Endless Horde: Through the Eyes of a Godking

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Cedric sent the Night Stalkers back to where they came from.

The difference is that they're his spies now. He severed their connection to the soul network of the demon race, which was almost the same as them being killed in action.

This so-called 'Soul Network' is something he discovered from reading the Night Stalkers' memories. It's the secret behind their 'Immortality'.

Demons that are killed by humans won't truly die. They will lose their flesh, yes, but so long as their souls remain intact, they will return. Upon their physical death, the souls of demons will be called back to the Soul Network, joining the queue for rebirth.

A machine called the Flesh Incubator will be responsible for attaching their souls to a new set of physical bodies, and in there, they will stay until the fusion is over. Once this process was over, they got to walk and live again.

With the Soul Network and the Flesh Incubator, it's a miracle that humans lasted for this long. They've got to thank Acala for that because she directly interfered with this cycle.

To protect herself and her citizens, Acala tampered with the Soul Network. She forcibly connected the souls of the Demon Race to the Purgatory Realm in exchange for sending her own people in there to pit them against demons as well.

Demons that are killed repeatedly in the Purgatory Realm will slowly but surely lose their memories, the oldest ones first. The more deaths they experience, the worse it gets for them. Demon souls are the product of the memories they lose.

Her interference with the Soul Network is what kept the Demon Race at bay. The demons think that if she could do it once, she could do it again. If they cornered her too much, they're afraid that she would just blow up their soul network and end their false immortality.

That would be the worst outcome for them. Trading their immortality for the chance of claiming rare resources doesn't seem worth it, but their demon god refused to give up on her, so they couldn't do anything but keep their operations active.

Cedric was pleased by what he learned. Now, he has an actual target. He has no plans on doing anything drastic right now, but it's good to know where the enemy's vulnerabilities are.

He also did something to improve the stealth capabilities of the Night Stalkers. Because while they're practically invisible to the human senses, the Demon Race has a way to discover them. He countered these measures with sheer skills in runes and symbols. Now, even if a Demon Emperor were to personally come down, they wouldn't catch even a whiff of their scent.

Of course, these measures aren't effective for Cedric himself. They're his slaves, sure, but it's best to be careful just in case.

Still, from the perspective of the Demon Race, this batch of Night Stalkers is no more. Whether they succeeded in their task or not didn't matter in their grand scheme. Demons are arrogant to the bone; they look down on humans, so this task was nothing more than a little prank in their eyes.

Cedric will make them pay for that.

Aside from upgrading their stealth capabilities, Cedric also gave them a way to communicate with him, which he also connected to Acala. Since he agreed that he wouldn't be stepping on the frontlines this time, he was more than agreeable to let her and the army handle the intelligence coming from his spies.

Cedric also planned on extending this spy network by enslaving more spies. The number of demons roaming Azure Terra was already large, and there are more on the other side of the world, where the other continent is.

This continent, which modern humans call the 'Lost Continent', had fallen completely under the jurisdiction of the Demon Race. The majority of the Demon Lords and the Demon Kings that slipped through this world were there.

Not even the army knows what was happening in that land. And while Cedric could fill them in, this will weaken humanity's resolve in the long run and make them more reliant on him. Sending spies to provide intelligence to the army would suffice. He'd let the army decide on what to do, and if things went out of hand, it wouldn't be too late for him to make an appearance, just as he promised.

"Oops, look at the time." Cedric chuckled to himself. "Better get going; I don't want my girls to be upset."

**

The High Marshals of the Defense Walls, Raven Armstrong, Filius Greenwood, Cassandra Zephyrus, and Anthony Selner, along with other unnamed High Marshals and important personnel, were gathered in a meeting room.

"Good day to all of you. I apologize for summoning you to an abrupt meeting. I know that all of us have important work to do, but I'm afraid that this takes precedence." Raven Armstrong greeted the crowd and started the discussion.

"There's no need for apologies, High Marshal Armstrong. We believe you." Headmistress Lissandra spoke on behalf of the rest, earning her an appreciative smile from him.

Armstrong then returned his focus to his peers and said, "As we all know, the Origin Energy Storm happened not too long ago. It's impossible for anybody in this room to not know this because that was the entire reason why we're swamped with work right now."

A murmur of chuckles and giggles echoed from the listeners because what he said was true.

"What most of you don't know is that, aside from causing all these positive transformations in our civilization, the Origin Energy Storm was actually just a side effect," Armstrong continued. "It was caused by the revival of the Spiritual Leylines within our territory."

A round of gasps could be heard from the listeners. Armstrong gave them time to digest the implications of what he said before continuing.

"The revival of the Spiritual Leylines will undoubtably bring us numerous benefits in the long run; it will even benefit humanity for generations to come. But more importantly, it's revival also meant the restoration of Acala's consciousness."

That rendered the room silent. Aside from the involved parties during the leyline restoration effort, the others had no idea that Acala had woken up from her slumber.

"Let it be known that she's still weak." Armstrong stressed this to them. "But at the very least, she's awake now and could help us help her too. Don't expect her to show herself to any of you. We haven't seen her ourselves, but she already contacted us and did something, which brings us to the main reason why I called all of you here."

Armstrong then flicked his sleeves and summoned a bunch of system windows in front of the listeners, which contained sensitive information. There were reports and images that caused everybody's faces to turn grim.

"Around 10:34 am of this day, Acala told us that the Demon Race apparently sent 9 Night Stalkers to spy on us," Armstrong stated.

"Yes, we failed to sense them, and no, the scanners weren't slacking off in their jobs nor their machines malfunctioned. These Night Stalkers were carrying something that rendered our scanners useless. And with their abilities, they could've easily phased through our walls without us any wiser."

"Sure, we would've responded to their aggression the moment they made a move, but Night Stalkers are raised to be assassins. Their target was never us; it's our children."

His statement caused everyone's countenance to turn grimmer.

"Yes, their orders were to assassinate our geniuses again. This isn't the first time, and I doubt that it'll be their last attempt."

"And if you think that this is bad, oh, it gets worse." Armstrong snapped his fingers, and new system windows appeared in front of the listeners.

"Aside from the trinket that neutralized our scanners, these Night Stalkers had their kidneys replaced with a canister that held potent posions. If triggered, it would easily cover an entire city with a cloud miasma, killing everyone within. There's also a bomb planted on their brains to prevent us from tampering with their memories."

"It's been hours since this report came in and nothing happened," someone from the listeners pointed out. "Is it safe to assume that the threats were neutralized?"

"Yes," the High Marshal confirmed. "And we have Acala to thank for that."

"She caught them. She didn't just neutralize them; she even enslaved them," Armstrong stated with a grin.

His words caused everyone to be surprised.

"You'll get ideas on how she achieved this by perusing through the reports on your screen. My point is that, with these Night Stalkers enslaved, we turned their spies into our own," Armstrong explained.

"As all of you here are well informed about our situation, I don't think I need to explain just how useful this can be. With these Night Stalkers being our spies from within, we'd be able to respond to threats even more effectively from now on."

This is when they realized that they weren't gathered here just to hear about bad news. Indeed, having these Night Stalkers on their side could potentially turn the tide of the upcoming war in their favor.

"Everyone, once we're finished handling the changes brought by the recent Origin Energy Storm, our next focus would be our war efforts. I encourage everyone to work hard because if we used our cards correctly..."

"Reclaiming Azure Terra for ourselves might no longer be just a dream anymore."

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