As midnight approached, so did the decline of cultivators attending the dungeon instance. They had been wise enough to coincide the event on a weekend which maximised the odds of cultivators justifying spending just a little bit more time there. The youths especially took him up on that godsent opportunity, yet Jin was most surprised at the number of young workers who came in late to blow off some steam.
Yet even with the underestimated customer numbers, which neither Jin nor the System had calculated, there was no doubt that Qiu Yue and Moloch needed to adjust and adapt the strategy for their defences to cope with the current situation.
Up until now, the defenders had managed to hold most of the demon soldiers at bay, but it was inevitable that the demons would notice the defending lines getting thinner before they reported their observation to the higher-ups possibly leading to a mad rush of reinforcement.
Upon learning the weakening of the defence lines, Archduke Kiva immediately requested King Baal to allow his subject to send another batch of his chimaera troops into battle, one which he believed would break through the frontlines and give them the chance to move further in to find Moloch or the Dungeon Core.
“You think one platoon is enough?” King Baal laid his head back and tapped his finger hard on the arm of the ‘makeshift’ throne chair.
“Ah…Apologies, my Sire, I can only send in one squad at a time. My powers are not as bottomless as yours.” Kiva was directly hinting to King Baal to use the crown’s powers instead of just using it to acquire strength.
By using the excuse of the deadlock in their battle, Kiva hoped that his King would use the powers to not only eliminate that irritating thorn (or horn) in his skin but also to take the opportunity to attract the attention from the Church of the Afterlife.
That way, upon annihilating Moloch, the agents from the Church of the Afterlife would undoubtedly come after King Baal for using the forbidden powers of the combined Dungeon Cores. Hence, in Kiva’s mind, two major scenarios could potentially occur.
One would be the defeat of King Baal by the agents of the Church of the Afterlife. In that case, he would secretly cooperate with their agents to eradicate the Royal Family, banishing them out of Demon Metropolis and reign as King. This might lead to him acting as a puppet of the Church of Afterlife, but he was sure given enough time he could find ways to lessen or outright remove their interference, allowing him to become the true ruler of the place.
The alternate scenario was that King Baal manages to defeat the Church of the Afterlife’s agents by using his artefact to further improve his demons, firmly establishing them as a force to be reckoned with.
Admittedly, it would be a difficult fight, but defeating their agents would reveal that the Church was fallible, allowing rebellions to rise and eventually break them apart. Of course, it sounded a bit far fetched especially when they would send even more capable agents.
But if things don’t go well, Kiva could simply be a conspirator against his King and assist the agents in removing the King out of his power. Then, he would still be able to reign as King of the Demon Metropolis too. This would be a hard road to walk, but one that he had prepared for. He had long since started gathering data and information about the crown so that he would be able to create a better product which would make others fear him.
Of course no matter the scenario, they all required the death of Moloch first. He needed him and his city to become the sacrificial lamb. So far the disgraced Minotaur Lord had performed exceedingly well. Surely, the unexpectedly tough resistance, as well as the usage of highly technological weapons, came as a bit of surprise. But it still fit into his scheme.
Even better, there was nothing connecting it to him, so his treacherous ideas would not get revealed. He did not know that there were far more factors than he could imagine behind the scenes able to utterly crush his ambition.
After all, Moloch wasn’t lazy during his banishment…
“Very well, I see this as a necessary need to win. I shall aid you in your endeavour. So far they have bested our elite troops again and again and it is starting to take a toll on the troops.” King Baal opened a small magical portal to retrieve the crown with his bare hands. “As well as pissing me off.” He thought to himself, even though his facial expression said it all.
When he took out the Crown of Beyond Depravity publicly, blood was already spilling from his hands as the crown bit into his skin like the flesh-eating parasite it was.
However, the aura it emitted was menacing enough that some of the nearby guards had trouble standing straight without shaking and losing consciousness.
Only a handful like Stolas, Kiva and the Royal Guards were able to barely withstand its frightening aura. Kiva quickly kneeled down and presented a crystal right in front of his liege while keeping his head down. He did not want to admit that the haunts from the dungeon cores could be heard even when he was not holding it.
King Baal raised the crown and the devilish purple jewel affixed at the front shone brightly and shot a beam of energy into the crystal Kiva was holding until the holder urgently requested King Baal to stop.
Once the transmission of energy was done, King Baal immediately placed the crown back into the magical storage portal and closed it up. The terrible aura quickly dissipated from their current location.
Right now, the full energised crystal was gleaming with so much power that even Kiva himself was a little tempted to absorb some of such energy to test it out. Yet, he as a researcher and a person privy of all the crown’s knowledge knew that it would be suicide. The bat-faced Archduke thanked his majesty with a graceful bow and hastily called out his squad of chimaera soldiers to appear.
Fused with lions and praying mantis, the Tieflings who were standing right in front of Kiva had magnificent lion manes as if they were wearing a furred scarf. Their Mantis features were kept hidden for the moment since there were no enemies around for them to bare their fangs and blades. They stood in full attention when Kiva ordered them.
With a platoon of 30 Lion Mantis reporting for duty, Kiva changed into his raven face again and started chanting, allowing the crystal’s powers to seep into each and every chimaera soldier.
Artha, the leader of the Lion Mantis, was the first to receive the powers and the bulk of it as well. He started to feel strange heart palpitations inside him as if a second heart was being forcefully pushed into him in the midst of the transference of the crown’s energy. In an instant, he and his platoon could feel the effects of the crown’s powers.
“Happy hunting.” Kiva sent them off as he clasped his hands and added a bit of his own unique chant, buffing the chimaera soldiers even further before they spread their insectoid wings and burst straight onto the battlefield.
