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Oriza took deep breaths, a solemnity painted between her brows. She gripped her ax so hard that blood seeped between her palms, her forearms trembling beneath the pain of her fractures.

There was a ferociousness on her expression that could only be matched by a demon. She abhorred running from battle, but she also wasn't a fool. Whatever that was had been so far beyond her she couldn't even properly understand it.

She had felt only one aura, but there had definitely been two shadows within that storm of feathers. Plus, a demon that powerful stopping in their tracks just to masturbate in this land between worlds was far too ridiculous. Not that two such demons having sex in the middle of this battlefield was any less ridiculous.

'The aura felt demonic... but also not... it definitely wasn't a Lust Demon either, that aura didn't have the effect of Charm Force at all...'

"Who?!"

Oriza's head snapped to the side, and she only relaxed when she saw that it was actually Larkan. He was far more beaten and bloodied than she was, but she still felt that it was a net positive that he had managed to survive as well.

"What was that?" Larkan said between breaths.

Oriza frowned, clearly not having an exact answer. But then her eyes suddenly flashed with light.

"Could it be...?" She mumbled. "We need to report this matter."

"What are you thinking about?"

"The seal. The seal that divided our worlds from theirs and kept those shitty humans, it was located here. It spanned across this entire region and somehow managed to stand strong under the barrage of Anarchic Force."

"And?" Larkan was confused.

"During that time, this place was practically a world of its own, and it's even possible that it formed its own ecosystem."

Larkan frowned. "Would there be enough time for that?"

"For humans, no. But it's been, what? At least three or four generations since the seal first appeared, that's almost 40⌜€“50 thousand years. There were definitely some of our kind left behind and trapped here. Those inferior Demons are unlike us. They eat whatever they can get their hands on, improve however they can, they have no bottom line at all.

"If they were stuck in an environment like this one for so long, it wouldn't be surprising if a completely new race of demons was formed-especially since there would also have been other races left behind and trapped here.

"The higher-ups probably didn't care to consider this matter too much because the odds that they could have become a threat in such a short time were miniscule. But obviously, the situation's changed."

Larkan was enlightened.

Inferior demons were none other than the so-called ranked demons that Leonel and Aina had faced during their first stint into the Cataclysm Zone.

Demons were well known for their adaptability and they followed numerous paths, much like the humans and, to a lesser extent, the Nomads.

"... I think it's possible that a new race of Chaos Demons has appeared."

Larkan's eyes opened wide.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

-

"I'm sorry, didn't I already say it!"

"It's not sincere enough, I think you need some more punishment."

Leonel and Aina's voices continued to echo as though nothing at all had happened. They seemed to entirely forget that they were supposed to be on a mission.

Eventually, though, they did stop terrorizing the world with their passion and they stepped out from the tornado of black feathers.

Aina pouted. "I took so much "punishment" because of these two, they better have something interesting on them."

Leonel almost choked on air. He really didn't know how this woman could be such a masochist, it fit with literally no other part of her personality. Even when she said "punishment" just now her eyes lit up with excitement as though she was trying to goad Leonel into doing it again.

In the end, he chuckled to himself.

'Just wait,' he thought to himself. Once he started breaking through the Dimensions again, he'd have far more stamina than she could handle.

The two walked up to the corpses of the Bull Demons, checking them one by one.

There didn't seem to be many interesting things to find. They didn't wear spatial devices, which was odd at first until Leonel concluded that it must be due to the environment. Other than that, there was just the best skin that acted as their skirts, their weapons, and...

"A map?"

Leonel was more shocked that he could memorize it with a glance. It actually took him two scans.

The paper on it was odd and it seemed to obscure his senses. When you looked away, it was easy for you to forget what you had seen. Leonel had to imprint it into his mind using a unique method to make himself remember, but then that formed an odd connection with an ethereal feeling he didn't like, so he wiped his memory a moment afterward.

'What was that?'

Leonel's brows trembled.

He had reacted quickly, but he had a wakeup call in that instant. He couldn't do things as casually as he had once done in the Dimensional Verse. Just now, he could have really put himself and Aina in some serious danger.

"They're mapping out the region, and they feel that it's important enough to protect. If my guess is right, these two maps probably aren't even identical."

Leonel picked up the second map and confirmed his guess. It was likely that the two that had escaped had two more of these maps, and in all likelihood, that wasn't everything.

His Internal Sight was incredibly limited in his in-between world. Though, due to his improvement, it was still in the hundreds of kilometers. He had seen these Bull Demons even before they heard him and Aina.

"They're preparing for battle?" Aina asked. "It makes sense to map out the terrain, but why isn't that our task as well? Why tell us just to kill?"

"The lines on the map, though it's subtle, look like a huge Force Art. Those lines should be a defensive type Force Art, one created to stop the in-flow of demons.

"However, it's fragmented and broken. If I'm correct, this seal was used to hold the demons back and it only recently gave way, allowing the demons to take action.

"If that's true, then whatever terrain is here has likely already been thoroughly understood by the humans and there's no point in sending people in to map something they already understand."

Aina sent a glance at the map and her lips pursed. She had no idea how Leonel had concluded that from all the swirly and squiggly lines. She was familiar with Force Arts as well, but this looked nothing like one. Even so, she trusted Leonel's judgment.

'What a powerful seal...' Leonel thought. '... Why does it look so familiar?'

His eyes widened. These runes, they were the same runes that were on the chains that held down that image of himself in the blood lake!

Sparks of lightning rippled through Leonel's Dreamscape.

He felt the web he was stuck in had suddenly become marginally clearer.

If he had known that the shattering of this seal had coincided with the shattering of the chains within his mind, he would have been even more certain.

Back then, it was precisely because this seal shattered that Leonel and Aina had been saved from the wrath of Aina's "master", the head of the Endless Twilight Pavilion, Pavilion Head Ophelia.