The next week continued quite leisurely, at night Jordan spared with William and beat to him the basic of fighting.

Jordan didn't exactly hold back and yet William came every evening and said he is ready for another spar, even though William was spell oriented demon he didn't neglect his body and made sure to at least have some foundation.

Jordan was satisfied with William and taught him everything most of the tricks he knew, and William was like a sponge absorbing everything, and with the hearts from elemental beasts, William reached the second circle shortly after joining Jordan.

As for Mary Jordan didn't know what to do with her, unlike him she didn't have a main center of power, sparing with her was difficult because of how frail she was so she was excused from it.

From the looks of it, next time Jordan goes on the platform he will have to take Mary with him and ask the slime how to train her or how to increase her power.

But even though Mary didn't have any fighting power her curse abilities proved to be excellent, as if by instincts she learned that if she carved some dolls from beast´s bones and adds a targets hair or any organic matter she can send a curse, light curses like decrease in strength or headaches doesn't require further ingredients, death curse is another thing though, to cast a death curse Mary has to sacrifice a beast or other living beings in a ritual.

The death curse wasn't omnipotent, to truly cause instant death the target must be un-awakened, otherwise, the curse can weaken at best.

And to lift the curse there is the need for a witch as well or to have vast knowledge on ritual magic.

The curse is going to be a great safeguard and Jordan already ordered to collect hairs from every important person such as group leaders, administrators, and the newly founded human fighters, these hairs are safely stored in the underground basement below the church, all the hairs are sorted in files together with information and hand-drawn picture making it easy to identify and swiftly curse potential traitors.

***

It was late afternoon and Jordan was making rounds around the camp when he heard some people ahead whisper, hearing it coming from a place where no one should be he without hesitation ran to where he heard those whispers.

Two men with cloaks were hiding on a roof of a small house, the moment they saw Jordan they jumped off the roof and began to run away but it was already too late, the beasts that were with Jordan were much faster than them and cut off any escape route.

When those cloaked men saw that they took out their weapons and prepared themselves to fight, Jordan slowed down when he reached them and said with a helpless smile.

"yet another group of little spies… why don't you tell me your reason for sneaking around?"

The humans trembled a bit as they saw Jordan from close, the sheer size of him scared them, the weapon he held was bigger than they were-

And they felt as if there is an aura around the demon making him look extremely terrifying and yet this demon let the humans live.

They already discussed what to do in the scenario that they get caught, it was unfortunate but if it works out they will have someone inside,

Both men threw the weapons on the ground and put their hands in the air and nervously said.

"We surrender!",

Jordan kept his smile and leaned the war-hammer against his shoulder.

"and why should I let you live?"

The men looked one at another and the older one spoke with a voice full of fright "w-we were sent here from camp south of there, we were told to report anything unusual, that´s all I swear"

"Hmm, alright, I trust you, come here" Jordan beckoned with his finger.

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The two men looked a bit relieved and slowly stood up and made their way to Jordan but just as they got in range Jordan swings his war-hammer and with the spike on the other side he impaled the older man and also throwing away the other man on the ground with the momentum.

With a look full of despair the older man died while the other one had broken ribs and possibly even some limbs, the man spoke while coughing blood.

"… why …" Jordan pinned the older dead man on the ground and stepped on him to free the spike of his hammer, slowly walking to the coughing man he spoke.

"it's always the same thing, you are only on the lookout and I trust that that is what they told you, but you have to understand me… I can't let you in,"

With another swing of his hammer Jordan completely crushed the man´s skull, killing him instantly.

"you will only disturb the piece we have created, any information from outside about the angels aren't welcome here"

For now, Jordan needs to create a sense of belonging in the humans under him, he needs to show them that staying with him is the best choice.

´even if I offer better conditions, better food there will still be many people who will just leave for angels and also, letting these scouts in would be just like showing them from close, once they could they would just leave and tell the angel masters about what´s inside.´

Even though it was cruel, the best option was to kill them, Jordan didn't like it but neither did he dislike it, by now it was like taking out the trash for him, just a chore he has to do to keep his house nice and clean.

Jordan collected the ears and let his beasts feast, wiping the bits of brain matter from his war-hammer Jordan suddenly felt something, the stored mana in his stomach started to move and his center of power was heating up ´shit, it is here´

Without any hesitation, Jordan began to run back.

´I have to make it back, advancing here is too dangerous´

Luckily he wasn't far from the camp, in a minute Jordan neared the walls and without even slowing down he jumped over the wall with a massive leap, Jordan ran straight for the library, and just as he was closing in he saw Jane.

"what´s ha…"

"MANA RICH FOOD NOW" with this he ran inside the library just in time to fall to his knees as the pain washed over his body.

The skin on Jordan´s body began to melt, his teeth at first loosen up and then started to fall out, his center of power felt like it was on fire and it kept sending fire to the entirety of his body through all the conductors that were connected to it.

The claws started to grow Jordan horns fell on the ground and turned into ash and new ones were growing at a speed visible to eyes, not being able to hold back Jordan shouted from the depth of his heart "AARRGH"

Normally demons were supposed to mature gradually just like humans, it was the strange situation on Earth that caused the changes to be this drastic, their bodies were forcefully promoting the mutations and forcefully adjusting to the mana, and because their bodies had no real resistance against the mana the changes were quite drastic, it was nothing to be envious of.

Jordan fought through the pain and felt his bones cracking in several places only to be mended instantly, the pain continued and more changes happened to his body, in the place of his teeth triangular fangs like that of a shark grew, his horns were now curved backward and were nearly 50 cm (1 ft 8 in) big, the skin started to solidify all over his body except for hands and feet, his limbs felt like they were melting.

On the naked flesh of Jordan´s hand and feet black lines started to show, after that the melted skin started to solidify itself, now gray armor-like skin covered Jordan´s body, at some places the only difference was gray skin at others the skin formed sort of a spike or a sharp edge, these spike formed on Jordan´s shoulders and elbows.

The mutation progressed and when it came to his senses Jordan steeled himself when suddenly he couldn't see anything hear anything, or feel anything, it was complete silence as if he was cut off from the world.

After what felt like hours Jordan could see and feel again, he held on and pushed through the last bits of the mutations.

The pain slowly went away, Jordan could finally look around, he was in his room and everything there was destroyed, the chairs the table, everything was smashed to bits and covered with black blood.

"What a mess..."

Slowly hunger started to show itself, focusing on his center of power Jordan quickly analyzed himself, with never before seen clarity and ease he could move the mana inside him like his own hand, focusing on his center of power and seeing the mana that was refining itself in his second heart.

There was a ball of mana with three strata, one was the core with the mana in the third circle, the second was the mana in the second circle and third, the layer that was on the outside was the unrefined mana that was being collected and refined.

With his growling stomach and tired brain Jordan could focus no more so he just stopped and went outside his room were William, Mary, Jane, and few important group leaders waited.

Those were all those that knew the basic things about the mutation, some saw the mutation before and to others, he told about it for security reasons.

Those few were those that Jordan could trust to some extent or rather those who knew that going with Jordan was better than going against him.

But there was no point in hiding it anyone would notice the changes on Jordan and if they think a bit about it they wanted they would get to know it anyway, better if they don't have to imagine wild stories.

When the group saw Jordan they all gulped, covered in black blood, smile with perfectly white shark-like teeth, gray skin, huge black horns, fingers ending in claws, long sharp ears, glowing green eyes with split pupils, Jordan looked terrifying before but now they didn't know how to call him.