The southern border region of Gabriel Empire, Nolan City, the former capital of Norlander Duchy, the slave market in the central area of the city.
Under the orders of White Wolf Princess Tania, the slave traders temporarily left the market with regret. For the time being, this was now the territory of the Wolfmen, and these Beastmen had the final say.
However, Bella and her companions didn’t leave. They were currently pretending to be Black Robed Witches, who were the members of the Dark Human Race. She wanted to see what this wolf girl was going to do. Emily’s eyes were fixed on Bella; she was her last hope.
“What are you… Didn’t Master Kenneth tell you to go…”
Princess Tania looked at Bella in bewilderment. They were dressed like Black Robed Witches and should be Kenneth’s subordinates. Although she was dissatisfied with all the evil experiments carried out by the Dark Humans, Tania didn’t dare to shed all pretence of cordiality.
Fortunately, Dark Humans also spoke the human language. Tania talked to Bella and her companions in the human language. Had she spoken in Beastmen language, she believed that none of them could understand it.
“Master Kenneth has arranged another task for us. You don’t need to know. We’re here on a mission. You don’t have to worry about us.”
A trace of dissatisfaction appeared across Tania’s face. Their arrogance angered her. The Wolfmen were a proud race. Since when did these Dark Humans have the right to talk to her in such an arrogant tone?
In the recent siege, the Wolfmen had lost around ten thousand soldiers at the edge of Sarni City walls but made no progress. Sarni City was still as stable as a mountain, and Princess Tania had grown a little impatient. All the dead soldiers were her own people, while few of the Dark Humans had lost their lives as well.
“In that case, I won’t disturb you from completing your task. Men, take the prisoners…”
“Wait, what are you doing?”
At Tania’s command, the Wolf Cavalry, who had followed her, carried large wooden boxes over. Each of these boxes was just enough to fit a person and iron locks had been installed inside them to fasten the goods in place.
At a glance, Bella saw that these boxes were for carrying slaves. The Beastmen Army intended to transport the girls elsewhere. Once they were packed and transported separately, Bella wouldn’t be able to save them. Therefore, she stepped in to stop Princess Tania.
“Didn’t your Master Kenneth request to send these girls to the altar as living sacrifices to the demons? Why, are you… “
“About this… Master Kenneth told us to take over. Just leave the boxes here. We’ll do the loading.”
Kenneth was the supreme commander sent by the Dark Humans to the Beastmen and was the actual person in control behind the entire Beastmen invasion force. Even Harrington, the Wolfman commander, obeyed him.
Tania didn’t know how she could express her dissatisfaction, but she left the wooden boxes behind and led her team away. She felt that Kenneth regarded her as a fool and tricked her. Since he had other plans, why make her come all this way here?
Noreya was afraid that White Wolf Princess Tania would turn around. As soon as she stepped out of the gates of the trade area, Noreya followed up and lurked around near the entrance of the market to help Bella and Elaine keep watch.
Kenneth changed his mind at the last moment but didn’t come. Neither did Harrington, the commanding general of the Beastmen Army. This time, Bella hadn’t reached her goal of infiltration yet. However, her harvest made her somewhat satisfied.
“Bella, what are you going to do with these girls…”
“Elaine, we can’t hurt them too. I’ll help you solve the matter of wanting to create living puppets when we get back. My duchess residence lacks a bunch of human maids. These… “
Elaine secretly discussed with Bella for a long time before finally reaching a consensus. Then, Elaine started her puppet summoning magic. Soon, a large group of puppets came out of the summoning array.
Under Elaine’s command, the puppets scattered throughout the trading market, loading young girls, who were still struggling in despair, into boxes. The white, translucent gauze garments that were worn by these beautiful captives were torn up by the puppets.
Before they could resist, the puppets stripped them completely and pinned them onto the ground. Then, the puppets drew out a strange potion that they had gotten from who knows where and spread it evenly on the trembling bodies of these beauties.
These special potions allowed the living to pretend that they were dead and could hide their smell. Besides being able to fool zombies, it informed Bella’s army of demons that the Demon King had reserved these young girls. At the same time, it also removed any chance of these beauties from escaping.
The beautiful girls’ faces were filled with horror. They were even more frightened than when they had been stared at by the slave traders before. They were pinned to the ground; their bodies wiped with strange liquids by these expressionless wooden puppets. What’s worse, after the liquid had been poured all over them, they felt weak and had no strength at all.
After that, the puppets worked in groups of two and loaded, one by one, dozens of beautiful girls from the market into these boxes. These beautiful girls had all been selected from various aristocratic families within the defeated duchy. Bella made a huge bargain this time. She had even saved the money required to hire maids.
Bella and Noreya planned to take these young girls out of Nolan City disguised as corpses, taking advantage of the fact that the Black Robed Wizards were trying to suppress the zombie riots in the burial land and the black wizards to transport them away. Without the Black Robed Wizards at the checkpoints, the Beastmen guards were too lazy to look through the carriage that was carrying corpses.
As for their final destination, naturally, they would become Bella’s maids for life. The Duchess’ residence in Sarni City had always been short of human maids. She had been using ghost maids this whole time. Bella wanted to hire maids. However, after they knew Bella was the Grand Duchess, the pretty girls wouldn’t sign up.
Those beautiful civilian girls all expected to have sex with their masters, that is, to have relations with their lords and become their wives. Worse comes to worst; they could still obtain a lot of rewards from their lords. Bella was a Grand Duchess. If they weren’t boys, how were they to have a relationship with their superior?
Emily didn’t know what Bella and Elaine had discussed before. She was too far away, and they were whispering so it was normal that she couldn’t hear them.
After seeing Elaine’s army of strange puppets, Emily had a bad feeling. Although puppet arts wasn’t evil magic, it was unusual to be able to summon so many puppets at once.
Bella walked to Emily’s front and removed her underwear made out of precious gems, exposing all her secrets. Amy’s hand had been tied behind her back so that she couldn’t stop her. Bella could only enjoy her real side to the fullest.
“Emily, you choose. Either sell yourself to me or stay behind as a living sacrifice? If you don’t speak, that means you agree with my decision.”
Bella princess-carried Emily and asked her for opinion again. Bella’s method had an excellent effect on girls who were bound, and Emily was no exception. On top of the fact that she couldn’t speak, the three days of mental torture and the numbness she felt in her whole body, there was no way she could resist Bella. Aside from allowing Bella to decide, what else could she do?
Seeing Emily give in, the daughters of other Lords also gave in. Even Emily, their spiritual pillar, had given in. Did they still have to insist? Moreover, Bella’s voice had significantly reduced their vigilance. Many of them remembered that this was the voice of Duchess Bellina.
Bella personally removed whatever little clothing they had on their bodies. After that, Bella personally smeared the mysterious potion all over Emily and the others. Emily only felt as if her body were floating on clouds from Bella’s massage. The pleasure almost made her moan out loud. After the massage, Emily lay there weak, allowing Bella to do as she pleased.
“You’ll personally belong to me in the future? Emily, even your father doesn’t want you, so I’ll reluctantly accept you.”
Before Emily could express her dissatisfaction, Bella placed her into the special wooden box and closed it with the lid. There were vents in the box, so she didn’t have to worry that Emily would suffocate to death. Looking at the closed wooden box, Emily felt very anxious. She was the secretary of the Student Union of Kerklav Academy but was taken by someone just like that. What the hell was this?!
Amy struggled in vain, but the box had already been sprayed with the sedative. After a whiff of extraordinary fragrance, Emily felt extremely sleepy. She didn’t persist for long before her tired eyes could no longer stay open. Finally, Emily fell asleep.
Bella looked at Emily with satisfaction through the observation hole in the wooden box. The girl was too tired. It was better if she had a good sleep. When she wakes up, she would belong to Bella.
Right then, the honourable ladies discovered the other side to Duchess Bellina, but it was too late. Just like Emily, they were all placed into a box by Bella.
Duke Brandon had run Nolan City for decades. There should still be a secret escape route somewhere. Emily had been captured, which most likely meant that she didn’t know the secret passage. Brandon must not have told her the location of the entrance to the secret passage.
Duke Brandon’s son, Emily’s older brother, had managed to escape. It was expected, the life of the heir was much more valuable than the daughter who wasn’t the heir. Undoubtedly, Emily had been deliberately abandoned by Duke Brandon.
Therefore, Bella didn’t intend to ask Emily about the secret passage. If she had known, she would have escaped successfully and wouldn’t have fallen into Bella’s hands and left at Bella’s mercy.
Before long, a carriage disguised as one to transport corpses set out from the back of the traders market. The carriage was packed with strange large wooden cases. The slave owners and traders who stayed outside the market were very busy looking for new goods and paid little attention to the carriage carrying corpses.
None of the slave traders questioned the strange way of transporting the corpses in the boxes. The slave traders who were enthusiastic about their trades didn’t even react to the fact that their best goods had been seized and taken away. Tania had already left with the Wolf Cavalry. If she were still there, Bella’s “smuggling operation” would have come to an end.
Their infiltration mission wasn’t a complete failure. According to the latest information they obtained, the commander-in-chief of the troop of Beastmen Army was set himself in the former Grand Duke Residence of Duke Brandon.
The trouble was that Great Master Kenneth, the dark wizard was also there. This guy was the commander of the Dark Human reinforcements. He was much smarter than those Beastmen who only knew how to charge forward. Assassinating him was probably the most challenging aspect of this infiltration.
The southern border region of Gabriel Empire, Sarni City, the capital of Sarnia Duchy, the outer wall defence area.
Over the past few days, the entire Sarni City was in a state of a fierce battle. The Beastmen’s offensive never stopped, and the Sarnia garrison took shifts in guarding the city walls.
From the third day onwards, the Beastmen troops received massive reinforcements. By the looks of it, the other three Beastmen troops came to support them.
Other than the Beastmen troops, there were many Dark Human reinforcements. The Black Robed Wizards commanded a massive zombie army and stormed the walls of Sarni City.
Not to be outdone, the human soldiers fought back with arquebus and copper guns. A large number of zombies were smashed into pieces that scattered the ground by firearms, and the moats were dyed red by their blood.
Although Elaine followed Bella out of the city on a covert mission, her puppet mages were still on the city walls supporting the magic barrier that guarded the city. The combined forces of the Beastmen and the Dark Humans came up to about a million soldiers, yet they couldn’t break into the Sarni City, which was defended by only sixty thousand soldiers.
The sky above Sarni City was still clear. The Dark Humans had tried many times to summon demons to attack the city but were attacked by flying demons of unknown origin and had to give up.
The demons that were attacking them were reinforcements from the Darkness Sacred Region. The entire aerial space of Sarnia Duchy was firmly under the control of the Darkness Sacred Region, so the Darkness Sacred Region knew every move of the Beastmen Army.
At the rear of the Sarni City, nearly ten million demon soldiers had assembled. They were ready to receive the Demon King Bella’s orders.
“The Beastmen today are still full of vitality. I wonder how it’s going on older sister’s end.”
“What’s the matter, Lisha? Are you worried about Bella? I don’t think you need to worry. Bella hasn’t lost yet!”
Kriss and Lisha stood on the high inner wall, watching the war as they chatted. At the strong request of Blood Demon King Eleanor, anyone who was involved with Bella stood on the relatively safe inner wall. The defence of the middle and outer walls was left to the human soldiers.
When she heard that Bella hadn’t lost before, Lisha turned around and smiled happily. Bella’s only defeat so far was to her. This shared secret wasn’t mentioned to anyone by both Bella and Lisha. Kriss and the others didn’t know that Bella had tasted defeat before.
After being baptized by several days of the war, the defenders of Sarnia Duchy were able to control firearms in battle skillfully. In their spare time, they would also try to load their gunpowder. After the wave of zombies was repelled, the defenders were leaning against the wall, enjoying their rest time which was hard to come by.
Just then, the Beastmen Army launched another attack. This time, there were many mobile cannons in the Beastmen Army. These cannons were the weapons of the Dark Human Continent. The Dark Humans didn’t want to use this weapon until the critical moment.
The Beastmen cannons were different from the ones used by the human soldiers guarding Sarni City. Theirs were small magic cannons, a simplified version of the magic-guided cannon. Its consumption was lower than a magic-guided cannon, but compared to a standard cannon, it wasn’t a cost-efficient weapon.
The defenders didn’t bother to rest, starting a new round of counterattacks with their arquebus and copper guns. The “bang-bang” sounds of the weapons came from the top of the wall. Blood Demon King Eleanor who was currently in command of guarding the city walls was somewhat surprised to see that the Beastmen had similar artillery equipment, but she didn’t panic. She took out a particular copper handgun and shot a crimson pear flower resembling a signal flare high into the sky.
Among the Darkness Sacred Region in the rear of Sarni City, long-range attack positions of more than ten meters had been set up. The giant catapults installed in these positions were more than ten meters tall. After receiving the attack order from Blood Demon King Eleanor, the catapults started up.
More than ten catapults of long-range attacks were operated almost simultaneously, propelling hundreds of huge rocks. The whole sky was lit up by the flames on these blazing rocks. Even the soldiers of Gabriel Empire, who were far away in the southern defence line, could see it clearly.
“My God, is it a meteorite storm? What’s the situation over there in Sarnia Duchy?”
At the defence line at the border, Marshal Krisman solemnly looked in the direction of the distant Sarnia Duchy. The victory or defeat of Sarnia Duchy was related to the dignity of the royal family of Gabriel Empire. Gabriel Empire secretly blocked news of the defeat at the frontlines.
According to Hykel who was praised by the Emperor of Gabriel Empire, the human allied forces had already obtained victory in the battle on Vaughan Plains, and the defeat of the invading Beastmen would be any day now. In reality, Gabriel Empire had suffered a disastrous loss this time. On top of the fact that tens of thousands of soldiers of the imperial army had died, it took only a few days for all the duchies, except Sarnia, that were meant to shield the border, to be breached by the Beastmen Army.
If the Sarnia Duchy failed, the Beastmen Army would soon reach the southern defence line of Gabriel Empire, and then the lies would be revealed. Although the Emperor was least optimistic about Grand Duchess Bellina before, a large number of imperial decrees honouring her as a pillar of the empire had already filled Marshal Krisman’s office desk.
The Emperor’s intention was obvious. He wanted to stabilize the Grand Duchess Bellina’s position. The Emperor’s special envoy had repeatedly reminded Marshal Krisman to send the imperial edict to Sarni City. Krisman was currently having a bit of a headache. Millions of Beastmen soldiers surrounded Sarni City. Griffin Knights had no way of flying in. Wasn’t this messing with him?!
