Karmandi contemplated things for a moment, magic beasts mostly focus in offense or defense, which is one of the reasons as to why he hasn’t progressed in the mission his Empress gave him, but in front of him there was a possible ally with a nice control type ability.
Also, the human who came to request an alliance is pretty interesting being able to beat one of his subordinates which is of a higher realm than him, he had the means to speak with him as an equal.
Ultimately the snake general nodded before saying.
“Fine, I Karmandi, the third general of the Black Empress is willing to form an alliance with you, human child… sorry Gabriel”.
As Karmandi finished speaking he bit his own tail and teared one of his scales, which he then threw at Daimon, not before he let some of his blood fall into it.
As soon as Daimon received the thing a notification popped up.
[Ding]
[Coral Sea General “Karmandi” has offered a temporal equal association to the host, do you wish to accept it Y/N <!>]
Before accepting it, Daimon looked at the details of the “contract”, that Karmandi as a fully rational magic beast offered to him.
[Equal association: It limits both individuals to not betray or attack each other and help to reach a specific goal, if the previous condition is unfulfilled the contract will be rendered null, the contract will be effective for the next 48 hours once accepted]
“I guess you can pretty much guess it, but the condition for that contract is that you weren’t lying about being able to find the guys who caused this”, said Karmandi, to which Daimon nodded as he accepted the contract.
The scale which now had a rune engraved using Karmandi’s blood, whose meaning was “Trust”, flew back and integrated with his body once again.
Of course, Daimon wasn’t really tied by the contract, but he had no reason to go against his word, so by all means the alliance though temporal, was settled.
“Okay, so now that we had taken that out of the way, what’s next?”, asked Karmandi.
Daimon first asked Rita to release Karmandi’s subordinates, as he pointed at them.
“First, order the other magic beasts to stop killing the nobles and the guys from the Elemental Sea, I don’t really care about them… but two of my companions would probably, also we need numbers anyway because the pirates and Skelefiends outnumber us already”.
Karmandi sighed as he answered.
“My subordinates aren’t killing anyone, they just bring them to me, I interrogate them and if they don’t know anything I’ll just knock them off and sent them to the same place where they were at previously”.
“I guess you are talking about Ulkrear’s subordinates, he is another of the generals which was sent to investigate the vanishing of the Bottom Shredder race from the territories of my Empress, and as you can guess he isn’t exactly fond of humans, and I can’t order him”.
“In fact, if I tell him I’m working with you, he’ll probable attack you out of spite, also he communicated to me that someone “spilled the beans” telling him the ones that would know where our comrades were being kept were the princesses of the Mermen and Elemental Seas, so he is out to hunt them down… so if they are the companions you were talking about, and he was lied to, better keep them hidden”.
Daimon frowned, the one who told that magic beast should have been either one of the pirates or the Skelefiends, but then that didn’t make sense, why would a magic beast who kills people on the spot, pay attention to the words of one of their preys so religiously, something was fishy.
“I have an idea, order your subordinates to all rush back here, then when that Ulkrear guy ask what’s happening, tell him they are bringing you one of those princesses”.
Karmandi raised an eyebrow.
“Are you implying that Ulkrear is a traitor?”, he said with a low growling voice.
Daimon shrugged.
“Maybe, or maybe he was tricked, the pirates and Skelefiends want the princesses, and I can assure you they don’t know a thing about your comrades, so he might be being used to do their dirty job, we’ll only know once he is here”.
“Even if that was the case, how would you be able to know if he is in cahoots with those bastards from the Devil Stingray pirates, or the sacks of bones?”, asked Karmandi not fully convinced of Daimon’s idea.
“Well, you couldn’t find them no matter where you looked but I can, so if I see someone else sneaking in, I’ll let you know it, then you can confirm it by yourself, you don’t lose anything anyway, and if Ulkrear asks, just tell him that a blond-haired human with a sword hanging rom his waist took the princess and escaped”, answered Daimon with an almost unnoticeable smirk.
Karmandi would be lying if he said he didn’t doubt of Ulkrear, mainly because the latter always asks to not be put in a team with him, due to bad blood between them from their younger years, and now all of a sudden, he asked to come with him in this specific mission.
“Fine, I’ll give you a chance, but if the result isn’t what you expect, you’ll take me right away to the places where the pirates are hiding, if not the contract is over”.
Daimon nodded and then Karmandi closed his eyes, another of his scales the one which was in the center of his forehead glowed with a rune whose meaning was “general”, as he ordered all the magic beasts subordinated to him to do as Daimon asked.
“It’s done, all will be back in ten minutes…”, while Karmandi was speaking to Daimon, he suddenly frowned, to which Daimon chuckled.
“Let me guess, Ulkrear immediately asked what was happening?”, said Daimon with an obvious voice.
“Yes, he did”.
After a moment of silence, Karmandi ordered his strongest subordinates to prepare for a surprise attack, Daimon walked until he was next to Karmandi and then under the snake general’s surprised eyes, his image, presence, smell, everything, vanished, as if he didn’t exist.
‘Just like that strange being hidden, who is this kid?’, wondered Karmandi, but he put the subject at the back of his mind for the time being.
…
Not even ten minutes later, the ground trembled a bit as a large amount of magic beast could be seen coming from afar, among them there were a couple which outstood from the rest, just like Karmandi’s group.
The ones coming had two middle stage Arch ranked magic beasts in the form of two sea fleas, and then there was a fish like creature with two pectoral fins which resembled arms, and a horn on its head, who was exuding the pressure of a peak Arch rank magic beast, but Daimon easily saw through that, and was sure it was a Half Emperor ranked being.
‘That’s Ulkrear?’, asked Daimon, to Karmandi’s surprise, he heard the silver haired young man’s voice directly in its inner ears.
‘So, you even know how to make mana vibrate to sent private messages, what is your race kid?’, asked Karmandi, but since he didn’t get an answer, he focused on the important subject.
‘Yes, that’s Ulkrear, a Half Stellar ranked Rock Hand fish, he is somewhat related to the Deep Bottom Shredder race’.
Daimon nodded, as he injected as much mana as he could into his infinity eyes, to increase his sight range only.
He then thoroughly inspected the upcoming pack of magic beasts, until his eyes focused on a sea turtle of the early-stage Lord rank, a magic beast which was virtually invisible in the whole pack, as it was part of the bottom of the food chain, and yet it looked “vibrant”.
Daimon then changed the layer of the spectrum he was seeing, to see into the bodies of the magic beasts, similar to how he inspected Arianna’s muscles during the tournament, to see how much tension they were put through.
And then his eyes glowed as he sent Karmandi a message, which made the snake general to tremble for a split of a second, before it calmed down as the magic beasts were arriving just now.
“Karmandi, where is it, where is the princess that knows where is my kin!”, shouted Ulkrear.
Karmandi who was strangely calm, shook his head as he followed Daimon’s plan.
“A blonde-haired human with a sword hanging from his waist, killed a whole bunch of my subordinates and it escaped just when I was arriving”, said Karmandi with a genuinely sad and angered expression.
Daimon wanted to clap, despite the snake general hating schemes, he was a good actor, reinforcing the believe that snakes are cunning.
Contrary to what Karmandi would normally expect of Ulkrear, the latter didn’t insult him or started a fight, instead as if there was a fire on his ass, he immediately tried to leave and so did most of the magic beasts that arrived, including some of Karmandi’s subordinates as they needed to continue with their respective tasks.
But then Karmandi’s voice made some of those magic beasts, and surprisingly Ulkrear stop.
“That human has a weird looking magic weapon, which cracked Exil’s shell, shelled magic beasts stay here, you’ll be replaced by agile magic beasts”.
Upon Karmandi’s command, the shelled type magic beasts which were generally slower than others, including crabs, lobsters, snails and of course turtles, came to his side while some of the magic beasts that were here from the very beginning took their spots.
But there was one who didn’t do it, that turtle which Daimon saw earlier.𝑶𝐕𝓁𝒩xt.𝔠𝐎𝐦
“Mm, Archi is there a problem with your ears, I said you all will take a turn with others, so move your ass”, ordered Karmandi, in his usual voice when he deals with subordinates that don’t listen to him.
Then Ulkrear stepped in for the sea turtle called Archi.
“Karmandi, that turtle is among the ones that had found more humans in our joint scout team, it would be too much of a loss to keep it stationary, don’t you agree?”, said the Hand fish.
Karmandi didn’t get angry or anything, instead he nodded.
“Fine, if he is hat useful and isn’t afraid of dying that’s worthy of being called my subordinate, Archi accept a little gift from me”, said Karmandi as he moved his tail towards the turtle, magic beasts didn’t cultivate the way other creatures did, you could say they were favored by the heavens to a certain extent.
One of the reasons lower ranked magic beasts subordinated themselves to stronger ones, is because their “alpha”, could reward them with some of their blood, which they could use to strengthen their own bloodline, and evolve, right now Karmandi did a slight cut in his tail to do exactly that.
“Crack!”, but then Ulkrear’s face who was calm a moment ago, suddenly became black, even some of Karmandi’s subordinates were in awe.
Karmandi’s tail had pierced through Archi’s shell killing it at the spot, an uncomfortable silence fell on the area, but it was interrupted by a pained scream, once Karmandi slightl moved his tail.
“Aghhhhh, stop it you bastard!”, the magic beasts who doubted Karmandi a moment ago discarded those thoughts, as an unknown voice came from the stomach of their comrade, which shouldn’t be possible.
‘So he was right, Ulkrear you are dead meat’, swore Karmandi in his mind.