The Battlefield

Satan stares at his Princess for a while before eventually identifying her and finding her level having shot up to level 1000 from that battle. Meaning all she needs are the catalysts and requirements to reach Class V and she’ll officially be a Noble.

A twenty-one-year-old Noble… if someone so much as suggested that possibility before I’d have written them off as stupid.

After several seconds, Satan lets out another sigh and focuses on the Knights he has flying with him as he raises his voice and uses his bond to connect with every last one of his demons, “I will keep my promise. Everyone retreat. We are moving back to our own fortresses.”

The Noble demon then glares at the unconscious Red for several seconds before turning his attention to the Knights as a whole instead and saying, “You better thank the Princess for your continued survival and freedom.” Then he lowers the Knights to the ground and just leaves them there, not bothering to heal them since he has no healing related powers.

They can get healing from other humans.

And with that thought, Satan blasts off in a ball of hellfire heading straight towards Demon Isle.

In defeat.

Less than ten minutes after Satan leaves, Amelia senses a couple dozen human Guardians approaching. But she still can barely even lift a finger, leaving her to just watch as the humans enter the wasteland that used to be the headquarters of the human military.

Fortunately the humans turn out to be the General of the Military and several soldiers along with a couple ranking officers. And they all immediately set about healing Scarlet and the Knights.

At some point while they’re treating them, Amelia senses a lot more people entering the wasteland, and she also hears the sounds of large vehicles moving into the wasteland. The soldiers then move them all to the vehicles and begin driving away towards another base that hasn’t fallen while still treating them all.

Eventually Amelia relaxes after hearing that Scarlet isn’t in critical condition anymore thanks to Ava, otherwise known as the Bloody Valkyrie, who came to heal her with her blood magic, giving Scarlet some of her own life energy in the process.

Time passes as the soldiers, doctors, and healer Guardians all fuss around the Knights, doing everything they can to return them to peak condition. And after doing enough to allow Amelia to sit up again, albeit with a lot of pain, the General walks up to her and bows slightly, saying, “On behalf of the humans, we thank you for fighting for us.” Then all of the other people in the room do the same.

After a few seconds Amelia says, “If anyone deserves your gratitude…” she turns to look at Scarlet who is lying down on the bed next to her being attended to by over a dozen healers at once including Class V healers.

“We know, and we’ll express our gratitude to her when the Princess awakens,” the general says, surprising Amelia with his calling her Princess. Since Amelia knows that he never called her that before.

Looks like Scarlet earned his respect with this.

Amelia smiles sadly as she looks at her daughter who is still covered from head to toe in wounds with some of her limbs having been ripped off entirely that are slowly growing back.

Considering the Demon King’s livestreaming of that final attack to everyone, she may’ve just earned the respect of the majority of the humans, even the ones that were against her.

That thought has Amelia smiling a real smile.

Then she turns to the general, her face growing serious as she asks, “How bad are the losses?”

The general grimaces and answers, “All of the Guardians stationed on the bases scattered across the frontlines were eliminated with the lone exception of most of the Class Vs and half of the Class IVs who managed to retreat to a further back base. And the bases themselves were destroyed all the way past the midway point of the Eastern continent pushing the frontline to the border of Asia and Europe.”

Amelia ignores the older general’s usage of the continents old world names as she asks, “And the civilians?”

“We managed to evacuate the majority of the civilians from the cities beyond the frontlines closest to the war zones, but a couple of the cities were taken over,” the general says with a grimace. “At the very least the demons aren’t treating the humans there badly from what we’ve heard, but we should work quickly to take them back.”

The general turns to one of his top officers and asks, “Please give the White Knight a full rundown on the casualties of the battle.”

A Guardian Amelia only barely recognizes walks up and salutes before answering, “We have lost a total of four hundred and ten thousand one hundred and five Class I Guardians, two hundred thousand and one Class II Guardians, sixty-two thousand five hundred Class III Guardians, and three thousand one hundred and seven Class IV Guardians.” He then grimaces and finishes, “Along with seven Class V Guardians.”

Amelia grimaces at those figures, especially the Class V Guardians. Because they were already outnumbered as it was on that level. Now the war will only be worse from here on out.

“The demons lost just as many as we did, but the majority of their losses were in non-sapient demons and are replaceable within the next several years through the Gates,” the Guardian continues, sounding extremely grim as he does so. But then his tone goes up a notch as he adds, “On the other hand, over two hundred thousand Guardians of various Classes managed to ascend thanks to the battle.”

This isn’t good… except for the ascended Guardians. We’ll need those in the near future.

Amelia turns to look at the healers as they finally finish working on healing Scarlet and all collapse on various chairs and beds surrounding Scarlet’s. And at the same time as the general, Amelia asks, “How’s she doing?”

She then turns to share a look with the general before focusing on the healers again.

“She was very close to going past her potion tolerance, which made it difficult to treat her,” the Bloody Valkyrie says in between exhausted breaths. “But she’ll be fine after a few days of sleep.”

Everyone in the room lets out relieved breaths and the tense atmosphere in the room significantly decreases.

“If it wasn’t for her regeneration then she wouldn’t have made it, but her regeneration is far stronger than any regeneration I’ve ever seen before,” Ava says while pointedly ignoring the general’s existence as the man glares at her, no longer worried about Scarlet. “She’ll also likely ascend to Class V soon and will need someone to explain the process to her.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Amelia says as her own healers finally finish healing her too.

I’m so glad she’s okay…

Amelia can’t help but smile at that. And not even the unspoken war between Ava and the general manage to bother her.

Although she is a little surprised those two managed to stay in the same room for so long without going at each other’s throats. Considering how they both made gender exclusive Associations just to spite the other.

In the end Amelia just lies down with a sigh.

Now we just need to deal with the aftermath.