Chapter 999 – #99. The Story of the Three Thousand Concubines and the Emperor (57)
Squeak-
-It will work out, right?
-God will protect us.
Snap!
-Aren’t you still working hard to make offerings? By the end, you will have gathered enough strength to be satisfied.
-… The gathering force is much less than I thought. Time is running out… But I’m worried.
-I know that there are many faithful believers among the soldiers of the Geos Empire, but this is very strange.
The devil takes human life and gives it strength.
However, the ‘human sacrifice’ performed by priests was a bit different.
Nowadays it has become obsolete, but in the past, it was something that a ‘bishop-level’ priest who served God would achieve enlightenment after self-mortification and take refuge in God just before he died.
It was an offering that meant returning all of one’s divine power to the world before death and dedicating one’s body to God. If a person ascended to heaven in that way, many children born with exceptionally divine power would be born in the following year.
These sacred rituals have degenerated over time, and are now transformed into ‘human sacrifices’ to strengthen divine power.
‘The offering that the bishop used to make gradually passed down to the priests below the priest, and now it has reached the point where faithful believers are being used.’
Squeak-
The temple is corrupt.
Before returning to God’s embrace, the ‘offerings’ made for the world were also corrupted.
-Well then… Shall we put in a little more effort?
– Are you really saying that you are asking for more?
-How many times has the Emperor of the Empire exceeded our expectations so far? Being cautious doesn’t seem like a bad thing.
-Will you be obediently handed over to the Geos Empire?
– These are consumables that will die shortly after being sent to the battlefield anyway. Wouldn’t it be much more glorious to be used to kill the emperor? Even Emperor Geos knows that.
-If I could kill the emperor, I would do anything. Didn’t they hold us in fear?
-You’re right. Emperor Geos will not be able to refuse our request.
Even though the priests had collected enough offerings, they were still anxious and were thinking of strengthening the offerings until the very end.
“Offering is meaningful because it means offering oneself…”
This is a situation where lives are being forcibly taken and used as offerings.
Thanks to this, I wasn’t able to gather a lot of power considering I only replaced one person.
Despite forcing one person’s death, fuel efficiency is extremely poor.
Thanks to this, the priest was exchanging a huge number of soldiers to gain the power to kill me.
‘Are you planning to make Mount Tai out of dust?’
It would be difficult if their strength was too weak, but looking at the situation, it seemed like they could make a hill even if they couldn’t make Mount Tai.
It was uncomfortable to see a pig using life as expendable goods, so I took my eyes off the priests who were starting to move, as if they were asking for more soldiers.
“Follow me.”
Snap!
Of course, orders were given to the ‘rat’ who was watching them.
It’s a pity that the cockroaches I used before died because they ate something wrong.
It had the advantage of being able to get across narrow places without difficulty, but it died more easily than expected, so I started using rats again.
Rats could be used for quite a long time as long as they avoided the mousetraps placed everywhere.
“Anyway, it looks like we’ve replaced more people than expected. I guess we can stop it, right?”
As long as I am checking their every move, they will never escape my grasp.
The problem was that I had no idea how much power they were gathering.
It was an item I purchased at a fairly high price, but I was worried whether the item would be able to block their abilities well.
‘It’s a problem if you block too well, and it’s a problem if you block too poorly.’
In the first place, it is difficult to find an appropriate average.
In addition, I was thinking that, if possible, I would like to return the power that the temple bastards used.
After all, isn’t it true that the temple suffered a lot of damage from this war?
‘Even if we don’t receive everything we were supposed to receive from the Geos Empire, the loss to the temple is not that great.’
At best, the prisoners captured by us?
Of course, I would suffer huge losses here if I did not send away the paladins and priests I had truly captured.
However, since the temple’s influence was still enormous, I had no intention of truly holding on to them and not letting them go.
The reason I said I wouldn’t release them was because of the treaty the sneaky temple bastards made with the Geos Empire.
‘Even in a war, you can’t take other people’s money and even exchange prisoners, and let Geos take all the profits, right? In the end, that money belongs to our empire.’
After conquering the Geos Empire, I planned to rob everything I could find.
Anyway, the land is fertile, so they eat well and live well.
Of course, by then, I will be in a life-or-death situation trying to block the temple’s attacks, so it will be difficult to create the situation as I want.
But I believe in my children.
It is said that the enraged prince will show no mercy to the Geos Empire and will suck out its marrow.
‘Why do we have to share with the temple the spoils we fought so hard to get in the first place?’
Of course, if it were a country that was aware of the temple, it would have sucked its fingers even if the loot it had worked hard to obtain was taken away by the temple.
However, since I had already become irreparably estranged from the temple, there was no reason to consider the agreement made between the Geos Empire and the temple.
‘The temple knows this, so they are trying to kill me.’
They have to kill me somehow to get what they agreed to receive.
That’s why they thought about taking the irrational move of human sacrifice.
‘Actually, these guys don’t have a plan that would benefit them as much as human sacrifice.’
In the first place, don’t they have any idea that they might get caught?
It is not that they are losing money, but they are using the power they gained by making offerings to prisoners of war and Geos soldiers, i.E. ‘Other people’s lives’.
From the temple’s perspective, it is truly low risk, high return.
I haven’t suffered any losses, but the profits I can gain if I succeed are huge.
“Prince.”
“Yes, Abama.”
“Isn’t your body itching?”
“No.”
“No, boy.”
Looking at the battlefield from the side and seeing him breathing heavily with his eyes wide open, he looks like he wants to jump into the fierce battle right now.
But the prince is no longer a child.
They are not people who cause accidents because they cannot control their impulses.
“Not yet.”
Our influence on the battlefield is enormous.
Do you want to fight and move carelessly and get injured?
It was something that could change the outcome of a war that was being won.
The crown prince knew that too, so he was holding back his enthusiasm.
“More soldiers are dying than we thought.”
However, the reason why my eyes were wide open was because more soldiers were dying than I thought.
“It’s something that can’t be helped.”
It was also something I was prepared for.
“Was it difficult?”
I’m a normal person, and not feeling anything when my soldiers are dying is something only a psychopath would do.
The prince is an ordinary person who feels emotions just fine.
However, since it was a place, she knew that she shouldn’t show signs of being agitated even if she felt that way.
“It’s okay, Abama.”
“You’ve become really dignified now. You’re an adult.”
The prince blushes at my praise.
“No. It’s still not enough.”
Honestly, I am not happy that my child is becoming more mature than his age.
It may be that the personality itself is adult-like, but the prince has a heavy burden on his shoulders, so he has no choice but to become an adult.
Still, considering what will happen in the future, the prince must act like an adult.
Only then will he be able to endure the suddenly inherited position of emperor.
‘I still feel anxious when I think about what happened to me when I was away for a while… So I decided to suffer and die instead of dying at all.’
The original plan was to clean up the battlefield without any regrets and leave this world.
However, as the crown prince was unable to completely fill my vacancy as expected, I had no choice but to re-plan.
In fact, plans have been constantly changing depending on the situation for a long time, so changing them was not a new thing.
‘The temple gains too much from my death.’
There was a high chance that the temple bastards would make a fuss about war reparations to leave everything to the crown prince.
So, even though he received life-threatening injuries from the fight, he decided to remain not dead yet.
So, I will watch from the side to see if the crown prince takes care of state affairs on my behalf and resolves the war issue.
‘And now when I think it’s okay.’
Let’s leave quietly.
That’s how the plan was made, and in order for the plan to be implemented, the priests had to move.
The reason I kept the crown prince next to me instead of sending him out to the battlefield was because I was worried that he might get hurt if he stayed away from the priests’ attacks.
‘You’ll be safest next to me.’
Of course, I planned to make sure that no one died from the priests’ attacks.
Only then can the image of a ‘miracle’ be instilled in the soldiers.
These soldiers have already seen a miracle from me once, so their reaction will be amazing.
I deliberately prepared the item to have a very flashy effect.
‘Come quickly. I’m going to lose my mind while waiting.’
Shouldn’t these guys come quickly and attack, so I can explode what I’ve prepared?
For the first time in a long time, I watched the war, pretending to be relaxed on the outside while crying inwardly at the quickness of Koreans.
It’s a pity, but winning this war was not something that the soldiers fighting against the enemy could do.
The final attack that the temple guys will unleash.
It depended on how well you defended against the attack.
⁘ ⁘ ⁘
“The Imperial Emperor will never be stopped.”
Since ancient times, attacks containing human life force have boasted powerful destructive power.
That’s why devil contractors are dangerous.
This was the reason why the temple was trying so hard to stop it.
And the altered offering is also a method used to fight against demonic contractors.
Until now, there has never been a time when an offering failed to defeat a demon contractor.
It was like that because I never imagined that the devil would attack me by boosting his strength with an offering at the temple.
And that would be the same for the imperial emperor.
‘With this level of power, even if the Emperor of the Empire were the devil himself, he could be killed.’
The priests smiled happily as they looked at the overwhelming energy gathered through the offering.
Now all that remained was to use this power to kill the emperor.
