Catch Up with Them and Kill Them All

In Black Thorn Village, over a thousand demon villagers, under the command and coercion of fully armed soldiers, were moving essential food from their cellars.

Then, with faces full of dread, they were forced away from the village their people had inhabited for generations.

Most of these villagers were stooped elders, women clutching infants, and half-grown children—they shivered, huddled together in the biting cold wind.

The orders brought by the demon soldiers were short and cold: “Move all the food you can carry from the cellars and evacuate immediately!”

At first, fear filled the heart of every demon villager.

The news of the Demon Lord’s defeat had already spread across the land like a plague, and these well-equipped soldiers before them… were they remnants of the Demon Lord’s army?

Or were they opportunistic marauders?

Were they truly the [Demon Lord’s Army]?

No one could be sure.

When the soldiers roughly burst into the cellars and carried out the moonbeam beans, cured meat, and dried fruits they relied on to survive the winter, despair almost made several of the old ones collapse to the ground.

Food was life, especially in these incredibly difficult times.

But the soldiers showed no intention of plundering.

Instead, they were constantly helping to speed up the transfer of necessary supplies and provisions.

The soldiers’ movements were swift, yet surprisingly orderly.

They carried heavy sacks of grain out of the cellars and piled them onto simple carts, even assigning some men to help the slow-moving elderly and children.

There was no looting, no hoarding, only silent and efficient transportation.

“Move faster! The false god’s human lackeys will be here soon!” a soldier who looked like a captain growled, his voice hoarse and weary.

In the midst of the chaos, Old Stone Hammer—a three-meter-tall Blackstone Troll with a face etched by wind and frost—pushed his way to the front of the anxious villagers.

He remembered the Demon Lord’s parting instructions.

He forced what he hoped was a gentle expression onto his weathered face, though the smile looked incredibly strained against the backdrop of his scars.

“Everyone! We are all the Demon Lord’s soldiers! On her orders, we’re getting you out of here! We’re not stealing your food, we’re saving your lives!”

The commotion in the crowd subsided slightly, but the doubt remained deep.

A bold old farmer looked at Old Stone Hammer with trembling eyes and asked, “B-but… the Demon Lord… isn’t she already…”

“The Demon Lord is not dead. The Demon Lord has returned,” Old Stone Hammer replied, his voice firm as hammered iron, his gaze sweeping over the astonished and uncertain faces of the villagers.

“If you don’t believe me, you can leave a few fast-moving young ones behind with us to see.

Half a day! Half a day at most, and the human Holy Church’s crusading army will swarm this place like locusts! And we won’t touch a single thing of yours, not a thread, not a needle!”

“This is the Demon Lord’s command, and these are her exact words.”

Facing the trembling villagers, Old Stone Hammer also remembered the Demon Lord’s teachings.

While helping the villagers move their grain stores as much as possible, he wore a strained smile and spoke to them.

Even under the shadow of her defeat, the authority of the Demon Lord Vivian was still etched as deeply as a brand upon the common demons.

The villagers gathered together, arguing fiercely in low voices.

Finally, a few hot-blooded young demons, their eyes still holding a stubborn light, were chosen to stay behind with the squad of soldiers.

They swallowed nervously, watching their families and fellow villagers, urged on by the soldiers, push the carts laden with grain until they disappeared at the end of the dirt road.

If nothing happened after a day, the villagers could return to their homes.

And so, the young ones who stayed behind waited with the fully armed soldiers, who stared silently into the distance, their hearts pounding with fear.

The young demons stared at the warriors beside them, feeling the thick, murderous aura they exuded, and couldn’t help but swallow hard.

They knew these were true warriors, nothing like the scattered guard posts in their own villages.

At the same time, as they looked at the fine equipment the soldiers wore, a sense of yearning grew within them.

Finally, a cloud of dust that blotted out the sun rose on the horizon.

The dull, rhythmic sound of marching feet rolled in like muffled thunder, growing closer and closer, making the very ground beneath their feet tremble slightly.

A moving ocean of cold iron armor appeared, and at its forefront, a ferocious griffon banner snapped and billowed in the wind.

“They’re here!”

“They’re really here!”

“H-humans!”

The young demons’ eyes went wide as they stared at the human crusading army that had appeared from nowhere, their bodies beginning to tremble uncontrollably.

Galen, at the head of the crusading army, surged up to the broken wooden fence of Black Thorn Village.

The column was terrifyingly silent.

The faces of the soldiers were etched with the fatigue of a long forced march, the shock of continuous harassment, and a thoroughly ignited, almost frenzied desire for revenge.

Their eyes were hollow and savage, like a pack of utterly ruthless, starving wolves.

Galen sat atop his tall warhorse at the very front of the column.

His eyes, which once burned with a cold fire, now held nothing but a bottomless, heart-stopping indifference.

He scanned the dead-silent village before him—the low stone houses, the dilapidated fences, the empty square.

There was no sign of the expected demon army, no trace of traps, not even the slightest hint of a living creature.

There was only the wind, swirling dead leaves and dust in the empty spaces.

“Lord Hero, the village is empty,” his adjutant rode up, his voice tinged with a mix of disbelief and deeper worry.

“Our scouts have checked. The grain and the cellars have all been emptied.”

“Emptied?” Galen’s voice was low and hoarse.

“And the people?”

“The tracks… lead north. They were carrying a large amount of supplies. They can’t have been gone long.”

The adjutant replied in a low voice.

Galen’s gaze slowly swept over the empty houses, and then the corner of his mouth twisted down into an arc of ultimate coldness.

“Heh…”

A cold laugh squeezed out of his throat, a sound that sent a chill down the spines of his adjutant and the surrounding knights.

“Heheh… Haha! Do they think they can escape just by emptying their village and hiding in the wilderness?”

Galen’s voice suddenly rose, filled with the madness of someone pushed past their limit.

“Burn it! Burn it all to the ground! Don’t leave a single piece of wood, a single stone standing!”

“Burn down the nests of these mongrels!”

“Avenge our fallen brothers!”

“Burn it all—!”

The long-suppressed rage and desire for destruction were instantly reignited!

The soldiers let out beast-like roars, their eyes bloodshot as they rushed toward the low stone houses and wooden sheds, touching their torches to one dry thatched roof and wooden doorframe after another.

Flames soared into the sky!

Thick smoke billowed, quickly engulfing the entirety of Black Thorn Village.

Wood crackled and burst in the fire, stone walls glowed red and cracked from the intense heat.

The inferno lit up the sky, dyeing the twilight a sickly orange and illuminating the twisted, savage faces of the crusading soldiers, contorted with fanaticism.

They watched the flames devour the demons’ homes as if they were incinerating the fear and humiliation that had built up in their hearts for days, and let out sick cheers of triumph.

The few young demons stood in the distance, their teeth biting deep into their lower lips as blood mixed with silent tears streamed down their faces.

They watched with their own eyes as the homes their people had lived in for generations collapsed in the inferno, watched as the human soldiers danced like demons from hell in the firelight.

Old Stone Hammer’s large, calloused hand clamped down on the shoulder of a young demon who was about to charge out.

His own bloodshot eyes burned with the same pain and hatred.

When he saw the Demon Lord’s Castle, which his people had toiled so hard to build, reduced to a ruin, Old Stone Hammer had felt this very same pain.

Black Thorn Village was utterly transformed into a dancing sea of fire.

Galen reined in his horse just outside the village, coldly watching the scene of destruction he had personally ignited.

The firelight danced in his cold pupils.

He then looked toward the “north,” the direction the demons had fled.

“Give the order! Forced march! We will catch them, and we will kill them all.”

His voice was cold, without a ripple of emotion.

Then, this exhausted army, driven by vengeance and the will to destroy, once again became a rolling iron tide, pouncing on its next prey.