The Fiend's Creation System

Hope and Despair 2

It was supposed to be an ordinary day today for the citizens of Redgrove City. They were just going about their business like usual and enjoying their day without a care in the world.

At least, that was until the city’s bell tower began ringing. Normally, the bell tower would ring 3 times during the wee hours of the morning, indicating that it was 6 o clock. Right now, it was already past midday and the bell tower just rang a few hours ago.

It shouldn’t ring until later in the evening so for it to ring now could only mean one thing, and that was a monster attack.

“Everyone, get inside the city!”

“Send the guards to escort the farmers and other townsmen outside into the city and have the civilians evacuate into the underground shelters!”

“Defensive procedures are already underway. The acting city lord has already sent an emergency quest to the mercenary and adventurer guilds.”

Julius was flying in the air and looking down at the city. His one thousand plus fiends were already rushing towards the city but it would take them some time to get here. There were only around 100 with him right now, but it was enough to cause the humans some panic since Julius could see that the guards were frantically escorting everyone into the city and the normal civilians were already evacuating.

He took note of their actions and adjusted his fiends’ movements accordingly. Julius made sure that his fiends killed all of the humans that were too far away from the city and were trying to run away into the forest or plains nearby.

They wouldn’t be able to run or hide especially since Julius had such a convenient tool for detection like his system’s map.

He spared no one and made sure all of the red indicators on his map disappeared. Once he was sure that no human stragglers were outside of the city, Julius turned his attention towards the city walls where all of the guards wielding bows and magic were gathered.

There were some defensive weapons like ballistae, arrow cannons, artillery cannons, and magic cannons situated on the walls. It would be suicide if Julius had his fiends rush towards the walls.

Now he understood why the humans didn’t evacuate their non-combatant people outside of the walls. With such a tight and powerful defense, it would be illogical to have their people evacuate outside.

The wealth the previous city lord had amassed hadn’t only been put into his pockets. He had invested quite a bit into the city’s defenses. It wasn’t only those defenses on the walls but Julius felt that there was a large surge in mana before the city slowly became enveloped in a thin layer of transparent blue film.

“A magic barrier?”

[Alert: The magic barrier erected around the city has a power of 10,000 MP. It is impenetrable in normal circumstances.]

“How do I break it?”

[The homunculi can devour the mana that’s sustaining the barrier.]

“...The only problem would be those humans. They wouldn’t just sit around and watch our forces destroy their barrier…”

Julius looked down on his forces and saw that they were only waiting for his orders. His remaining fiends were still on their way so he had to make do with what he had right now.

“...Hahahahaha, why am I thinking about this so complicatedly?”

He had about 30 or so homunculi with him while the remaining were Mimics and Fiend Soldiers.

“I’ll have to sacrifice a few Mimics and Fiend Soldiers...but it won’t matter. I need those sacks of blood and flesh for Eisha!”

Julius ordered his Mimics and Fiend Soldiers to charge. The mimics were transformed into different kinds of monsters which added to the versatility of Julius’s forces. The steel-armored centrochelys that they encountered in the Shifting Hallows that the mimics had transformed into were placed at the very forefront with the rest following behind. The aerial-type mimics didn’t need to wait as they flew into the air and began sending attacks on the magic barrier.

They used all sorts of wide area spells that they obtained from their transformation. It was a futile attempt to try and break down the magic barrier but their purpose wasn’t for that. They just needed to distract the humans so that the homunculi would be able to do what they were made for at this moment.

“Get to work,” Julius ordered the rest of his army.

The homunculi immediately got busy as they began to upturn the earth and dig underground. The humans’ vision was being obscured by the attacks of the Mimics and Fiend Soldiers.

Julius was still in his Metamorphosis form and he was looming in the air above them. He didn’t participate in the battle just yet so the humans didn’t notice him. If they looked up, they would have immediately seen him but with the fiends attacking them down below, they couldn’t spare any of their attention away from the immediate threat.

However, after seeing the attacks of the monsters deal almost nothing to the magic barrier, the humans became smug and began attacking Julius’s fiends. Their ballistae and arrow cannons began shooting at the fiends while the artillery cannons began shooting a few rounds at them.

The magic cannons weren’t used because the ammo was too precious and seeing that the monsters weren’t able to do anything to the magic barrier, the humans weren’t in a hurry to defeat them.

It was a big mistake because once the homunculi tunneled under the ground and made it to the front lines of the battle and began devouring the mana of the magic barrier, it would be too late for regrets then.

Julius sneered when he saw the humans’ lackadaisical defense. Their weaponry was indeed powerful, but the steel-armored centrochelys that were tanking all of these attacks weren’t fazed one bit.

All the attacks just bounced off of their shells and there were 5 of these mimics present on the battlefield. It was the first time the humans were seeing such monsters since they were unique to the Shifting Hallows, but even though their attacks weren’t doing anything to them, the large land amphibians had to remain stationary with their vulnerable parts like their head and legs tucked away inside their shells.

The only things they had to worry about were the other monsters and the gray humanoid ones but they weren’t able to damage the magic barrier so it was fine.

It took some time, but the homunculi were able to tunnel their way through the ground just below the magic barrier. Unfortunately, the magic barrier extended through the ground and formed a protective sphere around the city.

Julius hoped that it would only form some kind of hemisphere but that wasn’t the case. However, it still didn’t change his plans. The homunculi began attaching their tentacles to the magic barrier and began devouring the mana sustaining it into their bodies.

Each homunculus had a limit of how much mana they could devour but with fiendish cries and screeches echoing from deep within the forest...Julius no longer had to worry about his homunculi being unable to tear down the magic barrier surrounding the city.

The humans also heard the hellish cries from deep within the forest and when a scout took a closer look into the distance, he noticed that numerous monsters had broken through the treeline and were rushing towards their city.

“Oh my god!”

“Ready the magic cannons! Focus fire on the ones farther away!”

“Quickly clear out the ones in front of us! We can’t―What the hell is that?!”

One of the guard captain’s shouting orders soon took notice of Julius who was hovering in the air and slowly floating down. His fiendish appearance struck fear in all who dared lay eyes on him.

There was a sneer on his face as he lowered down onto the ground. 

“I hope you humans are ready to face the consequences of harming my wife…”

None could understand what he meant, but they didn’t need to. What they clearly understood was that the large, winged demon before them was set on attacking them.

“You’ll never make it past this barrier, demon!”

“...I’m not so sure about that…”

When the rest of Julius’s army arrived, the homunculi immediately tunneled underground before making their way to the magic barrier and devouring its mana.

The magic barrier’s light began to dim as the mana sustaining it continued to deplete. The mages inside the city quickly took notice of this and began resupplying the mana with their own, however, it could only do so much. 

With Julius’s entire army here, the homunculi were able to quickly deplete the magic barrier’s mana while the other fiends tore it down with their attacks. The humans’ magic cannons were being used now but it couldn’t stop the fiends from breaking the barrier.

When the magic barrier broke, the mages that were still trying to pour their mana into immediately received the backlash. They could immediately set it up again, but the magic barrier took some time to reinitiate.

The downtime was enough for all of Julius’s fiends to surge towards the city walls. They started climbing up the walls using the armored centrochelys as footholds.

Julius laughed thunderously as he watched his minions scale the walls and immediately attacked the humans in a frenzy. He rose into the air and shot a shot down the people that were manning the various weaponry on the walls.

He didn’t destroy the weapons since they were going to be his after he exterminated all of the humans within the city.

“Go, kill them all! Leave none of these pathetic creatures alive!”

One of the centrochelys smashed down the gates and the rest of Julius’s army poured into the city. They search and killed all of the humans within the city and made a beeline towards the underground shelters.

Julius flew over the city and began searching for the underground shelters’ entrances. He soon found one and had his fiends gather before he blew open the entrance with a few rounds of his Wind Arrow.

He saw the pale-faced humans inside trembling in fear when they saw him. Julius felt that they were pitiful but that only lasted for a split second before he apathetically ordered his fiends, “Kill them.”

The entire city was washed with blood as Julius’s fiends infiltrated the humans’ rabbit holes and snuffed out their existence. The city was cacophonous as the humans’ terrified death cries rang through the air.

Julius was hovering in the skies just above the city taking all of this in apathetically. He felt no remorse for what he did and only calculated the gains he received as his resources began piling up. 

[+150 Flesh]

[+100 Blood]

[+150 Flesh]

[+100 Blood]

[+150 Flesh]

[...]

Just before the sun disappeared over the horizon and the blanket of night covered the world, the cries of the humans stopped and the city became peaceful once again. All of the fightings had stopped as there were no more humans to butcher.

Julius watched as how the un-transformed mimics came in through the city gates and began devouring the bodies they were going to transform into. When he left the city, his fiends also followed him.

Looking back at the city, Julius could see that the entire ‘populace’ had become busy as they began making reparations to the buildings, walls, gates, and towers that his fiends had destroyed.

Julius chuckled maliciously since those humans weren’t actually humans. They were all just his mimics that had transformed into them. If it wasn’t because of the destroyed city, nobody would believe that the humans inside had all been massacred and turned into resources for an unknown race called the Fiends.