The two girls didn’t care about those geniuses at all. By the time the darkness domain disappeared, they had already vanished from the area.
Far away, they reappeared. In front of them, there were 10 Demon Generals who hadn’t died during the war. Each one of them was currently on their knees, not daring to look up at the two girls.
“So? Who’s your king? What’s the Stormbringer? What about the Apostles? Tell me! Tell me!”
Qing Tan fired off a series of questions. The previous battle wasn’t very exciting to her until these ten Demon Generals defected, so her curiosity towards them was great.
“Miss, we will tell you everything. However, we must first speak to the Stormbringer. We are not allowed to disobey orders from our King.”
Qing Tan’s eyes became cold. “You won’t tell me?”
A gloomy aura erupted from her body, immediately suppressing the Demon Generals until their bodies were implanted into the ground below. But none of them spoke a word.
Were they afraid of Qing Tan? That was guaranteed. They had seen her power first hand. They didn’t even know when or how they were transported out of the battlefield and to this secluded location.
But would they go against their King’s orders because of their fear? The answer was a resounding no. They would rather die than do anything against their King’s will.
Qing Tan’s eyes gradually became indifferent. “Fine. I just need to bring you to him, right? That’s easy enough. But if you dare misbehave…”
A grin surfaced on her face, causing the Demon Generals to involuntarily shudder. They nodded their heads like pecking chicks while sweating profusely. As long as it wasn’t against their King’s orders, they wouldn’t even dare to think about acting up in front of the Devil in front of them.
As Qing Tan proceeded to ignore the Demon Generals, Feng Qing’er raised a question.
“So? What’s the story here?”
She hadn’t been present until the end of the battle within the darkness domain, and by that point, Qing Tan had already removed the Demon Generals from the area. She was definitely curious about how they ended up like this and why they were being so respectful.
And after hearing about what happened from Qing Tan; her curiosity grew even more. She was beginning to understand Qing Tan’s actions a little.
“The Stormbringer must be that guy, right?”
“Yup! You saw how he took care of the abominations when we first met. It’s pretty obvious they’re referring to him.”
“Hmph. If it’s that guy, then it makes some sense. He seems to know a lot more than we do about the overall situation.”
“Oh, by the way, why do you keep calling him ‘that guy’ instead of saying his name?”
Qing Tan smiled mischievously.
“W-what are you saying all of a sudden?! It doesn’t mean anything at all!”
“I never said it meant anything though~?”
Feng Qing’er blushed at her teasing. She wasn’t even lying when she said it didn’t mean anything. She just ended up referring to him as such for so long that it became a habit.
But she was weak to teasing from someone who would shamelessly push things like Qing Tan, so she ended up only making herself look more suspicious.
“Oh, right. You guys, what’s with that black substance the Demon Commanders were using during the battle? You can at least tell us that much, no?”
Feng Qing’er managed to divert the conversation to something else. She had been wondering about it for a while now, since she had almost been consumed by it. It didn’t feel like something natural.
“That’s…”
The Demon Generals hesitated. But the second Qing Tan shot them a cold glare, they began to stammer out words.
“W-we can’t talk about it. It’s impossible. Please forgive us!”
Qing Tan’s eyes sharpened as she noticed something.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t.” The Demon General responded firmly.
“Hmm…”
Feng Qing’er fell into thought. That entity obviously wasn’t Kroa’s power. This much she knew. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to stop it from fleeing after she killed Kroa, so she couldn’t figure out much else.
Unlike Damien, these two hadn’t taken the time to interrogate or gain information from the Demons at all. Until this point, the only contact they had with the race was through battle. Due to this, they didn’t have the necessary information to infer about higher-level truths.
The girls ignored the topic since it couldn’t be helped and began asking the Demon Generals more miscellaneous questions for information. Like this, they were able to gather similar information to what Damien learned through Elitra.
After they finished, they began moving towards the location where Damien had been battling Polius many minutes prior.
***
“Haa…”
Within the Sanctuary, Damien was lying on the soft grass, his breathing gentle and his eyes closed.
He had woken up not long ago, but he still hadn’t opened his eyes. The waves of fatigue had calmed down to the point where it was bearable, but he still wasn’t completely fine.
‘I’ll probably see a drop in my combat power until I can get this healed…but my assassination strategy should still work. It’s a shame though.’
If only he had been more knowledgeable about the soul, he would’ve been able to prepare or even counter the attack. But what’s done was done. There was no use regretting it.
Now that he was in a safer environment, he sent his awareness into his body to check his condition. He wanted to see if he could scour his soul or at least find its location.
His awareness spread through his body, highlighting every single cell for Damien to observe as he pleased. Unfortunately, there was no such thing as a ‘soul gate’ that connected his physical body to his soul as he hoped.
‘Or maybe I’m just not strong enough yet.’
In the end, it still came down to strength. Damien sighed as he sat up and stretched his body. He spread his senses through the Sanctuary to see what was happening in the other areas.
He was currently in a separated space he created as a training ground for himself to use so he could be destructive without running the risk of harming Little Xue, but since the Sanctuary shared a bond with him, he was able to peruse its entire area without problems.
The total size of the Sanctuary wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t small either. If it came down to it, there was enough space for a civilization of hundreds of thousands of people to bloom within.
But Damien hadn’t made use of most of the Sanctuary’s space yet. He mainly used the miniature pocket spaces he had created for various purposes.
When he spread his senses, a smile immediately surfaced on his face. The first scene he saw was Little Xue happily running through the tall grass fields around her treehouse and playing with some of the elemental spirits that had been born in the realm.
Her bell-like laughter and cheerful aura were enough to soothe his fatigued mind greatly.
As for the elemental spirits, even Damien wasn’t sure how they came into existence. He was sure they weren’t there when the Sanctuary was first established, but at some point, they had just shown up.
Perhaps it was due to the high concentration of elemental essence within the Sanctuary due to its connection with the Void. That was the best guess Damien could make.
But the spirits weren’t harmful, so he didn’t mind them. They also kept Little Xue company while he inevitably had to move from battlefield to battlefield.
In fact, they seemed to be particularly fond of her.
‘She must have some kind of talent.’
If she started cultivating, he knew she’d be labeled a genius and carefully nurtured regardless of the force she entered. But he had no plans to force her into it.
She was still far too young. Until she was at least 10, he would bar her from partaking in it. But after that point, if she really wanted to cultivate, he wouldn’t spare any expense to help her become powerful.
As he watched the elemental spirits dance through the air, an odd thought came to mind.
‘Sigh, when am I going to get a Little Ancestor Spirit that guides me in cultivation and has all the answers to my questions? Tsk, what a shame!’
It was a thought that’d make millions of people vomit blood. This guy who already had so many benefits wanted a walking encyclopedia as well?! Could he be any more shameless?!
Luckily, those people weren’t present.
Damien soon flashed away from his location, arriving at the field where Xue’er was playing.
