A few days before the thirty-second assault.
Thump!
Imp Legion Commander Lowe slammed his desk and declared,
"This time, we're going head-on with a frontal assault!"
"A frontal assault?"
Cromwell's aide adjusted his glasses and blinked.
The aide was here under Cromwell's orders to monitor whether Lowe was conducting his duties properly.
"Frontal assaults have been used quite a bit, haven't they?"
"This time, we're using the legion with the greatest breakthrough power, utilizing the Dark Event that aids in breaking through, and honestly trying to penetrate directly!"
"The legion with the greatest breakthrough power?"
"Yes! Specifically..."
Lowe pointed straight ahead.
"The Bull Legion!"
Chew. Chew.
A giant Minotaur variant, summoned at Lowe's request, lay peacefully on the floor, munching on grass that sprouted from the ground.
Though the leader of the Bull Legion... it didn't look like a monster at all with those peaceful and sparkling eyes. It just looked like a cow zoning out in a barn...
Unlike other Minotaur variants, this Bull Monster didn't walk bipedally but moved on all fours, essentially not a monster but a giant buffalo.
Moo~
As the two demons' gazes poured over it, the Minotaur variant let out a soft moo. It was somewhat cute.
Cromwell's aide cocked his head.
"You're going to use these gentle creatures for the siege?"
"Yes!"
"Will that really work? Wouldn't it be more motivating to slice them up and serve them grilled at a legion feast instead?"
Startled by the comment, the Minotaur variant mooed in alarm and tried to run away in a hurry.
An even more startled Lowe ran after it, grabbing the Minotaur variant's bridle to prevent it from escaping.
But the Minotaur variant, already panicked, shook its head vigorously, throwing Lowe off and then finally managing to run away.
"Aargh!"
Lowe crashed to the ground, moaning in pain, and
Moo- Moo-
The Minotaur variant fled with terrifying momentum.
Thump! Thud!
As it ran, it crashed into barracks, pillars, buildings, and even tall towers along its path, bringing them all down...
Watching the buildings collapse, Cromwell's aide muttered in admiration.
"It's strong."
"Ugh... In terms of breakthrough power, it's arguably the strongest of all monster legions. It can devastate everything in its path when it charges."
Lowe said, rubbing his sore back.
"If it hits the walls, it will surely cause massive damage."
"But... it seems very scared."
"When it's a single entity, yes. But if we group them together and make them charge as one, they'll trample over anything in their way."
From afar, they saw the Minotaur variant knocking down another building. Lowe sighed.
"The problem isn't that they're scared. Once they start running, even the legion commander can't control his own legion."
Once they start, they run till the end.
They listen to no commands, no restraints. They just charge until death.
"Using such a legion to annihilate humanity is impossible. However..."
"Indeed."
The aide, understanding, nodded.
"You're keeping the ‘next’ assault in mind."
Lowe nodded in return.
Past monster legion commanders hadn't considered this.
They just wanted to end humanity with their own hands, not bothering to set anything up for those who would follow. They lacked the spirit of sacrifice.
And the Demon King, too, called the campaign against humanity an ‘offense game,’ treating it like a chess game, casually sacrificing his subordinates' lives. He just enjoyed playing around, testing humanity's guardians as if he was just toying with them.
As if he thought, ‘In the end, I will win,’ he was nonchalant about the conquest of humanity.
But Lowe was different.
He had the opportunity to oversee several assaults, allowing him to link several attacks together into a single strategy.
The basics of a siege.
Break the walls.
Lowe had no intention of completely overcoming the fortress during this assault. He just wanted to make sure the walls were hit hard.
"We need to create a breach. By any means necessary, shake and hold it. That way..."
Holding the entrusted royal scepter, Lowe murmured.
"...the path to conquest will be revealed."
"..."
Watching Lowe, the aide tilted his head and mumbled softly.
"...became a genius of the offense game?"
"Huh?"
"No, just threw out a joke. Anyway, I'll report that to Cromwell."
The aide, having scribbled something on the documents in his hand, gestured to Lowe.
"Cromwell doesn't have... well, she has some expectations of you. Do well, Lowe."
Lowe grinned and clenched his fist.
"Just leave it to me!"
***
Thus began the thirty-second assault.
The Dark Event chosen by Lowe was 'Wall Weakening'. It was a siege-optimized Dark Event that halved the durability of the walls.
Now, with the fortress weakened like this, once the Bull Legion charged, a huge hole would be blasted through the walls.
Rumble...
Lowe smiled satisfactorily as he watched the enormous herd of bulls exiting the main camp and heading towards the main gate of the Lake Kingdom.
An incredibly large herd, numbering 5,000.
With such a number charging at the walls, no matter how strong the fortress, there would be no way to withstand it.
That's when it happened.
"Huh?"
Flash-!
A flash of light sparked in the sky above the main gate,
Boom!
and an explosion occurred.
A giant beam of light swept through the area. The closely packed herd, ready to advance, was slaughtered in an instant.
A woman with strikingly white hair was swinging a giant sword... no, a sword filled with light, and with each swing, monsters died.
Witnessing this terrifying scene, Lowe screamed.
"What's that?!"
"Ah... don't you know? That's the 'Nameless One.'"
For Lowe, who had never even been a spectator before, let alone led a charge, this was naturally a first-time sight. The aide explained indifferently.
"She claims to be a fearsome woman, a watcher of this hell. Our legions always have to break through her to march towards humanity."
"Has it always been like this?!"
"Recently, she's weakened a bit, which is why we can even think about marching. For the last few hundred years, we couldn't even pass through."
Moo-!
Mooo!
The bull monsters screamed in agony as they ran away.
After the time of slaughter passed, and mountains of monster corpses had piled up,
The Nameless One was gasping for breath, using an old iron sword as a cane at the entrance of the gate.
"Hee... Heee..."
Watching this scene, Lowe trembled beside the aide who was calmly writing a report.
The aide was counting the number of monsters that had managed to march past the Nameless One.
"Still, a third have made it through. That's fairly good, all things considered."
"..."
"Let's go back and wait for the results of the battle. Before we get caught by the Nameless One and end up split in two."
At those words, Lowe finally snapped back to reality.
Right. Although it didn't reach the initial scale, still, over fifteen hundred bull monsters would charge towards humanity.
Lowe shouted with vigor.
"How will you stop this, guardians of humanity!"
He shouted so loudly that the Nameless One went "Huh?" and looked this way. The aide quickly covered Lowe's mouth and ran away with him in tow.
***
This time, the Bull Legion was dispatched.
Literally, a herd charging. It was clear that any defense force in their path would be trampled to death.
But if they don't block them, the walls will also fall.
Lowe thought the tactic he conceived wasn't bad at all.
However.
"What?"
The guardians of humanity annihilated the Bull Legion in a ridiculous manner.
Not only were they annihilated, but the walls didn't suffer any damage either.
The tactic used by the guardians of humanity was as follows:
At the entrance to the Black Lake, tank units capable of wide-area taunts like [Battle Cry] were positioned.
As soon as the Bull Legion emerged, they executed the taunt.
The Bull Legion, already excited from avoiding the Nameless One, was taunted straight away and charged at the tank units. Naturally, the following bulls started running after their leader.
The tank units boarded an airship that was waiting, and the airship flew at low altitude, continually luring the herd.
The tanks continued to use their taunts to guide the herd.
Flap!
For some reason, a human commander on the airship was frantically waving a red flag.
"It's a bullfight!" he shouted incomprehensibly.
Although the flag had no compulsory taunt effect, the Bull Legion leader was properly taunted.
Blinded, the Bull Legion leader blindly followed the airship, and as is common with such animals, the rest followed the leader in a single file without any doubt.
Thud, thud, thud!
After trampling the wasteland, destroying forests, and scorching everything in their path,
-They fell off a cliff.
The Bull Legion, lured to a nearby valley, couldn't stop.
The Bull Legion leader noticed the cliff and desperately tried to stop, but there was no way for the leader to withstand the charging force of the followers coming from behind.
The airship luring the herd shot up into the sky, but the bulls could not fly.
In the end,
Moooo!
Thud! Thud! Thud! Crunch! Crack...!
Over fifteen hundred bulls crashed into the deep valley below.
Without a single exception, they all died, their bodies shattered.
Thus, the thirty-second assault ended without even a proper battle, without even seeing the walls, as the entire Bull Legion fell to their deaths.
After reading the report, Lowe's mouth fell open in shock.
"This... how can this be..."
He had thought his tactic wasn't bad, like declaring "checkmate!" in a chess game by pointing a sword at the enemy's neck.
But the opponent, the human commander... seemed to casually dust off his hands, breaking the sword with a snort, as if countering with, "Nope, dummy."
Still unable to shake off the shock of the humiliating defeat, the aide whispered softly to a trembling Lowe.
"Became the idiot of the offense game..."
"Stop poking at it! Stop mocking me!"
Trembling, Lowe eventually let out a long sigh.
"...I understand now. If we send out a monster legion with conditional but outstanding power, the guardians of humanity will just exploit that condition."
"Ho."
"We need to send out a legion with a consistently high average power, not dependent on conditions."
Lowe had an intuition.
Even if it was a bit of a stretch, it was time to make a bold move.
"For the next assault, the 13th-ranked legion."
A top-tier legion he had been eyeing from the beginning-
"We'll send the Fallen Knights."
At that, the aide looked a bit surprised.
"Can you handle it?"
"..."
"As you know, that legion is too brutal, they might not listen to you."
"Well, somehow with the authority of this royal scepter..."
Lowe asked, sweating,
"...won't it work?"
***
"..."
"..."
Lowe swallowed dryly. The aide behind him also lacked his usual carefree demeanor, looking slightly tense.
The base of the Fallen Knights. A crumbling chapel.
Inside the chapel, at a round table, sat thirteen individuals.
Or rather, what used to be individuals.
Monsters now enveloped in tentacles, blood mist, and slime, who had once been knights of high renown.
At the head of the table,
The Corrupted King - Pendragon, sitting on a throne made of skulls, with a giant greatsword planted in front of him, spoke through the slit of his helmet.
"So."
A voice so evil and terrible it felt like it could corrupt the mind just by listening.
"It's finally our turn, you say?"
--TL Notes--
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