The Fiend's Creation System

They’re Close

“You plan on facing the humans...alone?” Bael asked skeptically.

No matter how powerful the demons were and how much of an advantage they had on their home grounds, it was still unbelievable that they’d be able to muster up a force that could withstand this imminent assault.

The humans had committed at least 10 champions in their army, possibly even more. Bael and Cali deduced that the fiends would have at most two or three champion-level people.

The humans had the largest population on the planet so it was only natural that they’d produce more people at that level. The elves only had twelve in total, the dwarves had 3, while the beastmen had twenty which was one for each of the beastman tribes.

The humans had close to 50 and the orcs rivaled that. It was because of this even match-up that the two races were always at odds with each other. Naturally, it wasn’t like the other races were any weaker despite their lack of champion-level individuals.

Each champion was measured by their quality in abilities and wit, the dwarves, elves, and beastmen had the advantage in this quality because they were long-lived, giving them more time to develop themselves.

Naturally, the only reason why they had so few people at this level had something to do with their fertility rate. The hardest race to conceive their next generation was actually the dwarves, followed by the elves and then the beastmen. The humans and orcs were about the same only that the orcs’ offspring grew up much faster than the humans.

Naturally, their numbers still paled in comparison to the demons who once had 72 Grand Demons who were on the level of what the Harrdigor Continent considered champions.

However, in the Lothur Continent, champions were known as ‘Grands’, hence the title, Grand Demons, and Grand Giants. In both cases, anyone from any spectrum could actually train and develop themselves to this level. The ones with a stricter hierarchy were actually the undead but they were a chaotic race that didn’t belong to any side.

Even stricter than them were the Fiends...Julius’s fiends. The fiends were born―or rather, spawned―with a strict role given to each specific fiend. Most of the fiends would just be expendable foot soldiers while a select few would be designated as ‘hero’ units. All of that was dependable on Julius and he loved how he could specify the abilities of his hero units.

The last thing Julius wanted was a random hero unit appearing from one of his normal fiends which would then upset the hierarchy and chain of command that he painstakingly created. It sounded good and all but random factors such as this were something Julius didn’t want.

He was a systematic person, literally and figuratively, Julius wanted everything to be in his control and it was why he was constantly trying to improve himself so that the fiends’ hive mind integration with his would come about sooner.

His father lost his life due to the betrayal of one of his close subordinates. It was a random factor that led General Maximilian to betray the Empire and work together with his half-brother.

That wouldn’t happen with him though because the fiends moved according to his thoughts. Whatever they thought, saw, and did, Julius would know all about it and at times, he would be in control of them.

Julius didn’t even ask his alliance members to help him out because he didn’t need any extra external factors to ruin the calculations he and his system were processing in his mind.

From the start, Julius didn’t have any intention of bringing anyone into this war besides his fiends. Everything, from the placement of the fiends’ battle structures, the plasm-infected lands, and even his sanctums, was all in preparation for this battle against the humans.

Although the spatial shift of the Shifting Hallows seemed to be at random, it actually wasn’t. The system had been able to calculate the precise area of each shifted land along with the specific coordinates that they would appear next after a few months of observation and experiments.

Julius’s fiends had been scouting the area for the entire time he had been living at the Shifting Hallows and there was a certain pattern to each shift and even with the short amount of time he had been living here, the system was able to make a map for him that separated each section of land into grids.

Each grid was given a number and a letter that separated their region and the area of land that would be teleported. The letters ranged from A to E which marked the north, south, east, west, and central regions of the Shifting Hallows and each region would be divided into sectors 1 to 9. 

These 9 sectors would rotate with their opposing region’s sector, shifting places in a specific pattern. 

Region A-1 would swap places with B-9, A-2 with B-8, and so on. Region A was the northern region of the Shifting Hallows while region B was the southern region. To continue from that, C was east, D was west, and finally, E was the central region.

The sectors of each region were numbered according to the size of each sectors’ land. It wasn't random or arbitrary on Julius and the system’s part. Each sector’s largest area would swap places with their directionally opposing sector’s smallest area.

Only the similar-sized areas would shift on rotation in a counter-clockwise manner. So A-5 would move to D-5, while D-5 would move to B-5, and so on. The central region was another mess since only the floating islands would shift locations in a certain sequence which the system was still trying to calculate.

Since the Shifting Hallows’ shifting had a certain pattern to it, Julius was able to conclude that the shifting phenomenon was actually man-made. Whatever supreme being that did this wouldn’t have just done it without something in mind.

Although he had figured out his future path which was to look to the stars, Julius wanted to solve the mystery behind the Shifting Hallows, if there was one. He couldn’t be sure if the shifting phenomena were actually man-made or not, it was just his hypothesis since nature tended to be more random and not something that anyone could control.

However, these shifts, once someone was able to calculate them like Julius, could definitely be controlled in a way. 

Julius had already set up the stage and all he needed to do now was wait for the humans to step onto it. He didn’t need to consider the demons’ offer at all but he wasn’t one to just let them leave without being able to milk something out of them.

“I knew about your purpose, but I was never considering it. Being in an alliance with you wouldn’t provide me with any benefit whatsoever. Your people are on the other side of the world while I’d be isolated here on Harrdigor.”

“...”

“Although right now I’m being attacked, it's only the humans. If I joined the Dark Alliance, then the beastmen, elves, and even the orcs would have a legitimate reason to attack me and my people.”

His logic was sound, but the Grand Demons weren’t about to give up just yet.

“Yes...but shouldn’t you first consider the survival of your citizens at present? At this rate...many of your people will die! You are their King, are you not? A king should be thinking about his people and protecting them!” Cali argued.

Julius smirked and replied, “And what makes you think that my citizens are just like any ‘normal’ citizen?”

He leaned forward and said to the two, “My fiends are what I make them to be. Whether it’s a miner, lumberjack, scout, or a servant… they become what I need them to be whenever and wherever. So if they need to become soldiers, then they will become soldiers.”

“What?”

“No one in this world understands how we fiends function. I suggest you do more research and come back again.” 

“So you’ll forsake your people and send them to war? This is madness!”

“Cali, be respectful…” Bael said, calming her sister down. The negotiations from the start were doomed to fail since this was how Julius was approaching the problem of the human army coming to attack him.

Bael had naturally prepared a few more things to say but from how things were going, they all wouldn’t matter.

“If you didn’t need our help… then why did you bring us here, King Julius?” Bael asked.

“Well, negotiations about joining you guys were already doomed to fail from the start, however, I didn’t want you demons to leave without anything to show for after coming all the way here from so far away.”

“And what would that be?”

“Although an alliance is impossible, a partnership isn’t.” 

Bael frowned as he looked at Julius skeptically. He couldn’t tell what this young man who was far younger than him could be thinking. An alliance and a partnership were quite frankly, similar. He couldn’t understand why Julius needed to separate the two terms.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s simple, we can just provide mutual benefits for each other but at a cost.”

Cali had always been frowning and she couldn’t help but scoff at Julius’s words, “What’s the difference between this and an alliance? Isn’t this all just sophistry?!”

“Obviously it’s different, Cali of the 66. In a partnership, we can provide mutual benefits to one another without the need to be tied down by the imposed obligations that one would find in an alliance.”

“...”

“Basically, I give you this and you give me that, but if you need help in your fight against the light alliance, I’d be able to watch as your two alliances rip each other’s neck out on the sidelines~”

“You…”

“I could care less about either of the two alliances. Just stay out of my way or else you’ll face the consequences for antagonizing me...why don’t you two wait and see the show? I’ll give you all a front-row seat of what happens when you antagonize me and my fiends.”

The door to the great hall slammed open as Eisha and Aria walked in. Eisha was a few paces forward while Aria walked closely behind her.

“My love, Proto here says that the humans have just entered the Redgrove Region,” Eisha reported, completely ignoring the demons that were present in the room.

“Yes, I know…let them come. We’ll be giving our guests an interesting spectacle soon.”