Dungeon Defense (WN)

Agares’ expression contorted.

Each strand of her black hair contained aura and floated as if they were alive. With a crack, the ground which Agares was standing on top of crumbled by a layer. Cracks appeared everywhere like the cracked earth after a severe drought.

“Mountain Faction, those baboons.”

The female Demon Lord with a beautiful face was nowhere to be seen. The only thing that remained was an angered evil spirit.

“How dare she not know when to intervene and when not to intervene.”

The Demon Lords surrounding Agares gasped because of the aura that was bursting out of her. Their bodies became paralyzed. They were all Demon Lords who had been on the battlefield for more than 300 years. Even they felt stifled.

She was so overwhelming. It was hard for them to believe that the female Demon Lord before them was part of the same race as them. She looked like a different race that was on a different dimension. It made sense why she declared that she was the only true Demon Lord.

There was one individual who charged at this overwhelming power.

“━I stand before the Great Spirit and vow.”

Black mana seeped out from Barbatos’ battle scythe as it came down right between Agares’ eyes. The large scythe was held back strongly by something just 2 centimeters from its target. It was stopped by the aura that had cladded Agares’ entire body.

It wasn’t blocked by any sort of technique but by pure aura alone. Barbatos frowned due to this outrageousness as she continued to chant her spell.

“I coldly vow one loyalty, one blood, and one war.”

“You damn fly!”

Agares swung her halberd in anger.

Clang, the halberd was stopped. 7 broadswords had sprung out from Barbatos’ shadow and defended against the halberd. 6 of the broadswords were shattered into pieces, but the last one barely managed to block the strike.

The chant continued to flow out from Barbatos’ small mouth.

“Serve as the hound of the one and only kingdom. Soar and prophesize as the eagle that communes with storms.”

“Barbatos!”

Agares didn’t stop as she showered blows upon blows. Black broadswords would surge out from the shadows every time she did.

If someone with good eyes were to witness this fight, then they would probably be awed and terrified by this extremely high-level duel.

One side had overwhelming strength. This strength was swung down with the intent to crush all. This was no different from a natural calamity as it rampaged violently without the need for any sort of technique. One-man army was a term made just for this woman.

On the other hand━the other side was pure technique.

Barbatos was a warrior in the past. She swept through the battlefield while relying on a single sword. She learned necromancy for the sake of reviving her subordinates, so she thus became a unique existence in the world as both a warrior and a necromancer.

She raised her battle scythe and engaged in close combat with her opponent.

Her limbs skillfully maneuvered her weapon without rest while her mouth continued to chant spells endlessly. Spells that made her opponent’s movements duller, confused their sense of vision, made them lose their balance, and had them see illusions were cast.

Hundreds of familiars protected this necromancer-warrior. They were all death knights that were referred to as the strongest soldiers.

The death knights stopped the attacks that were aimed at their lord. Agares’ attacks could crush the earth, but the death knights formed an impenetrable wall and they blocked against them. Standing there was a single massive fortress defended by a warrior, a mage, and knights.

The battle to determine which was stronger, a one-man army or a one-man fortress intensified, and━.

The duel between two Demon Lords surpassed the realm of a duel and entered the realm of war.

“You mayfly! Fight with your own strength!”

“This is ‘me’, Agares.”

Barbatos’ entire body was covered in sweat.

Her white hair was stuck to her forehead because of the sweat. She was burning all of the mana left inside of her. Her heart and her entire body were screaming because of how fast she was burning up her mana.

Barbatos displayed a strained smile.

‘Dantalian, you bastard!’

Barbatos had communicated with Dantalian before the battle. Dantalian said from the other side of the orb that ‘I’ve prepared a small gift for you to win this time’. He was only honest in times like this.

He may be a liar, but he never lied about these sorts of things.

‘This isn’t a small gift, you son of a bitch!’

She didn’t know how he had done it, but he managed to bring the Mountain Faction in as reinforcement. Furthermore, the one leading the reinforcement was Rank 12 Demon Lord Sitri, the strongest fighter in the Mountain Faction. The army led by Sitri was undoubtedly going to assault Agares’ army with a pincer formation and wipe them out.

Barbatos just had to play for time until then.

She instinctively knew what her role was.

She had conserved her magic power until now and made sure to not use more than half of her total mana. From what Barbatos could tell, she had to drag this battle on in order to have a chance of winning. She intended to gradually burn up Agares’ army over the course of 6 to 7 battles.

However, Barbatos started to use all of her mana the moment she discovered Sitri’s flag in the distance. She threw away her plans for a prolonged battle. She instinctively knew that this was the decisive moment and that she had to pour in everything she had.

“You crossbreed of a mayfly, even your way of struggling is disgusting!”

Agares roared.

“To think you’d protect your life by surrounding yourself with your subordinates! Is that your kingship, bitch!? Is that how a monarch of demonkind should act!? You’re swinging your weapon without any shame! Barbatos, you’re sullying the image of Demon Lords!”

A storm of blows continued to rain down. A barrage of blows that could even kill the holder of the sword in one strike continued like a violent storm.

Barbatos took a step into the center of that storm.

“Let me fix your misunderstanding, Agares.”

Broadswords continued to shatter miserably before Agares’ strikes.

Clang, clang, the sound of metal resonated like the sound of rain during a rainstorm. The pieces of metal that scattered each time a broadsword shattered scraped Barbatos’ cheeks. Blood splattered. Despite this, the smile on Barbatos’ lips was unchanging.

“I’m not surrounded by my subordinates.”

Barbatos swung her scythe upwards. The scythe that went all out and struck with full force was easily blocked by Agares. The scythe was flung away by her aura. Despite this, Barbatos took another step forward as if she expected this.

“My subordinates are ‘following me’.”

Agares swung her halberd.

“Ha, are you saying that you’re protecting them!? How arrogant. Demon Lords are those who bring upon calamity! They are those who harvest the earth with a strength that no one can approach and with a fear that no one can rebel against! Demon Lords do not need something like subordinates. They only require overwhelming strength!”

“You’re wrong.”

6 broadswords blocked the halberd. The broadswords couldn’t stop the halberd, but the output of the strike was weakened enough that Barbatos could stop it with her scythe.

Barbatos consumed the last bit of her remaining magic power.

Another step. She took another step forward.

“A monarch, is simply someone who is a step ahead of others.”

All of the death knights who were protecting Barbatos from her shadow were her comrades. They were with her even after death. They vowed that they would never stop fighting until the day their ideal was realized. They shared a single body with Barbatos.

That was why every step Barbatos took wasn’t simply a single step.

It was the step of everyone who had devoted their lives and deaths to the girl known as Barbatos━so that demonkind could one day sing of peace, so that they could reach a nation where fathers and mothers did not have to sell their sons and daughters.

“As the path will not remain as a mere trial and will one day become a large street for all of demonkind to tread. I may be alone, but I am not one person.”

Barbatos slashed her scythe upwards.

“This is the path of a monarch, Agares!”

The shadow broadswords that had been purely used for defense suddenly attacked for the first time the moment Agares tried to block the strike with her halberd. 18 broadswords stabbed at Agares all at once.

Agares didn’t panic.

She spun her halberd around like a wheel and easily repelled 10 bladepoints. She used her elbow to hit aside one of the broadswords and she dodged another 2 by twisting her body. The remaining 5 were pushed away by the strong gale that was produced by her movements. Her body movement was almost godly.

However, the broadswords had opened a path for their lord.

A black scythe sliced through the air. The large scythe emitted a sharp sound as it was swung upwards. It went straight up the path that the 18 broadswords had barely managed to open up.

Shiiick.

Blood sprayed into the air. Something was severed from the body and floated in the air for a moment before falling powerlessly to the ground.

“…….”

Agares scowled as she looked down at it.

Her left ear was on the ground covered in blood.

For the past 2,000 years, no one had ever been able to harm Agares’ body. She had never been grazed by a sword before as well. Receiving an injury for the first time in thousands of years was such an unfamiliar sensation for Agares that it was unbearable.

Slowly.

Agares’ expression gradually contorted as she recalled that this was the feeling of being injured.

“You, fucking bastard.”

“Now your face looks a bit appealing.”

Barbatos panted heavily as she grinned. She raised her index and middle finger in a V shape. This gesture meant ‘fuck you’.

“The face of a defeated dog suits you, you bitch with lopsided ears.”

“━━!”

Agares yelled.

It was a cry that no beast could possibly imitate. She became utterly furious like how a God would react if they were injured by a human. The earth and air trembled. The sound was so intense that even the monsters that were fighting a far distance away turned their heads in shock.

A reddish-black aura erupted like a volcano.

The wind pressure that burst out as Agares’ aura exploded easily swept throughout the entire battlefield. Goblins shook in terror and orcs had to raise their arms to block the wind. Agares became a beast as she charged at Barbatos.

At that moment, the other 8 Plains Faction Demon Lords including Beleth intervened. The Demon Lords coordinated to stop Agares’ attack. Beleth laughed fearlessly within the flood of attacks that could take his neck if he were to make even a single mistake.

“You’ll have to play with me, Agares.”

“Kuaaaaah! Fuck off, brat!”

“I can’t do that. I don’t know about other things, but I’m the type of person who thoroughly repays his debts. Since you’ve taken my arm three times, you’re going to have to offer your arm three times as well!”

On this day, the Plains Faction fended off the one-man army called Agares until the very end.

Agares was truly terrifying as it took 9 Demon Lords to just barely hold her back. However, Demon Lord Zepar of the Plains Faction and Demon Lord Sitri of the Mountain Faction performed a pincer maneuver on Agares’ army while she was busy being held down.

The fight between Agares and the Demon Lords ended in a stalemate, but Agares was defeated in the war between armies. Agares shed tears of blood as she retreated while crying out that she was definitely going to crush Barbatos’ neck.

This was how the Demon Lord who was referred to as the strongest was defeated.

***

TL Note: Thanks for reading the chapter. It really is a mood when you need to have so much help just to land one blow on an overpowered character. On another note, sorry about the late chapter release. I sort of lost track of time after a while. Discord has YET to respond to my request to recover my servers. They really just recovered my account and ghosted me afterward. I guess it really is low-priority now, but I noticed that my friend still hasn’t gotten his account back yet. Discord support is really… inconsistent? I unno.

Welp, in any case, I’ll see you guys in the next chapter.

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