King of succubus

After hearing all of Alvine's explanations, Azalea remains silent like a grave.

Feeling that she did not intend to deny his hypotheses, Alvine became certain of what he had just poked up.

"From now on, I don't care about this problem." He adds, always persistent in his tone of vehemence.

Azalea's eyes gleamed with surprise when she heard this contradictory sentence come out of Alvine's mouth.

"What? Is it so surprising? Yea, I don't care if you are unable to go back on your words, especially since it suits me immediately; it is by considering this fact that I can rest assured that you won't betray me in the future. Not to mention that, it’s-

"If you know that we can't kill directly, why don't you change your mind?" Azalea cut him off with this question.

But instead of answering her, he just gives her a mysterious smile.

This made her more confused about Alvine's thoughts.

"It's clear that we are not going to be more useful to you than others; is it for fear of feeling guilty by throwing us like old socks that make you hesitate so much?" She retorts dramatically.

"Hahah, guilt? Do I have a snail head with two antennas? Could it be that you confuse my horns with the antennae of snails?"

"..."

"Moreover, You are wrong about one thing, Azalea, it is your uselessness in this war. You probably intended to use me as a scapegoat to take your revenge." He rejoices with these words as if he were having fun with his favorite toy.

Now that negotiations were beginning to go in his path, and knowing his twisted personality, it was not necessary to say that he intended to go all the way.

However, he did not give this impression, it was the most suspicious for Azalea who believed she had discerned his personality.

At the same sec,

-Swoshh…

Alvine instantly reappears in front of Azalea since the throne.

"But I don't mind, as long as you don't complain that I do the same." He said, caressing Azalea's head as if he were trying to tame her, in his own way, of course.

"Do you want us to use each other?" She asks in an uncertain voice.

"Haha, it's too late for that. At the moment and forever, you are no more or less my subordinate; it's a bet you lost, even if at the time, I didn't expect it to bring me so much."

"...Tch!"

"Oi, oi, Azalea, why are you so naughty with my sage full decision? Will you accede to my request if the roles were reversed?" He smiles with arrogance when he sees Azalea slam her tongue with frustration.

The latter, knowing that Alvine wouldn't change his mind, veered his hand off her head without saying a word.

Seeing this, Alvine does not feel offended or frustrated with her actions, he just looks at her while ignoring her actions.

"To return to our sheep, you have the right to tell me what happened a long time ago or not, it all depends on you. Take all the time you need; 'cause no one on this planet cares about your storylines but your duty."

---

Once the day was replaced by the night, Alvine organized a small meeting for a global recapitulation.

The room was occupied only by Askald, Azalea, and Tifania, the woman who was possessed by you know who.

"The purpose of this meeting is very simple, it is to know how we will divide the different stages of the war." Alvine made a brief introduction while peeking around the meeting room with his eyes.

"But before we start, there is one more important thing to settle first." He said while looking at Tifania.

The latter, interpreting Alvine's gaze in her own way, gets up from her chair and bows at him.

"I am aware of having caused you all a lot of problems because of an unforgivable negligence on my part, but I...-

"No, forget this story." Alvine shakes his hand in front of his face with a boring air.

Tifania looks at him with confused eyes, not knowing how to react to this level of clemency, especially from Alvine whose reputation was anything but worthy.

"What's the problem? Did you know that you were spied on by this woman?" Feeling Tifania's confusion and mistrust, Alvine immediately guesses that she would have a heavy conscience if he left things that way.

As a result, his question made Tifania more confused. "No. I...-

"Did you know that she was going to create chaos during my absence?" He asks this second question just before Tifania justifies herself.

"What? Of course not!"

"In this case, were you conscious when she took control over your body to kidnap my sister (Isolet)?"

"Y-Yes, but I was NOT free of my movements!"

"Then everything's fine. We don't have time to dwell on such insignificant details as these." Alvine closes this chapter after this rain of questions.

"...I don't know what to say," Tifania mutters in a skeptical tone.

Alvine nods his head and no longer lingers on it. "If you don't know what to say, be quiet and hear me clearly.

-What I want to know is the strength of your army. I did not take the initiative to ask one of my direct subordinates to ask you this question because I thought it would be faster to ask you directly. But slight disturbances occurred before I asked you, hence my late question."

Tifania's brief emotional disturbance no longer persisted after hearing Alvine's question.

"Apart from me, I have ten sisters who occupy the positions of commanders in my army. Each sister has three million squadrons under their wings."

"Three million, you say?" Alvine asks while frowning.

"Yes; I had brought only a tenth of my army here. The others stayed on...-??" She stops halfway through her sentence when she sees Alvine's dark eyes.

But before she asks the cause of this darkness in Alvine's eyes, Askald saves her butts.

"Don't worry, my lord; I have already made arrangements." He said in a mysterious tone.

"Sigh, I see. My worries were therefore not necessary, for what I see."

Seeing Alvine relax and the suffocating aura suddenly vanishing around him, Azalea and Tifania look at each other with confusion.

"What worried you about my decision? I couldn't take the risk of bringing all my troops here; it would be like a declaration of war."

"You don't need to justify yourself; the true problem's not your decision, Miss Tifania, but staying on it without informing us," Askald answers in Alvine's place.

"I don't understand where the problem is." She persists on the fact.

Having no other options, Askald briefly explains the background of his thoughts. "If we take into account you were already under constant surveillance by our enemies, it is not to be excluded that our enemies send their troops to take advantage of your absence to reduce your strength."

Tifania's face lost all its colors following Askald's explanations.

But the latter immediately reassured her. "You don't need to move, my sister has already taken some of my men in addition to her squad made up only of high-ranking transcendent mages and above. They will serve as sentinels until the arrival of your troops."

"...I see, it seems that I am more of a weight than anything else." She sighs with a discouraged air as she feels the weight of her debt increase on her shoulders.

"In any case, don't let ourselves digress from the main subject." Alvine then slides into the conversation like a bookmark in a book.

He then looks at Azalea. "You said you don't want to involve your fellow Crystaluses beings in this war, it's a decision that belongs to you and that I respect, at least, for the moment." His words, spoken with a neutral smile, had a lot of implications for Azalea.

But the latter decides not to comment.

Noticing her silence, Alvine nods. "For now, in addition to being slightly at a numerical disadvantage, everything also suggests that only a defeat awaits us at the end of the road."

"..."

"You surely ask the reasons that push me to say such things although we are all sure of this fact. I grant it to you; apart from lowering our morale, such bullshit does not help us at all." He mumbles in a low voice while crossing his fingers on the crystalline red table.

For a short moment, silence reigns between the four as they look at each other, waiting for Alvine to continue or give them the right to express themselves.

But the latter did nothing like that. He remains silent as if he were waiting for someone or something.

Finally, Azalea scrapes her throat to express her thoughts after a minute of silence.

"For my part, as long as I take revenge dying will only be the least of my worries." She says this in the form of justification and reasoning that pushes her to take part in the war.

Alvine then looks at Tifania, waiting for the latter to reveal her motivations to them.

She then gets up and looks at Azalea with dissatisfied eyes. "You don't have the right." She fulminated against her.

Or rather blame her for having such contradictory motivations with the situation.

Azalea looks at her without an emotional ripple. "Can I know what right you are talking about? In times of war, everyone advances with their moral and physiological principles. Contrary to what you think, I am not insinuating that I would move away after taking my revenge, but that I would devote myself body and soul to make the bastards who massacred almost all my species pay." She slowly formulates each vocabulary of her words with a blood-curdling coldness.

And before Tifania spoke, she continued. "You are here to follow, save the vast majority of your race; am I wrong?"

"...Even if you are right, it doesn't...-

"You are right." She interrupts Tifania in the middle of her arguments.

"Finally, that's what I should say. But unlike you, my race no longer has as many people as yours. Ten million? Three million? The universe no longer even counts a hundred miles of my species.

-Even if death ends up impregnating everything with its black and red paint, no one is ready to be painted by these colors without struggling desperately; but in our misfortune, this is our case; hence my refusal to mix mine with this war.

-Because in the final, it is death that awaits me in this war, whether by the hand of our enemies or not." She whispers her last sentence in a barely audible tone for an ordinary person.

The confusion seized Tifania quite to Azalea's incomprehensible words. "What do you mean by that?"

"..."

Seeing the latter silent, she looks at Alvine. "What does she mean by that? Did you sentence her to death?" Her accusations seem to come straight out of fantasy, but more fanciful than Azalea's words, it did not exist.

Alvine, who was until now silent, had no choice but to express himself. "Until proven otherwise, I don't remember insinuating such things. Immediately, all you need to know about the Crystaluses is that they cannot kill with impunity. It's like a kind of curse that--

"It touches me that you want to hide this secret from the public, but it doesn't matter anymore, Alvine Dragnar." Azalea immediately spoke, guessing that Alvine was going to play with words.

"Not to mention secrecy, this information was not even considered as such at the base." She adds feeling everyone's eyes on her.

Despite being too lazy to explain herself, she still makes an effort. "It happened in the time when we probably all lived. But unlike you, we, Crystaluses, were the last to be born before the era of the gods." She begins her story with this introduction that immediately captivates everyone's attention on her.

"Blood warriors, harbingers of chaos, and so on. The universe was like a pot filled with boiling water on the flames of incessant war. He had everything but creatures dreaming of peace.

-Before talking about peace, I don't think you even know this vocabulary of peace and tranquility.

-You snatch things from yourself like wild animals that only work with the laws of the strongest. This was the situation at that time, the others must be idiots or ignorant to envy those of that time." She retorts with an apathetic air.

Strangely, no one could contradict her in the room although her words seemed to be exaggerating.

"As you say, it was the case." Askald nods with indifference before continuing. "But how does this have a connection with your current fate?"

His question made Azalea smile with irony and bitterness.

"You will understand soon." She said, finally getting up from her chair.

"But before explaining to me, I would like you to answer the question I am going to ask." She did not need to pronounce Askald's name for the latter guesses that she was addressing him, since her eyes were focused on him.

"How did you react when you were attacked by the first invaders?"

"I didn't experience such a situation. But on the other hand, I can answer your question in another way assuming that I am the invader. My prey fought hoping to push us away; then they tried to flee after realizing that they were doomed. But finally, they struggled desperately when they saw that they no longer had the luxury of fleeing. Does it answer your question?" He asks with a demonic smile.

"Yes, it's more than enough. It is normal to defend yourself when you are targeted, as you did when you were invaded by these mercenaries a few months ago before I came.

-That was exactly what our race had done; after all, it's a primitive instinct. We attack as hard as possible, we defend ourselves against those who come to show us their fangs and claws, and finally, we try to flee after having abandoned all forms of hope; it is everyone's instinct."