"Dear comrades."
I stood atop Bael's corpse.
It was a gruesome sight. His limbs had been torn off along with parts of his entire body, making it nearly impossible to recognize any semblance of a form. It was an end reminiscent of the Hegemon-King of Western Chu, Xiang Yu, the overlord of ten thousand. I felt no particular sympathy.
He couldn't have been hoping for a noble death. That would have been far above his station. This end suited Bael perfectly.
Hoo, hoooph...
The Demon Lords were all watching me.
Their breathing came in ragged gasps. The fervor of battle, the thrill of having staked their lives in combat and survived, rose like hot, unpleasant steam. It was hardly surprising. After all, some five or six Demon Lords had actually died.
"At 5:45 this afternoon, evil was for the first time in history brought to judgment."
The age in which emperors had reigned supreme through overwhelming might—an age of myth—was drawing to a close right here.
"The Crescent Alliance Army did not fail because we were incompetent. There were traitors hiding among us who had cowardly betrayed their own kind and secretly sown discord. These cockroach-like vermin, from the very moment of their birth, relied on their innate talent for camouflage and had for the longest time pretended to be noble figures."
My current appearance was being recorded by Ivar Lodbrok through a Memoria projection. The footage of Bael confessing his crimes had naturally been preserved as well. After a bit of editing, it would be broadcast free of charge across the entire Demon Realm.
"But lies are destined to fall."
I stared straight ahead with an unwavering gaze.
"It is a simple matter for a Demon Lord to deceive a single Demonkin. Rousing ten, even a hundred, is equally easy. But what about a thousand? What about ten thousand, or a hundred thousand, or a million? When the numbers reach that scale, lies have no ground left to stand on."
A lie, of course.
When a single lie multiplies into ten, then a hundred, then a thousand, it ceases to be a lie. In Dungeon Attack, Bael's crimes were never ultimately exposed. Could there be more blatant proof than this?
People commonly mistake the source of truth's power. It never derives from the truth itself. It is determined by the number of people who believe in that truth.
And so, whether truth or lie, an agitator is indispensable in every case. It is purely a contest of strength. Bael did not fall because lies collapsed. He fell because an agitator—me—existed.
"The traitor Bael deceived our Demon Lord army and the entirety of Demon Realm society for a full two thousand years. Perhaps during those two thousand years, someone came to realize Bael's true face. No, there certainly must have been such people. They would have desperately tried to spread the truth, only to die cold under Bael's blade..."
For two thousand years.
Without even a single line in the histories.
I lowered my head slightly, like a priest in silent prayer.
"In the annals of the past, they were buried in perfect oblivion. Who could deny it? In those days, justice was merely feeble, truth nothing but hollow, and courage simply meaningless. Thus our history became a history of corpses — nothing more than a soundless grave where a hundred million wronged souls screamed a hundred million silent screams."
I raised my head.
"My dear comrades."
I spoke clearly, without a trace of exaggeration.
"At five forty-five this afternoon, for the first time in history, evil was executed."
My voice, carried by amplification magic, seeped into every last corner of the ruined palace.
"From this moment forward, history shall cease to be a tomb. At five forty-five this afternoon, time itself momentarily froze. Future historians will call this day the 'Great Stasis.' Because from this very moment, history marches forward under an entirely different meaning."
The age of myth gives way to the age of intrigue.
The age of struggle gives way to the age of opposition.
"From this day on, we will never forget justice. I am not indulging in reckless optimism. Sometimes justice will triumph — and far more often, and far more tragically, it will be defeated. — But justice will never again be forgotten."
From now on, I will be the one who decides which side stands for justice.
"From this day forward, which side is justice and which is evil, what is truth and what is lies, who is brave and who is cowardly — all of it shall be recorded with unflinching clarity. Never again will nameless righteous souls perish in vain under the tyranny of despots."
Dead heroes, after all, deserve to be put to proper use in propaganda.
"Lies will inevitably fall. Not because lies grow powerless on their own and collapse. But because every single one of us — living in the Demon Lord's army and in Demon Realm society — will become the vanguard in the fight against lies. When one person whispers a lie, we will roar the truth with the strength and voices of ten. When ten spread lies, we will rise as a hundred and take up the fight. Even if a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand fanatically devoted followers of lies should come, we will form even greater ranks and press forward in valor, singing of justice — of nothing but steadfast justice."
If they dare resist us, we will commit to their total annihilation with ten times their forces, leaving nothing behind.
"Therefore, we must amend what we say: lies do not merely inevitably fall — we, the entirety of the Demon Lord's army and Demon Realm society, will *make* them fall!"
I raised my hand high.
"Demonkin! Unite!"
The more you unite, the stronger we become.
"The evil that the traitor Bael planted still runs deep. Tens of thousands of remnants have seized the Demon Lord's Castle. As you know, they are the most powerful legion. Even Agares — a first-class criminal who shocked all of Demon Realm society three years ago by attacking his own kind — still lives."
Only once these vermin are dealt with can I sleep soundly with my legs stretched out.
The other Demon Lords feel the same. Agares, who can single-handedly rival an entire faction's strength, must be annihilated. The Plains Faction and the Mountain Faction want to eliminate the threat looming over their factions. The Neutral Faction wants to remove the troublemakers disrupting order between the factions.
Our interests are perfectly aligned.
"We have only two choices before us: unconditional surrender, or a flawless union. The choice is yours. You may, of your own free will, choose unconditional surrender. That, however, means choosing 'the freedom to become slaves.' By inscribing ourselves — and all of our descendants — into the slave registry, we will once again be cast into two thousand years of darkness and gloom."
I spoke.
"Demonkin. Unite."
So that we may win.
"The leadership of the Demon Lord's Army hereby declares: we are prepared to make sacrifices at any time. When justice demands sacrifice from us — every last drop, if need be — we will not ask a single citizen of Demon Realm society to sacrifice more than we do. No hardship that we ourselves are unwilling to bear will ever be placed upon your shoulders."
So never denounce or criticize the leadership.
"From this moment on, our lives belong entirely to all of you, the Demonkin. From this moment on, we are nothing more than the 'first battalion' marching for the Demon Realm. The time has come to don once more the most sacred and precious uniform."
I pulled a piece of cloth I had prepared beforehand from inside my robe.
It was a flag bearing a crescent moon. The flag of the Crescent Alliance Army.
"Until the day justice triumphs, we will never remove this uniform, and should we fail to win, we will never live to witness our own defeat. From this hour forward, we — as Demon Lords and as soldiers of the Demon Realm — enter into struggle alongside you. And in that struggle, there exists only a single rallying cry."
I gripped the Crescent banner tight and roared.
"Demonkin! Unite!"
The Crescent banner was stained with blood, and it gave off the effect of appearing as though it were my own blood.
"We, the proud Demonkin, have no need for slaves. Whoever believes they have the freedom to leave even their own descendants bound in chains — directly or indirectly — shall not survive! We will have no dealings with traitors. We remain faithful to the principle the Goddesses bestowed upon us: 'Make yourself noble.'"
A form of martial law was declared.
Those who cooperated with us would be given the tag of justice, while those who resisted would bear the yoke of being branded traitors.
"Unlike humans, we never fear death. We only fear, above all else, that our lives become cowardly. Dear comrades, Demonkin destined to be warriors! We know that the matter of our own living and dying is utterly trivial. The essential issue is for the pride of the Demonkin to live and breathe."
Unlike the inferior human race.
This touched upon the deeply ingrained racist psychology of the Demonkin.
"If we form into a single legion, turn our gaze from no hardship, and shout that we will never surrender or become slaves, and if that shout becomes ten echoes, which then become ten voices again, and so on to a hundred echoes, a thousand echoes, a hundred thousand echoes that shake the entire world, we will overcome any adversity!"
Self.
"Demonkin! Rise up! Rise up as a hundred thousand footsteps for a single justice! Rise up as a song for the new era that begins today! Today at 5:45, time has temporarily frozen. Now is the moment when it is not lies or deception, but you yourselves—your own hands and feet—that must directly move history!"
Let's begin.
"We beseech the Goddesses. Warriors, unite!"
We moved swiftly. A coalition force was organized to annihilate Bael's remnants.
Bael's great Demon Lord's Castle was located in the heart of the Demon Lord's territory, and thanks to that, we could march directly with a large army without worrying about supply lines. The forces totaled fifty thousand. The legion under Bael facing us was twenty-two thousand.
A mere legion led by a single Demon Lord was twenty-two thousand. It showed just how powerful Bael was.
But we were extremely relaxed. It was practically a foregone conclusion.
"All we have to do is wait for the demon energy to drain from the castle."
Barbatos snorted as he said it.
That's right. The Demonkin garrisoned in a Demon Lord's Castle lived on demon energy. But regardless of the exact principle, when a Demon Lord died, the demon energy in the Demon Lord's Castle gradually spread out in all directions.
Even with a massive force of twenty thousand stationed there, if the demon energy disappeared, their supplies would be cut off. No, in this case, the force of twenty thousand would actually become an obstacle. The amount of demon energy they consumed would be enormous.
We besieged the Demon Lord's Castle and waited for twenty days.
As expected, enemy troops who could no longer endure the hunger began rushing out of the castle gates. We tightened the encirclement and dealt with them easily.
"It really feels like we're hunting turkeys."
That was Sitri's way of describing it. It was, quite literally, a hunt.
With Bael gone, the enemy forces couldn't move in a coordinated fashion. On the other hand, the Demon Lord on our side was directly issuing orders to the Demonkin through mental commands. The difference between a Demonkin army commanded by a Demon Lord and one without such leadership was not just stark—it was staggering. The grand army Bael had boasted about melted away in a mere two months.
When society falls into chaos, the most effective measure is winning the war.
Bael's crimes were being exposed one after another. My speeches. And on top of that, military victories.
Demon Realm society gradually began offering fervent support to the new Crescent Alliance Army leadership.
============================ Author's Afterword ============================
Someone figured out the reference book I used for Chapter 266. That's right—it's Immanuel Kant's "Perpetual Peace"! It's also called the theory of permanent peace. Honestly, if you swap "monarch" for "president" and read it, it's not all that different from representative democracy.