A Demon's Journey

Demon King Zalvach had a part of his soul within such an unimpressive warrior from the Palm Valley School. But the memories of this part of the soul were incomplete.

However, even from these vague memories, Azaroth did find out why this part of the soul was in this warrior.

It was because this warrior's father was a member of a demonic cult.

Since birth, these demonic cult members each had a seed implanted within them since birth that made them entirely loyal to the Demon they worshiped.

This soul seed within their mental consciousness wasn't just a method of earning their loyalty but also twisting their user's mentality.

Their intense emotions, like lust, love, anger, guilt, fear, excitement, and so on, sent a constant stream of energy to the original soul and strengthened the demon.

Many demons had different ways of gathering energy, and this Demon King Zalvach was increasing his power by feeding on his followers' intense emotions.

Azaroth knew a lot of demons of his time who would do the same. Unlike a demon, humans experienced strong emotions much more easily and frequently.

Azaroth had tried this sort of method when he was a Demon Lord, but he grew pretty disappointed as the power he received would be very unrefined. He had to spend a lot of time refining it to a level he felt was acceptable.

Anyway, it seemed as though Demon King Zalvach's motive for sabotaging this barrier formation was to kill all the humans within the Kloras Town.

Since he had lost contact with Demon Lord Talvin, who was currently in the form of an Abyssal Hound, he had no choice but to be satisfied with what he can get.

Basically, Demon King Zalvach wanted to kill all the humans of Kloras Town and then absorb their death energy through this part of his soul.

"Because I forcefully annihilated this part of his soul using my Spiritual Energy, the Demon King Zalvach is probably shaking in anger. I wonder if he will be angry enough to personally come here." Azaroth had an amused smile on his face.

He didn't fear this Demon King coming to this place. Firstly, there were no conditions for the Demon King to summon himself to this region yet.

In fact, if the Demon King were to forcefully open a portal to this place like he had done during the time when he sent Talvin here, he would be significantly injured.

Azaroth feared a Demon King because of his lack of power, but he didn't fear an injured Demon King. If Demon King Zalvach did dare to come here, he would be throwing away his life.

Also, according to the memories he read, this Demon King had a cautious nature. Considering that he had lost a part of his soul here, he might even overthink the situation and not dare come to this region.

There were a lot of things he could miscalculate…

He might mistakenly believe that this part of his soul was incinerated by a Celestial. The second was being caught by some human expert, and the third was the death of the warrior, which indeed occurred.

Azaroth raised his head and sensed some warriors arriving on the Southern Side.

These were the warriors residing in Kloras Town who had come to fight against the beasts.

Once these reinforcements had appeared on the Southern side, Azaroth spoke, "I will go to Town Lord's side. I need to inform him something."

The Palm Valley School's graduates stared at Azaroth, and although they still didn't like him all that much, they were somewhat thankful to him for extending a hand and helping them when he could.

After some minutes, Azaroth was soon together with Brynn Gaynor, Sophie, and the other warriors stationed within this encampment.

He stared at Sophie and spoke, "I modified the barrier formation and added some traps."

Sophie nodded her head, and the corners of her lips rose up, forming a beautiful smile on her face, "I noticed it when I activated the formation. That's a clever trick you used. Maybe wasting all that time on you wasn't a bad idea. You did learn something."

Azaroth just chuckled, and his gaze soon turned serious, "Has there been any attack from a 5 Star Beast yet?"

Sophie's facial expression turned grave as she answered, "Surprisingly, no. In fact, the number of beasts that are attacking the barrier is quite lesser than the expected number."

Brynn Gaynor spoke with a frown, "Maybe the beasts are just building up for a big attack."

Standing a little far away from their position, Peter turned his head and spoke, "Miss Sophie, if I have the permission to say something…"

"Speak." Sophie indifferently allowed him to say what he had in mind.

Peter began walking towards them and soon gave his input, "I have seen some beast raids occurring in our Kingdom and have heard of even more. According to my experience, nearly all the beasts should have attacked by now."

Sophie asked him seriously, "What do you want to say?"

Peter gave his answer almost immediately, "I mean that since they haven't attacked, it means they are planning something much more sinister. However, I find it weird that there have almost very few cases where the beasts actually planned a Beast Raid. Even a 5 Star Beast does not possess the intelligence to successfully plan a Beast Raid that can significantly damage us unless…"

"…Either the 5 Star Beast is a Kitsune or related to Fox through some mutations. However, according to Edwin Rhodes, the two 5 Star Beasts are a White Wolf with three eyes, and the second one is a Giant Dark Dog."

He looked at Azaroth with a distrustful gaze.

"And? What do you want to imply?" Sophie asked him with a slightly sharp voice. It was clear that she didn't like how Peter was staring at Azaroth with that suspicious look on his face.

Surprisingly though, Peter shook his head and replied, "There is a second possibility… And it would make the situation much more troublesome. The possibility of demons interfering with this Beast Raid…"

Azaroth, Brynn Gaynor, Sophie, and a few other warriors who heard Peter stared at him with a wide-eyed look.

They were shocked to hear that this might involve demons.

However, Azaroth was shocked for a slightly different reason. He never imagined that this guy would strike the hammer on the nail so decisively!

The second possibility he had stated was precisely the situation!

'This guy… I wasn't planning to pay much attention to him, but he has a sharp mind. At least much more than anyone else in this encampment! He considered this possibility despite so few hints! Also, he appears to be suspicious of me for some reason…'

"Impossible! There is no way demons would try to attack a small town like mine! What would they even get from such a small town anyway?!" Brynn Gaynor almost shouted out with a terrified expression.

"…You shouldn't scare them for no reason, Peter. This will bring down the morale on our side and will only make things troublesome." Sophie spoke to Peter, wanting him to drop this topic.

However, Peter had a forced smile as he shook his head, "I didn't consider this possibility for no reason."

He then remained quiet and somehow didn't continue ahead.

Sophie looked at Brynn Gaynor and the other warriors and was slightly worried since this new information might scare many inexperienced warriors here in this encampment.

But… At this moment, Azaroth stepped forward and spoke with a resolute voice, "So what the demons are involved?"

All eyes focused on him and wondered what he wanted to say.

One of them shouted at Azaroth, "You don't understand the demons! Unlike the beasts, the demons are a hundred times more terrifying!"

Azaroth began chuckling at those words. In this world, no one could say that he didn't understand the demons. In fact, he was awfully familiar with demons, whether it was their anatomy, their thinking, or their power.

But unfortunately, he couldn't really say that here.

"Perhaps you are right. But I know well enough that I will die fighting rather than give up before even battling those demons. Also, you are underestimating these three Tier 5 Arrays set up by Sophie. If there are demons involved, at most, they would only be at the 5 Star Rank. Otherwise, they would have already attacked and exterminated us. And this Tier 5 Array can deal with four 5 Star Beasts!"

Azaroth then stared at the man who had spoken against himself, "Now tell me, do you think we have the better chances or the enemy does?!"

Those words seemed to have uplifted the spirit of the warriors on their side.

Sophie's face was flushed red because of Azaroth's words with which he had hyped her formation and made it seem much more incredible.

Peter gazed at Azaroth and was slightly surprised that he was motivating all the warriors here.

The morale that had been destroyed was now even higher than before.

"Edwin is right. You all can rest assured that we are well prepared to deal with anything unexpected." Sophie further supported Azaroth's words, which closed this topic.

Sophie opened up the barrier and allowed the beasts to fight against their warriors.

Currently, the number of warriors on each side seemed to be sufficient in dealing with the current number of beasts.

Assume the creatures launched an all-out assault with a sudden surge in numbers. Sophie planned to resist with the complete barrier mode, then utilize the illusionary array to let them fight amongst themselves before delivering the last blow with the Killing Array.

They waited for another half an hour. However, there was still no all-out attack from the beasts.

In fact, Brynn Gaynor found this situation quite troubling since if the beasts continued to do this, it would be their encampment that would fall into a predicament.

It was because the quantity of the beasts attacking the encampment wasn't large enough to activate the Killing Array and Illusionary Arrays yet, but if they didn't use it, then their numbers won't be able to keep up with the beasts.

After a few more minutes, almost all the warriors present at the center of this encampment turned their heads towards the East.

It was because they heard the footsteps…

They saw Jaden's figure appearing in their vision. Jaden was one of Aiden's disciples and was slightly familiar with Brynn Gaynor.

However, the surprising thing was that he was carrying a body and running towards them as soon as possible.

"Please treat him. This man is heavily injured." Jaden spoke with a sense of urgency in his voice.

This man's face appeared entirely unfamiliar to the group here. They were pretty sure that he was not a warrior from this encampment.

Brynn Gaynor knew that now was not the time to ask questions regarding this man's identity. Since Jaden had brought him here, it meant that he was probably an ally, or else Aiden would have killed him already.

"Kairo, take him to the infirmary quickly!" Brynn Gaynor immediately gave an order to his subordinate.

The subordinate quickly carried this man's body to the infirmary.

The boy named Jaden took some quick breaths to calm down his body.

Brynn Gaynor then asked him, "Who was that man? Why would he come to our encampment at this time?"

Jaden spoke with a look of urgency on his face, "Town lord… He told us that the beasts have attacked the Kloras Town! Why are you not defending the town from these beasts?!"

"What are you talking about? Aren't we fighting against the beasts, right here?" Just as Brynn Gaynor spoke those words, Peter's eyes flashed with shock and anger.

Peter clenched his fists tightly as he spoke out, "Shit! Those beasts… They split their forces into two and sent the main force towards the Kloras Town, moving around the barrier while they sent the smaller force towards us here!"

"I did station many warriors in the Kloras Town. If it had been attacked, they should have informed me." Brynn Gaynor spoke with a grim look.

At this point, Jaden spoke again, "The man mentioned that the warriors stationed in the town collapsed before they could even send a signal for reinforcement. In fact, it wasn't even a fight… A single dark hound just broke our defenses all alone, and then the other beasts entered the town, slaughtering everyone in sight."

"Shit! That dark hound must have been the 5 Star Beast!" Peter suddenly exclaimed out with a look of urgency.

It was at this moment Brynn Gaynor and the other people realized what the entire situation was.