Daimon didn’t wake the girls up due to the previous information provided by Rita, to be honest he didn’t care to stay in this hill till today’s night, where the Trident Marshal would finally realize there was something off.
He didn’t have a positive impression of most of the other participants after all, the only exceptions being those guys with whom he travelled back in the caravan and according to Rita they weren’t in this underwater space, so he didn’t have to worry about anything.
As long as the girls around him remained safe he couldn’t care less about both the nobles or the members of the Elemental Sea, on the other hand he needed to hunt some magic beasts as his mission required him to do so.
Luckily for him, there were magic beasts running wild wight now, who weren’t under the control of the pirates or the Skelefiends, so that was a cake which fell from the heavens right at his table.
‘The pirates and the Skelefiends wanted to frame the nobles and the guys from the Elemental Sea, so they are probably hiding right now, to maintain the act, that’s good I just need to deal with one enemy instead of three at the time… but wouldn’t I be falling in their trap like this?’.
“How can I take advantage of this situation for me, there is also that idiot who escaped who knows where to take into account”, mumbled Daimon.
Sure, he could just go hunting the magic beasts, or ambush the pirates and Skelefiends who were probably hidden, but his group alone would be in trouble if they got surrounded, Horals and Rita were his trump card, so he was reserving that for an emergency.
He could also recruit all the scattered nobles under his flag, he had two princesses with him right now after all, the problem is that none were trustable, back then some already offered to sell out Mellie to save their asses, and Daimon didn’t doubt for a single second, that there were people like that from the Elemental Sea, the only reason as to why no one has come to knock on his door, is because no one knew where they were.
And his original plan to use the Ruler of the sea to get some magic beasts, had gone to waste because the magic beasts where now moving in packs, so if he used it on one, then all the others would know about it and avoid him like the plague.
‘Damn, not being able to do soul contracts, or using the terror contractor is such a hassle’, thought Daimon.
As always at the slightest sign of being troubled about something, his mother who knew him better than anyone in this world, immediately noticed it.
Aisha’s pretty amethyst eyes opened while she was snuggling on Daimon’s chest, her son’s heart beat lulled her through the night, so now that it changed, she woke up and noticed he was contemplating something.
‘What happened darling~’, she asked as she tightened her hug on Daimon.
Daimon smiled and gently caressed Aisha’s long silky silver hair, while he explained he was in a small predicament about how to proceed here.
“Mm, why not form an “alliance”, if the magic beasts are being so organized then there must be a really high ranked and probably rational one directing them~” whispered Aisha as she sneakily kissed his neck under the blanket.
“The enemy of my enemy is my ally”, mumbled Daimon while he felt Aisha’s little fangs touching his neck, just for her to retreat at the last moment, to give him a teasing smile.
Daimon bitterly smiled, Aisha was helping out the Risha sisters to develop their relationship with him, and that was amazing from her, but she has also gotten pretty flirty with him, despite them being around not that he complained in fact he loved it, but she was just teasing him too much lately.
‘We’ll have a nice “chat”, once we get out of this place’, said Daimon as he kissed Aisha’s forehead.
He then got up having decided what to do, if he doesn’t have soldiers then he just need to get some, and something he learned thanks to the wild “lioness” Aleah, is that magic beasts respect two things, strength and honesty, not all of them but the ratio is indeed higher than human beings who often back out on their word if not forced to fulfill it, besides in case anything happened, he could neutralize the stronger beasts as long as they attacked him.
‘I’ll be back in a moment mom’, said Daimon as he got dressed up with the hollow suit.
‘Do you want me to accompany you darling?’, asked Aisha as she leisurely laid down on the bed.
‘No, don’t worry I’ll take Rita with me, and I still have “that” in store, so there shouldn’t be any problem, once those four wake up tell them to prepare… we’ll be going to war’.
Aisha sweetly smiled, though she wanted to go with Daimon, she knew he would have taken her with him, if he needed her help, so she didn’t think too much about it and just accepted her son’s decision.
‘Okay, be careful if anything happens, I’ll be there before you notice it~’, said Aisha as she threw a kiss to her son.
Daimon chuckled as he used blink to disappear from the room, not without giving Horals an order.
‘Horals, Aisha is in charge while I’m not here, her orders are my orders, understood?’.
‘Yes, young master!’, shouted the bone general with an excited voice.
‘Finally, young master is going into a war, I will bring the general’s heads back to honor him’, thought Horals.
Once Daimon was out, he immediately soared into the sky, the mist was pretty dense at a high altitude, while it has lessened a bit at ground level, without completely disappearing though.
But that wasn’t an obstacle for his infinity eyes and he also had Rita to help him navigate.
‘Can you track that snake you mentioned for me Rita?’, he asked.
‘Yes, young master, it isn’t particularly trying to hide himself and it is instead actively interrogating some of the high ranked nobles the other magic beasts had captured’, answered Rita.
‘He is probably using himself as bait’, thought Daimon as he used blink to advance towards the direction Rita told him.
Something that had Daimon thinking about it, was how come that snake didn’t find the pirates so far, he was sure most of them including the cousin of the captain of the Devil Stingray pirates, should be near the exit of this underwater space.
But then a wild supposition appeared in his mind, what if these guys had found some of the Sea Devil mineral just like him, and used them to create small hideouts where anyone who used mana sense as their way to scan things, which would be practically the few highest ranked nobles, as mana sense was a rare ability here, couldn’t find them.
The more he thought about the more Daimon frowned, whoever was pulling the strings in the shadows, had put some hard planning into it.
‘Well, at least I can practically confirm that none of those two clowns is behind this’, thought Daimon referring to Adam and Marcus.
Soon Daimon reached one of the many areas where beasts were running rampant, and he slowed down his pace, luckily there weren’t any aerial magic beast in the group, so the skies were pretty much clear.
That being said, Daimon could feel he was now within the range of detection of a couple of magic beasts, the only thing preventing them from finding him out was the hollow suit.
‘Two middle stage Arch rank and a peak stage… no it feels more like a Half Emperor ranked, but its power is suppressed’, thought Daimon, it made sense though, since this snake came alone, it didn’t want to draw the Trident Marshal’s attention, so at most it was allowed to have the magic firm of an Arch ranked magic beast.
“Be prepared Rita, we are going in right now”, mumbled Daimon as he stopped using blink to stay high in the sky.
…
The snake general Karmandi who was frustratingly hissing, after not being able to find out where were his comrades, he has interrogated a couple of those annoying humans with elemental affinities, just to realize they didn’t know anything.
“This isn’t going anywhere and that idiot of Ulkrear doesn’t bring the humans alive, because he is angry, damn it, why would the Empress send him with me…”, Karmandi who had somehow reduced its size to be only about twenty meters long, suddenly raised his head, just to see a masked figure descending from the sky.
A silver haired young human landed on the ground in front of Karmandi, making him raise an eyebrow, of course not even a second later a lot of different magic beasts surrounded the human in front of him, ready to shred him to pieces at his order.
But something prevented Karmandi to give the order, the fact that the “human” in front of him, was more like one of them like one of the humans who had lineages of sea magic beasts.
Then before Karmandi could say anything, the firm voice of the young human echoed through the whole area.
“My name is Gabriel and I have come with an alliance proposal to deal with the real enemies, the Devil Stingray pirates and the Skelefiends, the one in charge come to see me!”.
Karmandi’s snake eyes glowed, as he slid his body towards the silver haired young man.
“And why should I trust a word from someone who possibly enslaved my comrades?”, he asked, to which Daimon responded.
“Because unlike you, I can find them whether they hide or not, so if I’m lying, I won’t be able to take you to them, which will blow my cover away, pretty simple don’t you agree”.
“Oh?”, Karmandi’s interest was picked by the silver haired human, normally humans tend to drag things and scheme behind other’s backs, so seeing such a straightforward one, was indeed rare.
On the other hand, this human appeared out of nowhere so he was as sneaky as the humans he has met so far.
“What you say does make sense, but for you to be have a voice, you must prove yourself, the only thing we magic beasts respect is strength, Exil, give the newcomer a little test”, shouted Karmandi, then a fifteen-meter black spiked crab, separated from the group while snapping its pincers and exuding the pressure of an early Lord ranked magic beast.
After all, while Karmandi had a grudge against humans, he is also friend to some of the Silver Dawn pirates, and the young human in front of him is only an Early level Mortal realm knight.
“Human, if you can endure ten minutes against Exil then, you can work under me….”.
“Booom!”, before Karmandi could finish his sentence, the black crab was sent flying away while blood dripped from a crack in its shell.
“First of all, I’m not going to work for you, snake, as I previously stated, this will be an equal alliance, and don’t think I can’t recognize a Half Stellar ranked magic beast when I see one”.
Karmandi frowned, he evaluated the human in front of him and he was sure it hadn’t reached the middle level of the Mortal realm, but then he was able to crack the shell of his subordinate so easily, not to mention sent it flying away with a single punch.
“Exil, you, okay?”, asked Karmandi, to which the crab made some weird bubbling noises.
‘Hoh, so he avoided any vitals but could have killed you if he wanted to’, thought Karmandi, as he turned to see the silver haired youth.𝑶𝐕𝓁𝒩xt.𝔠𝐎𝐦
“Gabriel was it, if you want an equal alliance, you must be able to show you have a backer with a strength on par with me, present in this place”.
Daimon’s shadow extended and then with the sound of a finger’s snap, all the magic beasts besides Karmandi, were brought down to the ground, while black straps of darkness tied them.
“Shadow Bind”.
“Don’t you dare look down on my young master, snake”, Rita’s angry voice came out of Daimon’s shadow as she pressed down all the magic beasts with her spell.
Karmandi’s eyes widened a bit, not because of the strength of the newcomer, but because he couldn’t sense it at all, while his powers were suppressed, his senses weren’t and a being who could hide its presence right below his nose was someone to be wary off, in other words, someone that could be considered on pair with him at least in some way, since he was sure the owner of that voice was only a peak Mortal realm existence.