Supreme Monarch

Nessi— one of the five generals of Greed—walked slowly towards the formation of Lesser Frost Giants and Ogres while dragging her oversized blade on the ground as an ominous aura continuously oozed from it. Noticing her advance, the ogres and beastmen all adopted their fighting stands as they readied themselves to receive her attack with clear determination in their eyes.

Seeing that, Nessi couldn't help but roll her eyes at their foolishness. Her grip on her magic weapon tightened and her feet dug into the ground as a frightening amount of aura suddenly exploded out of her making the air in the entire ward stale and everyone aside from her master and the other four generals suddenly became ponderous.

"I'll end this quickly."

Saying that Nessi disappeared from their sight and like a steamroller, she shattered their formation as she went straight for Albert who was clearly the strongest in the group. Her raw speed and strength were nothing to scoff at as she had completely dissipated the formation they had set up to match their opponents. Ogres and Frost Giants flew aside as she dashed passed them.

However—

There was something she had not accounted for, the lightning zone of the Behir that stood by Albert's side. The moment she had crossed the 30-meter mark, a sudden bolt of lightning that originated from the Behirs body shot at her from several locations.

"Tsk, trash should be trash and just die, don't stress me out for no reason."

Brandishing her large blade, an oppressive aura gusted out of her swing and easily shattered the lightning bolts that came at her, and with a speed too fast for the Frost Giants and the ogres to follow, she reached Albert's location and swung her blade at him. Even the Behirs by his side had been unable to keep up with her.

*Boom!

Reacting quickly, Albert also swung his sword to meet her blade but failed to match her strength as his feet left the ground as the force of her strike had sent him flying back, further away from everyone else. However, this was what he had wanted as he only made an effort to block her attack so he wouldn't get the ogres and beast-men around him caught up in their fight.

A battle between demon lord-level threats was not something to scoff at and there were a lot of his men that would not be able to withstand the sheer force of their blade clashing, much less the rapid fluctuations in their aura.

The outer ward of the castle was incredibly large and Albert had flown quite far from his men but as a butler, he didn't want anyone damaging any part of the castle unless his master wanted it that way so he would have to do as this woman wanted and end this battle quickly so they could focus on the Behemoth of Greed, Mammon.

Until then, he would just have to trust Zomatsu to stall the rest of the Generals. However, it didn't seem like today was his lucky day as Mammon didn't seem interested in just watching his fight and sending in the 50 plus goons he had brought with him for some reason.

While Albert found it strange for the Behemoth of Greed to have those types of people with him, he did not have the luxury of time and space to think too much about it right now so he immediately transferred control of the two Behirs to Zomatsu and gave him command of their entire forces.

He then twisted his body mid-air and landed firmly on his feet albeit sliding back a little as he gripped his Miaodao tightly and braced himself for the incoming demoness.

•••

Standing by the side of the two Behirs, Zomatsu suddenly felt a connection with them which allows him to communicate and give orders to them, meaning Albert was asking him to take control of the Battle until he was done handling the female demon that was underestimating him way too much.

Mammon seemed to want to make this more interesting for his own amusement so he sent in his 51 goons which was a good thing for Zomatsu. As a former member of the Zorak family, he had seen such types of people before. People only believe and rely on their strength instead of their brains and simple logic.

He sighed under his mask and smiled.

These types of people reminded him of his father too much which tends to make his skin crawl. He had the Thought Acceleration skill as well— which boosted his thoughts by like ten thousand times the norm— so he calmly used it and on observed the situation. 

There was no way the 51 goons charging at them were much of a match to their current forces which included the 13 Lesser Frost Giants and Behirs. However, he knew it would be more dangerous if they appeared too adequate and another one of the Behemoth's general took action.

After analyzing the situation, Zomatsu knew that the only threat to them was the five generals and Mammon himself. The best option right now was to avoid facing them until Albert was done with that one. Until then, they would just have to take their time fighting the 51 goons.

'Wait 51? Weren't there 53 of them? Did I count wrong? No, that's impossible.'

He turned his head slightly and activated his innate ability, Superior Sense, and a perfect picture of the entire castle's structure and every living thing in it appeared in his mind as he instantly understood what was going on.

'Why did they secretly send two goons to sneak into the castle when they have the advantage against us? Or is Mammon not aware of them? Huh, they are quite a bit stronger than those goons though. Is one of the Great Five secretly backing Mammon?'

Zomatsu calculated every possibility in his head within the short time frame of the 51 goons that were apparently still charging at them due to his Thought Acceleration and came up with the most likely possibility.

It would seem Lord Ty's plan of having the girls kill the scouts while allowing one of them to escape with inaccurate information had worked. With them all secretly spying on each other, they must've all received the same information making them suspect one of them has decided to move against them by using a behemoth.

The Great Five has been in a state of non-aggression for hundreds of years now while silently preparing and finding new methods to completely break the barrier that protects the castle as whoever claims the castle would claim the throne. However, just because they had decided not to fight with each other in the open so each of them could have their turns in attempting to break the barrier.

That didn't stop them from secretly trying to hinder the other Great Fives' progress and get in their way. They were also aware that other Nobles and behemoth also hunger for the throne and thus the reason why they signed a non-aggression pack so they could use their combined forces in destroying any fools that tried to go against them.

However, with the information that one of them may be working with a behemoth to claim the throne for each other, they could no longer trust each other, and until they find out who, they would have to move on their own to accomplish their goals. However, he hadn't expected one of them to even be capable of using the Behemoth of Greed, Mammon as a pawn. But seeing his smug face as he confidently stood by and watched them like they were nothing but maggots to him, Zomatsu could understand how easy it was to manipulate such a fool.

Looking around once more, Zomatsu could even recognize some of these thugs from the times he visited the south borough of Winged City. He had Perfect Memory so he even remembered seeing some of them in a report of sorts.

With the information he had on them in his head, they should be part of an underground organization and there was no way they would be here right now being pawns for a behemoth as such an organization would not so openly send their members to attack the freaking Demon King's Castle.

Such a move didn't make sense for either party and judging by the way Mammon looked at them without much interest, as though he was just using them as a favor to someone. It was painfully obvious that another one of the Great Five was trying to set up the Zorak family which should've bothered him a bit, but Zomatsu couldn't care less at the moment.

He would even be elated if the other Great Five join and absolutely decimated the Zorak family but he could not let himself be distracted by such pleasant thoughts right now as he still needed to know which family was trying to set the Zoraks up as they were most likely the ones that had hidden two spies into the 51 goons and they were trying to infiltrate the castle for some reason, even though they should be aware that the concealment layer of the barrier was still up and they would not be able to gain anything from the parts of the castle the spies would be able to access.

Unless they had figured out a way to bypass the concealment. But then, why would they risk that information falling into the hands of Mammon. No, they should be after something else.

'Should I be worried?'

Zomatsu wondered as the 51 goons finally reached the front lines and the Ogres and Frost Giants slammed their massive shields into them and engaged them in combat.

'Lady Erin is still in the castle trying to contact Lord Ty so it should be fine right? Even if they were both as strong as the generals, she should still be able to drive them out here at least.'

After living in the castle for a few days now, Zomatsu was able to gather that aside from lord Ty, the second strongest person in the castle based on their auras and life rating alone was, Lady Erin. This was because his innate ability did more than sense everything around him.

He could accurately judge the distance of everything he sensed, their shape, size, and even the amount of mana they had although it took more time to gain more information on a target. He could even tell their life rating if they were not actively trying to hide it. And while he had been unable to sense any aura from Lord Ty, he could clearly feel the vastness of his mana the felt as though they went forever which was something he had never felt before and why he felt safe in confident in swearing his fealty to Lord Ty.

He had also been able to sense the Lady Erin's life rating and given that she was a demigod, he highly doubted that two spies that were not even at the Tier 5 standards would be able to handle her even though she did not specialize in battle.

'Unless their target had nothing to do with the castle itself and more to do with who was still in it. Oh, how did I miss this, this won't do.'