A Demon's Journey

A few days had passed since Jonas went to the king regarding the matter of the taxes of Kloras Town.

Even though the King had agreed, Jonas had to deal with all sorts of formalities and he also had some other tasks so he had to stay in the capital for some time.

During this time, Azaroth trained Noah and also took time to train Ralph.

Ralph had an impressive reaction speed, clearly because of the cougar's blood within him. The Bloodline within him seemed to originate from a Beast King…

Although impressive in the Kingdom of Sinyalian, it wasn't enough in Azaroth's eyes.

Ralph's fighting style didn't seem to fit with a weapon so Azaroth had begun to teach him martial arts that would fit with his body style.

It was an inferior model of the fighting style created by Azaroth by combining Karate, Taekwondo, and kickboxing.

He also ordered Ralph to undergo training special training for his legs.

The only one who didn't train along with Azaroth was Sargan. He just continued to observe Azaroth's training from a distance each day.

There seemed something on his mind but he didn't talk about it to anyone at all.

He was in reality thinking deeply about the reason why Azaroth had bought them.

'This man hasn't even asked us to do a task for him. Even though we are his retainers, he has provided us with a good place to sleep, and a fine meal. He is also training us. Just what does he plan to do with us?'

'A man with the Mystic Eyes of a Demon God and the Holy Ardor. Just what is this guy? Is he a demon or a human? Or a Celestial? He also seems to know about my clan but there hasn't been any news of Bach Clan appearing in this place in search of me. Otherwise, they would have easily slaughtered this weak kingdom.'

~~

Meanwhile, in another place, 100 meters beneath the ground, a young blonde-haired woman was seated with her emerald eyes lazily looking around.

There wasn't anything she hadn't seen hundreds if not thousands of times but still, she had nothing to do while she was trapped here.

This was the Elf Princess trapped by the Silent Death organization. She had a melancholic look on her face as she remembered how she was captured by these men.

The Elf Kingdom was facing a threat and she had sneaked out of the Elven Forest, hoping to find help while traveling around.

Her personal guards were rather weak and they couldn't make use of their boost from the World Tree so they failed to defend their Princess when the Silent Death coincidently bumped into them.

Although they had defeated the first wave of warriors from the Silent Death, they were quickly surrounded by the members of the Silent Death.

Her guards fought to their deaths while the Elf Princess was captured alive.

One of the warriors had used his unique skill to prevent her from moving.

With this skill, the Elf Princess couldn't even choose to die using her Ardor.

And once she was captured, they sealed her Ardor and then brought her to this dungeon.

It had been nearly a month since she was captured and there have been many men who were brought to see her.

Yet, there was seemingly little to no hope in getting out of this prison.

Fortunately, she was allowed to move freely without her hands or legs tied up.

The Elf Princess got up and held the bars of this prison. She used her entire strength but couldn't budge the bars at all.

As she removed her hands, her finger seemed to touch some faint purple energy on the bars.

Once that purple energy was touched, Elf Princess sensed another aura flaring ahead of her.

The Elf Princess backed away as she was surprised to see a lot of energy compressing at a particular point.

Soon, the compression stopped and the aura expanded from that point into a particular shape.

It was a face.

And she recalled that this face belonged to that man who had come to see her just a few days ago.

"Y-You… Who are you?!" The Elf Princess asked while her voice trembled with fear.

She didn't know what motive this guy had for leaving behind a spiritual imprint.

"My name is Azaroth. And I plan to free you out of here."

This spiritual imprint left behind by Azaroth remained neutral as he replied to her.

Once the Elf Princess heard him say that he planned to get her out of this prison, her nervousness vanished, and instead, she was getting excited at the prospect of leaving this prison.

"How will you get me out of here? What do you want to get me out of here? As long as it's something I can do, I will definitely do my best." Elf Princess spoke out with no hesitation. She knew that getting her out must be troublesome for this guy as well so she planned on luring him with some benefits.

Azaroth faintly smiled and spoke, "Just take a pledge that you will fulfill my request. Naturally, I also promise not to give you a request that would threaten elves."

The first sentence from Azaroth somewhat scared the Elf Princess while Azaroth's second sentence relieved her quite a bit.

She nodded her head and spoke, "I, Laura Vajor, pledge that I will fulfill any request Azaroth might have as long as it does not endanger the Elves."

As Azaroth heard her full name, he wasn't surprised to hear that her last name was Vajor. During his reign as a Demon God, the Royal Family of Elves had also used Vajor as their last name.

Once Azaroth heard Laura's pledge, he nodded in satisfaction. If there was one thing he knew quite clear, it was that the Elves would never break their oath.

It was considered very disrespectful to the World Tree and the Nature Goddess.

"Are you proficient in controlling the wood?" Azaroth asked Laura with a curious gaze.

Once Laura heard his words, she had a proud face as she revealed, "I can easily control the Wood without using any signs or symbols. Hehe…"

She proudly smiled as this was a rather rare skill even amongst the Royal Family of the Elves.

But instead of praising Lura, Azaroth merely blinked his eyes as he heard this fact and then asked, "And what about presence concealment? How good is it? Can you blend with nature?"

"How do you know about this skill?!" Laura was surprised to hear those words from Azaroth's mouth.

The presence concealment was a skill unique to the Royal Family and it was something that shouldn't be known to the humans.

It was at this time she noticed that this person was talking through a spiritual imprint. He must possess a lot of secrets.

"…I don't know that skill. If I knew it, I wouldn't have been captured." Laura spoke with her cheeks turning red because of embarrassment.

"I see." Azaroth calmly replied. He spoke after some time, "Getting you out of here without the Presence Concealment skill will be tricky. You will need to wait for nearly half a day then."

"Just half a day?" Laura asked, utterly shocked to hear this time frame. She had expected him to say a week or even a month. Maybe even then, he would have to leave things up to fate.

But here Azaroth was actually telling her that she only needed to wait for half a day to get free from this prison. Her excitement immediately went off the charts!

"I will disperse now. I need to pass this information to my real body." Azaroth's spiritual imprint informed Laura.

Laura immediately replied to him, "Please come soon, I will wait for you." From her tone, she seemed to be begging him.

Soon, that spiritual imprint dispersed into thousands if not millions of particles.

~~

In the Rhodes Estate, Azaroth was sleeping peacefully. He was giving his body some well-deserved rest after his own and his servant's training.

Suddenly, some amount of information entered his mind and woke him up.

Once he was awake, he remembered that conversation his Spiritual Imprint had with Laura Vajor.

"Alright. I guess I need to begin my preparations then." Azaroth whispered to himself as he got up from his bed.

He wore a blue cloak with straight collars and brown trousers that seemed to be perfectly hidden underneath that dark blue cloak.

Azaroth jumped out of his room through the window. He was on his way to the Merchant Union!

That's right, instead of going to the Silent Death Organization's base, he was moving towards the storehouse of the Merchant Union.

Azaroth naturally hadn't just trained in these few days. Because of his new identity as being recognized by Jonas, he was now allowed to receive some classified information.

Such as the location of this storehouse of the Merchant Union.

Considering that this was the Rhodes Family's territory, it was obvious that the location of the Merchant Union's storehouse would be known to the Rhodes Family.

However, the Rhodes Family had no idea about the contents stored inside it. Thus, they had no idea about the rumor that a rare artifact had appeared in the Merchant Union.

Even though it was merely a rumor, Azaroth didn't care. His intention was never to steal that thing.

Few things would reach Azaroth's standard. His intention was rather simple, which was to raise a ruckus. And he had a good plan on how to achieve that.

The cold smile on Azaroth's face indicated that he had an evil plan in his mind. It was worth noting that the last time he had such an evil smile, the massacre of the Kloras Town occurred.