Athelgard Castle - One Hour Before the Invasion
The dimensional transport circle flared to life in the courtyard of Athelgard Castle, and through it stepped Algernon and Akeno.
One moment, they were in a dusty school hallway; the next, the air was cold, crisp, and heavy with dense mana that pressed against the skin like a physical weight.
Algernon walked across the courtyard without breaking stride, his cape flowing silently behind him despite the absence of wind—held aloft by the sheer density of his magical aura.
The architecture around them was oppressive and majestic—soaring pillars of black marble, gothic arches that seemed to claw at the perpetual twilight sky, and banners bearing the imperial crest that hung motionless in the still air.
Akeno followed behind him silently, her usual playful demeanor completely evaporated. The moment they had stepped through the transport circle, she had felt it: the atmosphere of impending violence that hung over the castle like a shroud.
This wasn't the Underworld she remembered from her occasional visits. This was something else entirely.
Algernon didn't speak as he led her through the castle corridors. Servants and soldiers alike snapped to attention as he passed, bowing low with military precision. None of them spoke. None of them even breathed loudly.
The Emperor's presence commanded absolute silence.
They walked for several minutes, passing through increasingly grand hallways, until finally they reached a massive archway at the end of a long corridor. Beyond it, Akeno could see the night sky of the Underworld—not truly night, but the eternal twilight that passed for darkness in this realm.
As they reached the end of the corridor, Algernon stepped out onto an open balcony that jutted out over the vast plains surrounding the capital. He placed his hands on the stone railing, looking out into the twilight with an expression of distant contemplation.
Akeno stepped up beside him, curious about what had drawn his attention.
Then she saw it, and her breath hitched in her throat, strangled by pure, unadulterated shock.
Below them, filling the vast plains and stretching to the horizon in every direction, was an army.
But calling it an army was like calling the ocean a puddle. What spread before her was a force of such magnitude that her mind struggled to process it. Hundreds of thousands—no, millions—of soldiers stood in perfect, geometric formations that seemed to extend forever.
They stood in absolute, terrifying silence. Black armor covered them, absorbing the dim light of the Underworld sky until they looked like a living shadow that had been given form and purpose.
They were arranged with mathematical precision—phalanxes of spearmen, battalions of mages, squadrons of heavy infantry, cavalry units mounted on demonic beasts, and artillery platforms that bristled with magical weaponry.
The organization was beautiful and terrible. Every unit in its designated position. Every soldier standing at perfect attention. A force of millions moving as a single organism.
Akeno's sensory abilities, honed by years of training under her father and later under Rias, swept over the front lines instinctively. What she sensed made her knees nearly buckle.
"Impossible..." she whispered, her voice trembling.
In the old government, a High-Class Devil was an elite officer, someone who had earned their rank through years of service and demonstrated capability. An Ultimate-Class Devil was a rarity, a general who commanded respect and fear in equal measure.
But here?
She sensed thousands—thousands—of devils as strong as her at the Ultimate level. They were standing in the rank and file, indistinguishable from one another. They weren't generals or officers. They were foot soldiers in Algernon's regime.
And that was just what she could sense.
Behind the front lines, deeper in the formations, she felt... nothing. There were entire battalions standing there, cloaked in shadows deeper than the Underworld's natural darkness. Sections of the army that her senses simply slid off of, unable to penetrate whatever concealment they employed.
If she couldn't sense them, it meant one of two things: either their power eclipsed hers so completely that they existed on a different level of reality, or their mastery of stealth and concealment magic was absolute.
Neither option was comforting.
"Dear..." Akeno stammered, her usual composed demeanor shattered by the sheer scale of what she was witnessing. "This is... this is your army?"
Algernon turned his head slightly to look at her, his golden eyes reflecting the organized violence spread before them.
"This is what happens when an entire race unites and progresses under one ruler who fully supports them, Akeno," he replied, his voice devoid of pride or boasting—simply stating a cold, irrefutable fact. "While the Old Satans and council members played politics, while they hoarded power and enforced artificial hierarchies to maintain their positions, they were also crippling their own race."
He gestured to the silent, terrifying millions below.
"Every Devil you see down there was once considered 'low-class' or 'mid-class.' They were servants, workers, soldiers who followed orders without question. The old regime told them that their position was determined by birth, that their blood defined their limits."
His expression hardened, a dangerous edge entering his voice.
"I told them something different. I told them that their limits were what they chose to accept. That power could be earned through determination and training. That the only hierarchy that mattered was the one they built with their own hands."
Akeno stared at the army with new understanding.
"Six months," Algernon continued, his tone almost conversational. "That's how long Ajuka's training regimen takes to transform an average Devil into a high level combatant. Six months of hell that breaks most candidates. But those who survive..." He smiled slightly. "They emerge as weapons capable of standing against opponents that would have crushed them before."
"But this many?" Akeno protested weakly. "How did you train this many in such a short time?"
"Volume," Algernon replied simply. "The Demon Academy processes thousands of students per cycle. We run multiple cycles simultaneously. And we don't accept failure—you either succeed, or you're recycled back into the program until you do."
He turned away from the railing, but not before adding one final observation.
"The old regime feared a strong populace because it threatened their positions. I embrace it because a strong populace makes an strong empire. Every Devil down there is a blade in my hand, and I intend to use them to carve a new reality into existence."
Algernon then walked to the very edge of the balcony, ignoring Akeno's continued shock. The wind whipped his cape around him dramatically, and he didn't use a magic circle or any artificial amplification.
He simply exerted his will, and the atmosphere itself became a medium for his voice, carrying his words to the horizon and vibrating in the chest of every soldier standing on the plains below.
"Soldiers of the Azeroth Empire."
It wasn't loud. It wasn't a shout. It was a low, resonant rumble that silenced even the wind itself.
Below, the ocean of armor shifted. Millions of heads snapped up in perfect unison, every eye turning toward the balcony where their Emperor stood. There was no chatter, no undisciplined roaring, no breaking of formation.
Just the terrifying sound of millions of metal boots shifting position once, and then absolute silence.
To the left stretched the Devil Battalions—heavy, jagged armor that seemed to drink in the light, radiating the raw, chaotic power of the Underworld itself. To the right stood the Vampire Regiments—sleeker armor with crimson accents, radiating cold, disciplined elegance that spoke of centuries of martial tradition.
Natural enemies, historical rivals, now standing side by side under a single banner.
Algernon spoke, his golden eyes scanning the massive, combined force with the gaze of a craftsman admiring his masterpiece.
"The world has believed that Devils are too chaotic, too individualistic, too consumed by their own ambitions to ever march as one unified force."
He paused, letting that sink in.
"The world has believed that Vampires are too proud, too isolated, too bound by their ancient traditions to ever submit to any authority beyond their own noble houses."
Another pause, and now his smile appeared—dark, predatory, terrifying when projected onto the massive magical screens that floated above the army for all to see.
"But look at you."
His voice carried a weight that transcended mere sound, becoming something that resonated in the soul.
"The creatures of the Abyss and the Nobles of the Crimson Moon. Two races that have existed in mutual distrust for millennia. You are no longer separate clans fighting for scraps. You are no longer competing factions undermining each other for marginal advantages."
He spread his arms wide, encompassing the entire assembled host.
"You are the Azeroth Empire. You are the inevitable future. You are the answer to the question that has plagued our kind since the Great War ended: What comes after the stalemate?"
A ripple of pride moved through the ranks like a physical wave. Armor shifted, spines straightened, killing intent began to leak into the air like mist rising from a battlefield.
"Tonight," Algernon declared, his voice dropping to a deadly register that somehow carried even further than before, "we march on the Grigori."
The silence that followed was absolute. Every soldier, every officer, every commander held their breath.
"A Fallen Cadre—Kokabiel—dared to strike at our territory. He believed that by attacking the heiresses of the Gremory and Sitri houses, by revealing secrets that we were not yet ready to disclose, he could force us into a war we weren't prepared for."
Algernon's smile widened, becoming something sharp and vicious.
"He was correct about one thing. There will be a war. But he was catastrophically wrong about who wasn't prepared."
He raised one hand, pointing toward the distant horizon where the dimensional gap shimmered like a heat mirage.
"Let me tell you a truth that the leaders of the Biblical factions have hidden from the world for centuries. Let me tell you the secret that they guarded with desperate fear, because its revelation would shatter the foundation of their power."
The magical screens floating above the army zoomed in on Algernon's face, capturing the cold certainty in his eyes.
"God is dead!"
The words hit the assembled army like a physical shockwave. Even though many of them had already heard rumors, having it confirmed directly by their Emperor—stated as absolute fact rather than speculation—was different.
"The Biblical God, the Almighty, the Creator who supposedly watched over Heaven and judged the worthy—he died in the Great War, millennia ago. The system has been running on autopilot ever since. The Throne of Heaven is empty. The angels sing praises to a corpse. The Church prays to silence."
Algernon let that revelation settle for a moment, watching as shock and realization rippled through the ranks.
"The three factions—Heaven, the Grigori, and the Underworld—they all knew. They all kept the secret because its revelation would destabilize everything. The carefully maintained balance, the Three-Way Deadlock that prevented any side from achieving total victory, it was all built on a lie."
He lowered his hand, his expression becoming intense, burning with purpose.
"But I am done with lies. I am done with carefully maintained stalemates. I am done with the old order that demanded we accept our place in a world designed to keep us weak and divided."
The atmosphere was becoming charged, the accumulated magical pressure of millions of powerful beings responding to their Emperor's words creating visible distortions in the air.
(END OF CHAPTER)
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