Lucretia and the rest came after me and then a few minutes later, the guys came and had serious expressions on their face. A kind of grave expression that said, "What we will tell you is on a level of grave importance."

"Give it to me. Don"t hold back. What"s the damage?" I answered their looks with a serious tone and a question.

[Sire, the preparations are complete for invasion. We can start that immediately without any more delays. However, we have a concern we need immediate resolution to which we want you to address.] Isaac spear-headed the reports by opening it up just like that.

"Speak clearly and without any dilly dallying." I gave my approval and so the long conversation started between me and my subordinates.

[The attack on us from that Demon has caused us to realize the difference in strength and the weakness we were forced to look into. We are weak, absolutely and stupidly weak. We have lost our confidence to face beings like that and wish to further improve our strength not for the people but for our selfish desires to pursue power.] Continuing the conversation was Caltec who clenched his fist and with gritted teeth told me of his frustration.

[Yes, Sire. We all feel the same way and ask that you give us your guidance to further enhance our strength. With your leading we will surely be able to face beings that are even more powerful than those that attacked us, even that demon hero they sent towards us. The demon realm will pay for this attack.] Jon said, with a hint of blaming the demon realm in his tone. I don"t necessarily need to tell him off, but I will remind them all later about this.

[Sire, I know we have already been asking for so much the moment you handed us your secret techniques to train with, but our strength is far from enough to lead us into victory when faced with the reality of being weak in front of other more powerful beings. We could only kill that last fiend by combining our strength and with the will to lose our lives in the process. With that said, please Sire, allow us to selfishly seek your guidance in pursuing power!] Mor with a very hateful face said to me as well. He was the one who had the most intense look on his face. Hate was all over it, but unlike Jon who showed clear blame for the demons, he was more of the inclination to hate himself for his lacking strength.

All these are good reasons to train them further, but to train them further than this will be very difficult from now on. I would need to break them faster than they heal in order to have their physical strength grow and reach unprecedented height where no human ever has stepped on, at least, according to Alleucanth History.

[I have heard your concerns and see that all you are telling me is whine that you are weak. Have you ever considered what those who dedicated their whole lives to pursuing strength say when you who only trained a few years tell them that you are weak and in need of further training knowing how great your power is already?

[If foolish was used to describe you then that would do the word "foolish" injustice! I hereby order you to relay my message to the alchemists. Stop production of anything other than healing potions from now on until the next year. For this whole year"s duration, they will also undergo training into making pills that can regrow even limbs. You on the other hand will be undergoing training to face something you will never be able to best with just your techniques. You will be broken time and time again and your bones will be powdered. Without my permission, you will not die and death himself will have to make excuses coming close to you while I am around training you.

[If you feel as if you want to quit already, then I will tell you now. You will not have the opportunity to do so, because the moment you do, I will throw you into demon territory and get the leaders of that realm to personally take care of you. You will wish you never should have asked me to show you the way to pursuing strength.

[If after saying all these you are still resolved then by all means let us start. The invasion will happen even without us. The invasion force will need only to show the opposition my emblem and either swear their fealty to me and the good of the Human Realm, then they will keep their lives, if not, they will die without question along with their families and even close friends.

[If you understand all this, go and make preparations. I will await you at the plains where the Invasion Army was at a few days ago. That field should be big enough to handle a fight between you five and me.]

Saying all this while making them kneel to the ground without mercy from the intimidation of Overpower with the intent to kill enhancing it over the mana I channeled to it, they were trembling really hard and found that they were unable to produce even the slightest noise. So even if they objected and want to back down, they could not.

The Overpower"s effect continued to press down on them and finally all four of them defecated themselves. I am not doing this to humiliate them, the training has already started, my fight with Azael-on has enabled me to truly gauge my strength to a certain degree and learned to utilize it properly even if not fully.

Their first hurdle will be in overcoming the fear they feel towards me while I am directing my Overpower towards them. If they get used to the feeling of being oppressed by my Overpower and develop a skill to resist it, then that would be the greatest effect. If they mastered the skill and made it evolve to immunity, then the better.

I am frustrated that because of the fiend"s mist they succ.u.mbed to fear and made incapable of making a proper decision on the fly. I hate that their resistance to that is as weak as normal people. If they were normal people who couldn"t be exposed to fear as strong as how they felt when they first met me, then that would mean that my Overpower skill"s ability to induce pain is a thing of no importance or significance which I totally do not agree to and loathe the thought of it.

In light of that, I poured every ounce I could pour into Overpower to fully make them feel fear they have never experienced before. Not fear for the dark, the fear for death, nor the fear of something unknown, but the fact that they serve a monster that can induce so much fear into them.

Once this happened all of them kneeled to the floor and started spoiling themselves as time went by. I"m sure all of them are wondering what the h.e.l.l happened but I will explain all of this later to them.

Jon started struggling to his feet but continued to flop to the ground. Groaning with frustration and humiliation, he is pouring strength to his arms. Yet he continues to kiss the ground. A good thing no one is watching us right now or they would be too embarra.s.sed to move about in public from this moment on.

They have yet to send the order to invade and so that will have to wait until they can withstand being in my presence even while I continuously leak my Overpower. From this moment on, they will be under pressure the moment they perceive my presence, no, to accurately say it, they will be under pressure before they even perceive my presence, resulting in them perceiving it.

I told them to prepare but the moment they wanted to go, the pressure is killing them already. It will take time before they overcome this. So I will sit back and enjoy the afternoon sun.

Using earth magic, I create a smooth stone chair. Seating myself in it and watching the four of them struggle is making me feel hungry. How long does it take to get used to this?

The first one to acquire the resistance skill is Jon; I guess he possesses a will stronger than the rest. That"s a good trait to have, but it"s not enough.

Caltec, Isaac and Mor are already catching up to him. They began struggling hard with determined expressions on their face. Seeing this, I think it"s only a matter of time before they completely become able to move even under my Overpower. This is different as they have already taken off their weights. The pressure they feel is not from the multiplied weight but from the instinct of being in the presence of a predator that humans have already forgotten through time. This was the fundamental ability of humans enabling them to survive through dozens of moons in the wilderness when civilization was still far from being a reality.

The instinct tells them to bow down or play dead to avoid attracting the predator"s attention, however, what I want to achieve here is the will power to resist this urge to surrender and leave fate to the predator"s hands. The moment they overcome this will be the moment that my men will become fearless in the sense that they will be able to move even when they are as scared as h.e.l.l. Fear will not be able to paralyze them and instead empower them to survive and fight to live.

Manga and novel application is only possible in fantasy it seems. It becomes possible through this thing called magic and skills. Developing skills for such things enables people to do things that are literally impossible to do without them.

My Overpower skill is one such that it enables me to intimidate people using only killing intent and mana. This is a feat not possible on earth at all. To envelop a wide area suppressing it effectively is not a reality that can be.

Here, this is but a skill in the myriad of skills that can be obtained or trained in. So to overcome fear and move despite being put down by it, is a feat that can be called a skill and resistance to the feeling called "fear" is a skill highly valued in each person.

"You better not think that I am joking in doing this. It"s either you struggle and overcome this kind of pressure or die trying now. When asking me to guide you in pursuit of strength, you have asked me to kill your old selves and be reborn as beings that hold power at the tip of your hands. Holding power and caressing it gently is not the way of men, that is the way of hypocrisy. The real answer to it is to hold it and grasp it so tightly that not even the smallest particle can enter and corrupt your power, holding it firmly than even your own belief on anything else. Strength is everything and the answer to anything for without strength you will die and those you wish to protect will also die, with only yourself to blame.

"However, do not get me wrong. Strength of the body is nothing compared to the strength of one"s will and heart. When you have that and the strength to defend your heart and will, you will become something no one will hope to go against.

"My guidance for you will only last until you reach your full potential, and your potential only ends when you die. So until you die, I will push you to the brink and grind your bones to reshape you into the monsters you really want to become, monsters to those who take you as enemies."

I stood up and slowly told them these things. It was not to motivate them but to give them something to grab onto. Without something that ties them to the world even when they say they will leave everything in pursuit of strength, in truth, no one, not even hermits leave the people they are protecting and not think about them. They have so great a discipline that they can shut it out of their systems the moment it takes root in their minds.

With training like this, they should be able to overcome it quickly. I want to see them set free into the world of the truly strong.

"You will see a world where not even a single one of your loved ones are in danger because of weakness. Rest a.s.sured."