Book 4: Chapter 188: The Curtain Falls On The Military Campaign On The Harvey Plains

Book 4: Chapter 188: The Curtain Falls On The Military Campaign On The Harvey Plains

The war in the Harvey Plains gradually subsided. The Beastman allied forces collapsed after leaving the corpses of more than five hundred thousand soldiers, and the allied forces of the four Beastman clans fled their separate ways. Wolf King Springhall led the Wolfman cavalry to retreat to the east. Tiger King Titus and Leopard King Crofts led their troops to withdraw to the west and south, respectively. While the Werelion’s million-odd warriors chose to run with the Wereleopards.

The Demon King’s coalition forces also split up and pursued them. Noreya and Elaine’s legions were in charge of going after the Wereleopards and Werelions, whereas the Wolfman deserters were pursued by Kriss’s troops. The Weretiger army was to be dealt with by Lisha and Bella’s armies, while Ariel’s troops were responsible for guarding against any action from the Dark Human allied forces.

Dolores and Cornice led more than three million demon reinforcements to withdraw to the rear. According to their latest intelligence, the lion king’s million-strong army broke through the blockade between Sarni City and Nolan City after paying a hefty price and was retreating to the Beastman continent.

Dolores and Cornice were planning to ambush the Werelion reinforcements near the land bridge. The Dark Human coalition had abandoned their joint operation with the Beastman allied forces and retreated toward the Sacred River. On the other side of the river, three empires of the Dark Humans had set up defensive positions with more than five million troops. Princess Elsa and Princess Erica decided to return there before making further plans.

The Beastman camp on the Harvey Plains was already in flames. The defeated Beastmen fled before they could even take their supplies and provisions. Of course, not all the Beastmen were so weak and cowardly.

At the camp, some Weretiger and Werelion soldiers chose to stay and fight until their last breath. The camp stored plenty of supplies, and once they were lost, the four Beastman clans wouldn’t be able to organize such a large coalition.

Bella mixed in among the Death Knights. Cat Princess Savannah had been placed on a chariot by her as a trophy and was wrapped in a blanket so that she wouldn’t expose her body. Savannah’s eyes were blindfolded because Bella didn’t want her to see her killing Beastmen.

There wasn’t a commander in the Beastman troops who was left behind. They originally decided that the commander would be the Weretiger’s top warrior Locke, but they never expected him to be killed by Bella within seconds. At present, the Beastmen in the camp were leaderless and fighting alone. Soon, they would be separated and surrounded by demons.

Just as Bella was wandering about, a magic icicle flew towards her. One of the Death Knight beside Bella stood in front of her and was directly pierced in the chest by the attack.

“Eh… A rabbit, bunny girl… Beastmen have mages now!”

Bella didn’t care at all about the Death Knight, who had been frozen by magic. Instead, she looked towards the direction of the magic attack. A bunny girl with long white hair and beautiful red eyes was standing on the watchtower in the distance. The magic attack came from this bunny girl.

The bunny girl was dressed in pink. Just like cat girl Savannah, she had been attending a party every night before she temporarily joined the war. She went to the battlefield without even a decent piece of equipment.

The bunny girl was holding an ocean blue magic scepter in her hand. The aquamarine at the top was emitting this faint blue light, proving that she had just launched the attack. Bella looked at the bunny girl carefully. Except for the fluffy rabbit ears, she looked no different from an ordinary human.

Based on beauty alone, the bunny girl was similar to the other three kemonomimi; they were all rare gems. Unfortunately, going by the aesthetic standards of the Beastmen, these kemonomimi were ugly ducklings. If they remained in the Beastman clan, they would only be a waste of resources, so it was better for them to stay with Bella.

Bunny Princess Trini was glad that her magic attack had worked only to find that the frozen Death Knight broke through the icicle and returned to the battlefield under a burst of black energy. Besides light and holy magic attacks, Death Knights were immune to other magic spells. Trini’s magic icicle attack had only delayed the enemy for a short period.

“How abominable! Could those demons be immune to magic attacks?! This…”

Before Trini could prepare for the second round of magic offensive, the dark wizards in the demon army counterattacked. Several dark energy balls hit the watchtower where she was located. Trini’s temporary defense magic, her ice shield, didn’t hold up for long and was broken by dark magic.

Fortunately, the dark wizards knew that the other party was a girl, and they wouldn’t kill girls without explicit instructions from the Demon King Bella. Therefore, even though Trini’s watchtower had been blown up, she was alright.

With the destruction of the watchtower, the final battle of the Beastman stronghold ended with the victory of the demon army. Except for some Beastmen who escaped, a large number of Beastman defenders fought till the last moment and died in the camp.

“You guys take the carriage to the Succubus Queen Aisha and be careful when transporting her. I’m going there to take a look.”

“Understood. We will definitely complete the task given by the honorable Demon King.”

After arranging for her close subordinates to send Savannah, Bella went after the bunny kemonomimi. This was the last Beastman princess that Bella took a fancy to, so there was no reason to let her go.

Savannah twisted her body but to no avail. She wanted to make a final struggle as subconsciously, she thought Demon King Bella would take her back, kill her, and eat her. Even if a cat had nine lives, it wouldn’t be enough for the appetite of a monster like Bella.

“Little kitty, why are you moving again? Behave yourself and rest easy!”

Bella walked into the carriage, stretched out her hand, and touched Savannah’s head soothingly, comforting her like a pet cat. Under her comforting, Savannah calmed down temporarily and stopped resisting so fiercely.

Trini didn’t run far. She was a mage and also had some healing magic from the human priests. Unfortunately, the Beastmen generally advocated force, while magic was discriminated against by them. On top of that, Princess Trini’s physical strength was the worst among the four Beastman princesses; thus, the prejudice against her was even stronger.

A mage’s physical strength was generally feeble, and Trini had inherited the same disadvantage as her human equivalents. Her physical strength wasn’t good enough, and she couldn’t run long distances because she hadn’t learned the flying magic of her human counterparts.

Trini was now at a small stream outside the Beastman stronghold. Although she ran slowly, she was lucky. None of the demons who chased the Beastman deserters pursued the bunny kemonomimi. None of the Beastman who ran faster than Trini managed to escape and were hunted and killed by the demons.

“Where is the lazy cat Savannah? If I had known, I wouldn’t have crossed the Sacred River to visit her. The demons are terrible.”

Trini was very embarrassed now since her dress had been corroded by dark magic. The dark wizards following Bella were all talented people… No, they were all gentlemen. Their special dark magic attacks only corroded the victim’s clothes and not their bodies.

Trini’s clothes were originally made of ordinary cloth, not mage robes specially made of magical materials. Hence, they had no defense against magic attacks. It wasn’t a surprise that they would be eroded by dark magic.

Trini didn’t want to run naked as she didn’t have enough physical strength. If she were to be seen by any Beastman warrior, her already poor image as a princess would be thoroughly destroyed. She covered her chest and squatted beside the stream, feeling at a loss.

She was thinking that she might as well drown in the river. If she remembered correctly, White Wolf Princess Tania committed suicide in the moat when Arade City fell. Silver Fox Princess Vanessa also stayed in the palace where the fire spread and disappeared when Herman City was occupied by demons.

Trini intended to prove herself by dying. Under the false propaganda of the Wolf King and the Tiger King, she thought that the white wolf princess and the silver fox princess had really been killed, not captured. Most Beastmen would rather die than be taken prisoners since to be caught in defeat was a great shame to them. They generally believed that the final destination of all Beastmen’s life was to die in battle.

Tania and Vanessa’s life and death were under Bella’s control, so they couldn’t commit suicide even if they wanted to. Subconsciously, they also had the same plan to prove themselves by dying. However, this idea was dispelled the moment they fell under Bella’s control.

Trini was in a dilemma of sorts. The stream was too shallow to even cover her foot, so it was too difficult to attempt suicide. Furthermore, she was a mage and didn’t have the habit of carrying daggers and other weapons. To strangle herself would be too difficult too.

Only her blue scepter remained undamaged, but the two ends of the wand weren’t the sharp kind that mages could use to kill themselves. Besides, there had been no successful examples recorded in the history books. Trini soon gave up the idea of using the wand to finish herself; she was too afraid of pain. If she couldn’t kill herself successfully with one stab, she was unwilling to try.

“Why is it that even committing suicide is so troublesome…”

While Trini was still in distress, the sound of carriage wheels rolling on the ground came from afar and approached her. At the edge of the stream, there was a strange little carriage. This little carriage was a tool for human merchants to buy and sell small commodities, which was equivalent to the function of a mobile shop.

There was no sign of humans on the carriage, but there hung a strange seal, which Trini had never seen before. This mysterious carriage appeared very scary. The horse pulling it was almost a transparent shadow. If one didn’t look carefully, the carriage seemed to be drawn by the wind.

However, Princess Trini couldn’t be bothered about its origins. This mysterious carriage had a shop sign on it, and what she needed right now were clothes. There were few shops and markets in the Beastman continent. Larger, more formal shops were all in the Beastman territory on the other side of the Sacred River. But she was scared to cross it to buy clothes in this state.

“Wait a minute, lady boss. I want to buy something…”

“Little girl, this is an underground shop, a Hell Carriage specialized in buying and selling demon goods. You are neither a demon nor a human! I won’t conduct business with you.”

The lady boss of this carriage was covered with a black cloak, so all she could see was a pair of sky blue eyes and slender white hands that stretched out of her cloak. In the horror legends of this other world, this mysterious Hell Carriage would appear in the deserted wilderness every night.

All the things bought and sold by the Hell Carriage were very evil. In the stories, the people who saw the Hell Carriage basically never returned. This was a store that sold goods to demons only, and if humans were to come across it, they wouldn’t be able to get away.

Trini knew the horror story, but it was now daylight, and the sun emboldened her. What’s more, on this day, she had seen too many demons of all sorts, and the Hell Carriage appeared less terrifying instead.

“Little girl, you have nothing on you. This isn’t a charity. Go away. Since you are a Beastman, I won’t force you to buy or sell anything.”

“Lady boss, I… Although I don’t have any money now, I can mortgage something to you, and then I can redeem it when I have money. What do you think?”

Without even thinking about it, Trini put her magic scepter, Ice Scepter, on the counter as collateral. She had nothing to sell except this. It was a perilous move to mortgage her weapon before she was out of danger.

But Trini had no other choice. She didn’t have the habit of wearing expensive jewelry. Hence, there was nothing to use as collateral except a magic scepter. From her voice, the lady boss of this Hell Carriage sounded like a girl, which relieved Trini’s tense nerves.

“This scepter is really good. Do you want to buy clothes? Get on the carriage; there’s no time to explain. Look over there, there seems to be skeleton soldiers! My carriage is definitely safe, and demons will not check the Hell Carriage.”

Under the inducement of the lady boss, Trini climbed into the carriage and hid herself. Not far away, there were a pair of skeleton soldiers who were hunting for the escaped Beastman soldiers along the stream. Their weapons were covered in blood, which proved that they had killed many Beastman deserters.

It was dark in the Hell Carriage. Before Trini could get used to it, she was attacked from behind and covered with a black sack.

Princess Trini’s physical strength was already meager. After being hugged from behind, she couldn’t struggle at all. Before she could ask for help, she was overwhelmed by the sedatives placed in the sack.

The lady boss opened the black sack, picked up Princess Trini—who had passed out, and wrapped her in a blanket. After that, she took off her black cloak and greeted the passing skeleton soldiers.

The skeleton soldiers saluted the golden-haired beauty and turned to withdraw. The lady boss was none other than Bella. Considering that Princess Trini still had a staff weapon, she came up with such a trick to prevent her from being injured due to her desperate resistance when being captured.

The erotic games she had played in the previous world weren’t for nothing. Bella had learned a thing or two from them. Right now, she was scrutinizing Trini’s ice scepter. The weapon was a very inferior copy, that is, a counterfeit produced by the Beastman in imitation of the Human Race.

Bella had seen the real ice scepters in Isabel’s magic artifact store. Their prices started at 1,000 gold coins and were divided into several styles with different rates, from ice scepters of 1,000 gold coins to those that cost 10,000 gold coins. Trini’s scepter was the imitation of the cheapest ice scepter.

“This little bunny is so naive. Even if I paid 10 copper coins for this counterfeit, I would still be suffering a loss. It’s definitely not enough to buy clothes. Forget it, I’ll just take it that she’s mortgaging herself to me.”

Bella lovingly wrapped up Trini and carried her off the carriage. The legend of the Hell Carriage was indeed true. After she left the carriage, a dark shadow appeared beside it. This was a very old woman with deep wrinkles on her face. Her eyes were lifeless and looked like they were dead.

“Old woman, your carriage is perfect. The things that you sell…”

“Honorable Demon King, my shop is old-fashioned, and I’ve been doing business here for many years. Also, you are the third honorable Demon King to visit my shop. Won’t you have a look? Maybe you’ll find something that will please you.”

“No need. This is the payment for renting your carriage. Take it. I’ll give you twice the reward if you can tell me what the two Demon Kings bought from you before?”

Bella looked at the different kinds of “snacks” made out of human limbs on the Hell Carriage and felt her scalp grow numb. The two Demon Kings who had patronized the shop before her should be among the twelve Demon Kings of the old faction. The lady boss of the Hell Carriage wouldn’t ask for their titles out of professional ethics. She addressed them as Honorable Demon King because of her principle of treating special customers equally.

Although the general characteristics of the Demon Kings couldn’t be said, their gender wasn’t a taboo. The lady boss told Bella that the ones who visited before her were both men. Bella’s side only had female Demon Kings, so their male counterparts could only belong to the original twelve Demon Kings.

After receiving the bag of black crystal demon coins handed by Bella, the lady boss’s stiff face revealed a creepy smile. Bella was so frightened by her smile that she almost fell to the ground. She even suspected that the human limbs were all left by humans who had been scared to death by the smile.

It would be strange if one wasn’t scared to death after seeing such a horrible smile in the middle of the night. It was already so spooky in the daytime now, let alone at night!

“Honorable Demon King, the two Demon Kings before you bought…”