Building A Human Empire By Creating A Clan [EN]: Chapter 64

Building an Empire with My Summons 66

The End of a Sinful City

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Night fell upon Sodomora.

Yet, the city was bright.

Because fire was consuming the city.

While the sky was dark, the ground was brighter than daytime.

“The building is collapsing!”

“Run away!”

The fire started from the embers spread by the Servants to create chaos.

The embers rode the dry wind and spread throughout the city, and the closely packed wooden buildings burned even better than dry firewood.

“Why aren’t the fire brigades coming!”

A nobleman wrung his hands, watching his mansion burn fiercely.

Normally, the fire brigade would have been dispatched to pour buckets of water and demolish surrounding buildings to prevent the fire from spreading, but due to Vlad and his Blood Clan’s rampage, the administrative power was not only paralyzed but had vanished.

“B, bodies…!”

Moreover, the Servants attacked those visible on the streets and raised the dead, adding to the chaos, so hell had come to the human world.

In the midst of it, I raised my hand wearing Vlad’s ring and said.

“Servants on this land. I, the master of Vlad von Holstein, command you. Return to ashes.”

At my command, the ring vibrated violently.

The ring containing Vlad’s fragmented soul resisted.

No, it wasn’t resistance, but a temptation to dominate me.

– Do not kill them, but dominate them. You can control my Blood Clan and Servants. Succeed me, inherit what I have…

“Shut up, mosquito.”

I dismissed the temptation.

A voice that should have shaken my mind into chaos.

Thanks to the Iron Man effect [a strong mental defense], it was just Vlad’s voice.

A voice without mind control effects is just noise.

“I know that the sound you’re making is a lie. Succeed you? Even if I control your Blood Clan and Servants, do you think I wouldn’t know you’d betray me when your main body returns?”

The soul contained in the ring was just a fragment.

One of the fragments Vlad had divided in preparation for death.

Compared to the main body of the guy who would be resurrected, it was only a part.

A part cannot defeat the rest of the whole.

“I don’t raise parasites.”

I sneered at the ring’s silence.

“I command again, as one who possesses the soul of Vlad von Holstein. Servants on this land, return to ashes.”

Bright light emanated from my body and spread in all directions.

Following that, red light emanated from the ring and spread in all directions.

The red light was magic power, and it permeated the Servants and the corpses they had raised.

The corpses collapsed, and the Servants crumbled into white crystals.

Kieeeeeeeeeee——

Innumerable souls soared from the city.

It was the liberation of the souls bound to the corpses and the souls of the Servants.

Those who cannot see souls would think that magic power was swirling.

And the bright light gathered back to me, gathering clouds.

Drop… Drop…

Rain began to fall from the gathered clouds.

Swishhhhhhhhh——

“Huh?”

“The wounds…?”

The rain extinguished the fire that covered the city.

Along with it, it washed away the wounds of the innocent.

Wounds on the areas touched by the rain disappeared with bubbles.

It washed away the salt left by the Blood Clan and Servants.

It washed away the sins rooted in the city.

“Gerhard and Griff, rescue the slaves. Nuadir, bring the king. Calliope and Pasimedes, stay with me.”

I withdrew my power and gave instructions to my summons.

After they left, with only two summons remaining, Pasimedes asked.

“What are you going to do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Sodomora. It seems like things have gotten bigger than you thought.”

“The plan remains the same. I will be recognized by the noble council as a vassal of Wallachia and return to the Great Plains.”

What was the purpose of my visit to Sodomora?

To capture the Blood Clan rooted in Sodomora,

To kill Duke Mazenkin and disrupt the noble council,

To break the noble council’s agreement and induce civil war,

Is there anything among these that hasn’t been achieved?

“The Blood Clan died with Vlad. Duke Mazenkin will be the same, and the attempt to shake the noble council and induce civil war by pitting Duke Mazenkin and Count Hugo against each other should be considered achieved in this situation.”

How many nobles gathered in Sodomora for the noble council convocation?

And how many of them died due to Hugo’s ambush and the Blood Clan’s rampage?

If the great nobles leading the noble council are all dead, and a significant number of the noble council members have also died, it will take quite a while to stabilize again.

Erase the influence of the Blood Clan, plunge Wallachia into chaos.

Hasn’t the purpose been achieved, even if the scale is different?

“…You did it recklessly.”

“You should be grateful that I didn’t turn the city into salt.”

Pasimedes shook her head.

“Cough!”

At the sound of coughing, I turned around.

Duke Mazenkin was leaning against the rubble of a building, coughing incessantly.

“You were aiming for this from the beginning.”

I approached the duke and knelt on one knee.

He spat out a mouthful of blood and looked up at me, leaning against the wall.

More blood than he had just spat out flowed from his torn lower body.

Even though the rain that washes away wounds had fallen, he did not heal.

His sins were too deep to be forgiven.

“It was one of the possibilities.”

“Possibility?”

“The possibility that if I killed Agaton, his master would come.”

He let out a hollow laugh.

“What’s the difference between throwing embers on dry firewood?”

As he said, Agaton was firewood.

Killing Agaton was like throwing embers.

“If I hadn’t killed Agaton, the Blood Clan wouldn’t have retreated from Wallachia. If I had left Agaton alone, Wallachia would have been subordinate to Vlad.”

“Damn… I didn’t know he was a Blood Clan.”

“Even if you are a great noble, you are ultimately just a minion of another race.”

He let out a hollow laugh.

“I guess so. No matter how much humans struggle, no matter how much they cling, they are ultimately livestock… Look over there.”

A trembling hand pointed ahead.

There was Count Hugo’s corpse where he was pointing.

To be exact, it was Hugo’s head.

The body was unrecognizable, and the face was full of pain.

“The fool clung to me, begging me to save him, and was abandoned.”

Even Vlad couldn’t survive, so how dare he ask to be saved?

There couldn’t have been a more absurd sound to the Blood Clan.

“With a single gesture. That’s what happened to him.”

And the duke was caught up in it, losing half of his body.

The Blood Clan didn’t attack with the intention of killing the duke.

Pushing him away as a way to shake him off lightly tore him apart.

“I’ve always been proud of my talent. Is this what I get?”

He let out a weak laugh.

“The great nobles, including me, are all dead. Most of the members of the noble council must have died too.”

I nodded.

They even tried to poison the puppet king.

Why would they leave a noble who was better than him alive?

“Are you going to be the king of Wallachia?”

“No, not yet.”

“Even after doing this, you’re still not enough?”

The duke trembled and exhaled.

“You not only killed the Blood Clan but also killed the Emperor. I can’t believe it even after seeing it with my own eyes. How can a human… how can they do that? Are they really human?”

“They are human. They just trust me too much.”

“You? Why?”

He lifted his face.

And narrowed his eyes.

“…I see now.”

He held his hand in front of his eyes.

As if to block the light.

“The first time I saw you. The strange feeling I felt then. I know what it is. Your presence… it felt so enormous that I got goosebumps.”

“It’s called the level of the soul.”

“Level… that’s an appropriate word.”

He lowered his hand and looked at me.

He reflexively narrowed his eyes as if looking at a bright light.

He tried to open his eyes and look several times but failed, and he lowered his face.

“Bright. Really scary.”

The duke muttered.

Death is when the soul separates from the body.

The reason he can see the level of my soul more clearly than before is because death is near.

“Are you human?”

I was silent.

His voice trembled.

“Once in my life. I have seen a god.”

It must be Horbid [likely a reference to a deity].

High-ranking nobles would be called by the Theocracy at least once.

He saw the wolf god, Horbid, worshiped in the Theocracy.

“The god said, ‘I have given you your life,’ ‘I have determined your destiny,’ ‘Those who rule are born with the destiny of a master, and those who are ruled are born with the destiny of a slave.'”

I scoffed.

“That’s a lie. It is a lie for those insignificant beings to dominate and corrupt humans. It is to justify all sins in the name of what God wants.”

Mazenkin laughed.

As his body trembled, more blood leaked out.

“I believed that God’s will supported my actions. So I believed that slaves were livestock determined by God, selling my own people was an offering to God, and betraying my country was also permitted by God.”

This is what a religion planted by another race is like.

They put forward a false god and whisper to humans.

Thus, they divide, corrupt, and dominate humans.

“There is no god you are looking for in this world.”

“No. There is. Right here in front of me, like this.”

Mazenkin struggled to lift his head and look at me.

The pupils looking at me widened more and more.

The trembling of his body subsided.

“Punishment. Punishment for the sins we have committed. Our fate was determined from the moment you came here. Sin must be punished.”

His expression distorted, and he tried to say something, but

Mazenkin closed his mouth and lowered his head deeply.

His unjust life had come to an end.

“The will of God…”

I looked at Mazenkin’s necklace.

A necklace engraved with the symbol of the Wolf Church.

‘What dominates the human world is Germania and Wallachia.’

That is a lie.

‘What dominates humans is the Theocracy. The world’s conspiracy is located in that small city. In that damned place where Tiamar is sealed, there is an enemy that corrupts and dominates humans.’

I tore off the necklace and threw it into the fire.

‘Conquering Wallachia is just the beginning. Only by conquering Germania and even the Theocracy can all humans in this world become one.’

Step, step, approaching footsteps were heard.

King Pave of Wallachia walked over, supported by a maid.

He limped over, stopped when he saw Mazenkin’s corpse.

For a moment, wariness flashed in his eyes and disappeared.

“Oh… my, Mazenkin… how could my only loyal subject…”

The king mourned Mazenkin in a tearful voice.

“Stop the act.”

The king frowned and looked at me.

“What do you mean, Margrave?”

“Pave Kuslorf.”

I looked straight into the eyes of King Pave.

He flinched when he met my gaze, but it wasn’t because of my level.

“I can give you what you want.”

“…What I want?”

“I will let you escape from this place. So that you no longer have to see humans killing humans and sucking their blood to fill their bellies. I will let you live a peaceful and quiet life in a secluded place.”

“……..”

Pave erased his expression.

Before, I called him an interesting human.

And before that, I said that his personality wasn’t bad.

He was one of the few uncorrupted humans in this city.

Rather, he hated the blood flowing through him.

‘The most righteous person in the city of sin is an incompetent king.’

I chuckled inwardly.

He was a naturally good person, but his will was weak.

As the king of a country, he knew the truth of this world.

That humans are livestock and the human realm is a ranch for other races.

But his weak will did not lead to resistance.

‘You were the one who taught me about the fall of the 1st Dynasty.’

The only human king who resisted other races.

Pave, who hated the ancestor who killed him and usurped the throne.

In the old timelines, Pave told me the truth and blamed himself.

– I am too afraid to resist like the 1st Dynasty.

And he told me.

That he never wanted to be a king.

That he wanted to escape from the Blood Clan’s slaughterhouse and live quietly.

I recalled the endings I had faced in countless timelines.

The life he wanted had never been achieved.

“And if you want more, I will let you become Oscar.”

“Oscar?”

Oscar, the last king of the 1st Dynasty.

The human king who was destroyed and called a tyrant after resisting other races.

“You harbor a contradiction. You have conflicting desires to want peace and to stand against other races. I will give you the opportunity to achieve both.”

“A human resisting other races?”

“I killed the Emperor of Mycenae. Is there anything more I can’t do?”

Pave trembled as if struck by lightning.

“The Emperor…?”

He knew that the chaos was caused by the Blood Clan, but he didn’t know that the Emperor had come and died at my hands.

He couldn’t believe it, he was saying it was a lie, his eyes told me.

He looked straight at me and observed my expression.

Soon, he widened his eyes as if he had read something from me.

“You can just warm the throne as you have been doing so far. If you want your current life, I will not harm you in any way. But if you want something from me, you must also act accordingly. Pave.”

Pave was silent.

The maid behind him carefully took his hand.

He trembled for a moment and then nodded heavily.

He straightened his limping leg and said.

“As expected… you were no ordinary person. My eyes don’t lie.”

The intoxication disappeared from his voice.

“From the first time I saw you, I saw a greatness that Mazenkin couldn’t contain. Even bigger than Hugo’s master… Mazenkin, you foolish man, I told you. Could you handle it? Why did you die doing something you couldn’t do.”

He let out a bitter laugh.

“What do you want from me? Do you want me to abdicate?”

I shook my head.

“Not yet. The power of the nobles remains, so even if I receive the abdication right now, what I will face is resistance.”

“Then, like Mazenkin, will you put me in front and rule?”

That’s not it either.

Pave is a puppet king from the time of his accession.

The directly controlled land held by the royal family is only a small lord.

Sodomora is the capital, but it was not owned by the royal family.

What would I do by dominating Wallachia with him as a puppet?

‘It would have less influence than when I puppetized Count Dorin.’

Only those with power built up over many years like Mazenkin would benefit.

As a foreigner from Germania, I would only buy resistance.

“There are two things I will ask of you.”

“Two?”

“One, send me the slaves in this city.”

The total population of Sodomora is comparable to the entire northern Wallachia.

And since half of them are slaves, the number reaches hundreds of thousands.

Pave also knew this well, so he blinked, making a sound.

“Is that possible?”

“Most of the central nobles who were the owners of the slaves must have died in this incident. Isn’t it easy to steal the slaves who have lost their owners?”

“That’s true, but… what about food? How are you going to feed the slaves who are half the size of your territory’s population?”

Instead of answering, I smiled.

Pave laughed at my smile.

“You’ve prepared everything, from the beginning.”

He laughed like a fool.

“What’s the second thing?”

“Stoke the flames.”

“Flames?”

“A civil war will break out soon. Stoke the flames to make the fire bigger and reveal everything that the factions involved in the civil war have. And when the time is right, call me.”

The great nobles who coordinated the noble council have disappeared.

Also, many of the members of the noble council have disappeared.

Even Sodomora, which had authority as the capital even after several dynasties changed, suffered damage that was impossible to restore.

‘A situation where the central administration has disappeared overnight.’

The central nobles who survived but weakened,

The local nobles who are weak but have not been damaged,

They will try to find a new balance in the new environment.

“You don’t need to get deeply involved. Just lightly stoke the flames, and they will burn well on their own. Aren’t nobles such beings?”

Chuckling, Pave nodded his head greatly.

I gestured to Mountain Old Man Nuadir.

“Protect him and subjugate the underworld of Sodomora.”

“I understand.”

The underworld of Sodomora was a business led by the Blood Clan.

The work that Hugo and Agaton did to dominate Wallachia.

Because they couldn’t openly operate in the light, they extended their hands into the shadows.

Assassination, smuggling, slave trade, finance, gambling, etc…

The arena was doing more dirty and numerous things to the point where it looked cute.

‘Assassinating dissidents, supplying blood bags to the Blood Clan, intimidating and bribing nobles, these are the things the Blood Clan did through the underworld.’

The underworld also suffered great damage in this incident.

Because those who dominated them were the Blood Clan and their Servants.

They must have been caught up when I returned the Servants to ashes with the power of the ring.

“Wipe out all the sinful acts they are committing. All I need is the eyes and ears they have. You must dominate Wallachia from the shadows and become my eyes and ears.”

To maintain a business, you need money.

To get money, you have to do dirty work.

But am I short of money?

I could print money at any time.

Therefore, there was no need to do dirty work.

I just need to fully obtain the eyes and ears of the entire Wallachia.

‘Wallachia is over.’

Like a deliberative assembly that has lost its mediator, Wallachia will be engulfed in civil war.

And as time passes, it will be properly filtered and swallowed by me.

“Edar-nim.”

I turned my head.

Griff and Gerhard were leading the slaves.

Most of the slaves survived even in the chaos.

There would be no need to kill livestock.

They survived because their lives were worthless.

“We’re going to have another hectic period for a while.”

Griff chuckled.

“That will be rewarding.”

I climbed onto the ramparts and looked down at the slaves.

At the very front, I saw the siblings I had taken from the slave trader.

The wounds from the whip had been washed away, and there was no pain in their expressions.

The eyes of the child holding each other’s hands tightly trembled.

“……..”

The slaves looked up at me, holding their breath.

They will know that I am their new master.

Recognizing the master is the most necessary virtue for a slave.

I said to the slaves who were standing blankly, waiting for their master’s words.

“You are no longer slaves.”