Mortis's expression remained unmoving; he only observed the situation below out of the corner of his eye.
Mortis shifted his gaze away from the Demon King's face. His peripheral vision swept over the circular fortress beneath his feet. The Slimes had thinned out by more than half, and the soldiers, treading on ground covered in mucus, were currently exterminating the few remaining enemies.
In some areas that had been dealt with quickly, the runes on the magic towers had already begun accumulating mana.
Time... was on his side.
Only then did Mortis speak to the Demon King: "You were the one who instigated Darion to defect, weren't you? Otherwise, how could that coward who hid in the forest for hundreds of years suddenly dare to storm the Imperial Capital?"
"The North occupying the entire northern part of the Empire—such a massive undertaking, if you aren't the one behind it, could it truly be the work of a Vampire traitor and a bunch of tribes?"
"At this point, what are you still trying to hide?"
"You are too arrogant, still thinking you are that omnipotent Lord Demon King? Today, you are nothing but an incomplete, ruined body, and this... is not your Empire!"
The moment his words fell, the five magic towers within the circular fortress erupted simultaneously with blinding magical brilliance.
The space around the Demon King suddenly solidified into a block, completely nailing his limbs in place.
Tenth-tier magic, [Space Lock]!
A lightning strike, best suited for comprehensively destroying the neural nodes within a fluid body, followed closely behind.
Facing the lethal attack, the Demon King, who should have been completely immobilized, gently twitched his fingertip.
Like plucking an invisible string, the spatial bindings around the Demon King disintegrated in an instant. The incoming lightning took a sharp turn right in front of him, crashing into nearby arrows and exploding into clusters of blinding light.
However, before the smoke and dust had dispersed, under the cover of the magical aftershocks interfering with perception, four outstanding individuals among the Blood Guards charged out from the smoke, thrusting straight at the Demon King surrounded in the middle.
Behind him, five magic crystals rotated simultaneously. A cage of light descended from the void, enveloping three of the Blood Guards. The three of them, maintaining their charging postures, fell stiffly from midair.
But the fourth Blood Guard was not trapped.
The scarlet armor on his body actively burst open, revealing the terrifying body within—facial features skewed, muscles and tendons twisted into lumpy knots.
At the same time, a red light flashed on his chest, accompanied by the shattering sound of an item. The target of the light cage's binding transferred to the armor, while the Blood Guard took advantage of this brief opening to thrust straight at the Demon King's face.
The giant Slime serpent blocked in front of him, opening its mouth to strike.
The massive snake head exploded amidst the sword light, splattering mucus everywhere, but the snake's body seemed completely unaffected. It coiled up from the side, wrapping the exhausted Blood Guard into its torso.
Within the mucus, the Blood Guard still struggled to counterattack. Bursts of explosions echoed inside the snake's body, ruining a large number of Slime cores, but it still didn't allow him to successfully break free.
Even when he completely lost all signs of life, he still maintained a posture of reaching out toward the Demon King.
Mortis watched all of this. His heart didn't experience the slightest fluctuation due to the Blood Guard's sacrifice; he was merely coldly evaluating the Demon King's strength.
On the contrary, it was the Demon King who, looking at the Blood Guard's deformed flesh, let out a sigh.
"Twisting the flesh, suppressing self-consciousness, supplemented by mind control." His voice was not heavy, yet it carried a questioning tone. "Mass-producing subordinates who only obey your orders. Is this how you use the Blood Calamity?"
When speaking of mind control, the Demon King's gaze flicked toward the Succubus Mofrey standing behind the Emperor; the latter subconsciously took a half-step back.
"Mortis, look at your Empire. Slavery, infighting, oppression—what is the difference between this and the overthrown Aurelian Dynasty? Even without this crisis, it would slowly rot away on its own." He paused. "The ridiculous part is, I know this can't even be completely considered your fault."
"Are you trying to show sympathy? Lecturing me with the posture of an old senior?" Mortis's voice was full of disdain. "What are you pretending to be so compassionate for? Do you think I don't know? Back then, you didn't do any fewer of those messy modification experiments using the Blood Calamity."
The corners of his mouth suddenly stretched into a grin, revealing a row of ghastly white teeth, as if something suppressed for too long had finally found an outlet.
"This is exactly how you fooled everyone. Putting on that act, deceiving the old guys into willingly throwing their lives away for you. Even I, before taking this seat, was fooled by you!"
"As for my Empire? Once I kill you, the Empire will naturally continue alongside me into eternity!"
Saying this, Mortis raised both hands high!
"The pinnacle of magic? Let's see what abilities you have left when you run out of mana!"
At this moment, his figure appeared exceptionally towering in the twilight. A tide of blood surged beneath his feet, as if trying to carry him up into the clouds. Following his actions, a rumbling sound came from deep underground.
The Great Anti-Magic Array!
A colossal construct, built at the expense of countless resources and the efforts of countless craftsmen and mages, solely to deal with the Demon King alone!
Taking the entire fortress as its center, it would completely drain all mana within a radius of dozens of miles!
Whether it was a Slime or the Demon King, within this anti-magic domain, they would all be reduced to a pile of mud, at the mercy of others. Mortis raised his arms even higher. The blood tide churned beneath his feet, forming a high platform that supported him as he looked down upon the entire battlefield. The underground rumbling grew louder and louder... and then, nothing happened.
There was no light, no wind, and not a single shred of mana was drawn away.
Those runes buried underground, those magic arrays he had placed such high hopes upon—as if they had never existed at all, they remained silently dormant deep within the leylines.
The wind blew past the blood platform, making his robes flap noisily. He froze there, like a statue that had been forgotten for far too long.
Opposite him, the Demon King did not seize the opportunity to attack. Floating in place, he looked at that figure frozen in midair and remained silent for a moment. When he finally spoke again, his voice actually carried a hint of sympathy.
"You... have other backup plans, right?"
"Shut up!"
Humiliated and enraged, Mortis swung his arm. A sea of blood surged forth, transforming into a towering, monstrous wave of blood that crashed toward the Demon King.
The Demon King did not retreat. Mana surged around his body. There were no flashy transformations, no intricate spellcasting—just the most basic, purest magical explosion.
Layer after layer, it exploded around him, forcibly tearing a rift right through the overwhelming wave of blood.
The blood water cascaded off to both sides, crashing down onto the fortress below and dyeing the entire section of the city wall a dark red.
Deep underground, on top of the heavily damaged Great Anti-Magic Array, Tanaka sat paralyzed beside a shattered rune stone. His tongue lolled out, panting like a dog that had just been fished out of the water.
He tilted his head and glanced at the fox-man beside him, who had very little fur left.
"How come you didn't hide this time, but tagged along instead? Wouldn't it be over if the Emperor came down to check?"
Kiro squatted beside a broken array pillar, his fingers still gently caressing those destroyed patterns. "He won't have the chance to come down."
"The gap is that huge?" Tanaka raised an eyebrow. Changing his posture to lean his back against the cold rock wall, he looked at the completely darkened runes overhead and suddenly asked again, "By the way, if we hadn't dismantled this anti-magic array, would the Demon King have lost?"
"No. But more than half of the Empire's elites up there would suffer casualties. We still have to deal with those Puchis later, and we wouldn't have enough manpower."
Above, on the messy battlefield, Mortis suddenly abandoned his strategy of relying purely on the sea of blood for attrition, and fiercely closed in on the Demon King.
The giant Slime serpent attempted to block him. From behind Mortis, several blood spikes shot out. Less than three seconds after piercing into the giant serpent's body, a dark red color bled outwards, killing all the Slime cores within.
Looking at the Demon King, who was close at hand, a glint flashed in Mortis's blood-red pupils.
[Envy]
At the same time, he also used his final trump card.
* * *
"Mofrey!"
The next moment, Mortis's hand pierced through the Demon King's chest. Deadly toxins poured in endlessly, wantonly destroying the various neural nodes within the Demon King's fluid body. Like stars being obscured by dark clouds, the Demon King's body, which had been bright from the abundance of mana, gradually dimmed down.
(End of Chapter)
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