Chapter 158: Age of Tyrants (8)

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The vanguard of the Crescent Alliance’s 6th legion had captured the Habsburg Empire’s fortress city of Krems!

It wouldn’t be enough to simply say it was captured. There was a slaughter. Even though there were two swordmasters, Beleth swept through the fortress like a violent gale.

Every last imperial soldier resisted till the very end as if they were trying to prove to the world that they were the most elite soldiers. They didn’t start flailing like animals once their chances of survival vanished completely. They persistently and tenaciously fought back desperately in order to at least take one more person with them to the grave.

They fought back while believing that the more they struggled, the longer their empire would survive.

“Ooh.”

Demon Lord Beleth could only be moved by their valiant spirit. A single tear flowed down his crude face. Beleth was an emotional man. Even if he couldn’t think with his head, he knew how to feel with his heart. He gave an order as his emotions gushed forth.

“Slaughter all of the people within the fortress. Make their final moments more tragic so that they will be decorated as heroes.”

Beleth had lived for more than a thousand years. He knew rather well what he had to do to remain in human history. He went as far as to slow his advance to personally kill the humans that were residing in the fortress.

A majority of the people had already been evacuated. The men and women who couldn’t leave their homes and were hoping that the conqueror would be merciful were all killed indiscriminately. Beleth felt as if something decisive was lacking by only killing them.

“Mm. Let’s tie the corpses together and create rafts.”

500 imperial soldiers and 400 civilians. They were massacred and tied together by the dozens. Rafts made of human flesh were completed. Beleth contemplated for a moment before he decided to specially make another raft out of human heads. Once he was done, he marveled at the rafts like he was looking at works of art.

“These are amazing!”

Beleth was satisfied. He pushed the corpse rafts respectfully down the Danubius River. Unfortunately, some of the rafts ended up sinking. A fair breeze caught the sails of a majority of the rafts and helped them travel down the river loftily. 

This was a type of antic using terror that was done by demonkind called <The Aesthetic of a Demon Lord>.

The corpse rafts followed the river before landing at various villages and occasionally some cities. Every person who approached the vessels out of curiosity was met with utter shock. The fear that was hiding within their subconsciousness ended up peering its head out once more.

The advent of the Demon Lords.

In every Crescent Alliance expedition, the Plains Faction was always the most aggressive. They always claimed to be the gentlemen of war, but that was nothing more than a nominal title. Their mission has always been to carry out a massacre. The various massacres that were highly exaggerated in the history books were all carried out by the Demon Lords from the Plains Faction. 

However, the 8th Crescent Alliance had Dantalian. Dantalian was put off by massacres. He disliked seeing needless blood and was in the position that wanted to conciliate the humans if he could. 

Even when the Plains Faction took over Margrave Rosenberg’s territory, no massacres were carried out. Dantalian, and Barbatos who ended up trusting Dantalian completely, had stopped the Demon Lords of the Plains Faction from doing so.

The Plains Faction refrained from massacring even after the battle at Bruno Plains. Dantalian had claimed that ‘the more commoners we spare, the higher our chances of victory will become’. However, half a year had passed since Dantalian broke away from the Plains Faction. The true nature of the Plains Faction Demon Lords was resurfacing.

“Humans! The only freedom we can bestow is fear, the only liberation we can gift to you is domination, and the only truth we will allow you to have is ignorance!”

Beleth soon crossed the Danubius River. He earnestly cleaned up the human villages that were in his path. Due to this slaughter, the 500 imperial soldiers that died while protecting the fortress were remembered as tragic heroes, just as Beleth had wanted.

Beleth wasn’t just obsessing over aesthetics.

There was a practical reason for his slaughter. Beleth gathered the corpses from the villages he massacred as he advanced since he intended to use them for the siege that was going to soon happen at the capital of Habsburg.

“There are a lot of ways to use corpses.”

Beleth grinned.

The sight of damaged corpses by themselves was enough to incite fear within the human army, they could be used to demoralize the enemy forces, and you could even enchant them with black magic and launch them on catapults. If you’re lucky, this might cause a plague to spread within the enemy army.

“They entertain me when they’re alive and they serve me when they’re dead. There are no other beings that help us Demon Lords as much as humans do.”

Beleth put a bunch of corpses on the backs of the black wolves. The death knights also advanced while carrying a corpse on their shoulders. Thus, they wound up transporting about a thousand human corpses. This caused their pace to slow down, but that didn’t matter.

Beleth was just the vanguard anyway. There would be nothing to do even if he arrived at the capital early. The capital was one of the most fortified cities on the continent. The Crescent Alliance has never managed to conquer the city ever since it was made.

The brains of the Crescent Alliance judged that, at the soonest, it would take at least a month. Beleth thought the same. His mission was only to secure a path. It was the right decision to gather human corpses instead of advancing quickly.

―That is, if the human army only had a normal ruler.

Four days after conquering the fortress, Beleth’s forces arrived at the capital.

“……Hey, hey. What happened here?”

Beleth stopped. A flat plains area was spread out before him. In the center of the plains stood the capital city. Beleth let out a flippant laugh as he took in the sight before him.

“Did some shrewd bastards capture the capital before us?”

The plains was already brown from being burned down. The castle walls were blackened. Thin lines of smoke were rising up from various places within the city.

The capital was already on fire.

* * *

The capital of Habsburg is completely on fire!

Beleth immediately used a magic sphere to send a report. The commanding officers of the Crescent Alliance didn’t understand. The capital was on fire? What was he talking about?

The most important focal point of this war was none other than the capital. The Crescent Alliance had to capture it while the human army had to protect it at all cost. Despite this, it was already on fire before the Crescent Alliance had even arrived. The commanders of the Crescent Alliance initially doubted each other.

“……Old man Marbas, was it you?”

“Nonsense. My 2nd legion was a day behind you.”

“Oi, my close comrades.”

Barbatos looked around with a cold gaze.

“Something isn’t right here. Someone here got there before everyone else. Hey, Sitri. Look me in the eyes. Don’t look away. Did you do it? Did the 1st legion sneak behind our backs?”

“Your brain must be small since your body is small, Barbatos.”

Sitri snorted. She was currently leading the 1st legion of the Crescent Alliance and the Mountain Faction in Paimon’s place. 

“I understand that you don’t have a lot of brain cells, but you should at least remember the important things. We used up almost all of our forces in order to wipe out the Kingdom of Brittany’s army. How could we have destroyed the capital of Habsburg when we don’t even have any soldiers to spare?”

Barbatos turned away and looked at the blonde Demon Lord who was casually drinking some wine.

“Gamigin.”

“Gosh, don’t even try to point your finger at me. You shouldn’t doubt your comrades. My 5th legion was the last to join up with everyone, you know? I don’t go behind people’s backs and plot things like you guys. Also, our numbers aren’t as great as the 2nd legion. How could we have captured the capital by ourselves?”

“Hmph. It’s possible if you weren’t acting alone.”

Barbatos sneered.

“Agares, Vassago, and Gamigin. The three of you could have schemed this beforehand. Confess, you pasta brains. I was wondering why you guys kept fighting lazily saying that you wanted to conserve your troops. Fuck, did you guys leak out a detached force behind our backs to attack the capital?”

“Oh my. Don’t get ahead of yourself, little miss.”

Rank 2 Demon Lord Agares chuckled. Her light blue hair made her easy to distinguish.

“Your 6th legion was the one in charge of Habsburg in the first place. We marched all the way here to specially help you. You know that, right? Not only should you not be questioning us, but we are not of a laughable standing that allows a Rank 9 of all people to raise their voice at us.”

“I’m not Rank 9, I’m Rank 8, you musclehead.”

Barbatos growled. Agares let out an ‘Oh dear’ before covering her mouth.

“I’m truly sorry! Your rank is so low that I forgot it completely. But you’re also at fault, you know? You should at least be in the top 5 to make it easier for people to remember your rank. Rank 8? That’s such a huge number that a fool like me would never remember it.”

“Oho. I could personally engrave it into that foolish brain of yours if you want.”

The two Demon Lords smiled at each other menacingly.

“If you want to fight, then come at me Madem-fucking-moiselle.”

“You bitch, I’ll kill you.”

Marbas let out a loud sigh the moment Barbatos was about to summon her battle scythe.

“It seems that meetings never go peacefully here. Barbatos. Agares. If you two want to fight here, then so be it. I do not have the authority to either moderate or stop your fight, so I will fall back quietly. However, do not expect to ever be invited to another banquet.”

“Hmph.”

“Fuck.”

Barbatos and Agares turned away from each other.

Marbas was the only individual who could act as a mediator between Demon Lords. Rank 1 Baal would always remain as a spectator as long as the situation wasn’t seriously dire. The rest of the higher-ranking Demon Lords had a lot of pride so they didn’t listen to others.

Only the leader of the Neutral Faction, Marbas, had the ability to mediate or console other Demon Lords. Even though his rank was only 5, he practically had the most authority within the Demon Lord army. If Marbas steps forward, then you had to take a step back.

Marbas spoke.

“There would be no end to it if we start to doubt each other now. Every legion has been on their own for the past few months. Only the commanders of each respective legion knows what they have done. There is not a single legion that can clear themselves of suspicion entirely. Barbatos, this includes the 6th legion.”

“…….”

“Most importantly, this is not something that needs to be kept a secret. Someone capturing the capital city of Habsburg is undeniably beneficial to us. The Demon Lord to make the capital fall would be praised eternally. What could you possibly gain by keeping this a secret?”

Marbas slowly looked at the other Demon Lords one by one. His gaze was telling them to say something if they didn’t agree, but no one responded. He was right, after all.

Marbas continued prudently.

“Even if we doubt each other now, there would be no basis to that doubt. It would simply be slander. As this is the case, if none of us did it, then it would only be right to conclude that the enemy had burned their own capital.”

“Mmm. Habsburg burned their own capital?”

Gamigin tilted her head. Her blonde hair swayed.

“That doesn’t make sense to even me. The capital is the capital. The heart of the country. What could they possibly gain by burning that down?”

“…….”

No one responded this time as well.

Although it was incredibly rare for kingdoms to set their capitals on fire and run away, it has happened before. However, none of those kingdoms burned their capitals thoroughly. There was a time where commoners burned their palace down in rage, but an entire capital being burned down was unheard of.

Cities were treasures that had to be regained for humans. Even if they were pushed away, cities were something they could recapture in the future. Humans have repeated this process numerous times throughout history. Why would they abruptly burn their capital down?

“……It does not seem like anyone has a clue. Let us continue advancing for now. It should be fine even if we discover the reason later.”

Everyone gave a nod to Marbas’ proposal. The Crescent Alliance advanced to the already burning capital.

***

TL Note: Thanks for reading the chapter. It’s sort of hard to stop saying this line after saying it constantly for like 4+ years now. Old habits die hard I guess. In any case, names are hard. Especially when it’s a name that’s completely unique with no historical precedent or anything. Whenever I see these names, I have to look into them to see if I’m going to have to make my own version in English or use a name that already exists. Korean does not do a good job when it comes to changing English names into Korean. Schleiermacher is probably a good example. God I still hate that name.

Welp, I’ll see you guys in the next chapter.