POV: Belathriel
Belathriel Beleth had been angry for three days.
The anger had begun when the first full report reached him, sealed in the colors of House Ziminiar and stained with mud and blood from the hands of the messenger who had carried it through smoke, and half-collapsed roads to reach the eastern column of the Beleth host.
He had read it once in silence, then a second time more slowly, and by the end of that second reading he had crushed the metal cylinder that held the message so completely that it flattened inside his hand.
Lord Ziminiar had blundered.
That was the simple truth of it, and the truth offended him more than the defeat itself.
Lord Ziminiar had scattered companies across his borders to contain raiders who had never intended to hold ground in the first place, and those small detachments had been cut apart before they could join one another, after which Grach Urieus had turned upon the main Ziminiar host and broken it in open battle.
Lord Ziminiar had been captured alive, several of his strongest bannermen had been taken with him, and the remains of his forces had split in three directions, with some retreating to their own keeps, some dying in the fields, and the eldest son dragging what survivors he could back behind the walls of the family fortress.
There Lord Grach had enclosed them and settled into a siege with every road watched and every approach held.
Belathriel had cursed the delays that had slowed his own march, yet even in the heat of his anger he knew his rage at the road was only a surface thing. The truth lay elsewhere. This had happened because men with banners and titles had forgotten that war was not a game or else they did not take the threat of an ultimate class trying to steal their throne seriously.
Supply wagons broke and the roads narrowed. Crossing the river with a huge army along with all the supply and weapons slowed an army to a crawl. If only there was some form of magic that could accelerate their march. Alas, Belathriel knew that no devil save perhaps Ajuka Beelzebb possessed the sheer energy efficiency and skill to teleport vast armies.
The rest, devils who didn't have the fortune of being born a genius superdevil, could only grind their teeth and suck it up.
Teleportation circles could move nobles, envoys, elite guards, and urgent cargo, yet they did not move thirty thousand soldiers with armor, food, mounts, siege tools, camp followers, spare weapons, and everything else that allowed an army to exist for more than three days in the field. Armies moved on feet, on hooves, and on air. Anyone who planned a war around wishes deserved the defeat that followed.
Belathriel stood within his command pavilion and stared down at the map spread across the table while the evening lamps burned low around him and his senior officers waited for him to speak.
The map itself had been corrected over the last hours by fresh scout reports, and new markers in black and red stone showed the current positions of Grach Urieus' three siege camps around the Ziminiar fortress. The terrain explained the arrangement at once.
The fortress of house Ziminar sat in a rough basin of black stone and marshy channels fed by sulfur streams that ran from the eastern volcanic shelf, and no single camp could fully contain the stronghold without leaving routes open through the broken ridgelines.
So Lord Grach had divided his force. One camp to the north near the hard ground above the sulfur flats. One to the west overlooking the main road. One to the south-east beyond a narrow channel where supply trains could move with relative ease. It was sensible. It was also vulnerable.
His marshal, Lord Yaxon, cleared his throat softly. "My prince, if we strike tomorrow in full force from the east we can drive into the nearest camp and break part of the siege before the others close."
"And then what?" Belathriel looked up.
"Then we force Grach to fight us in the open…" Lord Yaxon frowned.
Belathriel let the silence sit for a moment. "He will not."
The marshal said nothing.
Belathriel placed two fingers on the map, touching the eastern camp first, then the western. "If I strike openly from the east, he will abandon the weakest ground, withdraw toward the western ridge, preserve his prisoners, and turn this into a slow contest of attrition. Lord Ziminiar remains in chains and the fortress still remains under pressure. His outer detachments continue to hold the roads. It would be the height of stupidity to believe we could be anyone. No, we would only announce our presence for no gain."
Captain Vaust, commander of his outriders, leaned over the map with interest. "Then you mean to approach unseen?"
"yes," Belathriel replied. "My brother is waiting for me. I don't have time to waste time in a battle of attrition here. I need to finish this as quickly as possible and continue marching. To do that I must strike lord Grach unaware and finish him off before he could react."
For the first time in his life, Meruem had chosen to trust him. But Belathriel was also more than aware that this was a test, and he had no intention of failing it.
Several officers exchanged glances.
Belathriel noticed and almost smiled. Meruem would have smiled openly and enjoyed their uncertainty. Meruem liked the moment when people realized they had been following two steps behind his thoughts without knowing it. Belathriel had always understood that about his older brother.
Meruem played with perception. He let men underestimate him because he found the expression on their faces amusing when the truth arrived. Belathriel had neither the patience nor the taste for that sort of theater. He preferred clarity, and that clarity led him to the same conclusion his brother would likely have reached within minutes.
Grach's camps must be blinded, split further, and struck in confusion.
He straightened and looked at the gathered commanders. "Lord Urieus believes he controls the pace of this campaign because Ziminiar broke before we arrived and because our movement must have seemed predictable. He expects relief from the east. He expects time to prepare. He expects to hear of us through riders, sky scouts, and messenger ravens before ever seeing a Beleth banner near his camps. He will not receive that courtesy."
That filthy traitor likely thinks I would directly attack him due to my experience, Belatriel thought. Let him. Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake.
Captain Vaust's eyes sharpened. "You want every scout dead..."
"Yes," Belathriel said. "Every outrider, every observer post, every raven loft, every courier line between his camps and his rear must be cut. I want the sky empty and his roads silent. I want him blind enough that he mistakes his own shadow for safety."
"Even blinded, he still has enough numbers to give us a fight. We outmatch him in quality, though his siege lines are set and his camps are fortified." One of the older bannermen spoke then, Lord Orman of the Ash Veins, a hard and practical devil who had served House Beleth since before Belathriel's birth.
Belathriel nodded once. "Which is why I will not strike the whole of him at once. He already divided his army to hold the fortress. I will make him divide it again."
That earned their attention fully.
He pointed to the western camp. "This camp sits closest to the main road and nearest the old crossing stones. It can support the northern camp if warned in time." He moved to the north. "This one rests on hard ground and likely holds the greater part of his cavalry reserve." Then to the south-east. "This camp protects his supplies and most likely his prisoners, because it's farthest from the fortress walls and easiest to defend if the defenders attempt a breakout."
Lord Yaxon folded his arms. "Then the prisoners sit in the camp you least wish to strike first."
Belathriel met his gaze. "Exactly. Which means Grach expects us to strike there if we come at all. He knows the value of a captive lord."
The officers around the table remained quiet.
"We will do to him what he did to Ziminiar." Belathriel continued. "We will do to him what he did to Ziminiar. We will turn his assumptions into his undoing. Vaust will take the sky scouts and kill every eye he has. He will also seize any live messenger he can and learn how often reports move between the camps. Once that is done I will send a few hundred riders bearing captured Ziminiar colors and such disorder in their movement that they look like another foolish harrying force from the fortress or from the scattered strongholds. They will strike lightly at the northern camp and flee west. Grach's reserve will pursue. He has been winning for weeks. Victory teaches impatience to men who already think well of themselves."
Lord Orman scratched at his jaw. "And when the reserve is drawn out?"
Belathriel's finger tapped the map between two basalt rises north-west of the camps. "I will be waiting here with the main mounted force and my household guard. The moment his cavalry commits to the chase we close around it and cut it apart. Fast. I want prisoners if their commander can be taken alive. The rest are dead before the camps know what happened."
Yaxon looked down at the map for a long moment. "That removes his quickest response force."
"yes," Belathriel said. "Break the quick hand, then smash the separated body."
Captain Vaust gave a slow nod. "Then during the night you strike the camps."
"Two camps," Belathriel corrected. "We hit the north and the west together after midnight. Lord Yaxon takes the northern assault and I'll take the western. The fortress will see the fires and hear the horns. If Lord Ziminiar's son has any sense left, he will sally from the gates against the western camp's rear once he sees their lines pulled outward."
Lord Orman's gaze shifted toward the south-east marker. "And the third camp?"
Belathriel's eyes settled on it. "That's the dangerous one. If it is commanded by a cautious man he may withdraw in good order once he learns the other camps are lost. If it's commanded by Grach himself, he may attempt to hold the prisoners as shield and bargain. Either way, once the north and west are broken, we wheel south-east with every wing we can spare and fall on him before dawn. If Lord Ziminiar is there, we free him. If Grach is there, we take him. If both are there, then the Satans have smiled on my first campaign."
There was a low murmur around the table then, some praising him for his ingenuity and strategic excellence. He did not feel proud nor bask in their praise. It was too early to celebrate and he had no doubt that his older brother would have thought faster than him.
Lord Yaxon exhaled slowly. "A good plan, my prince. Your father would have been proud to see what his son has become. We must hold a feast to celebrate your success."
Belathriel glanced at him. "I will worry about that once my brother secures his throne and the head of that Bael bitch stands on a spike."
A few grim smiles followed that.
The council broke soon after, each commander hurrying to prepare his share of the work. Belathriel remained behind with Vaust, who waited until the pavilion emptied before speaking plainly.
"You sound like him tonight," the captain said. Captain Vaust had trained him and his brothers in their youth and as such was held in high esteem.
Belathriel knew he meant Meruem. He was always compared to him. "In what sense?"
"In the sense that you looked at a bad field and chose to take it as a challenge," Vaust replied. "Your brother would enjoy this one."
"My brother enjoys too many things." Belathriel's mouth tightened faintly.
Vaust allowed himself a small snort. "True enough."
Belathriel's thoughts turned, briefly and against his will, toward Meruem. Ever since his return from exile, he had changed, and that much could not be denied by anyone with eyes to see. He carried himself differently now, with a steadiness and restraint that had not been there before, and there were moments when he seemed calmer, sharper, almost easier to stand beside than the boy Belathriel remembered from years past.
Yet that change did not erase what used to be. Belathriel could not stop himself from wondering what would happen once Meruem finally wore the crown and no higher authority remained to check his will.
Would he remain as he was now, measured and composed, or would power peel away that calmer exterior and reveal the old nature beneath it?
The question returned to Belathriel again and again, never fully leaving him, because he knew too well what Meruem had once been like in the privacy of their household, and he knew too well what kind of fear that boy had planted in his mother and in himself during their younger years.
At times Belathriel found himself asking, with a quiet bitterness he never voiced aloud, whether he was fighting to place a tyrant upon the throne, the same tyrant who had turned his childhood and his mother's life into something unbearable.
The fear did not come from childish resentment alone, because fear learned in youth rarely died cleanly, and Meruem had once ruled the household around him with a cruelty that required no crown to make itself felt.
Belathriel had not forgotten the sharp edge in his brother's smile from those days, nor the ease with which he could make the entire atmosphere of a room feel hostile simply because he wished it. It was difficult to look at the brother Meruem had become and completely separate him from the one Belathriel had known before exile changed him.
Then there was Queen Moena, and that thought darkened matters further. Belathriel could not think only of Meruem in isolation, because a king never rose alone, and the ascent of one branch of the family always strengthened those attached to it.
If Meruem became king, then Moena's standing would rise with him, and Belathriel had no certainty that she would feel secure enough in that new position to leave the other queens in peace. Perhaps power would make her less vindictive because she would no longer need to assert herself through petty cruelties and quiet humiliations.
Perhaps it would do the opposite and give her even greater freedom to torment those she had always regarded as lesser rivals. Belathriel did not know, and the uncertainty gnawed at him because his mother would remain vulnerable if the court turned cold around her.
None of this meant he would betray Meruem. That line, at least, remained firm within him. Meruem was still his brother, still of his blood, still the heir of House Beleth, and Belathriel would not become the kind of man who abandoned his own house because of fear of what might be.
Loyalty still mattered to him, perhaps more than it did to many others who spoke of it so easily. Yet loyalty did not forbid caution, and blood did not erase the need for prudence. It did not hurt to have a safety net, especially in a household where affection and danger had often walked side by side.
That was why this campaign mattered so much to him, far beyond the immediate military necessity of relieving House Ziminiar. He needed to succeed in his first command cleanly, decisively, and without a single foolish error that others might hold against him later.
He needed his bannermen to see him as competent in war, disciplined in judgment, and worthy of respect in his own right rather than merely as Meruem's brother or Aelyra's son. He needed victories that could not be dismissed and results that would force even the most cynical lords to acknowledge his value.
Because if Meruem did become king, then Belathriel wanted enough standing, enough prestige, and enough support among the vassals of House Beleth that his brother would be forced to think carefully before treating him with contempt or turning old habits upon him again. Power respected power, and if affection could not be trusted, then influence would have to suffice.
He did not intend to fail. It would stain his mother's blood, the strength of House Beleth, and the confidence his brother had placed in him.
By midnight the first part of his plan had already begun.
Vaust's scouts moved through the air and across the broken country in silent pairs, killing enemy observers one by one with a patience that Belathriel admired. Some died with a blade between the ribs before they could cry out. Some were dragged from rocks and watch posts into the darkness.
A few messenger-birds were taken alive from small portable cages carried by outriders, though most were slain before they ever spread their wings. One captured courier yielded useful details after a brief conversation with Yaxon's interrogators. Reports moved from the northern and western camps to the south-east camp every few hours.
The reserve commander in the north was an aggressive lesser lord named Varkas who had won praise in the earlier field battle against Ziminiar. The western camp's commander was slower and older, a logistics-minded noble who trusted his palisades. Grach himself was believed to be in the south-east camp near the supply grounds and the prisoner compounds.
Belathriel read the report, then burned it.
"Good," he said.
Before dawn the decoy riders went out wearing captured Ziminiar cloaks over their own armor and carrying a few genuine Ziminiar banners taken from survivors who had straggled into his lines during the march. Their instructions were exact. Show yourselves. Strike the edge of the northern camp. Burn one wagon if you can. Then run west in visible disorder. Let them believe you are rash men from the fortress trying to sting them again.
Belathriel waited with the hidden main force in the basalt folds north-west of the camps. The ground there rose in dark ribs from the plain, creating narrow channels of approach invisible from a distance unless one already knew they existed. He had found the place through maps first, then through scouts, then by riding it himself in the blackest part of the night. He trusted ground only after putting his own boots on it.
Around him, cavalry officers kept their men silent, holding restless mounts and winged beasts steady while the darkness thinned by a fraction.
Then the signal came.
A far horn was heard. The decoys had been seen.
Belathriel rose in his stirrups slightly and listened to the faint sounds carrying through the wind. Another horn answered from the northern camp. Then more. Exactly as he had hoped.
Vaust landed beside him, breath steady, eyes bright. "They are taking it. Varkas himself leads the pursuit, near eight hundred hard riders, maybe more. They think they have trapped a raiding band."
"They took the bait," one of his officers laughed.
"Of course they did," Belathriel replied. His hand tightened on the hilt at his waist. "Positions."
His officers repeated the command in low voices.
The concealed wings of Beleth cavalry shifted into place along the basalt channels. Spearmen crouched on the rises with javelins ready. Archers with enchanted shafts leaned over dark stone and waited. Belathriel sat at the center with his household riders and watched the gap into which the enemy would soon pour.
He thought then, very briefly, of Meruem again. Of how his brother would smile in this moment, eyes bright with anticipation, perhaps even make some careless joke to unsettle the men near him.
The decoy riders appeared first, bursting through the western mouth of the channel in deliberate disorder, one banner trailing low, another mount limping convincingly. Behind them came the rebel cavalry in full chase, confident and loud, their formation extended by eagerness.
Belathriel waited.
He did not move when the first rank entered the basin.
He did not move when the second did.
He waited until Varkas' banner itself crossed the center point marked in his mind.
Then he lifted his sword.
"Now."
The basin erupted.
Arrows and javelins rained down from both sides in a single crushing volley that tore through the front and center of the rebel pursuit. Riders screamed and mounts fell. Formations folded inward on themselves at once. Before they could recover, Beleth cavalry thundered out from the hidden channels to their flanks and rear, closing the trap completely.
Belathriel drove straight for Varkas. He laughed like a madman as he charged, feeling exhilarated at his plan coming along perfectly.
The lesser lord was quick enough to understand he had been fooled and brave enough not to break at once. He shouted for his men to close ranks and tried to punch through toward the eastern mouth of the basin, yet the ground had already betrayed him. Too narrow. Too cluttered with his own dead and dying beasts. Too much pressure from all sides.
Belathriel struck the first man before him from the saddle with one hard downward cut that split helm and collarbone together, then wheeled into the next, his household guard following in tight formation behind him. All around, the basin dissolved into short violent struggles between men who had expected a chase and instead found annihilation.
Varkas saw him coming and turned to meet him.
Their first clash rang sharp in the dim light. Varkas was stronger than Belathriel had expected, broad in the shoulders and vicious in the wrist, and for three quick exchanges he fought with enough fury that Belathriel felt a small grim respect. Then the prince feinted low, let Varkas commit to the wrong line, and drove his blade through the gap under the rebel lord's arm.
Varkas jerked, stared, and tried to speak.
Belathriel twisted the blade free and let him fall.
The rest was butchery. Some of the rebel riders tried to surrender once they understood the scale of their defeat. Belathriel allowed a few officers to be taken. The rest were cut down. The entire engagement lasted less than a quarter hour.
By the time the sun was fully above the eastern ridges, the northern reserve of Grach Urieus had ceased to exist.
Belathriel stood among the dead while Vaust wiped blood from his cheek.
"One rider escaped the first volley," the scout captain said. "He made for the northern camp. I sent men after him."
Belathriel nodded. "He will not matter now. Let one rumor run. Confusion grows faster when men have only half the shape of the truth."
Vaust grinned. "That one was Meruem."
Belathriel ignored the remark, though privately he knew it was true.
The next hours were spent in exacting preparation. Prisoners were questioned. Bodies were stripped for useful insignia and information. The decoy force rested and rearmed. Messengers rode under heavy escort to the scattered Ziminiar survivors who had begun to edge back toward the fortress once whispers of Beleth's arrival reached them through hidden routes.
Belathriel also sent word toward the fortress itself by means of a local guide and a tiny flight of trusted sky-runners who knew the old drainage cuts beneath the western wall. The message was brief.
When the northern camp burns, hold. When the western camp burns, strike from your gates with everything you have. Aim for the rear. Take no plunder until the field is ours.
He signed it with his seal and added one line by hand for the eldest son of Ziminiar.
If you fail me now, I will drag you from your own hall later and explain war to you personally.
Lord Yaxon read that addition over Belathriel's shoulder and coughed to hide a laugh. "Your mother's kin will remember your courtesy."
"I hope so," Belathriel said.
Through the day his forces remained hidden, shifting under cover where necessary and feeding on cold rations to keep smoke from betraying them. By evening the battlefield looked unchanged to any eye within the camps. That was the beauty of silence. Men trusted quiet far too easily.
At nightfall Belathriel gathered his principal commanders around a smaller field map scratched directly into the dirt.
"We begin after midnight," he said. "Yaxon, your column goes north and strikes first. Fires on the outer tents. Horns only after the palisade is breached. Make as much disorder as possible and pin whatever remains there. I will take the west at the same time. Once the fortress sallies, we collapse that camp from both sides. The instant it breaks, signal south-east. Three green flares if the lord is confirmed there. One white if Grach is there without him. Two red if both."
"And if the south-east commander withdraws at first alarm?" Lord Orman asked.
"Then we pursue in full mass before dawn," Belathriel answered. "He will have prisoners, wagons, and siege gear. He cannot move quickly enough."
Vaust studied him for a moment. "You are calm."
Belathriel looked at the man. "Should I not be?"
"It's your first campaign."
Belathriel glanced toward the dark horizon where the Ziminiar fortress sat hidden beyond the night. "Then let it be a glorious one."
The attacks began under a moon half veiled by drifting ash clouds from the eastern fissures.
Yaxon's strike on the northern camp opened the battle. Flames rose almost at once, sharp orange against the black plain, and the first horn calls cut through the night like tearing metal. Shouts of confusion followed. Men waking in darkness to fire, screaming beasts, collapsing tents, officers calling for formations that could not be formed fast enough.
Belathriel heard all of it while he led the western assault forward at a hard, controlled pace.
The palisade of the western camp had been built for siege routine, not for sudden war in the heart of the night. Sentries died before they could issue full warning. Ladders went up. Gates shuddered under rams and concentrated demonic-energy blasts. Then the line broke and Beleth soldiers poured through.
Belathriel crossed the breach with the first wave.
The western camp fought harder than he expected. Its older commander, Lord Hespar, proved no fool when stripped of preparation. He formed his nearest infantry into a compact line around the boat slips by the channel and tried to move men across to aid the northern camp once he saw the flames there.
For a few minutes the struggle narrowed into a vicious contest along the water's edge, with Ziminiar's fortress walls looming dark beyond and Beleth soldiers trying to force the crossings before Hespar could stabilize his defense.
Then the first stones fell from above.
The defenders in the fortress had seen the signal.
Heavy rocks, iron pots, and enchanted bolts rained from the walls onto the western camp's improvised crossing point, smashing boats, crushing packed ranks, and turning the narrow edge of the channel into slaughter. Hespar shouted for his men to pull back, yet in that same moment Belathriel drove the center of his force into the rebel line and split it open.
The western camp began to die.
Still it might have held in fragments had the fortress remained shut.
It did not.
The gates of House Ziminiar opened with a roar of chains and old machinery, and from them came the battered survivors within, led by the eldest son in bright ruined armor, their war cries raw from hunger and rage.
They crashed into the rear of the western camp with a force made greater by desperation, and suddenly Hespar's men found enemies before them, behind them, and above them from the walls.
Belathriel saw the collapse happen in real time. A line wavered. Another folded. A banner fell. Then whole sections of the camp gave way and men began throwing down arms or fleeing blindly into the dark.
He rode straight for Hespar and found the old lord trying to rally near a half-burned supply cart.
"Surrender," Belathriel called over the noise.
Hespar spat blood and lifted his blade.
Belathriel killed him two heartbeats later.
By then green fire rose from the north.
Yaxon had taken the camp.
Belathriel wheeled his mount toward the south-east horizon just in time to see three green flares climb into the night one after another.
Lord Ziminiar was there.
"Sound advance," Belathriel ordered at once. "Every wing south-east. Leave enough to finish this field and hold the crossings. The rest with me!"
Men cheered despite their exhaustion.
There was no time for rest.
The victory at the west and north had broken two thirds of Grach's siege, yet the heart of it remained where the prisoners and the rebel leader were most likely held. Belathriel gathered every mobile force he could, joined briefly by the eldest son of Ziminiar and a few hundred of the fortress defenders who were still capable of fighting, and drove toward the south-east camp before the survivors there could withdraw in good order.
The ride through the dark was savage and fast. The plain between the camps was already full of rumor and fear, with isolated rebel units blundering into one another, some trying to reinforce, some trying to flee, none possessing clear instruction.
Beleth cavalry cut through them wherever they formed. Fires from the earlier camps painted the night behind them and made the south-east position visible from far off, its lines tighter and clearly more disciplined.
Grach was there then.
Belathriel felt certain of it.
He slowed only once he reached the final rise before the camp. There he halted with his leading officers and looked down at the last enemy position of the night. This camp was larger than the others and built with more care, its palisade reinforced, its prisoner pens set toward the center, its wagons already being ordered into motion. Whoever commanded below had understood the danger and was trying to save what could be saved.
The eldest son of Ziminiar, Lord Caldris, rode up beside him breathing hard. He looked exhausted, furious, and ashamed all at once.
"My father is in there," Caldris said.
"I know," Belathriel replied.
"We should strike at once."
Belathriel glanced at him. "We will. From three sides."
"Three?" Caldris blinked.
"Orman circles east with the fresh riders and hits their wagons," Belathriel pointed. "Vaust takes the sky and kills any last messenger trying to escape. I will break the western gate. You and what remains of your house strike the southern pens the moment the wall is breached. If your father is still capable of standing, get him out. If he is not, carry him."
Caldris swallowed and nodded. "I owe you more than I can speak."
"You owe my brother better allies than this campaign has shown him." Belathriel's tone remained flat.
Shame flashed across Caldris' face.
Good, Belathriel thought. Let him remember.
The final assault began moments later.
Orman's riders hit first, slamming into the wagon lines on the east and setting them ablaze. The fire spread quickly through dry coverings and stacked provisions. At the same moment Vaust's fliers descended onto the rear watch towers, killing signalers and sending bodies tumbling from the platforms. Then Belathriel led the main charge into the western gate.
The impact shook the palisade from end to end.
Demonic energy punched open weakened joins while rams shattered the bar behind the gate. Belathriel entered through splintered timber into a camp already convulsing under attack from multiple directions. Rebel soldiers fought with grim discipline around the center where the prisoner pens and command tents stood, and at their heart, under a black-red banner marked with the sigil of Urieus, stood Grach himself.
He was taller than Belathriel had expected, armored in dark plate, his sword already wet. Around him clustered veterans holding the line while servants tried to prepare a retreat for the command staff.
So there you are, Belathriel thought.
Lord Grach saw him too.
For a moment the battle narrowed to that recognition. Two lords measuring the other in a single glance while men died around them.
Then Grach barked an order and the rebel center tightened around the prisoner pens.
"He means to bargain," Caldris shouted from somewhere to Belathriel's left.
"Only if we let him speak," Belathriel replied.
He drove his line forward harder.
The fighting in the center was the worst of the night. Grach's veterans were disciplined enough to form a shielded block under pressure, and for several brutal minutes they held against repeated charges, using the narrow spaces between command tents and the pens to limit the effect of Beleth cavalry.
Belathriel dismounted when he saw the ground would no longer favor mounted work and advanced on foot with his household guard, cutting step by step through the packed resistance.
He heard prisoners shouting behind the pens. Heard Caldris calling his father's name. Heard the deep commands of Grach Urieus trying to keep control.
Then the line opened just enough.
Belathriel went through.
He and Grach met in the center of the collapsing camp beneath a rain of drifting sparks from the burning wagons.
"You are the second son," Grach said, breathing hard but steady. "I had hoped for the elder, the better one."
Belathriel raised his blade. "As always, you overestimate your importance."
Grach laughed once. "He sends a child still sucking on his mother's teat after me?"
"He sends victory where it is needed." Belathriel's eyes hardened.
They came together at once.
Grach was powerful and heavy in the arm, being low high-class in power, the sort of fighter who trusted pressure and endurance to break a younger opponent. Belathriel quickly understood why he had beaten Lord Ziminiar in the earlier battle. He did not waste movement. He struck to wound, to unbalance, to herd, and every exchange carried showed his immense experience.
Yet he was tired.
The earlier camps had fallen faster than he could fully adapt to, and the effort of trying to hold the final position while preparing retreat had cost him precious order. Belathriel pressed him without mercy, driving him backward through mud and blood between the command tent and the prisoner pens.
"You should have stayed in the west," Grach grunted through a lock of blades.
"You should have ended the siege before I arrived," Belathriel replied.
Grach twisted, nearly caught him low, then slammed a gauntleted elbow into Belathriel's shoulder hard enough to numb the arm for an instant. Belathriel gave ground, recovered, and let Grach surge after him the half step he wanted. Then he turned sharply, cut across the rebel lord's wrist, and followed with a thrust under the cuirass.
Grach staggered.
For a second he remained standing on sheer will.
Then Belathriel ripped the blade free and struck him across the neck with the flat enough to send the rebel lord crashing to one knee.
"Yield," Belathriel said.
Around them the line of Urieus veterans was breaking.
Grach lifted his head, blood running from his mouth, and looked toward the prisoner pens where Caldris and his men were already forcing them open. Something in his gaze changed then.
He let his sword fall. "I yield."
Belathriel signaled at once for the rebel lord to be taken alive.
The camp collapsed within minutes after that. Once word spread that Grach had fallen and yielded, resistance lost its spine. Some fled. Some surrendered. Some fought to the death in scattered knots, too deep in hatred or panic to stop. The fires rose higher. The sky above the camp glowed red.
Belathriel turned from the capture and walked toward the opened pens just as Caldris emerged supporting an older devil whose face was bruised, beard matted with blood, yet whose eyes remained alive and furious.
Lord Ziminiar.
The old lord looked at Belathriel, blinked once, and gave a rough laugh that turned into a cough. "You took your time."
Belathriel looked at him coolly. "I had to clean up our mess."
Ziminiar stared, then wheezed another laugh despite his condition. "Aelyra's son indeed."
"Can you walk?"
"With enough spite, yes."
"Good," Belathriel said. "Because dawn is coming and I would prefer you standing when your banners rise again."
That drew a harder glint into the older lord's eyes. Around them, surviving men of Ziminiar were gathering, some weeping openly at the sight of their lord freed, some staring at the destroyed camp in disbelief, all of them understanding that the night had reversed the shape of the war in a matter of hours.
Belathriel looked east.
A pale line had begun to form on the horizon. Dawn has come.
His first campaign was not yet over. There would be prisoners to sort, roads to secure, scattered enemy detachments to hunt, letters to send, and wounded to account for. Yet the heart of the work had been done. House Ziminiar lived. Grach Urieus was taken and the siege was broken. The east was his.
He found, to his own surprise, that his first clear thought after victory was not relief, nor exhaustion, nor even the satisfaction of a plan executed well.
He felt instead a quiet and steady awareness of himself standing in the aftermath of something he had shaped with his own hands, something that had not been handed to him, not inherited, not guided step by step by another.
This was all his doing - something he achieved by his own judgment, his own decisions, and his own will.
The field around him bore the proof of it in every direction, in the broken camps, in the routed enemy, in the freed banners of Ziminiar rising again where hours ago there had been none, and in the simple undeniable fact that he had taken a failing situation and turned it into victory without waiting for rescue, without leaning on another to finish what he had begun.
For a long moment he stood there and let that realization settle fully, allowing it to take shape within him with a clarity that felt new and strangely steady. And he smiled.
His thoughts still turned toward his siblings, because they always did, yet this time the comparison did not come with the same weight it once carried. He could already imagine how the report would be received, how Meruem would listen with that same calm curiosity, asking questions, picking apart the details, perhaps offering a comment that sounded like praise while still carrying that familiar edge of amusement.
He could imagine Hermon standing beside him, quieter as always, noticing the small moments where things could have gone wrong, seeing the near failures that others would overlook.
That image no longer unsettled him.
For the first time, it did not feel like he was measuring himself against them in a way that diminished what he had done. He did not feel the need to prove that he could match Meruem in the same way, nor did he feel overshadowed by the ease with which his brother seemed to move through things that others struggled to understand.
He did not have to be that kind of man.
He had won this battle in his own way.
Not through instinctive brilliance that bent the flow of events around him, not through effortless dominance that made everything look simple, but believing in himself.
He had seen the field for what it was, accepted the mistakes already made, and shaped the outcome step by step until victory became inevitable. There was strength in that, a different kind of strength than the one his brother wielded, yet no less real for it.
Belathriel drew a slow breath as the morning light spread across the battlefield.
He was not merely the lesser brother.
The idea settled into him with a quiet certainty that did not need to be spoken aloud or proven to anyone else at that moment. He did not need to stand in Meruem's shadow to have worth, nor did he need to imitate him to be considered strong. There was a place for him in this house, in this war, in what was to come, and it was a place he could claim through his own merit.
Belathriel almost smiled at the thought.
He looked once more across the field that he had won, then turned to his waiting officers with a steadier posture than before.
There was still work to be done.
POV: Meruem
Well, the maps will need to be redrawn a bit, he thought with quiet amusement as he surveyed the devastation their clash had wrought.
What had once been a vast stretch of wilderness had been reduced to a scorched expanse spanning more than ten miles in every direction. It had been broken apart by force so overwhelming that even the stubborn geography of the underworld had failed to endure it.
Where a mountain range had once stood, jagged and old, there now remained only shattered remnants of stone scattered across a wide expanse, entire peaks reduced to uneven fields of rubble and molten rock that still glowed faintly from the heat buried within them. Some fragments still burned slowly, their surfaces cracked open to reveal veins of red light that pulsed like wounds that refused to close.
The ground had split in long violent fractures that stretched for miles, deep chasms cutting through the earth in irregular patterns, their depths filled with thick smoke and slow moving fire that crawled along the broken edges.
Rivers of molten stone flowed lazily through those fissures, carrying heat and light across the devastated land, pooling in low areas where entire sections of forest had once grown.
There was no forest anymore. What remained of it stood as blackened silhouettes, skeletal trees stripped of life, their branches twisted and brittle, some still burning with a dull orange glow that refused to die.
Ash covered everything. It fell from the sky in a constant drifting haze, thick enough in places to obscure vision, turning the air heavy and dry with the taste of scorched earth and something far worse that lingered beneath it.
The smell of burning flesh carried through the wind.
It was everywhere, faint in some places, overwhelming in others, mixing with the sulfurous stench rising from the broken ground and the bitter scent of smoke that clung to every breath. Bodies lay scattered across the ruined battlefield, some reduced to unrecognizable shapes, others preserved in the final moments of their deaths, their armor warped, their weapons melted or shattered, their forms caught in the aftermath of a clash far beyond their understanding.
Fires stretched for miles, vast burning zones where the land itself seemed to reject the idea of extinguishing them. The demonic energy released during the battle had altered the nature of those flames, feeding them with something deeper than fuel, something tied to the environment itself. They burned without clear source, consuming what remained and lingering even where there was nothing left to devour.
Above it all, the sky had changed. Storm clouds churned violently in layered spirals, drawn together by the disruption caused by the collision of two ultimate class beings, their movements twisting the air itself into unstable currents.
Lightning flashed within those clouds in erratic bursts that spread across wide sections of the sky, illuminating the devastation below in harsh crimson light before fading again into darkness. The wind moved in unpredictable directions, carrying ash, heat, and fragments of debris across the ruined landscape in slow, relentless waves.
It resembled the descriptions of hell he remembered from his past life. A landscape consumed by fire and ruin, stretching endlessly in all directions, devoid of life and filled only with the aftermath of destruction.
Meruem watched it all with calm interest, his expression unchanged as his gaze moved across the destruction he had helped create.
His attention shifted to the woman before him.
Dimora Bael knelt, her body still, her mind clearly not.
He could see it in the way her gaze lacked focus, in the way her breathing came unevenly, in the subtle tension in her form that suggested something deeper than physical exhaustion. He could see it clearly with his Alpha stigma, the absence within her where something vital had been removed, the faint instability in her demonic energy that marked the loss of the King's Piece that had once elevated her to a level she had never truly earned.
She looked lost.
There was a certain irony in that, he thought idly. The woman who had arrived with such confidence, such certainty in her claim and her power, now struggled to reconcile herself with a reality she had never considered possible.
He supposed that was natural.
She had just discovered that death would not offer her the escape she had expected. The quiet oblivion that most devils clung to as their final certainty had been taken from her, replaced with something far worse.
The one who had defeated her possessed the ability to touch, alter, and claim her soul itself, and now she stood on the edge of a reality where even her end belonged to someone else.
He observed her for a moment longer.
Well, she would never have found herself in this position had she not desired what was never hers to claim.
There was no injustice in the outcome.
Even so, her current state held little value to him. Her soul was of no consequence. Had she been a true ultimate class devil, one who had reached that realm through her own strength and mastery, then her soul would have held significant value.
It could have served as a powerful resource, a foundation for further experimentation, a rare and valuable asset in his growing understanding of forces most beings could not even perceive.
Instead, what remained of her was… lacking.
Without the King's Piece, her power had already begun to settle back toward its natural limit, she was merely at the Peak of high-class. Impressive by ordinary standards. Worthless by his.
It disappointed him.
More than that, it disgusted him.
He looked at her again, and the feeling deepened.
Here stood a devil born into one of the most powerful houses in the underworld, gifted from birth with the Power of Destruction, a hereditary ability that placed her above the vast majority of her kind before she had even taken her first steps. She had lived for over eight centuries, had access to knowledge, resources, training, and opportunity that most could only dream of, and this was the result.
This!
Eight hundred years.
And this was all she had to show for it.
The word pathetic did not come close to capturing the depth of his disapointment.
He felt a quiet revulsion at the thought of it, at the broader pattern she represented. She was not unique. That was the problem. His expression grew thoughtful as his mind shifted from Dimora to the broader nature of devilkind, because her failure was a symptom of a much larger pattern that defined their entire race.
There were many like her, and the thought only deepened his irritation. There were countless devils across the underworld who had lived for millennia and achieved nothing of note.
Beings who possessed the innate ability to wield magic shaped by their imagination, who had time stretching endlessly before them, and yet who remained stagnant, their power plateaued, their ambitions dulled, their existence reduced to a slow repetition of indulgence and avoidance.
He understood, of course, that not everyone could reach ultimate-class. That level of power required a combination of talent, effort, and luck that few could align.
Even so, thousands of years was an absurd amount of time, more than enough to achieve something meaningful, something that justified the potential they had been born with.
Yet most of them did not.
They simply… existed.
They drifted through centuries indulging in comfort, repeating the same cycles of minor improvement and stagnation, never pushing themselves beyond the boundaries of safety that they had drawn around their existence.
They did not lack power. That was the most offensive part.
Every devil was born with the ability to manipulate demonic energy, to shape reality to some extent through will and imagination. Their magic was not rigid or limited in the way other systems often were. It was fluid and capable of growth in ways that should have encouraged exploration and ambition.
Yet they achieved nothing of worth.
The root of it was simple.
Devils feared death more than any other race.
It was not a shallow fear, not the instinctive aversion that all living beings possessed toward harm and extinction as is the case with humans and other races.
Devils suffered from a terminal case of primal fear, something deeply ingrained into the very structure of their existence that shaped their entire approach to life.
Humans feared death yet believed in an afterlife, whether through religion or cultural expectation, and that belief provided a form of psychological buffer that softened the finality of their end. Angels and other races had their own forms of continuation, systems that gave meaning to death beyond its immediate cessation.
Devils had nothing.
Sure they lived long lives, some reaching spans that dwarfed entire civilizations of other races, and yet that longevity carried with it a singular, unavoidable truth.
When they died, there was nothing.
No afterlife nor any form of continuation after the death of the physical body. No transformation into another state of being.
They returned to nothingness.
That truth shaped everything.
It created a form of risk aversion so deeply embedded in their psyche that it influenced the entire way they approached life. Every action was weighed against the possibility of death, every ambition tempered by the question of whether it justified the risk, and over time this constant calculation eroded the willingness to push beyond safe boundaries. Every attempt to push beyond their limits came with the possibility of failure risked annihilation.
And because of that, they became cautious.
Caution bred fear, fear settled into comfort, and comfort slowly hardened into stagnation.
They chose stability over growth, comfort over struggle, indulgence over discipline.
They feared the absence of existence more than they desired greatness.
That fear shaped their culture, their priorities, their entire understanding of what it meant to live. They built systems that rewarded longevity and preservation, that encouraged maintaining one's position rather than risking it for something greater.
They surrounded themselves with pleasures, distractions, and minor pursuits that filled time without demanding true effort.
Meruem had observed this pattern repeatedly since his transmigration, and the more he considered it the more obvious it became. Devils did not lack for potential.
What they lacked was an incentive to truly pursue that potential. Growth required risk. Improvement required failure.
Strength required pushing oneself into situations where death was a real possibility, because only under that pressure did the limits of one's ability become clear.
Striving requires sacrifice.
Sacrifice required risk.
Risk led to the possibility of death.
And death meant nothingness.
So they stopped striving.
They convinced themselves that what they had was enough, that their position within the hierarchy of the underworld was acceptable, that there was no need to push further when the cost of failure was so absolute. Over time, that mindset hardened into complacency, and complacency turned into decay.
They preferred the slow accumulation of minor gains over the possibility of significant advancement paired with significant risk.
It was rational in a sense.
From their perspective, survival was the highest priority because it preserved the only thing they truly had. The ability to continue experiencing the pleasures and indulgences that defined much of their culture. Why risk everything for the possibility of becoming stronger when remaining where they were already allowed them to live comfortably for thousands of years.
Effort became something reserved for moments of necessity rather than a constant drive.
Meruem found it contemptible.
He had lived as a human before, in a world where time was limited, where the awareness of mortality created urgency, where individuals were driven to achieve something within the narrow span of their lives because they knew that span would end. That awareness created pressure, and that pressure created growth.
Devils lacked that urgency.
Their lives stretched so far into the future that the concept of time lost its weight. There was always more of it. Always another century. Another millennium. Another opportunity that could be taken later, postponed indefinitely without immediate consequence.
So they delayed.
They postponed effort.
They avoided hardship.
And eventually they became incapable of pursuing anything beyond their current state.
It was deeply repugnant.
Time was the most valuable resource they possessed, and they squandered it.
Centuries passed, and they remained the same.
They could have been more.
They chose not to be.
He looked down at Dimora once more, her form still trembling slightly as the weight of her situation pressed down on her mind.
She was a perfect example.
Given everything and yet achieved so little.
And now reduced to something even less.
Meruem exhaled slowly, his gaze drifting back toward the ruined landscape, the fires still burning across the broken land, the storm above continuing to churn without sign of fading.
The underworld was filled with beings like her.
And that, more than anything, explained why so few ever reached true heights of power.
They were unwilling.
And that, in his mind, was far worse.
Meruem turned his gaze toward the vast armies gathered across the shattered battlefield, and what met him was a sight that would have seemed absurd to anyone who had not just witnessed what he had done.
Tens of thousands of devils stood frozen in place, their bodies rigid, their eyes locked onto him with a kind of stunned disbelief that bordered on reverence, like beings who had spent their entire existence denying the existence of something greater only to find themselves standing before undeniable proof.
No one moved.
No one dared to speak.
Even the wind seemed to quiet as the weight of his presence settled over them.
"Is that a way to greet your king?" Meruem said, his voice cold and carrying effortlessly across the field.
At once, the armies fell.
It was as if an invisible force pressed down upon them all at once, and in perfect unison, tens of thousands of soldiers dropped to their knees. The impact resounded across the ruined landscape, a single, thunderous echo that carried through the air and seemed to shake even the storm-choked sky above.
The soldiers who fought under his banner reacted first. Relief spread across their faces, followed by elation so intense it bordered on hysteria. There was a raw, almost overwhelming emotion in their expressions, a mixture of relief, awe, and exhilaration that spread through their ranks like fire.
They looked at him with the wide-eyed intensity of those who had stared into darkness and suddenly found themselves standing in the light, their fear replaced by something far stronger, something that bordered on devotion.
Meruem's gaze moved across them, taking in each reaction with quiet interest.
Among them, he spotted Hermon. His younger brother stood among the ranks, his posture stiff, his eyes fixed on Meruem with an expression that held too many emotions to separate cleanly. There was wonder there, unmistakable and bright, yet it was tangled with something heavier, something closer to fear, and beneath both of those lay a deep sense of awe that he could not hide even if he tried.
Athalia stood not far from him. Her expression was not one of shock in the same way as the others. There was no confusion in her eyes, no frantic attempt to reconcile what she had just witnessed. Her suspicions, whatever they had been, had found their answer in this moment, and the weight of that realization settled over her in a way that left her composed yet undeniably affected.
Meruem's attention shifted again.
His gaze found his mother.
Queen Morena stood among the gathered nobles, utterly still, her eyes locked onto him with an intensity that set her apart from everyone else present. There was no simple emotion in her expression. It went beyond pride, beyond relief, beyond even the fierce love of a mother for her son.
What he saw there was something deeper, something that bordered on incomprehension, as though she were seeing him for the first time and struggling to reconcile the image before her with the child she had once known.
There was admiration there. There was obsession. And beneath it all, something that resembled worship in a way that felt almost unsettling.
Her gaze did not waver.
Meruem held it for a moment, then moved on.
His eyes settled on Lord Acteus and Lord Ormenos.
The two rebel lords knelt among the others, yet there was a difference in the way they carried themselves. Their posture held none of the shock or awe that marked the soldiers around them. Instead there was a quiet resignation, a clear understanding of the situation they now found themselves in.
They knew exactly what stood before them. They knew what it meant. And they knew how little chance they had ever possessed the moment Meruem revealed the full extent of his power. And yet…
Without a word, Meruem raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
The space beside him distorted for a brief instant.
Then both lords appeared before him, still kneeling, their expressions shifting from controlled composure to sudden confusion as they tried to understand how they had been moved so abruptly from their original positions.
"Did you truly believe I wouldn't notice your attempt to escape?" Meruem asked, a faint trace of mockery in his voice.
Lord Acteus lifted his gaze slightly, his expression calm despite the situation. "You hijacked our spell," he said evenly. "What sort of monster has Andramelth raised?! It seems he had the last laugh even in death."
Meruem's eyes flickered for a moment, though his expression did not change.
Before he could respond, a distant sound reached him.
A warhorn. It echoed across the battlefield, deep and clear, carrying with it a presence that was immediately recognizable.
Meruem turned his head slightly.
In the distance, banners rose.
The seven pointed star of House Beleth advanced across the horizon as Belathriel's army came into view, their formation tight, their presence marked by the unmistakable energy of a force returning from victory.
A smile spread across Meruem's face.
His soldiers saw them moments later.
A wave of sound erupted from their ranks as they recognized their allies, cheers rising into the sky in a surge of jubilation that broke the heavy silence that had lingered over the battlefield.
Belathriel rode at the front. His armor bore the marks of battle, his posture steady despite the exhaustion that must have settled into his body after the campaign he had just completed.
Behind him, rebellious lords were dragged forward in chains, their bodies battered, their dignity stripped away along with their armor. Among them was Lord Grach, bound and naked, forced to stumble forward under the weight of his restraints as lashes struck his back without pause.
The two armies joined quickly, Beleth soldiers parting to allow their returning forces to pass through, their cheers continuing as the full extent of the victory became clear.
Belathriel dismounted the moment he caught sight of Meruem, relief flashing across his face before it was quickly restrained. The soldiers parted for him as he advanced, dragging Lord Grach forward by the collar before casting him down at Meruem's feet. Then he dropped to one knee.
"I return to you triumphant, brother," Belathriel said, his voice steady. His gaze shifted briefly to the figures already kneeling before Meruem, and a faint smile touched his lips. "Though it appears my presence was unnecessary."
Meruem laughed. It was open and genuine.
He stepped forward and pulled Belathriel into a firm embrace.
"I knew you would succeed," he said with a grin. "Well done, little brother."
Belathriel froze for a brief moment, clearly caught off guard by the sudden gesture, his body stiff as though unsure how to respond. Then, slowly, he returned the embrace, his arms wrapping around Meruem with a quiet hesitation that faded as he settled into the moment.
"Thank you, brother," he said.
Meruem released his brother and turned once more to the assembled armies, his expression settling into something distant and absolute. The brief warmth of reunion vanished as though it had never existed, replaced by the cold authority that now defined him.
"Lift your heads," he commanded.
The countless soldiers obeyed at once, though none dared rise from their knees. Their eyes followed him with a mixture of reverence and dread, each man acutely aware that the being standing before them had crossed into something far beyond their understanding.
"You have witnessed it with your own eyes," he said, his voice carrying effortlessly across the ruined battlefield, cutting through the crackle of distant flames and the low rumble of the storm above. "Power decides truth. Those who stand at the peak define what is and what will be. That is the way it was and the way it always will be. Let every devil who draws breath remember this day, this I command."
A pause followed, deliberate, suffocating.
"I stand before you as the sovereign. This land, this sky, this very order that governs your existence now bends to my will. What you have witnessed here is the foundation of what is to come."
A faint, cold smile touched his lips.
"To those who recognized this truth from the beginning and chose to stand beneath my banner, understand that your loyalty will not go unanswered. Your ambitions will be realized, your positions secured, your influence expanded beyond your wildest imagination.
"To those who harbor dissent, who cling to pride that cannot be upheld, who entertain thoughts of defiance even now, I say this: Death and misery shall be your lot. Your names will vanish from the annals of history, your houses will crumble, and all that you have built will be reduced to nothing. Your existence will serve only as a warning to those who follow.
"Let it be known from this moment onward that I do not tolerate hesitation, nor deceit, nor ambition that dares to rise against me. There will be no second chances. There will be no mercy for those who mistake my patience for weakness."
A pause followed, heavy and deliberate.
"Bring the traitors."
At once, the guards moved.
Dimora, Lord Acteus, Lord Ormenos, and Lord Grach were dragged forward and forced to kneel before him. Their bodies trembled, whether from injury or terror none could tell. The battlefield fell silent once more, as if the world itself waited.
Meruem stepped toward Dimora first.
She tried to meet his gaze, but whatever resolve she once possessed had shattered. There was only raw and unrestrained trepidation in her now.
He crouched slightly, studying her face with faint disinterest.
"Such arrogance," he said quietly. "Built upon so little."
Then, without warning, his hand shot forward. His fingers dug deeply into her scalp and ripped off her face.
Dimora screamed.
It was not human. Not entirely. It broke midway into something jagged and feral, a shriek that scraped against the throat until it turned raw and animalistic. Blood poured freely, cascading down her exposed musculature, her features reduced to a glistening ruin of muscle, tendon, and bone. Her jaw quivered, teeth chattering uncontrollably, each breath bubbling wetly through what remained of her face.
"Unworthy," Meruem said coldly, casting the torn flesh aside as though it were refuse. "You will not stand before me with such a countance."
Dimora collapsed forward, her body convulsing as she screamed, her voice dissolving into incoherent shrieks. Blood poured from her ruined features, her breaths ragged and uneven as instinct forced her to cling to what remained of consciousness.
"P-p..as..e…" She tried to speak, tried to beg, but what emerged was a broken gargle, words drowning in blood and pain. Still, her body understood. It bent forward, trembling, attempting supplication.
Her arms lifted weakly, trembling as she reached toward him.
His gaze dropped to her hands.
A flicker of distaste crossed his expression.
"Revolting!" Meruem declared. "Your hands are far too filthy to seek clemency from a king."
Before she could complete the motion, he seized her arms.
With a sharp motion, he ripped them out.
The sound of bone snapping and flesh tearing echoed sickeningly as both arms were ripped from her body at the shoulder, blood erupting outward in violent bursts.
Her scream escalated, if such a thing were possible.
It rose beyond pain, beyond coherence, into something primal and unending. A shrill, tearing wail that seemed to shred itself as it climbed higher, cracking and splintering into a chorus of agony. It echoed, rebounded, multiplied into an unbearable, continuous note of suffering that clawed at the ears and refused to die.
Her body convulsed violently, shoulders jerking with phantom motion, as though her arms still existed and begged to be used. She tried to crawl, to bow, to do anything - but there was nothing left to offer. Only misery.
His eyes gleamed.
He watched her unravel with a detached fascination, as though witnessing a spectacle crafted solely for his fleeting interest.
And already, that interest was beginning to fade.
Around them, the army stood frozen. They did not dare to move.
They could not.
What unfolded before them had long since surpassed cruelty. It had become something older, more primitive. Something that reached past fear and into paralysis. Warriors, nobles, traitors, loyalists, every one of them stood frozen.
Lord Acteus, Lord Ormenos, Lord Grach tried to run yet their bodies refused.
Terror had hollowed them out, leaving only trembling shells that could neither flee nor fight. Their legs quivered uselessly, their breath came in shallow, panicked bursts. And still they remained exactly where they were, trapped within their own flesh.
Lord Grach broke first.
"My lord–please–I–" His voice collapsed into itself as he threw his forehead toward the ground, words tumbling over one another in frantic desperation. "I was forced–corrupted–Dimora threatened me–I had no choice–please, I beg you, mercy–mercy–"
Meruem did not raise his voice.
"I did not grant you the right to look at me," he said, each word measured, absolute. "...much less the right to speak."
His hand moved again.
They sank into Grach's eye sockets with terrifying ease.
There was a wet, crushing sound as they sank into the sockets, followed by a sharp, tearing motion as Meruem pulled them free. The eyes came loose with strands of tissue still attached, blood spilling down Grach's face in thick streams as his scream erupted, his body convulsing as he clawed blindly at the ground.
The sound was unbearable.
A broken, guttural cry that carried far beyond the battlefield.
Either a result of instinct or reason Acteus and Ormenos understood.
With frantic desperation, they slammed their foreheads against the ground, again and again, desperately avoiding even the possibility of meeting his gaze. They did not speak. They did not dare breathe too loudly. They reduced themselves to something less than servants, less than animals, anything that might escape notice.
Meruem straightened, his gaze drifting over the writhing forms of Dimora and Grach.
A faint smile touched his lips.
He snapped his fingers.
A magic circle formed instantly beside him, intricate and radiant, pulsing with power. From within it emerged three figures.
His first and second bishops Kuroka Toujou and Valerie Tepes. And his queen Rossweisse.
Each carried a massive barrel, tall enough to swallow a man whole.
"Open them," Meruem ordered.
They obeyed without hesitation.
The lids were removed and the world seemed to recoil.
What lay within was clear. Pure. Almost luminous in its stillness.
Holy water.
A ripple of terror spread through every devil present. Even the most seasoned among them recoiled instinctively, their bodies reacting before thought could intervene. The very presence of it caused discomfort, a deep, instinctual rejection that manifested as unease and dread.
Holy power was the antithesis of their very being. That which burned their very essence. That which reduced devils to nothing.
Meruem observed them calmly. He did not need to hear their thoughts. He already knew the questions forming in their minds.
Why?
How?
How had he obtained it? Why had he brought it? What does he intend to do?
"Proceed," he said.
The guards moved immediately.
"Put her in."
The order fell casually.
Dimora's scream spiked the moment the command was understood, rising into a desperate, broken frenzy as the royal guards seized her. She thrashed weakly, her ruined face twisting, blood and saliva spilling freely as she tried to form words that no longer existed.
It did not matter.
They dragged her to the barrel.
For a moment, just a moment, her body resisted.
"N… no… no–"
She was lifted and forced into the barrel.
The moment her body touched the surface, her scream reached a new height.
The holy water reacted instantly.
Her skin blistered and peeled in seconds, sloughing away as though it had never belonged to her. The liquid hissed softly as it consumed her, eating through muscle, through tissue, exposing glimpses of bone beneath before even that began to darken and degrade.
Her scream, if it even can be called that, transcended sound.
It became something else entirely; a continuous, splintering shriek that rose beyond the limits of a voice. It wavered, broke, reformed, climbing higher and higher as if trying to escape the reality of what was happening to her.
She tried to climb out.
She tried.
But the guards were ready.
With remarkable quickness, and something disturbingly close to amusement, they drove her back down with their spears. Each time she rose, half-dissolved, convulsing, they forced her under again, like butchers keeping livestock submerged.
Again.
And again.
Until she was no more.
The stench spread.
A thick, suffocating reek of burning flesh and something far worse, something unnatural, filled the air.
The other traitors were forced to watch.
Lord Grach was next.
He sobbed incoherently as he was dragged forward, his sightless gaze rolling uselessly as he pleaded, begged, screamed for mercy that would never come.
He was thrown into the second barrel.
His body arched violently.
His body convulsed violently as the holy water consumed him, his screams erupting into a hoarse, broken roar as his flesh began to dissolve, sloughing away under the surface. He attempted to rise, to escape, but was forced down again and again, his movements growing weaker as the liquid ate through him.
Then came Acteus.
Words poured from him in a frantic stream, promises, apologies, prayers. Anything and everything, his voice cracking, breaking, collapsing under the weight of his terror.
The prince of Sheol did not listen. He has chosen a cold god to pray to.
The process repeated for lord Ormenos.
Soon, all three barrels echoed with the same sound.
Endless screaming.
Bodies breaking down under forces they could not resist.
The air grew thick with heat, smoke, and the unbearable stench of burning flesh.
And still, no one moved.
No one dared.
Through it all, Meruem stood in silence, watching.
Then, through the haze, a figure approached.
Queen Morena.
She moved slowly, her hands trembling, yet her steps did not falter. In her grasp she carried a crown, held with reverence, as though it were something sacred.
It was a masterpiece of impossible craftsmanship. Forged from dark gold that seemed to drink in the surrounding light, its surface was adorned with intricate engravings that traced the history and authority of their house. Deep crimson gems were set along its frame, each one glowing faintly, as though alive, while thinner veins of black crystal wove between them in delicate patterns. At its peak rested a larger gem, radiating an unmistakable presence of Majesty.
She reached him and knelt.
Raising the crown with both hands, she offered it upward without a word.
Around them, the world burned.
Flames consumed the land. Lightning tore through the sky. The screams of the dying filled the air.
Meruem took the crown.
Lifting it with steady hands, he placed it upon his own head and crowned himself.
AN: Yet again, another long chapter. I didn't plan for it to be this long, but here we are. This arc is now finished. I understand that it was filled mostly with original characters, but the upcoming arc will focus more on canon characters.
I know the Belthriel part could have been much shorter or even skipped, but ...I wanted to use the opportunity to practice writing large-scale army conflicts. Also, Meruem's analysis on why devils don't become ridiculously powerful over their long lifespans should be taken with a grain of salt, as he is very biased. He tends to forget that he was born into a privileged household and had an immense head start compared to 99.9 % of devils simply because he was born a noble.
I made Belthrile's fight very short, without much use of magic or unique abilities, because I didn't want to drag it out. But it ended up looking like a medieval sword fight… oh well.
Advanced chapters are available on my Patreon, so if you want to read ahead or support me so I can focus more on writing, check out my Patreon: https://patreon.com/abeltargaryen?