By the time Leon and Clayman walked in, Diablo had already finished annoying Guy, and retreated to my side, standing along the wall behind Shion, both keeping their auras restrained like usual. Clayman didn't even give them a second thought, and neither did Raine, one of Guy's maids, as she introduced the eleven seated at the table.
Then, Clayman stood up. Apparently, despite the hall itself belonging to Guy, the one who actually called for the votes to gather everyone was considered the 'host,' and got to speak first.
He went on for a while, but here's the basic summary:
Basically, Carillon convinced me to declare myself a demon lord. The fact that his people had set up shop in Tempest was apparently proof.
Then, Carillon subtly incited the fallen nation of Farmus to attack Tempest. Apparently, Carillon aided me in fending them off, while I used the opportunity to sic my own armies on the empty land, conquering it and turning it into a vassal state while everyone was away, to expand our influence.
And thus, I suddenly got Demon Lord status, allowing Carillon and I what was essentially unequalled access to the entire central portion of the Western nations.
Except for Clayman's domain. That was the only free trade route left between the Western Nations and the Eastern Empire. Apparently, Carillon and I decided that we really wanted it.
So, we tried to kill him.
How? Apparently, we tortured and killed his subordinate, Mjurran, trying to figure that one out. She gave her last breath to warn him of the plot.
Anyways, upon learning of our machinations, Milim got pissed. Pissed enough to destroy the Beast Kingdom of Eurazania, killing Carillon. It wasn't her fault, though. She was hurt that someone she'd called a friend would do such horrible things to him.
Ever since, she'd been relying on him, and he'd been taking care of her.
But…
"This blatant disregard for the sanctity of the Demon Lords cannot go unpunished! I have sent my armies to Eurazania to collect more evidence of his misdeeds as we speak, but I cannot sit idly by and watch as this pretender claws his way into one of our thrones! I implore the Council to punish this lowly slime! Yes, he must be punished! These schemes cannot be allowed to stand, as they completely violate the grounds on which this council stands! Any and all who defy us must be utterly crushed to the fullest extent of our overwhelming might! What say you!?" Man, this guy was a great thespian. Truly first rate. If he wasn't dying today, he would've had a lucrative future in theatre.
And that story. It checked all of the boxes. Couldn't have possibly put him in a better light.
Too bad nobody here cared. Deeno was asleep. Ramiris looked annoyed, Milim looked zombified. Everyone else looked like they were at least paying attention, but more in the 'watching a good play' way, rather than the 'thinking deeply about context' way.
I supposed that was what happened when you were the strongest. Politics suddenly felt like they mattered a lot less.
Well, with the exceptions of Valentine, Frey, and Daggrull.
But, beyond the fact that he didn't have any hard evidence aside from his 'report' from Mjurran, which I could easily and concretely disprove, there was a big hole in his logic.
Daggrull saw it too. "Why?"
"Excuse me?" Clayman said.
"You said that he incited Farmus to action, in order to conquer their lands while their armies were away. Why was that necessary?" Daggrull asked. It was a good question. The fact was, I had Diablo. That was proof that I was strong enough to conquer a nation or two by myself, and deal with the fallout at my own pace.
"I-Umm.. This lowly slime…! He was fortunate enough to obtain a Demon Lord Seed! Searching for information on it, he and his companion slime ventured into the human world-" Stuttering at first, Clayman was forced to explain something that he hadn't particularly wanted to.
Apparently, according to him, upon getting my Demon Lord Seed, I'd ventured into the human world in search of a way to evolve it.
Because humans clearly knew more about demon lord seeds than someone who actually has one and could analyze it firsthand.
But according to Clayman, I found my answers there.
Human souls. Specifically, those of strong humans.
Upon my relaying of that information to Carillon, we both agreed that the best way to go about it was to start a war. Allow the other side to gather 20,000 soldiers. Carillon would defeat as many as he needed, in order to awaken, then he'd capture the rest for me.
But Carillon failed to awaken, and Milim killed him.
This guy really was loquacious. We could've used him in the office back in my previous life.
But, finally, his annoyingly long, pointless speech wound down.
Now that he'd finally finished ranting his garbage, everyone else was allowed to express their opinions.
Raine, acting as emcee, turned to me for my rebuttal. "We will now listen to testimony from our visitor.
Finally. I'd been patient enough. It was time to bring this house of cards crashing down around this idiot who'd caused so much trouble.
"So, Clayman? Yeah, you're a big liar." I said, standing up.
"Excuse me?"
"I mean, I honestly don't really care about demon lords, nor did I want to announce my becoming of one. I actually wanted to wait and awaken my Seed over a century or so, quietly. As for Farmus, they attacked us out of their own greed. If you honestly think that Carillon is the type to bother with underhanded schemes like that, you clearly don't know him at all." I explained truthfully.
Clayman interjected with a sneer at that. "Ha! As if we're supposed to believe that?! One of my most senior advisors was tortured and killed at your hand!"
"Oh, Mjurran? Yeah, I just took that bugged fake heart of yours out of her chest. Last I heard, she's planning on moving to New Farminus to be with her new boyfriend." I explained.
"Bah! You must've tampered with her corpse. Installed a demon into it or something, perhaps!" Clayman accused. It wasn't a bad accusation… but…
I shrugged. "I don't really care. Believe me or not, it doesn't change the fact that pretty much all of your evidence is based on the testimony of someone who has no loyalty to you, now that you can't kill her from a distance by crushing her heart whenever you want, Clayman. 'It'd play out nicely for me if things went like this' may work on most people, but it won't work on me."
I turned to the rest of the Demon Lords. "Look, I didn't come here to plead my case, or beg for mercy. I'm not playing games."
I dropped a crystal ball from my hand, letting it roll to the center of the table and stop there. "Clayman, you essentially ordered Mjurran to sacrifice herself, just to create an anti-magic area around my city to weaken my friends." A picture, pulled directly from Yohm's memory appeared, of Mjurran exposing her majin secret, then releasing a powerful pulse of magic that sent him and Grucieth, one of Carillon's subordinates, flying backwards.
"You sent your clown friend to attack my friend. He nearly killed him." This time, it was Althea's perspective, as she eradicated Laplace.
"I'm a member of the Moderate Harlequin Alliance. Not a rat." Laplace spat at her.
"I respect that. Die." And the image faded, with Laplace's death.
"You know, that's the same organization that helped release Charybdis on us, a while back. Maybe, when I rip you apart on the soul-level, you can help me track the rest of them down." I explained.
Clayman stood, probably to shout something, but a thread shot out, tying him down to his chair. "I'm not done yet." I boomed it into his mind at the same time that I said it aloud. "I'm allowed to stop him from interrupting me, right?" I asked Guy Crimson at the end, who was smirking in his chair by now.
"Everyone at the table is allowed their say." He replied with a bemused nod.
A second crystal ball rolled across the table, clinking into the first one. "That's from your castle, Clayman. That's that 'Gelmud' dude's perspective, right? Wonder how you know him?" I said sarcastically, "Strike… what? Five? And I've still got evidence to go through." I pulled the Gelmud ball back into Belzebuth.
"Then, there's the whole 'Farmus' thing. Apparently, they were spurred into action by traders from the Eastern Empire. According to records, those traders entered the West through your territories, Clayman, before skipping through Leon's territory, on their way to Farmus. From Farmus, records show that they went to the Lubelius. How interesting. Three of the four places that attacked me, beginning with you, Clayman. Leon, I'm guessing they tried to manipulate you, too, right?" I asked, as various forms of evidence appeared on the hologram. I started with the receipts that Risa had pulled from Farmus before she'd destroyed the castle, moved on to various vague memories pulled from local servants and the like (with permission, of course. Memory spells were pretty common, and the easiest way to prove that one was innocent of their boss's wrongdoings), and memories pulled from Adalmann's retinue, who knew of every single person who entered or exited Clayman's territories.
Leon nodded. "It was rather subtle, but looking back, they were likely attempting to incite me against you." He agreed, his expression neutral, like he was above it all.
I made eye contact with Luminous for a moment. She nodded subtly, reaching some understanding with me.
With a shrug, I dropped it. Good enough.
"Then, finally, there's your little invasion of Eurazania. We wiped your army out and are currently occupying Dhistav, by the way." The final series of holograms made Clayman go silent.
"Yes, please just rest and allow us to take care of your new land, my goddess." I started off with that little clip of Adalmann swearing loyalty to Risa, from Risa's perspective, before moving on to a clip of Yamza criticizing Milim in front of Middray, from Hermes's perspective, as the Dragon Faithful leader's head began slowly turning red and swelling up like a melon. The clip ended shortly after the majin brazenly attacked Hermes, and Middray offered a good portion of their winter food supplies in order to keep Yamza from killing the guy.
"We've already compensated them for the expense, of course." I added, as the clip ended and the final one played, showing an overview of the battle that'd wrapped up mere minutes ago.
Clayman's people brazenly chasing a large army of beastketeers into the land of Orbic, which had once been home to the Orcs before the war.
Clayman's army being immediately and powerfully squashed with few casualties, all of which were from Clayman's side, not ours.
Yamza immediately attempting to run off, only to be stopped and cornered into a 1v1 duel with Albis, which he lost badly.
Only for what was unmistakably Clayman's voice to come out of his mouth, forcing him to swallow something that transformed him into Charybdis, who was still immediately stopped by something I blurred out, making Charybdis transform into a little girl, who Yamza immediately attempted to take hostage.
Only to die instantly. The scene shifted as Benimaru took the girl and gave her a piggyback ride.
The next angle came from Soei, as he watched Geld and Phobio get beaten up by two clowns casually announcing that they were from the Moderate Harlequin Alliance, had released Charybdis initially, and needed to report what'd happened to Clayman.
I cut the hologram off before it showed the point where Soei jumped in.
Nobody needed to see that. He'd immediately realized that the two had Self-Regeneration. Not a pretty sight.