Eldritch Creature's Guide

Goldtooth City, Demon Continent, 8th Floor of the Tower, sometime later.

Several days had passed from the day when Samiel finished the mission from the Guild and also survived the assassination attempt on him and Yvraine orchestrated by the Avalon Kingdom, as he spent the majority of his time in the Inn in the Goldtooth City.

The only notable event that happened in the past week was the launched invasion on the Human Continent from the archipelago of islands that the Demon Tribes managed to conquer, and right now, after all preparations were done, they finally launched their final invasion.

The Demon Army was extremely brutal in their invasion as the vanguard force slaughtered their way through the forces of the Human Brotherhood like nothing. Demons didn't really care about the losses to a certain extent and if they kept it within limits, then everything was okey. So their advance was relatively fast; despite the defenses of the Human Brotherhood being strong and well done, it was not enough to stop the forces of the Demon Tribes who were advancing at them with what seemed as never-ending hordes of bloodthirsty demons for battle and blood.

Because of that, the Goldtooth City was unusually quiet and silent, as the majority of the citizens were soldiers and families of soldiers who were too warriors of their Tribes. With the war finally starting, all of them joined the invasion, meaning that the population of the city dropped by approximately 95%. This resulted in Goldtooth City becoming something akin to a ghost town, as only a very small part of the population remained in the city right now.

That was understandable because the initial purpose of the Goldtooth City was to serve as a chain in the logistics that would connect the entire line with the archipelago and the Human Continent so that the soldiers could be easily and quickly transported to the Human Continent and join the fight.

From the initial report obtained through The Guild, the Demon Tribes were putting everything they had on the 8th Floor into the fray, and while they broke through the initial defenses of the Human Continent rather easily, they did indeed suffer some great losses due to Magetech weapons that were supplied to the Human Brotherhood by the Avalon Kingdom.

Unfortunately for the Human Brotherhood, for the Demon Tribes, numbers were just numbers, nothing significant, as they could easily and quickly repopulate their losses; they were breeding like rabbits. Some tribes or species of the demonkin were repopulating so fast to the point of several cases when some species of demonkin were almost exterminated to the point where only a few tens of thousands remained. Shockingly or not, within several decades, they repopulated their numbers to millions and after two centuries, they were back to several tens of billions; of course, the most notable of such thing was the Imp Demon Tribe because they were the ones who bred faster than rabbits.

So right now, the vanguard forces were focusing on establishing fortifications on the shores and securing safe lines. Naturally, Samiel agreed with this because, right now, that was the best course of action that they could take... it appeared that the Demons had some skilled military commanders with them, which was most unusual.

In any war, logistics were the fundamental aspect of war, so they needed to secure safe lines for supplies and reinforcements, which was something with which they were struggling because the troops of the Human Brotherhood implemented a rather well-executed guerilla warfare against the forces of the Demon Tribes.

Sabotage, subterfuge and assassinations were on the daily schedule, as the desperate and fanatical members of the Human Brotherhood were doing everything in their path to cause as much damage to the Demon Tribes as possible while at the same time slowing down their advance considerably, in which they were succeeding splendidly. To the point that the Demons were forced to move a significant portion of their forces just to protect the workers who were building several fortresses across the shores of the Human Continent and the supply lines.

Nevertheless, the Demons were still advancing at their conquest because in the open field they were far stronger than anything that the Human Brotherhood could throw at them. Demons, while not having the overwhelming numerical advantage, because the Human Brotherhood was right now keeping up with their number by tremendously increasing their military forces by forcing conscription of anyone who could carry a gun or hold a weapon.

What the demonkin had, was their individual strength, which was several levels above that of humans. Such was the truth that the heavy majority of the soldiers of the Human Brotherhood were vastly inferior to that of the Demon Tribes; many of them were just peasants who were conscripted, and some were professional soldiery with zero to no experience with fighting wars or other similar cases.

Still, whatever Magetech Laser Weaponry that the Avalon Kingdom has supplied the Human Brotherhood has proved to be pretty devastating towards the lower Tiered Demons, as those under the Steel-Tier, needed to depend on the armors, while even the Steel-Tier could be killed with the Lasguns if they were not careful enough. This the might of advanced Magetech Guns which were produced by the Avalon Kingdom.

Samiel already saw some missions being posted through The Guild, but he didn't take them because they were nothing special and more importantly, the situation was still relatively dangerous because the foothold of the Demon Tribes on the Human Continent was not entirely secure at the 100%.

For that, he planned to wait a few more weeks at the Goldtooth City before the Demons managed to finish construction of their fortresses and outposts at the shores of the Human Continents and secure the logistics lines connecting the Human Continent and archipelago.

Afterward, it would be safe to enter the Human Continent and start completing the mission or just slaughtering people for fun and souls. The Human Continent was populous, and nobody would bat an eye if several cities were slaughtered to the last person by him in some ritual to increase his strength. Of course, it would need to be done in moderation and with a bit of secrecy because the Legendaries were still watching and Samiel didn't need unwanted attention on him if he could prevent it.

While the Demons may be annoyed because in truth, contrary to the expectation, they didn't practice senseless massacre of the local population, but instead, they preferred to enslave them so that they could be used as a labor force, food source, or just selling them across the Cosmos and making out money of them.

Samiel had some obscure situation that he wanted to carry out, mainly focused on the purification of his Bloodline and forcing out the next racial evolution to evolve further to the Pure-Blooded Eldritch Creature. Unfortunately, those rituals required a sacrifice numbering of tens of thousands of innocents, and it was rare to find a suitable target that nobody would mind.

And finally, Lady Luck smiled at him and presented him with a perfect opportunity to try the ritualistic magic that he obtained from the Hall of Kadath. He had tons of rituals, most of which typically required enormous sacrifices to the Outer Gods, mainly those of innocent blood or other unspeakable things.

Not to mention that he had several Necromantic Rituals from the Intermediate Principles of the Necromancy Necrosis. One of the ones he planned to carry out for sure required using a group of people as the base, preferably those with pure souls in rituals where they would be slowly eaten alive among each other, while the person who remains as the last one, would be killed and resurrected as Undead.

This should create a very powerful Higher Undead, and Higher Undeads was something that Samiel welcomed with open arms, as they would greatly enhance the combat capabilities of his Undead Army, which was already nicely big.

The Ork Dharzug still remained at the Inn, essentially for the same reason as Samiel, because the situation was still not stable at the frontlines. And the members of the Guild were Mercenaries, albeit extremely professional and elitists, but nevertheless Mercenaries. And that means that nobody would go to a situation where there was a very high probability of being cut out from everything and then killed.

Samiel was currently sitting at the Inn, eating his lunch, and having a conversation with the Dharzug. Surprisingly the Ork was pretty intelligent, which couldn't be said about the rest of his kin, as he was cunning and wise, coupled with this fearsome strength; it was no wonder why Samiel's calculations always came out negative when he calculated his success in fighting him.

Additionally, Samiel had noticed that the Dharzug was some special breed of Ork, probably some rare mutation in their kind, not only because of his strength but also his appearance, as he had greyish skin, contrary to the average Green or Brown of the normal Orks.

"Still nothing?"

Samiel asked him, as both of them were the same rank in The Guild, as they were E-Rank Mercenaries. Even though Dharzug was extremely powerful for the normal Silver-Tiers, he was still not able to kill an average Gold-Tier Professional, which was the corresponding rank to the D-Rank Mercenary.

"Na... yer gits still posting shit and scouting missions. Da waiting her'e I need to kill something with my choppa."

He answered as Smaiel had some slight problems with understanding him, as even though the Dharzug was speaking very well the Cosmos Common, after their first meeting, he didn't bother to suppress his Orkish accent.

For now, the Demon Tribes were posting some annoying missions through The Guild, mainly special kinds of suicidal missions that only those who were desperate for money would undertake, something that Samiel abstained from. And surprisingly, even the Ork Dharzug saw that those missions were absolutely not worth of their rewards, as Samiel was once again surprised by the cunning of the Ork.

"It will take another ten days before they finish that line of outposts and secure the safe lines that would be connecting the Human Continent, Archipelago of Islands and Demon Continent, which would also provide the safe retreat path in case if the situation went to shit there."

Samiel summarized the approximate time based on the various calculations and analysis of the situation performed through his Level 4 Transcendental Ability Architect. He predicted that with the current progress, forces and resources that the Demon Tribes were pouring into the project, they would be finished in something between 230 to 240 hours, which was around those ten days or slightly under the ten days.

Still, that was under acceptable time; after the ten days, Samiel knew that the Demon Tribes would have already gained some sort of foothold. There was the reason for that behavior of Samiel, and even to a certain extent Dharzug, and that was the fundamental nature of the Demon Tribe as backstabbing bastards.

Samiel was sure that if something went wrong in his mission, or he would be surrounded by the Humans, and there were hundreds of thousands of troops from the Human Brotherhood, he wouldn't have any place to escape.

***

After finishing the food, Samiel returned to the room in the Inn, as he saw Yvraine practicing the Metmagic, something that she was doing very often after she got a lecture on the topic by one of the Ancestors of the Nesser Dynasty and Silvermoon Species, Old Bahar or by his full name Baharhidon Elvyn Yaennernamis.

Not to mention, Samiel was learning from Yvraine by observing her performing the Metamagic Techniques through her Level 3 Ultimate Ability Metamagic, as he was pushing Architect to analyze and replicate the results that Yvraine achieved with her own Ability. And surprisingly, he managed to get satisfactory results and a steady increasement in proficiency in his own Metamagic Techniques.

Seeing that Yvriane was practicing the Metamagic once more, he started doing his usual thing, which of course was observing her, and copying every single thing that she was doing. Together with the capabilities of his Transcendental Ability, it was an easy task.

[Proficiency with the Metamagic Skill Spell Penetration has been increased by 1%.]

[Proficiency with the Metamagic Skill Spell Penetration has been increased by 1%.]

[Proficiency with the Metamagic Skill Spell Penetration has been increased by 1%.]

[Proficiency with the Metamagic Skill Spell Penetration has been increased by 1%.]

Soon enough, Samiel got the notifications from the Akashic Records that his proficiency with the Spell Penetration had been increased, directly shooting from the previous 7% to the current 11%, and that was just from copying Yvraine and nothing else.

The Spell Penetration Metamagic Technique was a very important one, especially in fight between to Mages, because usage of this technique allowed the caster to bypass or at least partially ignore the magical defenses.

After that, Samiel continued practicing the Metamagic Techniques while Yvriane was doing the same, as he was essentially waiting for her to finish her training. He didn't want to disrupt her in training, as that was impolite and sometimes could have severe consequences.