Chapter 177 The Old War

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"What happened back then was when your parents had yet to become heroes, in the previous war against the demons, the prelude before the Demon King were to be born. The ancient Demon Lords that served the Demon King sent armies to this continent, and the many Kingdoms had to defend their capitals against the endless armies of demons, even the wilderness of our jungles were not untouched by the malice and darkness of these beings…" said Ninhursag.

The Demon King didn't existed forty years ago? Well, my father is not that old, I think he's not even thirty years old yet, so it makes sense, their journey began when he was around twelve, so the Demon King was only born almost twenty years ago… a bit less than that.

Meanwhile, Ninhursag is over forty years probably.

So the Demon king was not here yet, but the Demon Continent already had the Demon Lords. So does that means that the Demon Lords will always act, even without a Demon King? But what drives them to use so many resources for that?

Are they stupid to waste so many men worthlessly while trying to conquer another continent by crossing a turbulent ocean and all? If the continent is not filled with demons that means they failed, so it was a complete waste of men and resources…

What drives them so much? I did heard that Demons are the enemy of Gods, but is that it?

This continent has a big church that prays to the Gods, did they wanted to aim at the holy capital?

So many questions… but I don't want to ask Ninhursag about them, she might not even know the answer to most of them as she had been living in the jungle most of her life, she probably doesn't know about any weird political stuff.

"The Demon Lords… We fought one of them, Hell, the Demon Lord of Death…" I said.

"You did?" asked Ninhursag.

"Yeah… Sylphy ended as a pile of minced meat…" said Aquarina.

"W-What?!" asked Ninhursag.

"Aquarina don't talk about that like this… Ninhursag, we can tell you later about this… Go on with your own stuff." I said.

"O-Okay then… Well, as I said… Due to the invasion of Demons all around the continent, armies of demons began to march against the Kingdoms and many small villages ended being attacked by them, many ended being ruined, burned, and destroyed, the people in there were slaughtered, slaved, or even worse, used as provisions and food…" sighed Ninhursag.

So demons can get to such barbaric lengths… but the same could be said for us humans to an extent, what we had done now to their people all the way to the demon continent after the death of the Demon King could be said to be like a "retaliation" from those times.

This also justifies why they were doing this… but by no means it seems good to me, but I suppose there is a justification and a drive other than simply being greedy and malicious, probably after all these events, the people of the continent grew an even deeper hate against the demons to the point that they gladly slaughtered countless innocents the same way the demons did to the continent…

Is this what's called revenged? Death only creates more death, war only makes more war, there is an endless cycle, no side ever rests, the two just wants to kill each other…

If there isn't a turning point to this conflict, it will continue as many innocents die, hundreds, thousands, millions, perhaps… until one of the other side finally goes completely extinct…

War is really horrible.

"Amongst these small territories, there was our large jungle, inhabited by a couple of human tribes. The Demons saw this place as a good place to hide their armies from the other Kingdoms, and ended coming here, taking down many tribes of people that once lived in here… You know? There used to be a lot of beast-kin in this jungle… their ruins and temples still remain, but most of these rich cultures are gone… Apparently, their last remnants were taken down by the demons, and whatever is left is no different than me, only a single or a couple of people." Sighed Ninhursag.

So there was a lot of people living in this jungle, it wasn't just monsters and beasts, it appears that they even had enough civilization to build temples and other things, but that ended being all taken down as their last remnants were slaughtered by the demons… Hahh… this is getting more and more depressing.

I think the world really wants me to hate demons…

"What happened afterwards should be easy to guess, right? Sigh… My family was powerful, my father and my mother… they ended fighting against these armies of demons alongside many more. I was a little toddler back then, my older brother caught me with his arms and ran away as fast as possible… After days of running away, my brother and I lived for two years before he… well, he also died… protecting me… It was all the fault of the Green Skins and their Demon Lord, the Blue-Skinned Oni Emperor, Barthus, the Demon Lord of Ogres," said Ninhursag while gritting her teeth in frustration.

I could notice Ninhursag's pain while saying these words, she was having a very hard time mustering what had happened to her family. I could see the sorrow in her eyes, despite that, she was trying to put out a brave expression as she smiled mildly.

This man… he was the one that decided to take over these jungles as his outpost, and to use the people and the animals here as food for his army while they were hiding from the armies from the Kingdoms.

Barthus, the Demon Lord of Ogres.

Demon Generals and Demon Lords seem to be similar, but I guess there's some difference, Demon Lords appear to be more concentrated into representing a race, while the Demon Generals lead the whole demons with the Demon King…

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