A Demon's Journey

Azaroth's primary aim was to absorb the death energy of 800,000 people. He could accomplish that if all the soldiers gathered near the Glerian Kingdom and the Sinyalian Kingdom's borders died.

But he knew it was very unlikely for that to occur. The Sinyalian Kingdom's forces could be considered decisively stronger than the Glerian Kingdom's army.

Moreover, he recalled that Ellen Valliadis had a crush on Inquisitor Fox. It was Sophie who informed him of this crucial information. Azaroth was sure that this woman had joined the Sinyalian Kingdom's army on Inquisitor Fox's orders.

'It would be strange if the Sinyalian Kingdom's army loses even after the involvement of that guy.'

Azaroth believed in Inquisitor Fox's intelligence more than anyone in the world. Inquisitor Fox had managed to deduce his identity with very little information. Moreover, he had also managed to trap his Edwin clone within the Sinyalian Kingdom.

This was truly worth applauding.

However, the results of this war didn't bother Azaroth. In fact, he had now advanced to phase 2 of his plans.

Sargan's report soon arrived. It was in the form of a map of the Glerian Kingdom. Numerous cities and towns were marked on this map and connected with a red line.

Azaroth had a diabolic smile as he stared at this map and thought 'This is just perfect!'

The two kingdoms were blissfully unaware that this battle was merely a pretext for them to send all of their armies along the border, leaving their cities vulnerable.

The next day, King Tryfon received a report that utterly shook him to his very core. City Gagena had been completely demolished!

He consulted his advisors as they tried to understand the reason behind the destruction of City Gagena. However, the very next day, they heard reports of Macete Town and Tecete Town being demolished.

In all these three cases, all the citizens had been slaughtered!

This bizarre situation continued for a whole week. In this one week, nearly 6 cities and 10 towns were annihilated from the map!

This was Azaroth destroying the cities and gathering deathly energy! He had managed to absorb the massive quantity of death energy and reached the peak of Demon King Rank through his Demonic Ardor.

The Humanely Ardor would reach the peak by absorbing the energy from the elemental crystals.

Azaroth possessed those elemental crystals and had already reached the peak of the Demon King rank through the Humanely Ardor by using the Elemental Crystals.

His primary issue had always been the Celestial Ardor. Azaroth knew that he would require more than ten Divine Faith Pools of the size in the Lamhilhan Theocracy to break through to the Demon Emperor Rank.

However, each of the Lamhilhan Theocracy only had a single Divine Faith Pool! It was impossible to find tens of those in this area.

'I need to think of something else. Maybe I can gather the survivors of both kingdoms after this war and have them follow my religion. A constant supply of faith energy is bound to make me reach the peak of the Demon King rank eventually.'

Azaroth wasn't worried about how he could have the survivors follow him. Firstly, no one had witnessed him do anything wicked. All those who did had already died. And the ones that were alive wouldn't dare to go against him!

Secondly, he had a trump card in the form of Laura! Her Noble Guardians group was bound to gain the trust of these survivors rather easily.

Azaroth contacted Bianca as he wanted to have her do a task for him. However, Azaroth was startled when he heard a man's voice from Bianca's side.

It was a rather familiar voice, and Azaroth couldn't forget it even if he wanted to.

"Greetings, my dear friend. I am sad you haven't talked to me in such a long time, Edwin," those words somehow magnified the terrifying feeling Azaroth was experiencing.

"…I never anticipated you would realize the truth, Tronte," Azaroth spoke calmly.

Tronte snorted in response and spoke coldly, "I noticed the hints long ago. But I ignored them, thinking that you were still Edwin. Congratulations, you managed to fool me with your great acting, Demon God!"

"I see…" Azaroth didn't find it ridiculous that Tronte found out about his true identity. If Tronte had managed to follow Inquisitor Fox or Jonas Rhodes's movements, it wouldn't be impossible for him to reach this conclusion.

"I am contacting you through this method only to inform you of one single fact. I will kill you! I will make you regret swallowing Edwin's soul!" Tronte's words were mixed with deadly killing intent.

"…Is that so? I wish you good luck," Azaroth responded calmly. He wasn't scared of such a threat. He couldn't even count how many times he had received such threats. However, his intuition told him not to take things lightly.

Tronte cut off the connection between them. Azaroth sighed after the connection was cut-off. He knew Tronte's true aim for contacting him through this method.

'He wanted to inform me that he has dealt with my spies in the Sinyalian Kingdom.'

This guess turned out to be true as Azaroth couldn't connect with Josephine.

'He must have been waiting for an opportunity for Spencer to leave for the war and act against Bianca. Maybe even Sophie has been kidnapped. But informing me of his presence and acting so emotionally is going to be detrimental for him. Inquisitor Fox is much smarter than him. But why does my intuition tell me that he is a more terrifying foe out of the two?'

'Whatever, my countermeasure for the worst-case scenario should be able to deal with it.'

Meanwhile, in the Sinyalian Kingdom, Inquisitor Fox was keeping a strict watch over Bianca's household through his loyal subordinates.

He was shocked to hear that someone had kidnapped Bianca and Sophie. Moreover, that individual had managed to evade his subordinates with relative ease.

'Was that one of Demon God's followers? Did he come to get Bianca and Sophie to prevent any information about him from leaking out? No. That's very unlikely. He should know that I am living in the Capital. Unless he has the complete confidence of dealing with multiple 6 Star Warriors, he won't take such a risk.'

'However, the fact that he was able to elude my subordinates who have already reached the 5 Star Rank suggests that this is the case. Yes, I need to update my plan so that I can defeat him even though he has broken through to the 6 Star Rank!'

His face hardened as he realized what he needed to do to win.

'I need to sacrifice Ellen and David Valliadis to ensure the defeat of this Demon God!' Shun thought with a serious expression.

Shun's plan was rather simple. It was for the Sinyalian Kingdom's army to suppress the Glerian Kingdom's army in the initial stage of the war and then suddenly lose, with Ellen and David being captured by the enemy. And that the enemy was acting on the Demon God's orders!

The threat of losing David and Ellen would definitely convince King Valliadis to make a move and use his trump card! Shun was sure that this trump card could deal with Azaroth with relative ease!

Actually, it wasn't just King Valliadis who possessed this trump card. It was possessed by all the rulers of different kingdoms.

It was a Saint Stele that would only be activated by the current ruler of the respective kingdom. And this Saint Stele could be activated only if the Kingdom was facing a terrifying Devil God or Celestial God!

If the kingdoms tried to activate the Saint Stele to deal with their personal issues, the kingdom's Royal Family would be destroyed. Thus, a Royal Family was very cautious before activating this Saint Stele.