The situation flipped so fast that suddenly things turned to the Demon Horde’s favour. Despite his affected mentality under the Crown’s influence, King Baal wasn’t stupid. As soon as the news had reached him that Moloch had released the barrier one day before the deadline, he had recognised what his former tactician was up to.
As a Dungeon Core owner himself, he knew about the city-wide magical barrier that could be activated. He had used his magic outside what could be covered by the barrier to make the enemy less wary, and once all attention was on him, he had used mass teleportation as a loophole. What use would the giant shield be now, where his troops were already inside?
Counterattacking this late also meant that the enemy could not afford to hold out much longer. Their situation must be getting bleak if they had gambled on assembling their elites for a last-ditch counterattack assault.
With Moloch among the few leading the charge, it was pretty obvious they wanted to end all of this as quickly as possible. That was why King Baal did what he initially wanted to do despite knowing that using the Crown even just for a while would definitely weaken him for an ultimate fight against Moloch and his new subjects.
Coincidentally, this ended up in his favour for those ‘new subjects’… the cultivators that were supposed to assist Jin had to adapt to the current situation after being teleported and kill as many enemies in order to just survive.
The Shopkeeper squad found itself in the middle of the Agriculture Sector 2 where all of Jin’s giant livestock were living. Bu Dong and his classmates were teleported back to the defensive platform while the Venus Four could be seen on the military base.
As for Xiong Da and the other working adults, they noticed they were situated on the mysterious black floating fortress with scores of demons to settle as well. Only when each and every group started to stabilise themselves from the chaotic situation, did things begin to clear up.
There were actually elites hidden within the Demon Troops, and they were destroying the defences faster than the ordinary enemies could. Normally they would have been focused by the Royal Snipers, but right now with chaos ensuing everywhere it was hard to find an opportunity without missing the mark.
In the meantime, the Firestorm tornadoes were not stopping despite the sudden disappearance of their enemies. They now converged towards Jin and only him since he was the only one left on the current battlefield. And yet while he was out of helpers, the demons in the safe zone right in front of them were still intact, along with the VIPs.
“Kiva, you go.” King Baal ordered out of the blue, and the Ravenous Lord nearly choked.
“Sire? Me? I am hardly a combatant…” Kiva tried to change his lord’s mind while he was screaming and shouting vulgarities from within. “How about sending Prince Stolas up?”
“Does a King need to justify his orders? You have your bag of tricks, don’t you? Show them to me, entertain me a little.” King Baal’s eyes had murderous intent, and his tone left no doubt that if he refused, he would either end him or throw his subject into the fray himself. The frightened Kiva nodded his head with reluctant compliance while his King returned back to his seat.
“Aren’t you going to do something about these massive fire tornadoes? Otherwise, we both might get fried.” Jin shouted towards his new opponent that came out of the safe zone. This made Kiva panic even more as his fear had made him narrow-minded that he had forgotten about the magic left by his King.
“What are you waiting for? Begin the fight.” King Baal ordered as he took off his Crown and placed it back into his magical storage. His head started to bleed a little, and he was developing some headache after using it.
Kiva also understood that his involvement right now was a way to buy some time for King Baal to heal up… but why did he have to choose him as the sacrificial lamb when there were so many other pawns around?!
Also, to put him with an enemy along with the impending doom of those fire tornadoes? Did King Baal regain some sanity? Had he learned about Kiva’s plans after the attack?!
“Hey, are you listening?” Jin asked the Archduke. He had already sheathed his swords as he held on to his Black Sludge Panda Mount. He could have attacked immediately, but he was similarly biding his time for Frost Echo and Flame Ripper to get rid of the magic surrounding them.
“Shut up! Shut up!” Throughout his life as a noble Kiva had never revealed any combat theatrics, instead preferring to let his creations do the work for him. This time, he was going to do the same. After all, King Baal directly stated that he could use his ‘bag of tricks’. He wasn’t some hotheaded adventurer seeking glory, so why should he stoop down to head-on with the unknown human adventurer?
He literally pulled out an onyx coloured bag and grabbed something from inside. He sprinkled what seemed to be dust on the ground, and a Sand Golem emerged from it while Kiva attempted to quickly return to the safe zone. To his surprise, there was a sort of windy barrier that blocked his entrance, and he realised that it was none other than Prince Stolas himself that created it.
“PRINCE! What are you doing! Let me in!” Kiva shouted as he tried to bang on the barrier, only resulting in his hand being repulsed by the air barrier.
“The fire tornadoes are coming, and I need to strengthen the safe zone barrier in case it reaches here! Don’t you have your bag of tricks with you?” Prince Stolas explained in a haughty voice, and King Baal found it rather amusing.
“Stolas, it appears that you DO have a sense of humour, after all.” King Baal praised his son for the first in decades as he stared at the panicking Kiva. “Now Kiva, do as you’ve been told. I recall your head being that of a bat, NOT a chicken!” King Baal added while he looked at Jin for comparison. Stoic and uncaring about the impending doom the two were going to experience.
“You must be jesting, my Liege!” The Sand Golem finished forming, and since Kiva felt that there was no way to escape the fiery disaster. Despite his desperate thinking, his only way out would be to literally weather the storm. “Sand Golem, protect me!” Kiva ordered as he lied down prone and got the Sand Golem to cover him while he changed his head to a raven and started chanting protective spells over him and the golem.
“Urgh, Kiva reeled his ugly head that quickly?” Moloch took a peek out of Jin’s hoodie and witnessed how low Kiva could stoop just to save his own life.
“Don’t tell me you would not do the same?” Jin questioned in a sarcastic manner, and Moloch scoffed at him.
“All nobles know that the first thing to do is to protect the King. If Kiva had demonstrated the least bit of chivalry proving he was willing to exchange his life to protect the safe zone just like Stolas did, Baal would probably save him from this World Class magical attack, seeing as he was the caster.” Moloch explained as he started to feel the heat from the fire tornadoes.
“So maybe now’s the time you can get one extra point for protecting your previous king?” Jin teasing Moloch helped him calm his own nerves a little.
“What help would that make? We should save ourselves instead.” Moloch complained and started to regret coming out of the war room with Jin. “I could have easily created a copy to…” Then apparently, the idea had struck a chord with the Minotaur Lord.
“Hmmm. Yeah, you are right. This could possibly be a test for me too,” Moloch muttered to himself in thought, but Jin overheard it crystal clear and also realised this could be the only attention grabbing opportunity to get King Baal out of the safe zone too.
“Then what are you waiting for?” Jin took the cotton Minotaur Lord out from his hoodie and placed it on his shoulder. “Impress your king and fellow demon mates with your ‘wonder magic’.”
“You bet!”
