Chapter 123: Rogue

With a hiss, Flynn lunged at me. Before he could reach me, my ice dragon's tail whipped out and caught his body, flinging him across the ruins of the town.

Before he could rise to his feet, my ice dragon slammed a talon down upon him, crushing him onto the ground. Flynn writhed underneath the colossal weight, but he possessed far greater strength than the queen.

He swung his claws and shattered my ice dragon's talon, freeing himself. His scorpion tail lashed out and pierced a huge hole through the staggering ice dragon before he slashed at his snout. My ice dragon snarled and swatted him away.

Crossing his arms, Flynn managed to absorb the blow, even though he was sent skidding several meters back. With a huff, he slashed at the ice dragon once more, chipping more fragments from his ice body. My ice dragon bellowed in agony before striking back, but Flynn darted away with a speed that belied his size.

Twisting around, he counterattacked with his scorpion-like tail and smashed a hole through the ice dragon. My familiar retreated, his broken wounds slowly mending and regenerating. Ice froze once more over the holes that had been blown through his limbs and body.

Flynn charged at my ice dragon once more, hoping to obliterate him before he could regenerate further. My ice dragon ducked under the blow before lashing out with his tail, but Flynn managed to jump over it. His eleven-ton body somehow defied gravity before he lashed out, gouging a chunk of ice from my dragon's tail.

The Lord of Flies stabbed my ice dragon once again with his scorpion-like stinger, boring another hole in his huge body, but my familiar retaliated with a swipe, knocking the heavily mutated insect aside. Flynn grunted and rolled to his feet, lashing out once more with his tail, only for my ice dragon to swipe it aside with his claws.

With a roar, my ice dragon unleashed his freezing breath (or Cocytus Breath). Flynn tried to dodge, but he was stopped cold by the Cocytus Breath. His legs and tail were frozen to the ground, entombed in ice. The Lord of Flies yelled and yanked his lower body off the ground, only for it to shatter.

"No! How?!"

The acidic blood that now flowed through his veins were immediately frozen by the extreme temperatures, unable to corrode anything. The ice dragon rose above him before pulverizing him with his claws. Blood spurted from Flynn's mandibles and he gurgled, but a combination of half-frozen acidic blood and his remaining claws shattered the ice dragon's talon.

Hissing, my ice dragon withdrew the remnants of his limb. He continued to bath Flynn in that titanic Cocytus Breath of his, freezing the rest of the Lord of Flies' body.

"That should stop him cold," I remarked, observing the frozen Flynn. His compound eyes seemed to glare up at me, but I couldn't tell if he was conscious. The formerly red compound eyes were now coated in azure frost.

Looking around, I could see the monsters gathering around me. With their king and queen defeated, they only had vengeance left.

Too bad I wasn't going to stick around and play with them. Now that I had confirmed the elimination of the king and queen, I could finally enact scorched earth protocols. Eh? Was it scorched earth, though? Maybe it was elimination protocols. Whatever.

"Ugh…"

Oh, that wasn't completely true. I turned to look at Flynn. His frozen mandibles clacked ever so slowly and a groan rattled from his throat. He was still alive, but barely. I found myself impressed by his tenacity.

However, I wasn't going to let him go.

"You'll have to pay the price for your petty rebellion," I told him. I wasn't sure if he heard me, but if he could, then all the better. Instead, I turned back to the monsters that were closing in one me from all over. This wasn't good.

There had to be hundreds of them.

Well, I didn't intend to do a famous last stand. I quickly rushed toward my ice dragon, who was regenerating his broken claws and wounds. Clambering onto his back, I had him take off and soar high into the skies. The creatures leaped at me with shrill, frustrated shrieks, but none of them succeeded in catching me or my ice dragon.

"So long, suckers!" I yelled at them before urging ice dragon to speed away. While I did so, I snapped my fingers and activated all of the massive magic circles that I had inscribed in Gunnison Town. The sewers, the school and the hospital…the runes and circles I had inscribed in there flared brightly.

Down below, the xenomorphs spun about, taken aback by the sudden glow of the magic circles. They instinctively backed away, but it was too late.

The magic circles went critical and the entire town vanished in a colossal conflagration that mushroomed toward the heavens. Superheated flames roiled about, spreading to five miles in radius and swallowing the whole town, leaving a crater that was about several hundred meters deep. Sand immediately turned into glass, and everything within the vicinity disintegrated instantly from the sheer heat.

Nothing survived. The hive, the xenomorphs, even the few townsfolks who failed to escape from the town before I nuked it. Trees, weeds, grass, plants…even the insects and vermin that dwelled in the shadows. Every single living organism was consumed by the nuclear fires and vaporized.

Similarly, the structures crumbled to ash and soot. Houses disappeared, rendered into nothing but ash, and entire buildings ceased to exist.

The townsfolk who did survive – in particular the adventurer mother, her daughter and the brave folks who armed themselves at the armory – caught sight of what they later described as a second sun. They had nearly gone blind, but they squeezed their eyes shut and turned away in reflex. None of them suffered anything worse than blisters, being as far away as they were but still close enough to witness the calamitous event.

The flames continued to burn for another half-hour, raging as they engulfed everything in the region. Then black rain began to fall, the clouds above disturbed by the large-scale spell and forced to unleash their payload from the heavens. The fires were eventually extinguished, but all that was left of Gunnison Town was a blackened crater of glass and scorched earth.

As my ice dragon hovered near the edge of the explosion, I could feel the intense heat still shimmering from the crater. Activating my enchanted glasses, I scanned the entire region and was satisfied that nothing had survived. I detected no life-signs at all. Every xenomorph had been eliminated, without exceptions.

Flynn also didn't survive. I could detect a tiny trace of his mana signature in the epicenter of the blast – he was right next to the magic circle that I had inscribed directly outside the hospital, after all. But of his physical body, there was nothing.

He was most definitely dead.

"All right. Time to go."

Once I confirmed that my mission was accomplished, I had my ice dragon fly off somewhere. He dropped me off before we could reach the nearest town, vanishing from reality before anyone could see him. Not only did I not want to get caught flying around on top of an ice dragon and bringing the wrath of humans in the Havan Kingdom upon myself, I also didn't have much mana left.

Maintaining the physical manifestation of an existence as powerful as my ice dragon was no joke. It was a draining task and cost a lot of mana. The longer I tried to keep him materialized in this world, the more mana he would suck out of me.

As such, by the time I landed near the nearest town, I was half-dead from exhaustion. I decided to camp out for the day, hiding somewhere at the edge of the forest. Casting a spell to keep away bugs – I had enough of these insidious insects – I then went to sleep.

It took me two weeks before I finally returned to the Demonic Empire. When I reached the southern territories that shared a border with the Havan Kingdom, I managed to get in contact with my allies and arranged for faster transportation.

By then I learned about the fate of the insect legion.

"We have exterminated them, my lord," Ragios reported proudly. I nodded and lowered my head.

"Thank you. You've been of a great help."

"I must say that it's actually thanks to you," Lindley said. I turned to him quizzically and he raised a hand to explain. "The insect legion fell apart about a day after you left. They were disorganized, chaotic and in a disarray…as if they had lost all sense of cohesion and leadership. I presume that you were the one who slew their Divine General, Flynn."

"That's right," Silvia agreed. "A few days later, we heard about the incident in Gunnison Town – how it was invaded by various monsters – and its subsequent destruction by a large-scale spell. We knew it had to be you."

"No one else would nuke a town," Stella said, amused. "Well done, my liege."

"Nah, I didn't do much…"

"What are you talking about?" Eleanor scoffed. "You singlehandedly cleaned up the mess that Flynn created. You took on an entire hive of those…things by yourself and exterminated them. Not to mention, you directly responded to Flynn's challenge and slew him in open combat. If that doesn't cement your authority as the current Demonic Emperor, then I don't know what does."

"Great job, my lord." Claude was beaming. Beside him, Valerie nodded in approval.

"You did well."

"We cleaned up the insect legion too," Ragios said. "Now there are only eleven Demonic Legions left. Seven have yet to pledge their allegiance."

"It will only be a matter of time," Larson pointed out. "When they have seen how we destroyed one of the legions, the rest will begin to follow us."

"…if only it's that simple." Eleanor sighed. Everyone turned to look at her and she grimaced. "Sorry for pouring rain on your parade, especially after such a significant victory, but I do have news regarding the League of Shadows…and the Shadow Legion."

"They sound like the same thing," I remarked with a frown. Eleanor giggled.

"That's because they are."

"What?" Stella blurted out in disbelief, her eyes wide. The blond strategist shrugged before sighing.

"Yeah. As it turns out, the League of Shadows is the Shadow Legion. They have been working together as a single entity this entire time, having networks in both the Demonic Empire and the Havan Kingdom. Their members consist of both demons and humans, all of them specializing in shadow magic and/or assassinations."

"Are you sure the Lord of Shadows has no intention of bending his knee to our lord?" Stryker asked Eleanor suspiciously, his arms folded. The strategist nodded.

"They have sent out a hit list…with our lord being the top target. Several million gold for his head."

"That's not good," I muttered, displaying my penchant for making understatements. Once again, Eleanor nodded grimly.

"Yeah, it isn't. And being an organization of assassins, you can guess what their next move will be."

Stella surged to her feet, slamming her palms against the table. "It can't be?! They plan to assassinate our liege?!"

"We will do our best to protect our lord," Claude said automatically. Valerie frowned.

"But we can't just wait in the castle forever."

"I say we take the fight to the enemy," Larson suggested, a hotheaded as ever. Stella nodded in agreement.

"The League of Shadows, the Shadow Legion, whatever…we'll kill them all, as we did the insect legion."

"While I admire your courage," Eleanor said carefully. "I do not believe it is as simple as you make it sound to be. The Shadow Legion is the most mysterious of all the demonic legions, and I have no idea where their main base is. The identity and whereabouts of their Divine General, Sheldon Umbra, is shrouded in complete mystery."

I still remembered the dude when we first met in front of the previous Demonic Emperor, Viledoofus. Indeed, he was quite the shadowy fella. I couldn't even remember any of his features - they were completely concealed by his cloak. All I knew was that he commanded phantoms. And now it seemed that he also commanded human assassins?

The next target on my list of revenge…Alan Assam. Of course. I knew the guy was in the League of Shadows. Seemed like he wasn't uninvolved in all this. If I located the Shadow Legion/League of Shadows, I would find Alan.

And then I would kill him. Kill two birds with one stone. Excellent.

Taking a deep breath, I straightened my spine and swept an authoritative gaze across the conference room, meeting the eyes of all my subordinates.

"Regardless, we have to track them down and flush them out. If they come, we'll beat them. Then we will continue looking for them until we find their lair…and wipe every single one of them out."

"Sounds good to me." Ragios nodded. He grinned. "Let's start hunting them down."