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Chapter 979

Two people with the same mind. They thought exactly alike. While their personalities might have differed, they were essentially the same person. Deek and Deedee, Deedee and Deek, the pair rode in tandem, their goal was the Demon Lord Aberis.

“How difficult will it be to destroy him?” I once asked.

“Very,” Elaya admitted. “With Xin and I at our prime, we barely managed to defeat him the first time. Then, he had held back and used it to reincarnate. It stands to reason that the reason he waited so long to make another move was to make sure such a thing didn’t happen again. He is likely much stronger now. Even if you can deal with his army, defeating him completely without him slipping away again would require a perfect trap. Even the Demon King failed to destroy him.”

That was what Elaya had once said to us when we asked such a question. Thus, we used everything we had to lure that man into a trap. What we had were two of ourselves. Of course, we had never discussed things. A lot of our interactions filled with anger and frustration weren’t deception at all. However, we both had the same mind, and we both could think, and independently, we realized that our only chance to blindside Lord Aberis was to do what he’d never expected. We had to do what no one would expect.

We did what we couldn’t have managed alone. While Deedee took care of Chalm, setting up the battlefield and preparing the conscripts we had been training, Deek went to the capital where he gathered and recruited an even larger army.

Had the two armies been allowed to unite right away, tensions would assuredly rise. The pompous nobles and church would have caused issues with the free people of Chalm. By the time Demon Lord Aberis arrived, we’d be struggling to keep them united as much as we’d be preparing to fight Aberis. The nobles who had once fled from threats to their lives would remember that they had no investment in Chalm and it wasn’t worth dying for. The people of Chalm would lose help.

If we were dropped into a siege, they would see the horrifying army of the Demon Lord. They’d remember how this country was once under his iron fist, and they would begin to lose all faith in being able to succeed. Deek had accounted for all of this. By putting them against each other, they began to feel a reluctance to fight with each other. We distracted them with a pointless conflict, all while secretly preparing them for the real one.

We guessed what the other would do, all while maintaining appearances to everyone, even our girls. The Demon Lord had to have spies. After Salicia, we realized even a slave could unknowingly reveal things they shouldn’t. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my girls. Rather, it was that I wasn’t sure of myself.

Thus, we met at Deeksville. The conflict didn’t matter. What mattered was that we had a chance to test each other. Had either of us found the other to be lacking, then perhaps we would have killed them and become the only Deek. However, we were both just as strong and determined. We had made our decisions then. This battlefield, this day.

Deek had sent Elaya to the dungeon, where she aided Xin in this project. Astria had also needed to help them on the fairy spring side. Deedee had spent weeks growing the mana spring so that the dungeon would have the power to do this, but it took Astria to move all that power to the dungeon. Even then, we barely had the strength to reach the gorge and bend space, bringing their army to us.

“How do you like the battlefield I’ve created?” Deedee asked, her eyes shining.

“Great. What about my army?”

“Eh, they’re alright…”

“You…”

“But, watch this!” Deedee raised her hand and snapped.

Explosions erupted, and the gorge suddenly started to collapse. Just as the demonic army was desperately trying to line up, avalanches came down from both sides. Well, it made sense. There never was a gorge. Deedee had made it using the golems. It actually would have served as a path through a hilly terrain to make travel between Chalm and Deeksville easier. Incomplete as it was, it made the perfect defensible position a day’s ride from Chalm that Lord Aberis couldn’t help but put his army at.

It also made a perfect trap. One hundred golems self-destructed, causing rock slide after rock slide. In mere minutes, the unprepared army was retreating from the collapsing gorge and running toward our army. As the survivors left the safety of the gorge, it suddenly disappeared, the magic bending space finally failing, leaving only 1/3rd of the army left in a completely disordered state. At this exact moment, text appeared across our eyes.

[You have entered the dungeon, Demon’s Demise.]

It looked like our dungeon finally gained a name.

Chapter 980

“Wh-what are they doing?” Lord Aberis frowned as the two horses turned to the side.

First, he watched with curiosity, but then his eyes flashed in shock as the entire army turned toward him. His group only consisted of the slaves holding his palanquin, one of his generals, Calypso, and the convenient blue mage Siti. Blue mages weren’t that rare, but they often had a lot of limitations. For example, most needed to draw extensive runes on the ground. Few had reached a level where they could casually make a portal, let alone one large enough and long enough to move an entire army.

Finding her had nearly changed everything for Lord Aberis. With her assistance, conquering Aberis would be much easier. Back in his age, artifacts that blocked portals were extremely common. It was likely true that up in the Imperial Cloud Meadow that such artifacts protected every major city. The same was not true down here, where the number of Blue Mage’s of Siti’s ability could probably be counted on one hand. Well, finding any higher-tiered people in Aberis was rare. Even that Grand Magician that was considered the best in Aberis was only mediocre compared to some of the mages of the past.

It was the dungeon curses. Once, humanity had been good about destroying them, but they stopped being able to do so. The more dungeons, the more mana got eaten. The less mana, the harder it was to level. Only by going into dungeons could someone level rapidly, and few people were willing to truly risk their lives doing this, where death was permanent.

This only led to more dungeons, less mana, and eventually a population that had a lower average level than they once had. It was once considered normal for people to reach level 100. The system had been created with the idea that a normal artisan, living their entire life, would reach level 100, a master, in whatever field they excelled in, by the point they died. That alone should show how much the human realm had declined due to dungeons. Most laughably, none of them had any clue this was the reason, and likely didn’t even remember a period where third tier and fourth tier jobs were far more common. To Lord Aberis, these people were nothing but worms.

That’s why he glared at them with disdain. “Making such a display just to fool me? They are the fools. Our position is defensible. Even with both armies, they won’t be able to harm us. What is he even charging for? Does he want to make me run like I’m afraid? Well, anyone would leave when facing a literal army solo. Your little display only exhausts your men. You would have been better off hiding in your city. Siti, return us to the gorge. We need to prepare.”

“Uh… Master… I don’t think…”

Aberis spun angrily. “You dare defy me? I’ll have you whipped. Open up the porta-”

His voice caught in his through as he caught something in his peripheral vision. He slowly turned, only to see the gorge behind him. His army was right there, but they had bunkered down in their camps, awaiting his orders. They were only just starting to realize an army was charging them, and they were scrambling to put together defenses.

“Wha-”

Just as he was about to ask what was going on, there were numerous explosions. His vision caught rock men scattered through the gorge. They had literally been hiding as rocks until they suddenly stood up, and then exploded. Most of them were strategically placed, causing the gorge to turn into a death trap. Rock rained down in landslides. The army, at least those smart enough to live, raced out of the gorge in his direction. Upon seeing their master, they began to charge to this place, fleeing the collapsing gorge in the process. When the majority had left, the gorge vanished like it was a lie.

“Compressed space… this is high-end Blue Magic. Even I couldn’t do that…” Siti spoke with her mouth open.

“Master, orders?” The general cried out, looking back and forth between the decimated army and the charging army.

“Attack them! Kill them! Block them!” Lord Aberis cried out, backing up.

A voice suddenly burst out laughing. Aberis looked down to see Calypso bent over with tears rolling down her eyes.

“You… shut it!”

She looked up and grinned. “We’re in his dungeon. It looks like there is a new Master in town.”

Aberis frowned, and then began to feel the space around them close. She was right. They were in a dungeon.

“You may think you’ve trapped me, Deeks! However, you’ve only trapped yourself in with me. It’s time I showed you the true power of a Demon Lord!”

His body began to erupt with power. Even Calypso could only gasp in shock as the horns on his head grew, and his body became more demonic. He had just gone into Demon Lord mode!

Chapter 981

The two armies collided. Our army was at the peak of morale, having just doubled in size. As we approached them, their army was scattered and heavily damaged. The knights and soldiers didn’t even have time to dwell on the horrifying visage of the miasma-filled knights, the giants, the orcs, and the other monsters that made up the demon lord’s army. They were already fighting before they had time to think about it, and men who might have faltered and bent over as giants mowed them down like wheat with their mighty clubs now leaped onto those same confused giant’s backs and cut them apart with brutality.

Even we were shocked by how successful it worked. Although we had planned all of this out, we had feared many things going wrong. Perhaps, the groups would fight each other anyway. Perhaps, they’d just stop, losing all momentum. In the end, everything had worked perfectly, and the army flooded forward and fought. Not everyone lived, but this was my dungeon, so their souls would be safely collected and we’d resurrect them when time permitted.

As for the dungeon, Xin and Elaya had told us they would be tapped out after their little stunt. Astria would also be out of commission. After reconfiguring the dungeon so that it stretched out under this land, bending space so that the forge appeared right in front of us, and then expanding the dungeon to prevent the demon lord from escaping, the three had already done something that could be considered a miracle. Perhaps, they felt a bit disappointed that they couldn’t personally battle Lord Aberis in the end, but they seemed at peace with their roles.

“I once failed to finish him off for good.” Elaya sighed. “Let it be the heroes of this age that finally put him down for good.”

That was our mission.

“All girls, on me!”

Although the girls had led men into battle as generals, that was only to facilitate the merging of the army. Naturally, while galloping, we had explained everything that we could over Slave Communication as the girls excitedly all spoke at once. As we started the battle, the two of us went to find Lord Aberis, and all of the girls would be necessary for that fight. One of the key reasons we went to this extent was exactly because we’d need to focus on taking him down. The army had to be blown through because Lord Aberis alone was just that much of a threat.

Finally, I located the man. He was standing neither near the front nor the back. I had feared he might try to hide, but he picked a small hill. I could see large horns on his head, and wings on his back. In his hands were two daggers. One was the malacrum dagger he must have taken from Calypso. The other was a massive demon sword that shimmered with miasma. It looked like we didn’t want to be cut by either one. He truly looked like a ferocious demon.

“Deek!” He bellowed as his eyes locked on ours, fury on his face. “You’ve disrupted my plans for the last time! You should have been divided! The two would have been better off killing each other. Why are there two of you?”

“You haven’t heard?” Deek asked. “There is only-”

“-one Deek.” Deedee finished.

We attacked as one.

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