Demon continent Alsace in the year 237 in the 8-month Mogum on the 30th day after the shattering of the empire.

The closer she got to the center of the ruined city, the more golems patrolled the streets, and also the image of the city changed completely, as she had time to observe now. From ruins overgrown with plants in the outer parts of the city to apparently inhabitable houses. The same was true of the golems that patrolled the streets here, with their armor covered from top to bottom with runes. Each golem exuded a different level of power than the golems in the outer parts of the city. Which raised another question, where had these golems been a few days ago? Or had her intrusion into the city activated these models? If so, she would have to test the strength of these golems first. For now, however, she set about searching the ruins of the houses and acquiring the cores of the deceased.

Over the next few weeks, she was busy exploring and mapping the city and its surroundings. This made her realize the size of the city and the lack of a city wall, as all the cities she knew had. This fact and the size of the city, which dwarfed any city she had seen in her life, and only the capital of the empire, could be compared to this city. Even though it was dwarfed by this massive ruined city. Even though she was not sure if ruin was the right term since the city was in good condition and seemed to be just waiting for someone to move in if it weren't for the golems that attacked everyone and everything that didn't belong to the city.

She had fought a few more golems, either because she had no other option or because she saw an opportunity to defeat one of the golems and study him. Not that it had ever come to that, because as soon as she was in a fight with a golem and won it, other golems were summoned and would have surely overpowered her if she had stayed. Not that she hadn't tried a few times to fight an overwhelming number of golems, but only if she had a retreat strategy. This way she could get used to fighting golems and also the new spells and methods of body art were helpful, at the same time she could practice her senses as well as her magic and body art through these fights.

When not doing any of this, she was busy hunting and gathering supplies. By now she knew all the monsters and animals that lived in the area around the city and could go into a fight with them without expecting a surprise. Since the only two options for her were to dry or smoke the captured meat and fruit, she also had to spend quite a bit of time doing this. What had taken her a few days first is that she had to build a smoking oven, which had taken her a few tries since she had never done anything like this on her own before and thus didn't know the whole process. With a bit of trial and error and a bit of luck, she finally managed to build a working smoke oven.

Demon continent Alsace in the year 237 in the 9-month Lilithum on the 6 day after the shattering of the empire.

During her hunts and also during her exploration of the city, she had discovered roads leading away from the city and to some other small homesteads or smaller villages. The largest of them, however, was not made of stone, but of a metal unknown to her; she had already noticed these particular roads during her reconnaissance tours of the city, and now she could see roughly in which directions they led. To the east in the direction of Vanadium, the capital of the demon realm, as he had come to know it in these lives.

Was there still a demon realm at all or had it sunk in a civil war and now consisted of several smaller states fighting each other. At some point in the future, she would have to return and take care of the problems there, namely that she had a claim to the throne and also that her killer was still alive somewhere, possibly. Also, she wanted to have a serious word with her parents, she was still hurt by Sappho's and Sia's betrayal, she knew that and she would not be able to cope or overcome her anger if she could not bring this to a reasonable conclusion. Besides, who knew what else the demons knew and had hidden, she would get rich off them as they had tried to do to her.

Today though she would follow the road west and see where else it would lead and also if she could find anything interesting, she was far from done with the city, only the core of the city was flooded with these cursed golems with armor and she just couldn't find a way through. Because unlike the other golems, these became aware of her senses and began to track her, should they have sensed her and only her abilities to see them. No matter if it was dark or light or it was raining or the fog was hanging in the streets they could always see them. They had to have, like her, a domain in which they could perceive everything with their senses, only she had not sensed such a domain.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The metal of the street had some similarities to that of the golems' armor and she could feel the street conducting the arcane energy like a channel conducting the river and there was so much energy that this channel overflowed and the river poured into the landscape around. Now that she was following it, just to see where it led and to follow an idea of hers, she kept walking along the road, which cut through the forest like a swath, with knee-high grass. It didn't take much force to wipe away the little bit of earth on which the grass grew and one could see the metal of the road again. However, the further she followed the road, the stronger the arcane energy around her became, as well as in the immediate area. In her mental map, she could see that the road was heading east at a constant height and direction. Even under this road, she could feel the magic that maintained the road as well as the city, except that this magic did not stop the flora from taking root everywhere.

After some time, as the time changed from noon to afternoon, she decided that she would leave the road and walk in a sort of circular motion back to the city. She wanted to see if there were other small villages and roads nearby, and hope that they behaved like the same as this metal road, or that she came across another road that led back to the city. She finally had to start with a name, she couldn't always just say town. Metaghakan maybe, by which I would call her metal road city. Which probably shouldn't be a problem, to begin with. If I ever get back to the demons, I can research if there was any mention of this city.

When she was almost back to the city, at least according to her mental map, she stumbled across remains of a golem. He was simply lying in front of her overgrown by plants in the forest and he seemed to be dead. To the extent that a golem can be dead, she didn't know if golems were even considered living creatures or if they were seen as not real life-like artificial humans. Another Little Question for her ever-growing list of questions to which she had not found an answer. When she compared this to her other list of what she had found answers to, this list won out as she had barely found answers to questions, not that she wasn't trying.

Now the only question was what she was going to do now that she had found a golem that didn't attack her right away and, it seemed, was also dead, so she would let it examine her without fearing for her life. A quick glance at the sky told her how much time she had left before it would be night and thus pitch dark and she could rely only on her senses, but not on her eyes. She would have to come back tomorrow, which she couldn't really estimate how long it would take her to remove all the soil and plants without damaging the golem. Something she wanted to avoid, as she didn't know how resilient the dead golem in front of her was and if it would endure the same punishment as its still-living comrades. Of course, it could also be a trap and the golem would come to life and attack her, but she could not perceive any magic or body art.

Therefore, she would return tomorrow and examine the golem at her heart's content, before that, of course, she would have to secure it somehow so that it could not attack her unhindered.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He belonged to one of four squads sent by Lilith's Kiss to stop the imperial troops or send them on a scavenger hunt, where his squad was tasked with wandering into the forest of the Demon Continent looking for the lost princess and if possible bring her back or just kill her. It would not be the first time he killed this person, as he had learned from the chancellor. A, by all means, unique experience, if he considered, how few oppositions he had seen from the alleged genius of humans. He had simply bandaged the house spirit at that time and snuck up on the person who was in the ascendancy. After that it had been easy, he had killed him with a stab to the heart and closed the bag with another cut across the throat. Not even a level ten human could resist him and his blades kissed by Lilith. As always, a smile crept onto his face as he thought back to his most glorious kill in the name of the Goddess and now he could possibly do it again or he would just take the Princess and could use her to rise to become the ruler of the Demons himself.

After all, she had been recognized as a ruler by the gods, and with that, she was worth quite a bit should the new rulers not prove capable, and the chancellor didn't even know what the goddess wanted from them anymore, he still believed that the old ways and traditions would return and they would usher in a new age of the demons. But had it not come to this under the Chancellor's leadership, perhaps they should have killed him already.

The elders had decided against killing him, they thought he would still become useful, but they too were old relics from an ancient time when the world was still a different one. This was a problem that all these old monsters could not see, that a change was in the air, and that Lilith had planned something very special. A purification of the blood by fire and ashes like in old times when the demons were created. And it would be he and his brothers and sister who will do this in the name of the Goddess. These old monsters won't know what got them and then it would already be too late and they would be dead.

"Come let's catch a princess, you know what your tasks are and what I want from you?!" He asked his men specially chosen for this mission.

"Yes sir, we are to catch the princess who combines the blood of Lilith and Asmodus." Said his men all in chorus.

"Good"