Per Daimon’s request, Horals dragged mercenaries who were pretty much fine on the outside, but judging by their ash dead expressions they were pretty much done.
Just as Horals described, the three guys that rode on the flying fishes had heads that resembled an octopus, while the Arch rank was practically a human in his early thirties, all of them were guys too.
He also brought the flying fishes that were chained to the rock formation, another new discovery in this magic ruin, was that these sea magic beasts were tamable despite them not having a beast core which meant they hadn’t unlocked wisdom.
But they made up for it having reached the Lord rank, which in the Wonder Myriad stellar chart was unknown off.
Even the breeds that were created as cattle or transport would start showing signs of rebel upon surpassing the star ranks and that’s why they weren’t allowed to get stronger, and that’s why the blood bat was such a good asset too.
The only inconvenient about these flying fishes was that Horals wasn’t able to make them obey, because they only listened to the Mermen Archmage, who apparently was the one that tamed them.
“Young master, according to these guys, they are sons of the sea and that’s why the sea magic creatures seem to get along with them, but that’s obviously bullshit, if my supposition is correct then it must be due to that guy’s strong water affinity”, said Horals, with an expectant voice.
Those fishes ignored his try to intimidate them, and actually were ready to accept death before surrendering to a non-water affinity being.
Horals moved aside opening path to Daimon, who walked towards the flying fishes.
The things watched a new face approaching them and just stared at Daimon, similar to what happened with Horals, they were ready to die,
Daimon’s body suddenly leaked a large amount of light blue mana, although he hasn’t mastered other elements to use integrate them in his fighting style, his affinity was pretty high.
“Come here”, Daimon’s calm and firm voice drew the attention of the flying fishes, their eyes showed some curiosity before they actually swirled around him, as if they were evaluating the mana that now surrounded him.
The fishes flew on the air by swimming on waves of water mana that they created, so those small waves hit Daimon, and while it didn’t have any negative effect it was a bit annoying.
“Down”, with a simple word, the fishes stopped circling around Daimon and landed on floor, bowing their heads towards Daimon.
“Impossible!”, the Archmage who was the only one that seemed to have some spirit left, shouted in disbelief.
Even the people of the elemental sea with water affinity weren’t able to convince the sea magic beasts to serve them, because not only it required a decent water affinity but the lineage of nobles running through one’s veins.
He who was a bastard son of a low ranked noble, managed to build a small mercenary group due to this ability that differentiated him from other Mermen… and now he was witnessing a clearly not Mermen making the flying fishes he took about one year to convince, just showing off some mana and getting them to obey him so easily.
His expression became twisted, in his mind he convinced himself that Daimon belonged to a high ranked noble family and just came to play around in the Black Fin prison, feigning to be weak inciting them to attack him, getting an excuse to kill someone.
“You psych…”, the Archmage tried to insult just to get his face smacked against the ground by Horals.
“Young master didn’t give you permission to speak!”, the bone general slowly tightening his grip, nearly cracking the Archmage’s skull in the process.
But he stopped and turned to see Daimon to ask permission to eliminate these nuisances.
Daimon thought about it for a second, even after Horals tortured the mermen the notification to subdue them didn’t pop up, just like how it happened for the creatures which he now knew were called skelefiends.
Still, he was willing to give it a try to a regular soul contract.
“Here if you can sign this with a drop of blood, then I’ll let you live”, said Daimon as he threw a black paper at the Archmage, unlike the one he used with Scarlet and the other girls, this was a slave type contract, where if he wanted to, he could order the other party to die.𝗈𝑽𝐋𝐞xt.𝒸𝒐𝓜
Normally he would have disposed of all of them, since they clearly wanted to kill them or worse, Horals handed the ring of the Archmage personally to Daimon, and there were a couple of corpses inside, which they would have exchanged for a reward once they left the prison.
And that would have been their fate if they were weaker… or worse considering, the state of some of the corpses.
But he was willing to let the Archmage live longer to use him as a guide.
Horals allowed the Archmage to raise his head, with his mana completely sealed, his flesh was too bland and so his face was full of scratches due to the previous impact.
The Archmage read the contract and took a breath of cold air, he hadn’t seen an item like this one ever before, but he could guess that if he signed, he would be reduced to a slave, unfortunately the other option was to become a corpse, so he did as he was ordered.
The blood of the mermen was red like normal, but had a faint trace of a blue tone too, the drop of blood fell on the contract making the Archmage inwardly swear.
‘Just you wait, although I won’t be able to betray you now, the warden is my friend and he knows I would never team up with others…’.
The train of thoughts of the Archmage suddenly stopped in cold, he looked downwards just to see Horals’s hand piercing his chest.
“What a shame, as I expected it didn’t work”, with Daimon confirming the Archmage couldn’t be controlled, he mentally ordered Horals to dispose of them.
He also purposedly ordered him to do it only after the mermen showed some signs of feeling safe, just to cause him more fear to see if maybe with that the terror contractor skill would kick in, but it didn’t happen.
He also now knew that the races of Scarlet and the other girls had something different, compared to the creatures, the members of the tribes and these mermen.
The archmage saw with terror filled eyes, how the black-haired youth and the other girls suddenly changed to look exactly as him and his subordinates.
“Let’s go, each one of you take a flying fish, I will travel by gliding on the air”, said Daimon who now was disguised as the Archmage.
The Risha sisters and Aisha rode on the flying fishes but they showed some resistance towards them, until Daimon said.
“They are your masters now, and you will treat them with the same respect you show to me”.
The flying fishes, immediately stopped their causing troubles and instead meekly started floating.
“Blegh”, the Archmage vomited blood on the spot, while he swore in his heart.
‘Ordering a magic beast to obey others, a fucking direct descendant of the royal family!’.
Ignoring the Archmage who was having a mental breakdown right now, Daimon and the girls flew out of the cave towards the direction where Horals told the exit was.
“Young master, I will return after I finish cleaning the trash, if you need me just say the word”.
Daimon ordered Horals to return to the Wonder Myriad stellar chart, so he could tell Erin and the others how they were fine, and report what they have discovered so far.
Unlike he who is the host of the system and doesn’t have to use mana in exchange to use the inventory slot to bring Horals here, the soulmates did have to, and the only ones that had enough mana to perform the summon from such a large distance were Erin and Aura.
The Archmage saw with dead eyes how Daimon and the girls who were perfectly disguised as them, left his field of vision and he felt his world collapsing, even he couldn’t tell them apart from the originals, so there was no way the guards or even the warden would notice something.
“D-Demon… he is a demon”.
Horals who still have his hand piercing the chest of the Archmage wildly smiled behind his black helmet.
“How curious, just like in our native stellar chart, here there are races who use the word “demon” too lightly, but now that my young master is here, you’ll all get to experience what a true demon is like HAHAHAH!”.
The cave rumbled as Horals laugh reverberated through the whole place, and before the Archmage could say anything, his body was drained from all its vitality turning into a mummy that ultimately crumbled in thin gray dust, the same happened to the other mermen.
Then the whole roof of the cave collapsed burying the pool Daimon built earlier to erase any traces, that someone spent time here, before Horals exploded in green battle aura disappearing a second later.
…
Although by the moment Horals killed the Archmage and the other mermen, Daimon and the girls were pretty far away so they couldn’t hear him, Daimon was able to listen to him and he didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry.
From the very moment Horals became conscious, he has treated him as if he was some kind of conqueror, maybe because whatever he has turned into, he was originally a bone general, an undead created to lead an army, and one that was supposed to only accept one master during its existence too.
‘Well, the system supposedly advances in the direction I want, so there must be a reason for those two to differentiate from the others that were subdued due to the terror contractor skill’, he thought.
The flying fishes might not be as strong as the blood bat in terms of combat, but their speed was quite something, reaching the middle stage of the Lord realm even though they were in their infant years.
And in less than half an hour they arrived at the sole exit from the prison, although there was no visible cage, with his infinity eyes Daimon could see there were magic arrays engraved on the ground, which were connected to a transparent double-sided barrier.
In fact, what could be seen from this side, was totally different to what lied at the other side of the barrier and yet the “inmates” couldn’t see it.