Imperial Invasion

A/N: I know the whole Eastern Empire Invasion Arc is huge in the LN and WN, but I'm going to be skipping over the majority of the story and fights that take place here because Alaster simply doesn't care about it.

.~.~.~.

The Empire's invasion was swift and brutal. Hundreds of thousands of infantry charged over the fields of battle, each one armed with a magic rifle and magisteel blade. In a bit of dramatic irony, the Empire's forces were actually a bit stronger now than they were in the Web Novel I read.

The basic infantry didn't have the ability to rely on advanced Magic Suppressors like in canon, nor did they have tanks or a fleet of armored airships they could use as support. This was a bit of a blessing in disguise, though, as because they weren't reliant on those trinkets, they had a better sense of combat and were better able to adjust to the situation at hand.

The Empire's Three-Front Assault took everyone off guard by just how brutal and fast it was. Dwargon had been severely defeated in open battle and was reduced to a siege of their capital in only three days. Amrita was barely hanging on by a thread in the Evergreen Fortress they'd created and already hundreds of Elves had lost their lives while thousands more were injured.

Tempest faired the best. Having an all-monster military, a forested defensive position and a safety-first doctrine with world-class first aid tend to do that though.

Rimuru dispatched the Demoness Trio, one to each battlefield, to aid his allies during this time. Milim sent Carrion and Frey to Amrita while Lilith sent Astaroth and Scar to Dwargon for added potency in case someone strong showed up.

Unfortunately, unless something atrocious happened, like Amrita being overrun by the Empire and they began massacring and raping the civilians, I wasn't going to interfere with this war. It was a battle of Guy's vs Rudra's pieces going on now, as three Demon Lords were on the defense against Rudra's Empire. It didn't get much more cut-and-dry than that.

Thankfully, my job wasn't to fight on the front line, it was to defend the Southern Coast from any Insectar Invasions which could pop up while the World Council military was focused on the Eastern Empire. They didn't want to be overrun by Insectars while being overrun by the Empire, so they begged me to take that job.

Well, they also begged me to defeat Rudra personally, but I declined, stating my policy of not getting involved in wars between human nations that I had just made up.

Thankfully, Zelanus DID actually try to pull a fast one on us at that time, so it wasn't like I was idle either and was being kept busy. I thought it was a little odd that Zelanus would send as many bugs after me as he did though. It was almost like the majority of the insectar military power was focused on the one beach I was defending.

Now if this was me from BEFORE I'd acquired [Parallel Existance], then I might have been in trouble and unable to fully participate in anything that was happening, but thankfully I DID have that broken skill now, so I was able to keep watch just as easily as if Zelanus had decided to stay home that day.

It took me a while, but Velzard was able to hack into Ramiris' Labyrinth skill to see what was going on inside, and man was THAT shocking.

I saw Rimuru straight-up die.

He was pierced through his core by one of Masayuki's friends Jiu while Bernie fought with Benimaru trying to kill Masayuki. Somehow, they were wielding Ultimate Skill-level powers too, which was odd, as they definitely weren't strong enough for them.

<<I just checked, and it's not a Real Ultimate Skill, it's the Ultimate Enchantment [Alternative]. It also has the subskill [Presence Concealment] at the Ultimate Level, so passive searching skills will not notice it.>> Velzard informed me.

I almost panicked, thinking I'd have to step in to save Rimuru's soul from being destroyed, but thankfully Rimuru was smarter than them and more paranoid than me. He had hidden a [Parallel Existance] body inside his stomach and was able to survive the attack, as it didn't have [Space-Time Continuous Attack] properties.

I was so happy I decided to give him that Skill on a whim. /1\

Rimuru was able to spit himself out and swiftly dealt with Jiu while Benimaru finished off Bernie. Diablo would later hunt them down and kill them both but I wasn't too concerned about that and turned my attention to the southern front.

Amrita's defenses at Evergreen Fortress were almost broken by the Magic Beast Corp, led by Gradim and his unit, but couldn't thanks to the timely arrival of Carrion and Frey's reinforcements. I didn't care much for their battle, but apparently, Carrion was the brother of Gladim and Frey was sisters with Nazim, so their battles were more impassioned than usual. I mostly ignored it, but when I sensed that Carrion and Frey were awakening after killing their kin, I was a bit shocked, and out of respect for their hard work, decided to place them inside an unbreakable barrier similar to [Unlimited Imprisonment] until they finished their evolutions.

<<You just didn't want Milim to be sad she lost her subordinates, didn't you?>> Velzard added.

'No comment'. I replied, turning my attention to the assault on the Labyrinth.

I was able to witness several hundred thousand troops being killed and having their souls ripped out of their bodies by Rimuru and his subordinates. It was actually quite a cruel sight to watch, but then again, I didn't feel much for the soldiers fighting in a war of aggression, so I made no move to stop what was happening. The Eastern Empire did not practice conscription and had a professional military, so all the people there were volunteers. They chose to fight, so that means they must now live with the consequences of that decision.

The only 'interesting' fight I saw there was the rematch between Kurama and Kansas. I wondered how he had changed from the stomping I gave him earlier, and it appears he had changed quite a bit. He was stronger, but not just in physical or magical stats. His demeanor had changed and he seemed a bit more cautious and calculating than he was during his encounter with myself. As a testament to that he even managed to deal lethal damage to Kurama with his beasts. Unfortunately, he wasn't nearly as humbled as I thought he was, because he approached her while she was dying to 'claim' her for himself via use of his ability, but lethal damage to a monster doesn't mean it would stop fighting, so Kurama managed to double-knockout against Kansas using a suicidal charge when he got close and ripped him to shreds with her tails before dying herself.

Of course, being in the Labyrinth, she came back a few moments later, but still. It was a rather impressive display of endurance that she held on for as long as she did and proved just how much stronger she was than before.

I was mildly concerned when Carrera used {Gravity Collapse} magic on the formations of the Empire's military. If she didn't manage to contain it, the planet itself would have suffered catastrophic levels of damage from the attack and a good portion of Jura would be a crater right now. I thought, for a moment, I'd have to step in myself, but thankfully I didn't have to.

By the time I was done watching the Eastern Empire get their ass kicked, I was standing ankle-deep in a pool of insectar blood and the normally blue ocean was now a deep green color. My entire body was caked head-to-toe in insectar blood and I stunk to high heaven, so I made my way back to my tent.

Apparently, according to the garrison, I'd killed more insectars in a single afternoon than all other previous invasions combined. I felt kinda bad telling them that I wasn't really even paying attention to the fight when they were looking at me with so much praise, so I decided to tell them I was just 'doing my job', which got them to worship me even harder. /2\

'Sigh. It's tough being so popular...' I lamented to myself.

<<Well Mr. Popular, what are you going to do about Rimuru now? He almost died today. If everything goes like in the Web Novel, then he'll probably be evolving his subordinates as True Demon Lords, right?>>

'Probably.' I commented while shrugging my shoulders. 'Well, it's not like even a True Demon Lord can pose a real threat to us now, right? Even Guy hasn't been able to beat us, and that was before you did your upgrades with my skills' I mentioned.

<<True, but even with [Absolute Defense], if you get hit with a strong enough [Ultimate Skill], say something out of the Lovecraftian Series, you'd definitely still feel it.>> Velzard commented.

'That's what my adorable wife is there for! Keeping her poor hubby out of harm's way!' I teased back and I felt Velzard in Manas form somehow roll her eyes.

<<I guess I gotta protect my man after all.>> Velzard sighed in an amused manner.

I smiled snapping my fingers and erasing all the dirt and grim build-up on me from today's fighting before stepping into the bathtub and sinking into it up to my shoulders.

"Aahhhhh..." I let out a long relaxed sigh as I lay back before opening my eyes and embarrassing my naked wife who decided to appear. I opened my arms wide, allowing her to fall into my embrace as I pulled her in close.

Neither of us said even a word to the other. We simply closed our eyes and relaxed there in comfortable silence...

"That hard thing touching me better be a soap bottle," Velzard commented with a sultry smile on her face.

"Oh, it's not. Its REALLY not," I smugly responded with a savage grin.

.~.~.~.

/1\:

In MY canon, Alaster giving Rimuru [Parallel Existance] on a whim when he did was what broke Chronoa's cycle.

/2\: This attack was to keep Alaster preoccupied and unable to help fight against the Eastern Empire. If it was the Alaster from before getting [Abhoth], he'd have spent several days fighting these insectars just due to the sheer quantity of them and would be too distracted to notice the play Michael is making to dominate Veldora and Velgaia.

Feldway doesn't know Alaster's gotten much stronger since Veldanava's disappearance and doesn't know he has [Parallel Existance], so he is making plans based on outdated information and Michael looks down on Alaster due to being an 'Outside Entity', having inherited some of the World System's animosity to Alaster.