Overwhelming Firepower-Chapter 215: The four threats
Due to the increasing monster attacks, some people thought that this could be an opportunity to cause some chaos and get what they want.
There have been several incidents of bandits plundering a village that had defended itself from monster attacks.
Despite Thornefang and the Iron Wolves doing their best, the continuing increase of monster attacks without knowing the source made it difficult to deal with the bandits.
It was at this point that the Judicar ducal household made a move. They asked for help from the local branch of the Temple of Justice and Judgment, took a few holy knights, and captured the bandits in Norvaegard to be judged.
It wasn’t just Norvaegard that was having problems, but the neighboring kingdoms were also having their own troubles. Natural disasters, assassinations, and there was even a kingdom that had a coup, but that quickly died down.
***
Lucen frowned as he read the reports about what was going on, not just in Norvaegard but in the surrounding kingdoms. These were omens that the coming of the true enemy was near.
’Is the flow of events getting faster because of my intervention? If those guys appear before the protagonist is the right age, things might become troublesome.’
Truthfully, the true enemy in the game changes depending on the route taken, but they were all basically intelligent humanoid monsters.
There were the lycans, the vampires, the lich, and the demons. Among the four, the strongest were undoubtedly the demons.
Depending on how you play and if you’re able to reach the true end, the demons control the other three final bosses, and you’ll need to face all of them.
The Lycans were difficult opponents and were able to perfectly blend with humans. They had greater physical abilities than normal humans, and unlike the other monsters, they were able to use aura since they were also still human.
They could also create more lycans by transmitting the curse they had to others. Of course, this did not bring about loyalty, which was why they needed to pick who to change.
The vampires, on the other hand, were a much stronger race than the lycans. Their base physical abilities surpass even aura users.
It is said that the weakest vampire had the strength of a third mantle aura user. They also had more abilities, like transformation and blood magic. They can also do hypnosis and other mental skills.
They also had a strict hierarchy, and once someone is changed, that hierarchy is forced upon the one who had been turned into a vampire.
The older the vampire and purer the blood, the stronger the vampire becomes. This race would have been as powerful as demons if not for the fact that they have several major weaknesses.
They have a weakness against light-based spells, and they pretty much burn under the sun. They also can’t cross rivers, and can’t enter another person’s home without permission. Of course, there were powerful vampires who could resist these weaknesses.
Against the truly ancient ones, those with bloodlines tracing back to the Primordial Nights, sunlight was little more than an inconvenience, and holy magic only slowed them, never stopped them.
Then there was the lich, able to raise the undead. The lich’s undead depended more on the quality of the body.
If the dead were once an aura knight in life, when the lich raises him from the dead, he retains those skills and aura, but will only listen to the lich.
In the game, the strongest creature the lich raised from the dead was the bone dragon. A dragon that died in battle.
It was speculated that the bone dragon was the one that died near the northern mountains, but of course, if this was true, then it would no longer appear since Lucen and his group had taken everything from that dragon.
Still, the difficulty of the lich depended on how fast you noticed it, since you can find it as early as the beginning of the game, when it has only a few undead.
Unfortunately, even if you do find the lich in the beginning with fewer undead, that doesn’t mean that you were strong enough to kill it.
The lich by itself was a powerful being. It was nearly unkillable, and you must first find the source of its power.
The source of power could be a gem, a powerful artifact, or something important to the lich. That item in question would hold the lich’s true soul. Once destroyed or taken, the lich would be powerless.
Though if you find it near the endgame, the undead army would be overwhelming, and your party alone wouldn’t be able to handle the scale of the battle.
Either way, it was one of the most powerful enemies in the game, but it was an individual relying on its own power. Once the lich dies, so does his massive army of undead.
But the demons, they were different. A single demon noble had excellent subordinates, and their power was like a concentrated monster wave into a single being.
And above them, the Demon Lords, were calamities that appeared only in the absolute late game. Each one could be considered a last boss character in any other game, but this one had four of them.
If that wasn’t hard enough, back in the game, depending on how the route you choose flowed, those demons were able to corrupt a true dragon. It was a secret boss and the second strongest enemy in the game.
Demons in this world were cunning creatures that gained power from souls. They were one of the few creatures in this world that absolutely could not lie, but of course, using this knowledge, they were able to trick a lot of beings.
They couldn’t lie, but they could twist truths until the truth itself became a weapon. With words alone, they could make kingdoms fight each other.
They were also something similar to genies, but once they ask for a price, the thing you wish for is usually given in the most gruesome way.
***
The lycans started attacking because they wanted the humans to acknowledge them as an intelligent race, not as monsters.
The vampires wanted to rule over humans and the other races. They wanted to become the supreme race, the one who stands above all, like dragons and deities.
The lich who had awakened from a long slumber wanted revenge against the empire that killed his beloved. Unfortunately for him, the empire he wished revenge on had long disappeared into the annals of history.
Still, the hatred that kept on going for centuries would not die down, so he decided to wipe out all descendants of that empire. This was basically a quarter of the continent, which included Norvaegard.
These three still had very standard goals. The demons, on the other hand, were not the same as them.
Demons did not care for much, and their only goal was not conquest nor was it destruction; what they wanted was simply chaos.
Chaos to make more deals, to gain more power. And seeing as the more souls they owned, the stronger they became, many demons were desperately clawing for a chance to rise into the ranks of Demon Lords.
Normally, demons reside in a different dimension. They could only enter this dimension through a ritual. Also, the more powerful the demon, the more demanding the ritual.
The only way for a whole bunch of them to enter the main world was through a rift in dimensions.
The good thing was that Lucen knew the next occurring rift won’t come about until a few years later, when the protagonist and his allies had grown.
Of course, like humans, demons were an intelligent race, which means not all of them find chaos appealing.
Lucen, who was writing down the information he had in his mind, stopped.
’Actually, now that I think about it, wasn’t one of the four demon lords a little different from the others?’
When thinking about the demons, Lucen couldn’t help but remember one of the demon lords who became popular in his past life.
Of course, the reason she was popular was that she was a beautiful demon lord, but more than that was the conversation Alexander had before killing her that made her even more popular.
"Can’t demons dream, too? I wanted to see the world of humans. I wanted to eat their meals, I wanted to sing their songs, I wanted to taste their so-called love. I guess I wanted to be human... Hey hero, if I get reborn as a human, will you show me the world you wanted to protect?"
Lucen closed his eyes for a moment, recalling that line spoken by the demon lord at the edge of her death. A demon longing for humanity... It was rather absurd, but at the same time beautiful.
Demons were creatures made from pure desire and malice, born from the primordial chaos. They couldn’t lie, but they twisted truths, manipulated emotions, and harvested souls without hesitation.
They supposedly didn’t dream; they didn’t hope. Yet one of the four demon lords wished for it, craved hope.
She was the weakest of the four, not because of her power, but because she did not wish to rule, conquer, or drown the world in despair.
She simply wanted to live the life that she envisioned. To see the sunrise, to hear laughter that wasn’t filled with screams, to walk among others without gaining anything or giving anything.
She was someone many players wanted to recruit, but unfortunately, there was no way to do so. As a demon lord, her power was part of what kept the rift open on this side indefinitely. To close the rift, the protagonist needed to kill all four demon lords.
’Maybe this time I can do something about it...’ Lucen tapped his finger on the table. ’I can’t think of any solution for now, but I guess I still have some time to come up with something.’
Lucen then looked at his notes and sighed. He did not know when or if the territory war that would cause the downfall of Thornehart would still happen, but he felt like it was close.
’Before I try to continue to change the destiny of others, I need to change the fate of the end of the Thorneharts.’ Lucen clenched his fist. "No matter what comes, I will blow it away."
