Chapter 834 Start of the Invasion

Disaster would always descend from the heavens. News of misfortune would always arrive in succession. Justice would always be shot down before it could descend from the heavens… Ahem, I meant that when you heard bad news, there would almost always be more bad news on its way.

After the first witness report, even more reports on outsider invasions kept arriving. A large majority of invaders weren’t among the information I provided, but the few which were confirmed were all inconceivably strong.

It seemed that war was about to revisit this land which had experienced so many calamities already.

New battles were starting every day. Although the defenders won every small battle so far since the Gods personally participated, everyone knew that this wasn’t a good situation.

Everyone in the know knew that these invaders were only the beginning—according to the rules of war, only cannon fodder and scouts would charge first into unknown enemy territory.

Yet, even the cannon fodder was strong to the point where Gods had to fight against them… the result of the Caso Mountains being attacked by a large number of Void Distorters was that two powerful Gods teamed up and flattened the entire mountain range with a single attack.

Nobody would be foolishly confident enough to believe that they could forever win every single battle. Only a war maniac would blindly attack and gamble an entire country’s fate when information on the enemy was unclear.

In normal situations, the ace troops and strongest individuals capable of turning the tides of battle would only consider entering battle when there was plenty of information.

We could sense that more and more attention from outside universes was placed on the Eich universe, and that these outside existences were becoming more and more powerful. Even though they stlil hadn’t personally invaded our universe, fear and despair kept spreading.

We announced that “Reyne” had a “sudden illness”, so she was recuperating with her “harem”. This meant that “Glina” was now the sole leader of the Mist Alliance. All “I” could do was do my best to ensure that the Mist Alliance would survive this upcoming calamity.

The invaders appeared in random locations. It seemed that they were invading and attacking us, but even more so that they were testing the waters.

I personally fought against the invaders several times as well. However, maybe even outsider invaders felt that the Northlands were far too barren as no powerful invaders came here at all. Even the Aurora Knights and Borealis Squadron were able to easily deal with the invaders here.

However, everyone knew that a far bigger storm was on the horizon.

“How goes the plan?”

“Not very well. Most people who won the lottery drawing don’t want to leave, because they don’t think that it’s necessary yet.”

“…Have those who are willing to leave get on the ark first.”

Meanwhile, I had also forcefully activated my final disaster plan, the “Armageddon’s Ark” plan.

Every day, more than 100,000 people were immigrating through Dimensional Doors to the Land of Spring, which was Hell’s mortal plane. However, this still wasn’t enough.

If the future war situation seemed dire, all that we needed to do was to destroy all Dimensional Doors connected to Hell. This would completely cut off Hell and its Land of Spring from Eich as the Hell dimension was actually a separate universe with its own dimensional barrier that was capable of blocking all external invaders from other universes.

Humans, beastmen, elves, and so on were all welcomed in the Land of Spring. Eich’s seeds could also sprout in this new land and preserve the remnants of civilization and ensure a species’ survival.

However, very few were willing to leave their own world unless it was absolutely necessary.

I wasn’t doing this because I had no confidence in winning the future war. This was just my habit of preparing for loss before thinking about victory. At the very least, I needed to prepare a path of retreat.

Ayer and the other Hell Gods also agreed with my decision. Judging from recent information, Gods from the Hell Faction, Holy Light Faction, and Nature Faction had all now personally taken action against the external invaders.

Additionally, it seemed that the Elemental Tide had become even more active after the dimensional barrier was opened. This made it even easier for us to cultivate our power levels, but on the other hand, perhaps this was also a prerequisite for the outsider invaders to enter our world, just like how a low Elemental Tide previously restricted Main Gods and powerful Gods from descending to the mortal plane.

“How much longer must we wait?”

“Soon, soon.”

The silly cat couldn’t wait any longer, so she jumped onto the windowsill and took a nap, leaving the rest to Amelia for the next shift.

I should mention that Harloys actually managed to stay alive despite being beaten up so much by Elisa. Also, since the dimensional barrier had been opened, Elisa no longer had a reason to oppose me, so she returned to my side.

Naturally, I welcomed someone as powerful as her returning to my side since Elisa was now inconceivably strong. However, it seemed that Harloys and Amelia still didn’t trust her, so they insisted that someone had to protect me, which was why they now took turns in shifts to guard me from Elisa.

It also seemed that Elisa wasn’t in a good mood recently with how dark her expression was. She kept venting her anger by gathering magic power and doing some things that would attract attention, yet what she did would never actually cause any real harm.

Since she kept stirring up trouble, Harloys and Amelia were both fatigued from dealing with her, and needed to take turns in shifts.

I knew that Elisa was just finding chances to vent her anger, while Harloys and Amelia were also mysteriously slightly not in the right, so the end result was that we all tacitly let Elisa do as she pleased.

The atmosphere in my little place kept becoming worse. With SemiGods and a Main God mysteriously being angry at each other, ordinary mortals would suffer the most. There were already cases of people mysteriously fainting suddenly as they walked. It was rumored that the government officials were already trying their best to give the responsibility of reporting things to me over to anyone else that they could.

“…Elisa, a group of space ants have arrived uninvited in Ice River Town. You should go deal with it.”

It was quite convenient to have Elisa around at such a time. With her personally defending the Northlands, this made the Northlands into the safest place in the world. We also all heaved sighs of relief because Elisa had temporarily left.

“How much longer?”

Amelia silently closed her book and suddenly asked a question.

“Wahaha, what are you saying? Ooh, Ice River Town is rather far away, so even if it’s Elisa, it will take her at least four or five hours before she can finish and return.”

“…Stop pretending to be a fool. You know what I’m asking about.”

I silently siged as even I didn’t know how to answer this question. “A few hours? Tomorrow? A few months? To be honest, I don’t know just how much longer I can hold on, but I’ll definitely last longer than Karwenz.”

Amelia looked at me in silence without saying anything. However, it was difficult for me to bear with her slightly red eyes and silent gaze.

“I’m sorry, there was no other way. I knew that Karwenz would be difficult to deal with, but I didn’t expect just how difficult. You also know just how dangerous the situation was then, so I could only go all out…”

Tears silently flowed down from someone as strong as Amelia, stopping all of my explanations.

“I’m sorry…”

I could only utter a listless explanation in the end.

“Roland, you’re dying.”

I was unable to counter the silly cat’s words. Indeed, I was dying, or more technically, I was already dead.

I was still in Glina’s body, but I definitely didn’t have any special interest for staying in her body. My physical body had already died together with Karwenz’s physical body. Our souls should still be in the River Styx. Currently, it was only our wills which had forcefully descended in the mortal plane. As the River Styx corroded us, it would be questionable just how much longer we could persist in maintaining our wills here.

Elisa’s analysis had been correct. The final battle between Karwenz and I would only possibly end in both our deaths. Her betrayal had only been to avoid this possibility.

Perhaps this was why Amelia and Harloys felt like they were slightly in the wrong towards Elisa since this final result was rather unacceptable.

This time, since my soul and Karwenz’s soul had simultaneously fallen into the River Styx, the Cycle of Reincarnation had finally caught us cheaters at the same time, meaning that there would be no more sparing us.

I was sensing the summons of the River Styx at every single moment. I could also sense that my soul was constantly weakening, but for the time being…

“Harloys, could you find some kindness in your heart? No matter what, I’m still your master, and I’ve given you plenty of cat food…”

“Meow, of course I remember. I’m your magical pet, so I die if you die. Isn’t it just the judgement of Hell and being punished in the Infernos? We’ve already promised to go there together. Yep, we can finally have a good rest, so we should be happy about it. Master, thanks to your magical pet contract, we’ll even be reincarnating together in our next life.”

I was rather moved by Harloys’ words, but could she please not smile proudly right at Amelia while saying such words? If Harloys was dissatisfied with the magical pet contract, I could cancel it since Harloys’ taunting was so obvious. Amelia… Amelia’s smile was becoming highly dangerous!

“…I.”

Amelia seemed to keep hesitating, but in the end, she was unable to say anything.

Amelia was the Mother Goddess of the entire wood spirit species, and her physical body was the true form of the Forest of Dreams. If she died, then her entire species would die together with her. Amelia found it impossible to make a promise like following me even in death.

“Right, how about I write a will while I’m at it… I should first have the precious books at my old residence destroyed. Also, should I give my treasures over to Adam… forget it, Margaret will probably find them in two days and burn them all. It would be far too pitiful if news spread that Roland left only porn books behind as his inheritance.”

I shook my head as I considered things after my death and how to erase my dark history before I died. Other men probably would never have such an opportunity to erase their tracks of browsing porn before dying. Still, this topic was rather morbid, so I should probably stop here.

I kept idly wondering about such silly things while finishing up the work I had at hand… Actually, there would never be an end to political work, so it was quite precious already that I had been able to do as much as I could.

Our current situation wasn’t good. The entire world’s current situation wasn’t good.

“…It’s as if we’re just lambs waiting for the slaughter.”

The God of Holy Light went outside and was killed instantly. This proved that going outside was utterly suicidal. However, not going outside would completely hand the initiative over to the enemy.

I knew that all this political busy work would be for naught. I was simply using work to pass time without having to think about more worrying things. I kept preparing my Armageddon’s Ark while waiting for the true invasion that would eventually arrive.

“…I won’t have enough time if I don’t hurry.”

I helplessly glanced at my petite hand which belonged to Glina. Her originally healthy skin had become pale white and icy cold. The longer that a dead soul like mine stayed in a living person’s physical body, the greater the harm I would inflict upon Glina’s body. Moreover, her physical body’s unconscious rejection of my soul was also becoming ever more obvious.

“Ha, with my condition of being a dead soul possessing a physical body, doesn’t this make me a lich again?”

I didn’t have the time to exclaim over the unexpected workings of Fate and the Cycle of Reincarnation, because the window suddenly opened as the pale moon high in the sky caught our attention.

It was currently deep into the night, yet there were now two moons in the sky.

We didn’t even need to think about which moon was real, because Eich’s moon would never have gigantic teth which were longer than half a planet in length, nor would Eich’s moon have a greedy and incredibly evil expression that seemed like it viewed the entire world like a delicious cake.

Currently, the owner of this gigantic mouth opened up his mouth and began to devour Eich’s moon.

At this moment, the Moon Goddess’s soundless howls of pain were heard by all living beings, but everyone was helpless to do anything.

[That’s the Star Devourer Demon God, the leader of those dimensional invaders…]