In the field nearby Siege's abode trained the heroes. They were preparing for any future conflicts against the known demon lords. Siege was compiling the information as well as the current status of the demon kingdom after their scuffle through his computer. Kaizer was training to hone her blade with assistance from Solas while Reginn was assisting Kallen.

"Come on! Faster!"

Reginn was training Kallen to move quicker in order to apply more status effects. While most demon lords were immune to at least one status effect as they were magical creatures in nature, but it was extremely rare for them to be immune to all.

On the other side of the field, Kaizer practiced the art of the blade. Solas was well versed in many forms of weaponry and white she did prefer her axe granted to her by the Goddess, she was still a master of the blade. As the clash strikes, Kaizer realized how much more there was to learn.

"Anyways, is there any advice you want to give me or anything?"

"...Your Karma, it's in the negatives. Interesting"

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"I never imagined that someone whose Karma was that bad could ever be a hero. This training is not important right now, we must prioritize increasing your Karmic score"

"Can't you explain what's going on?!"

"...It means you're a bad person. Do you see this number on my shoulder? This is my Karma. Every time you do something bad, your Karma goes down and every time you do something good, it goes up. I need to make you commit positive acts in order to redeem you. See here that my karma is 98, which means I'm a very good person. You're at around -8."

"Why do I even have to do that? Who even decides what is good and bad anyways?"

"The Goddess does and it's important to keep a good Karma because..."

"Because...?"

"I'll kill you if you don't"

"What?! That's not a good reason at all"

"It's a good reason if you want to live"

Solas then picked up Kaizer over her shoulders and began heading toward the city.

"I'm just gonna be going down to the city to do some good deeds"

"Alright, but please don't wreck a havoc" said Siege

"Of course, I won't. That's bad Karma"

"Wait for me!" shouted Kallen as he joined the fray

"Huh? Why're you coming along?"

"Reginn said that he had something come up that needed immediate attention. Also, there should be at least one rational person in a group at all times"

"Hmph. I believe that I am the most rational out of all of us" retorted Solas

They finally exited the forest and entered the city through the gate. The guards were few and far between, but that was because there was no danger to be found in the forest. However, the gate did close at night in order to keep out wild animals.

"...Solas I have a question for you," asked Kallen

"Go ahead"

"What do you know about Pronuses?"

"Everything. I am one after all"

"Really?! But I don't see any wings and you seem to have a pretty strong... personality"

"More specifically, I am an Archpronus, and it gives me many advantages over the average Pronus"

"Does that mean you can do everything a Pronus can?"

"Of course, but why are you so interested in the first place?"

"I'm not really sure. When I first met a Pronus, I couldn't help but feel like I'd seen them somewhere before. It's like a strange feeling of familiari-"

"Shh. I sense something"

The group fell silent as Solas scan her environment. She always felt this sense of immense pressure when an enemy with a great negative Karma was around. Finally, she was able to pinpoint this enemy's location and ran without explanation.

"Wait! Where are you going?!" shouted Kaizer

"I sense a great evil nearby. It must be a demon lord. Stay alert"

Solas et. al vs. Interrobang & Alcaeus

When Solas reached her destination, they arrived at a cemetery. However, she did not spot the enemy yet. She activated her Karmic vision and analyzed the area around him until she realized that the enemy was behind them. Solas quickly summoned her axe and swung at the enemy without hesitation, but it was able to dodge it. Taking a close look, it was a maliceful spirit, taking the form of an ethereal skeleton, cloaked and armed with a scythe.

Kallen immediately realized who this enemy was. This was the demon lord he had fought during his time, Interrobang the 13th demon lord. He was an amalgamation of the vengeful dead whose hatred for humanity allowed them to form a single powerful spirit.

"Any physical attacks won't work. This is the demon lord I fought and we need some way to materialize it"

"There's no need for that"

Solas's rectangular axe lit once again in a white flame. While Interrobang was slippery and dodged many of the strikes, a single blow destroyed a chunk of his ethereal form.

"Divine judgement is absolute!"

Interrobang backed away before phasing directly underground. It was now aiming to switch targets. It finally arose to grab Kaizer's ankles, dragging her into the ground.

"Geh! ⌈Dichotomisierung⌋!"

Kaizer's blade went straight through Interrobang's boney hands and instead destroyed the cemetery ground beneath their feet. Interrobang understood that he was no match for the heroes, and began to flee above the buildings as the heroes followed.

...

Meanwhile, Alcaeus just made a landing in the capital city. It was a bit difficult to penetrate through the barrier around it, and he realized that its strength varied depending on the power of the one trying to enter. Since he himself was relatively weak, he could use one of his 12 gadgets to bypass it. Alcaeus decided to drop by Brun's house in order to repay his debt with some gold he found at the demon lord's castle. However, when he landed at the entrance, Brun was nowhere to be found. Instead, he opted to give one of his sisters the gold and told them to let Brun know he was there so that he could truly show his gratitude. Though he did not forget his main mission, which was to infiltrate the royal castle Order-Citadelis in order to try and find the hero's whereabouts. They guessed that if they weren't there, the king should at least know where they were.

While he walked alongside the sidewalk, he took off his hood and took in how much the human kingdom had advanced. He was one of the few demon lords without horns, tails or wings and looked no different than a human. Since there shouldn't be anyone who knew his face here, he relaxed his guard a bit. Suddenly, the wall next to him tore open with tremendous force and out exploded Solas wrestling Interrobang, her hands burning white. Alcaeus was dumbfounded and quickly put up his hood again. He watched as 2 more heroes poured out of the destroyed building. Alcaeus knew that it would be suicidal to reveal himself, especially to the monster of white flames who almost killed him the last time they met, but it would be terrible to just let a fellow demon lord die in front of him.

Luckily, he currently had all 12 of his gadgets at his disposal, and hopefully, those would be enough to buy them some time for exit. But first, Alcaeus put on the Nemean, the anti-psyche amulet just in case the mind controller was somewhere nearby. Then he put on The Ceryneian, a monocle that helped him perceive time faster, aiding his reaction speed. Finally, he pulled out the Erymanthian, a wooden club that exploded on impact and his main weapon of choice. The moment he was ready, he promptly rushed toward Solas and managed to hit her right in her face. Without delay, the club created an explosion, dust rushing from the ground to obscure the view. When the debris soon settled, Alcaeus saw that Solas was unfazed by the blow. He was barely able to dodge the retaliation even with his enhanced reaction speed and he hastily fled the scene with the other demon lord.

"Hey, what's your name?" asked Alcaeus while panting

"..."

"I suppose we can talk later"

Solas quickly caught up with the pair and hit Alcaeus directly in the stomach with a kick. He fell rolling down the street while Interrobang disappeared below the street.

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"⌈Dichoto-"

"Wait! We can't have any more collateral damage!" stopped Kallen

"Then I'll at least kill this little brat"

As Kaizer stepped closer to the fallen Alcaeus, he pulled out a random gadget in panic. To his luck, it was the Geryon, a gigantic, indestructible ship, a vessel of the gods. The large ship spawned from a small pendant, overshadowing the group. However, before the ship could land on the ground, Kaizer used her skill and cut the ship cleanly in half, saving all of them. In the ensuing chaos, Interrobang reappeared and escaped with Alcaeus into an alley. The spirit then poked Alcaeus's forehead,

"I am speaking to you through your mind. My name is Interrobang, the 13th demon lord"

"Ni-nice to meet you Interrobang..."

"Our enemy will find us soon. The tall woman is able to detect my location and we don't have much time to spare. Just make sure to follow me"

"Okay"

The two began running through the city once again, this time through the sewers after falling down a manhole. While the smell was dank and extremely uncomfortable for Alcaeus, Interrobang did not seem to care. After running for a while, a crack of light suddenly appeared behind them, Solas had already detected their location. The pair continued running until they jumped down to a large open area with massive pillars connecting the ground floor with the surface ceiling, There were a few construction workers there and Interrobang decided to possess one of them in order to achieve his full strength.

"Wait, Brun?!"

"Huh?"

Unluckily for Alcaeus, Brun was one of the construction workers, whom Interrobang chose as his new vessel seeing that he was the strongest, while the others already ran away. He could also tell that he had a talent of some sort. By the time Solas and the others caught up, Interrobang had already taken full control of Brun, now holding a scythe.

"What are you doing?!"

"This is necessary for our survival, now focus"

Solas landed with a loud crash, destroying the concrete beneath her feet. She twirled her axe, which reignited with the familiar white flame. Kallen and Kaizer followed suit.

"I'll take the one with the scythe, You to take the other one"

Solas rushed Interrobang but he was able to block the strikes. He was now stronger than ever as his strength was multiplicative depending on the host. He learnt that his host even had a unique talent.

"⌈Ghost⌋"

With this skill, he was finally able to become untouchable once more. Now he was on even ground. Interrobang infused his hand with the residual mana of the dead and summoned multiple undead erupting from the ground.

"This city... It is full of death"

Solas fought through the hoard and was able to reach Interrobang, but he blocked the strike with ease. She analyzed the situation: she was outnumbered and most likely outpowered and while her holy attacks were effective against his kind, she was still limited in options. For now, she would continue this stalemate, she truly did not want to unleash her true strength just yet.

On the other end of the area fought Alcaeus against Kallen and Kaizer. The poor demon lord was forced to summon the Diomedes, four bloodthirsty horses Podargos, Lampon, Xanthos and Deimos. These four were usually enough to decimate an entire village on their own, but against the heroes were horribly outmatched. They would act as a brief distraction while Alcaeus came up with a contingency plan. He knew that he did not want to use the Cerberus here since this was a confined space and he couldn't use any of his offensive gadgets to gain an upper hand. The gadgets he left behind on the surface, being the Geryon could not be retrieved since he was not in a safe spot so those were out of the picture as well. Therefore, he rounded out the gadgets to the final five. He looked around at his surroundings and realized that the Augeas would be perfect for a situation such as this, however, he would need a distraction first. Interrobang already had his hands full so he only had one option.

"Look what you made me do! I hate horses now!" shouted Kaizer, with the mutilated corpses of the four beasts laying before her

"...Catch this!" shouted Alcaeus

He had thrown a golden apple which Kaizer caught easily. She stood a bit confused and inspected the apple.

"⌈Maximize⌋!"

Suddenly, the apple fell down at an incredible speed and destroyed the concrete beneath. It was too late when Kaizer tried to pull her arm away as her right hand was already destroyed.

"Shit!"

Alcaeus threw a dozen more apples into the air above them. Realizing the nature of these strange apples, Kallen evaded the areas beneath them, barely dodging the devastating strikes. Kaizer escaped the weight by returning to her greatsword form, her puppet body dematerializing. Kallen managed to grab the greatsword before it touched the rough concrete. While he had no knowledge of sword art, he still took a fighting stance.

Meanwhile, Alcaeus brought out a large pot from behind his cloak. The pot began to ominously shake and twitch as Alcaeus ran toward Interrobang, who was still in a deadlock with Solas. The gadget finally exploded with an infinite amount of water spewing out like a geyser. Kaizer and Kallen were still distracted by the apples when they heard the burst of water as well as the room quickly filling up.

"Oh no you don't!" yelled Kallen

Kallen instinctively threw Kaizer toward Alcaeus, which he luckily managed to dodge. Alcaeus quickly summoned the Cretan, a massive bull which let its rightful owner ride on its large back. Alcaeus grabbed Interrobang up to the saddle while Solas was distracted by the undead. The water already reached above Kallen's head and he was forced to float around using Kaizer like a plank of wood as he did not know how to swim. The Cretan leap an unbelievable bound and reached back to the high entrance to the area, the way they came in. Solas and the others could not catch up as Kallen was focused on not drowning as the water rose and Solas could no longer reach the floor with her feet, making her unable to jump. If they began climbing now, it would be far too late to catch up. Solas decided to relax her body to preserve energy and the water would soon rise high enough to reach the entrance. She was furious that she let the slippery demon lord get away once more between her fingers.

"Gahh... Only if Reginn was here..."

The Cretan broke through the small manhole and landed lightly on the surface street. Alcaeus and Interrobang dismounted the bull.

"Quickly, un-posess the body, now!" said Alcaeus, grabbing Interrobang's shoulders

"And why would I do that?"

"Well... We can get away faster that way. You should go directly to the capital of Sonosis, there are fellow demon lords who will welcome you and you need to rid of this body since your escape is the priority"

"...Understood. Where will you go?"

"Don't worry about me, I'll follow soon"

"Then"

Interrobang disconnected from the body and swiftly submerged back into the brick road. Alcaeus put on the Hippolyta, a choker which changed his appearance and mana flow. While it was the perfect disguise, it did have limits such as the new mana flow making it difficult to cast some spells and the fact that he could not change his new appearance. Now he had the appearance of a woman and even his outfit changed to match as well. The cloak was no longer the dull brown, but bright red and his simple clothes consisting of clothes had now changed into a much more modern outfit of a dark brown short and a sand-coloured turtleneck, complementing his light brown hair. Alcaeus thought that the gadget must've been possessed by a strange fashion spirit, especially for women. Every occasion that he had used this choker always turned out to be a fashion show and an outfit was never worn twice. He had to admit that the spirit was most likely an accomplished designer in their past life.

Alcaeus lifted Brun's body slumped on the wall and brought him back to his home. He was greeted by Brun's younger sisters swarming the entrance, making it difficult to move. The older siblings thanked him for his service as they tended to Brun's wounds from during the possession. He thought about how unheroic the mad woman with the axe was, she had no regard if Brun died or not and attacked as if he was a demon.

"So, could I ask for your name?" asked one of the older siblings

"Uhh... My name?"

"Oh! Of course. How rude of me, you can stay anonymous if you wish. I just wanted to know the name of my brother's saviour. You see, there was another stranger who was brought here not long ago and I just thought that you looked a lot like him"

"Y-yeah! I'm actually Alcaeus's... Sister. Al- Arcadia"

"That's a beautiful name"

"Thank you..."

...

Brun later woke up from his slumber to find that it was already night.

"Wah! Di-dinner"

"Don't worry, your family's fine"

"Who are you?"

"I'm Arcadia, Alcaeus's sister. Here take this" said Alcaeus as he handed the bag of gold

"Wha- I couldn't possibly accept this"

"It's for saving my brother's life thank you. He really wanted to come by himself, but he was just far too busy"

"Wow... Thank you"

"There's some potato soup left in the kitchen. Your sisters made it, but I helped a bit too"

"..."

"Hmm? Are you still feeling a little pained?"

"Haha, no. I used to think about how unfortunate I was and always about 'why me?', but you and your brother really helped me fix that mindset. It's good to see some good in this world"

"...I suppose so"

"Well then, I hope to see you and your brother again someday, but please don't feel pressured to do so"

"I will, see you later"

With that, Alcaeus left the house and headed directly toward Sonosis. It was unfortunate that his life as a demon lord meant that he could not enjoy a normal life like Brun and he thought of why someone would possibly want to be a demon lord. Alcaeus himself had no ambition of greater power nor of authority. He was but a boy with a strong sense of morality, who stood up and faced injustice whenever it occurred. Now after the resurrection, he was but a pawn in a game of demon lords vs. heroes. Perhaps one day he would rid himself of the shackles of his title and live freely as he wished, but for now, he had a duty to serve.

The heroes had finally escaped the sewage. All were drenched with water and any further pursuit would prove fruitless. Solas concurred that the Goddess had spared these demon lords and that they would not be so lucky next time.

"Ugh... What a terrible day" groaned Kaizer, now back in her puppet form

"Not quite, your karma went up slightly. I suppose the Goddess is rewarding you for your efforts"

"Really?!"

"Well, you're still in the negatives. You'll need to work hard from now on"

Solas helped Kallen from the ground, still exhausted from the drowning.

"You alright?"

"Yeah..."

"I suppose we'll have to focus on your weaknesses rather than your strengths if you want to survive. A weak hero serves the Goddess better than a dead one"

"Got it..."

"Also, before we were sidetracked, you were asking about angels, right? In order to find who you are, you need to find the Goddess"

"What do you mean?"

"Believe in the Goddess and walk the righteous path. The Goddess helps her soldiers in need. I'm sure your prayers will be answered someday"

"...I suppose you're right. Thank you"

"I am merely helping a fellow comrade, and you. Your hand looks pretty bad" said Solas to Kaizer

"Yeah... I don't feel any hand though"

"Hmm... I don't think you're puppet body can be healed by conventional restorative magic. Who's the one who built this puppet?"

"Uhh... It's Reginn"

"...?! Do you know how he did it?"

"Well, I couldn't see much since I was in my greatsword form, but I remember he said something about 'Goddess's teaching'?"

"I believe he said that it was 'a lesser version of ⌈Life Creation⌋ but greater than ⌈Puppet Creation⌋', called ⌈Perfect Puppet Creation⌋"

"Interesting... Well, you should just ask him to repair your hand for you then. Now, let us regroup at base"

The heroes departed from the capital and walked back to Siege's abode, where he was waiting for their return.

"Oh you guys are finally back"

"Were you waiting for us? What's the matter?" asked Kallen

"It's nothing serious, I just thought that it'd be good to get some supplies and equipment together since I don't know what you guys need"

"I do not need any more than my axe Leviathan and armour given to me by the Goddess," said Solas

"Please, I insist. The lives of the heroes are important, but I do think we need rest once in a while. I see that you are back from a battle, so let's relax"

"..."

The heroes gathered around the living room table with the exception of Solas going upstairs toward the bedrooms.

"Where are you going?" asked Siege

"Sleep. Wake me if you need"

"Alright..."

"Well, I'm gonna go take a shower first," said Kallen

After all were said and done, the doorbell rang, revealing that Poda-Bruss, Dune and Orchestra were back just in time for dinner. They looked absolutely destroyed as if they came back from a warzone.

"Woah, are you guys alright?" asked Siege

"Ye-yeah, we have just a bit to report..." responded Orchestra

"What happened?"

"Well..."