POV Rio
"I believe we should strike now," I say with growing concern.
"Now? But I thought we were going to wait until Romalia weakened itself a bit more?" Grand Duke Peter Anhalt-Zerbst says.
"Yes, but Germania is just about done, and the few smaller, fragmented kingdoms will fall within the month. I can't say for certain what the Demon Lord is planning, but his army is very weak. The last estimate we got indicated it was perhaps only 60k strong. We have at minimum 200k soldiers ready to deploy at a moment's notice, and with our surprise and technology on our side, we should be able to steamroll them," I reply.
"What about the droid attack on the Wookies?" asks Henrietta.
"What?" I ask while cleaning out my ear.
"I said, what about Romalia?" Henrietta asks.
"Ah, that shouldn't be a problem for now. They are caught up in their battle with the elves. That will keep them occupied for at least another four months or more. And even if they finish early or retreat, they wouldn't attack us while we are destroying the Demon Lord. At least not after the Pope declared the Demon Lord an enemy to the faith. We would be doing the Lord's will, and if they attacked us, that would be grounds for our immediate and crushing counterattack," I explain.
"Then are we in agreement?" asks Wales.
Everyone looks around, and it seems nobody has any objections.
"Then let us begin. I shall lead the vanguard. We will take the navy from Tristain and land here in the north. My latest information indicates the Demon Lord's army is around 160 miles away from there," I explain while gesturing to the map.
"Will you use the Tanks?" Henrietta asks.
"Yes, the Tank Division shall be the main force while I eliminate the enemy's air force. With the Rifle Corps supporting the tanks on the ground, we should inflict severe casualties on the enemy. With any luck, it will be a one-and-done exercise and the enemy will be annihilated," I explain.
They agree with my plan, and we quickly deploy the armed forces. Since I can carry basically all the equipment needed, we didn't have to pack that many supplies on the ships, increasing our speed. It took four days to arrive at the landing zone, but only one more day to meet the enemy.
POV Shift Demon Lord Darugu
Splat
"Ugh, more weaklings," I say with boredom as I witness the destruction of the last human kingdom in the north.
'I suppose it's now time to move West. Maybe they will be more impressive.'
Bzzzzz
I pick my ears as I hear a buzzing noise or something similar.
"What is that sound?" I ask aloud.
Boom
I hear a distant explosion and look to the distance to see some sort of strange metal box.
'Huh? How odd?'
Before I can order someone to investigate, I hear a whistling and look up to see a metal tube heading right for me. I roll my eyes and cast a spell to intercept it. It explodes, and I smile in victory, only for me to scream in agony moments later as a sticky, fiery substance covers me and starts to scald my flesh.
"AHHHHH!" I scream as I roll on the ground in agony.
When the dirt doesn't stop the fire, I cast water spells to put it out, only to regret that greatly as it seems to cause the water to either instantly evaporate or spread the fire further. After immense effort, I managed to put out the flames. But my skin was melted, and I had lost much of my energy. I was unable to stand anymore and had to wait for my regeneration to fix me. As I was lying on the ground in agony, I heard several distant explosions and the shaking of the ground as far more closer explosion go off.
Flesh and guts fly all over the place as my army is torn to shreds by what I can barely perceive as many metal spear tips being fired from those metal boxes.
"My Lord! We must get you to safety!" says my aide, Scar.
"I cannot move, Scar," I say weakly as my lungs are barely functioning.
"I... I will carry yo-" Scar says, but then he and I are doused in that same sticky fire.
This time, I don't even have the ability to scream as the fire consumes me. As I felt my flesh melt and my bones burn, I had only one question.
'Where did these things come from?'
POV Shift Rio
I fly around, gunning down anyone who tries to fly away while occasionally dropping my bombs on high-priority targets. Which was another way of saying anything that seemed strong. I had made some particularly nasty creations using alchemy and science. It was a more deadly version of Napalm that lasts longer, and even if you somehow survive the fire, you will have to deal with the poison mixed into the fuel that would seep deep into your flesh. And best of all, it was biodegradable and wouldn't give anyone in the area cancer or birth defects.
The enemy stood literally no chance of beating us. It took a little over an hour to exterminate the roughly 50k-strong army. And we didn't lose a single man in the battle. But I was waiting to face the Demon Lord, only to learn I had killed him during my bombing runs. Which sort of felt a bit anti-climactic. I mean, I thought the Demon Lord was some all-powerful mage that had some grand plan, or at least some means to escape. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's dead, it's just... I don't know, I sort of expected some epic final showdown. Not... Not this.
Disappointing final boss aside, we were able to conquer Germania even before Romalia got the news that we invaded. Grand Duke Peter Anhalt-Zerbst formally surrendered to us and became a vassal state under Gallia. The United Kingdom of Tristain and Albion, or the UK for short, did the same, but this time to the newly ascended Empress Charlotte I of the Roman Empire. As a part of the declaration, it was decided to create a new capital city in the center of the continent called Rome. We also claimed all the territory known as the uncivilized lands, though there was very little to claim, as the Demon Lord had forcibly conscripted most of the population. But we did at least add some winged people to the Empire.
Romalia's response was irrelevant, but they still decried the formation of the Empire as a challenge to Papal Authority, especially since Empress Charlotte wasn't crowned by any priest or religious authority. But there was nothing they could do but denounce the Roman Empire as illegitimate. They also had a particular issue with the declaration of universal rights of all sapient life, or more commonly known as the Sapience Proclamation. This gave equal rights to everyone, regardless of race, gender, religion, culture, or species. As long as you could prove you were sapient, you were given equal rights.
We quickly got to work on building Rome, which I had a large say in, as I wanted the city to be as efficient and safe as possible. And it helped, I got a new template that seemed purpose-built for this exact reason. Steve. There were also a lot of internal reforms that followed the creation of a new Empire, and thus many new systems to govern. But I figured it was good practice.
As for the Steve template, it was extremely different from any other templates I had gotten so far. It sort of broke how things worked. For instance, I could now craft things like in Minecraft, and I could also mine perfectly cubic blocks that, when placed, become immune to weathering and breakdown. They can still be broken, but unless you use the right tool, it will take really freaking long. Like mining Obsidian with your fist with Mining Fatigue V while swimming underwater. Others could interact with the blocks I placed, so even if someone spent hours upon hours it would take to break a single block, they could replace the block later with the massive stockpile of blocks I would leave them.
Now for the downsides of the template, because there are a few. I don't get the health or hunger system, which sucks, nor do I get the supposed super strength Steve has to lift solid blocks of gold. At least not as far as I can tell. I still have the Minecraft Inventory System (MIS), so that's nice. But the MIS just doesn't have a weight system to it. As a sort of advantage, though, is that blocks don't appear in my hand; it's all instinct-based, as such, nobody can predict what block I will place. Another downside is that the Nether Portal doesn't work. Which sucks, but it is what it is. A few other features also don't work, such as sleeping in a bed to fast-forward time. There is no Redstone, so most of those crafting recipes don't work. Most mob loot wasn't possible to obtain. I didn't get any gear with the template. And lastly, the template seems to require me to build things in order for me to assimilate it.
Now for positives. I can influence physics with my creations. Such as infinite water/lava/snow with buckets. I can eliminate all fall damage with any amount of Minecraft water. Placed blocks aren't affected by gravity unless they are blocks that would otherwise do so, like sand and gravel. I can spit in the face of conservation of matter by creating a cobblestone generator. I can enchant things with enchantment tables as long as I have Lapis Lazuli and Experience Orbs, which, from what I can tell, I can get from killing almost anything. Some small animals and creatures don't give anything. And it works retroactively, as I started with an impressive 110 bars of experience. Though sadly no, potions as I couldn't get Blaze Rods. I can create programmable Iron and Snow Golems. I can create air pockets underwater with a door. And related to that, I can place blocks just about anywhere as long as I am building off another tangible surface. I can mine just about anything and turn it into perfectly cubic holes.
There were a few other things, but that was the majority of it. Now you may wonder where I was getting all the blocks needed to craft a megacity. That was simple. I was mining the Fire Dragon Mountains into nothingness. It helped that I could instantly teleport to and from the city, making gathering supplies easy. That was my main strategy for the foreseeable future. Mine, Build, Sleep, Eat, Repeat. Like a true gamer. Unfortunately, I didn't have Doritos or some Mountain Dew. Well, okay, technically I did have that second one, but only literally Mountain Dew, not the soda.
It took longer than I would have liked to admit building the city of Rome, and that was my fault, because I got really carried away. But in my defense, I hadn't played such an up-to-date and fun version of Minecraft in far too long. And I think anyone in my shoes would get really into making everything look as perfect as possible, given the complete freedom Minecraft offers. Though I may have only stopped because I was told I had completely assimilated Steve. And when I checked, over four months had passed.
"How the hell did I lose track of time so badly?!" I yell.
Now, admittedly, the city was beautiful, and I was proud of what I made, but the fact that I lost track of four months is abnormal.
'Is this an Elven thing?'
Even though my mind thought that four months was unusual, another part of me felt like that wasn't really that long at all. It could also have been because I was building a beautiful city, and that was something the elves of Middle-Earth were known to do.
'I'll need to keep an eye on this to avoid this happening again.'