He vanished from the thunder drake's head and appeared in front of Gail in an instant, that twisted smile spreading across his face again. But what met him was a crushing punch. It rattled him to his core. What kind of strength was that?
Gail didn't stop there. He slammed Roland into the ground and kept going. Roland's head was ringing. What is wrong with this guy?
Gail loomed over him. "Now, where should we start? Staging a coup, assaulting women, abusing prisoners, murdering your own men. Which charge should we begin with?"
Roland still had no idea what Gail was talking about, mostly because Gail was currently sitting on top of him, making his life miserable.
Ragnar sensed something was off about Gail. This demon was different from the others. From the very first moment they met, he had seemed unusually concerned with human affairs.
Not long before, Ragnar had been about to have his way with a demon woman. He had conjured two ice golems to hold her son in place. He wanted to show the demon child what a real man looked like, a glimpse into just how sick his mind truly was. The woman had lost all hope, but there was nothing she could do.
Then Ragnar's ice golems suddenly exploded apart. Gail had smashed them with a single punch and pulled the child to safety.
Ragnar was furious at being interrupted. "Since you can't mind your own business, try this."
The next second, a massive A tier ice golem appeared in front of Gail. "This one cost me half my HP to make. It has half my strength, more than enough to deal with you."
He never finished. Gail had already swung his fist. Cloud surge activated. With a thunderous crash, the ice golem was wiped out in an instant.
Ragnar's eyes went wide. "Impossible. That makes no sense."
What met him next was a massive slap. Ragnar spun out like a pinwheel and dropped into near death state.
The System rewarded Gail with five hundred thousand experience. His level climbed to twelve, granting twelve bonus points, bringing his unallocated total to one hundred and thirty-two. He received the demon king's royal A12 package. A new skill was available. Equip it.
A new S tier skill unlocked: Copy. Replace this skill with any skill from a defeated opponent, with no elemental restrictions.
Looking at Ragnar hanging on by a thread, Gail said, "Time to find out the truth. What exactly happened to my army?"
The 511 unit's original captain was Gail, with Wen as deputy. About half a month ago, the deputy captain held an engagement banquet outside the camp. That was the day we made our move. The captain wasn't there. It was the perfect opportunity.
While everyone was drinking, Roland and I slipped into Wen's tent. We tried to force him to report the captain to the guild council, frame him for accepting bribes from a neighboring nation and plotting treason. I had already planted the evidence in his quarters. All he had to do was report it with us. He'd become captain, I'd take deputy, and the credit for this campaign would be ours.
"Are you out of your minds? This is a coup. How dare you joke about something like this?"
But Wen was stubborn to the bone. He refused to betray Gail no matter what.
"You didn't actually think I was asking."
The bride looked on in horror.
"Think about what you're doing. This is your engagement night. Let her go. I'll kill you both."
Then a purple aura erupted from his body. The next second, he started coughing up blood.
"You didn't notice how much was mixed into your drink. Stop being an idiot. I'm asking you one more time. Are you going to help us bring Gail down or not?"
"Go to hell."
In the end, Wen never broke. He and his bride were put through hell until their very last moment. And he never said a single bad word about Gail.
We left Gail's dagger at the scene and made some noise. By the time the others arrived, Wen had only one breath left. Wen discovered the captain's treason, he must have panicked and silenced him. And just like that, a story full of holes held together.
Roland pinned every crime on Gail, then led the army straight to Gail's camp, ready to act first and explain later. But what they hadn't expected was that Gail wasn't there. He fled in a hurry, must have run before we could catch him. Even his personal weapon had been left behind in the camp.
Roland then used the charge of attempted treason, and the framed killing of a comrade and assault on his wife, to petition the divine authority for the highest level arrest order. Gail became a criminal of the army, and his weapon fell into Roland's hands. The rest followed naturally. An emergency change of command before battle. With his father working behind the scenes, Roland secured the position of supreme commander.
"But I have to ask, why do you care so much about human affairs? And the others? Did no one question what happened?"
"Those loyalists, we came up with a reason and got rid of them. I never understood it. What era do they think this is? Still clinging to that kind of blind loyalty. Does truth and justice actually matter in the military? I've said everything. You can let me go now. If you do, I can put in a good word with Commander Roland and keep you alive."
The next second, Gail cut away his manhood.
Ragnar let out a string of screams, his eyes flooding red from the pain. "What are you doing, you maniac? No, no, no. Put it back. Put it back right now."
Just then, a demon woman approached. "General Gail, this is the battle set you once gave to General Weston. He kept it for you all this time. He foresaw a great crisis coming to the Dusk Realm and had me wait in the cellar until you arrived. He asked me to give you the equipment and urge you to leave the Dusk Realm. Get as far away as possible. He said you might be the demon race's last hope, and you absolutely cannot die in this battle. I just received a magical transmission from General Weston. Something must have happened to him."
Gail put on the S tier warlord's battle set without hesitation.
Inferno demon helm: elemental power plus fifty, all resistances plus ten percent. Celestial demon scale armor: stamina plus fifty, blocks one fatal hit, twenty-five percent damage reflection. Celestial demon weapon: strength plus fifty, life steal plus twenty percent. Skill, celestial demon shift: alters the appearance of all equipped items. Wind demon boots: speed plus fifty percent, all physical damage received reduced by twenty percent.
He used celestial demon shift to disguise the armor as ordinary clothing. Then he grabbed Ragnar by the hair and dragged him along like a dead dog.
"General Gail, you're going the wrong way. The city gate is over there. Please just leave."
"I don't run. Take me to Roland."