After declaring my intention to go to war, I let the Ogres go rest to specially prepared room and the next day before we set out I decided to do one more summoning just to be sure.
"Do you want to summon something?"
"Yeah. I don't know how big the Ork army is and I don't want the bugbears to run away before they even start fighting."
"That's understandable. Bugbears are know for stabbing friends in the back so they could escape themselves so having someone watch over them would be nice, but who will do that?"
"I wanted to summon a spirit, but I can't contract any higher spirit then magmins. Though I could evolve them by giving out names, but that would slow us down. I need something that's powerful even without names."
"What about summoning a demon? We still have bodies of those piles of garbage (adventurers) so we could use them."
"Hmm... that sounds good. Let's see what kind of demons and devils I can summon... If I use all my DP and all the bodies I could summon one greater demon or above... Hm? Gnolls?"
"Gnolls? Those Hyenafolk lookalikes? You can summon them?" Lizzie had a look of disgust and surprise.
"I get you. Those guys can never take a hint and are always bathing in blood..."
"My lord, if I could..."
"Hm? What is it Kaen?"
"It's just, summoning Gnolls for time of war is good, but after the war they may try to kill anything in their sight. For that reason, I would like to get someone to keep peace in here before that happens."
"Get to the point."
"The smithy is working under Azer and his underlings henceforth I request permission to return to Spirit realm and recruit as many spirits as I possibly can."
"But can you really do that?"
"Yes. I've crafted this Binding ring that, if you graciously provide some of your blood on it, will bind all spirits that touch it directly to you," Kaen took a knee before me and showed me the ring with black ripples on it.
"That should be fine. Here. Done."
"Thank you my lord. I will make every spirit I meet understand your greatness!"
"Just don't overdo it," I nodded to Kaen high praise with little sour face and send him on his way.
"Back to the topic. Gnolls. Though they are about as strong as Magmins and love carnage and bloodshed, they also have strong belief in strenght. So if you defeat their leader they will follow you no question asked."
"You are strangely knowledgable Kyoko."
"My father once tried to summon demon to make it serve him. No need to say he researched a lot of methods until he ultimately decided that using my half dead mother as sacrifice would be best course of action. Though it backfired becouse that summoned demon fed on my mothers anger and resentment and killed the crown prince his mother and cut off fathers dominant arm before killing mother as well."
Kyoko's eyed didn't even waver as she disclosed lst moments of her mother. Clearly there was no love between her and her family.
"That's..."
"Ah, don't worry 'bout it. This is just the reason why I know so much about demons."
'Wait, if her mother hated her so much then why didn't that demon attacked Kyoko as well? This is odd to say the least.'
"Well, let's summon them. And prepare a body or two as an offering to demon summoning. I want to test it too."
'With two bodies, I could potentialy summon a High ranked demon, not quite Greater ranked but strong in it's own right.'
With Yuki fetching the bodies from Freezer room and Kaen on his way to Spirit realm, only people remaining here were Skaly, Lizzie, Kyoko and Hikari. 'Wait when did she get here? And why are her eyes sparkling so much?'
"(Summon Lesser Demonic spirits: Gnoll)"
As I said those words, black fog spread all over the floor of the Throne room like if it was spilled from somewhere unseen. The fog as if it had it's own mind started to suck back and formed around one hundread gnolls ring before me. As for what types of classes they had, I could see five shamans who were distinctly different due to their colored fur. One could imagine they would color themself with blood becouse they love it so much but actually they color themselves with colors of Hell king they were born under. Hell kings are absolute rulers of all demons in hell where all demons and devils are born. There are only four of them, luckily Red, Blue, Yellow and Green and they have powers over Fire, Water, Earth and Wind respectively.
Given that the Green Hell king became Demon lord and summoned all his underlings with him, these guys can be only from the remaining three. And these guys just had to be born from the Blue Hell kings faction...
"Show yo—"
As the leader-like gnoll started to speak, I cut of his head with single move of my hand.
"Who is your leader?" I asked as the gnolls body crumbled into tiny blackish blue crystals.
"I—"
As another gnoll spoke up, I quickly cut of his head like with the previous one.
"I will ask one last time. Who is your leader?"
"Y-you are! Our great summoner!" The remaining gnolls fell to their knees.
"Good. I will have you escort me to the Ork kingdom. I have army of Bugbears ready so your task will be to oversee them any if any deserters appear, kill them, no need for mercy. Apart from that, you are free to kill any ork you wish except for the leaders of their army. Those pigs are mine."
"We understood, oh great summoner! Your noble wish is our command!"
"Good. Now get your asses ready at the Dungeon entery!"
"Yessir!"
As the Gnolls left the throne room, Yuki returned with four Ice Mephits carrying two bodies of former adventurers.
"Alright let's get to the summoning then. (Summon Demonic being: Demon, I offer thee bodies for your physical form and my DP and MP for your strenght. Now come to me!)"
The two bodies turned into sludge and mixed together with the ice they were in. The ice turned into sludge as well and the two combined into one blackish blue sludge that started to form a human-like body.
Long pale blue hairs... perfect hourglass figure with breasts that could rival Lizzie's... golden pupils, dark blue irises and perfectly black sclera.
"My, my~ to think the Assassin of white would be the one who summoned me this time~ It's fate isn't it~" the demoness smiled.
"Y-you know Zaru?" Lizzie glared at the demoness as she moved before me.
"Of course I know this jerk! He killed me twice!!!" the demoness snapped.
"To think I would summon you of all demons..." I said tiredly as the girls around me looked at me surprisedly.
"You know who this is Zaru?"
"Ahh... Lizzie do you remember that incident in Mutasa kingdom called [Demons diner]?"
"Yeah, some noble tried to summon demons in order to fight Holy empire who wanted one of his towns, but I don't know the details apart from that he summoned some high ranked demons."
"You are correct. She's the demon summoned at the time. The Blue Hell king."
"Huh?!"
"Back then I was send there to investigate by family that adopt me and I kinda killed her."
"Yeah, this guy covered himself in angels blood and charged at me like there was no tomorrow... then it turned out to be just and illusion and... sniff, sniff... that was shoo unfaaaaaair!" The demoness started sobbing.
"What in the ever loving hell did you do to her to broke her spirit like this?" Lizzie was so taken aback that she almost lowered her guard against the demon girl.
"Sniff... he used my minions as meatshields and got behind me... I never was so sullied... sniff."
"Zaru..." eyes of my girls turned dark.
"Well, I just took her heart... literally."
"And then you show it to me saying 'Guess what I have and you don't!' He laughed in face of Hell king like that!"
"My puberty was kinda wild, now that I think about it..."
"So you gotta take care of me now you jerk! ...I mean, summoner..." she dried her tears and extended her hand, which I grabbed.
In that moment a Demon lord seal appeared on her hand.
"The contract in now done. My soul is now apart of yours so you better take goooooood care of me 'kay?"
"You weasel."
"Well, at least it's just on her hand right?"
"Yeah..."
The girls behind me were clearly too happy about the location being not same as theirs.
"Oh, if you want you can move it around, you know? It's proof you belong to a demon lords inner circle, it would be a shame to not show it," the demoness smiled happily at them, but recieved full blown killing intent from Yuki, Skaly and the most powerfull from Lizzie.
"I'm joking, I'm joking~ Don't worry about the little old me, I will be content as long as I get enough souls to play with~"
"Yeah, you always liked to play with people using your words... come to think of it, would you like to do some information gathering?"
"You read my mind~ so who are we going to infiltrate?"
"Don't push too hard. I just need to get info on Dwarven council state, Astenna kingdom, High elvish empire, Gurell Kingdom, Moon rabbit kingdom and Holy Empire."
"Oh~ Holy empire you say~"
"Let's say that I will let you have fun with those angels as long as you don't let anyone know about our affiliation."
"Hmm, sounds good. Alright! Time to destroy some souls!" Hell queen smiled and summoned two High ranked demons for each location.
"Alright, I will let you use a room here on last floor. You won't have to fight unless we get invaders all the way here. Also send your reports to Lizzie or me directly."
"Fine~ You are my boss now so I guess I could~"
And so, the for now nameless Blue Hell king started working as information gatherer. Looking at map of my dungeons surrondings I Started planning the attack on Ork kingdom. If I attack only the north, I will have two neighbours. Fallboar city union which is vasal state of the High elvish empire who is also our second neighbour.
"Given we have completely dominated the small wilderness, we can use it to attack from more places at once. Let's send three units above the ork kingdom and remaining two with us. Three of the Gnoll shamans will attack from border with Fallboar city union with one unit. Second unit will attack from Yallo river spring and third unit from between them. The task of these three will be to demolish all the ork towns they came across. If the people surrender, they have to let them live," I started explaining at the meeting held just before we departed.
"Understood my lord. We do not wish for their extinction, just severe weakening."
"Not just weakening. We are getting them to serve us, making them choose live under us rather then die a horrible death. The three units will take over all the lands to north from the river by going strightly south. By my calculation, by the time we arrive and destroy the pests at Ogre kingdom's capital, have a talk with the king and have them to follow with our plan, you should be done. Now you three," I pointed at three gnoll shamans who were the most helpful durring the meeting, "I appoint you as leaders of the three units. You are free to kill any and all orks you meet. But remember that if you lay your hands on other races, I will make you suffer. All races exept for orks are to be taken prisoners and transported to the dungeon."
"Yes sir!"
"Understood milord."
"You can leave the bloodshed to me."
The three shamans nodded to my order with proud look on their faces.
And so, the army moved out. In three days entire army arrived at the Yallo river spring and the three shamans recieved a Warp stone a new gadget that allowed for expansion of Dungeon area made by someone other then me.
One of the units stayed here and two other went on their northern trip, while me and two other units continued south. I was riding a Prixen with Kyoko on my left side and Skaly on my right side, they both were riding Winter wolves. The Blizzard wolf Kyoko came riding in was about to give birth to her pups so we left her home.
"So how long will it take, prince?"
"We should arrive at capital in a day or two," he said from his wolf's back, "Are you sure these will be enough?"
"I'm pretty sure ten thousand Bugbears will be enough to repel something like orks from your capital. That city... Ogarin, is it's name, right? How many soldiers do you have?"
"About one thousand if we call all our warriors. But those southern jerks will rather protect their own land then help their king. Such cowards!"
"The southern nobles, especially duke Galotte and Marquis Orkan, were never on side of the three prince's they tried to push someone other on the throne. Once time they thought I would be a good candidate and father locked me up away in the palace," Kyoko whispered into my ear.
"I see..."
Following that I used telepathy to connect with the Blue Hell queen back in my dungeon.
'Leave it to Blue Hell king, eh?'
The remaining travels were as uneventfull as my nights in last couple of days, and so at the start of second day after we left the spring of Yallo river, we arrived near the Ogre capital Ogarin.
"Alright, it seems like there is only about two thousand orks actively attacking, while next five hundread or so is waiting in the back."
"So what is your attack plan?" the prince, who's name I've already forgoten, asked me.
"We overwhelm them four to one there is no way we can get defeated. Both units will first attack the eastern troops as they will be hidden between the hills until the very last moment and then they will split in half. I will fly over the town locate their commander unit and crush it."
"A-alone?" the prince's cohorts had eyes on top of their heads.
"They're just orks. Even if there was a High ork it would be no problem for me. Now! All units advance! Skaly and Kyoko are now the commanders! Skaly keep an eye on prince and his friends, we don't want to loose them, after all."
"Yessir!" Skaly saluted and clad herself in dark aura.
As I gave them a confident smile, I summoned Tempest and flew with her high into the skies.
'Hmm. As it seems, the city has around six thousand ogres living in it. Though only about six hundread are defending... It's not good for ogres, but hey, it's only two thousand orks. I expected to be more here.'
"They managed to hold for a long time... the heck?!"
What unfolded before my eyes was madness and complete massacre. I knew Skaly and Kyoko were stronger after their training, but to think that Bugbears would have no deserters so far?! And to top it of, the gnolls were slicing the orks with two hits at most. I mean, both Gnolls and Orks are B-ranked monsters according to the guild, but still!
The gnoll shamans, wearing a golden earring and black amphora, mumble some words and all the blood on the battlefield flew into the air, combined and entered the amphora. 'Wonred what that's about...'
In less then ten minutes the two units massacred the orks at the eastern gate and moved separately to north and south.
"Well, I better start moving too. Tempest I would like you to erase all sounds around me."
"Ooon it!" the little girl smiled mischievously and chanted her spell.
There were ten tents, all hosting around fifty orks each. Most of the orks were relaxing, their guard so low that I could quickly enter each tent and slice them up without anyone noticing.
Last two tents I had to go through were the kitchen and the leaders tent. The tent had only one ork and around fourty people of different races. I could see arachnids, humans, elves, dwarves and some to me unknown race from other continent. All females though.
"I'm Demon lord Zaru the ogres asked me to help them defeat the orks. You are now under my protection."
"D-demon lord?!"
Clearly, I frightened some of the humans here. They were most likely from the Holy empire.
"Once we finish clearing the orks, then you will be released, so be at ease."
Some of the arachnoids looked up at me. "Sir… you…"
"I guess you are from Demon Spider queendom, right? Don't worry, I will send you back to Ari once we get the chance."
Their faces lit up a little.
Next, the elves aproached me. "We are from High elivsh empire… but as we are…"
"No need to worry, if you don't have anywhere to go, I will let you stay in my dungeon," I smiled at them and handed out potions, becouse most of them were hurt.
"Wait." Suddenly, a hand grabbed my shirt. Following my sight, I noticed the girl was an elf with crimson colored hairs with golden tips, in other words she was a Crimson Elf, a sub-race of elves just like Lizzie who is Azure elf. Yuki who is a Snow elf however, is rare sub-race of elves only born from Forest elves.
Crimson elves in general are top notch alchemists and chimera users. Maybe that's why they are commonly believed to be subservient to demon lords.
"You… you are from Mutasa kingdom, son of Count—" I placed a finger on her lips.
"And even if I am, it's no longer important. Anyway, who are you?"
"Istena Fia Helindill, lead alchemist in Royal magic academy in Mutasa kingdom's capital. Or, I was in the past."
' Istena Fia Helindill, huh? This isn't the first time I've heard about her. The Crazed Alchemist of the Royal academy is what people usually call her. I was actually hired quite a number of times to steal her research. Always made myself a secret copy or two, heh-heh-heh.'
"Let me quess, your co-worker got jealous and sold you off as a slave to orks."
"Un."
"Geez… so, you wanna return there?"
"Never. I would rather serve a demon then return there."
"Heh-heh-heh. Luckily you find yourself in front of a demon lord who is willing to make you a subordinate," I smiled at her wolfishly.
"I guess so," her eyes steeled as she looked at me.
"Well, what will you do?"
"I will serve you. I will give you my body and soul, if you kill that bastard."
In that moment I felt as if a cold glare fell on my back.
"The soul will be all I need. Do alchemy and make chimeras for me and you will be fine. And hey, I can capture that guy alive and bring him in for testing."
"Oooh, that's a good idea too," her eyes sparkled.
"Fine. I will call my subordinate to take you away."
I contacted one of the higher ranked demons I saw frequently around Blue hell king and had him teleport everyone back to the dungeon.
"Now then," I streched my back as I looked over the battlefield and confirmed the possitive outcome of everyone's battles, I silently entered the tent of the army leaders.