The news reached Marius and the others in the morning.
“Hundred Demon March!”
Marius feigned surprise, but he didn’t quite understand what it meant.
What piqued his interest was the “Demon Lord’s Zombie.”
(A Demon Lord shouldn’t be able to turn into a zombie…)
If it were possible, he wondered if it was a “Living Dead” summoned through a ritual by offering a sacrifice.
“Living Dead” is a forbidden spell that brings back the dead.
While it’s normally meant for those who have died recently, this restriction would be all but nonexistent for a high-level necromancer capable of summoning even ancient spirits to the mortal realm.
However, as it was a highly advanced and powerful technique, its difficulty was commensurately high.
Living Dead revived the deceased in a state closer to their former life than zombies, but they lacked self-awareness and had to be controlled by the caster.
It was unnecessary to grant them self-awareness, but for stronger individuals, it would be impossible to do so as their resistance to the spell would be too high.
Furthermore, it required continuous consumption of magic power.
Naturally, the greater the individual’s strength, the larger the consumption.
Zombies had self-awareness, and once created, they only needed to be commanded, making Living Dead a disadvantage.
Moreover, zombies did not vanish even if the caster died, but Living Dead returned to the earth upon the caster’s death.
Therefore, their open advance was extremely convenient for Marius.
It was so convenient that he almost suspected a trap.
(Or maybe I’m just a suck-up?)
Marius thought to himself with a self-deprecating smile.
Considering past Demon-humans, it didn’t seem entirely inaccurate.
As he was pondering this, Barra and Lovisa came out of the room, having changed their clothes.
No one seemed to notice the awkwardness in their movements.
“Speaking of which, what is this ‘Hundred Demon March’?”
Emma, who had been expressionlessly contemplating “which one had come first,” answered Marius’s question.
“It’s an phenomenon where one hundred Demon Lords and Demon-humans march together. It’s said to have been defeated by Melinda Guilford.”
Melinda Guilford’s name came up again, and Marius was genuinely impressed.
Calling her humanity’s greatest hero was hardly an exaggeration.
“One hundred Demon Lords and Demon-humans, huh? So, they’re using zombies as a substitute for this enemy this time.”
“Probably.”
Barra, Lovisa, and Emma all agreed, but Marius’s mood didn’t improve.
The suspicion of it being a “suck-up trap” seemed to deepen.
“Yes, although it’s uncertain if there were actually a hundred Demon Lords and Demon-humans gathered.”
Barra explained.
“It happened over several thousand years ago.”
Marius was convinced, with the statement that it was amazing that such an anecdote even survived.
Even the anecdotes of the first Bernhardt, who founded Philat, weren’t as numerous.
Considering that, one could glimpse how significant Melinda was to humanity.
“In any case, it’s an order for you to sortie, Marius-sama.”
“Understood. I’ll be back before breakfast.”
Marius thought, “Is this what they call ‘before breakfast’?” as a silly joke, but stopped himself as he was about to use teleportation.
“I’ve never been to Misra.”
“Isn’t the magic ‘Attach’ usable?”
Barra tilted her head in curiosity and asked.
“Yeah. It only works on the living. As long as they’re alive…”
Shaking off the awkward atmosphere, he decided to try it out.
To his surprise, he succeeded in teleporting using “Attach.”
“It worked.”
It was dark, with stone walls and iron bars, resembling a dungeon.
As Marius muttered to himself, a gasp and a scream rose simultaneously.
A man and a woman looked at him, their eyes wide open.
One of them was a man Marius recognized, former President Frederick.
Beside him was a girl, too young to be called a woman; she might be his daughter.
“Oh, Lord Marius.”
“It’s been a while, Mr. President. Or rather, former President?”
Frederick nodded with a complex expression.
“I committed an unforgivable mistake. But I want to save my daughter alone. To be punished for my wife’s crimes in a democratic country is simply wrong.”
“No, no, Father!”
His daughter clung to Frederick, weeping.
Frederick gently stroked her hair and replied,
“Listen to me. I was the leader of this country. If the leader doesn’t take responsibility for their mistakes, the country will rot.”
“This country’s already rotten! Demons are attacking, and no one is fighting!”
“Eh? Is that true?”
Marius, though thinking it wasn’t his place to interrupt their family conversation, couldn’t help but interject.
Frederick nodded grimly.
“At least the main military forces seem to have fled. Or perhaps brave soldiers are fighting, but…”
Marius thought that was terrible.
Soldiers are supposed to fight to protect the people in times of need, and that’s why they live off the taxes paid by the people.
If those in command were the first to flee, it would be impossible to fight.
He might be judging too quickly without having seen it himself, though.
Loud noises from outside made the parent and child tremble.
“It seems I’ve come at just the right time.”
Marius smiled and teleported outside.
“Lord Marius won’t lose.”
Frederick encouraged his daughter with a smile, who looked anxious.
He resented himself for being unable to do anything else.
Exiting the building, Marius saw a giant, ten meters tall, with fifty heads and a hundred arms—a Hecatoncheires.
And he saw familiar giant slimes, basilisks, sphinxes, griffins, and a horde of zombies ravaging the land of Misra.
If he had been even a little later, Frederick and the others wouldn’t have survived.
Decarabia, Rubens, Albert, Franklin, Samuel, Laam, Gastark, Rebera, Rupert, Cedric, Gerik.
The Hecatoncheires was said to be the Demon Lord Zagan, whom he hadn’t felt he had truly defeated before.
It was a fearsome opponent, controlling so many undead Demon Lords and Demon-humans.
However, Marius could also see its limits.
While commanding so many Demon Lords and Demon-humans was indeed astonishing, this was likely its limit.
Otherwise, it would have summoned another Demon Lord.
One Demon Lord was far more terrifying than several high-ranking demons.
(Now, where is the caster?)
Looking around, he couldn’t tell who the caster was at all.
It seemed to have enough intelligence not to be in a directly targetable location.
Just as he thought that, a laugh echoed from nowhere.
“Hahaha, it appears to be Marius, the next sacrifice.”
The voice seemed to be reverberating, making it impossible to pinpoint its origin.
However, given that the spell “Living Dead” was being used, the caster had to be within Marius’s sight.
“I am Mergen. The true Demon Lord Mergen. Tremble and prostrate yourselves!”
“Your foolishness is almost making me prostrate myself,” Marius thought, and unleashed “Exorcism.”
A torrent of light, now familiar to him, filled his vision.
He wasn’t sure if it could defeat the undead Demon Lords, but he believed it could at least deal with the others. He soon realized that this was a mistake.
Several shadows burst through the curtain of light and charged at him.
Marius, who hadn’t let his guard down by assuming “Exorcism” would defeat the Demon Lords, dodged the attack with “Warp.”
However, he was astonished.
“Exorcism” had only managed to defeat the zombies; not a single Demon Lord or Demon-human had been destroyed.
“Impossible…”
Marius realized that when truly surprised, one often vocalized it.
Mergen’s cackling laughter drowned out Marius’s voice.
“Fool! Your magic won’t work!”
Decarabia approached, but its speed was so slow compared to when Marius had fought it in life that he easily dodged it. Its former speed, capable of closing hundreds of meters in an instant, was nowhere to be seen.
Albert and Laam were likewise slow. Franklin, unable to use magic, was visibly weakened.
He was unsure how weakened the Hecatoncheires, who he hadn’t fought before, was, but the “sorrow of controlled corpses” was evident.
They were all enemies in life, and Marius had no reason to mourn or be angry. Yet, he somehow understood the “anger towards someone who revels in controlling dead bodies.”
“Enough of your arrogance! [Radius]!”
Marius cast the first-class magic without hesitation.
He knew that fighting cautiously while worrying about surrounding damage would only worsen the situation.
A radiant light, incomparably larger than that of “Exorcism,” enveloped the entire area.
Unlike the light that simply purified the undead, the light of “Radius” involved physical destruction.
Fortunately, there were no survivors in front of Marius.
(Will even this kill the Demon Lords now?)
Considering Decarabia’s toughness in life, it would be unnatural for it to end in one blow.
Marius thought so and maintained his readiness.
However, what he saw when the light faded was beyond his imagination.
The undead Demon Lords and Demon-humans had not been destroyed at all.
“Fool! I told you your magic wouldn’t work!”
Mergen’s triumphant voice echoed.
“My skill ‘Sharing’ allows me to share other people’s skills! In other words, I shared Decarabia’s ‘Learning’ and gave them your magic and magic resistance!”
“A skill like that…”
Marius groaned.
He finally understood why Mergen had been so confident.
And why he had targeted Marius, a mage, as the next sacrifice.
“Are you aiming for my skills next?”
“Exactly! You must possess incredibly powerful skills! Skills that would be useful to a mage like me!”
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that all of Marius’s skills were meant to empower mages.
It was natural for Mergen, a powerful necromancer, to desire them.
While thinking this, Marius remained unhurried and used “Detection.”
He judged that the caster themself, even with resistance gained through Learning, would be insignificant.
And he was surprised again.
There were indeed “Detection” responses, but only two.
Judging by their location, they must be Frederick and his daughter, who had separated.
He couldn’t pinpoint Mergen’s location.
“…Are you, by any chance, a Lich?”
A powerful necromancer who couldn’t be detected by “Detection” was the first thing that came to mind.
“That’s right! And the real fun starts now!”
Mergen’s smug expression seemed to intensify.
“Do you remember Samuel’s skill?”
At his words, Marius thought, “No way.”
“Using Samuel’s ‘Division,’…”
Clones of the undead in front of him appeared.
“Twelve undead will each create 150,000 clones. That’s 1.8 million undead that your magic won’t affect, Marius.”
Marius was completely surrounded by countless clones.
“What do you think, Marius? Can you comprehend my greatness?”
Mergen’s voice was a mix of mockery and contempt.
“Yes, this is certainly amazing.”
Marius thought that at this point, he could only praise.
Mergen, pleased, let out another laugh.
“It’s called ‘The End Attack’! Savor it for the short time you have left until you die!”
Marius found himself in the most dire situation he had ever faced.
