The closest city to the Demon King's Castle is the quiet Campeuty, a three-day journey flying leisurely from the Gates of Dusk.
CAMPEUTY
The city of stone-paved streets, and constructions of wood and dark stone, was home to ten thousand inhabitants.
It was surrounded by rye fields, shining like gold for acres, among smallholdings, farms, and cottages with lawns where cows and goats grazed.
When at the Old Drunkard's Tavern the three girls posted a strange advertisement, about job contracts, guard Heregyth questioned them about who would pay for so many different services, after all, the list had nineteen offers for maids alone.
And Cwenburg answered:
— What was his name again? — she thought in silence, and her friends replied, hearing the same as the guard. — Oh right, the Demon King.
PRISON
In prison, the three stuck to Cwenburg's story, but guard Heregyth only accepted such insanity as truth after two tests, with an oracle and with a sorceress, both experts in identifying lies.
Thus the guard wrote an extensive report and sent it to the court.
King Adremelech II, of Horn Cove, gathered influential nobles, and the situation was explained, with spies being sent to ascertain the situation at the Demon King's Castle.
After the first month they had one certainty. The Demon King no longer possessed his feared army, and except for an immortal old man, seen trying to prune the garden trees and failing, no one else inhabited the domains of eternal night.
Thus, news was sent to the twenty territories, and the greatest of all armys took shape. The world baptized this gathering as the Storm Alliance.
In the second month of preparation, from the kingdom of Hornarie came two hundred thousand unicorns, with silver and gold armor, forming the beginning of the glorious cavalry.
The female unicorns were mages, powerful, of ice and water, and numbered a cadre of ten thousand of the highest level.
The mermaids and mermen of the kingdom of Gran Pearl came, fifty thousand with legs like humans, and fifty thousand with fish tails taming sea serpents, for there were many rivers bordering the night lands.
— Tell me more about the Demon King's contracts. — exhausted, and with piled-up work, Heregyth brought ice cream to the trio, on a night amidst the disorder with so many arriving and camping nearby.
— What exactly do you want to know, guard? — Leofwynn was irritated, everyone around feared them more than mistreated them. And who would mess with the Demon King's minions?
— I want to know the benefits? Is there a uniform? Is he asking for criminal records? — Heregyth adjusted his glasses, and was soon removed from the anti-magic cell, other guards took his place, and none of them ever spoke to the trio again.
In the third month, the vulcans from the kingdom of Fire Hearth arrived, and the climate of Honoran, capital of Horn Cove, was altered to perpetual summer. There were six thousand in total, all swordsmen.
The serpentariums from the kingdom of Escamarin, with the lammia as females, with blessing spells, and the winged serpents as males, the first aerial mounts, numbered twelve thousand in total.
Among them were many heroes.
The well-known Mother of Enchantments, and the Lady of the Blizzard. They were witches feared for their deeds in the Battle of the Crystal Lake, where they exterminated fourteen thousand undead.
Thorfyn was the barbarian baptized in blood as Devastation, he had a four-meter mace, and walked naked.
Blix, was called Dark Knight, in full black armor, with bat engravings.
There was the Clown Man.
And Dominick Decocco and Margheriti, known as the garbage eaters…
— Wait! They eat garbage? — Leofwynn inquired the guard who ignored her. Even in the isolated cell the trio received newspapers with kingdom news, and followed the numbers and positioning of the armies.
The immortals numbered one thousand. They were a people close to extinction, and the kingdom of Ruin Forest lived up to its name.
The vision of the oldest heroes of this world.
Tálacarnë, whose name means House on Legs, and who lost everything gambling and dedicated his life to being a wanderer, and exterminator of plagues and hurricanes.
Rungámo, by name the Hammerer, who built the camps.
In the fourth month, the walking trees, the ents, came from Entenar. They were as large as houses, a walking forest in eighty thousand boles, or bodies.
Even so, even among so many names, there was discouragement among the troops, for the Demon King had never lost a single battle.
However, they arrived. From the empire of Celestial Wing, three hundred and twenty-six in total, dragons, each with more than thirty-eight meters from tails to serpentine tongues, in all colors. With wings spread they made the camps vibrate, as if luck had changed sides.
Their leader was the cruel Fire-Guts, also called Stone Soup.
Even the rivals of the dragons, the empire of Lunarfer, with the vulturines, whose skins were as if burned, with bird-like heads, came. Wise, numbering one hundred and thirty-seven. The greatest strategists of this era.
The youngest hero among them was Wulfthryth, one hundred and ninety-two years old, inventor of coffee tea.
The ground shook when the vision of the republic of Solitude revealed its envoys, centaurs. Two hundred and ninety thousand. With spears and leather and bronze armor.
Their heroines were Acerola, miss Ed, Silver and Jack B. There was only one male, Alípio, whose divine mission was to procreate, and for that he wandered the world fu…
— Stop reading this trash, Cwenburg! — the newspaper was taken from the unicorn girl's hands, with Leofwynn incinerating the copy.
And from the ruins of the Acropolis came only two, giants. One of stone, a golem four hundred meters tall. And another twice the size of the first, the ancient turtle Sæ, devourer of over one hundred and ten thousand specters.
From the kingdom of the Land of Swamps, as men they walked, five hundred and six tentacled ones. On full moon nights it was seen, each of them, as a single large eye, covered in tentacles. They levitated among the camps, carrying messages and secrets of the Alliance's plans.
From the kingdom of Three Mountain Ranges flew the winged ones. Female bodies with monstrous pink skin. Have small horns on the forehead. With two wings and four arms. They fought with iron poles. The males of this lineage were the gryphons. In total, forty-seven thousand. And the air force was now as feared as the ground force.
In the fifth month, from the kingdom of the Land of Rocks came the so-called smallfolk. One million five hundred thousand in total. Mostly goblin, pig-like, or kobold. All the same height. With rustic weapons, and more interested in eating than in the meetings and preparatory exercises for the attack.
The floral queens arrived from the kingdom of the Penny Woods, one hundred and thirty thousand in total, with skin like flora, and perfumes that took over the fields and meadows.
With them came, from the kingdom of Shadow of the White Stag, the fairies. Twenty-four thousand. Small, ten centimeters when tall. They danced and sang, and cheered the troops.
From the kingdom of Harbor of Memories marched the aurifers, beings with gold skin and bodies with organs on display alongside gears. Had iron swords up to three meters tall, and numbered four hundred thousand.
Those born in the republic of Bone Tundra were the caprus, with the entire head made of bone, like a goat's skull, and a human body. Numbered sixty thousand.
Even the legendary ones, of the same lineage as the Demon King, and rulers of the kingdom of Horn Cove, did not stay out, there were thirty in total, one from each remaining house.
The nymphs only arrived in the sixth month, from the confraternity of Between Rivers. They married heroes of all lineages. They recited poetry. And their dances took over the streets and avenues in an unprecedented party.
Finally, from the empire of Kings' Haven, from the seventh to the tenth month, presented themselves the humans, who alone numbered three million. With all white weapons and shields, and with gunpowder, cannons, and firearms, besides caravels and steam dirigibles, and tamed beasts of hundreds of species.
On the last day of the year, after the success of three joint troop exercises, they departed and marched. And sang. And prayed to hundreds of goddesses and gods.
And the speeches made the humblest and the nobles cry.
And there existed the promise of the end of terror.
And the Demon King was tending the castle gardens when he saw the mass, and the shouts, and all species united.
And he tried to contact the trio, and couldn't, for they were imprisoned in a cell where all kinds of magic were blocked, still in the prison in Campeuty.
Then he snapped the fingers of his left hand, the three moons shattered, and formed a colossal ring of asteroids, which went around the planet. Thus, the Demon King cast a single spell:
— Meteor. — and fire rained, and all enemies were killed in minutes.
In turn, one of the prison maids in Campeuty, who cleaned the cell floors, and always complained about her youngest daughter, learned from the trio about the job offers, and sent her daughter to the Demon King's Castle, with a note from the trio explaining the situation they were in.
The girl, who hated working, and was already in her third year unemployed without looking for a job, was well received.
Happy, now with Cynethryth, his first maid, the Demon King personally, after using the "Teleport" spell, freed the trio of lolis.
Casting another spell "As An Old Memory, Yeah, Memory, Yeah", thus erasing, from everyone's memory, the faces and information about the three lolis.
Thus, the mission continued, and Æthelflæd, Leofwynn and Cwenburg, flew again on the serpent mount Godwyna:
— It was a good year, had its difficult moments, but, in the end, it was a good year…
— You're telling me! — Æthelflæd was surprised by the serpentarium Godwyna's tender voice. — Why didn't you say anything until now? Wait! More importantly, where have you been all this time?
Blushing, Godwyna retorted:
— Well, at Madame Cuth Riseley-Prichard's Brothel! — and they all laughed flying among the clouds, until the serpentarium got hit with a water-rod splash.