Chapter 367 - Conspiracy
The royal demon capital.
"Are you kidding me?"
Sin Demon Voss pounded his fists on the stone table in anger, which instantly shattered into a pile of useless scrap due to his overwhelming strength.
"Is the Second Princess serious?"
The demon general, dressed in black armour, stared at his subordinate, as his mouth spat out green flames that were as fiery as the rage in his heart.
The heat of the flames raised the temperature in the hall by dozens of degrees.
"This is an order from Her Highness, General Voss."
A demon clad in the same armour as the Sin Demon half knelt on the ground and was bowing in fear, not daring to look at the Sin Demon as the latter was in the midst of his rant.
"Order! Order! We have been defending the border fortress against those cunning human invaders for centuries! How dare you open the gates of the Demon Realm to those humans because of a mere order?"
General Voss picked up the broken pieces of the stone table and turned them into powder with his sharp grip. But this still did not seem to ease his anger.
"What is the Second Princess thinking?"
"General Voss, Her Highness Cecily asked me to tell you that the humans are from a human kingdom called Farucci. They have come to the demon capital as envoys to sign a treaty with the Demon Realm."
"This must be a human conspiracy! The Second Princess has been deceived! I must go to her and find out."
General Voss stood up and was about to walk out into the hall when he stopped dead in his tracks.
He was a loyal follower of the First Prince, Knox Annerlaude, who had been stationed at the border fortress for several years now to defend against the invasion of the human army.
His mission this time was to return to the capital and ask for supplies for the fortress.
As the commander-in-charge of this mission, General Voss had left the fortress with the following warning from His Highness Knox: "do not trust anyone in the city".
General Voss had taken this advice to heart, but when he arrived at the royal castle, the Second Princess had generously given supplies of food and weapons to his regiment. As a result, General Voss had put his guard down for a while.
But now, the Second Princess had suddenly told him that there were human messengers coming to the Demon Realm.
General Voss refused to believe that the humans were coming with friendly intentions. They had to be planning some kind of evil plot.
If it was just some traitorous humans, that would have been fine. But General Voss's worst-case scenario was that the Second Princess had likely betrayed the demons and joined the humans.
What to do? He could not match the power of the Second Princess in the city.
In such a situation, General Voss would be putting himself and his army in danger if he were to go to the Second Princess himself.
The Sin Demon General rested his hand on his forehead. He was one of the few Sin Demons to possess the gift of 'strategizing'.
After a brief moment of reflection, he decided that he had to reveal everything to the demon king.
"I'm going to see His Majesty Nordlein Annerlaude in person. For the time being, take your army out of the city," he said to the kneeling servant.
"But General Voss, this order was also approved by His Majesty Nordlein." The lackey immediately replied. "Her Highness Cecily showed the handwriting of His Majesty Nordlein when she made the announcement at the Council of Sentinels."
… Had the signature been forged? Or had even the ruler of the Demon Realm given in to the humans?
General Voss's mind was a mess. What had happened to the royal city during his stay at the border fortress!
"Did the Second Princess tell you what the human envoys were planning to do here, other than signing a treaty?" General Voss continued to ask about the details of the Council meeting.
"Her Highness said that ... the humans also wanted to visit the Abyss of Sin." The lackey's voice trembled.
As soon as General Voss heard this, green flames erupted from the crevices of his armor. His entire body was enveloped in the burning, green fires of sin.
"Damn it!" The ground that General Voss was standing on was already melting. Sharp claws popped out of his palms and he swung violently at the wall behind him.
Three scorched scratches were left on the wall. There were faint signs of the wall crumbling.
"General Voss, please calm down! This will attract the attention of the sentinels." The lackey raised his voice in the hope of calming down the Sin Demon, who was burning with rage.
"How dare those cunning humans tresspass into the sacred grounds of our race!"
As General Voss spat out these angry words, he seemed to sense something. The flames that had been burning from his body disappeared.
A large number of bats suddenly flew into the hall where Voss was located as a smell of blood washed over the hall. The bats then coalesced into two masked sentinels.
"General Voss, what's going on here?"
The scarlet pupils underneath the masks of the sentinels scanned the surroundings. The whole hall was already in shambles.
"I haven't had the chance to move my claws for too long," General Voss said to the two sentinels, controlling his temper.
"General Voss, I hope you can control yourself. This is the King's City and not the border fortress."
"Of course ..." General Voss said, suddenly remembering something. "Sentinel, can you tell the Second Princess that I would like to be part of the demons receiving the human envoys."
"As you wish, General."
The two sentinels once again transformed into a swarm of bats and left through the window.
General Voss looked at the bats as they left and began to think about what to do next.
"Are you going to get rid of the humans, General Voss?"
The lackey on his knees could not believe that the Sin Demon would be friendly to the humans based on his angry outburst just now. He must be planning to get rid of them.
"His Majesty Nordlein gave his approval for this visit. I do not think His Majesty would betray us. He must somehow have been bewitched by the humans!"
General Voss turned and started walking out of the hall. "Killing those humans would put us in danger. But I will not allow those humans to succeed in their plot."
The pressure that had been so heavy that it made the lackey's knees weak faded away as he watched the huge Sin Demon leave the hall.
Although the demons had always had a one-track mind, General Voss was a lot smarter than most of his kind. The only drawback was that he had a slightly irascible personality, especially when it came to humans.
"Will the war really end one day?" The lackey murmured as he looked at the scratches on the wall. Every year, the demon border fortress would get invaded by humans.
He had been stationed at the fortress for decades, and the end of the war between the humans and the demons seemed to be nowhere in sight.
But not long ago, Cecily had told all of the audience at the Council of Sentinels that 'this visit could be the beginning of the end of the war'.
Although he did not believe in the promises made by the Second Princess, he could only hope that the day of truce would one day come.
