On the outskirts of the military town of Sakerid, the reinforcements from the Octavian Empire(Knights) and the Aldrich Empire(Magic) had already arrived. What they did not expect to have happened, was for the path ahead of them to disappear as soon as they had entered the town’s boundaries. They were able to see the town ahead of them, but no matter how much they walked, they didn’t seem to be getting any closer of Sakerid.
“Everyone, halt! There is definitely something wrong with this path, we’ve been travelling in the same direction for hours now, and we haven’t even reached that big tree over there yet. Princess Effie, do you know what’s going on?”
The Dragon Knight Shawn turned his head to look at the 3rd princess of the Aldrich Empire, Brittany Effie, who headed the magic empire’s reinforcements. Shawn was a normal dragon knight and didn’t know much about magic, but the only explanation as to what was happening to them was that a magic formation had been placed over Sakerid that stopped them from being able to approach the town, and a strong one too.
“Shawn-dono, give me a bit of time to use my own magic and see if anything can be done.” Effie’s knowledge of magic could be ranked in the top three in the Aldrich Empire, and was a strong mage to boot. She had also noticed that something was wrong with this path.
Not long after Effie began scanning the area with magic, all the blood suddenly drained from her face, as if she had just seen something terrifying. This magic formation wasn’t created by any human mage, Effie’s detection magic wasn’t able to see anything within the magic formation, instead she had seen countless different dimensions, ones similar to this and ones that were bizarre and strange, the sheer vastness of it all made Effie feel miniscule.
There was also a female voice whispering into her ear, telling her to leave, but Effie was unable to find where the voice came from. The voice also told Effie that they should all remain where they were and not try and continue forward to Sakerid, the path will open itself in 3 days.
“Shawn-dono, I suggest we backtrack and set up camp outside of this magic formation’s range then wait for the other three empire’s reinforcements. I don’t think it’s possible for us to reach Sakerid right now, but this magic formation probably won’t stop us from leaving.” Effie wiped the cold sweat from her brow and give a deep bow to the path in front of her before ordering the Aldrich Empire’s forces to withdrawn. Leaving behind a puzzled Shawn.
Seeing that the Aldrich Empire’s forces had already retreated, Shawn could only give the command for the Octavian Empire’s forces to fall back as well. While he was worried about the fates of the Church of Light’s templar knights and the Gabriel Empire’s(Swordsmen) royal guards, but without the aid of 【Magic Dragon Knight】 Lisha and her Anti-Demon Knight corp, Shawn didn’t want to enter Sakerid without knowing what was ahead, especially now that such a powerful magic formation had been placed on the town.
None of the retreating soldiers were able to see a loli with pink twintails the tree which they had been unable to reach, the loli was sitting on a small wooden chair with a lollipop in her mouth, seemingly lost in the manga that she held in her hands. Not paying any attention to the retreating human forces.
This loli was none other than the 6th dimension’s creator god, 【Extradimensional Creator】Stephanie Alfreia, who was one of the Creators who had came to this dimension at Bella’s request for help. The Creators who had came had obtained permission from the leader of the female Creators, 【Light Creator】Anastasia Vianne, so they technically weren’t breaking the Creator faction’s rules. Alfreia’s mission was to seal the entire town of Sakerid into a magic formation so that outsiders would be unable to enter and give the other Creators time to deal with whatever was happening inside the town.
___
Within the region that was sealed off, the villages around Sakerid had already been cleared of infected by numerous five-meter tall bipedal mechs modeled after fierce beasts that were equipped with what seemed to be gatling guns where the hands should have been. Whenever an infected came into their sights, these mechs would release all hell on them, firing fluid from the gatling guns until the zombies were reduced to mere pulp.
The bipedal mechs weren’t the only type of mech present, and travelling behind all the mechs were a large number of humanoid beings. These beings all wore metal armor designed for strong resistance to airborne chemicals and viruses, carried peculiar rayguns, advancing cautiously and picking off any straggling infected. In the skies above were many different machines that one would only be able to see in sci-fi movies that also seemed to be giving orders to the ground forces while keeping a watch on the situation from above.
The machine army was only one of three forces that were cleaning the area in and around Sakerid. Of the other two, one was made up of various magical dolls that were tasked with using their otherworldly magic to repair the damaged buildings and flora. The other force was composed of varied and numerous evil beings that were responsible for clearing the area of malicious spirits because the malicious spirits were unaffected by the attacks of the machine army.
“Attention all squads, attention, apart from those with type-8 life signatures, all organic and magical beings are allies. I repeat, all…”
It was quite confusing to see such a futuristic army teaming up without beings of magic and fantasy to fight against zombies in a town that looked like those of middle ages Europe. To any transmigrators, the scene would make them feel as if the time-space continuum had been disrupted.
___
In a giant flying machine high above the action, 【Machine Creator】 Gladys Andrea was sitting at the point of a horseshoe-shaped, still wearing the cat-eared headphones, seemingly listening to music. Not far in front of her was a large display that was showing a live broadcast of the battle below.
“Andrea, Alfreia just reported that this dimension’s humans have already arrived, but she had already gotten them to fall back for now. We need to speed this up a bit.”
“Bethia, I want to finish as soon as possible too, but Bella is scared of damaging this place beyond repair, so she asked me not to use larger mechs and weapons of mass destruction. The current rate is as fast as we can get with these smaller mechs.”
Seeing 【Magic Creator】 Oliveira Bethia sitting casually while snacking on some snacks that Bella had given them, Andrea felt a little regret at contending for the position of the “High Commander of the Allied Army”. Because she now had to give orders and commands to three different armies at the same time, she didn’t even have any time to drink water during the several hours since the operation had began.
“Mystica, do you have Bella’s exact location? I want to get permission to use atomic fission weapons, only one, I promise. All I need is one and I can achieve ‘world peace!’”{1}
“Andrea, I don’t know where exactly Bella is either, but you might as well keep things as they are and not do anything drastic. Don’t worry, the town of Paknir had already been recaptured by Bella’s subordinates, victory isn’t far and you’ll be able to rest soon enough.”
【Dark Creator】 Tracy Mystica sat elegantly on a spinning sofa, enraptured by the yuri manga in her hands, not even raising her head to answer Andrea. Andrea could only grudgingly continue to direct the allied forces, but she decided that she was going to ask for some more payment from Bella later.
___
In one of Sakerid’s secret underground passages, Bella’s party was carefully making their way through. Bella had learned of this route from the Church of Light’s 4th holy maiden, Daisy, it was one that didn’t even show up on the map that Clement had obtained from the Gabriel Empire’s upper echelons, meaning that it was probably built by the Church of Light without knowledge from the Gabriel Empire.
Right now the entire town of Sakerid was overrun with infected and it wouldn’t be a very intelligent decision to enter the town the normal way. There were simply too many zombies, possibly enough to even delay Bella’s party simply by throwing themselves at the girls and blocking their way, and time was of the essence right now, because Kriss and the others were still waiting for Bella’s group to come and save them.
The two void monarchs earlier had already been defeated, 【Black Ant King】 Malthus retreating underground while 【Death Flower Empress】 Heklis had been destroyed by the joint forces of four of the Dark Sanctuary’s own void monarchs, but that was only one of Heklis’ numerous avatars, not it’s been body, meaning that it had also been able to retreat without much loss. As the two void monarchs had not been captured, Bella was unable to know if 【Tenebrous Demon God】 Elise had already descended upon this dimension and also unable to find out if Malthus and Heklis had came here on Elise’s orders.
There were torches on both walls of the passage and they had not yet encountered any infected, meaning that this passage was rather well sealed, at least well enough to keep zombies out. The other end of the passage lead to one of Sakerid’s smaller and more isolated churches, Daisy had told Bella that there would be people from the Church of Darkness waiting for them there.
___
Sakerid’s small Weir Church was currently surrounded by a sea of infected, the members of the Church of Darkness present had almost been completely wiped out, leaving only a few warriors that had fallen back to the church’s doors, swinging their swords at the infected that threw themselves at the doorway. The church’s door had been broken in to pieces by the infected long ago.
Underneath the broken statue of the god of light, a black haired beauty leaned weakly on the statue. All of her clothes had already been wasted away by the toxic air, leaving behind only the bone staff at her feet.
The Church of Darkness’ 3rd unholy maiden, Liz, struggled to raise her head to look at the doorway, where countless infected were throwing themselves at the fragile defences that the dark warriors were holding and it seemed that it wouldn’t be long before the infected would finally break through. Not far behind Liz was the exit of the secret passage, currently covered by the a table that she had brought over.
Liz had been affected by the toxic air long ago, and had only managed to not become one of the infected because she had not yet been bitten, and the dark cross around her neck barely managed to keep the poison from killing her. However, this wasn’t going be enough. Liz didn’t expect to be surrounded and attacked by infected as soon as they had exited the Weir Church, the Salo faction had built this church in this location for the reason of it being in a place with barely any people, who knew how such a large number of infected found their way here!
Liz did not choose to return through the secret passage, she knew that she was already infected and that she would only spread the virus further and would also very likely expose this secret passage to the infected. Even though she was a member of the Church of Darkness, but this didn’t change the fact that Liz was still human, she was currently planning to completely destroy the passage’s entrance on this side.
Right as Liz was about thinking about activating the self destruction magic on her bone staff, the passage’s exit was forcefully opened. Whoever opened it was quite strong as they had not only pushed open the trapdoor, but also the large amount of furniture above it. Liz was scared and immediately began chanting the spell to blow up the staff, from her point of view, there was no way a human would have such strength and it was very likely that zombies had already made their way into the secret passage.
Unfortunately, Liz was unsuccessful in activating the self-destruction magic, a human figure swiftly jumped Liz, taking the staff from her hands and snapping it in half before the self-destruction magic could successfully actiavate. After doing so, the figure picked up the defenceless Liz, who almost killed herself before realizing that the figure still had body warmth and wasn’t a zombie, Liz didn’t want to become a zombie while she was still conscious.
“Unholy maiden-dono, don’t take things too hard! If you destroy this path, we won’t be able to return.”
Bella looked at the beauty in her embrace, it was fortunate that she had been able to stop Liz in time, or else Bella and her party might have gotten buried alive in the passage below if Liz had successfully channeled her staff’s self destruction magic.
“The insignia of the Salo faction? You are… people from the Salo faction? Didn’t Daisy say that she would come personally?!”
“Daisy she… hey, do you know where the Dak inn is?”
“That small inn? I know where it is, it’s just one kilometer east of this church.”
“Is that so! Thank you, everyone take a breather here for now, I have something to discuss with unholy maiden-dono!”
Bella turned around and told the other beauties in her party, they didn’t need to care about the zombies outside the church’s doorways. In a few glances she had sensed that those dark warriors weren’t humans at all, and gave off Skryme’s scent. Meaning that it was very likely that these dark warriors were the unfortunate ones that Skryme had eaten and replaced, there was no other explanation as to how they had lasted so long and had not yet become infected.
“What do you want? Help…”
“Don’t make a sound, we’re both girls here, what can I do to you? But if you want to scream… I can’t promise you that no accidents will happen~!”
“Then why aren’t you letting me down?, Can you…”
“Don’t be such a bad girl, Miss Liz, is the cold floor more comfortable than my embrace?”
Liz was suddenly at a loss for words, in the split second that she went into a stupor, Bella had already carried her to the other side of the god of light’s statue, blocking all of the other beauties’ line of sight. As for what Bella was doing, none of them said anything, probably because they knew that this was just who Bella was. Even Angel and Mia who had been seemingly so innocent and naive didn’t feel anything wrong with Bella’s actions.
“Aren’t you from the Salo faction? Hurry and tell Daisy to come and see me, I have something…”
“My subordinates have already safely brought Daisy to the town of Paknir, you can tell me what you want to say to her. I’m not a member of the Salo faction, just a wandering mercenary that just passed by.”
“Mercenary? How much does it take to hire your help, after we get out of here…”
“No, I don’t want gold, I need a cleric to join my party, preferably a beauty like you!”
Liz hadn’t expected to ever meet a mercenary that didn’t want money and only a person instead. However, she was the Church of Darkness’ unholy maiden which was quite a valuable title. There was no way that she would join Bella’s adventuring party that she knew nothing about, at least not so easily.
“Liz, how about you join my adventuring party, there’s great benefits in doing so! If you don’t want to join, I’ll have to show you my abilities to make you a part of my party~!”
“What if I say no?”
“ Hayley, the last holy maiden who asked me this is already… Liz, do you think that…”
“This… you… don’t get any closer…”
Liz’s struggled to no avail, her beautiful black eyes were wide as she looked at Bella, as if she had been taken by surprise. Bella had already sealed Liz’s resisting lips with a kiss, stopping the 3rd unholy maiden from being able to protest her treatment.
Bella decided to drag the Church of Darkness’ 3rd unholy maiden, Liz, into her party. They had already confirmed Kriss’ location, the four girls were holed up in the Dak Inn. Ivy still carried the [Ground Dragon] cores on her and Bella was able to use the ‘Dragon’s Treasure’ that Vianne had gifted her to detect the exact location where Kriss and the others were.
Bella had already gotten her subordinate dark suzerain, Clement, to bring the Church of Light’s three holy maidens back to Paknir to recouperate. The town of Paknir had already been reclaimed by the forces of several dark suzerains and completely cleared from infected, making it much safer than any other town or village near Sakerid. Currently the only person who had the abilities of a cleric was the unholy maiden Liz, of course Bella wasn’t going to let her go!
Apart from the large amounts of infected in the town, Sakerid also had large numbers of malicious spirits drifting around, meaning that it would be hard to enter without a priest or cleric. Even though they were less than a thousand meters from the Dak inn, where Kriss and the others were, but there were probably at least 10,000 malicious spirits in between them. The most important reason was that the unholy maiden Liz’s beauty and figure was on par with those of the Church of Light’s holy maidens, it was understandable that Bella would have some ‘sinister thoughts’ about her.
—TL NOTES—
{1} 世界核平, play on the words, 世界和平 with the same pronunciation. Now instead of world peace it means to flatten the world with nuclear weapons
