Supreme Monarch

"Now then, let's get back to the purpose of this meeting. Speaking of this new Demon Lord, I believe he should have been the one who destroyed our scouts in the Darknar forest a while back. I take it that was in preparations for his usurping of the king's castle, is it not?"

The air seemed to crackle and freeze.

"According to the information we got from our spies in the Mereotti Family, the ones who destroyed the scouts were a pair of female demons. Their description didn't match with him at all."

Caz answered Cain's question but his tone was not laced with as much conviction as it once was.

"Of course, it doesn't match. Both parties are of different genders, but that doesn't mean it wasn't him or better yet, his subordinates. There are two, in particular, that seem to match that description."

"Indeed you're right. For someone of his caliber, using shape-shifting magic isn't too difficult for him if he wanted to handle the matter personally. Besides, I sense the memories of that scout might have been altered, and their descriptions do match those two that appear in the report as Caz was hinting at. It's hard to ignore their presence in his forces isn't it?"

"You mean the ones that had defeated our representatives don't you?"

Everyone's eyes shifted in a single direction. It was at the Great Demon Lord himself, Cain Lyra Alcar.

"There's no need to say it. I'm aware of how this looks and what's going through everyone's minds. But know this, I am not my father."

The room fell silent for a while as everyone took a moment to think about something before the silence was once again broken by Faxon.

"Indeed. Last we heard the black sheep of our family. An abomination that contaminated our blood with that of a lowly demi-human, had died after jumping off a cliff and next, we see her and her filthy elf servant fighting toe to toe with our family's Demigod level representatives on the side of that Demon. So tell us, Lord Cain, how is that possible?"

"Please be careful of what you say, Faxon, I do not like what you're insinuating."

"I am not insinuating anything. I am well aware that the transgressions of your father, who had failed to become the Demon Lord, cannot be placed on you. However, sending only the Dark Elf legion after your half-blood daughter and her dark elf servant seems a bit odd."

"Indeed, if you truly wanted to eliminate the disgrace that dares spit on the mercy Lord Apollyon had shown her by running away, then why didn't you send the entire Black Circle after them? Even the Red Circle would've been preferable to only the Elf legion. It matters not if they are under the Black circle's control."

Hearing Deelie pick off from Faxon's indirect accusations, Cain sighed inwardly as he took a moment to reflect on his thoughts before bothering to answer the accusing gazes of the six pillars.

"Sigh... As you have surmised, I had no intentions of executing one of my daughters in the first place. Even if her blood had been tainted by my father's atrocities with a snow spirit. In that aspect alone, she is innocent and still shares half our family's blood. However, that doesn't mean I would tolerate a deserter even if it was my son."

The room once again fell silent as everyone turned to each other before Faxon spoke in response to the Great Demon Lord.

"Those are pretty words but the evidence shows otherwise. If you were truly serious about preventing our family's sin— the black sheep— from escaping then she should've been eliminated the moment her innate ability manifested in such away. We ended up losing valuable researchers and research data on that faithful day."

"Indeed... We had also lost the prototype artifact created from the years of research we had conducted on her. Those weapons had the potential to overcome the Darknar's castle barrier. With that in mind, it's hard not to think we are the ones responsible for granting access to the Darknar region to the new Demon Lord."

As everyone heard those words from Deelie, they were all speechless as they had unconsciously tried to avoid that train of thoughts for their own sanity.

The artifact that the Dark elf designated with the code name; Rain, had stolen were experimental weapons being created by the family's top Magic researchers and Blacksmith.

As the Alcar family's innate ability was 'Ice Domain.' An ability that not just freezes everything around them to the subatomic level, they could even freeze the atoms themselves, destroying everything their ice touches including Magic formations and barriers.

However, the layered barrier around the Darknar castle had a layer that protected it against elemental Magic. That barrier was believed by the public to be a Five-layered barrier but in truth, it was beyond even a ten-layer barrier, and not even the Great Five knew the extent of its complexity.

They had hoped to create a Magic artifact by extracting the dormant innate ability from their black sheep. However, their experiments had failed countless times over.

Still, there was one semi-success, and that was the artifact accurately named, Epitome of Destruction. A byproduct of their experiments and the first Magic artifact the family had created.

Even though its abilities were weaker than they had expected and it was the lowest grade artifact, the fact that they had successfully created an actual artifact was outstanding.

That was a technique that had been lost in time and with that alone, they would be able to easily grow their strength to surpass that of the other families and take over the demon continent for their god's descent.

However, that girl had awakened a false persona and killed off all their researchers, destroying all the data they had on the method of creating Magic artifacts.

The worse part about this was that they had both escaped with the only prototype. Learning they had died had been a relief as all they had to do was located the missing artifacts from their grave sight, yet now, they were now finding out that not only had they survived the fall, but were now insanely more powerful and under the protection of a Great Demon Lord level being.

This information was frustrating and detrimental to their plans. So it was understandable why they were all a bit irritated at the possibility that the Demon Lord had gone easy on them.

"That's quite enough Eddard, you've gone too far."

"Too far!? Did you not read the report on our losses from that day Ike, or are you hiding something from us once more?"

"Of course not, please be civilized. If anyone is to receive the blame for that day then it's the Black Circle as they were the ones that had been tasked with bringing back the ice princess dead or alive. I was the one who had personally issued the order."

"Is that right?"

"Indeed, they must've severely underestimated the prowess of those two as they had only sent a force compromising of only three dark elves after them."

"Sending dark elves to eliminate a demon from our family, what nonsense is this. Eve. If she is the black sheep she still shares the holy blood of a superior race. Were you aware of this Ike?"

"Well, the plan had been to eliminate the dark elf with the princess while priority capturing the princess herself alive. Unfortunately, we heard that they had both been wounded and then fallen off a cliff into the red River. We also searched through the memories of the ones sent after her and confirmed this truth."

"Is that the truth?"

"Well, I heard two of those pursuers had been related to the dark elf. Wasn't she also showing results from the experiments?"

"That's correct. The Black Circle had sent the older siblings of the dark elf after them in hopes of garnering an emotional reaction to ascertain the results of the test in a natural situation of distress but the results remain incomplete and after they fell off the cliff we assumed they were dead. The Green Circle was then sent to search and retrieve their bodies, especially the artifact. However, they had unfortunately encounter someone from the Morningstar family and were almost wiped off the face of Neron."

"Well, clearly things didn't go as expected, I doubt those weirdos would take responsibility for this even if we try to force them."

"Indeed, it's hard to predict what those guys are thinking. Especially now that they've moved their main headquarters to a deserted island."

"That's a discussion for another time. For some reason, we also sent that failure as one of our representatives and now she's been captured and reunited with her sister. Absolutely deplorable!"

"The dark elf is of no concern to us. They're all fairly disposable and I supposed that's why she was sent along. The problem lies in the girls' ability to defeat those two by themselves. Their strength had clearly exceeded their previous recorded numbers by leaps and bounds."

"Well, that can still be attributed to the multitude of God Tier artifacts that had been gifted to them by that Demon Lord. Little Roland also mentions this in his report as evident by the transformation of our black sheep of a princess."

"Hmm... even with her impurities, wasn't she kept alive to be a candidate as one of the lord's vessels? If she's still alive, can we reclaim her? Her innate ability is unstable but her noble bloodline is still valuable."

"I believe they might've sworn fealty to this Demon Lord in exchange for protection as well as trading that artifact to him. Giving as none of them was a valued member of our family, there isn't a fear of valuable secrets being revealed."

"Still, if they are now at the core of this Demon Lord's inner circle then it might be a good idea to reclaim them."

"Well, there's a chance they might be bait for our family to make a move. If we were to recklessly reach out to them it might be grounds for war and clearly, our forces cannot overwhelm his."

*Sigh...

At the mention of war, the entire atmosphere in the room dampened as a look of fatigued plagued everyone's faces as they recalled the brief report they had just read in this Great Demon Lord's forces.

"This is all just conjecture at the moment. We just need to think about making contact with this Great Demon Lord. A direct confrontation might be the way to go."

"That's too risky. It's far too risky. We should instead go to the Taine Ze Region and gain information from the Hunters there, it seems they've been trying to make direct contact with the Demon Lord's new city. We can then make contact with the Brimstone's family's Great Demon Lord."

"That would be good, as long as the Brimstone doesn't cower in fear or worse, wag their tail for the new Demon Lord of Darknar, that is."

"It's a gamble, but it can't be helped. If we do nothing but cower in a corner, in fear of a possible traitor, we'll end up having to play catch-up with others."

"Still, when you say a gamble… how much of a gamble? If we mess it up, it'll become a casus belli to attack us, no? Although I don't believe any of the Great Five is working with them, we should try to understand the Brimstone's stance on the matter before making contact."

"Indeed. The treatment of the Brimstone family's representative had been extremely more brutal than the rest so it's hard to see them as anything less than mortal enemies of this people but given as it seems they've already been acquainted with each other, that may very well just be an act."

"Indeed..."