned at me.

  ‘No, I have not. Caver demons, eh? Do they live in caves or something?’

  ‘That they do.’ The answer came. ‘No eyes, but they can taste the smells and sights and sounds with their tongues. Or that’s what I’ve heard.’

  ‘You’ve never seen one either, eh?’ I grinned back at the large, horned warrior demon.

  ‘At least I’ve heard of them, don’t give me that look, Boss!’ He went on the defensive.

  ‘You can’t see my face, Grash. Helmet,’ I whispered, grinning even harder at him behind the polarised visor.

  ‘Uhhgg!’ He growled as good naturedly as a demon could — I was getting used to these guys’ antics.

  I looked around and found Reinos hiding behind a bunch of branches a bit deeper, just within the visual range the forest allowed to anyone, crouching down with two others of our squad: Vik and Sur, the two demon archers and exclusive providers of Hell Mana infused arrows capable of tearing into a monster and exploding them from the inside. Nasty stuff. The others I couldn’t see, but I could feel them — more specifically, I could feel their power and their levels.

  It was a strange thing; this ability had no skill associated with it, no HMP or RE cost to speak of, or any other indication of its existence on my stat sheet or in my RMS menus. It was an innate demonic sense or perception that all demons seemed to share, which I had likely received along with my demonic traits as a bonus. Thanks to it, I could tell that the enemy formation about to enter the forest averaged around level 21, and it made me a bit more relaxed; none in my squad was below level 30, plus we were in a good ambush position. Despite their numerical advantage, we’d make short work of the hunting party, of this I had no doubt.

  My fire-demons slowly and silently circled around to position themselves as the last of enemy demons made it past the first trees of the Wilds, and I waved to Reinos to begin the attack. The mage captain and the two archers put their deadly craft on full display; the opening barrage — a torrent of orange-red fire together with Hell Mana infused arrows — hit the front of the enemy column, burning and exploding all in their way. At the same time, four of my warriors sprung forth from their cover and charged the rear of their formation. Grash and I — not wanting to leave all the EXP to the others and because we had the highest levels in our squad — threw ourselves at the middle of their column, the warrior’s spiked mace crashing down on the head of the closest minotaur, and Burning Darkness sliding into the flesh of another as easily as if the guy was made of paper. The shocked and surprised minotaurs and their accompanying werewolves and cavers didn’t stand a chance; more than 10 levels below us on average, they could neither react fast enough nor muster enough strength and power to repel our assault. Some of them tried to run, but Vik and Sur were ready to shoot the would-be-escapees down, and in less than five minutes the seventy-something strong enemy column was no more. I was particularly disappointed with the caver demons: as terrifying as they looked, they weren't any stronger or deadlier than the others.

  I quickly checked the notifications on my NeuroHUD.

  [You have defeated Minotaur scout, level 23. You receive EXP.]

  [You have defeated Minotaur hunter, level 20. You receive EXP.]

  [You have defeated Minotaur hunter, level 19. You receive EXP.]

  [You have defeated Blind Troglodyte fighter, level 24. You receive EXP.]

  [You have defeated Hellwolf warrior, level 21. You receive EXP.]

  [You have defeated Flamescythe, level 23. You receive EXP.]

  [You have defeated Hungering Flesh-snatcher, level 20. You receive EXP.]

  [You have defeated Minotaur warrior, level 26. You receive EXP.]

  [Skill: Master of the Hellfire Blade reached level 4.]

  [Skill: Touch of Hell reached level 3]

  ***

  I slid a very happy Burning Darkness back into his sheath on my back, trying to tune out his monologue about the sweet smell of the blood of his enemies and Hell shaking with pleasure at the demise of worthy foes. If there had ever been a sword in need of psychiatric evaluation, it was him. Although, I had to admit I was proud of my progress and improvements: wielding the insane blade was becoming a combination of second nature and muscle memory, thanks to the skill Master of the Hellfire Blade aiding me as well as Burning Darkness’ instructions. I was fast, my movements were simple, precise and effective, even when facing two or more enemies at the same time. Still, I had taken hits, but my post-magic SAC could handle it; it had lost almost 250 points of durability — four minotaurs hitting you with their battle axes and a werewolf biting at you for good measure had produced predictable results. For the first time since I’d arrived in Hell, I could see scratches and small dents on the armour plating. But I was now fully convinced that Burning Darkness was right when saying levels meant a lot more for my SAC than for my body. He had assured me he’d smoothen the dents and scuffs out during the next level up, sacrificing some of the EXP to restore the ferrocom plating instead of investing it into magical resistance or something. How that worked I had no idea, but if he said he could do it then I wasn’t going to doubt him now. With all this considered, the ambush had gone well.

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  ‘That went well,’ I said to Reinos as he approached me with the two archers, joining me just outside the forest and outside of the reach of the monsters in it. The mage was woozy and exhausted, which was an interesting look for a huge, blood-red demon. I was sure it was because his Soulstrength stat along with his Hell Mana capacity wasn’t on the level of Tarashak’s yet. I remembered what it had felt like to part with almost all of the stuff, so I couldn’t blame him. In any case, he’d done well — along with Vikaret and Surtakhan — to obliterate the front of the enemy formation. I looked the three of them up and down; it wasn’t hard to tell fire-demons apart, no more than humans, but it was difficult to guess which of them were older or younger than the other. I figured Reinos was probably a lot younger than the general, but with time, effort and levels he could one day become as formidable of a mage as Tarashak.

  ‘It did,’ Reinos panted, looking at the carnage around us as the other squad members were making their way to us, hopping over the corpses of enemy demons as well as the numerous monsters caught up in the fight. I wasn’t all that shocked that the three long-range fighters were the only ones who had come out of the scuffle without scuffs and bloodstains — magic snipers had it good. Vik and Sur left the mage to recover his HMP and went around to collect any still usable arrows from the corpses, as well as to collect thinner branches they could fashion into new ones. Their related crafting skills must have been pretty high level, as I’d not seen them running out, and I’d been thoroughly impressed the one time I’d seen them make arrows. The rest of the team, well … having just fought seventy or so frenzied demons, plus the members of the wildlife not smart enough to keep away, it would have been stranger if they didn’t look like they’d been to hell and back — pun absolutely intended. I was sure I would have lost some of my squad if not for their higher levels.

  Grashon was covered in blood, some of it his own, the others sported dents on their armour and cuts of various sizes on their bodies. It was my turn to sacrifice all my Hell Mana and get woozy in the process of getting my demons back into tip-top shape! While the troops were a lot larger and scarier than I was used to seeing and treating, I could safely say the life of a combat medic on deployment was still the same, demon lord or not. It was time to fire up the IFD suite and get some healing done.

  Waiting for my soul to replenish its Hell Mana supply whenever I used it all up was the most annoying part of performing magical first aid on my squad. The IFD suite made it easy to guide the healing spells, making it more cost-effective to use, but with so many wounds to heal, it was a slow process. It had taken almost two hours to finally get to Grashon, who had sustained the worst — albeit not life-threatening — injuries, and by the time I was done with him, Hades Heal reached level 4, and I had made considerable additions to the IFD database on demon anatomy.

  The gang was used to me being able to heal — an unheard-of thing in Hell. They had gone through the phases of suspicion, then indifference, and now, if I wasn’t mistaken, a little bit of appreciation. I supposed in Hell, where the norm was to leave the seriously wounded to their own devices and move on, my guys had begun to consider that to “live to fight another day” wasn’t such a bad thing. And if a weird healer could make that happen, then so be it. Perhaps I could get them to scrub all the demon blood and guts off my SAC as thanks for my efforts while we waited for our scouts, Zagrathar and Iskaret, to return with some good news.

  ***

  We waited for another hour before our stealth specialists arrived back as silently as they had left — during which none showed any willingness to help me clean my SAC. I watched Zag and Iska crawling up the slope, over the white rocks lining the edge of the plateau and making their way to us.

  ‘Welcome back, troops, how did it go?’ I asked them as they arrived. ‘Tell me everything!’

  ‘Troops?’ Zag mumbled the question from under the black cloth wrapped around his head, covering half his face.

  Iska elbowed him immediately, peeling off the fabric covering her own face.

  ‘Yes, Lord. We reached the city walls, found one of the small gates, and the garrison commander let us in.’ She began her report. ‘The holes and rocks along the way provide good cover to approach the enemy right up to the camps. We can’t be sure, but each camp seems to have a captain in overall charge with a thousand or more minotaurs and other demons under his command. The gaps between the camps and their barricades were large enough for us to sneak through unnoticed, but we had to go slowly and carefully. Once past the ditches and the mounds, the ground is largely flat all the way to the city wall, only the corpses providing any cover. We had to crawl even slower to not be noticed by enemy sentries.’

  ‘It took us a bit of convincing and threatening for those idiots in the garrison to let us in.’ Zag added.

  Iska glared at her colleague, then let it go and continued.

  ‘Once we were in, we found the garrison commander, a captain named Terolast. He’s the second strongest demon there at level 29, the city overseer, Krasharak, being at level 30. Garoshek has between ten and twelve thousand residents, including the four hundred garrison members. From what I could see of the garrison no-one’s higher than level 26, most of them probably lower.’ she reported their findings. ‘We walked along the ramparts around the city, and we estimate the minotaurs to have more than twenty but less than thirty thousand demons, judging by the number of their camps around the city. Terolast said that more than half of the enemy left a few days after everyone felt the aura of the new Centre of the Ring washing over the realm.’

  That was good news; the enemy king had taken the bait.

  ‘What of their defences?’ I asked.

  ‘The city walls are still reinforced by the will of the previous Lord, but I could only sense one aura emplacement, and I wasn’t sure what it was.’ Iska said. ‘As it is now, our demons in the city won’t be able to break out and break the siege, but at the same time the enemy can’t put together a proper assault either. It would be foolish of them if they did. They should definitely try.’

  That was my conclusion as well, but it was good to hear confirmation of it. And I agreed with the blood-red, dangerous looking demon woman: if the enemy was to try to do something foolish like charge the walls, I would not stop them.

  ‘Do you think we could all make it to the city?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’ This time it was Zag who answered, pointing at himself and Iska. ‘The two of us could go back, we could take maybe one more with us, but any more than that is not possible. We’d be noticed and slaughtered. We’d fight them of course here and now if you ordered, but as you said, Lord, that is not our current … objective, or what was that word?’

  ‘Yes. Objective.’ I nodded.

  This was a predicament; not as bad as it could have been, but a predicament nonetheless. I had hoped I could confirm their report with my own eyes, talk to the city bosses, and help our recruitment drive. As the ruling Demon Lord, I was the only one here with the right and the means to appoint generals and establish a proper, Genius-approved army. A garrison was all well and good, but as a defensive organisation with mostly defensive auras available to its leaders, it wasn’t going to cut it. Hm. Only one extra demon who could go to the city. Should I really be the one to go with my scouts?

  My demons were looking at me as patiently as they could while I was silently making and discarding plans one after another. Grashon was fidgeting and playing with the handle of his spiked mace, but I couldn’t help but keep my eyes on Reinos while I was thinking. The mage was watching me like a hawk, his high expectations for me and my military acumen glinting in his yellow eyes. How and why in the hell had I ended up in this surreal situation? This kind of strategic and tactical planning belonged to generals and colonels, not a sergeant. Hold on! Generals, huh? With that thought my brain suddenly took a U-turn, and almost as if on autopilot, a plan started to form, one that actually sounded pretty workable. I spent a few minutes to check the appropriate menus in the RMS to make sure I could do what I needed to do, and checked my Storage of Unearthly Horrors to see what I had — a couple of unmanned tanks and some mobile artillery would have been great, but despite how little I had, it was better than nothing. I did a quick consultation with Button to clear up some things I wasn’t certain about, then I turned to captain Reinos, soon to be a former member of Tarashak’s army.

  ‘Hey, Reinos, how are you feeling?’ I said to him, grinning under the visor of my helmet.

  ‘My lord?’ he turned to me, looking very worried all of a sudden.

  ‘So, how would you like to become my general, go to the city, and build an army for me?’