The villainous young master just wants to live a Buddhist-like life.

　This somewhat tongue-twisting term refers to the demon race, which was supposed to have been extinct hundreds of years ago!

　"Mud Nightmare?" Professor Mitia repeated, rubbing her chin. "If I remember correctly, it should have gone extinct long ago. Could it have been bred by Number Two?"

　Dark thought about the name, but shook his head and said, "It's not recorded in 'Into the Abyss'."

　Professor Steven Harvey said, "There's no such thing as extinction. The Mud Nightmare is just a mutated product of the Nightmare bloodline. They cannot reproduce and can only be created through mutation. It's quite normal that not one mutates in hundreds of years."

　Lord Montilfali frowned as she looked at the wand in her hand, which had turned into mud. "Could you explain it more clearly? What is a Mud Nightmare? A new type of demon?"

　Professor Sylph glanced at her and quickly said, "Mud Nightmare Demons are indeed a type of demon. Like Nightmares and Dream Demons, they can erode dreams and feed on them. But the difference is that Mud Nightmare Demons can shape their own dreams and extract the life and objects in the dream into the real world in the form of clay sculptures."

　Dark said, "To put it simply, it's about turning people in dreams into clay figures and objects in dreams into clay sculptures."

　Lord Montilfali immediately realized, "So, the demons that Professor Laplace captured were actually all mud figures of that Mud Nightmare Demon?"

　"Probably." Lily pouted, then roughly picked up the "Fantasy Cube" and slammed the Sleepy Demon out of it.

　Professor Sylph said, "The literature records that once the Mud Nightmare uses its clay sculpting ability, it will remain trapped in its own dream and unable to wake up. In its dream, every clay sculpture is real, including itself. It can only be awakened when all the clay sculptures are destroyed or when there is an external force."

　She turned to Professor Steven Harvey and asked, "Professor Harvey, what would be the proper course of action?"

　Professor Harvey immediately pointed to the brain and said, "Kill it. There's a kind of Mud Nightmare Crystal in the brain of the Mud Nightmare Demon, which is the core of its special ability. After taking it out, it can be used to make a dream-making machine."

　"A dream-making machine?" Darke feigned a look of doubt at just the right moment.

　Professor Harvey explained, "It can present a dream to a limited extent by sculpting it with clay. If the materials are good enough, it can even have a stronger effect than this clay nightmare demon. Of course, once it is made, such things will never lack uses."

　Perhaps noticing Professor Sylph's hesitant expression, he added, "Dreamers can enter dreams on their own, and Mud Nightmare Dreamers can even shape their own dream settings, transforming themselves into another person in the dream. You won't get any information from them."

　Professor Sylph shook her head and said, "How will we know if we don't try? We must get the demons' plans and the exact location of Number Two from it."

　So he tried it and died.

　When Professor Sylph awakened the Mud Nightmare, all the demons imprisoned in the "Fantasy Cube" instantly turned into a puddle of mud.

　Suddenly, the Mud Nightmare Demon grinned crookedly, its eyes losing all their luster as it literally blew its own brain apart!

　Thanks to Professor Harvey's timely rescue, the "Mud Nightmare Crystal" was successfully salvaged intact.

　……

　Professor Harvey held the "Mud Nightmare Crystal" as if it were a priceless treasure.

　Professor Sylph, however, turned and walked to the wall with a dark expression, pulling out a crystal ball belonging to Professor Mitia from thin air.

　"Mitia, relocate Number Two's coordinates. We can't let it escape!"

　For them, the monster siege was not a big deal, and the task of wiping out the remnants of the demon race was not of much concern. The only thing they absolutely had to do was capture the second Demon King!

　Inside the pumpkin carriage.

　Professor Mitis, however, was in a state of utter distress.

　Because the response from the West Gate was too fierce, the tide of monsters charging towards this side was cut down and disrupted, causing a large number of monsters to scatter to both sides and then converge at the South Gate and North Gate, which suddenly increased the defensive pressure on both sides.

　The walls of the Free City have three gates on each side: one large and two small.

　The Ice Moon Legion's forces were deployed at the larger main gate on both the north and south sides, while the other side gates were left to adventurers inside the city.

　This deployment was not a problem in itself; with the high walls strong enough, soldiers and adventurers could keep the monsters out.

　But as the number of monsters outside the city increased, and the ranged attacks launched from the city walls gradually became unable to clear them out quickly, suddenly someone rushed out... and opened the city gate!

　Although there was a moat outside the city gates, powerful enough magical beasts didn't need a bridge. They could leap across the not-so-narrow moat with a single bound.

　Caught off guard, a large number of demonic beasts poured into the city gate, causing great chaos within the city.

　But at that moment, Professor Mitia displayed exceptional coordination skills, issuing precise, point-to-point instructions to everyone near the city gate.

　Suddenly, some turned their guns on the demons disguised as humans. Others charged towards the monsters pouring into the city gates, while still others risked their lives to forcefully close the gates, instantly thwarting the escalating chaos.

　Mitis Bartholomew was a perfectionist.

　After quickly quelling the chaos, she immediately mobilized nearby people to hunt down all the magical beasts that had flooded into the city, ensuring that every single one was killed quickly to prevent civilians from being harmed.

　However, misfortunes never come singly.

　While she was still directing the city gates here, several other city gates suddenly fell—in the same way!

　The demons who had infiltrated the city launched their attacks almost simultaneously, turning the once impregnable city into a leaky, vulnerable fortress.

　The simultaneous leaks in several places distracted her.

　Even so, upon hearing Professor Sylph's question, she immediately spared a sliver of her attention to reply: "Okay."

　After saying "okay," she immediately relayed Professor Sylph's message to Ophelia.

　Ophelia Brad had already suppressed her urge to vomit. After hearing the instruction, she didn't ask why and immediately said to Witt, "Get ready, we're about to switch consciousness."

　Although reluctant, Witt knew that something quite tense must have happened, so he quickly sat up straight and closed his eyes.

　Ophelia quickly took the "switch" out of her hand... then suddenly realized, "It's already night!"

　"Damn it, I'm so busy!" Professor Mitya paused for a moment, then quickly replied to Professor Sylph, "It's dark now, I've closed my eyes."

　Professor Sylph was also taken aback for a moment, then said, "What about the prophecy?"

　"Wait a moment." Ophelia replied with one word, then suddenly clasped her hands together, cupped the crystal ball, and began to cast a spell rapidly.

　As magic surged rapidly, a silver moon appeared in her eyes, and moonlight and starlight gradually reflected in the crystal ball.

　About half a minute later, she suddenly uttered a few notes, and the crystal ball between her hands shone brightly.

　At the same time, at the city gates on the north and south sides that had fallen due to the opening of the city gates, the bright moon faintly appeared in the sky. Starlight accompanied the moon, falling from the sky in beams and streaks, like shooting stars rushing and crashing down in an instant!

　The magical beasts that rushed towards humans in various postures and with various cries suddenly felt a bright light approaching from above, and their skulls were smashed by the seemingly light but heavy starlight!

　In an instant, almost all the demonic beasts that rushed into the city gate were smashed to death.

　"I have to do it myself..."

　Professor Mitis muttered something to herself, then suddenly spoke.

　"Close the city gate!"

　……

　The crisis at the city gate was resolved immediately.

　Professor Mitia relaxed and then slowly said to Professor Sylph, "How many times have I told you? Prophecy isn't something that's easy to do. Can you please stop making prophecies every time you encounter a problem? It puts a lot of pressure on me, okay?"

　Professor Sylph: "So, are you planning to or not?"

　Professor Mitis: "Okay, I'll take it."

　"Sigh, I'm destined to be a tool." Professor Mitya rubbed her shoulders, then prepared to... "Sarah, I found it!"

　Professor Sylph frowned sharply: "So fast?"

　Mitia slowly turned her head, her gaze piercing through the carriage, and whispered, "Here with me."

　……

　If we want to predict the course of a war, the first thing we need to know is why it starts.

　……

　When the professors all thought that Number Two would choose to back down out of caution, they did not know that Number Two had such a clear understanding of his own existence that he would even go to any lengths to save Number One.

　They regarded Number Two as the Demon King, but Number Two regarded himself as the vassal of Number One.

　Thus, the two sides had differences in their most basic understanding.

　The inferences derived from this are entirely wrong.

　……

　Professor Sylph was trying to pinpoint the location of Number Two, unaware that Number Two was also trying to pinpoint... Number One's location!

　While Professor Sylph and the others were lured to the hidden place within the barrier and the mud puppets of the Mud Nightmare Demon, Number Two had already led the other demons out of there and orchestrated the city gate incident. Using this as a starting point, they followed the invisible thread to find the central authority that governed the entire city—Professor Mitia!

　Based on Number One's identity, Number Two concluded that the enemy would definitely place Number One in the most central location.

　Even if this guess is wrong, it can still force the key figure to reveal the exact location of Number One by taking him hostage.

　Regardless of its considerations, it has now indeed located Professor Mitia, and the one it ultimately seeks is also on the same carriage!

　—Although it had not yet discovered it at that time.

　……

　Professor Mitia's pumpkin carriage effectively isolated Number Two from Number One's senses. Even though the two were so close, there was no sense of presence between them.

　Of course, this is also somewhat related to the night and the fact that Number One is asleep.

　……

　The night wind in the City of Freedom was as sharp as a knife, and the "Thunder Roc," with a wingspan of thirty meters, was now flying silently in front of the pumpkin carriage.

　"Beast Demon" Donya Oraston inscribed a magic circle for a concealment barrier on the back of "Thunder Roc," turning "Thunder Roc" into a mobile base.

　Aleister Eldridge II was currently atop the "Thunder Roc," with the elderly demon holding a two-meter-long wand beside him.

　That was Ian Tuttle, a legendary lich who was a member of the Demon Elder Council and possessed a total of thirty-three life boxes.

　At the end of the war, human prophets spared no expense in using divination to find and destroy its hidden thirty-two life boxes. Everyone thought it was dead beyond any doubt, unaware that decades earlier, it had sent one of its life boxes into the kingdom's treasury.

　Three years after the war ended, it awoke from one of the treasure chests in the kingdom's treasury and quietly escaped—so as not to expose this last remaining life chest, it didn't even take a single needle or thread from the treasury.

　Now, after hiding in the shadows for many years, Ian Tuttle has remade several new phylacteries before daring to emerge from the darkness once more.

　The two-meter-long wand in its hand is the "Ghost Eye," an old-era wand that ranks alongside "God's Wrath" and "Thunderous Might"!

　"Your Majesty, is the thing that can lead us to restore our golden age located in this carriage?"

　Ian Tuttle stared intently at the pumpkin carriage, his voice hoarse.

　Aleister Eldridge smiled slightly and said, "At least, we can find some clues in this carriage."

　"Then what are we waiting for! Your subordinate is willing to lead the charge!" On the back of the "Thunderous Roc", the burly "Demon Man" Vernon Ilictra, whose muscles bulged like mountains, immediately knelt down to volunteer.

　"The Lich" Ian Tuttle, "The Beastman" Tonya Oraston, "The Demon" Vernon Ilictra, "The Corpse-Stitcher" Rororo, "The Vampire" Naral Vlad, "The Tower Demon" Atal, "The Swamp Lizard" Paul, "The Flying Banshee" Dorothy Mireida, and "The Nightmare Demon" who sleeps eternally in dreams.

　These nine demons were the core group that Aleister Aldridge had gathered over the past six months.

　“Demon, if you don’t want to sleep forever in your dreams like Mud Nightmare, you’d better rein in your arrogance and recklessness.” “Corpse-stitching Demon” Rororo raised his palm and shone the “Eye of the Void” in his palm onto the carriage, speaking in a low voice.

　“Roar, roar, roar.” “Demon” Vernon immediately complained, “That was Mudma’s own choice. We all know that Mudma is about to be swallowed up by his own dream!”

　“I hope its death was worthwhile.” Another woman, with a graceful figure, who in another sense resembled “Demon” Vernon, and whose identity could not be concealed even by a black robe—the “Vampire” Nalar—said in a gentle tone.

　“Arguing is pointless,” said the tall and thin “Tower Demon” Ata in a straightforward tone.

　The quarrel among his subordinates did not affect Aleister Eldridge's thinking. Because to him, these demons were not important.

　As long as Number One is rescued, and with enough resources, we can have as many demons of this caliber as we want.

　Although only ten years have passed since the end of the war, the Hundred Races Alliance, which fought a desperate battle, is now practically defunct. The Demon Race is in a more relaxed situation than at the end of the war—if there were no Archmages!

　The rapid development of magical technology was beyond its expectations and is now the biggest variable.

　However, if used properly, it can also be turned into an "opportunity".

　For demons, who are born with powerful magic, the barrier to mastering magical techniques is much lower than for humans.

　If the war hadn't ended at the point of explosive growth in magical technology, and if the demon race could have held out for another ten years or so, even the most arrogant demons would no longer dare to underestimate mages.

　If the demon race also begins to fully research and learn magical technology, then who truly rules this world will remain to be seen.

　Aleister Eldridge opened his eyes and stared intently at Professor Midia's pumpkin carriage.

　A massive surge of magical power began to flow.

　Between heaven and earth, the elements of water and fire began to converge towards his eyes.

　Aleister Eldridge's left eye turned ice blue, and his right eye turned fiery red.

　These eyes, belonging to the Ice Flame Demon and the Lava Demon respectively, are unleashing their most prized combination attack – "Ice and Fire Light Kill Cannon"!

　Aleister Aldridge's lips curled into a smile, and the ice and fire elements intertwined under the control of the magic circle before bursting forth!

　Between it and the carriage, a massive pillar of light, spiraling with blue and red, appeared.

　Before the beam of light touched the carriage, countless black runes suddenly burst forth. These black runes arranged themselves into the shape of a black dragon, rapidly circling the carriage and forming an indestructible magical barrier.

　The carriage shook violently.

　Professor Mitia put down the crystal ball, picked up her wand, and drew a circle on one side of the carriage. The scene outside was immediately displayed in the circle.