A Demon's Journey

While Sargan and Tiana left Kloras Town, Noah returned in a couple of days.

Moreover, he had brought nearly 800 people along with him. Most of them had sad looks on their faces as they entered Kloras Town.

Azaroth met up with the entire group and assigned them where they needed to stay. He asked for their occupations and soon allocated them different tasks. All these tasks were related to constructing more houses.

These could be considered temporary tasks until he could ask them to focus on whatever they wanted to do.

Meanwhile, it was the harvest period. Because the seeds had been enhanced with Laura's blood, the yield of these crops was quite good.

Azaroth had already prepared a granary to store all this food. He personally constructed a preservation array to prevent the food from decaying.

Among his retainers, no one managed to pass their trials.

Azaroth decided to make Noah train the other three who still hadn't passed their trials. He was going to advise them how they should pass their trials.

But this wasn't the only task assigned to him. Azaroth also informed Noah that he would be leaving Kloras Town for a few days. And he would be leaving the town in his hands.

Now… This was something that truly made Noah nervous. If the task was regarding fighting someone, Noah wouldn't frown no matter how hard it appeared.

However, just thinking of managing the entire town gave him a lot of pressure. He had no idea how he should manage the town to not disappoint Azaroth.

Azaroth noticed his worries and informed him, "Ask for advice from Yrellea and Laura. They can provide you good assistance."

Once Noah heard those words, he visibly calmed down. He remembered he wasn't alone.

Azaroth was also forced to do this. He had the impression that the process of creating his clone had reached a key moment.

Now, he had to return to Wrihull City and collect the only thing he had left behind in his totem.

Even Azaroth had no idea that experts from Rhodes House were keeping an eye on his totem. In fact, the King had already dispatched Felix Miller, who was on his way towards Wrihull City as well.

Currently, Azaroth was a 5 Star Warrior and he no longer required horses. He could fly using his Ardor to reach Wrihull City.

According to his estimates, he would need a week to reach Wrihull City.

~~

Currently, Shun wasn't in his City of Venta. Instead, he was within the Mesenana City, the Capital of the Sinyalian Kingdom.

He planned to meet with Sophie Russel and wanted to find out more regarding the beast raid that occurred in Kloras Town.

According to what he heard, she was one of the two survivors of that incident.

He entered the mansion and soon met with the lady of the house, Bianca Russel. This woman was a former heiress of the Lewis Marquis Family.

The Lewis Marquis Family had made her marry Spencer Russel to build good relations with that man. Since the man was a rising talent as well as possessed a member of the Royal Guards, they decided to bet on their luck and betrothed their heiress to him.

Although some family members and even other noble families were quite dissatisfied with such action from their family, they ignored it. The Lewis Family had always been quite loyal to the King.

This action just further enforced that connection. It could be said that the Lewis Family had gained quite a bit from that gamble as the man they bet on went on to become the commander of the Royal Guards.

He was one of the only 6 Star Warriors within the entire Sinyalian Kingdom.

Bianca Russel informed Shun that Sophie had gone to meet her friend. Shun asked her a couple of questions.

Bianca answered them quickly. But Shun concluded that she was lying.

Her answers appeared to be perfect but when thinking just a bit about it, holes could be seen in her explanations.

After all, why did Sophie not take along any of her guards with her? Why did she only leave when her father wasn't in the city?

Shun was dissatisfied. He knew that even if he laid these facts out in front, Bianca would refuse to tell him the truth.

She was a member of the Lewis Marquis Family and also the wife of Spencer Russel. Shun couldn't forcefully make her speak the truth.

He only had one option left. That was to go in the Royal Palace and look at the records regarding Kloras Town's Beast Raid.

Any event that occurred was usually recorded in the form of texts within the Royal Palace's Library.

However, the one who submitted this text was Spencer Russel after asking his daughter about the events.

Shun wanted to get the answers from Sophie herself. That way, he could ask her questions regarding it and get more information.

Nearly half a day later, he received permission to view those documents. He soon began to read the documents.

'The Beast Raid split into two parts. One group surrounded the encampment while the other charged in Kloras Town and completely destroyed it.'

'Once the Town Lord and the other warriors in the encampment found out that a group of beasts was destroying their village, they immediately gathered their reinforcements to go and fight them in Kloras Town to protect the citizens.'

'Even Peter, Sophie's 5 Star Ranked Guard, joined the Town Lord and others to kill the Beasts. But he traded his life for the life of a 5 Star Beast.'

There was a frown on his face as he thought 'Peter? Isn't he that guy from the Royal Guards who used his flute and sound wave attacks to fight other warriors? He was quite strong.'

'He was forced to trade his life for the life of a beast?' Shun didn't know why but he felt that this statement was quite suspicious.

He knew that the man was quite strong. Even Shun didn't have great confidence in killing him. After all, Peter could always use his attacks to run. He remembered Peter had an attack that would definitely strike and attack their minds.

This would definitely work against the beasts.

Moreover, according to the information written over here, Sophie mentioned that one beast was a White Wolf and the other was a Black Dog.

'Peter's attacks should have overpowered these two beasts even more. So, why was he forced to trade his life for a beast's life? Was there another beast strong enough to force Peter into a corner? Or was this all a scheme?'

He felt that it was more likely that this was someone else's scheme.

'If it was the scheme of a demon then it would fit nicely. But why was the demon even in Kloras Town? Did the Kloras Town or the Beast Raid have something he needed?'

Even Shun couldn't figure out just what that demon was doing in Kloras Town.

He continued to read more information.

'Sophie was exhausted because of controlling the array formation for so long. And the control of this formation fell under Edwin's hands. He was the one who constructed the array along with Sophie so other than her, only he could control it.'

Shun's eyes widened as he read that name. This was the first time Edwin's name had come within this description.

'He is an array formation expert?!'

This was a piece of information that was completely unknown to him.

'…If he knew that I and Jonas were coming to check his town, he could have removed all the traces of that elf and hid her using an array. I wouldn't be able to find her tracks since there are no tracks at all. She had always been in Kloras Town. But still, this information doesn't prove anything. It's not proper evidence yet.'

He then continued on to read the rest of the information.

'Sophie took rest in a room in the main building. During this time, the beasts somehow managed to break the barrier. The White Wolf attacked the building where Sophie was resting. She woke up because of a great tremor and found herself to be in a barrier formed by her guards, guarding her against a horrifying attack from the White Wolf. Her guards asked her to run away while they stayed behind to slow down the beasts.'

'While running, she found Edwin and noticed he had survived the attack as well. The two soon ran away from Kloras Town. While running, they encountered a 4 Star Ape. Edwin fought against it and forced it to run away.'

Thus, the document was nearly finished.

On the last page, Shun saw that these were descriptions of what Jonas had observed when he went to check out Kloras Town.

He was planning to kill the beasts remaining from that beast raid before giving this town to his son.

'Strange. Why did he not find any 4 Star or 5 Star Beasts? How come they all died? Was there another group at work?'

'…When Sophie woke up and ran away from Kloras Town with Edwin, the array formations' control was still in Edwin's hands. If he had set it up in such a manner that the killing array would activate and unleash all its power at a particular area, it would indeed be possible to kill the strongest beasts from this beast raid. It was a 5 Star Array after all.'

This was also a mere guess. He couldn't confirm it unless he checked the site of the encampment.

Even though he didn't get a shred of conclusive evidence from reading this information, he was getting much more suspicious about Edwin.

The most informative thing he read in this entire document was that Edwin knew how to create arrays.

Now, he had to wait for Felix Miller to reach the Wrihull City and check out that totem.

~~

A week or so later, Azaroth had finally reached the Wrihull City. Instead of entering the main city though, he entered the nearby forest where he had left behind his totem.

He encountered a few beasts along his way as he flew towards the cave where his totem was fixed. The beasts immediately ran away after seeing him.

Azaroth entered the cave soon enough. He was soon standing near his totem.

Soon, Azaroth's vision fell on the ground near the totem. There were cracks on the ground.

A frown appeared on his face as he concluded 'Someone was here. Probably a few weeks earlier.'

He then observed his totem and noticed a few marks on it. These marks were quite noticeable to him since they hadn't formed due to the flow of time. And a weak warrior would never be able to make such marks.

This made him conclude that a 6 Star Warrior was here. And within this territory, other than Jonas, who else could be this 6 Star Warrior?

Azaroth muttered, "I guess that Inquisitor Fox has also seen this totem."

"Later, I'll devise a strategy. First and foremost, I must obtain the thing for which I came here."

The reason Azaroth came here… It was none other than to get a drop of his own essence blood.

This was the essence blood of his body that had reached the level of a Demon God!