The Devouring Dragon-Chapter 100: The Stronghold

"Why’d it have to be underground? I hate places like this..." Tiamat sighed from her spot next to me, complaining for the 4th time in the past five minutes.

"This is... a bit more grand than I imagined," I chuckled, walking through a long hallway as I didn’t respond to the Dragon King’s words. Around me, there were tall stone walls, with a rocky roof hanging more than a dozen feet above my head.

Currently, I was walking through a massive tunnel, with Raya and Vargan walking ahead of me. I wasn’t actually in an unfamiliar area, as I was thousands of feet underneath a very familiar setting - that being my palace.

"When ya do something, ya should do it vigor, no?" Vargan just chuckled at my words, gesturing to the massive tunnel around us, "If somethin’ comes through here, there’s no chance they escape!" fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

The large tunnel actually looked pretty ominous, as despite having access to modern-day lighting technology, there were hanging lanterns overhead with chains holding them up, rattling from time to time. As a result, the tunnel was pretty dim by normal standards, though with my supernatural eyes I didn’t have much trouble seeing.

As for why we were walking through a tunnel in the middle of the giant mountain my palace sat on: it was actually so that my other-world portals would have a much more secure area around them. I hadn’t had trouble with the E-Rank World, as the only thing that ever could’ve come through was an occasional zombie who wandered into the portal that sat in the stronghold that was once Fujimi Academy, but every other world wouldn’t be so simple.

I didn’t know what the other worlds had in store for me, and stacking up portals randomly around my territory definitely wasn’t a good idea. The other higher-ranking worlds would have stronger threats, which meant stronger threats to walk right into my territory and potentially cause havoc.

So, to counteract that and ensure neither the women who lived in my palace nor any of my subordinates were in danger of a random attack, a rather locked-down stronghold was being built within the mountain. At the entrance to this long tunnel, there had been dwarven guards, and as I walked down the dark hallway, occasional direwolves were roaming.

"There are soldiers stationed at a minimum of every one hundred feet," Raya explained as we walked, gesturing to two direwolves standing to the side as we passed. "Overall, there are over a thousand guards between the portal room and the exit. It might be a bit overboard, but we’re not lacking in manpower, and the guards can always be recalled into the main army if a more urgent situation occurs."

"Good work," I nodded at her words, grinning lightly as she preened under my approval.

It was definitely a bit overkill, but as I prepared to head into the D-Rank World and then try to pretty quickly expand my reach into various other worlds, I’d be at an increasingly higher risk of someone coming through from the other side.

I needed to move fast before the alliance forming against me could stabilize and take action, so I would need to be much more efficient than I had been with the E-Rank World. I wouldn’t have time to completely conquer the next worlds or create a situation like with the E-Rank one, where I’d set up a scenario for my troops to finish the job without much help from me.

Instead, I’d likely be spending no more than a couple of weeks in each world, creating a stronghold for my troops to be able to safely expand and make more progress before moving to the next one.

Of course, it largely depended on what world I ended up in, but I planned to just conquer any nearby areas and take in powerful subordinates while avoiding the top tiers of that universe. In most worlds, there tended to be a ’big bad,’ or perhaps even a ’big good,’ who far exceeded the average power in the world.

As a result, I could try to take small steps and gather powerful lower-tier beings, and then bring a coalition of those combatants to help in my war against the alliance in this world. Then, when this world was fully dealt with - well, probably not fully dealt with, but when I at least didn’t have a group of angry gods teaming up against me - I could go back and fully conquer the other worlds.

"It would’ve been better if it weren’t underground," Tiamat huffed, still looking a bit uncomfortable at being within the mountain.

I figured it had something to do with her normal dragon form being so huge, but it wasn’t like she would be down here much anyway. She had just come to see me off and wait by the new portal for a bit in case I needed immediate backup.

I was planning for this D-Rank World a lot more than I did for the E-Rank one, though I was probably over-preparing.

"Of course, ya have yet ta see the strongest piece o’ security," Vargan grinned, starting to stride down the hallway a bit faster as he gestured for me to follow.

We continued forward, walking down the literal thousands of feet long hallway, and I was even more impressed by how quickly the dwarves worked. I know they were literally dwarves - dwarves will access to near-unlimited manpower and resources - but any person, dwarf or not, building something this massive in only a bit over a week was pretty insane.

We finally reached the end, where the tunnel opened up in a large cavern. The already high ceiling moved from roughly 25 feet in the air to well over 50, and the number of lanterns multiplied. The room was easily hundreds of feet long and just as wide, looking like it was fit to hold multiple airplanes instead of relatively small portals.

"This is ta first one," Vargan grinned, gesturing out to the large open room, which had nothing besides lanterns as it was barren.

I blinked at his words, "The first one?"

"I thought it would be better to separate the portals," Raya clarified, her back stiffening a bit in pride, "Having the portals lined up next to each other could cause problems, right? Someone who came through could enter another one, or if people came through multiple at the same time, chaos could break out. So, there’s a bunch of rooms this size connected, with more being built, so the portals can be spaced out."

Man, Raya really was the best, wasn’t she?

I nodded approvingly, grinning at her words, "Good thinking. And, good work building this all, Vargan. I didn’t think so much progress could be made so quickly."

"Ha! Don’t doubt my people, Yur Highness! If there’s something ta be made, we can do it better than anyone else!" Vargan boasted, grinning back at me with a proud look on his face, "But, ya still haven’t seen ta best part!"

Vargan abruptly raised his arm, pointing to the side at a seemingly blank portion of the wall. It didn’t look any different from any other part of the wall, just having a smooth stone side with the occasional jutting out rock.

But, considering this was the former Dwarven King pointing at the wall, I knew it couldn’t be that simple. I grinned, narrowing my eyes at the wall as a couple of skills activated, trying to discern exactly what type of security measure he’d put in place.

As I did, I was pleasantly surprised that I couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. No spells, no concealed portion, and no evidence that the wall had been altered at all. If whatever he had done was concealed enough to trick even me, then Vargan had truly gone above and beyond what I thought was possible.

The former Dwarven King really was unmatched in something like this! Only he could hide something so well that even I, the Beast King, couldn’t find it-

"Oh, actually, we decided to put his office on the other side," Raya interrupted my dramatic thoughts, casually pointing to the opposite wall of the room, which was roughly 50 feet to the side. "Sorry, but he requested it. Something about a lower possibility of being noticed on the left side, because most beings are naturally right-handed."

I looked over to the other side a bit blandly, feeling let down after my dramatic thoughts, and easily spotted what they were actually referring to. The wall was a bit jutted outward, looking like a thick slab on the otherwise smooth wall, and Raya called over at it.

"Ajuka! You can give Valon the intel personally now if you’d like!"

Ajuka? Is that what they meant about ’his office?’

"Ah, nice to see you again, Your Highness." The stone slab suddenly swung outward, actually being a door that blended into the wall pretty well.

The green-haired devil stepped forward, allowing me to see the nearly pitch-black room behind him, which was just filled with various papers scattered on the ground and a noticeable computer screen illuminating it. Besides that, it looked pretty empty.

"Ajuka barely leaves his study in his estate anyway, so I figured he could double as a guard down here," Raya explained as I glanced over at her and raised an eyebrow, "He said he didn’t mind as long as he had a computer, so his study was moved down here now."

"My estate was private, which was why I spent most of my time there. As long as I’m not interrupted often, I don’t care much." Ajuka just smiled pleasantly, glancing over at me as he clarified a bit, "Of course, if my King comes personally, I can’t complain at being interrupted, can I?"

"I’ll try not to bother you often," I hummed, grinning lightly at the Maou’s words, then glanced back at Raya, "But, good thinking once again. He’s perfect for something like this."

If a break-in situation did occur as a threat from another world came through one of the portals, Ajuka would be the one I wanted to handle the situation more than anyone else - even Sirzechs or Tiamat. While the Super Devil was weaker than both of those two, he was definitely more fit for handling an invader situation.

He was much less blunt while also being nearly as powerful, and he was also much more intelligent and tricky. He probably already had some type of way to communicate with Raya instantly, and if a situation did really occur, she would probably know before Ajuka even encountered the invader.

That wasn’t even mentioning all his various inventions, which he just seemed to pull out of thin air. Whoever tried to enter this world was in for a rude awakening, no matter how powerful they were.

"But, even if it’s you, I don’t like formalities, so I’ll explain quickly," Ajuka continued, still smiling pleasantly despite his blunt words, "In the worst case scenario, the alliance plans to start a war with you in a year. Without my intervention, I’d estimate a 47.5% chance of it actually starting in the timeframe, and a 0.98% chance with my intervention. Though these are estimates solely guided by myself, as reading the formulas of divine beings is often untrustworthy."

I nodded at his words, taking in the information. I had sent him to intercept the meeting the day prior, but this was a lot more time than I expected.

"Whose in the alliance?" I asked bluntly, and he answered just as bluntly.

"The Norse Pantheon, the Jotunn, Heaven, the Greek Pantheon, the magicians of Grauzauberer, and Indra," Ajuka answered, continuing as he knew what my next question was, "Indra, not the Hindu Pantheon. He was there personally, which means he was representing himself, and not the Pantheon. He would’ve sent a lower-ranking god otherwise."

All of that was good information to have, but also not good information to have - mainly because it meant the majority of the world was at my neck. Aside from a few dragons, the Khaos Brigade, a couple of other magician factions, the vampire groups, and a few other lesser-powerful or less-active groups, pretty much every influential group in the supernatural world had joined the alliance against me.

Granted, it could’ve been worse, as at least it was just Indra. If both of the Hindu super-powerhouses, Indra and Shiva, had been at my throat, then I would’ve been in a very bad position. Of course, it could’ve been worse, but really not that much worse.

Heaven was still a serious player in the world, as they had been able to stand toe-to-toe with the devils for a reason. The Greeks weren’t pushovers, the Norse were actually pretty threatening, and both the Jotunn and Grauzauberer were rather unknown - as the latter had only been shown for literally one scene in the series.

All that alone was concerning, but add in Indra? Someone within not just the top 10 in this world, but probably the top 5? He could actually pose a threat to me.

Essentially, in this upcoming war, he canceled me out. If he attacked, it would take everything I had to match him, which meant that my forces would be left to deal with the other threatening factions.

Now, more than ever, I needed more powerful subordinates from other worlds. I had confidence in my current army, but I simply didn’t have enough big hitters right now.

Sirzechs probably wouldn’t lose to anyone besides Indra, but considering that there were so many powerhouses on the other side, ranging from Odin to Michael to Hades, there simply wasn’t enough Sirzechs to go around.

Overall, my faction just didn’t have the pure number of powerful fighters to compare. I had myself at the top, then a couple of faction-leader level fighters in Sirzechs, Tiamat, Ajuka, etc, then a couple more general-level fighters in Vargan, Velrissa, Benemue, etc.

If we were fighting just one other faction, it would be a massacre. But, with numerous factions composed of faction-leader level fighters, with even more general-level fighters amongst them? And, with me being forced to put all my attention into fighting Indra, and not being able to quickly take out the lower-power threats?

It would be close, and I didn’t like close battles. They gave opportunity for me to lose a lot, and for other uninvolved factions to take advantage of my kingdom’s weakened state during a close war.

In this situation, myself gaining more stats and growing stronger wasn’t the priority for once. It was gaining more powerful subordinates to take on the other powerhouses while I fought Indra.

"Good work," I just nodded at Ajuka, "I don’t know how you plan to delay them, but I don’t need to either. Just tell me how long we have to prepare."

Truly, I didn’t need to know about Ajuka’s plan. If there was one man I trusted to disrupt the formation of the alliance more than myself, it was the supergenius in front of me.

"0.57% chance of delaying them by three years, making your preparation time four years. 22.17% of delaying them two years, 72.81% chance of one year, and 42.1% of delaying them for at least six months," Ajuka explained easily, proving he was a supergenius a moment later as he predicted my next question, "These don’t add up to 100% because there are too many moving parts for such a simple calculation to be viable, and the result of one action can cause a whole new percentage calculation to form. If my initial plan succeeds, then they’ll need at least two years. If it fails, then they are more likely to wage war within six months of the year-goal, but the chances of it succeeding are higher than it failing. Finally, if Indra was lying or had an ulterior motive during their meeting, a 15.49% chance, then the year deadline will more likely than not be met."

So, what I gathered from all that was that I should assume I had two years to prepare for the war, and that I had at least a year. Considering I thought I’d only have a few months, maybe a year at most if the faction leaders butted heads a lot, this was better than expected.

"Good work," I hummed, nodding at his words.

I had more time than expected, but I shouldn’t rely on that. I could take a bit more time in the other worlds than I planned to, especially since that extra time was essentially doubled because time was slowed down in the other worlds, but I still wasn’t going to mess around.

Well, if there were waifus involved, I might- definitely will mess around a bit. But, overall, I would still be efficient.

"Change of plans," I glanced over at Tiamat, grinning lightly, "I’m heading to a stronger world. Be prepared to come through if I need you."

"Seriously? I have to stay down here even longer?" Tiamat groaned, but I ignored her complaint.

I had been aiming to enter a D-Rank World first because I was worried a C-Rank would be too problematic and time-consuming. If I ended up in a situation that I couldn’t solve before the alliance bared down on my Kingdom, then I could end up being sandwiched between forces from another world as well as the ones in the DxD world.

But now that I had more time? With two years, which was four years in that world, to work with, I was confident that there was no world I couldn’t conquer.

Certainly not a C-Rank one, at least.

Today, I’ll head into the first C-Rank World.

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