Chapter 63

  [The demon known as Riaret already holds the title “general” and the epithet “The Severing Strike.”]

  [As the ruling demon lord of the Fourth Ring, you have appointed the demon general known as Riaret the Severing Strike as one of your generals.]

  [Bond with your general is established. You can now monitor and aid your general in her duties via the relevant menus of the Ring Management System.]

  The messages confirmed that the process was done and dusted, and Riaret the Severing Strike was now my general along with Tarashak and Reinos, and through their bonds with me they could communicate with each other and enjoy many benefits stemming from their connection to the ruling demon lord; such as better and more powerful offensive and defensive aura skills and effects to bolster their troops or to diminish the enemy’s capabilities. This was good stuff, and I was happy, almost ecstatic, that my breakfast with Riaret had yielded the result I wanted, even if it had taken more than an hour of arguing and nearly strangling each other.

  I opened the RMS to quickly check where we stood in terms of military strength.

  Fourth Ring Military

  Generals: 3

  Armies: 3

  Garrisons: 0

  Ongoing Campaigns: 1 (Death to the Third Ringers)

  Ongoing Invasions of Your Ring: 1

  Ongoing Invasions of a Ring by Your Forces: 0

  Available Ring Energy: 7,203,504

  Please open menu points for more details.

  Cost of adding new, custom menu points: 10,000 Ring Energy (RE).

  I opened the Armies menu.

  Armies: 3

  The Great War Mages of Tarashak the Smoldering Storm

  Personnel: 2278

  Army average: Level 19

  Composition:

  - Mages: 118

  - Warriors: 670

  - Other: 1490

  Retributors of Reinos the Vengeful Flame

  Personnel: 4956

  Army average: Level 21

  Composition:

  - Mages: 886

  - Warriors: 3962

  - Other: 396

  The Deathbringers of Riaret the Severing Strike

  Personnel: 10,457

  Army average: Level 24

  Composition:

  - Mages: 1923

  - Warriors: 7860

  - Other: 674

  Deathbringers? Quite the name for an army, but then again these were demons, and I suspected the Genius might have had a hand in coming up with it. Ah well, it was fine.

  Riaret’s army was heavy on warriors — which wasn’t a surprise — but I was glad to see that with their average level and their numbers, her army was strong. And with the three armies combined, we had nearly 18 thousand troops altogether. It did seem like a drop in the ocean compared to the numbers the enemy had, but it was a fact that the minotaur king wouldn’t be able to bring all his forces to bear all at once. And the proper intel provided by the Kralsen Hive Mind and my catapult project weren’t the only hidden cards I could play; knowing Flamey’s formidable skills and her work to tunnel out of Scaragar, I was already thinking of ways to incorporate her and Tarashak into my plans for the war effort.

  A message popped up on my NeuroHUD.

  [Reinos, you brat! I heard you’re still alive and made general.]

  The message was glowing a deep, dark red on the display, the RMS tagging it as a communication from Riaret.

  [Uh … mother? Have you accepted the general’s bond with Hellfire Lord Hyde?]

  The reply appeared, the bright blue colour of the text identifying it as Reinos doing the talking. And … mother? What? Seriously? Riaret the Severing Strike was Reinos’ mother? Was that why he had placed such emphasis on me not killing her during negotiations? What the hell?

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  [Yes, I have met the stupid Surface Worlder. Is he one of those Blessed creatures from the stories? He feels strong, but not that strong.]

  [I don’t know, mother, but he’s a capable and committed demon lord.]

  [Commited, huh?]

  [Yes, mother, committed.]

  [Alright, committed then. And Reinos, you are to address me as “general”.]

  [Yes, general. Sorry, general.]

  [I almost can’t believe that after choosing the path of a mage you got your own army. This Hyde creature clearly has no idea of what makes a good general. Now, what’s your level? Tell me how you fought at Garoshek. And if you embarrass me, I swear to the Hellguide I’ll teach you a lesson!]

  Oh, poor Reinos was in trouble. And I was in shock. So much so that I found myself unable to pay attention to Reinos regaling the events that had taken place at Garoshek to his … mother. Riaret. General. Mother. Damn! Just how old was she, having a grown up son and all? And what kind of an upbringing had she given to poor Reinos?

  ‘Would you look at that!’ Burning Darkness chimed in, because of course he would. ‘How could this insufferable woman have such a decent and reasonable demon for a son?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a mystery, isn’t it?’ I whispered.

  ‘What was that?’ Riaret snapped at me as she heard my whisper, startling Mickey.

  ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing,’ I replied immediately.

  The cat stood up on the table, stretched, yawned, then jumped at me, disappearing into my storage the same way as he had done before, resulting in that familiar jolt in my soul.

  Riaret stared at me in disbelief, then after a second, she presented her demand.

  ‘Bring him back, Hyde! He’s one of the few good things about you.’

  Oh, damn! I was going to have to be careful around this crazy demon woman.

  ***

  I felt a tug from my storage skill as I left the room with Riaret following me. Lanny, Grashon and the rest of the squad looked relieved that I had a new general instead of having become a bloodstain on Riaret’s halberd — a sentiment I fully shared. I had no way to know how the two Kralsenites felt about what had transpired in the past hour, but they weren’t complaining, so that was good. They all fell in behind us, and as we stepped onto the stairway leading down to the ground floor, I checked what the tug from my storage skill was. If it had an interface that could display the inventory on my NeuroHUD, I hadn’t discovered it yet, so I had to rely on the strangely sharp and clear feelings or perhaps almost subliminal information the skill was providing as a way to know what was in my storage. And as I focused on the skill, I became deeply disturbed by the new, physical items deposited in my storage.

  ‘Oh, for gods’ sake, Mickey! No pooping in my storage!’ I whisper-yelled at the freeloader.

  ‘Meow.’ The reply came.

  ‘Heh! This is what you get for harbouring the Dimensional Devourer, my man!’ My sword laughed cruelly and gleefully. ‘Incidentally, don’t ever put me in your storage!’

  ‘Mickey, if I find suspicious stains on my sentry gun, we’re gonna have a problem!’ I informed the cat, ignoring Burning Darkness’ comments.

  ‘Meow,’ he said.

  I had no idea what he meant by that; I didn’t speak cat. So, I had to leave it at that and deal with it later.

  We reached the ground floor; Riaret’s heavily armed guards — all of them warrior-type demons — were more than just a little shocked to see their general coming down in the company of a whole squad they had not seen entering the building. I pitied the poor demons for the chewing out they’d no doubt have to endure later from their general, but I wasn’t going to reveal to anyone what the Kralsen Hive Mind was or what they could do. The general just gave them a look that could kill and beckoned them to follow us without saying a single word to them, and the terrified grunts fell in line, joining our procession.

  As we exited the building, twenty or so demons were waiting for us: they must have been Riaret’s captains, whom she had summoned via her connection to them to meet us. The sensation of the high levels of the gathered demons hit me like a shuttle entering atmosphere; we stopped and we all stared at the group in which every individual warrior was just a level or two shy of 40, making them the strongest, most formidable force I had encountered in Hell so far, save for my run in with the minotaur king back at the Lost Pillars. If Riaret felt inclined to give the order, these demons could mow us down harder than an orbital bombardment. Grash and the others were fairly high level, too, all of them over level 35 now, but that wouldn’t have been enough. The two Kralsenites … well, I had no idea about them, and Lanny was … Lanny. I thought I might be able to make it out alive with my combined level of 40 if it came to that, largely because some of my stats were more in line with those of someone well above level 50, thanks to the stronger base characteristics of my SAC. And without my SAC? I didn’t even want to think about it. I seriously needed to find some time to level my own body at some point in the near future, but with managing the campaign for the Fourth Ring, I had neither the time nor the opportunity to do so, and if I wanted to survive and succeed, I had to keep levelling my set just as Burning Darkness had suggested. I hoped peacetime in Hell was going to be more relaxed.

  But I wasn’t worried about Riaret suddenly changing her mind about me and ordering her captains to help her get rid of me. She was rude, brash, probably violent as hell, but like most warrior-type demons I’d met, she was rather straightforward; she had accepted her role as my general, and I was confident she wouldn’t go back on her word.

  Riaret stepped forward to face her captains and yelled at them with a harshness and volume that would have made her the envy of any ASMC drill sergeant.

  ‘Listen up!’ she bellowed, then pointed at me. ‘This smallish creature is a human of the Surface World, one of the Blessed, who goes by the name Hyde, but you are to call him Hellfire Lord. That’s because he’s also the new ruling demon lord of our glorious Fourth Ring; a title he took from Ugrathar the Great Calamity when he killed him. I have accepted the general’s bond when he offered it, and as such The Deathbringers are now a part of a brilliantly named campaign called “Death to the Third Ringers”, along with Tarashak the Smoldering Storm, whom you all know or have heard about, and a new general, Reinos the Vengeful Flame, who has won a great victory against our hated foes at Garoshek.’

  The assembled captains stared at me with something akin to disbelief showing on their faces — nothing new, just demons seeing a human for the first time, mitigated by Riaret’s surprisingly decent introduction. And the general continued.

  ‘Hellfire Lord Hyde has some outrageous plans to achieve final victory over the filthy Third Ringers; plans I cannot be sure will work. But at this point almost anything is better than sitting idly behind the walls of Orroth. We will break out, we will march, we will fight, and we will win or die. Now, our new demon lord has a few words to say, and if anyone thinks it’s a good idea to interrupt him, know that both me and my halberd are bored of doing nothing and are eager to shed some blood.’

  On one hand, I was impressed by the strict discipline Riaret had instilled in her soldiers — it was a good approach to managing her army, I couldn’t argue about that. On the other hand, when had I ever said anything about wanting to address her captains? I wanted to round up the crafters here to start on catapult and flameslime production, start looking at the local terrain, enemy positions, possible chokepoints, and come up with a plan for our breakout. Now I had to give a speech to the highest-level demon warriors in the city? Come on, Riaret!

  She looked at me with an evil grin on her pretty face as she gave way for me to step forward. Ah, Reinos’ dear mother was a piece of work, wasn’t she? I sighed internally as I took that step, knowing that there was no way out of this; I was the ruling demon lord of the Fourth Ring, and if it took giving a speech to my armies to get this campaign going, then it was what I had to do. I quickly gathered my thoughts, went through my experiences, considered my audience, then decided on the general tone and theme of my upcoming improvised speech, borrowing heavily from a few generals I had heard speaking to army or marine officers. A patriotic accolade delivered in a strict military style. These demons were soldiers and officers after all, so it should work. And I got to it.