The Birgitt Duchy’s army and the Farzon Duchy’s second army were facing off at the border between the two duchies. But before the battle could truly begin, two intruders appeared, turning the situation into chaos.

On one side was Lezafortes, the Lion Beast-King, who let out a ferocious roar. He was emanating a presence and Mana that was somehow both divine and sinister.

On the other was the ‘All Bone Palace’ and ‘Concert Venue’ Knochen, who let out a deafening groan. He had been sent from the Demon Empire of Vidal to reinforce the Birgitt Duchy’s army.

A beast-king with a body length of a hundred meters and a mass of bone with more than ten times that body volume. The clash between these two forces was not something that any ordinary person could interfere with.

“I am telling you to kill me! Why can’t you understand?!” Lezafortes said angrily, bringing his front legs down to smash the bone arms that Knochen had raised to defend himself. With the same momentum, his paws crashed into the dirt, creating enormous holes.

Knochen groaned once more. Even as fragments of his bones scattered into the air, he swiftly attempted to pin Lezafortes’s front paws to the ground. His movements were so quick that it made one wonder if he had even taken damage at all.

But with a growl, Lezafortes managed to protect his front paws with his head. The bones that Knochen rained down upon him were deflected by his sturdy mane.

However, Knochen was far from being on the back foot. Vandalieu had given Knochen his own bones, and Knochen fired them at Lezafortes now as projectiles. The bones pierced his tough fur and skin, though they were stopped by his muscles before they could reach his organs. With a howl of pain, Lezafortes leapt backwards in an attempt to put some distance between himself and his foe.

Knochen showed no mercy. He unleashed the ‘Elder Dragon Poison Breath,’ causing the demigod to howl again before coughing and choking.

With a powerful poison enveloping him, Lezafortes heaved in suffering, blood-tinged saliva spewing from his mouth. The grass and trees around him withered and turned brown.

The soldiers of the Farzon Duchy’s army were hit by the shockwaves of this attack, causing them to drop dead, one after another.

One of them screamed in agony.

“M-my body’s melting…” one said weakly before collapsing.

Watching this unfold from his stronghold, Duke Gerald Birgitt, who was commanding the Birgitt Duchy’s army, gave a dry laugh. “… I sure am glad that we built friendly relations with the Demon Empire of Vidal.”

When Lezafortes appeared in the sky, Gerald had felt an instinctual fear and prepared for his own death. But when he saw Knochen fly at Lezafortes and even inflict damage upon the Farzon Duchy’s army at the same time, that fear had vanished… though he was instead filled with a sense of powerlessness.

“Bombarde, hypothetically speaking… is it even possible to assist Knochen-dono?” Gerald asked his close aide.

“… We have already sent messengers offering a temporary truce and telling them to surrender, haven’t we?” said Bombarde, a bear-type Beast-kin who was one of the Birgitt Duchy’s most elite soldiers.

“That isn’t what I mean. I’m talking about a more direct kind of assistance. Ah, it’s just for future reference, of course. I don’t intend to actually give the order.”

Bombarde stared at the battle between Lezafortes and Knochen, who had finally assumed a form that was a combination of an Elder Dragon and a Colossus. “Even if an average soldier used all of their strength as if their life depended on it, they would still be crushed like a fly if they even went anywhere close to that battle. Even an above-average soldier would almost certainly die in vain, achieving nothing. It would be wise to avoid attacking, even if only to target the Farzon Duchy’s army.”

“Yes, you’re right. Thank you. That puts my mind at ease,” Gerald said.

The reason Gerard was here right now despite the fact that he was the duke was because he believed he would be safest right here on the battlefield, where the reinforcements he had requested from the Demon Empire of Vidal were.

This was true in a way, and because Lezafortes had fallen from the sky before the battle against the Farzon Duchy’s army had even started, not a single person from the Birgitt Duchy’s army or the reinforcements deployed from the other duchies had even been injured.

Even now, because the armies had been pulled back to keep their distance from Knochen and Lezafortes, nobody had a scratch on them other than those who had fallen over from the constant trembling of the earth.

Meanwhile, the state of the Farzon Duchy’s army could be summed up in a single word: wretched.

The Farzon Duchy’s army had been divided in two, as they had attacked here and the Hartner Duchy at the same time so that they could choose between the best duchy to cross the Boundary Mountain Range from. After halving their forces, they had bolstered them with adventurers and the order of priest-warriors of the Church of Alda before embarking on this war. Like the army deployed on the border with the Hartner Duchy, the unexpected circumstances had thrown their chain of command into chaos, which was why they were stuck in place, unable to establish a truce with the enemy army or retreat.

And although Gerald initially thought that the Farzon Duchy’s army might look for an opportunity to interfere in the battle between Knochen and Lezafortes, they were actually going the long way around to try and attack the Birgitt Duchy’s army, so they couldn’t let their guards down – though that was precisely why Knochen wasn’t holding back from getting the Farzon Duchy’s army caught up in his attacks, causing great damage to them.

“But all that we are doing is keeping our distance, keeping our defenses up, and watching the battle from afar… Given that, it is not so strange for me to question why I am even here, is it?” Gerald said.

“The same is true for us. Or so I would like to say, but… if we were to get caught up in that, we would die,” said Bombarde.

As he watched, a silhouette that was apparently a hero candidate activated ‘Familiar Spirit Descent’ and charged at Knochen and Lezafortes, only to vanish into a torrent of bones a moment later.

“I suppose it is only to be expected that even Knochen-dono is struggling against a Beast-king. I do think that it is troublesome, but as a Beast-kin, I cannot deny that I feel proud,” Bombarde said.

A Demon King Familiar that had remained silent up until now suddenly spoke up. “Actually, Lezafortes currently has a fragment of Guduranis’s soul embedded in him, preventing him from using his full strength.”

“Is that true? I thought that having a fragment of the Demon King’s soul embedded in him would make him stronger,” said Gerald.

“It is true that fragments generally make the host stronger. But that is only true if the host actively makes use of them, like Rikudou… Dark Avalon,” explained the Demon King Familiar.

Those who had fragments of the Demon King’s soul embedded in them generally gained more Mana and became more aggressive, though the degree of each effect varied depending on which fragment it was. There were also other effects, such as the host becoming able to use the fragments’ original powers… For example, the ‘Instinct’ would make the host’s instincts for survival and combat sharper, while the ‘Memories’ would allow the host to replicate spells and combat techniques from Guduranis’s memories.

“But as you can see, Lezafortes is resisting the fragment. He is only on a rampage right now because he’s unable to completely suppress it, so I don’t think he’s able to use his full strength right now,” the Demon King Familiar said. “Even now, he’s trying to move in a way that avoids damage to the nature and humans around him.”

Indeed, it was a different story if the host was resisting the fragment infesting them. Even though the host would still gain increased Mana, neither the host nor the soul fragment would be able to use it properly if they were clashing against one another.

There is a saying: ‘You are your own worst enemy.’ And that could not be more true for Lezafortez right now.

“Considering that, isn’t he being quite merciless to Knochen-dono?” said Gerald.

Just as he said that, Lezafortes swung his front paws, shattering the Elder-Dragon-Colossus-form Knochen’s legs. The resulting snapping noise was so loud that it was difficult to believe that it was the sound of bones being broken.

“That’s because Knochen is Undead, which means Lezafortes doesn’t consider him to be someone who needs to be protected, and because Knochen is actively getting the humans of the Farzon Duchy caught up in the battle,” the Demon King Familiar explained. “After all, Lezafortes has essentially been teleported from a hundred thousand years ago to the present day.”

“I-I see,” said Gerald.

“But that ends here,” the Demon King Familiar said, leaping forward.

It was joined by a swarm of Demon King Familiars that appeared out of nowhere. There were so many of them that one had to wonder, where had they all been hiding?

“This Undead, it has the presence of Marduke, Zerno, and Ganpaplio?!” Lezafortes exclaimed, sensing the presence of the great gods in Knochen’s bones.

Knochen roared as he coordinated his movements with the Demon King Familiars and caught Lezafortes by surprise to bind his limbs.

“C-curses!”

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” said Vandalieu’s main body as it appeared among the Demon King Familiars. “I’ll be taking that fragment of the Demon King now.”

With the soul fragment removed, Lezafortes regained his sanity. “Agh, where in the world am I?!”

“I’ll be taking him away to explain the situation, so I’ll leave the rest to you,” Vandalieu said.

And with that, he put Lezafortes in one of his inner worlds and disappeared back into the sea of countless Demon King Familiars.

Knochen still remained on the battlefield. And now that he had one less enemy to worry about, he began scattering the potential heroes and the warriors of the Church of Alda as they attacked him recklessly, groaning fiercely as he ripped the bones out of their bodies while they were still alive to add them to his own body.

“Once that battle settles down, let’s send another messenger to offer a ceasefire,” said Gerald.

“Indeed, I expect that the more fanatical ones will have had their bones pulled out of them by then,” said Bombarde.

And so, the battle on the holy war’s Birgitt Duchy front came to an end.

《You have acquired the Demon King’s Pride!》

While on the move, Vandalieu checked his current status.

“Hmm, I’ve taken quite a beating.”

There was no problem with his physical body, but his soul had become quite distorted, due to having devoured so many fragments of Guduranis’s soul in such a short period of time.

“To think that my soul would get bloated as well, not just my stomach… At this rate, everyone will be shocked when I go to visit their Divine Realms.”

Vandalieu remained unaware that his soul had been more sinister in appearance than the average evil god, even before he began devouring fragments of Guduranis’s soul. He started twisting and stretching himself, trying to force it into a more organized shape.

《The acquired Demon King soul fragments have fused to become ‘True Demon King!’》

“This should do. Now then, let’s absorb all of the other fragments of Guduranis’s soul that are elsewhere, before Heinz and his party reach Talosheim.”

Vandalieu had deliberately created an entrance by which Heinz and his companions could infiltrate the region inside the Boundary Mountain Range in the form of a valley, and he had prepared fighting forces and multiple fake Talosheims to slow them down.

Vandalieu didn’t know whether Heinz was really capable of cutting through the Boundary Mountain Range, whose mountains were several thousand meters tall, but creating a straightforward path for Heinz had seemed wiser than finding out. This way, he didn’t have to worry about which part of the mountain range would be cut through, and it had allowed him to decide Heinz’s path of infiltration.

Of course, allowing Heinz and his companions into the region within the Boundary Mountain Range meant exposing Talosheim and the other nations to danger. Thus, Vandalieu had moved Talosheim.

Along the path used in the Mirg shield-nation’s invasion about two hundred years ago, he had placed Golems and forts to slow Heinz and his companions down, and beyond those was a replica of Talosheim whose buildings looked just like the real thing. And beyond that replica were even more replicas of Talosheim.

As for the real Talosheim, Vandalieu had turned the entire city into a golem and moved it… placing it inside one of the floors of a specially-made Dungeon. He had then moved the Dungeon’s entrance, so Heinz and his companions would never reach it.

On top of that, he had returned Mei and Mari to Origin for now, just in case. Both of them had wanted to remain here, but Lambda was currently more dangerous than Origin was… There were several Demon King Familiars with them, and Vandalieu had trained the Ghosts of the former presidents and such as much as possible, so they should be fine.

With that said, the fact that death-attribute mages other than me exist probably doesn’t matter much to Heinz right now.

The Five-colored Blades had learned of Mei and Mari’s existence from the reincarnated individual Asagi, but circumstances had changed since then.

Right now, Heinz was trying to kill Vandalieu because the final words of the imperfectly resurrected Guduranis had convinced him that it was possible for Vandalieu to one day be taken over by the fragments of Guduranis’s soul that he had absorbed.

There was no way of knowing if that would happen in five seconds, in a year, or a hundred years, but as long as Heinz believed that there was a chance that it could happen, he would likely never change his mind on his belief that Vandalieu needed to be killed.

However, just because Mei and Mari could use death-attribute magic didn’t mean that they were capable of absorbing fragments of Guduranis’s soul. Thus, no matter what Heinz was thinking, he wouldn’t prioritize going after their lives before Vandalieu’s.

At the very least, he shouldn’t be trying to find them at the risk of exhausting himself before killing me… Considering that, the current situation might be the most convenient thing for him. After all, he’s just fighting Golems that aren’t very strong while pretending to be headed in Talosheim’s direction until I come to him.

It occurred to Vandalieu that the fact that Heinz and his companions were moving so slowly might be because he was waiting for Vandalieu to come out rather than trying to make it to Talosheim, where real traps and preparations to repel them might have been made.

… If that was the case, Vandalieu felt like a fool for putting so much effort into making all kinds of preparations, but it was better than suffering as a result of not preparing enough.

And although he knew what Heinz was thinking, that was not true for Bellwood and Alda, so he decided not to let his guard down until they were dead.

“Ah, the Golems have been wiped out.”

While Vandalieu was doing this, the Golems that were slowing down Heinz and his companions had run out more quickly than anticipated.

“… They’re currently headed towards a fake Talosheim, so I suppose I can just leave them. The fake Talosheim has that, too, though I would have liked to settle things without showing it to anyone if possible.”

In order to make the fake Talosheims as close replicas of the real one as possible, they had required replicas of a particular structure… the enormous statue of Vandalieu. They had been turned into Golems and their interiors had been filled with Demon King Familiars – and there were multiple of them. These would likely keep Heinz and his companions stalled for a while longer.

“The next location is where Mom is.”

And with that, Vandalieu headed to the Jahan Duchy, where Darcia was fighting.

Alda, the God of Law and Fate, had unsealed and unleashed numerous gods all over the world, but he had not done so in the Holy Nation of Amid, its vassal states, or the Farzon Duchy.

Vandalieu was unlikely to have positioned any of his fighting forces there, and even though Alda was willing to allow the population of humanity to drop to several thousand during this war, he had believed that there was no use in meaninglessly reducing the number of his own worshipers.

However, Alda had unleashed multiple gods in the Jahan Duchy. It was a region with many devout worshipers of Alda, but it had already been exposed to Vandalieu’s influence. It was only a matter of time before its people were corrupted (converted to worshiping Vida’s faction) and, as much as Alda pitied them, he had decided that it was best to reduce his numbers while he still could.

And most importantly, he had done so because Darcia, the ‘Incarnation of Vida,’ was there.

“Vida-sama!” roared a Beast-king with three eyes, enormous tusks, and wings on its back. It breathed heavily through its nose as it approached Darcia. “Come, Vida-sama! Let us create children! I, Vafovald, have prepared myself to become father to a new Beast-kin race!”

This was Vafovald, the Evil Demon Elephant Beast-king. Although he fell in the battle against the Demon King, as an evil god attempted to devour him, he survived by instead fusing with his would-be devourer and taking over him. Now, he was obsessed with Vida in a bad way.

“I’m sorry! You’ll have to discuss that with Vida herself later!” said Darcia.

Having used ‘Goddess Descent,’ Vafovald had mistaken her for Vida. She was currently using a Magic Item to fly, doing her utmost to run away while fighting in order to draw him and the others away from the Jahan Duchy’s cities.

This was also to protect these gods.

Another was Byazekbyoct, the Evil God of Impure Light. He looked like nothing more than a group of human-child-sized disco balls, but he screeched as he fired beams of light containing poison – something that should be impossible, according to this world’s laws of physics – in Darcia’s direction.

“‘Radiance Bending Wall!’” shouted Zadiris, creating a barrier that bent light in order to refract Byazekbyoct’s beams. “Curse you, you big oaf! Will you not think of those who have to defend against these attacks!”

“Mother, he has lost his sanity because of the fragment of the Demon King’s soul. He can’t hear anything you’re saying,” said Basdia as she bisected one of the shining spheres that made up the evil god’s body.

“I understand that, but I cannot help but say it. These lust-blinded fools,” Zadiris sighed in exasperation.

Indeed, it was not just Vafovald who had mistaken Darcia for Vida.

“I shall be the first to create children with Vida-sama! The sea needs Sea-Beast-kin, not just Merfolk!” snarled Toothwald, the Walrus Beast-king, as he bared his tusks to intimidate Vafovald.

“What?! You would dare interfere with my relations with Vida-sama?! Unforgiveable!”

“Let us settle this like men!”

The two Beast-kings glared at each other, baring their fangs and readying themselves to fight over Vida, who had descended upon Darcia’s body.

“Stop it! Don’t fight here!” Darcia said hastily, trying to stop them.

The city was still too close, after all.

Darcia thought of undoing ‘Goddess Descent,’ but Vida’s anger was too fierce for her to suppress – Vida was likely furious at Alda for what he had done to these two gods who adored her.

By summoning Vida, she had been able to quickly defeat and seal away one of the evil gods of the Demon King’s army that had appeared at the same time as Byazekbyoct.

But the appearance of Vafovald and Toothwald had complicated the situation and started a peculiar three-way battle.

And then, the countless Demon King Familiars gathered… and Vandalieu appeared.

“I cannot pretend I didn’t hear all that,” he said.

• Name: Knochen
• Titles: All Bone Palace, Concert Venue, Flesh and Bone Colossus
• Rank: 16
• Race: Bone Dystopia Dragigas
• Level: 52
• Passive skills:
  • Dark Vision
  • Transcendent Strength: Level 2 (LEVEL UP!)
  • Precise Bone Form Manipulation: Level 6
  • Physical Resistance: Level 10
  • Super Absorption Healing (Bone): Level 3
  • Great Fortress Form: Level 2 (LEVEL UP!)
  • Augmented Attribute Values: Fortress Form: Level 2
  • Augmented Attribute Values: Creator: Level 2
  • Self-Strengthening: Guidance: Level 10 (LEVEL UP!)
  • Magic Resistance: Level 6 (LEVEL UP!)
  • Self-Strengthening: Elder Dragon Form: Level 2 (LEVEL UP!)
• Active skills:
  • Silent Steps: Level 2
  • Breath (Elder Dragon Poison): Level 2 (LEVEL UP)
  • High-speed Flight: Level 9
  • Projectile Fire: Level 10
  • Construction: Level 7
  • Musical Performance: Level 4
  • Dance: Level 5
  • Familiar Spirit Demonfall: Level 4 (LEVEL UP!)
  • Dismantling: Level 5
  • Size Alteration: Level 3
  • Coordination: Level 6
  • Unarmed Fighting Technique: Level 3
  • Elder Dragon Form: Level 2 (LEVEL UP!)
• Unique skills:
  • Vandalieu’s Divine Protection
  • Bone Swarm Control: Level 3
  • Group Body: Level 3
  • Vida’s Divine Protection
  • Rojefifi’s Divine Protection
  • Soul Form: Level 1
  • Group Thought Processing: Level 1

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep