But if you hurt others just for the sake of hurting them it would slowly twist your existence and corrupt your spirit until all that remained was pure evil.
People always joked that nobles or kings were evil because of taxes, abuse of power, or laws that favored them, but pure evil was different from normal evil. Pure evil didn't care about the long-lasting effects of their actions and would gladly destroy themselves if it meant hurting others more.
That was why no kingdom that had been ruled by devils lasted very long. They would take over then commit so many vile acts on their own people that the nation would collapse upon itself within a few years, a decade at most.
But devils didn't care. As long as others were suffering, they were happy. Even if it meant they would die shortly afterwards.
"Will you retreat?" Commander Stan asked as he prepared his shield and pointed his sword at the duke.
"Normally I would but I haven't had a chance to test my new strength yet." Duke Darrius replied as he drew his sword.
For a few moments everyone froze, waiting for the clash.
Then they vanished from sight before colliding with a resounding explosion.
BOOOM! Bang! Crash! Clang! Cling!
Lord rank warriors moved fast enough to be a blur for those at the knight rank, but king rank warriors moved much faster than that.
They disappeared and reappeared in an almost random pattern across the sky and amongst the soldiers only the lord ranks and a handful of knight ranks were able to track their movements including Chronos.
He saw them use multiple different techniques and wield the power of holy and miasmic energies freely.
Fighting Lucan had been very different from this as he only had a few spells, he hadn't yet mastered, and no techniques to rely on. In comparison Duke Darrius used a complete set of techniques and had multiple spells at the master rank to support his actions or block his opponent.
His casting speed of both techniques and spells was so fast that by the time Chronos had finished looking at the rune that formed Duke Darrius's spells and techniques the next rune was already fading away.
On the other hand, Commander Stan didn't use nearly as many techniques or spells but the ones he did use were both formidable and versatile. Each spell could be used in three different ways and while his techniques were just more advanced variants of the basic ones his skill with a sword and shield allowed him to counter everything that Duke Darrius threw at him.
Was this what perfection in weapon mastery looks like?
Unfortunately for most of those on the battlefield every collision between them resulted in a flood of excess energy causing collateral damage to everything and everyone nearby.
Then Commander Stan managed to lock his weapon with Duke Darrius's. With a flap of his wings, he drove the duke upwards into the atmosphere far above the battlefield. With the two king ranks going so far into the sky everyone thought they would finally get a break and be able to treat the injured until they heard the war drums.
Another army of monsters exited the forest across from the fort.
"The first army must have covered the movements of the second main army; this was definitely one of the duke's plans. Few others would've been able to so effectively hide a massive army from the lizardfolk hunters." Chronos muttered as he prepared for another long battle.
As he looked at this new army it slowly set in that the first army really was just a distraction. It had been formed of monsters with only a few intelligent creatures in it, but this second army was formed of trolls, goblins, kobolds, and fishmen.
It was a proper army and not just an assembly of monsters. From what he could see Chronos estimated that this army had 10,000 soldiers in it and that wasn't counting the monsters they had brought with them.
This wasn't going to be a good battle. Too many soldiers had been injured in the half-day since the fighting had started and even more had suffered injury or insanity from the battle of the king ranks.
Even if they fought with everything they had, most of them wouldn't leave this fort alive.
"Do you think we still have a chance of winning?" Lyla had joined Chronos on the wall while Gregory and Sariah rested.
Just as Chronos was going to answer a war horn sounded from the north then a roar responded from the south followed by howling from the west.
An army of 2,000 Dragon paladins came down the river on boats as an army of 4,000 lizardfolk, naga's, and merfolk swam out of the southern swamps and a force of 1,000 werewolves from the Beklaedning clan came charging through the swamps behind them.
Combined with those who could still fight amongst the fort their army would number nearly 12,000.
"Now we do!" Chronos said with a big smile.
Staring at the enemy Chronos saw a troll taller than the others step out from the army. He stared at Chronos for a minute then faced the sky and spoke.
"This is not what we agreed upon, devil. Their army is still strong, the tear has not expanded, and worst of all the damned gray wolves are here!"
First, it was the merfolk that knew of them, now the trolls of the wasteland showed hatred for them. Just what had his family done in the past! One of these days he would have to find out his clans' true history, he knew they had records of it just not where those records were stored.
The battle in the sky halted as Commander Stan and Duke Darrius separated. Both of them bore injuries from their intense fight but from what Chronos could see Commander Stan was already using basic healing magic to recover while Duke Darrius didn't have that luxury.
That was the problem with fighting a paladin, even if you managed to injure them they could recover in a short period of time, almost like werewolves.
"Then deal with it." Duke Darrius said in frustration. "I have my hands full right now."
The troll looked at the fort again then said, "No, we cannot win like this. My army is retreating!"
With a wave of his hands the army behind him turned around and walked back towards the wasteland leaving the monsters behind. The taller troll gave Chronos one last glare before he turned to join the retreat.
They wouldn't go all the way there but now the allied army had more territory and if they were lucky enough to find the collapsed fortress from the past in usable condition, they could rebuild it and use it as the new front line.
At least it would be better than using this wooden fort as a base of operations.
"Tch, it seems that today I must retreat in defeat, Commander. I bid you farewell." Duke Darrius said as he collected Lucan and Malven.
As they flew off the trolls and other intelligent creatures from the first army abandoned their beasts and fled towards the second army.
Commander Stan slowly descended to the fort while the dragon paladins and lizardfolk armies gathered at its entrances, but the werewolf army jumped over the walls, ran at a breakneck speed through the fort and moved to engage the remaining monsters on the eastern side.
Chronos just laughed as they swiftly tore into the monsters, but he choked the laughter down the moment he turned around.
Behind him was a smaller female werewolf with a massive two-handed sword on her back. Her hands were on her hips as she glared at him. Chronos cowered like a child who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
"Ah, uhm, hello auntie..."
"Don't ya auntie me!" She practically shouted at him. "Ye disappear in the middle of the night, no message, no warning, not even a letter left behind ta tell us what ya were planning. The only thing I hear is that ya escaped the clan territory and blew a blasted hole in the wall! Did you even think about how the rest of us would feel? Or how worried we'd be?"
Chronos knew that he was in some serious trouble now. Aunt Freydis's accent only came out when she was very angry.
"Um auntie..."
"The first word we had of ye after ya leave is that ya've gone and joined a bloody war? Your father was ready to lead the entire army here if it wasn't for the beasts in the mountains suddenly becoming more active."
"Auntie..."
"And look at ya, you've gone and been blinded by some enemy. We're taking you home after this, ya need time ta heal!"
"Aunt Freydis! Calm down!" Chronos yelled as he grabbed her shoulders.
"I'm not blind this is just a training method for developing our bloodline power."
"Och ye poor boy. Ya don't even remember that we don't have a bloodline power. Come on let me take ya to the healers, maybe they can still do something for ye." She gently took his hand and led him to the priests while Lyla did her best to hold her laughter in.