Blood Rain

Hearing Orsaga's words, Jem could not help but relax a little, slowly letting out a breath.

But what the other party said next made him hesitate again.

"I've heard about this war. The Duchy of Yar committed a total of one hundred and forty thousand troops. By now, let's say there are around one hundred thousand left. I want at least seventy thousand people transported to the island when the time comes. If there aren't enough prisoners, figure out a way to make up the difference yourself." After saying that, Orsaga even asked democratically, "Any objections?"

"Fine..."

After a bout of deliberation, Jem ultimately agreed to Orsaga's demand.

If the Kingdom of Yar had not become increasingly excessive in its demands lately, Jem Woz would never have come begging Orsaga for help. So from the very beginning, he had not had much of a choice.

Even though he truly could not figure out how his sixty-odd thousand troops were supposed to defeat the opposing hundred thousand or so and successfully capture at least seventy thousand of them.

He could only place his hopes on Orsaga being capable enough...

Watching his departing back, Orsaga gently swirled the teacup in his hand, a faint smile rising to his lips.

The first stage of the experiment had only just been completed, and test subjects for the second stage had already arrived. The timing was rather perfect.

He could sense that Jem was not being entirely honest, vaguely probing at something. He had probably recovered after several months of rest and felt that he was capable again. His royal pride had made him want to act up a little.

But knowing was one thing; Orsaga did not take such a trivial matter to heart.

There had never been any sincere loyalty in the first place—only threats and exploitation. Where could betrayal possibly come from?

Besides, to a Demon, "betrayal" was only natural. In their lives, selling out one's teammates was simply routine practice.

Thus, Orsaga had never cared about the specific actions of his subordinates. He had never trusted them from the start, so why would he care so much?

As long as they completed his orders, any little schemes were irrelevant. He regarded it all as a game anyway...

Pushing open the window and gazing at the night sky, Orsaga sighed softly. "I've kept this human form for so long. I haven't properly moved my body in ages. I really want to fight someone."

After spending several months on research and continuously absorbing all kinds of knowledge to fill the gaps in his foundations, he could not say he had been bored. Yet his demonic nature still left him feeling somewhat weary.

But the gains had been remarkable. If his previous accumulation of knowledge had been at the level of an illiterate, then among those of the same rank, he was now likely among the more outstanding. His knowledge and experience had basically caught up to his own strength, thoroughly making up for his shortcomings.

Pierce's complexion was withered, his body so thin he was little more than a skeleton. Gray blotches covered his skin, as though he had gone moldy.

Lying on the cold floor of the cage, he stared blankly at the candle flame in the room, which had burned for months without going out.

He felt as though his limbs no longer obeyed him, and his mind was muddled. His whole body was weak and dazed. Even shifting slightly brought agonizing pain, as though he were about to fall apart, as if his entire body were splitting open.

He could not even crawl over to eat the food nearby, and could only lie motionless.

He understood that he was about to die, just like everyone else. It was the same final ending.

He had forgotten how long he had spent in this place where the sky could not be seen. He only remembered that, in the beginning, before the illness had taken hold, quite a few people had tried to escape. Their discussions had been heated, and they had even fought fiercely over whose plan to use.

From tricking that red-haired young man into opening the cell door to everyone joining forces to smash the door open!

But every attempt had failed without suspense. That red-haired young man had come only once and never returned. Aside from someone tossing food in through a narrow passage at intervals, no one paid any attention to this place, as though they had all been forgotten.

And brute force had no real meaning at all. This damned cage was truly well-made.

The bars had not even bent in the slightest from beginning to end, leaving them in despair.

Just as everyone felt they had been forgotten and were being raised like pigs, the nightmare still came.

At first, only one person felt excruciating pain throughout his body. Faint gray blotches began to appear on his skin, and he became so weak that even walking was difficult. Before long, more and more people developed the same symptoms, until gray blotches had grown on everyone's bodies.

Faced with this result, whether they were Knights or Great Knights, they all met the same fate!

They could only lie on the ground and howl in pain like sick dogs.

That agony was not fixed. At first, it hurt so badly that they wished they were dead, driving several prisoners with the weakest wills to kill themselves outright.

Then the pain weakened at an extremely rapid rate, falling within the limits of what ordinary people could endure. Yet as time passed, it continued to intensify, as though it automatically adjusted according to the patient's reactions, deliberately prolonging the patient's life.

Pierce remembered that the first person to notice this problem was called Hank, an ordinary-looking, lean middle-aged man who was supposedly a Master Thief!

Not long after realizing this, he joined forces with a prisoner named Heto and ambushed another prisoner with the strength of a Great Knight. They killed him outright, then tried to use the hardest bone in his body to grind a key that could open the cage lock and escape this hellhole.

But he still failed in the end!

Since the lock faced away from them and he could not see the keyhole, he could only rely on his own experience to judge. In the end, the key became stuck in the keyhole and snapped off inside it, completely blocking it.

His corpse now lay not far from Pierce. He had not died peacefully, still struggling until the very end.

The basement was cool, and the bodies of those at the Knight rank had certain special qualities. Otherwise, an ordinary person's corpse would have rotted away long ago.

At this very moment, Pierce was the only living person left in the cage. Those stronger than him and those weaker than him had all died.

Yet only someone like him, neither strong nor weak, had lingered on until now!

He did not know the reason why, but he knew that he too would soon die. Perhaps in the very next moment...

He had heard that many people recalled their lives before dying. After thinking about it, Pierce decided to follow tradition as well.

So he closed his eyes and began recalling his past.

After a long while, he opened his eyes. A self-mocking smile appeared at the corner of his mouth as he used every last bit of strength in his body to slowly raise his middle finger at the ceiling of the cage.

"What a pile of shit..."

Before his words had even faded, his heart stopped beating.

Perhaps he had been referring to his life. Or perhaps to something else.

Far away, in another corner of the manor, Orsaga seemed to hear his final words when he died. Shrugging, he chuckled softly. "Shit isn't so bad. At least it has its own meaning, and no one wants to step on it. Many people live their entire lives without meaning until the day they die. One more makes no difference, one less makes no difference. After people step over them, they do not even want to spare them a glance. They are worse than a pile of shit—they do not even have the value of making others sick. Perhaps they can only be considered air?"

"I don't know whether I can become the final victor and stand at the pinnacle of the countless dimensions of the entire world, but I want to live out my own meaning. Whether it is good or bad does not matter. I want to imprint my name upon the entire multiverse. Even if I cannot make it revered and worshipped for ten thousand generations, I will make all things fear it forever and ever, becoming a disaster no one can ever forget."

He dipped a finger into the teacup before him, and the demonic power within Orsaga wrapped around the droplets of tea, forming a crystalline blood-colored bead of water at his fingertip.

With a gentle flick, the droplet shot deep into the clouds.

Rumble...

Accompanied by muffled thunder rolling through the sky, the heavens, already nearly devoid of stars, became completely shrouded in dark clouds, turning into a pitch-black night where one could not see one's own hand. Only when lightning continuously slithered through the clouds did faint glimmers of light emerge.

First came scattered drizzles, then within a very short time, they turned into a torrential downpour.

But unlike ordinary rain, it was red, as though blood were falling from the sky. It dyed the entire Royal Capital crimson and set off waves of terrified cries.

Feeling the blood-colored rain slide across his face, a hint of Red Light unconsciously appeared in Orsaga's eyes. He slowly closed them and murmured, "It seems I've suppressed myself for too long. To think I'd become inexplicably sentimental. Fine, let this count as seeing you test subjects off..."

Within the Royal Palace of the Duchy of Maldon.

"Damn it..."

Looking at the Blood Rain outside the window and the panicked crowds shouting and running about everywhere, Jem Woz's expression was extremely ugly. Such an anomaly, appearing at this critical juncture before the decisive battle with the Duchy of Yar, could only be called an ill omen.

It would greatly throw the people's morale and the army's morale in the Duchy of Maldon into disarray!

For the Duchy of Maldon, this was undoubtedly a major blow. What made him so furious that he wanted to vomit blood was that he had already roughly guessed who was behind this Blood Rain, yet he had absolutely no way to deal with it. No wonder his expression was so grim.

Seeing his lord's terrible expression, Baron Duke's eyes lit up after some thought. He suggested, "Should we postpone the date of the decisive battle? We can first spend some time recovering public support, describe this Blood Rain as encouragement from the heavens, and call it a sign of great fortune?"

Hearing Baron Duke's words, Jem was also stunned.

Can rain of blood falling from the heavens be called an auspicious omen?

Even he had never considered that question!

You can actually do that?

After giving it careful thought, he realized that it really could be done. It looked inauspicious, certainly, but no book had ever explicitly stated that it was an ill omen!

Since that was the case, if they made up a story and called it a sign of great fortune, who could do anything about it?

Having sorted out his thoughts, Jem Woz was overjoyed. He told Duke to hurry and make up a story, preferably one with a deeply moving plot. Then he would have people memorize it and blend into the various streets the next morning, spreading their freshly concocted tale as a rumor!

Before the rumor took shape, steer it in a direction favorable to themselves!