Ch.4949. The Curious Fate of the Kingdom of Levia (End)

“Oh, it’s burning well.”

As I became an intermediate-level god with similarly upgraded intermediate skills, I moved my divine eye to watch the Vampiric Dragon, who was once Barca XIV, destroying his own kingdom through my avatar.

Crunch!

I munched on popcorn manifested through the power of my divine realm, watching the scene like a movie through my divine eye, which could make any 4DX experience seem trivial by comparison.

Anyway, what I was observing through my divine eye was a siege battle taking place at a fortress located near the capital—a fortress guarding the only passage through the mountain range.

The vampire army, which had swept through all the cities and villages near the capital to conscript massive numbers of troops, was now attempting to break through the only passage to enter other regions.

Looking at my roughly drawn map, the current battle situation is as follows:

Blue represents the sea, green is land, gray shows the mountain ranges, and red indicates the vampires’ territory—with the yellow dot marking the fortress where the siege is currently taking place.

The Vampiric Dragon alone could easily fly over the mountains to attack, but… for efficient revenge, he needed to move his army across the mountains as well, making this an unavoidable choice.

One might ask if the army couldn’t just cross the mountains, but that would be a misconception.

In this fantasy world, the beasts that claim such treacherous mountain ranges as their territory aren’t mere bears or tigers—they’re powerful monsters where a single one could wipe out half a vampire army.

Therefore, they gathered almost all living creatures from within the mountains, turned them into vampires, and attacked the fortress… yet the fortress stood firm.

So on the surface, it seemed like this heavenly fortress could indefinitely defend against all attacks from the vampire army—

But the reality was the opposite—the place was on the verge of falling at this very moment.

Objectively speaking, this fortress, with the natural advantage of the mountain range, boasted defensive capabilities comparable to Zhang Fei guarding Chang Ban Bridge.

Built during the early days of the Levia Kingdom by those who recognized this naturally defensive terrain, the fortress blocked the only path an army could pass through, earning the glory of repelling all foreign invasions since the kingdom’s founding.

With their developed naval forces protecting the sea routes and the capital area fortified to a level that would never fall, the Levia Kingdom was even able to expand its territory beyond this region.

While the mountains served as a natural barrier contributing to this transcendent defensive capability, the fortress blocking the only land route was also one of the highest-level structures in the world.

Basically, it could surround incoming enemies and unilaterally shower them with ranged attacks.

Behind it was a second defensive line in case the first was breached, and far behind that, a third defensive line was installed as well.

Additionally, each wall stood over 20 meters tall, making any clumsy attempt to climb it suicidal—

And in front of the fortress was such a steep slope that it was impossible to climb without special equipment.

Therefore, by simply destroying the regular bridge with catapults, the terrain itself served as both a barrier and a moat. This fortress had even once defeated an army of 30,000, including 40 intermediate warriors, with just 2,000 regular soldiers.

Expanded and modified over hundreds of years, it was nothing short of the pinnacle of human fortification techniques in this era, acknowledged even by the proud dwarves.

Despite these advantages, however, the fortress now stood on the brink of falling.

Many complex factors contributed to this dire situation, but the main reason was—the enemies came from inside, not from the defensive line.

Since all the nation’s most critical facilities were concentrated inside, it made sense that they had prepared for enemies coming from outside to inside, but never considered defending against enemies trying to leave from inside to outside.

Consequently, siege weapons like catapults and ballistas were fixed in position and couldn’t be turned around, and various facilities were installed to allow troops to quickly reach the walls.

So even though they had modified the fortress to allow for reverse defense, it could never match the defensive power of the original orientation—this was another major factor.

Meanwhile, another reason this fortress was on the verge of falling was the unique nature of the vampire army attacking it.

They had turned every single human in the most populated region of the Levia Kingdom into undead, numbering at least 100,000.

On top of that, various vampire beasts were also mobilized.

Thus, for the fortress’s 8,000 soldiers, just defending against this overwhelming force was challenging enough… and the fact that they were all undead made it even more difficult.

Unlike human soldiers who can be neutralized with moderate injuries, to defeat the undead, one must always aim for the head.

And not just a simple slash to the neck—they must be completely decapitated or have their brains destroyed, or they’ll continue moving.

Of course, most undead were vampire zombies transformed from ordinary citizens without weapons or armor, making them relatively easy to deal with—but only when their numbers were reasonable.

When facing at least ten times their number, even the strongest soldiers couldn’t handle it, and these weren’t just ordinary vampire zombies either.

Interspersed among them were vampire ghouls with intelligence comparable to wild animals and superior physical abilities that threatened the soldiers. The combination of vampire animals’ excellent physicality and undead tenacity was also quite menacing.

Additionally, with the Vampiric Dragon in the rear providing area buffs, one hit from the enemy could be fatal, and they could also deploy various intermediate forces…

To be honest, it seemed like the fortress falling was just a matter of time.

‘…Ah, right.’

So after wasting quite some time enjoying the thrilling undead siege, I realized that my break time was almost over and the outcome was already determined, so I promptly returned to my duties—

‘Oh, then… I’ll start with this first.’

Having been unable to pay much attention to the vampires lately due to various issues, I decided to reward them by suggesting they relocate to the underground city.

※ ※ ※

Here is a man named Selim Felburg.

In the northeastern part of the Rom Empire, he was a man of the Felburg clan who lived in a tribal nation-level civilization near the dense forest… He was a half-elf, a mixed blood between the forest elves and humans.

Being of mixed blood—having different lineage and race—might seem likely to face discrimination, and indeed it was so in the Rom Empire, but things were different here.

Because they frequently fought together against the vicious monsters of the great forest, interracial relationships were common, resulting in many mixed-blood half-elves.

And objectively speaking, there was no reason for discrimination.

Half-elves, inheriting both elven magical talent and longevity along with humanity’s rapid growth rate,

not only filled the gaps in each society but also served as bridges between the two races.

So while there might be individual jealousy over their exceptional appearance or long lifespan, half-elves weren’t socially ostracized… however…

Selim Felburg was an exception to this trend.

He came to be called “Benesik,” which in his native language roughly translates to “a vicious monster that looks like a human.”

There were several reasons for this insulting and unpleasant title, but the biggest one was… yes.

It was because one day, Selim was struck by lightning made of such vivid red energy it could only be described as blood-colored, causing mutations in his body.

His skin turned pale and bloodless, all pigment evaporated from his hair turning his entire body stark white, and in contrast, his eyes became a vivid, blood-red color.

And after this transformation, the longer he stayed under the sun, the more intense his thirst became, and the only way to quench that thirst was to drink blood—

So it wasn’t strange that when he woke up after being left unconscious in broad daylight for a long time after being struck by lightning, he went berserk with extreme thirst, craving blood.

Though he had been merely a novice magician with a role close to that of a diplomat, the tribal warriors who tried to subdue his rampage were all torn apart by Selim’s hands, becoming bloodless hunks of meat.

And afterward, when Selim, having regained his senses through blood-drinking, hastily fled the scene, the tribespeople who discovered the site heard from the only survivor about what Selim had done.

From that day on, Selim went from being the tribe’s future elder to a fugitive.