Bloody Revolution

I looked out of the window at the people gathered in front of the palace. A wave of anxiety and panic had spread through the masses, turning them into a bomb ready to explode, and all I needed was a small spark to make my plan come to life.

Meanwhile, a tense scene unfolded outside: a woman from among the people stepped forward, fell at the feet of one of the nobles and began to speak in tears:

"My husband, where is my husband, did he die in the war or is he alive. Please answer me, I cannot live without him, how can I raise my two children without him. Please help me."

But for some reason the nobleman was extremely angry at her cries and with one blow he cut off her hands with the sword he had sheathed. Everyone was looking at each other in astonishment, even the nobleman was looking at his bloody sword in horror, trying to understand what he had just done. It was as if the devil had whispered in her ear to silence that woman, and in a moment of anger she had drawn her sword.

"It is your duty to protect the people."

"You sacrificed our wives and fathers for nothing."

"The people are not puppets who mean nothing to you, who are thrown away after they have been used."

Various words began to come out from the angry people and the anger spread like wildfire. One of them picked up a stone and threw it at the nobleman. This was followed by another, and with herd psychology, everyone began to flock to the palace in anger. Shalltear was at the back of the crowd, laughing slyly at the whole spectacle and following the events with amusement.

To save their own skins, the nobles scapegoated the king for all the bad things. As a result, all the violence of the people ravaged the king and his family. The king and his family were guillotined one by one in the square for all to see.

In his last moments, the king's mind was storming. Everything was going well, the Eight Fingers had been brought down, the demon invasion had been thwarted. But suddenly everything went downhill, as if this collapse had been carefully orchestrated by someone. Which madman had caused it all, the empire or the nobles?

The king's eyes scanned those around him, the nobles looked at him with hatred, as if he was really responsible. From these fools who had deceived themselves with their own lies, the king begged for mercy, at least for his son to live. But the people who only yesterday were mourning his daughter were now eagerly awaiting his death and that of his family, and the hypocrisy of the people made him angry. The king looked at Gazef for the last time with sad eyes. This man of the people was the only one he trusted completely and had served him with honor and loyalty. Then his tired eyes fell on me, and my face involuntarily contorted into an evil smile as I thought of him and what was to come. The king's eyes looked at me with pure hatred, I think he understood everything.

{Yes, I did everything, I killed your family, I destroyed your rule, I am the cause of it all. And now I will take what is yours and you will look at me longingly from the afterlife after you die. But don't worry, you won't be alone there, after all, I will send many people for you}.

The king's eyes flickered with shock as the guillotine descended on his head, each blade taking a life from the royal family.

The nobles breathed a sigh of relief that they had escaped unscathed. But the flames of public anger had not yet fully peeled off and I carefully directed them at the nobles.

In an instant the soldiers surrounded the nobles. Ignoring the nobles who shouted in confusion and fear, pretending to be innocent, I patiently took the stand and exposed all their dirty books. Selling information to the enemy country, bribery, smuggling, exploitation of the people, drugs, prostitution and so on were all known to the people.

The people, fired with a new fury, picked off the nobles one by one and guillotined them, the only exception being Marquis Reavendi. In just a few days the squares were covered in crimson blood, heads and bodies were buried in deep pits. (Later all these bodies were secretly taken by me.)

When the guillotine madness was over, public anger had subsided, but it was replaced by anxiety. The war with the Empire was going on, but there was no one left to lead them and the inept people didn't know what to do. In short, the people were looking for a Napoleon, and I was more than willing to play that role for them. My uncovering the truth about the nobles, the things I had done for the people before, and Shalltear's secret help had raised me in their eyes.

As a result, the people appointed me as their new king and I filled the empty positions with Nazarik's floor guards.

I took the estates and treasures of all the nobles in the country, except Marquis Reaven, and began to pay them salaries. With the excessive amount of resources I obtained, I began to make radical reforms. I began to take measures against bribery and smuggling, to reform the tax system and to unify the army. I limited the nobles' troops to a maximum of five hundred soldiers and created a tax system that gradually increased for every hundred soldiers they had. I reduced the country's military strength to one hundred thousand by selecting the strongest soldiers and started introducing new military systems to increase professionalism. I hired soldiers of at least level 10 as soldiers in my army and started building military and magic academies to train new soldiers and regulated soldiers' salaries. I hired mainly high-level adventurers as military trainers and we raided the undead in Katze Plains over time to level up the soldiers. I provided important advantages for the military careers of powerful people like Brain and Gazef. I started researching not only magic but also technology, and the first step was the production of cannons thanks to gunpowder technology. In the future I planned to create a special agile unit equipped only with firearms.

Industrially, I started researching steam engines, which would allow us to build factories and increase our production capacity.

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Now it was time to end the war with the empire. The simplest solution was to do what Momonga had mistakenly done in the original story.

I went to the adventurers' guild, met with the guild leader and with the help of his friend Osk we traveled to the capital to arrange a battle with Go Gin, the most powerful warrior in the arena.

I planned my journey to the Empire carefully because I knew that Jircniv would act behind my back and I had chosen the day of the war specifically. Osk greeted me graciously and directed me to the armory. The bunny girl headhunter (actually a man, which surprised me) was looking at me carefully, trying to gauge my strength, but because of her [Insignia of Void] ring, she perceived my strength like a normal human.

"Please allow me to introduce myself, I am Osk, a normal merchant." Osk said with the respect befitting a merchant.

"I am Ashfall Nightshade aka Neoth the God Emperor. The reason for my meeting with you is that I wish to fight Go Gin. I have a hobby of fighting powerful people."

"Sir Ashfall, do you really want to fight Go Gin, the most powerful warrior in the arena? I mean...well..."

"Don't worry, I assure you that you will not be harmed by any injuries that come my way, because I will not be wounded."

"Sir Ashfall, as you wish. But according to our rules of combat you will not use magic, only weapons and martial arts." Osk spoke firmly.

"What?! But Ashfall-sama is a sorcerer, how can you forbid him?" His friend spoke in astonishment and objected to this unfair decision.

"I agree, it is not fair to ban magic, and I know it is because you hate magic, but in spite of that, I will not use magic in the arena during the battle." I gave Osk a sarcastic look and spoke with a confident grin.

"By the way, Osk, I introduced you as a normal merchant, but you are anything but normal, judging by the fact that you have that assassin bunny man disguised as a girl as your bodyguard." I reached out my hand to the rabbitman and released my killing aura. The rabbitman knelt on the ground and started vomiting everything in his stomach and was peeing out of fear.

"Next time you try to probe me with your ugly eyes, I'll feed you to the cockroaches." I said sternly.

Osk's face was covered in sweat and he swallowed deeply, thinking that because of his behavior he would be next.

"See you tomorrow then Mr. Osk, please watch me eagerly in the arena." I returned to my country, taking the guild leader with me.

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When I stepped into the arena tomorrow, the judges greeted me with applause and began their rousing speech:

"At last, warrior Go Gin's opponent reveals himself. And here is Ashfall Nightshade, the man everyone has heard the most about lately."

I turned to face Jircniv, who was watching me in horror from his private room high above the arena. The look of disbelief and panic on his face told me that I had caught him in the act. I flew to him and landed in the room. Sitting in the seats next to him were the high priests of the fire and air scriptures of the Slane Theocracy, looking at me and Jircniv with an expression as if they had just eaten shit. They seemed to think that all this had been planned by Jircniv and I had no intention of correcting this misunderstanding.

"My friend Jircniv, I am glad to see you in good health, you did well to trap the men of the Theocracy as we planned, you are indeed a successful ally."

"It is good to see you, King Ashfall, but there is a slight misunderstanding here."

Jircniv's eyes widened and he stammered and tried to explain the incident to those around him, to prove his innocence, but the facts told a different story.

"But Jircniv, it really saddens me to see an emperor like you sitting at the same table with the dogs of the Theocracy. So I will take care of this for you so that you can watch me fight with peace of mind." I cast a paralysis spell to immobilize everyone and increased the blood pressure in the High Priests' bodies. In front of everyone in the room, blood began to gush from the seven holes of the high priests and stained the room red.

"Take the bodies back to your country, this is my gift to the Theocracy. Even if your six stupid gods rise from the grave, they will not protect you from my terror." I healed the paralyzed state of the Theocracy soldiers and let them flee, drenching the room.

"Jircniv, you will now be free to watch my battle in the arena." I stroked Jircniv's head affectionately, but a few strands of his hair remained in my hand.

"Jircniv, my friend, you should take care of your health, or have you started doing a hundred push-ups and a hundred sit-ups every day?" I used the [Extend tier VI magic: Heal] spell.

"I healed you with a sixth level spell, so you are healthier than before, but try to avoid stress. Anyway, I'm off to war."

"This is the moment we've been waiting for, the legend of the arena, the warrior king Go Gin, is coming to the front." Go Gin came to me in full plate metal armor with heavy steps.

"I am Go Gin, the Warrior King. I would like to know the name of the person I will fight today."

"I am Ashfall Nightshade. Interesting war troll, and at an average of thirty-five levels, combined with your racial traits, you are on another level altogether. But your weak strength is of no value to me. Nevertheless, if I win, you will be my soldier and your life will depend on my decision."

"Then if I win I will eat you, maybe if I eat someone as strong as you I will become stronger."

There was loud applause and words of support for Go Gin from the twitchers. Even Jircniv was rooting for the troll, hoping that Go Gin would win and kill me.

At this moment the arena's battle bell rang and Go Gin took up his fighting stance and waited. I had not brought any weapons with me, so I clenched my fists and started to attack.

As I went on the offensive, I disappeared from sight and appeared next to the head of the two to three meter troll, and I hit the muzzle of its helmet with my fist. With the force of the blow, the helmet collapsed and the giant troll flew to the other end of the arena. But Go Gin used [Flow Acceleration] to attack me with unexpected speed from his big body and tried to hit me with his huge mace using [Strong Strike]. His attack was too slow for my eyes, so I easily dodged it by taking a few steps to the side. I instantly appeared behind the troll, put my hand on the armor on its back and directed my aura into my palm, Go Gin's armor shattered from the inside and his bones broke.

Go Gin collapsed heavily and began to support himself with his mace until he recovered. But I was not going to let that happen, so I attacked almost at the speed of light, smashing all the troll's claws with my kicks, hitting him on the head with the mace I took from his crushed arm and slamming him against the arena wall. The concussion shook the whole arena and left the twitchers speechless.

A few seconds later Go Gin, now stripped of all his crushed armor, ran towards me. I stomped my foot hard on the ground and the ground cracked like a spider web and huge chunks of rock flew up. I kicked the flying rocks and threw them like balls towards the troll. Go Gin dodged them all, avoiding them or crushing them with his fist, but he could not stop the mace I threw from behind the last rock. My mace struck him at nose level, crushing his entire skull and collapsing his face inward. After a few seconds Go Gin recovered and began to speak, breathing heavily:

"You never fought seriously during our battle and you didn't even use magic against me because if you were serious you would have killed me instantly. But I'm having a lot of fun right now and I'm very excited to be up against someone much stronger than me."

"It's true that I'm really holding back, after all, at 300 levels, I'm strong enough to smash all the dragon lords by myself."

"Attack me with all your might, I want to see your true strength." Go Gin grinned, unable to suppress his curiosity.

The moment I removed my ring from my finger, an extreme wave of energy spread throughout the arena.

"Ahhh...I understand now...the abyss between us." Go Gin stammered, sweating profusely.

I opened my hand like a sword and pointed it at the troll, and I clenched every muscle in my arm extremely tight and closed it into a fist. There was still distance between us, so my fist never hit him, but Go Gin's whole body was torn apart and turned into a vapor of blood. This was another powerful martial arts one that I created, [Terror of the Fist Demon], and it was inspired by the "one inch punch".

Then I pointed my hand at the pool of blood on the ground and revived Go Gin with the [Divine Resurrection] spell. This self-created spell allows me to resurrect even the weakest creature without suffering all the disadvantages of resurrection, but it costs three times more mana than [True Resurrection], and the more time that passes since death, the more costly it becomes.

Go Gin froze for a few seconds, as if surprised at how he had come back from the dead, and began to laugh enthusiastically.

"Of course I had to resurrect you to keep your promise. Don't worry, even if you come back to life thanks to my magic, you won't get any weakness. After all, I am a god that even death is wary of."

All the spectators in the arena started to applaud us enthusiastically. I flew into Jircniv's room and started talking with a sly grin on my face:

"Emperor Jircniv, I hope you enjoyed my battle. I've tried to prolong the war for you as long as possible, after all, it might take you away from the stress a little bit more. In any case, I must return to my country, I hope you stay healthy."

"Wait, Ashfall Nightshade, the Baharuth Empire has agreed to become your vassal state." Jircniv announced loudly. His words took the guards with him by surprise.

"Jircniv, please let's save the political issues for our meeting in a few days, so that both sides can discuss the terms in a written decree." I spoke in this way as if I had a plan even bigger than the empire. Then I took Go Gin and teleported back to my country.

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I eagerly await your ideas in the comments and what do you think should be the name of our new empire?

Don't forget to send power stones :-)