Chapter 735: Afu the Faker

The beginning of the demon wave was a historical event, as well as a critically important event in the Holy War’s timeline.

The demon wave’s arrival signified that the Chaos Abyss had successfully connected to the mortal plane. It would be very difficult for any Chaos Abyss resident to come to the mortal plane when it wasn’t a time of Holy War, and the Chaos Abyss resident would also be quite weakened and easily kicked out of the mortal plane. But now, not only was establishing portals easier, even powerful demons would no longer be restricted by dimensional laws in the mortal plane now.

However, there would always be demerits together with benefits. Previously, due to dimensional laws’ restrictions which forcefully suppressed those from the Chaos Abyss, the Demon Lords were only able to send out incarnations, clones, descendants, and so on. Even if they suffered some losses in the mortal plane, it wouldn’t mean their actual death.

But right now, with the current situation, other demons were all coming to the mortal plane in their true bodies. You would be viewed as an embarrassment if you merely sent an incarnation. Not only that, an incarnation would be weaker, so you wouldn’t even be able to get anything for yourself when contending with the other demons. The incarnation being slain repeatedly would also keep weakening your true body, and a powerful mage who captured the incarnation would even be able to use it to attack the demon’s true body, steal its power, and enslave it by finding out its true name. This would obviously be a poor deal.

So, all the demons came in their true bodies. Although their true bodies were more powerful, the downside was that they would be undergoing great risk. For most of them, death would truly be death.

Demon Lord Inferno Soulchainer Shark Shikblair was a rather rare demon species, a River Styx Corrosion Shark who had leveled up to become a high-level demon. He appeared like a large black shark that was swimming around in the middle of black mist. Only his scarlet bloodthirsty eyes could be seen clearly through the mist. He would definitely be quite scary if he appeared at night.

His species loved to feast on souls. Although River Styx Corrosion Sharks were unable to actually enter the River Styx, they would always live near the River Styx and ambush newborn demons who had just climbed ashore. They loved to eat the flesh and blood of souls that hadn’t finished transforming yet, which was why they were also known as scavengers.

Every single living creature would have the instinct to protect infants of its own kind. Even the demons would automatically attack any River Styx Corrosion Sharks that they came across. Any demon who was lucky enough to escape from a shark would also carry a grudge and come back later for revenge after becoming more powerful.

River Styx Corrosion Sharks were a low-intelligence demon species, so Shikblair being able to level up to Demon Lord was the best evidence of how out of the ordinary he was. Currently, within his protective mist, black chains were binding the souls of howling mortals. Shikblair enjoyed fresh souls as snacks, and howls of despair would give him pleasure.

As he was a Demon Lord who possessed the ability of flight, most of his subordinates were also flying demons. But unfortunately for Shikblair, it was far too uncommon for those of his own species to level up enough to gain intelligence, so most of his subordinates were winged demons and succubi.

Winged demons were a major subtype of demons. Any demon which had wings and could fly would count as a winged demon. Most of them were regular demons which were really muscular. Some were demons who had devoured something with the ability of flight, gaining the power of flight themselves.

The winged demons’ appearances were widely varied, from what looked like a gorilla with wings, all the way to wolves with wings.

But since these winged demons had chosen to keep the ability of flight, this would naturally mean decreasing their weight and increasing wingspan, which would also weaken their melee combat ability which demons were so proud of.

Winged demons weren’t usually that difficult to deal with. Normally, these demons that had chosen a wrong path of evolution would evolve a second pair of wings to further improve their ability of flight and how much weight they could have.

Meanwhile, succubi were one of the few demon species which would keep humanoid form. There was no need to introduce them, as they were far too famous.

“One Demon Lord, who’s the very rare species of Soulchainer Shark, the leveled-up version of River Styx Corrosion Shark. He has 13 succubi and more than 200 random winged demons under his command, as well as a small special squad of evolved four-winged Berserker Demons. This will be slightly troublesome…”

Ordinary guests all hid in their rooms, while the airship crew and warriors prepared for battle on the deck.

The magic cannons on the starboard and port sides of the airship kept firing, but achieved very little as the winged demons were quite agile.

The winged demon squadron was now following the airship. The slow airship wouldn’t possibly be able to outrun them. However, the winged demons didn’t immediately attack. They were also observing us.

“Grandmaster Raikage, please take action!”

The airship captain was apparently asking a monk named Raikage to protect the airship…

“Asking a monk to protect an airship? Which genius came up with this idea?”

I really felt like this was unreliable. Everyone knew that monks were experts in melee combat. Any monk who got within melee distance would easily be able to neutralize medium-length and long weapons.

I had previous experience of being beaten by undead monks before. Earth Elemental God Emordilorcan was also the strongest monk I had ever seen in the world. He was ridiculously cheat-like powerful at melee combat.

I wasn’t trying to say that monks were weak. In fact, high-level monks would always be quite ridiculously strong. However, monk was a job class with one of the shortest effective ranges among all job classes.

Hire a monk to protect an airship? How was the monk supposed to deal with aerial enemies? Send out an energy blast or Spirit Bomb like in an anime?

The monk Raikage appeared to be only around 30 years old. He definitely appeared quite young as he smiled with his eyes closed, yet he was already Saint rank. This didn’t actually mean that he was a young genius. It was because the monk job class was really good at slowing the aging process already as this job class focused on developing the physical body’s potential.

Raikage currently had his eyes closed as he meditated. It seemed as if he had a plan.

“Hey, maybe he has some ultimate technique, such as a special bloodline or skill, a magic item which forbids flight, a magic item which increases gravity, or something. He might even be an expert Saint rank with a Soul World.” Harloys disagreed with my opinion. Seeing how calm that Raikage seemed to be, maybe he really did have something up his sleeve.

All of the airship’s guards came out. There was the Saint-rank monk and three Legend ranks: one archer, one swordsman, and one mage. There was also a random assortment of Silver and Gold ranks… Just a decade ago, Gold ranks had been viewed as grandmasters, but now they had been relegated to being nothing more than cannon fodder. I could only exclaim over how the world had changed.

The magic cannons on the airship were quite powerful. However, they were still a bit insufficient for fighting against demons. Chaos Abyss creatures were naturally fire resistant, which also meant that it was normal for them to be resistant against explosions. Plus, these winged demons could fly quite agilely. The magic cannons were very little threat to them.

In order to save money, it wasn’t possible for the transportation airship to also have a guard airship escort. This meant that the transportation airship could only rely on its own regular guards.

A dozen or so winged demons began their attacks rather rashly by charging at the airship. Although their attack was just a test of our defenses, if any of them crashed into the wooden airship deck, it was guaranteed that a large hole would appear in the airship.

The monk Raikage took action. He suddenly left afterimages behind as he continuously jumped and flashed around. Dull thuds of his fists meeting demon flesh could be heard in the air. When Raikage landed on the deck again, all of the approaching winged demons had been smashed into unrecognizable tiny pieces of flesh.

And then, Raikage angrily glared at the remaining winged demons in the sky. His aura then swirled around him as if he was about to release some ultimate technique.

“…Come down here and fight me if you dare!”

Alright then, we had indeed overestimated him. Was this some new taunting technique of this generation?

It seemed that hiring a monk in order to guard this airship wasn’t because this monk was special, after all. Maybe this monk had been the only Saint rank available for hire, or, more likely, the airship captain had just wanted to save money.

Monks were the cheapest job class to maintain, after all. They didn’t need any special weapons or equipment. Monks were ascetics, so they would ask for the least to hire them. In fact, some monks were even willing to work for free as long as you gave them free food and boarding…

“As expected, I shouldn’t have tried to save money after all…”

I heard the airship captain muttering this to himself. The airship transportation service had an advertisement that every single airship would be protected by at least one Saint rank. It seemed that this was how the airship captain had ensured the truth of the advertising. I was at the entrance to the deck and heard his muttering, so of course the monk would naturally hear him as well, as monks excelled in developing their five senses.

Raikage’s face reddened in anger, but he had nowhere to vent it. He could only viciously glare at the flying demons in the sky.

The demons were in no rush. Although normal demons would be going crazy right now over fresh blood, meat, and souls, they had hunted plenty over the past few days, sating their bloodthirsty instincts. Currently, they were more like a pack of wolves which was hunting prey only for fun.

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Unlike other demons, Inferno Soulchainer Shark Shikblair hadn’t intended to stay in a single place to begin with. He and his subordinates would casually fly wherever they wanted, enjoy a feast wherever they stopped, and hunt whenever they became hungry. They would also hunt whenever they were bored. No single aerial knight would possibly be able to stop them.

Flying demons were just like roving bandits of the sky. They would be one of the most dangerous demon groups around for ordinary people as no ordinary village would be able to defend against their sudden aerial attacks.

Right now, the flying demons surrounded the airship, testing our defenses. If they found a powerful enemy, they would unhesitatingly run away, and if they found that this enemy wasn’t capable of threatening them, then they would immediately devour every person on the airship.

So what if the monk was a capable fighter? As long as the flying demons brought down the airship, not a single person on board would survive.

“Honestly, I’m going to recommend that they bring aerial knights next time. They can’t be this stingy with money.”

“…Actually, I don’t think they would have met with this level of enemy if it weren’t for you being on board.”

Harloys was accusing me of being a jinxer again, but I refused to take the blame.

“The endless Chaos Abyss has how many levels and how many millions of demons? As the Holy War continues, there will only be more and more hordes of demons appearing. If they don’t meet them this time, they’ll meet them next time. Using the same combat strength to guard an airship as one year ago is already outdated. The demon wave has ended already, and it’s now the middle of the Holy War.”

The times were changing too quickly. Yesterday’s standards for combat strength needed to protect an airship might become outdated even today. Even if my personal negative luck stat multiplied the chance of misfortune by 10 times, wouldn’t it be the same if the airship flew 10 times and met with a group of demons once?

“It looks like we’re going to have more expenses on guarding the airships,” Harloys commented.

“Just make the guests pay for their own safety. We can simply double the airship ticket prices. Yep, in that case, let’s simply start hiring dragons. That will even give us a great excuse to increase the airship ticket prices. I should have a discussion with Halent and Little Red about hiring dragons when I return. If we keep trying to save money, then an incident really will happen.”

At this time, it was basically impossible for me not to intervene.

“Sigh.”

I sighed, causing this entire aerial area to shake slightly. Everyone heard this sigh as powerful winds started up while dark clouds gathered.

Right after that, even though the weather had clearly been warm, snowflakes started falling.

The snowflakes then suddenly transformed into a roaring blizzard as the winds suddenly increased in strength. Snow began accumulating on the airship at a visible rate.

Since I had now achieved Level 4, this meant that my physical body no longer had its limitations. This was foundational progress that had also allowed for my power of ice magic to greatly increase in strength.

Controlling the power of the elements would also require a correspondingly strong physical body. Level 4 was a breakthrough point. At this level, even though my ice magic sword wasn’t completed yet, I would no longer be like before, in a half-dead state due to magical backlash after tossing out just one forbidden spell. I would no longer need to rest for several months afterwards.

This was the difference between mortals and those who had surpassed mortal limits. This was also why demons, angels, Gods, dragons, and so on seemed to be so cheat-like with how powerful they were. As they would put it, “My blood contains mana,” “My will can control the elements,” “My anger can destroy mortals’ puny contraptions,” and so on.

For instance, if a mortal’s physical body had a rating of 10 for how well it could contain the elements, representing elemental quality, then these Gold Species had physical bodies with ratings over 100. The foundational difference in “elemental quality” between mortals and the Gold Species made it so that the mortals’ spells were relatively ineffective against Gold Species. I had seen multiple times before how a dragon could dispel a mage’s curse with only an angry roar. Such abilities were indeed worthy of them looking down on mortals.

The Gold Species had the power to act as ridiculously as they wanted, and a human acting ridiculously in front of a Level 4 individual would only get themselves killed. For instance, if you tried to lift up a truck with your physical body, maybe you could do it for a few seconds with the help of adrenaline, but it was more likely that you would accidentally crush yourself to death.

Now that I had reached Level 4 status, and had access to the full power of my highest-level angel bloodline, I would be no ordinary Level 4 individual at all. My War Angel transformation’s strength had concretely combined with my physical body. If a red dragon had elemental quality surpassing 100, then my elemental quality had long since surpassed 1,000.

“Let’s try things out…”

I gathered ice magic mana in my hands as I intended to test the might of my ice magic sword. But suddenly, the airship started tilting, so I almost fell over. I also heard the airship crew shouting in panic…

“The airship is tilting! The left engine has gone out because of too much snow!”

I paused in surprise as I naturally dissipated the power of ice and snow on my hands. Harloys had been pulling on my clothes in order not to fall over. We exchanged glances.

“I’m sorry. I don’t even know what type of expression I should have at this time.”

“Awkward, just like always.”

The silly cat’s smile made me really want to chuck her off the airship. Meanwhile, a white-haired female mage hurriedly came over. As she was a Legend-ranked mage, it was only natural that she could sense the tremendous magic power coming from near her.

“…Grandmaster, please stop casting your spell. This airship won’t be able to handle it.”

When she saw that I had a scraggly beard and countless wrinkles on my face, she paused in surprise to see that this mage seemed like he was almost dead of old age already. Still, she immediately asked that I stop my spell, and also asked me to go up to the deck to help them.

I felt really helpless now. Things really weren’t going well for me recently. I couldn’t even just hide in the airship and take care of things without showing myself.

I casually tossed away my staff as I suddenly straightened my bent back, also simultaneously changing my aura and physical appearance. I instantly went from an old man back to my youthful appearance. I twisted my neck and felt much comfortable all over.

“…They actually need a guest to step up and protect them. They should refund my airship ticket fee.”

“How come I recall that you asked for a free ticket from the local manager? You didn’t even spend money in the first place.”

As always, the silly cat countered everything that I said. I decided to simply ignore her logic.

“Then they should pay me some compensation for mental damage as I’ve been really poor recently… Well, if I can’t use large AOE magic spells, how about I use my ice magic sword’s Northlands environment death arena ability…”

“We’ll all fall out of the sky.”

“…Seven Sins death magic sword?”

“All other guests will die, and we’ll still fall out of the sky. Or, are you able to control those grudge-filled souls not to harm the living?”

I was feeling even more helpless now. I felt like I should avoid taking airships in the future. This type of unique environment made even trying to attack quite troublesome.

Well, there were mainly only some succubi and winged demons here, mostly just weaklings. If a Chaos Main God caught up with me here instead…

“Waah… I didn’t even say it out loud! You’re not even allowing me to think it anymore!?”

I did my best to remove Harloys’ tiny hands from my mouth. Was I really such a jinxer? She didn’t even want to allow me to think things anymore?

“Roland! Come out here! I’ve long since expected that you would be on this airship! I’ve waited for you for so long!”

That voice was rather familiar…

“Afu the Faker?”

“I’m Sophocles the Deceiver!”