I'm a monster in Demon King's Castle

#299 - War is the antidote

"范海辛, I'm looking for Jessie."

Across the mirror, Leal could not perceive this person's inner thoughts, guessing that he should be the magic mirror manager of the Kingston family.

Logically speaking, Jessie should have greeted him, but unexpectedly, this person didn't react to his communication.

"Van Helsing… Jessie…" The dead-faced man's eyes focused separately, then flashed through countless faces. Leal even saw Van Helsing in his right eye.

Swollen-eyed Van Helsing was in the sixth library, just receiving the blood that Jessie handed over.

"Please wait…" The dead-faced man seemed to have completed some kind of authentication, murmuring.

Immediately afterward, the skin around the dead-faced man's eyes turned outwards, and his entire face began to squirm, soon transforming into Jessie's appearance, except with crooked eyebrows.

Leal understood, so this dead face was a human telephone.

"Van Helsing? Your collection progress is not bad. It has been pieced together to a usable extent…" Jessie straightened her eyebrows before noticing that the magic mirror was complete.

"It's already done?!" Jessie was pleasantly surprised. "Don't you sleep?"

From the time the two joined hands to destroy Beelzebub's breeding ground until now, only a week or two had passed. Jessie had thought it would only be enough to collect a rough amount, but she didn't expect the entire sacred object to be fully assembled.

Of course, she didn't know that Leal had also gone to the underground city, recruited a Copper Clan dwarf, and then leisurely walked through three safe zones to collect broken mirror pieces…

Otherwise, the task would have been completed long ago.

"Good sleep is important." Leal responded in the tone of a brain spirit, then noticed the beads of sweat on Jessie's forehead. "What are you busy with?"

"The Demon Expeditionary Force has set off, the continent is engulfed in war, and every family, every hero, has their duty to fulfill." Jessie did not answer directly.

Leal thought… the heroes on the Demon King City's side are indeed busy.

Busy collecting materials in the arena.

"Oh? But I heard that the Tass Empire did not extend a helping hand to the Holy City. The major families probably wouldn't be so kind as to send private armies either, so what are they busy with?" Leal was very concerned about the First Army's battle situation. This time, he finally found a relatively authoritative source of information and naturally wouldn't let it go.

"The major families certainly have their own plans…" Jessie thought for a while and decided to tell Van Helsing something. "For example, helping the family's strong individuals advance, taking advantage of the war to improve their strength as quickly as possible."

"Hmm? They're only improving their strength now that the Holy City is under attack? Isn't it a bit late…" Leal muttered, suddenly remembering what the newsboy had said.

"Once the Holy City falls, the faith of the Chaos Continent will collapse. The Tass Empire doesn't care?"

"It's precisely because the Holy City exists that we can reorganize our forces…"

"Many times, war is a cure." Jessie said faintly.

Leal also understood that the royal family and nobles of the Tass Empire… were using the Holy City as a shield.

"Oh, so what's the Holy City like now?" As one of the pillars of the Tass Empire, the Kingston family obviously knew many inside stories.

Leal continued to press Jessie, regretting that he couldn't "communicate" with her face-to-face.

"You want to see? Here." Jessie put her eyes close to the mirror, pulled up her right eyelid, and Leal saw a blurry reflection in her eye.

In the reflection, a town was covered in red mist, and flames occasionally burst into the air, scorching the bones on the ground. In the shadows of the charred ruins, red-skinned demons carrying charred corpses occasionally walked by, pushing and shoving each other, pulling carts of living people towards the town square.

In the town square, countless humans formed towers, still alive, their eyes open but their pupils rolled back, sometimes despairing, sometimes sorrowful, sometimes ecstatic.

Inside the stacked towers, people were connected by blood vessels, which then converged into thick, intertwined blood vessel veins, connected to the crimson giant cocoon in the center of the square.

The giant cocoon constantly spewed red and black mist, projecting chunks of flesh that disappeared into the southern sky.

"What is this?" Leal could roughly see that this should be some kind of blood cocoon magic of the pure-blooded demons, and those towers seemed to have become human flesh batteries, supplying the cocoon with flesh and blood.

"The demons are using the emotions of the townspeople to create food and strengthen their army." Jessie's voice wavered slightly. "This is a newly developed magic. Towns like this… are common on the road from Demon King City to the Holy City."

Leal was silent for a moment.

"So you're planning to clear this town?" Leal knew that Jessie couldn't act alone, and the Kingston family would never allow their number two heir to wander outside.

"What are you asking this for? Are you worried about my safety? Or are you afraid that the Expeditionary Force will reach the banks of the Lund River? Your hometown? Turning it into this too?"

"Don't worry, unless they can flatten the Tass Empire, they won't reach further north. At most, there will only be some scattered demons running out of Demon King City…"

"Instead of worrying about the demons, you might as well worry about the Snow Country Knights. They love to take advantage of the situation…"

"And as far as I know, the banks of the Lund River have long been reduced to ruins, refugees, and bandits. Do you really care about that place?" Jessie said for a moment, giving Leal a teasing look.

Jessie knew that Leal was a tentacle monster, but she never revealed it.

"But you still haven't answered me. Are you planning to clear the town?" What Leal cared about, of course, was not the situation on the banks of the Lund River, but the direction of the entire war.

From Jessie's actions, he could feel the Tass Empire's attitude towards the Expeditionary Force.

"Of course not. It's not time for us to take action yet." Jessie shook her head.

"The demons' army is at its peak, the Holy City is contracting, letting go, and accumulating strength for a counterattack. What we need to do is prepare before the moment of attack arrives…"

"What preparation?"

"Of course, it's advancement." Jessie's expression suddenly became very serious.

Leal thought of the bustling heroes in front of the arena—most of them were there for materials. Only a handful of people truly wanted to kill the Demon King. Leal had only encountered one and a half in total.

One was Zoya, and half was Rain Man.

"You're so strong, but you don't know? Every war brings a reshuffle, and it's also the moment when power is most loosened." Jessie was stunned.

Leal was also stunned.

Do heroes also have power?

Could it be that at the end of each "path," there is a holder of power?

This and the power of Demon King City… shouldn't be the same thing.

"Oh, I forgot, you're not a noble." Jessie realized.

"Knowledge related to power is only circulated among nobles?"

"Of course not. The royal family, nobles, associations… the inheritors of the ancient paths, they know." Jessie winked at Leal. "How about it, want to know? But you need to tell me your path first."

"Forget it, no need." Leal couldn't explain it either.

"Yo, want to create a new power? I'm looking forward to it. But if you want to know, you can come and pledge allegiance to me at any time. I won't mistreat you." Jessie seemed to have finally found a card to control Van Helsing, and her face was delighted.

"Okay." Leal didn't intend to continue dwelling on this topic—now that he had a general understanding of the war situation,

"Now that the sacred object is here, how do I give it to you? And… what about the reward?" Leal knocked on the mirror.

"Now that the sacred object is complete, the Kingston family can take it back at any time." Jessie smiled, touched the mirror surface, and the magic mirror shook, as if it would break free from Leal's hands at any moment.

Leal squeezed it tighter, realizing that some kind of spatial magic was sealed on the mirror, and then he was very relieved.

Spatial magic, Egg's particles can interrupt it at any time, so he's not afraid of Jessie going back on her word.

"But I'm not in a hurry to do so." Jessie raised her eyebrows. "War is my path to advancement in the next stage, but before the Tass Empire fights the demons, I still need to do a lot of preparation for the ritual, so…"

"Let's trade." Leal predicted that the topic would go in this direction. "I also need something."

"Very good." Jessie smiled. "But aren't you worried… that after I know the materials you need, I'll also know your path?"

"Not worried at all." Leal directly sewed the demand list sent by Tom onto a piece of scavenged human skin and threw it into the mirror.

Seeing the words "Magic Cannon" neatly sewn in the first line of the human skin, Jessie couldn't smile.