Chapter 249 — Demon King Cup
“Which do you love more, your queen or your power?
But with the Pope of Light there, you can’t keep either one.”
This was a whisper from the Demon King.
Of course, King Oitin had seen the demon race before, and the Pope let him see the kind of demons that were about to be executed. The demons were fierce, bloodthirsty, and perhaps brave in King Oitin’s memory – King Oitin had never seen a demon who begged for mercy out of fear of death.
The Church scriptures say that demons are cunning and vicious.
The demons sometimes tried to compel King Oitin before they died, and some of them possessed mental magical powers, but King Oitin wore so many magical defensive treasures that he could tell by the heat of those defensive treasures that a mental spell had been cast on him.
Now, when King Oitin listened to Hill’s words, he felt that his heart was shaking, but he did not feel the heat of the cross in his chest at all. The other party did not use magic. This fact made him tremble. If possible, he would rather be shaken by the other party’s use of spiritual magic.
King Oitin suddenly recalled a feeling, a primitive fear of humans toward demons.
He wanted Hill to say more while the iron was hot, to make him lean more to one side or the other. Whether it was temptation that made him lean toward the Demon King’s camp, or fear that brought him back under the blessing of the Church of Light.
But Hill finished with such a faint smile and turned to leave.
The feeling of being left hanging like this is really too bad.
“You weren’t shaken, were you?” Hill said, turning his back to him as he walked to the door.
King Oitin repeated slightly in a trance: “Was I shaken?”
“You can’t be shaken.” Hill turned his back to him, and the smile on his face was the typical hideous demon smile. If King Oitin saw it this time, he would immediately be afraid of being shaken. Too bad he couldn’t see it. “At least not now,” Hill said in a soft voice. After he finished speaking, he did not wait for the other party to respond, and left the queen’s chambers just like that.
King Oitin sat on the sofa for a while, his mind was now a bit confused, he wanted to sink down and think for a while, but he understood that he could not. If he was alone in the palace after the demon king had left, it would arouse the suspicion of the church. He was very experienced in this. So he forced himself to calm down and left the chambers before the twilight enveloped the room and went to find the Pope of Light.
He could basically see the Pope whenever he wanted, which was a useless privilege.
King Oitin was completely calm the moment he saw the Pope, an ability he had trained over decades. He first exchanged the necessary pleasantries with the Pope.
“He should have seen through,” King Oitin reported to the Pope of Light, “and didn’t make any promises to me. He kept saying, uh, bad words about you during the meeting with me.”
The Pope of Light asked, “What about other than that?”
“He also said that he could give me a sum of money to buy some desperadoes to be my own force,” King Oitin answered truthfully.
“You are moved,” the Pope said.
“A little bit, but I also know that those are not enough for you at all,” said King Oitin.
The Pope stared at King Oitin for a while, then suddenly said, “Am I putting too much trust in you?”
King Oitin lowered his eyes: “How is it possible, there is no such thing as trust in our relationship at all.”
The demon king was right, he could not be shaken yet, he was not qualified to be shaken yet.
That day, the Pope destroyed all the gifts that Hill had given to King Oitin.
King Oitin did not resist as before, he remembered that there was a book inside with a beautiful cover, a silhouette of angels and elves in the ruins. That cover was much better than the illustrations in the church canon.
He heard that the demons used a lot of novels and something called movies to lure human beings to corruption. ‘The paintings in that book were so beautiful,’ King Oitin thought. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see what was inside.
——read at awanderingpotato.com
After converting this attack by the Pope into a dark nail, Hill began to sort out the cultural industry of the demon realm.
Movie. Magazine. Anime. Game. Variety show. There are also unique products. The cultural industry has now been gradually built, and Hill has handed over most of these things to others to manage. He is currently only responsible for providing some original ideas, as well as supervision and final inspection.
Recently, under the auspices of Hill, the first Demon King Cup Singing Competition kicked off the audition with great vigor.
In the past few years, Hill has greatly impacted the music field of the other world with Earth’s modern pop music and traditional music, directly opening the door to a new world for people with musical talents in the other world. Now, the holding of the Demon King Cup Singing Competition also provides a stage for these people to show themselves.
After hearing the news, they all cheered immediately.
There are a total of seven judges, including the five elders of the demon realm and the five emissaries of the Dark Church. Of course, they will not appear together. Twenty will pass one by one. In addition, there are two important figures from the three empires, as well as Super Girls and the Hell’s Frontline rock band, and lastly, a movie star. After entering the quarterfinals, Hill himself will serve as a judge.
When the program first started advertising, many people were not optimistic. They thought it was enough to listen to those famous and powerful singers. Why should they listen to folk songs? They have also heard folk bards sing and so on, so it feels like a group of chickens pecking at each other, which is not fun.
As a result, after a few hot-blooded promotional videos came out, everyone immediately became “it looks like it’s not bad ah”.
This audition is not limited to race and age, and the audition scope includes the Plague Islands, the Magnolia Continent, and the whole territory of the Demon Realm. At first, Hill tried to separate the demons and humans for the game, but later felt that it was unnecessary. Demons definitely have a racial advantage, and only humans who stand out in such a situation appear to be more advanced.
The competition is divided into countries first, and the judges have the right to pass one vote, followed by the voting of the audience. This interactive approach instantly turned “not bad” into “interesting”.
And some who followed the game itself admired Hill’s creativity again.
“Sometimes, I really feel that Lord Demon King’s brain is connected to another planet,” one of the humans in charge of this matter said.
Soon after, the Demon King Cup announced that the audience could vote for the eliminated players to “resurrect” them and re-enter the competition. Each region can “resurrect” one player to enter the Top 18 directly.
From now on, you can get a vote for every 50 gold you spend in the Demon Mall.
After this rule came out, Dark Knight Goldnia was a little puzzled: “My King, will they vote?”
“Why wouldn’t they vote for their favorite player?” Hill asked rhetorically.
“In the past, they paid for the vinyl because it was theirs after they bought it,” Goldnia said, “But this one won’t give them anything even if they vote.”
“You have a good point in your analysis, and most people do start out with that mentality.” Hill said, “But they will also spend money in the Demon Mall everyday and thus get some votes, and then they will have the idea of voting by default.”
“Then they can ‘resurrect’ their favorite players,” Goldnia seemed to understand something: “In this way, they and their favorite players have an additional…”
“Sort of a bond, at least the one they think they have.” Hill said, “Then they will go on to support, to really spend money for their favorite players.”
“Do you plan to introduce audience voting in future competitions as well?” Goldnia clearly grasped Hill’s train of thought.
“Proportionally.” Hill snapped his fingers. “It’s inevitably unfair if voting takes the lion’s share, so fan voting accounts for 30% and the rest is scored by the judges and guest panel.”
Hill made a detailed plan for the Demon King Cup and handed it over to Goldnia and Lich Aligeli. He took time to watch a few shows, not to mention that the stage effect is frighteningly impressive.
In addition, some very interesting things happened. Singers performed on stage with back-up dancers. Most of the back-up dancers were provided by the demons. When the Succubus Dance Troupe first came on stage, the human who participated in the competition stood on the stage, and then he was so fascinated by the succubus that he forgot to sing, which resulted in boos from the audience. This event was later defined as a show accident, after which the contestants would wear officially issued anti-magic props when they entered the stage.
Shortly after that, there was another accident, when a black dwarf singer was singing a rock song and waved his hammer in excitement. He broke the stage and fell into the stage, and it took him a long time to climb out.
There was also one time when the lich responsible for the stage effect accidentally sprayed out too much flame. Fortunately, there were mostly demons sitting over there at that time. A group of demons were burned alive and ran out. People rushed to put out their clothes to put out the fire. After that, Goldnia immediately studied with Lich Aligeli, and established a formation for the audience area to filter damage spells. Ordinary spells will not be filtered, like the drizzle of rain or something.
With magic in, the stage effect of the singing competition is shockingly beautiful.
Stage fog, light effects, flames, these are the most basic things. You don’t need to be shocked when a demon dragon phantom suddenly flies out. It’s also normal for a singer to suddenly shine brightly while singing. In short, this competition was perfected by Goldnia and Lich Aligeli.
After a month and a half of competition, the quarter-finals were decided. Five demons and three humans. In fact, many human beings have come up by relying on the advantages of voting by their fellow human beings. There are also Demon Malls in the demon realm, but the enthusiasm of demons to vote is far less than that of humans. In other words, the demons are not as rich as humans… The money of the demons is in Hill’s hands.
Although humans had the voting advantage, in the end, it was the demon singers who dominated.
This Demon King Cup tournament also greatly increased the communication between demons and humans. Once they reached the top eight, the competition was held in the demon realm. The human audiences were received in batches to the demon realm and mixed with the demons in the audience. This direct zero distance contact made many people excited.
Under such circumstances, the Demon King Cup quarter-finals began.
