CHAPTER 95: A RUDE INTERRUPTION TO A PERFECTLY GOOD INVASION

He was young, no older than sixteen, with a wild mane of fiery red hair and eyes the color of a stormy sea.

He was lean but wiry, his body coiled with a latent, explosive power.

He wore simple, rustic clothing, and in his hand, he held a single, wickedly barbed spear.

He looked around the room, at the assembled monsters and warriors, at the crystal walls, at me on my throne.

A cocky, insolent grin spread across his face.

"So," he said, his voice laced with a thick, lyrical accent I couldn’t quite place. "This is the place, then. A bit gaudy for my taste. Which one of you is the boss?"

He propped his spear on his shoulder, his posture a perfect picture of arrogant, youthful confidence.

"Name’s Setanta," he announced. "And I’m lookin’ for a good fight. I was told there’d be some here."

I stared.

Isabelle stared.

Chloe’s hand tightened on the hilt of her dagger, her eyes narrowing at this new, swaggering potential rival for my favor.

Pixia’s holographic console was flashing with a stream of data so fast it was a blur.

"My Lord!" she squeaked, her voice an octave higher than usual. "His rank! It is... it is unclassifiable! The system simply lists it as ’Heroic Spirit’! His potential is... infinite!"

Setanta.

The name tickled a distant memory from my old life. A story. A legend.

Cú Chulainn. The Hound of Ulster. The greatest hero of Irish mythology.

His childhood name was Setanta.

I had just summoned a literal hero.

A legendary, mythological hero.

To serve me. A Demon King.

The sheer, glorious, system-breaking absurdity of it all was breathtaking.

"A good fight, you say?" I replied, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across my face.

"Son, you’ve just signed up for the main event."

I stood up from my throne.

The time for planning was over.

The time for waiting was over.

I had my army. I had my commanders.

And now, I had a legend.

"Isabelle," I commanded, my voice echoing with a new, absolute authority.

"Assemble the teams. All of them. Yori, you’re with me. You’re going to see your new forge in person."

I looked at my assembled forces.

At the stoic former hero.

At the fanatical elf.

At the monstrous beasts.

At the ancient strategist.

And at the cocky, red-haired demigod who was currently picking his teeth with the tip of his legendary spear.

This was my army.

This was my kingdom.

"We march for Hakui at dawn," I declared.

"We’re going to go have a little chat with a Dwarf."

"And if he doesn’t want to chat," I added, my smile turning sharp and fanged, "we’ll just take his mountain."

The throne room was electric.

A palpable, almost giddy energy filled the air, a stark contrast to the usual grim professionalism.

Old Man Yori was practically vibrating, his eyes wide with a gambler’s ecstasy.

He kept muttering "A golden flash..." to himself like a holy mantra.

Setanta, my new, legendary, and profoundly arrogant subordinate, was leaning against a crystal pillar, casually picking his teeth with the tip of his wicked-looking spear, Gáe Bolg.

He looked bored, but his stormy eyes darted around the room, sizing up every monster and every commander with a predator’s hungry gaze.

My girls were, as usual, a study in simmering, homicidal tension.

Isabelle stood with her arms crossed, her expression coolly analytical, but her gaze kept flicking towards Setanta with a professional’s curiosity that was probably 10% tactical assessment and 90% wondering if he was a threat to her position.

Chloe, my beautiful, fanatical shadow, was practically radiating disapproval from her corner.

A new, powerful, and ridiculously handsome male had just entered her Lord’s court.

Her Lord, who she had been personally and thoroughly servicing just a few short hours ago.

Her possessiveness was a tangible thing, a cold pressure in the air that made the goblins in the hallway give her a wide berth.

I, of course, was enjoying every second of it.

This was power.

An army of legends, a kingdom of monsters, and two lethally beautiful women who were secretly vying to be the queen of my demonic little world.

It was good to be the king.

"Alright, settle down, you magnificent bastards," I declared, my voice echoing with a newfound, absolute authority. "The gacha gods have smiled upon us. But luck is a fickle mistress. Now, we make our own."

I strode to the holographic map table, my long, dark coat swishing in a way I had been practicing. It was all in the hips.

"Our objective remains unchanged," I announced, tapping the cluster of red dots representing the northern territories. "The conquest of the Noto Peninsula. We will sweep through these lesser kings, absorb their domains, and solidify our power base."

I looked at my assembled forces.

At the stoic former hero.

At the fanatical elf.

At the monstrous beasts.

At the ancient strategist.

And at the cocky, red-haired demigod who was now examining his fingernails with an air of profound boredom.

This was my army.

This was my kingdom.

"Isabelle," I commanded. "Assemble the teams. All of them. Yori, you’re with me. You’re going to see your new forge in person. We march for Hakui at dawn."

My gaze settled on the first target, a minor Beast Demon King named Grolnok the Fang. His domain was a paltry three sectors of what looked like a swampy forest. A perfect appetizer.

"My Lord," Isabelle’s voice was a blade of calm, cutting through my triumphant mood. "A personal appearance on the front lines carries a significant risk. Especially with your... vulnerabilities."

She meant the sun. The great, hateful, burning ball of death in the sky.

"A king who hides in his castle is no king at all," I replied, projecting a confidence I didn’t entirely feel. "Besides, I have a new A-Rank Body. A little sunshine is just a... minor inconvenience. An atmospheric debuff."

The journey was, in fact, a profound and terrible inconvenience.

The moment I stepped outside my Domain, the filtered, perpetually gray light of Aethelburg felt like a physical assault.

It was a searing, unpleasant heat on my pale skin, a constant, low-level pain that made my fangs ache.

It was like being personally bullied by a star.

We marched for three hours, a silent, deadly column of monsters and legends moving through the ruined outskirts of the city.

We reached the border of Grolnok’s domain.

The air was thick with the smell of mud and decay.

"Alright, people," I said, my voice a low growl of irritation. "Let’s make this quick. I want to be back home in time for... well, in time to not be standing in this miserable, sun-drenched bog."

The "invasion" was a joke.

Grolnok’s forces were a disorganized rabble of lizardmen and giant toads.

They charged us with a lot of roaring and croaking, and were promptly, brutally, and efficiently dismantled.

BOOM!

The ground exploded as Fenris and Grunt, my two most enthusiastic wrecking balls, met the enemy line.

The wind shrieked as they carved a bloody path through the lizardmen, their claws and mauls a symphony of destruction.

CRACK!

Grunt’s war maul, Earthshaker, connected with a particularly large giant toad. The impact was an absolute detonation of force. A massive shockwave of displaced air and swamp water blasted outwards, and the toad simply ceased to exist, vaporized into a fine red mist.

Setanta, with a bored sigh, finally decided to join the fun.

BOOM!

He moved, a blur of red and green that was almost too fast to track. His spear, Gáe Bolg, was a whisper of death.

He didn’t bludgeon. He didn’t tear. He danced.

Every thrust was a perfect, economical movement, finding the weak points in the lizardmen’s scales, the soft flesh under their jaws.

He was a master artist, and his medium was violence.

The entire battle was over in less than five minutes.

We found Grolnok cowering in a mud hut, trying to hide behind a surprisingly large collection of shiny rocks.

He took one look at me, at Isabelle, at the blood-spattered demigod picking a piece of lizardman out of his teeth, and immediately surrendered.

"A pathetic victory," Setanta grumbled, propping his spear on his shoulder. "Barely a warm-up. I was hoping for a challenge."

"Patience, boy," I said, a smug, satisfied smile on my face. "There will be plenty of challenges to come."

I was in the middle of this glorious, triumphant moment, about to accept the formal surrender of another piece of my growing empire, when it happened.

A frantic, high-pitched buzzing echoed from a pouch on Grunt’s belt.

My massive Kobold Warlord, with a surprising, almost comical delicacy, reached into his pouch and pulled out the smartphone I had given him.

The screen was flashing with a stylized picture of Yori’s panicked face.

Grunt grunted, his sausage-like fingers fumbling with the screen before he finally managed to answer the call, putting it on speaker.

"MY LORD RAGNAR! AN EMERGENCY! A CATASTROPHE! A... A VERY RUDE AND UNINVITED GUEST!"