RD 4 Ch 58

It hadn't even been half an hour since I had returned to Tartarus from the fortress and my fight with Vidar before more startling news quickly began spreading.

Mul Branova came rushing towards me, both of them flying like arrows from a bow. They came to a skidding stop, panting as they bent over.

"Lord Bran, forces approach. It's an army," they gasped.

I turned to both of them, stunned. "Demons?"

They both looked at each other and hesitated. "I don't know. They're wearing armor. I haven't seen a whole lot of demons wearing armor. But they're coming out of the ocean. Marching in lines."

"What color is the armor? Demons sometimes wear armor," I mused. It was a rarity in my experience, and usually, there was something else to mark them as not quite humans. I’d seen all sorts of deviations throughout the years of different horns, wings, tentacles, and the like.

"Bright blue? Though I think there were horns on some of them.” She held two fingers on her forehead as an example. “I couldn't tell if the horns were decorative or because there was something underneath them.”

"Either way, pull everyone out of training, and let's greet our new guests," I said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

The Mul Branova sprinted away towards the doors to the first phase of the Trial of Kings, where we had thousands of soldiers fighting. If demons were marching towards us, it wasn't going to end well for them.

Less than a minute later, people came streaming out. Many Mul Branova took a moment to send a crimson tendril of healing towards the others. They quickly began to gather up in their respective forces, lining up and looking like a real goddamn army.

It brought a small tear of pride to my eyes.

Winnie came out with a bunch of her sect in tow. She looked like she was ready for a fight, her icy scythe resting on her shoulder. "Problem?" she asked.

"Wait and see. We don't know if friend or foe," I replied. I stood in front of the powerful welcoming party as the sudden sound of heavy boots thundered through the stone at our feet. That told me that this force was organized, marching as a single unit. Each of their steps was a drum in a band synced perfectly.

That also told me that it was unlikely that the approaching force was demons. Even though the demons could be fairly disciplined as a result of how deeply they feared their superiors, they were never this unified.

The army came marching down to Tartarus, weaving themselves through the collapsed maze.

I stood with my arms crossed, greeting them in a way that I hoped was neither friendly nor unfriendly, but I had enough show of force to gain respect.

As soon as the forces rounded the bend and they began to see me, as well as everyone splayed out behind me, shouts rippled down their line. Commands echoed back and forth in a language I did not recognize before another loud voice boomed over all of them, and the entire force that had to be about eight hundred soldiers stopped on the same step.

"Damn," Circe said beside me. "Who teaches them marching? We should get whatever leads their program to help our people."

I smiled internally but kept my face passive as I used Soul Gaze to gather more information.

The result was an oddity. They weren't demons, but they also weren't humans, at least not completely. It was more accurate to call them half-sea dragons. Their forces stomped as one and stepped to the side, creating a corridor. As soon as the opening was created, three armored figures marched down to greet us, stopping right in front of our forces.

The one standing to the right of the central figure bristled. "Show some respect! You are in the presence of royalty."

I raised an eyebrow, not wavering in my stance. And I heard a huff from behind me before Simone spoke. “You are in the presence of Lord Bran.”

“Kneel before Lord Bran!” all the Mul Branova yelled in unison.

I could tell the enemy forces were particularly confused. Inspects began hitting me by the dozen. But I didn't let a single one of them see my stats. I stood with my arms crossed at the very center of my forces, letting the strength of Circe and Winnie tell a far grander tale of my status than reality.

But the inability to read my stats made the three pause for a moment before the first one stepped forward and swept off their helmet.

Even though all of their chest plates looked identical, it was very clear this was a woman as her helmet came off. She had completely white hair that rolled off her head. Like a massive cresting wave, it messily splayed out to the side before cascading all the way down to her hips. How she kept that much hair up in her helmet was a feminine mystery I would never understand. She had piercing blue eyes with serpent-like slits, and the horns on the helmet were certainly there for a purpose. She had blue horns slightly smaller than those of her helmet prominently coming out of her forehead. I couldn't help but notice that there were matching scales along the side of her neck.

"I am Princess Almeria, chosen by my people to take on one of the mantles as this world's ruler," she said, lifting her chin high.

I tilted my head strangely at her. "Your people were underwater, and you battled the Hell Gate in the sea," I guessed.

She turned slightly to one of the men next to her. He whispered under his breath, speaking quietly to her.

"Ah, demonic invasions, yes, we did fight a Hell Gate; however, it has closed. Our reports indicate that the ones on the surface have not yet closed. Perhaps if you fought as hard as our people, yours would close as well." She held her helmet to the side, and her chin never drooped in the slightest.

"I can guarantee you that your Hell Gate was not deactivated. Have you found the base device?" I had a sudden, ominous feeling.

She frowned and conferred with the two advisors. "There was no device."

"Then it was not turned off. It has been moved," I said pointedly. "We've captured one of them ourselves. It still produces demons but in a controlled environment where they can be simply harvested for experience," I explained, simply for her to understand that we had a solid grasp of how they worked.

I had always wondered what had kept the Hell Gate in the ocean so busy. There had been rich debate amongst people years after. Most assumed, like the other Hell Gates, that there were instances popping up, and perhaps down there had been a particularly vicious instance that the demons had not overcome until well into the Rapture. That was, by and large, the leading theory.

However, there were always those who had pointed out that the Greek and Egyptian gods had turned out to be real after the Rapture. Their theory was that Atlantis was real as well or perhaps the Mayans or the Aztecs could have fallen into the sea. I knew more than one person who had shouldered being called a lunatic for such conspiratorial beliefs.

However, now standing in front of me was a clan of fighters. If this was any indication of their forces, I'd suspect they could rival the existing five clans. And they all carried differing qualities of Sea Dragon bloodline. That was a perfect bloodline for somebody living in the depths underwater where this group likely survived.

And the oceans were so poorly explored it wouldn't take much of an inscription to have hidden them this entire time.

"I see, Princess. Have you come to take the Trial of Kings or, as you said, take up a ruler's mantle?" I asked.

"It will not be a king but a queen," she insisted. "Now, do you stand in my way? Or will we have to force our way past?" She gripped her helmet even more tightly.

I stared at her and then at the Trial of Kings behind me, remembering the one statue that all my previous life's kings had seen empty. Looking back at the princess in front of me, I smiled.

"You're more than welcome. I've been using the front section of the trials as a place to train my forces. After all, unlike you"—I glanced over at her men who appeared to have had a way to mass-initiate their people before the Rapture—"many of ours didn't get initiated until the Hell Gates arrived."

She nodded thoughtfully and this time looked relieved. "I understand.” There was still a bit of hesitation from her.

“Do you have confidence in pushing through the statues to the end?” I asked while also probing to see how much she knew about the trial.

“I should be able to reach it. There is no need to halt your exercise.” She stood proud.

"On the contrary, we'd love you to join it. With our forces together, we can certainly push through the first phase of the trial," I said with a grin. It would be a good chance for me to test my own forces. Besides, I wasn’t sure her people were enough to push through the trial as it was.

This time the princess frowned at me.

"To pass the first trial, you must show you have either the singular strength to be a kingdom in your own right or have a kingdom supporting you." I gestured behind me. "You need an army to pass."

She glanced behind her at the soldiers stacked out in rows, all of them in gleaming blue armor, looking fit for a battlefield. "I have an army."

"Not one big enough. For this, I would happily help combine forces." I suspected that when she had attempted the same in my previous life, she had either lost a good chunk of her men in some sort of reckless effort to get to the end or the events I had changed in this life had altered when they arrived at the trials. I highly suspected the latter. The disappearance of their Hell Gate likely pushed this forward. Otherwise, these forces would almost certainly have been held back to continue defending the ocean.

She glanced momentarily at her advisors. "We accept."

"Wonderful. Welcome in, then." I gestured as if I was inviting guests to my home and stepped back. The rest of my forces behind me made way for what I hoped would be future allies.

In my mind, this was the emergence of a sixth clan. The Demon Lord likely knew about them, but the rest of humanity didn't. And I was ready to create some new relationships and unite our plans.