Chapter 21 — Demon Prince

With Daiki's death, all the Imperial Soldiers snapped and fell to the ground dead, like a puppet with its strings cut. Countless corpses covered the ground, forming a blanket of flesh. It could be predicted that the clean-up operation would be massive. A team of soldiers parachuted down to Daiki's body to recover it. However, as they got closer, they spotted a strange crack above his body. It looked like a glass crack, except it was floating in the air.

[This is Charlie team, there is a spacial crack above Grand Mage Daiki's body. It may be from a forbidden technique]

The commander of the Dreadnought fleet turned his head, instantly alert.

[All Dreadnoughts be alert! Call reinforces just in case! Charlie team, investigate the crack!]

The team of soldiers raised their guns and cautiously approached the crack.

[It seems to be getting bigger… Wait, I think I see something]

A soldier walked right up to the crack and peered through. Embers started spitting out from the crack.

[I see something! It looks like a de-]

A red claw shot out and pierced through his chest. He choked on his blood and staggered backwards as the claw retracted. The enemy revealed himself, a grotesque demon.

[There's a demon! Engage!]

The team opened fire with their semi-automatic rifles and their bullets shot through the unlucky soldier and the demon, ripping them apart. However, just as it fell down, another demon came out, then another.

[Keep firing, hold out for reinforces to arrive!]

In his command room, Konrad was watching the battle and sensed a fluctuation from his source power. In his last moments, Daiki had summoned a spacial rift and Konrad suspected then to be drawn to his source power. Konrad thought back to the incident of when his encampment got attacked by demons.

[This is not good, I sense a huge fluctuation. Damn that Daiki, I knew I should have just nuked him from the start. Erwin, send the whole army to the spacial rift, including the reserve force!]

Through his months in this world, Private Erwin had stayed as his assistant due to his familiarity. Of course, Erwin was now ranked much higher and was essentially the second most powerful person apart from Konrad. Erwin further delegated the orders down the chain of command.

While the rest of the army and fleet was making a beeline towards the spacial rift, team Charlie was slowly getting overwhelmed. The crack was growing larger and larger, and more and more demons were pouring out of it. However, these demons were stronger and faster, requiring more bullets to take out each one.

[There are too many! We must retreat!]

The commander looked down at the small team slowly getting overwhelmed by the horde and made a decisive decision.

[Only one Dreadnought open fire! We don't need too much firepower now; we might be fighting a drawn-out battle]

A singular Dreadnought opened fire with its cannons. While the commander was talking about saving firepower, that was only relative to the available firepower. The firepower of a singular Dreadnought was anything but weak.

Shells weighing several tons instantly vaporised the land and soldiers around the rift. The cannons fired one after another to keep a continuous output of firepower. Demons exiting from the rift were instantly vaporised. However, the rift seemed to be completely unaffected and just continued to grow larger and larger. By now, the rift had grown to the size of a house and was still expanding.

At this stage, the fast trucks and tanks of the reserve force had arrived. Tanks were dug into the ground and fresh troops poured out of the trucks to set up a semicircle of defences. In the air, battleships arrived and set up a formation as well, ready to target the rift. Now, the rift had expanded to a hundred metres in diameter.

At that moment, every soldier on the ground felt like a terrifying existence was approaching. Their bodies trembled in fear as they clutched their rifles harder. A tall and powerful-looking demon stepped out. If the previous demons were scrapped garbage, then he was the masterpiece. His body showed none of the mutations that were seen in other demons and towered over them with his strong frame of several metres. His slender body was inlaid with perfect muscles that gave him a fatal attraction. Looking through his screen, Konrad murmured that that was what a real demon should look like. With a wave of his hand, all the speeding shells froze in space, motionless.

[So, this is what has been destroying my army. How peculiar. However, I must commend your power]

[All units open fire! Take that demon out!]

The entire army unleashed upon the demon. The demon showed surprise at the firepower displayed and quickly flew up into the air. Casting a spell, the demon opened his mouth his shock.

[How is it possible… How are you all mortals? How are you able to harness this power?]

The army replied by unleashing an inescapable web of firepower. Just like Daiki, the demon felt himself get uncontrollably tossed around. The demon felt endless humiliation. He had come because he felt a power attract him, and he had expected to easily clean up this army. However, he did not expect to find himself in this situation.

[Did I accidentally run into the elves or the forbidden army of some powerful Empire? Dammit, who dares to humiliate the Prince of Hell like this?]

No matter what, he sensed that the mana of this body was running low, and he wouldn't last much longer.

[You're lucky this is only an avatar of my true body! Here, before I go, take my gift! I'll remember you!]

Under the bombardment of countless criss-crossing shells, his body glowed white and rapidly contracted, before exploding in a deafening shockwave. A giant fireball with a radius of 150 metres vaporised anything within it, and a mushroom cloud rose to the sky. The nearby ground army was wiped out, their bodies either being vaporised or torn apart and shattering with the shockwaves. The nearest ships took massive amounts of damage and were sent smoking and spiralling down to the ground, like a giant sledgehammer hit them. All the crew suffered concussions and internal bleeding.

From his command room, a scientist reported his findings.

[Sir, we calculate that the yield of the self-destruction of the demon is equivalent to an 80-kiloton nuclear bomb! The exact number is still being calculated]