Chapter 58: Crushing Hope

Whoosh!

"General, look out!"

Thud!

While Maes Copperhammer was still stunned, an attendant he had personally raised up threw himself at him and took the abyssal fire on his own back.

The next moment, the loyal attendant was struck and died screaming before Maes’s eyes.

In less than two seconds, half the poor man’s body had turned to paste, and his organs had been burned into some foul-smelling liquid.

"You bastard!"

Seeing it, Maes finally lost his temper.

He knew he should not act on impulse at the most critical moment, but the gruesome death of someone so close still drove him to the peak of rage.

Gripping his huge copper hammer, he ignited his battle aura and wrapped his whole body in it.

Then he left the attendant’s corpse behind and charged at Karolith, the Imp Matriarch.

That was how battles between ordinary creatures and demons usually went.

Either the ordinary creatures were shaped by the demons’ cruelty, and grew timid and afraid. Or they were tempted by it, and became as brutal as the demons themselves.

But Maes’s attendants showed extraordinary courage at that moment.

These warriors, who had once sworn to fight for the general, split into two groups. One group held back Maes, who was ready to throw his life away. The other ran ahead of him and charged at Karolith, who wanted them dead just as badly.

But sadly...

The enemy the second group faced was not Karolith, nor the abyssal earth dragon beside her.

Their true enemy was the lord of the Abyss who commanded both of them.

The instant the dwarf attendants began their brave charge, Koda, with War Sight, had already seen the path each of them would take.

So Koda split his attention for a moment and personally directed about a dozen imps to stand in front of Karolith.

Every time one of the dwarf attendants swung his weapon, an imp appeared right in its path at the last moment and spoiled the strike.

And every time one tried to shift his position, an imp would "precisely" block the way he wanted to go, leaving him unable to move.

Every attack had been read by Koda.

Karolith was delighted. She hardly needed to attack at all. One slap for each, and the dwarves, who were dizzy and baffled around her, were knocked out cold.

She could have killed them outright, but she would not.

Because in her twisted, evil mind, a living dwarf tasted better than a dead one.

Especially when it struggled inside her huge mouth...

* * *

"General, we can’t hold on any longer!"

"More and more demons have broken through our defense and are pouring into the main part of the kingdom’s passage."

The attendants of the first group, the ones who had held back their general, said in a panic.

"No matter how angry you are, don’t forget you are the commander!"

"Only you can lead the rest of the brothers out of here. They must not die for nothing. There are thousands of lives here!"

Hearing that, Maes Copperhammer finally came out of the savage rage that the demons’ infection had stirred in him.

He lifted his head and looked at the battle around him.

His attendants were right. The fight for the kingdom’s passage was already over.

The demons had won.

One position after another was cleared by demons, and one warrior after another was seized and slaughtered. Though many dwarf warriors had already fallen to their knees and begged for mercy under the demons’ cruelty, many others were still fighting to the death for their kingdom.

If he died here, all of their sacrifices would be for nothing.

Rather than let everyone die here, it was better to lead the army in retreat, set up a second line behind them, and wait for reinforcements.

After all, the demons’ invasion of the kingdom’s passage was not yet deep. If the reinforcements were numerous enough...

The dwarves still had hope of taking this passage back!

With that thought, Maes finally gave the order, calling the surviving warriors to him so they could pull out.

But...

The thing Koda, who understood war so well, was best at, and enjoyed most, was putting out the enemy’s hope!

The moment Maes gave his order, the mind that would deliver countless wars to the Abyss had already noticed everything.

* * *

A few minutes earlier.

Inside the lord’s territory.

"Excellent. The corrupted earth dragon really does suit my army now."

After seeing the corrupted abyssal earth dragon cut a bloody path in its very first battle, Koda nodded with satisfaction.

It was costly, and it could only be made in the Bloodline Corruption Chamber. It was strong and heavily protected against blows, its scales were proof against ordinary flame, and its abyssal fire scorched an enemy and kept eating into him for three terrible seconds.

Even so, the abyssal earth dragon had truly filled the one gap in Koda’s army, the lack of a siege breaker.

The Hatching Pools could make demon warriors better suited to sieges than the dragons, but Koda did not yet have the rare materials to make them.

So in every way, the abyssal earth dragons suited Koda’s situation now.

But just as Koda was studying how the dragons performed in the field, looking for better ways to use them...

The dwarf general, Maes Copperhammer, began to retreat.

"Hm?"

Koda opened his crimson, slit-pupiled eyes and looked at the battlefield.

"That’s a little different from what I expected. This crude commander did not choose to fight to the death..."

"Was he stopped by his own men?"

Koda noticed the attendants around Maes. They had disrupted the general’s original plan.

"Heh, so you still have hope, and you plan to set up a second line."

"What a pity. Hope is a thing..."

On his throne, the lord of the Abyss smiled faintly.

"That exists to be broken!"

"The more you cling to hope as your lifeline, the easier it is to fall into the abyss of despair."

"Since you hold on to hope so fiercely, I want to see your face when that hope turns into despair!"

On the battlefield, as countless orders were given anew, the imps’ movements slowly began to change.

And to Maes’s eyes, those changes seemed strange.

Because...

These imps, who did every evil thing, seemed to have slowed their slaughter without meaning to.

But how could that be?