Chapter 184: I'm Back

After I did all that, the strength in my body felt like everything has left. Exhaustion took over and my power dissipated with it. I then fell down on the bed under me.

"Don't worry." The former Demon King suddenly said. "The demons outside won't move unless you tell them to."

"Zieglind... Is that you?" Zeta asked worriedly.

"Yeah." I replied. "How long have I been out?"

"About three months. It has been a while."

I noticed someone beside Zeta, "Why's Herold here?"

"Well I thought that you won't wake up. I tried it myself and it won't work. I don't want to use the Flower of Zeratria so I just called for Herold. But something interrupted him in there. I don't know what is... but it seems to have helped you gain more... power?"

"Well..." The former Demon King suddenly manifested himself onto the overworld. It started as a small flicker of flame then into a giant widespread of fire until he summoned himself then immediately dissipated the flames around us. "I did give him the title of Demon King."

The demon king was shrunk into a more humanoid form. His form in my soul was a lot bigger than this. His horns were sticking out of his forehead, his tattoo of a dragon eating its own tail and an upside down Y with an extra line was still tattooed in his chest.

"You can come out of there?" I was genuinely surprised about this.

"You freed me from the chains. So now I can manifest myself back at the overworld." The former Demon King replied.

"That red skin..." Herold suddenly muttered. "An extravagant horn for a demon, that immense pressure and what you said before giving Zieglind the title... You're... the Demon King!?"

"I'm the former Demon King. I've passed on the title to Zieglind."

"I'm... speechless." Herold scratched the back of his head trying to process the information being relayed to him. "I didn't expect this outcome. At all. How many times will you surprise me Zieglind?"

"Aha...ha..." I couldn't help but let out a nervous laugh. I looked over to the former Demon King, "Since you've regained your freedom, the first thing I'll ask is what's your name?"

"Ah my name?" The former Demon King suddenly casted, "Noise Redirect." A barrier-like structure was casted around us. I couldn't hear anything from the outside of this cube. I can only hear him. "Now, no one can hear us. My true name is-" It wasn't the language that I spoke. No, it wasn't any human language or anything that I've ever heard. Even with my Universal Language activated, I have no idea on what he just said. "I doubt that you'll understand what I just said. Its a lost language. Dispel." He then took off the cube that was surrounding us. "As of now, all of you can just call me Lagrima."

"W- wait!" Zeta suddenly interrupted us. "Zieglind, did he just give you his true name?"

I was confused. "I didn't understand the name that he said first. Was it that? Even my Universal Language couldn't translate it for me."

"Jeez..." Zeta facepalmed himself. "A demon giving their true name to someone means complete subservience... So that means that the Demon King... no... the former Demon King is subservient to you!?"

We did a soul for soul contract... "I guess so. Anyway, can I take some rest for a while? I think I have some things to catch up on."

"Yeah... yeah. But, what will you do with the demons outside? There are literally thousands of them? Feran is contacting me about this right now and all the people from Izgoy are being barricaded by Rize right now?"

"Zieglind," Lagrima suddenly spoke, "Use the core to command the demons. You've felt it since I've helped you do it."

When I woke up? That was the core commanding the demons? "Sure." I closed my eyes and concentrated. As I found the core lying within my chest, I opened my eyes and it flickered with a purple flame and I could feel myself being connected to all the demons in the surrounding area. "Disperse." The stampede happened again but this time instead of it getting stronger and stronger, the quakes and shaking began to become weaker and weaker. "That should be fine for no-" I noticed Afal grasping his chest. "What's wrong with Afal?"

"He's a demon too. He's just answering your call. That's how all demons feel when their master calls for them. They need to get to you and obey all of your commands or they'll feel intense pain. But if you aren't worthy as a Demon King, they have the right to overthrow you and your mind control over them will disappear giving them a chance to retaliate back to you."

"I'm... fine. My lord." Afal stood up and wiped the sweat off of his face. "Congratulations on ascending as a Demon King."

"Mhm." I looked next to Herold and it seems that he wanted to say something. "Well... I've got three months of rest." I sat down on the bed with an Indian sit."Just tell me what happened in these three months."

Herold was the one to start. "Well... I found the headquarters of the Serpent union."

"That's good. How are their numbers?"

"Well... I completely underestimated it. My numbers were incredibly wrong from the start. They have now accumulated around 60,000 players."

"That much!?"

"It started off as a guild. But soon after it became a cult. They've started worshipping the leader of the serpent union. It's now near impossible to get to him without fighting off his goons. They're all incredibly loyal and has believed that he'll give them all another chance after they die."

"Damn... This is getting even far more difficult than I expected."

"I'm afraid so. And they're incredibly cautious right now. By the works of your three comrades, a lot of their bases were easily toppled."

Zeta joined in, "That's right. So we don't need to worry about gold for a while. We have a lot right now. The girl that you hired is the one managing the treasury right now."

"I see. Good work. I'm pretty sure we don't have that much artifacts on armor that Neco is taking in. Use the gold for outfitting our entire army. Make sure they're all custom made. Bring them on a trip to a well known blacksmith. Buy them new weapons and armor. Try Ruz and Ruf." It has been a while since I visited those dwarves. "For the elite units, just buy them a seperate armor. Maybe a different color from the normal units. This is just so that we can classify them easily."

"I'll relay that to our treasurer and Lam."

"Wait, by the way, did you defeat the Manticore that went for us?"

"No. I completely lost. I was forced to teleport away. I didn't know what to do with that power. His attacks managed to destroy my barrier with ease."

"Has he made any attacks at us?"

"No. None that I know of."

"I see... Then we're safe for now." I then looked at Herold next. "Now, Herold. Do you know the structure of their base?"

"Not the full structure." Herold replied. "Inventory." He pulled out on what seems to be a drawn blueprint of a structure. "I got this from a Serpent union member. Their base is quite large. They have about twenty floors deep. The base is disguised as a normal house in a forest."

"So this is not a blueprint but a map of their base?"

"Yeah. But it seems incomplete too."

"That's true. But it gives enough information at least. We now know what's the contents of their base."

"That's right. Their house is just a cover so there isn't anything interesting there. In the first floor of their base it seems that it's also a cover. The floors below that is their true base. The whole base is covered in Xend materials so breaking it with pure strength is out of the question. I can't pierce that with my Brightburn either since it's not made of mana. We can't generate that much power to destroy all of their bases in one go since it's all covered in Xend. It will just alert the lower levels."

"So what do you have in mind?"

"It's going to be a stealth mission. We're going to use a noise cancelling magic on a single floor where we're going then kill everyone on that floor then go down. If we managed to alert at least one floor, then we'll be outnumbered pretty easily. It'll be near impossible to escape since even the floors are covered in Xend. So we can't blow the ceiling above us to escape if we ever go down low enough."

"That's the plan then. Let's commence it three days from now. I still have to greet that others. I just woke up."

"Yeah. That's fine. I'll see you in three days then."