Chapter 489

Chapter 489: The Demon King

The Nameless Forest.

In a certain dungeon, the demon races with horns on their heads were almost in a chaotic mess.

Because just now, their Lord of the Demon King announced with a worried face a huge piece of news: the heroes, the sworn enemies of the demon race and the Demon King, had arrived in this forest, and they were getting closer and closer.

This meant that the heroes were going to start making their move against them.

Since they dared to come and attack, it showed that the hero had some confidence… The Rollo Kingdom and Deta Empire, the two great human nations, were like huge beasts. Although it was unclear which country the hero came from, no matter which one it was, my small demon tribe of two or three hundred people was definitely not enough to be swallowed whole.

The abilities of individual demons were stronger than those of individual humans, but their strength was still limited. A demon could easily defeat a human of the same level, and maybe even two or three, but when it came to larger numbers, it became very difficult.

Chen Ke, the reincarnated Demon King, sighed again.

Although he couldn’t understand how the hero brought a large army across the borders of the southern countries to attack him, many subhuman nations in the south actually hated humans.

A large army? Of course, it was a large army! If he were the hero, he would definitely use the power of the human forces to lead a great army and wipe out the remaining demon race along with him.

But it seemed that this was not the time to think about such things.

“Report!!!”

Just then, a demon sentry who had been sent out to scout the enemy’s situation rushed into the Conference Hall, tumbling and shouting.

“What’s the situation? What happened to you? How did you get hurt?”

Chen Ke almost jumped up from the Skull Throne as soon as the sentinel’s call sounded.

While asking, he frowned slightly at the iron arrow that was stuck diagonally in the sentinel’s shoulder.

“M-Master! That hero has brought a lot of people; there are probably thousands of them! And…”

“And what? Don’t hesitate, say it all at once!”

The sentinel swallowed hard and said slowly.

“And those people are riding monsters. Because the distance is too far, and when I peeked out, one of them almost shot me in the head with an arrow, so I could only see that they were some black armored monsters, but they seemed very large and did not look like low-level monsters.”

“Monsters, huh…”

Chen Ke instinctively looked toward the door of the Conference Hall, where two large black apes stood on either side of the main entrance.

They were monsters called Blue Apes, and their original fur was blue; right now, it appeared black because of the effect of his “Unique Skill–Demon King.”

The effect was to completely plunge the target, which had a dark heart, into darkness, becoming a servant of the Demon King, while also showing a status called “Demonization” in the target’s status bar. After demonization, the target’s rank would increase by one level, and its appearance would also change.

Just like these two Blue Apes, they were originally Class C monsters, but after he used his Unique Skill, they instantly became Class B monsters. No, it should be said they became Class B monster servants.

Although it was a very powerful skill, there were also significant limitations.

One limitation was the issue of Magic Value consumption; each time the Unique Skill was used for demonization, it consumed a lot of Magic Value.

The second limitation was the success rate; not all monsters could be easily demonized. The greater the difference in level between the user and the target monster, the lower the success rate of demonization.

Also, if the monster encountered had no darkness within its heart, the success rate was 0. For example, slimes were almost brainless and could be considered a kind of “plant” monster that could move.

Most other monsters had some darkness within them, and even if they didn’t, a good beating would bring it out.

Therefore, the usual method was for members of the demon race to capture monsters, bring them back to the dungeon while they were barely alive, and only then would Chen Ke use demonization.

Besides the two points above, there was also a limitation that was not related to the skill, but to the user themselves.

Although he was from the demon race, when Chen Ke was born, he was just a baby who could not speak and was too weak to do anything.

By the time he learned the language of the demon race and could communicate normally with his fellow demons, and had gained enough strength to deliver the final blow to a dying monster, two or three years had already passed.

In the forest where the demon race lived, there were not many high-level monsters, so Chen Ke’s level increased very slowly.

Over the years, aside from leveling up with the help of the demon race, Chen Ke spent most of his time dealing with the monsters in the enchanted forest.

He had thought about the subhumans in the southern countries, but the reputation of the demon race was not very good across the whole continent. As soon as he showed himself, if he was not discovered, it would be okay, but if he was… the demons, now only about three hundred of them, could easily be wiped out if the subhuman races united against them.

Until the time was right, he did not plan to provoke the subhuman races.

Just when he estimated it would take at least another two or three years for him to begin acting, the sudden appearance of a hero disrupted his plans to recover his strength.

…

Back to the main topic.

Besides the two black monkeys guarding the door, there were more than five hundred magical monsters of different races and ranks in the dungeon. Even if he added over three hundred of their own people who had also been transformed, the total still did not reach a thousand.

Could they handle the thousands of soldiers brought by the hero? Chen Ke really felt unsure.

Just then, three more demon race sentinels hurriedly ran into the Conference Hall.

From them, Chen Ke learned that all four entrances to the dungeon had been discovered by the hero’s people.

“Lord of the Demon King, if we stay in this dungeon any longer, we’ll have no way to escape. It would be better to charge out and fight the hero! Even if we can’t win, we might still carve a bloody path.”

At that moment, a strong man from the demon race spoke in a deep voice.

“Carve a bloody path? Ha, it sounds easy. But what if the moment we peek out of the dungeon, a rain of arrows comes at us? They are probably already ready, stringing their bows and waiting for us to be their targets.”

Another member of the race spoke up to argue back.

“Hmph, then what do you suggest we do?”

“At the very least, we can’t just rush out foolishly. This dungeon is full of traps, and there are many narrow paths. We can use the maze-like layout and the traps of the dungeon to wait for them; that way, we might have a small chance to fight them with fewer people.”