Xero starred from afar with in silence while the caged Corrupted human. He was waiting for his brother and father to return. To his right, his previously unknown classmate Rus, was talking nonstop.
“... and my beautiful Gretchen then finally evolved into an Iron Elephant after many long and hard month's of training. After that she even evolved again after I polished her for over half a year daily to keep her shine. She is a beautiful Polished Iron Elephant and she formed a beautiful Innate Skill to be able to shine the sunlight falling on her to blind her enemy…” Rus said. He had begun talking about himself randomly about half an hour ago talking about the previous two years of school and then turned to his familiar that had been a common Elephant Infant.
Originally not very ‘beautiful’ he focused on Metal type magic and diet until she finally evolved and then showed a very strange but admirable persistence towards his pursuit of what he regards as beautiful.
Xero had long since grown bored and simply stood there letting him talk while he listened, although it was rambling, the part about the elephant was at least interesting enough to say the least regarding it's skillset. It was obviously a unique variant of the Iron Elephant since it was polished for more than half a year not missing a single nook and cranny of its body being polished daily in the morning.
It was obviously not allowed to be summoned in the manor because if it was, the fairies would immediately attack such a huge, heavy and destructive creature.
Xero was looking at the corrupt man and looked at the strange sight before him. He had ten Minions guarding him with swords drawn but what was strange was how the man was bowing and praying and chanting erratic chants which had caused the minions to feel uncomfortable. Even now they were 5 meters away from him because of that strange feeling.
Previously Xero had approached to talk to him only for him to burst out in a crazy shouting as if he was talking with a deranged person from a church causing Xero to keep his distance.
At this time, Zip was arriving, “Xero, what did yo… WHERE DID YOU FIND THIS GUY!?” Zip shouted as he ran over.
“Big brother, we found this guy attacking him.” Xero said, pointing to Rus. “He suddenly became gentle when the minions surrounded him and so i caged him so that we could question him but when i went to ask who he was, he began to shout a lot of crazy stuff.” Xero explained.
“Xero, this is a Demon Cultist! His highness showed us during the meeting before!” Zip had a scowl on his face as he looked at the man and then noticed something, “Did you say he became gentle around your demons?” He asked.
“Yeah, he kept calling them Divine ones and other stuff.” Xero explained.
Zip nodded as he acknowledged some fact unknown to the boys. “Great… Great! Little bro, you probably saved us big time this time around! Did you call father already?!” he asked.
“Yeah, I had the city guards go after him before he gets too far.” Xero replied.
“Great, this is very important.” Zip said and looked around before summoning Cinder, “Call out all your minions and tell the guards to increase the security of the outer walls and increase patrols. Have them do it discreetly to not draw attention but it's serious.” Zip said.
Cinder nodded and looked around for a reason only to find the praying Cultist. Her eye twitched when she saw him and felt a strange feeling crawl on her skin when she did.
“He is highly corrupted… at least 50%.” Cinder said.
“He is a cultist, his highness said it was forced corruption, now go!” Zip explained.
Cinder nodded and ran off to find an open space to open her forge.
“Now little bro, this will get serious, you and your friend head inside.” Zip said.
“No!” Xero said, “I’m just as strong as you and I am more combat oriented compared to you big brother!” Xero frowned.
Zip sighed as he rubbed his head but nodded that it wasn’t a lie, “This isn’t a game little bro, do you have any idea how many bandit groups were caught by the Demon Cult? Enough to drastically decrease the crime rate of the entire nation! All over in fact! Do you know how many people that is? It could fill the city of an earl or even higher!” Zip said.
“So what!?” Xero frowned.
At this time Nil arrived and saw the Cultist and turned to his two sons. “Zip! Xero! What is this?!” Nil shouted.
“I caught him when he was attacking him!” Xero pointed to Rus.
“Rus!” Suddenly the bard behind Nil shouted when he saw the boy.
“Father? What are you doing here?” Rus asked.
“Rus! You’re not hurt right?” Gus suddenly ran over and hugged the boy and turned him around and quickly examined the boy. “Thank the gods, you’re not hurt!” He sighed.
“The horrendously ugly familiar of that man could not hurt my beautiful Gretchen.” he said in a narcissistic manner.
“That’s great, that's fantastic!” Rus said while relief washed over him.
“This is the boy you mentioned?” Nil asked.
“Yes, this is my first born.” Gus said.
“Father!” Zip called out, “What do we do about him?” Zip said and explained what Xero said about the demons making the man interested.
“Previously, his majesty had said they couldn’t extract any information but they might not have realized these ‘new’ cultists might be easier to manipulate.” Nil said, “Xero, tell one of your minions to ask who he is and what was his purpose here?” Nil asked, trying out his hypothesis.
They moved close but maintained a 10 meter distance but was within ear shot that was more than easy for all these above level 31 nobles. It was even close enough that Rus would hear.
“Who are you?” The minion asked.
“To the Divine one! This slave has no name! My divine order to your divine race permits no name to one so lowly as me!” he said bowing and talking loudly and grandly.
“What is your purpose here?” the minion asked.
“This slave was sent with 1000 members and 10 of our divine orders leaders to capture this filthy hole and bring our divine faith to these filthy creatures. Before we could do so we had to capture all these filthy creatures who had filthy familiars to bring to our faith, Divine one!” he said and began to pray again.
A cold spread throughout all the people who heard when they heard 1000 demon cultists were in their woods.
“So it was a capture mission? But 1000 men isn’t nearly enough unless they are incredibly powerful.” Nil said.
“What is the strength of your forces?” Xero had the Minion asked.
“We are all lowly slaves! We only possess 50 higher slaves who have been blessed by the divine ones and our 10 leaders have already gained the second blessing of the world!” He said.
It took a moment before they all scowled, “Fifty level 30s and above and ten level 40s. Most likely there is someone even higher managing the leaders themselves as well as several others. If they are all familiar owners, it’s going to be no difference to a demon wave.” Nil scowled.
The others paled when they heard his words. If it was an attack on towns and villages, that meant that their completely unprepared towns could not fight such a huge force.
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“Should we report this to his highness?” Gus asked.
“Even if we do, it will take several days for the message to reach him and even more for any army to arrive. Not to mention that it could be a plot to split up the nations army and royal knights so that they could attack the Capital.” Nil analyzed.
“We should inform the church and orders.” Zip said.
“Yes, they have long distance communication and they are spread through most towns. Most likely, countless villages will be made to migrate to towns of sufficient size until the danger is gone.” Nil said.
Nil clenched his jaw as he glared at the man in the cage before he turned around “Come on, let’s get to the Order of Ice, Xero, come along cause this will be serious enough for you to join in.” Nil said.
Xero nodded and followed them as they headed to the Dark Ice Order where Nil was the Holy Priest.
***
The face of the Priests of the church were pale after hearing the words from Nil’s mouth and he readily nodded, “We shall quickly spread word silently, this will definitely be something even the higher ups will want to know. The Demon Cult suddenly appeared for a capture and Raid mission with a force of 1000 men, 50 of which are above level 30 and 10 level 40 leaders. There is no doubt that when the time comes, even level 50 men will appear to deal with us head Priests.” the priest said.
Head Priests of any church branch are always above level 40 and up. Depending on the city lord, it could even change with time.
The current Priests were similar to Nil himself and the Holy Dark Order was level 60. Such information would obviously not be passed off easily by the Demon Cult but the most worrisome part is that they are hidden in the wilds.
“Do not worry, we will communicate this to the Ice Church and Holy Dark Order, i do not think the Fire Order and Church would be helpful though. They aren’t as tightly bound as us to your family.” The Head Priest said.
“Yes, I could tell by the fact that they didn’t even hear me out before much less now. It is possible that they would just abandon the town and hide away in another more protected city such as the City controlled by Earl Fracess Horin Kree.” Nil sighed, “Still, I must inform out of courtesy but it is their problem what their reaction will be.”
“Yes, that is so.” The priest said before coughing, “Holy Sir, we do have a request though.” He said and turned to Zip. “We have actually prepared around 30 faithful servants of our Order who have recently broken through following a similar procedure that you took to reach your great Holy Fenrir. They are all young men who have a Young Ice Wolf. It is, of course, different from your Alpha Silver Wolf that became the great Fenrir in Infant state but we do realize that one condition for another evolution is the required presence of a Demon whose core is broken at the same time within proximity of it.” He said.
“So you wish for me to forge those men with my minions?” Zip asked.
“Yes, this is actually a breakthrough method, they are only level 31 but due to the uniqueness of the Ice Wolf who are magical monsters, they have formed monster cores.” He said.
Zip looked at his father, “Well, if it's forging there is no problem.” Zip said.
“Great! We highly doubt they would become stronger than Sirs though, yours was an Alpha while they possess young Ice Wolves.” He replied. “We shall quickly spread word but i think it is better to not spread it to the rest of the public just yet.” the Head Priest said.
“Of course, we should move discreetly as if we are simply training while doing ‘drills’.” Nil said.
“Yes.” The Head Priest said and split off.
It was not so different in the other two churches but when they told the two Fire Churches, they frowned and thanked them for informing them.
The final one was the Knights Order so that they could spread through the channels of the Church and inform the many branches.
“Xero, don’t go out anymore.” Nil said.
“Father in law!” Suddenly Jasmine came in looking around, “What is all the commotion? I saw the knights and city guard in larger numbers and entering was much more of a hassle.” Jasmine said.
“It's an emergency right now, where were you?” Nil asked.
“I was near the farms testing out a spell I was making. I call it [Perception]. With it I can use the Gem Spirits as drones and spread the distance of my ‘view’ but it's very undeveloped.” She said.
“Does sister-in-law need help?” Xero asked.
“No, I want to do this.” She said “That said, can you help me find anything wrong with the other one pertaining to the Minion spell?” she asked.
“Alright.” Xero said and the two went to her room to study the spell while Nil and Zip began to get busy while calling Void from the woods where it was too dangerous for him at the moment.
***
A full month passed and a silent change happened to the entire Lorian Empire. The personal message sent by Void to the princess so that he could reach the King held a letter from Nil and some possible plan to remain quiet while watching for the Demon Cult.
The news of the Cult forming large groups to attack was a shock but with the preemptive notice all the nobles learned about it.
As expected though, one thing could not be changed and that was the migration of small towns to the city of other knights. In particular, the towns of the 1st rank knights were absorbed into the towns of the 2nd rank knights that they were training under.
After that came information that the base training should only last 6 months was passed around as well before Baron would train 2nd rank knights who were level 50 and try to help them break through.
With Nil still at Level 41, it had nothing to do with him but it was totally different for the five in his charge. Under the pressure of the Demon Cult, after their village migrated to Cipher and bolstered their population and manpower, the city experienced massive growth.
Xero and Ashley also experienced a level up from 31 to 32 and there was a surprising increase in power between the two as well as Ashley’s Sword Field increasing in size allowing her five more minions to be stored.
The biggest and funniest change was Void who easily broke through to level 31 and became the family’s fourth noble. Ember grew from looking like an 8 year old and turned into a very sensual 18 year old form. Although she was still only a Feral Tiger Devil infant. She was no longer a Lesser form.
He has also been truly forming minions beyond the demons as he followed the example of his brothers. The entire family in truth, had begun to vigorously work on their own minions. Nil’s spawned Ice Wolves were simply ice given life momentarily but it changed when he began to modify them and add magic to them.
They solidified into minions instead of spawns and formed a Pack of Ice wolves who, in peaceful times, shrank down to puppy size just like Silver. She can only support 6 minions though.
The biggest impact found was the Ice Order’s paladin. Under simple forging of the Plated Devils alongside the demon Zombies that were going to be refined, they indeed evolved into the long awaited Fenrir but like guessed, they aren’t compared to Silver. At level 40 only they were Lesser Fenrir Adolescent meaning that it was impossible for them to reach the same height as Silver who was an Infant at level 41.
As for the Demon cult, by the time they noticed the change in the movement of the nation's base, it had been too long already.
***
“WHICH OF YOU FUCKING IDIOTS WAS IT!?” a very loud menacing roar came from a black hooded man. An aura of malice could be felt from this man making everyone tremble.
The rest were all bowing in fear before the man. “I want to know who was the one who fucked up and allowed word to spread about the raid!?” the voice said turning cold.
Although the voice was many times calmer than the initial roar, they all felt even more fear.
The man lifted his hand, a black hand with red glowing tattoos covering it appeared and he stood up as he removed his hood. The black skinned face was covered in glowing red tattoos and a pair of horns. Black eyes with glowing red iris showed the man to be demon yet he wasn’t.
This man wasn’t 100% yet neither was he human, he was the result of nearly three centuries of research and development after the familiar seal came into being. This man was a Corrupt human just like the one caught by Xero yet he had been demonized. Under normal circumstances, corruption would lead to complete demonization where the corrupted person would lose his humanity but that did not happen to these people due to a special technique known only to the Demon Cults.
His hand glowed as a red flash appeared and formed into a black skull that burned with hellfire. Soon an upper torso appeared and a demon skeleton was formed. This was indeed a Devil Skeleton, just like Cinder created Demon Zombie for her Demon Knights, this familiar was from the same source as the Vice Captain’s skeleton but it was trained differently after being corrupted.
“I will ask once more before i rip out the soul of each and every one of you and search your soul for the answer!” He said.
“DIVINE ONE! IT WAS DIVISION TWENTY!” one of them shouted.
The eyes of the man travelled to the source of the voice, “What proof do you have to blame another?” He asked.
“We had all the slaves recently caught branded with a soul mark and each division was given 1,000 men and were meant to capture more people but one of their members' soul mark never returned to the main bulk and I believe they are the culprits!” he said bowing deeply.
“Division twelve leaders stand.” the man said coldly.
Ten men got up slowly trembling. “Is it true?” he asked and they began to tremble more. “SO IT IS! DO YOU PIECES OF SHIT KNOW HOW MUCH THIS COST US!?” He roared and the Demon Skeleton roared as well as it rushed at them and with it's burning bones, clawed at them leaving four bloody gashes on their body but not killing them. “You pieces of trash, were you not told to keep a firm leash on those pathetic pieces of shit that haven’t completely converted yet!? YOU KNOW THEY ARE STUPID TRASH AND YOU STILL LET THEM LOOSE!” He roared and the Demon skeleton beat and clawed at them until an inch of their life. “Get this trash out of here. And if you pieces of trash don’t succeed in taking the town of Cipher, it is your heads that will roll and I will feed your souls to my Divine being!” he said.
The ten were taken away to get healed as the man sat down and unsummoned the familiar. “If any more trash messes up from now on, it will be your heads rolling! I will not permit mistakes at this time when the Divine ones have descended upon this filthy land to purify it! It is our time to rule with our gods! THE START IS WITH THIS WEAK NATION! AND WHAT FOLLOWS IS THIS PATHETIC WORLD!” he shouted. “FOR THE DIVINE ONES!”
“FOR THE DIVINE ONES! FOR THE DIVINE ONES! FOR THE DIVINE ONES!...”