Demonic Disturbance

Demonic Disturbance was a city-wide invasion on the capital of the Re-Estize Kingdom by an army of demons led by Jaldabaoth. Unbeknownst to the kingdom and the rest of the New World, the attack was actually orchestrated by Nazarick as part of Operation Gehenna.

Background
A small war had taken place within the kingdom, between the Re-Estize Royal Family led by Princess Renner and the criminal organization, Eight Fingers. The princess's aim was to save her kingdom by expunging Eight Fingers who had been responsible for most of the country's major crimes. To accomplish this, Renner had brought in like-minded individuals to her cause and hired Adventurers, such as the Adamantite-ranked Adventurers, Blue Roses. The two forces were seemingly locked in a stalemate until the forces consisting of Jaldabaoth and his army of demons were involved in it.

During a meeting with all the adventurers within Re-Estize gathered in the Ro Lente Castle to discuss about this new threat, Princess Renner explains that the northeast corner of Re-Estize is surrounded by a wall of fire, thirty meters in height by what is known as [Flames of Gehenna]. She reasons that the flames should pose no harm to them physically. However, what awaits them within the confines of the firewall are the demonic forces led by Jaldabaoth. The adventurers altogether were instructed to help thwart whatever the demon Jaldabaoth is plotting such as the enemy's attempt to seize a certain magic item which is on its way to the Royal Capital.

Hearing news of this, this sparked a disturbance among the adventurers present in the meeting. It was upon realizing the fact that the region encircled by the firewall included the warehouses and shops that made up the capital's economic heart. What disturbs the adventurer even further was learning that Jaldabaoth is able to slay two adamantite-ranked adventurers in a single blow. Before chaos broke out, Evileye of Blue Roses and Renner reassures them that the warrior Momon of Darkness was able to hold his ground evenly against such a high-level entity. After introducing Momon, Renner immediately begins her briefing with the other adventurers including him about their plan of operation against Jaldabaoth.

Renner explains that their strongest adamantite-ranked adventurer Momon will be acting as everyone's bow and arrow rather than a shield to spearhead their operation around him. She states her plan to form the adventurers up into a battle line, followed closely by a line of guards. Behind them will be the support line of priests and magic casters. In this way, they will act under that fashion to advance forward into the enemy stronghold. At this point, Renner reasons that if the enemy does not engage them, then they will allow the adventurers to go ahead and advance further into the enemy headquarters and suppress the area. However, if their forces are under attack along the way, they will first determine a way if they can repel the attack in response as a counterattack. If possible, they will have to continue advancing. If not, then Renner will ask the adventurers to retreat while drawing off the enemy. In the meantime, the guards will hold off the enemy as long as possible.

If the adventurers must retreat, then they will head to their meeting room, the one where they are at for the briefing. Renner will have the support line of magic casters heal the wounded soldiers afterwards, and from there they will see about mounting another attack. According to Renner, when they are retreating, the battle lines would spread, and the defense would weaken. However, the same could be said with their enemy as this applies to them too. In other words, as the adventurers spread out, the enemy would follow them. This would also thin out the enemy’s defenses. It would be easier to attack from the flanks than from the front. Forming the adventurers up into a line was a feint intended to thin out the enemy. Hence, for this battle, they are not a shield, but a bow, the bow of the Re-Estize Kingdom, drawn and loosed, to piece their foe with an arrow straight through the heart. Such arrow will be none other than Momon himself dispatched into the battlefield. When Momon sees the enemy lines open up, he will make a low-altitude flying assault to break through them. Since Blue Roses lost two of their members, only Lakyus and Tina will join the battle line and fight. Because a user of resurrection magic is participating, Lakyus who is in the frontlines of the fight had agreed with the leader of the Adventurer's Guild to have additional people accompany and protect her.

However, before they fire the arrow which is Momon, they must perform one more task and that involves rescuing survivors held captive by the demons within the firewall. Within the heart of the enemy formation, this task of rescuing civilians will be left in the hands of Climb, Brain Unglaus, and Lockmeier to take care of while everyone else are busy fighting the demons. Renner told Climb that warehouses are the destination they will be heading to after entering the firewall. She explains that if the demons were rounding people up and taking them prisoner, they would surely need a big space to control and imprison all of them. With that in mind, she felt it would be easier for the demons to separate families apart and lock them up in several big warehouses.

Considering how there are a lot of demons who have wings to [Fly], Renner told them that using a flying spell in combat against it is pointless as this will only serve to draw the eyes of the demons to spread out and fly around the capital. She emphasizes that they need to draw their attention to the ground. Both Evileye and Nabe will be accompanying Momon as he makes his entry. It was Evileye's intention to follow Momon to where Jaldabaoth was, in order to provide support so that the warrior could face off against Jaldabaoth one-on-one without interference from its allies like the demon maid. In contrast with Evileye's task, which was to eliminate the trash that tried to get in Momon’s way, the other adventurers' task was to put pressure on the demons and keep them from spreading out. In that sense, fighting so many demons head-on was, in a way, Momon’s greatest support. The longer they fought resisting the demonic forces, the higher Momon's chances of victory would be.

On the other hand, the nobles' house troops are responsible for protecting their masters’ estates, and the soldiers look to handle the defense of the Royal Capital. For the warriors led under Gazef Stronoff, they will stay behind as bodyguards in the Ro Lente Castle tasked with defending and protecting members of the royal family. Additionally, Prince Zanac's and Marquis Raeven's men are given the task of patrolling the city. It was said by Lakyus that Renner was the main person, rather than the royal family, who used up some of her own private finances to fund and paid for the arrangement of adventurers. In addition to that, the adventurer group Darkness was employed by Marques Raeven to be brought to the Royal Capital for this occasion in dealing with the Demonic Disturbance. They were gathered in the other room to make the final preparations for the operation. They considered when to break through, what to do when the enemy showed up in force, and how to deal with the possible complications which might arise. In the end, they simply had too little information to make any concrete plans and the final conclusion was that they had to go with the flow and deal with it themselves.

Battle
Once the operation begins, all the adventurers gathered from all over Re-Estize including Lakyus stood before the firewall. Before they cross through the wall of fire, the supporting priests from the temples had already cast spells of fire protection on them. Although the plan had called for the formation of a defensive line, they realized that forming a neat line of battle in the middle of a city was very difficult to some degree. Therefore, they had used up to four parties of orichalcum ranked adventurers as the linchpins and vanguards of the formation, assigning each of the adventurers to one of them. Upon entering the firewall, the adventurers found no trace of human life nearby where they are at and how the streets are all the same except for many of the residences having been destroyed by Jaldabaoth's demons. Seeing as there are no signs of blood or the smell of it, they grew concerned that the civilians may have perhaps been taken to a different place by the demons in the firewall.

Lakyus orders the iron and copper-ranked adventurers to stay behind and search the houses for any presence of lifeforms including demons and humans hidden in it. She had at least one mythril-ranked adventurer team also remain behind with them to supervise the task. Meanwhile, the rest of them including herself will spread out into the formation and advance into the frontline. Lakyus walked in line with the orichalcum-ranked adventurers, standing at the head of the group, together with them. Not long after, they heard the sound of a distant explosion carried over softly from the distance. The lower-ranked adventurers trembled in fear, the middle-ranked adventurers prepared for battle, the high-ranked adventurers scanned their surroundings, and the highest-ranked adventurers in the formation looked straight ahead. Amidst this sea of reactions, Lakyus keenly noticed the party on that side had already entered direct combat with the demons. On their end, Lakyus's group was confronted by many Hellhounds.

Lakyus made sure to maintain the group's morale and fighting spirit throughout the course of their battle with the demons from falling. This was after telling the adventurers how very powerful Jaldabaoth is in contrast to the other adamantite-ranked adventurers except for Momon and how large the difference/gap in power between them were. Their defensive line begins upon engaging the fifteen Hellhounds in a death battle. With a prayer to the Water God on her lips, Lakyus cut a leaping Hellhound in half with a single stroke from her demonic weapon, Kilineiram. The floating swords surrounding her acted as shields, blocking the attacks of the Hellhounds from her flanks. She kicked away another one that was snapping at her ankles. Lakyus was handling six hellhounds by herself, and the rest of the nine went on to attack the other adventurers from her group. The weaker adventurers took them on one at a time, while the stronger adventurers handled multiple hellhounds at once.

When doing so this way, they have managed to successfully whittle down the numbers facing them without problem. By the time Lakyus had slain all six of the Hellhounds, the others were done as well. Lakyus then orders the priests to tend to the wounded adventurers. She orders people on her sides, to repeat this command that requires them to advance 50 meters and hold out against the demons. As a result, the cry to advance echoed from both sides. Holding her demonic blade, Lakyus went forth with them too. On the other hand, it was revealed that the adventurers working for Marquis Raeven were all busily patrolling the capital’s streets in order to hunt down any demons who ended up broking through the containment line.

Meanwhile, Climb, Brain, and Lockmeier ran down the dark and narrow alleyways to head for the warehouses after entering the firewall where the battle began between adventurers and demons happen. Thanks to the thief's choice of routes and inspecting his surroundings, the trio had not encountered a single demon so far. Though they had some confidence in facing demons who relied purely on strength and speed, they would be done for if any demons who could use special abilities showed up. Given that this party was a largely mundane one that lived and died by their steel, they would have a hard time defending against attacks that were not purely physical in nature. According to Climb, there was more to do after rescuing the people in the warehouses from demons. While thinking about how they would make it out of there, one thing that stood out as absolutely important was a safe axis of retreat. The choice of route was crucial, especially since they would be moving a lot of people.

Brain had been following the thief Lockmeier's hand signals when he suddenly sensed a presence of Shalltear Bloodfallen close to them. Brain told the two that he will buy them time to flee while distracting Shalltear in combat against him one-on-one. He did not waste time waiting for a response. Brain immediately leapt up the building where Shalltear was, hoisting himself up in a single motion. Although he did not have the climbing skills of a thief, the building was only two stories high, and a warrior's arm strength could easily scale it. On the roof, Shalltear remained where he had first seen her. Having caught the vampire's attention on him, Brain settled down into a sword-drawing stance as he slowed his breathing. The technique he was using was [Field]. Taking one step at a time, Shalltear raised her left pinky finger, approaching at an unnaturally slow pace. After Shalltear step foot within his range, Brain unleashed a combination of attacks on her.

He executed an incredibly high-speed [God Flash], aiming it based on the information gained from the use of his [Field]. He did not stop there with [God Flash], but also continued forth with another move using [Fourfold Slash of Light]. The four wild swings from [Fourfold Slash of Light] were corrected mid-flight by the superhuman precision of [Field], following the path Brain had visualized for them. All four blows struck Shalltear's nails with complete accuracy at super-speed. Shalltear snorted at him as her left hand moved faster than Brain's eyes could see. A sound of metallic clashing rang out through the night air. What had happened was that the simultaneous deflection of the four strikes had blended into a single sound. Those four strikes had been executed in two pairs, one above and one below respectively. They had intersected on the spot where Shalltear had intercepted the attacks. All four blows had been repelled, leaving her untouched and undamaged. Before her eyes, the nail of her left pinky finger had been shortened. The nail was cut by less than a centimeter in length after Shalltear had it used to repel all the sword strikes from Brain.

Realizing that his way of life until now was not entirely in vain, Brain happily acknowledges that there may still be room for someone like him to grow after all. While Shalltear is distracted by something else, Brain used this chance to make his escape before the vampire notices him running away. He had turned his back to her and was busy jumping down into an alley as she was lost in thought. Upon landing in the alleyway, Brain looked back up and realizes Shalltear was no longer there to pursue after him much to his suspicion. However, discovering that neither Climb nor Lockmeier bother to escape after distracting Shalltear upset Brain. He charged towards the two, grabbed them by the collar and kept running. After they had run for some distance, and after Brain checking repeatedly behind him to make sure that Shalltear had not caught up with them, he stop the two to strictly warn them about the vampire and how they should refrain from confronting it head-on in a death battle. Before long, they resume their run to the warehouse districts to escape Shalltear, now suspecting that the vampire is one of Jaldabaoth's underlings who is after the same item as its superior.

Meanwhile, so far, the adventurers had penetrated roughly 150 meters into Jaldabaoth's territory of demons. The adventurers had spent time wrecking the surrounding houses and tearing parts of them down to form a barricade. They retreated past the barricade in Ro Lente Castle to the rear after fending off the demons. They had been heavily wounded and were falling back as fast as they could, fresh claw and scorch marks adorned their armor, as did the sprays of fresh blood. The guards they passed through had been ordered to hold the line until the adventurers' wounds could be healed. Once the adventurers had passed through the opening in the barricade, it was immediately filled up again with planks and other debris. Nobody else but forty-five men remained in the frontline manning the barricade. The only knowledge the guards have been given by the adventurers were names of the various demons. Due to how poor and improper communication guards have with adventurers, they lack awareness of the demons' appearances and how to combat it.

Nonetheless, not all guards were uninformed about the demons. Under different circumstances, some of them might have learned something about the enemy. One such platoon of guards had sent some of their members to help the adventurers retreating past them, and had learned a lot in the process. Soon after, the guards were confronted by one Overeating, fifteen Hellhounds and six Gazer Devils. The demonic beasts howled, and began tearing down the barricade at an incredible speed. The guards' spears stabbed out at them from between the ever-widening gaps in the barricade. The pained wails of the Hellhounds rose up from all around them. Those demonic beasts that had not been stabbed hastily fled the barricade. They howled mournfully as they paced around the barricade, assessing the situation. All of a sudden, the demons decided to form into a neat line, just barely beyond the reach of the thrusting spears. The demonic beasts widely opened their maws to shoot out jets of crimson flames at the barricade, engulfing the entire thing in fire.

Although the fire was intense, it still could not burn down the barricades within a few seconds. At the same time, there were those who ended up getting caught within the demon's fire attack near the barricade. Hence, screams broke out all around as some had their eyes burned up, others had their lungs and gullets scorched because they inhaled the flames. In the end, all of them fell like dead flies. The only guards to survive were the ones at the sides, because the ones in the center were no longer breathing after being consumed by the flame. When one of the guards lost the fighting spirit and will to continue fighting any longer, he dropped his weapons and attempt to flee. However, he was shortly stopped in his tracks when the Overeating demon falling out of the sky fell on top of him with a heavy body slam. Particularly, the swollen-bodied demon that flew without wings landed squarely on Bona's back, making a cracking noise like dried branches snapping as it did. The demon opened its mouth and swallowed Bona whole. Upon ingesting the guard, the demon's distended belly had a new swelling, with a human face of its victim created on it.

Just as the demons broke through the barricade and encircled the guards, Momon, Nabe, and Evileye came to their rescue in the nick of time. Both Nabe and Evileye holding Momon via [Fly] threw the warrior like a loosed arrow onto the battlefield, who then proceeded to swiftly chop off the head of a Hellhound in passing. The guards were then ordered by Momon to fall back as he will take over and fight in their stead, to which they obliged on doing. The Hellhounds sprang at the dark warrior Momon from all sides. In seconds they had enveloped him, forming a cordon from which there was no escape. By simply swinging one of his two great swords at multiple Hellhounds, Momon cleaved through four of them and killing it under one hit while leaving a mighty wind following in its wake. He turned with the force of his swing's momentum before then gracefully and lightly stepping upon the ground to spun his two swords in a horizontal sweep from left to right. The remaining Hellhounds were cut apart, their bodies flung far into the distance by the power of his swings much to the awe and shock of the guards who are saved by Momon.

After slaying all the Hellhounds, the warrior proceeded to hunt down the Overeating and Gazer Devils next. Unable to bear the encroaching pressure that came from Momon approaching them so casually, the Gazer Devils roared and leapt at the warrior. The Gazer Devils were easily destroyed in no time as the dismembered parts of their copses flew in all directions. With them gone, that left only Overeating to kill which Momon did by throwing his great sword at the demon to chop off its head without giving it time to attack back with a wail. Once he slay the Overeating, Momon informs the guards that he will be moving to lead the adventurers' counterattack by taking out the leader of the demon armies, Jaldabaoth. Momon advised them to keep protecting the civilians, resisting and holding the line for the next wave of demons while he goes to fight Jaldabaoth to the death. Through the warrior's words alone, Momon was able to revitalize their morale, giving them the willpower and fighting spirit to persevere longer without the intent to give up.

Meanwhile, Lakyus and Tina together stood at the head of the assault team that was formed of mythril and orichalcum ranked adventurers decided to advance. They avoided the route Momon had taken, instead choosing to take one that led them to a location which had a barricade manned by guards. All they saw on the way there were streets painted in blood, with chunks of shredded meat scattered everywhere. However, now that the barricade is destroyed, the adventurers formed up into a group and crept ahead. However, after only about 30 meters of movement, they turned a corner and were beset by demons. At the start of the battle, the adventurers, with their high personal combat ability, enjoyed an overwhelming advantage in combat. Gradually, though, the balance of power began to shift over the course of time and battling. This was because Jaldabaoth's demons had a numerical advantage that overwhelmed the adventurers' prowess in single combat. Their numbers were so great that it seemed as though every demon in the area had converged on them simultaneously.

While actively maintaining morale for her fellow adventurers against these odds, Lakyus cast her group support spell on them. War cries and the clashing of steel blended together, and the sound of spells being cast and special abilities being used blended together in a chaotic mix. Seeking to fight until the very end, she commanded one of the floating swords by her side to attack the demons. One of the Floating Swords hovering at her shoulders rose up and shot out at her command. With a speed that split the air, it pierced a leaping Hellhound right through the mouth, destroying it without leaving so much as a corpse behind. At the same time, Lakyus realized that she and her group had been surrounded by so many demons. The advance which had just begun had halted, and since they were encircled by multiple layers of the enemy, there was no chance of relief.

In a way, there was nothing to do but fight on until help arrives. The vanguard cast aside their broken weapons and drew their spares. The magic casters who had run out of mana used their scrolls or wands to cast their spells instead. The outer ring of adventurers were orichalcum-ranked, while the mythril-ranked defended the wounded in the middle and the magic casters who had run out of mana. During this time of the battle, a cry rang out, and as Lakyus turned her head, she saw a warrior who had been knocked down by a demon. Before Lakyus could move, Tina was charging at the demon, filling the gap that had been formed. The fallen warrior was carried off by other adventurers. Although she was relieved at the fact that the warrior was saved, the fact that nobody was healing him up indicates to her that the mana of the priests who used divine magic was completely depleted. Just as Lakyus was about to give the command to retreat, she gasped as a Scale Demon descended from the sky.

This Scale Demon, with bat-like wings on its back began spreading, flapping, and sending a wave of freezing air cascading forth, and a wave of soul-shattering terror accompanied it. Although they had fear-resistance magic cast and thus did not panic, this was a clear demonstration of the power of this Scale Demon, which was stronger than any other demons the adventurers had encountered so far. Lakyus closed both her hands around the hilt of her weapon and began walking toward the powerful Scale Demon. However, she was quickly stopped when an orichalcum-ranked adventurer nearby shouted to her that he and other like-minded adventurers will be the ones to distract the Scale Demon in her stead as she escape. Lakyus was reassured by the unknown orichalcum-ranked adventurer that as long as she is alive and can use resurrection magic, she can guarantee their revival after they died fighting against the Scale Demon. As a result, several adventurers peeled off from the huddled group to act as decoys.

To escape out of this death battle alive, Lakyus dash towards the demonic hordes, raising Kilineiram in her hands offensively at it rather than out of defense. She trusted her defense entirely to her armor and her magic. Lakyus channeled most of her remaining mana into the weapon to use her super move, [Dark Mega Blade Impact]. Due to this, the stars in its body began to shine with an unearthly radiance, and the body of the blade swelled up as well. With a horizontal sweep, black power flowed out in a vast, slashing wave. The lower ranking demons were reduced to sightless atoms by the explosive burst of non-elemental energy. Although Lakyus had just blown away so many of them in one stroke, the breach she made had been immediately filled back up with a veritable wall of low-tier demons. Her unease turn to hope and confidence when she was saved by Gazef, Gagaran and Tia who arrived at the scene of the battle to assist the troubled adventurer. Gazef used [Sixfold Slash of Light] and [Pace of the Wind] to cleave his way through the hordes of demons apart to save Lakyus and the adventurers.

He goes on to slash and kill off another seven demons while ordering his large group of warriors to vanquish them all. In time with his wrathful cry, a hedge of countless spears bristled out from behind Gazef. According to Lakyus, those were the Royal Guard and the knights who defended the Ro Lente Castle, a force of hundreds of soldiers present. The flow of the battle return to the humans' advantage as the demons were now outnumbered more than two to one, causing the demon horde's encirclement to begin wavering at the sudden turn of event against them. Puzzled by why he had chosen to assist them when he and his soldiers were supposed to guard Ro Lentle Castle and the royal family, she soon found out that King Ramposa III is here with them to lead the charge against the demons. The King came fully equipped while accompanied by four priests and four arcane magic casters who are protecting him. Just when everyone thought the tide of battle had turned to their favor, the body of an orichalcum-ranked adventurer was sent flying/knocking away through the air by the Scale Demon, hitting a nearby wall and leaving a bright red splatter mark. Gazef and almost all members of Blue Roses except for Evileye decided to work together in combating the Scale Demon as the threat stopping their soldiers' advancement.

Aftermath
The forces had managed to repel the demon invasion but it still suffered quite a large amount of losses, thousands of people were either killed or captured by the demons, a large section of the warehouse district suffered damages. The damage and losses were so severe that they caused the delay of the yearly war with the empire by several months in order to try to recuperate from the losses.