A Meaningless Attrition

Morgos’s elite troops halted several hundred meters away from Vivian’s old forces, and in an instant, a dead silence enveloped the entire area.

Even the groans of the wounded were subconsciously suppressed.

“Vivian, the Demon Lord of Evernight…”

A voice, hoarse and dry like rubbing decaying wood, rang out, reaching everyone’s ears clearly.

Morgos’s eerie green soulfire flickered, his gaze filled with unconcealed scrutiny and coldness.

“First, as a fellow Demon Lord, I must congratulate you on escaping the Hero’s control and returning to the Demon Clan.

This is undoubtedly a cause for celebration for our kind.

After all, Demon Lords are not born every day.

Every Demon Lord is a precious asset to our race.”

With that, Morgos paused abruptly, his tone becoming exceptionally severe, as if he were interrogating Vivian.

“However, inciting a mutiny, deserting the front line without authorization, killing supervisory nobles… what is the meaning of this?”

Vivian stepped forward alone.

Her figure seemed small before the massive, corrupted landwyrm, and Morgos, looking down from on high, exuded a powerful aura forged by ages.

But Vivian’s own authority as a Demon Lord was as solid as a boulder, unwavering.

“Inciting a mutiny? Hahahaha!”

Upon hearing Morgos’s words, Vivian was silent for a few seconds before bursting into laughter, as if she had just heard a very funny joke.

“Morgos, the Demon Lord of Rot, I see you’ve grown senile in your old age! These are my old forces.

How can you speak of inciting a mutiny?”

After her laughter subsided, Vivian looked directly at Morgos and responded coldly.

“Be that as it may, ever since your defeat, they have pledged their allegiance to me.

They are my warriors now! Since they have accepted my protection, they should obey my commands.”

“Being defeated by the strongest Hero, Lucia, is no disgrace.

But Demon Lord of Evernight, you are the first Demon Lord in the history of our race to be captured alive.

To still interfere with my war at this juncture, where is your pride?

Where is your loyalty to the Demon Clan?

Could it be that it has been corrupted by those lowly humans?”

As he finished speaking, an even more terrifying, ancient power of rot erupted from Morgos!

It pressed down on Vivian so hard she almost took a step back.

A fierce wind whipped her long hair and clothes, but she remained rooted to the spot by sheer force of will.

The initial accusation was somewhat understandable, but Morgos’s subsequent words, accompanied by the terrifying aura he unleashed, were tinged with mockery and anger.

And facing the clearly enraged Morgos, Vivian took another step forward, facing that immense aura of rot all by herself.

“Morgos,” Vivian’s voice was cool and firm, echoing clearly across the empty battlefield, “what is the meaning of this?

I am simply taking back what is mine, protecting my subordinates from becoming dry bones under your foolish strategy of attrition!”

She raised her hand, pointing to the wounded and battered, yet now straight-backed demon warriors behind her.

“This has nothing to do with my pride or my position! This is just a simple, meaningless attrition!”

“Look at them! They were once the most elite warriors of the Demon Clan, my precious blades! My invaluable shadow scouts! Yet you used them as cheap consumables and line-filling cannon fodder!

Thrown into a meaningless meat grinder, just to satisfy your ridiculous fantasy of overwhelming the humans with numbers!

Look at these wounded soldiers! Look at them!

For hell’s sake, is life so worthless in your eyes?!”

Her questioning was powerful, every word striking a chord in the hearts of the thousands of demons behind her.

That’s right, they were the proud blades of shadow, the silent and deadly shadow scouts! Not some trash to be used as line-fillers!

Every Demon Lord, or rather, every powerful demon who ascended to the throne of a Demon Lord, had different abilities and powers they excelled at.

Correspondingly, demons whose abilities were more aligned with theirs would be more willing to submit to a Demon Lord with similar powers.

Vivian, the Demon Lord of Evernight, as her name implied, commanded the power of darkness—

And in the game, aside from conventional line-fillers like goblins and lizardmen, the armies belonging to the Demon Lord of Evernight were more inclined toward shadow powers, including Shadow Demons, Shadowmoon Direwolves, Shadowveiled Foxes, and a whole series of other shadow creatures.

In addition to that, a certain number of female demonic creatures would also follow Vivian, one of the few female Demon Lords, such as the succubi to which Luna belonged.

Of course, this was clearly one of the game’s mechanics.

After all, if two Demon Lords had the same attributes and abilities, it would indeed be a bit boring.

So, for the sake of entertainment, the game specifically added differences in abilities between Demon Lords and a system that tied them to the attributes of demonic creatures, thereby increasing the players’ sense of novelty.

But it was obvious that the elite legions under the Demon Lord of Evernight were not suited for pure frontal confrontations.

They were better suited for night battles, scout infiltration, behind-enemy-lines sabotage, assassinations, and other such operations, not to be thrown onto the front lines as cannon fodder by the likes of Morgos, the Demon Lord of Rot!

‘Damn it, that guy Morgos is doing this on purpose!’

So when Vivian learned that her old forces were being “used” in this way, she was, justifiably, extremely angry.

This was like taking special forces, painstakingly trained and cultivated, and throwing them onto the front lines as cannon fodder.

A terrible waste of resources!

On this point, Vivian’s old forces were also keenly aware.

For them, who were once regarded as elite scouts and blades of shadow, being thrown onto this meat-grinder of a front line as cannon fodder was undoubtedly the most humiliating way to die.

And so, countless gazes, filled with long-suppressed anger and hope, converged on Vivian, and also turned toward the Demon Lord of Rot opposite them.

Morgos’s shrouded face seemed to show no change, but the two points of eerie green soulfire suddenly burned brighter.

The aura of rot intensified abruptly, and a faint crackling sound, as if something were rapidly decaying, could even be heard in the air.

“Precious?”

He let out a harsh sneer.

“War is attrition! The strong prey on the weak; this is the iron law of the Demon Clan! Their value lies in shedding their last drop of blood for the great cause of the Demon Emperor!

Your so-called ‘precious’ is nothing but womanly sentimentality that will only make the Demon Clan weak!

Besides, your old forces have performed their tasks on the front line very well!

It could be said they have exceeded my expectations.”

“Their sacrifices were not meaningless.

Their deaths have nourished my war and paved the road to victory!”

“Weak?”

Vivian sneered, and black demonic flames rose and swirled silently around her, fiercely clashing with the corrupt mana, emitting a sizzling sound.

Then, Vivian’s voice rose sharply.

“Morgos, you are wrong!

True weakness is to be like you, only capable of using the bones of your own kind to build your crumbling battle line!

Are you afraid to face a truly strong enemy, afraid of your own subordinates being sacrificed?

So you can only use such a despicable method to pave your so-called road to victory!?

Answer me!”