Chapter 142: First Conflict Under The Midnight Storm

Styx gazed through the eyes of one of his women who was a freelance adventurer. No matter where they came from, people always desired more power. This woman was no different and held quite the passion for increasing her strength.

She made a request to Styx, or at least the one of the automated partitions in his ever growing dungeon core.

"Demons? They have certainly cut through the kingdom quite fast," Loreley said with mild surprise.

"Yes, a bit too fast even if it is their main force. I'll need to send scouts out west to see what happened. People in the capital may know as well, but I am cut out from their information network until I can get some of my people inside."

A large passage was cleared around the entrance of the dungeon and several other hidden hatches as monsters marched out into the world, taking to the skies or running along the land. This was in even greater effect at Lagoon Porter City nearby.

With the population of the city being immensely larger than the dungeon residents, a significantly larger number of monsters were bred there despite the disparity in uptake in breeding duties between the two locale.

The citizens of Lagoon Porter City looked up at the stormy clouds with a sense of foreboding. Thousands of flying monsters, from talonhawks and harpies to stingray like creatures that could transport dozens of other monsters and people, cut through the rain as they flew west.

There were some Third Step monsters as well as a large group of dungeon residents rode the beasts or marched alongside them. The monsters and riders all carried light sources on them to give sight to those without nightvision.

*Boom*

Lightning struck and lit up the world for a brief moment, revealing the army in the sky in all its glory. Residents nervously closed their windows and huddled around hearth fires. Both children and adults secretly shook in fear, although the adults put up a brave facade to comfort the young.

*ROAR*

Along the ground was an even larger army of terran monsters and dungeon residents. Whilst the flying army numbered in the thousands, these numbered in the tens of thousands. They charged through the streets of Lagoon Porter City on their way towards outside the city where they were congregating into a giant army the followed beneath the flying monster swarm.

They roared as if in defiance of the lightning that periodically struck as if in defiance of the weather.

It was the women who usually undertook breeding that provided the most comfort to their families and other residents, preventing the ensuing panic. They also actively responded to Styx's directions and cleared streets to ensure nobody was injured by the travelling monsters.

Whilst most of the monsters were only of the First and Second Step, they were all bred through women and with Styx's bonuses, making them much stronger than normal monsters. One or two could be dealt with relatively safely, but this army in the tens of thousands was nigh unstoppable to everything below the Fifth Step.

Aura, Everest and Dragon remained in the dungeon and Lagoon Porter City to maintain their safety. Styx wouldn't allow them to leave and leave himself unprotected from any potential ambushes by high level demons. He knew their tactics and had to prevent them making blood sacrifices. This was the Monster Lords main focuses, as well as killing any summoned high level devil.

Outside the city, the army was made up of beasts of all kinds and sizes alongside elves, dark elves, tiger beastmen and the subsections of various evolved exotic races. None of them cared about getting wet or dirty as they were all soaked in the rain and stained by mud, especially the monsters. The residents at least didn't splash mud all over themselves and those riding beasts also escaped the main sludge that was kicked up by the monsters.

Leading the army was Vivy and her collection of husbands. The Third Step Shadowthread Archer who had previously evolved into an abyss demon.

This abyss demon race wasn't to be confused with the various demon races from the Neth'rite Demon Kingdom, although they appeared to share a similar heritage. Vivy had a pair of short pitch black horns on her head that appeared dark blood red under the reflection of light.

Her originally long dark grey hair was still in a ponytail, but it had now turned completely black with a single streak of silver through it. It had also become more voluminous and wild, threatening to break out of the binding that kept it tied behind her head.

Her mouth twisted into a devilish grin as her battle intent overflowed from her body. Styx could feel her excitement at the thought of engaging in such a large battle, the thought of losing never occuring to her. He felt this was completely natural too, as the former dark elf's strength was already approaching the standards of Fourth Step rankers from the giant megalithic empires such as Heaven and The Void.

Her reverse harem had long been trained to no longer have fear of anything, let alone dying, and did everything in their power to please her.

To this day, she still constantly attempted to add Styx's avatar to her reverse harem, promising all kinds of sexual services and preferential treatment.

~~~~~

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The small adventurer's were almost defeated by the demon swarm that only became more ferocious and numerous as time passed.

The tank, Luke, was barely holding onto his last breath in the tavern, his waist wrapped in thick bandages as whilst Sarah's healing had been able to staunch the blood flow, it hadn't been able to fully heal him.

Nearly a hundred of the local residents had been killed so far, almost half the small town's population. At this moment, those that were nervously looking out of the taverns windows saw another huge army approach from the sky, whilst the roars of the army drowned out the booms of thunder.

"Lord Styx's forces are here!" Sarah came rushing inside and frantically spoke to everyone huddled inside. "Everyone be ready to evacuate. You will receive medical treatment and food as soon as you reach Lagoon Porter City."

Many of the residents had looks of hope return to their faces, whilst others were still nervous.

"...Isn't that the city that fell to demons and had all its women turned into breeders for dungeon monsters?" A young freckled woman nervously called out, not understanding how being taken there was counted as recuing.

Sarah, one of those 'breeders' in her mouth, furrowed her brows and causing her beauty to be marred by the action.

"You can sit here and be torn into pieces by the demons, turned in food for imps or a blood sacrifice for devils, or you can go to Lagoon Porter City where you will live under Lord Styx's protection. What will it be?"

The young woman avoided eye contact and asked, "Will we be able to return?"

"When it is safe to do so in the future."

Sarah didn't bother trying to convince them that they held misconceptions about Styx nor tell them the price she had to pay for their rescue, whom weren't under Styx's sphere of influence. She made this self sacrifice out of the kindness of her heart, not as something or lord over them. If there were those who refused this kindness, she would not care for their fate.

Outside, the flying monster army collided with the imps, bloodgoyles, and other flying demon subspecies in the air. Water was sprayed everywhere and the grating clashes of steel rang over the town.

Monsters weaved through the sky and tore with teeth and claws, releasing breaths of fire and lightning at every enemy around. The riders, mainly elves and dark elves, weren't disorientated in the least and picked them off other demons with arrows. Blood and broken demon corpses began raining down from above, turning the rain red whilst the fallen demons crashed into houses and send the mud on the street splashing.

The local defenders did their best to avoid the falling corpses. They weren't used to this type of large scale conflict and were merely hanging on by the skin of their teeth.

"Defenders, retreat and prepare to help the citizens evacuate!" Sarah stormed out of the inn and ordered the citizens as she turned a grey demon with a pronged table into a shrivelled corpse.

The extracted blood then boiled under her power before splashing across the eyes of other demons in a large arc, causing the rain to turn into steam as they screamed in pain and clawed at their eyes.

Styx's land army charged through the town and killed every demon they could find. Steel, iron, bronze and soulium flashed under the sparse oil lanterns, creating rivers of demon blood that mixed with mud.

The demons screeched and monsters roared. There were those that escaped from the sky and were instantly pounced on. Vivy laughted and shook the blood off her soulium curved daggers as demons didn't even understand how they died beneath her hands.

Tiger beastmen snarled and leapt off building, catching low flying demons before slamming them into the ground and tearing them into pieces. Their eyes were completely beastlike at this moments as they feasted upon the blood of the demons they killed which only enhanced their beastial nature and combat prowess.

Lights flickered and shadows moved throughout the battle, but with every strike of lightning, the gruesome and bloody battle would appear in its entirety for a brief moment. Thunder rolled over the battefield but even that was drowned out by the cacophony of roars, screeches, and weapons clashing.

Through the monsters, Styx could see that this was just the vanguard of the demon horde. An army more than ten times this size was coming from the distance. There was also a large number of Third Step demons and even several dozen already summoned Fourth Step devils from previous cities than fell under their hand.

Unlike this vanguard, the main army was lead by demon commanders with intelligence and tactics. Some of them were high rank demons with almost human appearances, their calculating gazes of bloodlust focusing on Styx's army of monsters behind the seemingly impenetrable curtain of rain.

They didn't care for the death of the lower demons. They were mere cannon fodder in the eyes of the more intelligent advanced demon races.

~~~~~

⠀

In the village, the citizens were rapidly evacuated from the tavern and onto monsters which carried them through the rain and away from the battlefield back towards Lagoon Porter City.

Styx did a sweep through the entire village with his residents breaking into all the homes and rescuing any hidden survivors. Once he was confident he had found all the survivors, he had his army do a final strike on the demon vanguard army before retreating back to the city where his main defense and defensive turrets were ready.

By this point, the main demon army had already started to use long range magic spells and demonic rituals to manipulate the weather, causing bolts of lightning and other curses to befall Styx's monsters and residents.

Casualties happened in this short battle, but it was only the weak that fell, whilst the rest only got stronger. It was easy for Styx to replenish the lost monsters with his large population, especially once he had built a bridge for his dungeon to Whitecliff City.

This meant that despite the deaths, the overall impact on his army was practically nothing. He even had a beautiful blonde healer who he would enjoy over the next month as well.