The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1294

The sudden appearance of demons.

The invaders may have been overwhelming, but they weren’t impossible.

Those on the front lines couldn’t see it, but observers watching from the sidelines could tell that both sides were somehow maintaining an evenly matched level of strength.

Of course, the current consensus was that the simultaneous, large-scale strikes across the continent had made the defending forces thin. However, even when accounting for that, the number of enemies flooding into the Partas Kingdom was undeniably excessive.

That made it impossible for them to hold the line. Countless soldiers died, and many cried out in pain.

In the midst of that chaos, the ones who appeared to help the people of the kingdom weren’t the other empires or Heins Territory.

It was the demons!

“What in the world?”

The surviving soldiers stared in disbelief as the demons and demonic beasts joined the battle.

The demons had shown up like they were going to finish everyone off, then instead of attacking the humans, they’d thrown themselves at the monsters, tearing into them with relentless ferocity.

Despite seeing it with their own eyes, the soldiers couldn’t believe their former enemies were now fighting at their side.

“Commander of the Horne, how long are you just going to stand there and watch? We’re not mercenaries,” the commander reminded him.

“You... No, just what are you doing right now? Aren’t demons enemies with humans?”

“Sorry, but you’re right that I’m not a fan of humans either. Still, we’re just following the Demon King’s orders. We’ve entered into an alliance with the humans and are here to stop the invaders.”

Hearing the cold reply from the beautiful young girl, the king swallowed hard.

He wasn’t sure if he should believe her. Either way, it wasn't like he had any other choice.

He figured the details of the alliance could be ironed out later. Right now, they couldn’t afford to miss the opportunity.

“Your Majesty...” one of the aides began.

“Everyone, draw your swords! We’ll stop the invaders together.”

At his command, the confused soldiers began to take up their weapons one by one.

“Full assault. Charge!!”

Following his cry, the soldiers regained their fighting spirit and threw themselves at the monsters, igniting the flames of counterattack.

* * *

A massive mountain fortress.

Bardum Fortress, where the royal castle of the small kingdom stood, had been turned upside down by the advancing horde of monsters.

The outer walls had already been mostly destroyed or overrun, and the flood of monsters was pushing through the road into the inner walls.

The people inside, forced into retreat after retreat, could only tremble in fear.

There hadn’t been a single sign of movement in the area before this. Now, the fortress stood on the brink of total collapse.

In that desperate moment, the Grand General of Bardum Fortress, gripping his sword with trembling hands, made a firm decision with a hardened face.

“Everyone, mount your horses. We ride for our final charge against the enemy.”

“General!”

“If we wait here, only death awaits us.”

They had already prepared to die.

The knights and soldiers looked at the general, nodded, and slowly rose to their feet. Even those who had collapsed from exhaustion and fallen asleep quietly rose and picked up their weapons. Even the young boy soldiers grabbed weapons larger than their own bodies.

“I’ll take the lead. Don’t let those filthy invaders take this place.”

With those words, the fifty something cavalrymen that were left began to move from deep within the inner fortress.

Most of the soldiers and knights were already dead, and Bardum had come to a complete standstill. There was no one who could remain unafraid at the sight of the myriad monsters pushing toward the great drawbridge.

As the small group of cavalry slowly advanced, the citizens of Bardum came out to see them off. They stood along the path, silently stretching out their hands as they tried their best to hide their shaking and despair.

The knights and soldiers, weapons in hand and faces set with the resolve to die, reached out to clasp those hands in return, carrying the weight of their blessings on their backs.

Screech!!

The tightly shut gates of the inner walls creaked open, and the monsters pushing forward all turned their gazes toward the cavalry.

“Raise your weapons! Ride across the plains and drive your spears into their hearts!” The general raised his sword as he shouted, “Full charge!!”

At his command, the fifty cavalrymen kicked their horses and charged forward.

It was, of course, an outnumbered confrontation. Against the swarm of monsters closing in like a black tide, it was nothing more than futile resistance. Even so, they didn’t stop or hesitate for even a moment.

Since their enemies were already coming to them, the monsters didn’t even bother to move. They simply waited.

Just as the brave cavalry drew near, closing the distance, a deep, echoing flute sound rang out from somewhere nearby.

At the same time, a powerful wind blew through the mountains surrounding the fortress and swept down over the monsters.

From beyond the fortress, a torrent of spirits poured in, raining down on the monsters in waves.

“General! Look at that!!”

“My goodness...” The general had stopped the cavalry at the report. They all gasped as they saw what was approaching from a distance.

The unexpected figures were none other than the elves.

The army of the fae, said to reside in the Divine Tree’s Land, had arrived.

A deep, resonant voice rang out for all the cavalry to hear, “At the request of the Divine Tree’s delegate, we’ve come to punish the filthy invaders defiling this land. We’ll gladly lend our hand to protect the divine item here.”

At the same time, the elven army drew their bows and arrows. Arrows fired by elves were not ordinary, lauded even in children’s storybooks.

Then, following the signal from a beautiful woman who seemed to be the elven commander, a storm of arrows, each infused with the power of spirits, rained down on the enemies.

* * *

“They showed up, just like the princess said.”

“Same here.”

There was no way demons and elves could get along. They hadn’t clashed directly in some time, but the fact still remained.

Emilia, who led the elf army, and Artia, who commanded the demons, stared each other down in Evangeline’s lair.

“Not bad, pointy-ears,” Artia growled.

An elf at Emilia’s side sneered. “Right back at you. You’ve got some nerve showing up here.”

Arita’s expression twisted in irritation. “Wanna die?”

“Enough! We didn’t come here to fight each other.”

The priestess Emilia stepped in to mediate, and the bickering demon and elf fell silent.

“But how did you find out?” Arita asked. “There weren’t any signs.”

Evangeline replied with a stern face, “By squeezing it out of the ones we captured.”

“You’re telling me they just gave it up?”

Evangeline looked toward Abel with a complicated expression. “I was curious, too. How did he sort through all that info and find the truth?”

Her face still showed confusion.

“Big Sis, you should know that Darian...” Abel trembled slightly. “He’s just like Father.”

“So?”

“He’s also obsessed with protecting you and I. He trained with Father the most.”

Evangeline’s eyes narrowed at that. “Don’t tell me... Darian?”

“Yeah. He dragged me around sometimes, making me train, and I ended up picking some of his tactics up.”

The enemy had mixed truth with their lies. He had pieced together the overlapping stories and filtered out the truth.

Complete lies always fell apart. Instead, the trick was to spot the tiny bits of truth hidden inside.

“That actually works?” Evangeline was surprised.

“On top of that, these guys are cowards. They spilled more than we expected. I tested a few things in the first battle, and it gave me a baseline to work from.”

Abel opened a map. “I’ll need your help, Arita and Emilia. I’ve already told my mother, but these bastards are after the hidden sacred items of the goddess that are scattered across the continent.”

“And the reason?”

“I’m not certain, honestly. Still, at this point, it’s the only thing that makes sense.” He pointed to several locations on the map. “They have a clear target. No matter how much they attack the surrounding areas, they’ll hit these places eventually.”

After saying that, Abel checked his weapon.

“We have to stop them. No matter what, we can’t let those relics fall into their hands. Please spread the word.”

Arita and Emilia nodded and departed from the lair.

His intel had already led to two successful defenses.

The continent looked shaken by the sudden alliance between the elves and demons, but the details could be sorted out after the war.

“Sis, I’d like to tell you to stay out of this one,” Abel began.

“No,” Evangeline immediately responded.

“I know what you're thinking, but you’re the only one who can track those incomplete bastards when they’re weakened after using their power. That’s why Mother didn’t stop you.”

She’d gotten a rough scolding for joining the war without permission, but if Evangeline showed how much she had grown, that should be enough to make up for it.

Even so, they didn’t want her to get more involved.

Right now, the forces of Heins Territory had been deployed across the continent to stop the ongoing invasions. Each unit held overwhelming power, the rest of the continent looking on in shock. Even so, those who were used to them weren’t surprised at all.

“We’re not just going to sit back and take hits, right? ‘Cause that’s not my thing. So, what’s the plan?”

“They’re going to use the relics to perform some kind of ritual. That much is certain. What we don’t know is how successful it’ll be, and how that might change the course of the war. It could turn into a huge mess.”

“So we’re the ones responsible for stopping it?”

“Everyone else is already on their radar. We’re the only ones who aren’t.”

“So basically, we go in and screw up their ritual?”

“Yes. While your tracking skills aren’t perfect, once they start summoning monsters and use their power, they’ll expose a gap. We’ll seize that opportunity to find them.”

The enemy had no idea Evangeline could track them again. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to find them no matter where they hid like before, but her unique ability was still useful.

“That demon... You could track it before it changed form, right?”

“I could,” Evangeline confirmed.

“Back then, Father’s power worked on it. Now, it doesn’t at all.”

Even if they combined all the forces in Heins Territory, it still wouldn’t match Davey’s lone capabilities.

If Davey joined the war, it’d be over in an instant. However, realistically speaking, that wasn’t an option.

“Maybe... the things that came out of that demon Parthenon’s body are trying to return to their original state by using their power.”

“Parthenon?”

“Yes. I don’t know the details, but I don’t think it’s a full transformation yet. It hasn’t completely shed its old form.” Abel picked up his sword. “You and I are going to hit them where it hurts. We’re ending this war.”

She didn't know what to say.

“But we absolutely cannot be caught! No one can find out what we’re planning.”

Even Rinne and Reina had no idea that Abel and Evangeline were scheming something.

Evangeline silently nodded, then responded, “Fine. That’s all good. We’ve got info on the relics too, so that’s covered. But where exactly are we supposed to hit them?”

Abel thought for a while before answering, “I’m not sure about that. Back when Darian and I ran an errand for the goddess, we secured a divine beast.”

It was the first time Evangeline was hearing of it. “A divine beast?”

“Yeah. It was just a winged rabbit, nothing special. We wandered through some remote places to find it. I think we should choose that place.”

Evangeline’s head tilted in contemplation. “The statue in their heads... It's exactly the same as the one I saw there. Let’s just go. If we wreck the place, I bet something will happen. If they take the bait, we just spring the trap.”

* * *

No matter how much pressure they put on the continent, even the zenoen couldn’t push things forward so easily.

Dozens of their kin had chosen self-destruction to create an opening and shake the balance of the continent. Using the diversion as an opportunity, they aimed to accomplish their original goal of recovering the sacred items.

However, unexpected interference had already begun.

One zenoen, youthful in appearance, shouted in rage, “Damn it! Demons and elves?! That wasn’t part of the plan!”

“Quiet. Looks like some of our intel leaked.”

Their plans should’ve been impossible to find out. Yet, somehow, the enemy had pinpointed their objective at exactly the right moment.

That could only mean one thing. Their information had been exposed.

“Either there’s a traitor among us...”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Or that being with divinity is watching and seeing right through us.”

Silence fell over the group.

“Keep in mind that we don’t have the advantage right now, since the number of forces we can summon is dropping fast. On top of that, some of us used up a lot of power summoning those creatures. If we end up clashing directly with the being with divinity, the losses will be catastrophic.”

One of them scoffed. “And you’re worried about that? As long as we win—”

“There’s no guarantee we can win. Besides, if we fight the forces of the being with divinity now, we’ll be too drained to even handle the creatures of this world.”

“Damn Parthenon! That traitorous bastard.”

To the zenoen, Parthenon’s sudden betrayal had been nothing short of absurd.

“The sacred items still remain. Even if we secure just a few of them, we win. Still, you must be careful. It may look like we’re in control, but the weakest ones here aren’t the creatures of this world or the forces of the being with divinity—it’s us.”

“Aren’t you overthinking this? Who even knows about this place? Not even the being with divinity can find us.”

“It’s not about that—”

Boom!!

Suddenly, a deafening explosion echoed all around them, causing many of the gathered zenoen to flinch.

“What the hell?!”

“Damn it!! All the statues we prepared for the ritual are being destroyed! They found the ritual site!!”

The gathered zenoen had installed statues used to conduct a hidden ritual, meant to gather the sacred items.

Technically, they were fakes, linked to the real ones at the actual ritual site. Through these, they had been synchronizing with the true statues from afar.

In other words, if the real statues were destroyed, these linked ones would collapse too.

“Damn it! How the hell did they find it?! Is there another traitor?!”

“We don’t have enough power left to stop them! Most of our kin burned through their strength summoning monsters! You guys need to go!”

Only a handful of Zenoens were still combat-ready. This hadn’t been the plan. They hadn’t meant to act so rashly, but Parthenon’s betrayal had put them in a state of panic.

“How many intruders?”

“Two. Those two with the bloodline of that divinity.”

“Surround and eliminate them. We can’t allow the ritual to be disrupted.”

“So we all go?”

“We have to! The rest of you keep distracting the others. If that dimension cutter shows up, the damage will be too much.”

“Are you sure about this?”

The zenoen worried it might be a trap, but one of the them shook its head.

“It’s fine. They’ve already walked into our trap, so they’re not getting out of this alive.”

With that, the ten zenoen with remaining power stood up.

Each one of them wielded overwhelming special authority. They weren’t the kind children of a divinity could simply overcome.

One among them, possessing the power of spatial leap, tore through the air.

In an instant, they warped into the hidden underground ritual chamber, only for their faces to twist in shock when they saw the two beings wreaking havoc within.

They had no clue how the enemy knew about their place. Only a tiny fraction of their kind even knew about this place! Most of them were there now.

The few others had supposedly died while pursuing the sacred items, as the connection within them had been cut off completely.

However, what they didn’t realize was that their connection had only appeared to be cut due to them being inside Evangeline’s independent dimensional lair.

It wasn’t truly severed.

“Kill them both.”

With that command, the Zenoens who had been storing their power launched simultaneous attacks on Evangeline and Abel.

It would’ve made sense to panic at the sudden appearance of the ten Zenoens.

However, Abel smiled slyly.