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The Abyssal Golems were all stationed nearby and ready to strike at a moment’s notice. With that card in hand, my position was a lot more hardline this time.

“Regret? Hmph. I don’t even know how that word is spelt. How about you teach me then?” Before Meisian even had the chance to answer, Anmi had already answered for her. With another scoff, he continued, “How about you take a second to look around? You’re the one surrounded by the elders, not us! And you actually want to threaten us. How stupid can you be?”

‘Ah…I was just scolded by a moron…a moron actually scolded me…I’m such a disgrace to the Fallen Angels…still, if that silly couple won’t see reason, I might have to use force.’

‘But if I were to use force, things will just end up more complicated. Honestly, as long as force is involved, there will always be one side being oppressed. If it’s possible, I would rather recruit them willingly…without danger to myself, of course.’

“You guys are the ones who won’t believe me. In that case, I’ll just have to apologise for any offense I might cause in the future.”

There was no guarantee that she would relent even when forced, but at the very least, my safety would be guaranteed this way. Time for the direct method…

With no other choice available to me, I yelled in the direction of the city walls. “All my golems, assemble!”

As I said that, my still as a statue golems finally moved. The mere act of all seven hundred of my golems acting at once immediately caused the surroundings to quake. Still in the midst of their card game, the elder cats and their black cards started to tremble as well. Their eyes went wide as they finally awoke from their gambling stupor.

“What’s happening? An earthquake? Or is the volcano erupting?”

“Doesn’t seem like it. There’s no volcano near us that can erupt.”

“The shaking is so bad, I’m getting a little giddy here…”

“I don’t care how giddy you are, I’m about to win here and none of you better renege on the bet!”

“Bah, I’m done playing. My head hurts…”

“Me too… Masrow, how about we end this round…”

“What’s the meaning of this? Hey, why are you throwing away the cards? Pick them up and let’s continue playing! I’m about to win already…blast it all…you shameless cats…are you cats even gamblers?”

‘…The question is are you cats even normal?.’

“Tear down that wall! Hahaha, tear down that wall, quick!” Mo Na was more than familiar with the shaking caused by my golems moving, thus her confidence immediately surged. “Mama, call out that big golem as well, we can tear up the place while riding it!”

Naturally, the big golem she was talking about was the Devil King Idol. I was actually worried that the elder cats would suddenly attack us. After all, their combat strength was a fair bit higher than ours; if they were to launch an attack without warning, we would suffer greatly.

“Elders! Now’s not the time for games, the enemy is already at our gates!” Meisian couldn’t help but yell at her elders who were still busy messing around despite the current situation. “My castle is about to be destroyed. If that happens, you can forget about ever eating any Ashen Fur Mice or Meowberries!”

“Don’t worry, it won’t fall.” Masrow calmly eyed her, his face a picture of serenity. “Even if you don’t feed us, there’s still Gaiuz and Weiderly. What’s the worst that can happen? We just hop over to their camp and continue sponging off them.”

‘Continue sponging…For some reason, I have this sudden realisation that these elders are actually pretty self-aware…they’ve clearly resolved themselves to be leeches.’

“Elders, please make your move now…” Meisian selectively ignored the latter half of Masrow’s words. In a worried voice, she continued, “There’s a horde of strange monsters outside our city walls right now…I’m afraid the walls can’t handle them..”

“They won’t collapse, they are all built to last. Unless the enemy has the power of an Eight-star, there’s basically no chance of them even getting dama-”

Boom

Before Masrow could even finish saying the word damaged, a portion of the wall came crashing down. The nearby Purgatory Shadowcats immediately meowed with shock and began scattering. A number of cats who were originally stationed on the walls began jumping off the walls in alarm… so that’s what the saying, when the tree falls, the monkeys scatter, mean.

A burly arm, made entirely out of a reddish-black material, came piercing through a section of the wall. It tried grabbing around but to no avail. After a few seconds of doing so, it retracted back out of sight without its prize. Still, the fact was that the wall now had a gaping hole in it.

The city wall of the Purgatory Shadowcats was roughly ten meters tall, half the height of the Devil King Idol. The Abyssal Golems were all five meters or so while my Winged Abyssal Golems were seven meters tall; there was no way these normal golems could step over the wall. Only by bashing through the wall could they hope to find passage within.

While it was true that this wall of theirs could withstand up to an Eight-star’s attacks, but my Winged Abyssal Golems had the physical strength approaching that of an Eight-star’s. Not to mention that 102 of them were stationed outside right now…

Now that the city wall had a hole in it, it was only a matter of time before it became a honeycomb of holes and collapsed.

Boom, boom, boom, went the thunderous punches of seven hundred golems simultaneously bashing on a wall. The defenseless wall began to crack and expose its inhabitants within. From the looks of things, it was only a matter of seconds before it came crumbling down.

“Impossible…” The moment the first hole appeared, Masrow practically jumped out of his fur, eyes wide in shock. “Don’t tell me there’s an Eight-star outside right now?”

“I told you there were monsters outside!” She furiously glared at him but still left the uglier parts of what she wanted to say unsaid.

“I’ll go have a look myself.” Masrow leaped gracefully onto the city wall. As he stared ahead, his feline back stayed straight as an arrow, and his eyes sharp as one. It almost looked like he was ready to leap down and face off against the horde of golems arrayed before him.

A mere second later, he actually jumped off the city wall. With an elegant curve of his feline body, he did a somersault in the air and landed softly beyond the walls. Then…he came charging through one of the holes created by the golems. All that talk of cats climbing walls and dogs crawling through holes was basically non-existent at this point. “Why the heck are there so many…”

So what was he referring to when he said so many? Naturally, it was my golems. Over seven hundred golems gathering in a single spot wasn’t a sight one could simply laugh off. Did they think that being a savior was easy? If Masrow really dared to take even a step further, it would be the end of his cat life.

“I told you to apprehend them earlier…” When Meisian first received us, she already caught wind of my golems. Even though she didn’t know how powerful they were then, one could easily guess that they were no pushovers based on their sheer size.

“Now isn’t too late.” Masrow’s fast thinking was truly a marvel. He immediately grasped what was needed to save his feline skin right now. That was to hold us as hostages.

At the same time that I saw him charge through the hole, my left hand immediately grabbed the Gem of Authority hanging on my neck. My right hand grabbed my precious daughter. “Everyone, keep close. I’ll summon the Devil King Idol.”

“Get them!”

Masrow and the other elder cats immediately pounced on his command. Unfortunately for them, they were a tad too late. I had already seen through their intentions from the start and summoned forth my Devil King Idol, teleporting all of us into the safety of its dimensional pocket. The elder cats leapt at what they saw was us but ended up banging into the leg of the Devil King Idol instead.

In order to avoid maiming these cats, I had the idol stand perfectly still. It wasn’t like they could harm it anyway. As long as I threatened them again, they should give up quietly.

Only after banging my idol did those silly cats realise how sturdy this new golem was. Retreat immediately crept into their minds, but their pride didn’t allow them to just give up like that.

“It’s time we ended this farce.” My voice transmitted outwards through the idol. Without even waiting for those elders to react, I had my idol quickly stomp down on the ground with its right foot. This simple act was enough to send more tremors reverberating throughout the entire castle city, its strength nearly comparable to that of my seven hundred golems.

Where the idol treads, the earth shakes.

Being the closest to the idol, Masrow and his elders felt first hand how terrifying my idol’s true strength was. At its level of destructiveness, that simple stomp could have killed at least of them if I so wished.

“Not good…it’s an Eight-star…”

With how quickly the situation spiralled out of their control, the grand elder Masrow promptly turned tail and ran, the rest of his elders quickly following in his cat steps in a bid to escape from this no man’s land.

“Little Meisian…exactly who did you end up offending this time…we need to get out of here, quick! We can’t win.”

Masrow brought the elders to Meisian’s platform. Their intention was to grab the tiny cat king and quickly escape. However, she would have none of that. Even if her husband, Anmi, was clearly frightened stiff beside her, she still showed no sign of relenting.

“Escape? Never.” Meisian coldly swept her eyes over the frightened elder cats. Her lips curled into a disdainful scoff. “I already knew that I can’t depend on you cats, so I had the foresight to notify the Great Elder.”

Shameless Self-promotion

If you liked my work translating Devil’s Evolution Catalog, feel free to check out Song of Adolescence. Also, every comment is appreciated even though I might not reply. I do read them.