Dazed and groggy, he slowly pushed himself up from the ground.
Before he could gather his thoughts, a series of rustling sounds around him caught his attention.
Turning his head, he found a large number of demons rising from the ground nearby.
Each of their faces showed varying degrees of confusion—clearly, they too couldn't make sense of the current situation.
Clenching his fists, Yafit, a greater Rank Demon, felt an unfamiliar sense of weakness for the first time in ages. It was at that moment that his foggy mind finally recalled what had happened not long ago.
Touching his head, he felt a distinct wound.
The blood on his palm, still fresh from the injury, confirmed what he suspected—it was left behind by that invader from earlier!
The crack in his skull, which should have been much worse, had already begun to heal, with only a small portion remaining.
Judging by the speed of his recovery, Yafit estimated how long he must have been unconscious.
Closing his eyes, he checked his internal condition. Finding no major problems, a flicker of confusion crossed his eyes.
He couldn't quite figure out what exactly Orsaga had done to him.
After a moment of thought, his arm morphed into a scythe and he struck a nearby demon without warning.
Before the demon could react, Yafit had already decapitated it, killing it instantly.
Then, right in front of the other demons, he dissected the body piece by piece—flesh, organs, even its soul structure—searching for anything suspicious.
Because he simply did not believe that Orsaga would just let them go without doing something.
Yet even after a thorough inspection, Yafit scowled and tossed the remains aside.
Nothing. Not a single clue.
Thanks to his recent metamorphosis, Orsaga's abilities had evolved even further. Prior to the outbreak of the plague, unless one was a professional specialist, even greater Rank Demons wouldn't be able to detect anything unusual. After all, they simply weren't on the same level of expertise.
When it came to the art of plague, Orsaga had some real authority.
After several more rounds of searching, Yafit still came up empty-handed. Frustrated but with no leads, he temporarily set aside his suspicions and focused instead on regaining his strength. After all, it was only because Orsaga had taken advantage of his weakened state, right after his arrival, that he had been taken down so easily.
This made him furious.
To be beaten by a High Rank Demon—to him, that was nothing short of a disgrace.
Even if that high Rank Demon was vastly stronger than average!
He had clawed his way through countless demons to become a greater Rank Demon—of course he had his pride.
—
Elsewhere, Orsaga was in the middle of pummeling another greater Rank Demon, gripping the demon by the neck when, as if sensing something, he suddenly glanced in Yafit's direction.
But it was just a momentary flicker of attention—he didn't really take it to heart.
In his eyes, someone who couldn't beat him now posed no threat in the future either.
That was the confidence born from his strength.
Tossing aside the now-unconscious demon—one that he had already injected with the plague—Orsaga nodded to himself.
"The number of plauge bombs should be about right…"
Over the past few weeks, he had incapacitated thousands of demons, injecting them with various viruses and planting mental suggestions to ensure their participation in the next demon tide.
To him, knocking them out was actually harder than killing them.
After all, the physical structure of demons made them unusually resistant to unconsciousness.
So most of the targets he chose were newly arrived demons—fresh off the portal.
Pick the softest fruits to squeeze—he had no intention of making things harder for himself.
—
Several dozen days later.
Watching yet another demon tide surge from the horizon toward the front line, Henry didn't hesitate. He began allocating strategic resources and personnel to key positions, just like always.
It wasn't that he lacked the ability to innovate.
As a seasoned commander, he had excellent tactical instincts.
But innovation came with risk—and for someone whose top priority was holding the line, risks were a luxury he couldn't afford.
The nations inside the front lines only remained safe because of their resistance against the demons.
As far as Henry was concerned, as a soldier, he could not betray that trust.
Stability—extreme stability—was his top priority.
Everything else took a back seat.
Because he understood all too well that even if they managed to push deep into the polluted zones, it ultimately meant little.
So long as the gods above hadn't defeated the Abyss's main armies, the abyssal teleportation spells would continue unchecked, and demon invasions would keep coming.
Under those circumstances, stabilizing the situation was the best choice available.
"May the gods win this war soon…"
Decades ago, he had only been a casual believer.
But after joining this hopeless war effort, he had come to understand just how powerless he truly was. Over time, he had pinned all his hopes on the gods and slowly transformed into a devout follower.
Ironically, it was a kind of cruel joke.
He had once believed that hard work could create miracles...
But reality showed no mercy, slapping him with the cold truth that sometimes, no amount of effort mattered.
—
Amid the chaotic slaughter...
Feeling his blade pierce deep into a demon's body, Emosen, a Demigod of the Dark Elves, couldn't help but show a sinister smile.
He had been recovering from grievous injuries ever since Orsaga had severely wounded him three or four months ago.
Thanks to the recent surge in cross-racial exchanges of secret techniques, significant progress had been made across all fields of magic and medicine. Injuries that had once seemed hopeless were now treatable.
Even so, Emosen had to invest tremendous effort and resources to fully recover—including regenerating a severed arm.
Had he not been a Demigod of high status, he might have lived the rest of his life as a one-armed elf...
The memory made his face twist with hatred.
Hatred for Orsaga—the true culprit behind his suffering.
Thinking of Orsaga's face, his grip on the blade tightened involuntarily.
With a swift, horizontal slash, he cut the rune-stunned demon clean in half.
The demon, still barely clinging to life, twitched on the ground.
Emosen looked down with disgust and brought his boot down hard on the demon's head.
With a sickening pop, red and white matter splattered across the ground.
"Trash," he sneered coldly.
Then, without a trace of hesitation, he vanished into the shadows, heading toward his next target.
Unaware that, at some point, his body had become coated in an invisible layer of viruses.
Thanks to his Demigod-level strength, the viruses couldn't yet penetrate his body while he remained conscious—but they clung to his skin, clothing, and weapons, using him as a mobile infection source, spreading wherever he went.
And scenes like this played out countless times across the battlefield in mere moments.
A large number of native powerhouses, unknowingly, had become walking plague incubators under Orsaga's plan…
__
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