Where is it strong? If demons rampaged through it, and then the undead with the Nagas followed.

Well, demons can rampage through any country of Ashan, and the fact that they most often chose the Empire as their primary target speaks precisely to its strength and to the fact that the demons perceive it as their main enemy. In the history of Ashan, you can find many examples of the defeats of any country, and the demons also suffered defeats in all the eclipses.

In general, yes, it should have stormed Shio, since it is so strong. It stormed after the 5th and 6th eclipses.

In the 5th and 6th eclipses, there were retaliatory strikes against the demon invasions, and in both cases, the Empire was supported. And besides, the storming of Shio should rather indicate the madness of the attacker than his strength, since there is no point in this storming. What benefit is there in conquering Shio? Are they going to sow fields there, or is there not enough land in the Empire?

400 years is the term of the Griffons' rule.

As dukes, perhaps. They became emperors after 843, so the history of the Griffon Empire is only 128 years.

Again, you're stepping on the same rake... Well, don't compare the power of the Overlord with the power of dragons. Compared to non-dragons, Kha-Beleth is all-powerful.

Okay, then why couldn't he defeat the Gray Alliance, which not only repelled the attack but also almost drove him out of Shio? Why did he lose to the quartet? Did he let them win? This doesn't stand up to any criticism.

And what should he do?

And why should he, in fact, pay attention to this prophecy? If he is so strong, why doesn't he issue his own prophecy and appoint the one who should give birth to the Messiah himself? Instead, he is guided by the words of a simple human mage.

And waiting for several hundred years is clearly not a sign of weakness.

But even more so, it is not a sign of strength. Why wait if you are all-powerful? If you are all-powerful, you shouldn't wait for anything - you take everything you want and when you want.

And there are exactly eight lords, Urgash cannot be a lord. I saw a footnote about "8 lords" somewhere else... I don't remember where, maybe in part 6.

I said that a demon could have counted Urgash among the total number, and besides, it is not worth counting on the competence of some unintelligent demon in matters of the higher hierarchy of Shio, if even the demon lord Vayyar did not know this for sure. And the number 7 seems more logical and justified to me, and there are many mentions of it on various forums, I just don't want to look for them. In general, this has a very vague relation to our discussion, so I suggest we close this issue.