His battle over, Leobolt turned around and left the scene. He had accomplished the task at hand. There was no reason for him to linger there any longer.
Walking through the piles of debris, he made his way to the front gate. When he went out through it, he saw the Guard Corps and the Knight Corps locked in battle with Rebirth’s army.
The defenders seemed to be at a major disadvantage without Sieg. With nobody to defend them from the slime soldiers’ attacks, they were being slowly but surely pushed back. In fact, they were already edging dangerously close to death’s door.
“We just have to hold out until Sieg gets here!”
“If we can manage to do that, he can turn this around for us!”
They continued to resist with all their might, resting their hopes on Sieg returning to the battle, and eagerly anticipating his arrival at any moment.
Someone did arrive—but it wasn’t who they expected.
“Leobolt...?!” Fam, who had been perched atop the city wall, was the first to notice his approach. “What is he doing here?”
“Impossible! Sieg was supposed to stop him!” Commander Bolton bellowed in dismay. “Don’t tell me he actually lost...?!”
Leobolt flashed a sinister smirk.
Sieg had been struck down.
When the guards and knights realized that their last thread of hope had been severed, hollow expressions of despair washed across their faces. If Sieg had fallen, they had no hope of winning. The royal capital would fall as well.
From his position in front of the gate, Leobolt launched himself into the air, landing toward the rear portion of Rebirth’s army of slime soldiers. He was in a perfect safety zone, protected by their frontline formation.
A voice rang out from a nearby slime soldier.
“Ah, there you are, Leobolt.”
It was the voice of Rebirth, the demon general who commanded his own immortal army. He was speaking to Leobolt through one of his slime soldiers.
“I heard the reports. So you’ve brought down the great Sieg?”
“I have.”
“Well done. Then victory has been secured for my army. All we need to do now is crush the rest of the opposition, then seize the Orb of Light from the rubble of the fallen capital.” Rebirth’s voice was brimming with delight. “I was right to recruit you to our cause, Leobolt. In our new world under dominion of the Demon King, your heroic tale will no doubt be retold for generations to come.”
“I am truly delighted to hear that,” Leobolt said with a respectful bow.
“Though I heard you unleashed quite a bit of destruction inside the capital. Were you doling out a bit of payback to those who had rejected you, perhaps?”
Leobolt remained silent.
“No matter. You should continue to serve under me after this is over. You’ll find yourself well taken care of. I’ll gladly help you build your ideal world.”
“Thank you for your kind words,” Leobolt replied. “Actually, I brought a small gift for you, Lord Rebirth.”
“A gift?”
“Yes. Please, take this.” He pulled a scroll out of his pocket.
“What’s this... A scroll?”
The scroll had a magic circle scrawled on it. Normally, scrolls were items that would allow non-mages to use magic. This particular scroll, though, was different; it had been made for a special purpose.
“There are two walls around the royal capital: the first, outer wall, within which the normal citizens live, and the second, inner wall, within which the nobles and royal family reside. The first wall has a giant magic circle set up within it.”
“A magic circle? For what purpose?”
“It is a last resort. If monsters were to make it past the gates and the fall of the capital became an inevitability, they would activate it, incinerating the entire capital and the invaders along with it.”
“And how does this scroll fit in?”
“It is the activation switch,” Leobolt stated. “Once this scroll is activated, the royal capital will be engulfed in a sea of flames, pressuring their defenses even further.”
“My slime soldiers are resistant to fire, so it would only be a problem for the defenders. It sounds worth testing out, if nothing else.”
Leobolt nodded at Rebirth’s response. “It does take a considerable amount of magical energy to activate, though. It is a last resort, after all. They couldn’t allow just anybody to set the magic circle into motion.”
“So my soldiers won’t be able to activate it.” Rebirth fell silent for a few moments. “Very well. I’ll do it myself, then.”
With those words, a lone slime soldier crept out from among the rest of them.
So that’s the true Rebirth, Leobolt thought to himself.
It was no wonder they couldn’t locate him. He didn’t look any different from the rest of the soldiers at first glance.
Each slime soldier had a core inside its head, with nothing else in the rest of its body. However, that particular soldier had another core floating within its torso. That was the magic core that supplied energy to all of his copies—the key to Rebirth’s ability to command his army.
“I can’t wait to watch them scatter like panicked ants.”
With that, Rebirth opened the scroll he had been given and began channeling energy into the magic circle written upon it.
As he did, something unexpected happened.
“What...?!”
It turned out he hadn’t been able to channel any energy into the circle. Sensing something amiss, he slowly looked downward to his torso.
His precious core—the source of all his energy—had Leobolt’s sword embedded deep inside it.
This is the very moment I have been waiting for—
For the true Rebirth to show himself!
Rebirth stared at Leobolt in astonishment, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Shock was evident in his eyes, slimy and inhuman as they were.
“Leobolt... Have you betrayed me?”
“I had no intention of cooperating with you from the very start.”
“B-But you became a demon yourself!”
“It was the easiest way to gain your trust,” Leobolt responded coldly. “And trust me you did—enough to show yourself in front of me,” he said. “You believed me about the scroll.”
“Wait, so this scroll...”
“It’s a fake, of course,” Leobolt told him. “There is a magic circle that can burn down the entire royal capital—but it cannot be activated with something one can simply waltz out of the city with, like that scroll.”
That sequence of events couldn’t be set into motion unless several mages appointed by the capital were present. The scroll Leobolt had given to Rebirth only contained a low-level magic spell.
He hadn’t been certain that the scroll alone would’ve been enough to draw out the enemy commander. It would’ve been far too suspicious.
That was why he had decided to become a demon first. He would swear fealty to them and join their cause—and in doing so, he would gain their trust. They would never think someone who purposefully became a demon would do anything to deceive them.
“You mean the only reason you turned into a demon was to lure me out of hiding...? You threw away everything you had, all for this one opportunity?”
“That’s correct,” Leobolt said. “It was all done to destroy you... Rebirth.”
“You... You bastaaard!”
Rebirth howled in rage as his magic core shattered into pieces.