Chapter 22: The Siege
Boom!
A thunderous roar, as if the heavens themselves were being torn apart, echoed through the air. Cannonballs rained down from the fortress walls, where cannons were lined up in a grim display of power.
“Bring down that monster! Do not let it reach His Imperial Majesty!”
The fortress, a critical stronghold of the Ninth Empire and its last bastion, was unleashing a desperate barrage. Known as the “Fortress of Destruction,” it boasted an absurd number of artillery weapons, making it an impregnable citadel even the revolutionaries dared not challenge lightly.
Boom, boom!
Endless cannonballs and black powder exploded towards the loathsome giant. The shots targeted its legs, igniting the magically enhanced powder for a secondary explosion.
“It’s working! The beast is faltering!”
“Fire! Ignite the powder in the cannonballs! If this place falls, it opens the path to the Emperor!”
Desperation fueled their cries, clinging to hope and imbuing their struggle with meaning, even though their true enemy was not the golem of flesh and steel they faced.
As if defeating that monster would somehow secure their victory.
But then, it happened.
Ssshhh!
“What…?”
One of the artillerymen on the wall saw something slithering up the fortress.
“Tentacles…?”
He realized, too late, that the tentacles were connected to the monstrous creature below. One lashed out, piercing his throat.
“Gah, urgh…!”
It was not a simple death. The tentacle burrowed into his body, taking root. His flesh grotesquely swelled, writhing as if filled with thousands of worms, until it burst.
The explosion scattered what seemed like countless wriggling worms, but they were not worms.
They were young tentacles.
Parasitic tentacles that burrowed into hosts, rapidly multiplying in a grotesque biological weapon beyond this world’s understanding.
“What are these things?!”
“Ahhh! Help me!”
One infected soldier spawned thousands of parasitic tentacles, which began consuming the fortress’s defenders. Swords were useless against them. The tentacles intertwined, growing massive enough to blot out the sky.
The bombardment ceased, and the monstrous giant reached the fortress’s doorstep. Dale looked down at the scene below.
The once-proud fortress of the Empire was now ensnared by a mass of proliferating tentacles. People, too, were ensnared, neither alive nor dead, becoming part of the fortress and the tentacles.
Black tar-like mucus dripped from their features.
The monster reached out towards the fortress. Tentacles erupted from its body, merging with those enveloping the fortress, beginning to consume it whole.
Walls, inner defenses, and countless cannons and artillery pieces were swallowed.
Not just people or weapons, but the entire fortress itself.
The capital of the Ninth Empire.
Before it stood a grotesque entity of flesh, blood, bone, and steel.
But that was not all.
The monstrous giant consumed and merged with the fortresses and citadels blocking its path, devouring everything in its way. Human masses swelled grotesquely across its body.
Victims, stitched into the giant’s flesh with tentacles, their screams forming a haunting harmony. Black tar endlessly flowed from their features.
Tentacles writhed along the giant’s body, crudely stitching together fortresses, bones, and armor, barely holding its form.
It had grown many times larger than when it first rose, a monster consuming the world.
The Empire’s predator.
“What in the world is that?!”
“We don’t know! As we reported, it’s a monster devouring everything in its path…”
No matter how often scouts reported its horrors, witnessing it was another matter entirely.
In a world advancing with cannons and muskets, black powder was spreading. Yet, the barrage of cannon fire was meaningless against it.
Boom!
The “monstrous giant” was the one firing cannons now. Tentacles writhed, extracting cannons from its body, unleashing bombardments like the fortress once did.
And where it had consumed those cannons needed no explanation.
“Are we supposed to stop that…? Ha, ha… what a joke.”
For Marquis Rozet, the commander tasked with defending the capital, there was no choice but to laugh bitterly.
The incompetent Emperor, who claimed the title of Shadow Lord and ruled the Ninth Empire, had long since fled. Yet, he had issued absurd orders to defend the capital with their lives, leading to this.
“I will issue orders to all my forces.”
Thus spoke Marquis Rozet.
“Abandon the capital and flee.”
“But, Marquis! His Majesty…”
“The Emperor can go to hell.”
Rozet muttered dismissively, and the soldiers’ faces turned pale.
“I will lead my knights back to my lands and join the revolutionaries. I will not force my decision on all the capital’s nobles. Inform them of this!”
With that, Rozet turned away without hesitation, followed by his knights.
At that moment, the tentacles creeping up the fortress walls halted.
Boom!
When the monstrous giant finally reached the Empire’s capital, it was a ghost town, devoid of even a single fly. No, there were people—those with nowhere to run, waiting quietly for death.
But there were no knights or nobles, no one to resist.
When the Empire was first founded, this city must have shone gloriously, as did all nine empires. But no trace of past glory remained.
“The Emperor fled the Empire…”
From atop the giant’s shoulder, a man murmured quietly.
Ssshhh!
The tentacles stitching the giant’s body unraveled. As the forced seams came undone, the giant’s body crumbled.
Flesh, blood, and bone covered the land, and the fortresses and citadels it had devoured collapsed.
The human masses within finally found rest.
The Emperor abandoned the Empire and fled. With no one left to protect it, Dale walked towards the deserted capital.
No towering walls or drawbridges could block his path.
As he stepped into the empty air, tentacles rose beneath his feet, intertwining to form a path. Walking along the path of endlessly entwining tentacles, Dale crossed into the heart of the capital.
Cries of fear and despair echoed from those who couldn’t escape. Yet Dale continued, undeterred.
Towards the faded, fallen palace of the Ninth Empire.
He walked alone, his footsteps echoing in the silence on the marble tiles.
So solitary, so quiet.
The Empire of Solitude.
Dale crossed the black marble tiles, raising his gaze to the throne at the end.
”…”
And there, he saw an unexpected figure, a shadow of curiosity beneath his hood.
A man sat on the obsidian throne.
To think someone still had the will to oppose him in the Ninth Empire. And audaciously, he sat on the throne meant for the Emperor.
“The Emperor fled the Empire, did he not?”
“He did.”
The man replied, his voice familiar.
──A knight clad in red and white armor.
“Sworn to the Shadow Lord, are you?”
“The Shadow Lord, you say.”
The knight chuckled, amused.
“How could that fool dare claim the title of the true King of Shadows and the Shadow Empire?”
“Indeed. Then who are you?”
“A demon.”
”…”
“And I am the son of Lady Scarlet.”
At the mention of that name, Dale caught his breath.
“Was there another child of the Yuriss siblings besides Ray Yuriss?”
“Oh, no. The Marquess of Yuriss, the Crimson Duke, is not my father. My mother conceived me on her own.”
With that, Dale finally understood.
In the era of the Fourth Empire, a cult had conducted experiments to summon a ‘demon’ to this world. Among them, there was one demon who succeeded, the last one to survive, whose existence even Dale had forgotten.
The Demon of Evolution, the ultimate being.
“When my mother gave birth to me, I appeared as a hero.”
”…So that was who I fought against.”
“But in the end, I was defeated by you. Yet, the strength of the ultimate being does not lie in the power of the individual.”
There stood a knight clad in armor of red and white.
“The value of life is in passing on its genetic material. As the ultimate being, it is to preserve and perpetuate ‘information’ that never breaks in the annals of history.”
The knight removed the armor, revealing a face that was all too familiar.
The Apostle of Fire and Light, Michael Lancaster.
“I have no need to become a king or to rule the world. Simply existing without extinction, that is my sole purpose.”
“Then why reveal yourself to me?” Dale asked, unable to comprehend.
“Do you not realize that this is tantamount to inviting your own death?”
“But I have a mission to fulfill, separate from the function of life.”
The Demon of Evolution, the son of Lady Scarlet, and the being wearing Michael Lancaster’s skin drew a sword.
“Revenge for my mother.”
It was a reason that seemed far too human for a demon.