Logically speaking, most temporal clones, if Olivia doesn’t cut out most of her own time and implant it in them, won’t retain much power.

The various nations really shouldn’t be this scared.

But if Louis wants to know what’s going on, he’ll inevitably expose one thing.

That is, he can directly teleport to the side of every single Swan’s clone.

That’s the part the nations absolutely cannot accept.

Just think about it: if he really wanted to play decapitation strikes, he could show up in front of leaders of every country, then use the Crown of Lust to quickly hop to whoever he wants.

...Do you realize what that means?

A moving, whole-continent-scale spatial teleportation array.

Theoretically, as long as the Swan splits off enough temporal clones and sends them all over the continent, Louis can chain-teleport endlessly.

But that’s only in theory.

If she splits too many temporal clones, the Swan’s soul won’t be able to handle the pressure.

Fortunately, as long as they have this one shot, it’s enough.

Knowing what exactly is inside the Golden Land is very important to Louis.

Because he can faintly sense that, when the time comes, the Golden Land will likely be handed over to Beatrice and the others to handle.

As for Louis... he needs to deal with Helmer first.

His instincts tell him that the reason Helmer hasn’t made a move yet isn’t because he’s scared, but because he’s hiding in the shadows cooking up something big.

Right now Beatrice and the others are basically safe, and the Golden Land hasn’t erupted into crisis yet.

So someone will have to go oversee that side when things kick off.

Even if it’s just oversight, it shouldn’t be too problematic.

But what if?

At the very least, he needs to know what methods the other side has, so Olivia and the others can respond perfectly, and only then can he feel at ease hunting Helmer down.

"The Rainbow Squad tests are already done. Get back early; I need to head out for a bit."

"You’re not going to wait until the Golden Land investigation is over before dealing with it?"

"Can’t wait any longer. Anyway, with the Crown of Lust I can jump to your clone wherever I am. I’m taking the legion to go do a little Demon King Army cleanup first."

"...Fine."

Olivia nodded.

...

Not long after, even before Olivia and the various nations submitted applications to use other countries’ teleportation arrays, Louis had already set off.

His target was the Lokeshi Border.

That place had originally been the seaport Helmer’s Demon King Army planned to seize.

But because Louis was there at the time and screwed up their big plan, the Demon King Army is now beating a hasty retreat at lightspeed.

There’s still a small harassment squad left there; as for where the rest of the main force ran off to, he has no idea.

In any case, he’ll wipe them out first and talk later.

There’s no need to talk morals with the Demon King Army; he’ll just directly search their souls and see if he can wring out any useful information.

Only this time, he ends up disappointed.

...

Location: Lokeshi Empire Border

Louis frowned as he finished exterminating this Demon King Army unit.

"What a vicious contract."

At first, he couldn’t extract the main force’s marching direction from the minds of the surviving Demon King Army.

Helmer had tampered with their souls using some unknown Magic contract.

Once they violated it, they’d be killed on the spot.

Fortunately, Louis has succubus blood—he’s even a Divine Realm Enchanting Demon.

Next, he started calling roll and interrogating them.

He’d grab one and ask, "I know your main force went to XX country."

If their expression didn’t even twitch and they even seemed like they wanted to laugh, it meant that wasn’t the real main attack direction.

But the Demon King Army troops were smart; they’d already realized he was going to read their minds.

So they deliberately started thinking in their heads, trying to show a desire to spill secrets.

And then...

With a boom, they’d be blasted into chunks of meat by contract backlash.

All this could do was delay Louis in finding their location.

He’d only interrogated a bit over fifty Demon King Army soldiers before they were exposed.

The location was subtle.

It was a country Louis almost never bothered to consider.

The merchants’ land on the Sword Coast, the Am Empire.

"Wait, how did they end up in the Am Empire?"

Put it like this: how far apart are the Am Empire and the Ense Empire?

Ense is in the northeast of the continent.

Am is in the southwest of the continent.

You might not call it completely unrelated, but you could say there’s basically almost no contact between them.

And the Lokeshi Empire is right next to Ense.

In other words, Helmer crossed the entire continent.

Louis was dumbfounded.

He’d thought at least the guy would stay somewhere in the surrounding area; he hadn’t expected him to cross the whole continent in one go.

But this also exposed a lot of intel.

First off, the main body of the Demon King Army likely retreated back to the Underground City first.

Otherwise, a force of that size trying to traverse the continent without anyone noticing...

That’d just be pure fantasy.

Even if some country wanted to secretly help the Demon King Army, there’s no way they could keep news of it completely hidden.

So there’s only one possibility...

"This guy sent the Demon King Army back to the Underground City, then crossed the continent himself?"

Strictly speaking, that’s not impossible.

But crossing the continent would take at least the better part of a month.

And that’s assuming Divine Realm full-power travel.

The various nations actually have huge tracts of unused territory.

More accurately, the population of the Star Continent can’t keep up with how fast the world expanded.

To the point that even now, no matter how hard the nations try to reproduce, they still can’t achieve full control over all their territories.

So the simplest brute-force method is to first designate a place, build a city there, then send people to install a spatial teleportation array on-site.

Then they use the teleportation arrays to complete early basic infrastructure and population transfers.

After that, they expand outward from the established city as a center, radiating into a large number of small towns and rural areas.

You could say that if not for the crisis of spatial rifts, the Star Continent would basically be the dream paradise of Flower-Growing Nation planners.

There’s this NMD amount of land they can’t even use up; people would go insane over it.

And it’s precisely this vastness that makes even top-tier Demigods want to tear their hair out when traveling.

Only a Divine Realm guy like Helmer would dare to brute-force his way across the continent on sheer strength.

It’s just that...

Restarting from the Sword Coast?

Seriously, is this old bastard trying to avoid the sharp edge on purpose?

And what the hell is with this guy?

He really just picks human great powers to screw with, huh?

No problem.

You need time to run to the other end of the continent; I just need to teleport.

No...

He doesn’t even need to teleport.

Because he’d already gotten word that one of Olivia’s clones had gone to the Am Empire.

Nice, nice, nice.

This saves him a lot of trouble.

Crown of Lust, activate!

In the blink of an eye.

He felt a small chunk of energy drain from his body, and he directly jumped to the Am Empire.

...

Location: Am Empire

Olivia was taking a nap in her room.

She’d just arrived in the Am Empire, and the O5 Council had already sent people ahead of time to schedule a meeting with her.

All she needed to do today was rest a bit.

She was exhausted.

The Swan is lazy.

Especially as a clone; lacking high-grade physical enhancement, she didn’t want to move a single muscle.

Suddenly, a streak of spiritual light flashed beside her.

Louis actually appeared right next to her.

The Swan nervously muttered,

"Don’t you dare do anything crazy. This is a clone right now—if you mess around, the clone will break."

She still needed this clone!

Louis coughed and said,

"I never said I was going to start anything, you know. Aren’t you the one overthinking?"

The Swan was so mad her face flushed red.

He popped over to her place out of nowhere in the middle of the night; how could she not overthink?

"Alright, alright, don’t be mad. I came because I found traces of the Demon King Army."

The Swan froze. "They ran to the Sword Coast?"

"Yeah. I don’t know exactly where yet, but they’re getting ready to make a move on the Am Empire."

Olivia commented speechlessly,

"Did you scare him that badly? He bailed this early? That’s just..."

"Thinking I’m hard to deal with is only part of it."

Louis sighed.

"You can probably guess—right now Helmer’s in a low-HP state. Or rather, he has some scruples and doesn’t want to fully unleash his power."

Still the same point.

If you’re making a comparison, you have to compare the Seven Great Calamities and the Demon King Army.

The Demon King Army’s situation is actually a bit weird.

It’s not that they aren’t strong—they’re really strong—but they’re still not quite at the level of the Seven Great Calamities.

Just look at how absurdly powerful those calamities get when they erupt.

So it’s basically certain this old bastard is hiding a lot and has never truly shown his hand.

As for why he’s unwilling to reveal it, Louis isn’t too sure.