I'm a monster in Demon King's Castle

“Bite my devil's ass, someone's catching up. Are we going back to the arena or not, 21? Have you guys decided? Don't waste my time any longer…”

In the abandoned king's tent, a chariot with the upper body of a knight and the lower body of a wheeled vehicle was parked in the center. The lion carvings on the chariot's outer wall spoke.

“Yeah, 21, hurry up and decide. Are you going to escape or return?” In mid-air, a round streamer covered in feathers was emitting a piercing sound through the bird head hanging on its body.

As it spoke, the bird's beak also spat out light, floating clouds, and the bird claws on the streamer grabbed the clouds to float.

“64, you say something too.” The bird's beak poked at a lizard hanging upside down from the king's tent chandelier.

“Don't touch me… Pressuring 21 is useless… They're always like this, unable to agree…” The demonic lizard on the chandelier groomed the barbs on its skin with its thin tongue, licking out streaks of blood.

The chariot, streamer, and demonic lizard were talking to a patch of lawn on the ground.

That lawn almost covered the entire abandoned king's tent, with several kinds of plants growing on it, also interlocked with all kinds of corpses.

The plants included the sharp, serrated eviscerating grass, the continuously burning flame grass that ignited in the wind, the highly poisonous vine grass, and the extremely fertile gestation grass that constantly rolled and regenerated.

Among these grasses of various shapes, priests, heroes, red-skinned devils, and even siege beasts with half their bodies blown off were all “growing” together, nourishing each other.

This was a death lawn, and also the gladiator ranked 21st in the arena, a kind of evil plant.

The chariot demon, streamer demon, and demonic lizard were ranked 77th, 42nd, and 64th respectively, addressing each other by rank—they, who had recently fled the Holy City battlefield, were discussing whether they should return to the arena.

Except for the chariot demon with its metal body, the demonic lizard and streamer demon stayed far away from the death lawn, not wanting to be touched by any plant or corpse.

Because those surviving gladiators who were accidentally touched had already become part of the death lawn.

And this also indirectly caused the death lawn's thoughts to be slower, because it needed more time to absorb ideas and unify opinions.

“Soon… Soon…” On the lawn, a red-skinned devil with half its head missing slowly withered, responding to the chariot, streamer, and demonic lizard's urging.

“Soon? How long until his demon cocoon is ready?” The chariot demon was an impatient one, “It wasn't easy for the expeditionary army to disband on the spot, and the Sack… The King's authority has also been weakened, we can finally make a new choice!”

The gladiators of the arena naturally signed soul contracts with Oogie Boogie, but as Li Read led the heroes to break through the arena, Oogie Boogie's constraints were reduced to the lowest level. In addition, with Memphisto returning to the city, this group of abandoned gladiators was basically in a state of being unattended.

“The Tas Empire's army, and the two great families are blocking the outside, whether we can regain our freedom depends on now!” The chariot's wheels swayed back and forth, crushing countless blades of grass.

Among the four gladiators, the chariot wanted to return to the arena to enjoy the cheers of the demons, while the demonic lizard and streamer demon wanted to take the opportunity to slip into the continent's dense forests, waiting only for the death lawn to make a decision.

Whether they wanted to return to the arena or not, they needed the death lawn's help to break through the human encirclement.

At this time, they were in the last king's tent before the First Army broke through the Holy City.

The king's tent was located in the Riftgold Mountains, in the heart of the Papal States' territory, known for its gold, silver, and ores used to make sacred weapons, radiating five towns, and was also made by the First Army into hundreds of small blood cocoons, filled with red mist, becoming the first foothold for the demons fleeing the Holy City.

Memphisto left too hastily, the Tas Empire's army counterattacked too quickly, and the townspeople embedded in the small blood cocoons had not even died yet.

“Did you hear that, it said, it's now!”

In the side tent, Li Read, Yingying, Egg, and Steel Baby were huddled in the shadows, with Egg urging repeatedly.

“Didn't you hear it say 'soon'? Don't rush, wait.” Li Read had analyzed the chariot, demonic lizard, and streamer demon, and was now analyzing the death lawn—these were all high-level demons, killing them not only gave demon points, but also dropped materials, he couldn't let them go.

Recently, Li Read had been killing heroes, only angels existed in the demon illustrated book, but killing them didn't give demon points either.

Recalling how difficult it was to face the octopus shapeshifter ranked 157th, now Li Read was already prepared to scheme against 4 gladiators ranked in the top hundred.

“I'm back.” Yingying had a wide coverage area. While Li Read was analyzing the 4 gladiators, it wasn't idle, running out to scout the situation of the imperial army.

Even though absorbing information sources caused some injuries, Yingying was still very curious about the imperial army's behavior.

“How is it?” The Riftgold Mountains radiated five towns, a large area. Li Read had tunneled in using earth magic, and hadn't encountered the imperial army head-on, so he didn't know their composition.

“There are fifteen magic cannons, is that enough?” Yingying cared about what Li Read cared about.

“Hehe.” Li Read couldn't help but laugh.

Jesse had put in so much effort to get a few wrecks. If he could bring fifteen magic cannons into his possession intact, he believed that with Copper Spoon's ability, it would be enough to develop the library's own magic cannons.

“There's also a mage, three hundred clockwork soldiers, and a group of civilians…” Following that, Yingying began to talk about the composition of the imperial army.

“Civilians?” Li Read didn't understand why civilians were also participating in the war.

Yingying didn't explain, directly dispersing into hundreds of small humanoids, spreading out into a miniature map to show Li Read.

“Oh, gunners and engineers…” Li Read understood what “civilians” meant—on the miniature map, the imperial army was sweeping the outer five towns, approaching the Riftgold Mountain king's tent from the northwest.

“What are these two blobs…” Li Read noticed that there were two clumps on the map that weren't little people, but two family crests.

One of the family crests was very familiar, it was the “Cross Sword” he had seen on Jesse's sword hilt and magic mirror, the Kingston family crest; the other was a simple sketch of three rows of heads, stacked together, looking like a lot of people.

Combining what he had just heard from the 4 gladiators, Li Read immediately understood that these were the teams of two nobles.

“The Kingston family and the Clive family… They're here to sweep up demons?” Li Read had read 《Noble Directory of Calender 259》 and recognized the origins of these two families.

“It's not entirely like that, there are gold and silver mines in the mountains, the Kingston family is here for the ore; the Clive family is using magic to separate the still-living humans from the small blood cocoons, locking them together, and transporting them back to the Tas Empire.” Yingying saw more clearly and shared it with Li Read.

One takes the ore, the other grabs slaves?

Li Read immediately remembered that there seemed to be small print in 《Noble Directory of Calender 259》, mentioning that the Kingston family dabbled in mineral products, ordnance, and machine soldier raw materials, while the Clive family had made “great contributions” to the Empire in “developing and balancing” labor, with footprints all over the Sea of ​​Death.

The authors of 《Noble Directory》 wrote too brightly, only writing about the great deeds of the nobles, and not exposing their true nature.

“Understood.” Li Read nodded.

The major families had been suppressed by the imperial army for a long time, and this time they finally waited for the expeditionary army to retreat, so they began to seize territory and grab war spoils.

As the Papal States' largest gold and silver mine and sacred weapon raw material production area, the Kingston family was determined to get the Riftgold Mountains, and the townspeople of the five towns were also a great wealth, which the Clive family would not let go of.

Thinking again of the Clive family's motto "Man is everything", Li Read suddenly understood.

“The imperial army and the two great families, plus the deserters of the First Army all over the mountains! Let's do a good job!” Egg came to life.

“Remember, our main goals are three, one is information about Oogie Boogie, and the other is the magic cannons and the four gladiators, don't mess it up.” Li Read was ready to make a big scene.

“Okay, which one to do first?” Egg was eager to try.

“Of course, we have to clean the house first.” Li Read pointed with his tentacles to the four gladiators meeting in the king's tent, “The heroes are too slow, we can't wait.”

Analysis complete, let's do it.