Ellergest had woken up early this morning. Although his old bones were not as strong as they used to be, he was still the strongest Spirit Master of the Village, it was his responsibility to watch over the people and protect them, even more as he was the High Priest of the Church of the Holy Spirits in here.
Due to being particularly busy with his own life and his friends, Blake (or Blank, as they know him) had not attended the church for a whole week, which was all the time Ellergest and Lukas spend planning the crusade towards the forest, which would put an end to the demon's den and quite possibly to their menace to the entire fiefdom.
He had prepared this carefully and had armed both Soldiers and Knights with great equipment using the church and the duke's funds. His priests were also well equipped with magical accessories that enhanced both maximum Mana and Magic and Mana regeneration speed. Alongside that, hundreds of healing potions had been purchased from the nearby Apothecary Store, where Eric's uncle and aunt worked.
The old priest had lived a long life filled with both challenges and happy moments. It has been a while since he went against such a large-scale threat aside from Cassandra's incident, which ended evolving into such a battle unexpectedly. However, deep down, Ellergest wasn't sure that he would had been able to win against her without the help of the mysterious yet incredibly strong boy, Blank.
Now that the boy had been disappeared for a week, he couldn't count on his strength and talents. It wasn't as if he had always done so, and he was already preparing things on his own, relying on the boy wouldn't be good, and it was thankfully never on his mind to do so, but it would surely be nice if he were here to help out. But sadly, he wasn't.
Ellergest was an old man with a lot of experience in battle, especially against demons, the otherworldly invaders of this world that had become the common threat of all of humanity.
Today in the morning, Ellergest gathered with Lukas, other Priests, and Knights inside the church. Elizabeth and Erdrich were also present here as they were Ellergest adopted children and were strong enough to deserve to take part in this discussion.
Over a table there was a map of the forest made long ago, showing the three layers it had. Each layer became more denser and darker as the trees grew larger and blocked the sun from the sky. it was shown through marks and drawings the different types of monsters that roamed this place, and demons as well.
There were certain rivers and lakes that were used as ways to lead the people through certain routes as well, and Ellergest was showing several areas he marked with small wooden figures.
"Since the beginning of this demon invasion that I've been investigating the radiation of demonic energy using my abilities and magic. I had discovered that the deeper one goes into the forest, the more dense the demonic energy becomes.
Which is incredibly abnormal, if there was a natural Demon Gate, we would be receiving high quantities of demon energy enough to create streams of red-colored essence in the skies, turning the skies red over time.
However, this doesn't happen, yet there is such a high quantity, all concentrated in here… the center of the third layer, the area we all call the Demon's Den." Ellergest said, pointing at a marked area in the map.
"How have you been able to detect demon energy so far away, Lord Ellergest?" Wondered Lukas.
"It is not easy, but an old man like me has his tricks. All priests that can wield light and life element magic eventually learn the power of holy magic, which is the complete opposite of the demons, and their weakness. By manipulating the holy light element and slowly learning new rune formulas and magic circles, I've been able to design specific spells that allow my senses to detect demon energy.
It is not easy but it is not so hard either. My Spirit helps a lot with that. The drawback is the smell, demonic energy smells like burning wood, and it gets intoxicating at times…" Sighed Ellergest.
"To think that Lord Ellergest can detect demons from so far away…"
"Lord Ellergest, were you able to detect how many demons are there, exactly?"
The Knights in the room began asking various questions to Ellergest, as the old man began answering them one by one patiently.
"Yes, I had detected the demon's quantity, I had roughly made an estimate. They're more than us…" Sighed Ellergest.
"By how…many?" Asked Lukas while swallowing saliva.
"There might be roughly… six to seven hundred." Said Ellergest, his eyes filled with contempt.
"This is… don't we need more troops to stop them all?"
"Even if they're the Imps which we can slay many with our troops… aren't the number of troops way too much for us to handle? Unless we have a high-ranked spirit master that has bombardment magic…"
"But even then, can such explosive magic target hundreds at a time? Someone that strong wouldn't even care about helping us in the first place unless we paid them billions!"
"Calm down you lot!" Said Ellergest, slamming the table and shutting down all the nervous Knights and their ramblings. The priests remained in silence and calm, as they had plans of their own as well. "I had not planned things out for you to panic so much!
We are not alone here, the village is also willing to help us, and we priests possess strong fighters and attackers as well, I have not invested so much in Mana Potions for not to use them… We'll use our holy magic to defeat dozens of demons at a time. We need the protection of the soldiers and the knights for that though, so you'll all be our shields."
"I see… But what sort of help will… the villagers give?" Wondered Lukas.
The door suddenly opened, as a handsome young adult man entered the room, holding into a spear.
"I want to present you someone. This is Joan, Farmer, and Hunter..." Said Ellergest.