After an amazing dinner at a fancy restaurant - an experience she had never dreamt of before. Siege and Dune made their way to the mall as the sky began darkening.

"So do you guys have anything like malls in Sonosis?"

"Not really... We do have large open markets, but the shopping districts tend to be smaller and compact. This... it's great"

"Well, there are a lot of great things in Avangarden, not just malls. Things worth fighting for. The heroes over the centuries have not only protected this country but also helped it advance. I myself hope to find the hidden mechanism behind Excalibur, and to perhaps understand the technology of the gods"

"About Excalibur... Where is it?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. After a lot of tinkering while you guys were having adventures, I've finally unlocked a new mechanism of the armour - the ability to retract it into a ring" said Siege, while showing his ring

It was a particularly large ring, taking up around a fourth of his finger. The armour had shrunk hundreds of times its original size.

"I remember I had to either always wear the suit wherever I went or risk not having it in crucial moments, but now I can have it on the person at all times, which is very useful"

"That's incredible... And this doesn't involve magic?"

"Well, it does involve magic, but I'm not the one casting it. It seems that the armour slowly charges itself by absorbing the surrounding mana - like a magical creature. I don't think that's only for shrinking and I'm sure there are more mechanisms I've yet to unlock"

"I see. I wonder if that's a key aspect of divine technology. Come to think of it, aren't World Beast quite similar? Since they're also created by gods and they also absorb mana from its surroundings as a magical creature. Maybe your armour is like a mini-World Beast"

"Or maybe the World Beasts is a form of advanced technology, tailor-made by the gods for a specific purpose. But then again, once technology advances enough, it becomes no different than magic"

"It's really interesting to think about. The mechanisms of this world, about mana... I'm sure it all has to do something with the resurrection of the heroes and the demon lords too"

"Maybe-"

Suddenly, the sound of an earth-shaking explosion reverberated in the air, causing the two to freeze. Siege immediately looked around and saw a pillar of smoke rising from afar. He quickly took off his ring, which assembled into the Excalibur and began attaching to Siege.

"Dune, you should head back to my house"

"But Siege-"

"Now!"

After a moment of consideration, Dune began running toward Siege's abode. She was sure that she could be helpful using her ⌈Manifest Destiny⌋, but due to her physical weakness, she could also be killed easily. If the explosion was indeed caused by a demon lord as she suspected, the fact that the demon lord infiltrated so deep into the capital and the fact they successfully committed an attack could mean that they were no pushover.

After making sure that Dune was making her way, Siege began running toward the explosion.

...

When he arrived on location, a young girl was sitting on the curb in front of a blazing house, as if she had just exited the building. He somewhat recalled the girl, she was the friend of Sivrit from the mall.

The girl suddenly began running toward the park. After she had left, Siege entered the collapsing building to gather evidence, unfazed thanks to the armour.

Two charred corpses greeted him, confirming two deaths. He noticed a small crate and some pieces of a shell in front of them, which he quickly acquired for evidence. He searched the rest of the house for any clues and confirmed that there were no other casualties. However, he found that behind the collapsed bookshelf in the study, there was a secret entrance keeping the flames out. Out of curiosity, he entered the staircase. Being the lowest level, there was no smoke here and yet the oxygen levels were still consistent, confirming the existence of a second exit away from the fire.

Entering through a door, he was greeted with an empty office, a large wooden desk with documents organized in boxes stacked tall. He quickly looked through the boxes for any clues. Siege knew that this was a breach of privacy, but this was a matter of national security, and any information on why and how the fire was caused would be important.

Siege had already figured out that the explosion was caused by the rebirth of a phoenix, a rare mythical bird commonly found in the volcanic areas around the deserts of Sonosis. However, he wondered why such an egg would be delivered here specifically and how they knew it was going to hatch soon. He decided to look at the pieces of the crate which once held the egg, scanning for any magical signatures. As he thought, the box was imbued with magic. Perhaps it was trapped so once it was opened, a sort of time magic would exponentially age the egg until maturity. This was a case of elaborate mail bombing.

Such spells are extremely difficult to cast, meaning that the attack was most likely from a demon lord. However, how would they even move such an item? The delivery service wouldn't be possible to utilize since they would check every item and phoenix eggs were obviously illegal in Avangarden. Perhaps there was a demon lord or a coconspirator within the kingdom.

As he continued to look through the piles of paper, he finally found something of note, that being the original allegiance of the family. It was hidden away, deep beneath the boxes, and according to the paper, this family's origin was found in...

"Sonosis?"

This was a great surprise to Siege. Not only was it extremely difficult for those of Sonosian heritage to move to Avangarden, there were basically no humans in Sonosis, meaning that at the very least, one member of this family was a non-human.

He began thinking about how that might be connected to the bombing. The only way for those from Sonosis to move to Avangarden would be if they were a valuable asset to Avangarden and the royals, enough so that they were made to be nobles, albeit a lower tier. It may have had to do with their specie, but if it was simply a special feature, they wouldn't specifically be invited. Perhaps they were of a special bloodline.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

If everything that he assumed was true; that they were non-humans - at least one of them - and that they were special, special enough to be granted nobility in Avangarden and move to the capital, it made sense why the demon lords would target this specific place. Now the only mystery left was how the demon lords delivered the bomb, and what the special importance they had was.

Siege continued to search for more evidence but heard the loud creaking, a sign that the house was about to collapse. Hurridly collecting a few boxes he had yet to search, he quickly found the second exit and climbed out just in time before the entire house collapsed, leaving through a fake manhole in the street.

Siege caught his breath and made his way toward a main street. It was now night and the streets were empty, but he saw a feint comet streaking across the sky among the stars. Upon closer inspection thanks to the armour's helmet, Siege realized that that was the phoenix he was looking.

He began sprinting there, but the distance between the two continued to grow and grow. He was nowhere near fast enough to catch up to the phoenix, flying high in the sky. However, he persevered and vowed to follow the phoenix until he was faced with the city walls.

Asche vs. Solas & Siege

Thankfully, he would not have to fulfill such a promise as a distinct axe, dual-ended with square edges, flew through the sky and hit the phoenix, the bird plummeting into the earth.

...

Solas had been diligently patrolling the streets. Occasionally using the card he got from Siege to buy massive amounts of meat and a new food she discovered called 'Sweets'. Though the food was delicious, Solas could not help but feel peeved that her karma did not increase much since her last battle with the demon lords and was itching for a fight. As if the Goddess was granting her wish, her new opponent came in the form of a phoenix terrorizing the city.

After a perfect throw, she approached the fallen phoenix, its shoulder heavily damaged. However, due to its privilege as a mythical magical creature, it quickly healed its wound and took a human form.

"Hmm... A hybrid eh? I'm a bit disappointed"

"Khh... Why do you guys keep attacking me... I just woke up"

"So what are you doing here? Are you a demon lord or something"

"Huh? How did you know?"

"Good. That's all I needed to hear"

Solas quickly lunged toward her opponent, her axe imbued with holy magic. Asche fought back with her talons, reflecting every strike. However, the continued attacks began to chip away at her claws, forcing her to take to the skies once again.

To Asche's surprise, Solas jumped higher than a 5-story building, matching Asche's height, and struck her down. On her way down, Solas made sure to stomp on Asche's stomach, causing her to gush blood from her mouth.

"Hm. I didn't know phoenix blood was red"

Solas raised her axe, ready for execution. Realizing that she was in grave danger, Asche flared up, burning everything around the small park as well as temporarily blinding Solas. Asche tried to make the most of the opportunity but was bodied by Siege, taking the brunt of the armour's mass.

"Solas, are you alright?"

"I'm fine and I don't need your help"

"I'm just here to support you, but I have just one thing to say; we need to keep the demon lord alive"

"Huh?! Why would we do that?!"

"Look, demon lords are a greater asset to us alive than dead. We have heroes strong enough to eliminate the risk of harbouring a demon lord and we can get a lot of information from them or use them as bargaining chips"

"I get it, but again, why?! I didn't even get to kill a single demon lord after reincarnating"

"Well, when we have no more use for her, you can do that, but for now, let's capture and interrogate"

"...Fine"

Ashe's flames attacked Siege, who was unable to dodge due to the speed of the attack. This was a next level of heat he had never faced before, much greater than the burning house. However, the Excalibur suddenly spewed out extremely cold air, neutralizing the flame.

"...Wait, Solas, I've got an idea"

"Let's hear it"

"First, take this ring," said Siege as he took off his armour and returned it to its ringed form

"Are you crazy?!"

"Look, you have to throw this ring at the demon lord okay? I'm gambling on this but I think the armour can decapacitate the demon lord with its combination of anti-flame capacity and the fact that those unworthy of Excalibur cannot move in it"

"...Fine, but you get out of here. Without the armour you're useless"

"I know, I know," said Siege as he backed away from the scene, hoping that his plan would work

However, Asche with her great hearing had overheard the conversation and knew to avoid the ring. When Solas approached, she began taking to the sky a second time. This time, she would focus her all on avoiding the ring. As expected, Solas jumped toward her and grabbed a hold her legs. Now all that was left to do was to drag Solas across the buildings, causing her to drop the ring and cancel their plan. Of course, she would still need to deal with Solas, but it was better than being imprisoned in armour.

As Solas was dragged through the trees, the windows and the pavement, she kept latching on, even climbing up Asche's leg. Seeing that physical attacks were practically meaningless, she decided to go as high up in the sky as possible. Where Asche was used to such altitudes, Solas would be unfamiliar, causing her to pass out due to the lack of oxygen.

The two climbed higher and higher at incredible speeds, Solas finally dropping the ring. The ring travelled down and down, reaching its terminal velocity. To the hero's incredible luck, the ring was caught by...

"Dune!" shouted Siege "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I got a bit worried and used ⌈Manifest Destiny⌋ to see if you guys needed me. Looks like I'm in a place I need to be, so what do I do with this ring?"

"We need to shoot that ring at the demon lord to capture them, but it's so high up in the sky we can't see them"

"Don't worry, I got this" said Dune, pulling out her bow

"Are you sure?"

"As long as I trust fate"

Dune pulled back the bow, the ring attached to its sharp end. She saw the curvature of the red line and knew that it was the fate of the arrow. She then let go, leaving the rest to God.

The arrow travelled higher and high, and just when it was about to hit the maximum height of the parabola, it was caught by the falling Solas, shaken off moments ago.

"What?! How could it be?" shouted Dune, something like this never happened before

However, God's plan was not yet over. Understanding that this was the final opportunity before the demon lord escaped, Solas imbued the armor with holy magic, and threw it toward the demon lord as hard as possible, breaking the sound barrier. With a crash, Solas destroyed the hard concrete as she landed, the ring travelled faster and faster with holy magic, finally finding its destination in the abdomen of the demon lord. The ring instantly transformed back into armour, as if it understood its task, and latched onto the struggling demon lord who was now plummeting towards the ground.

The heroes and Dune ran toward the crash site of the demon lord to check and to everyone's relief, Siege's plan worked, the demon lord now struggling to no avail in Excalibur. The armour continued to pour out the cold vapour in response to the firey heat, causing the phoenix to pass out in an instant from hypothermia.

"Heh. You're not too bad" said Solas to Siege

"Th-thank you!"

"I leave the rest to you. I'm going to get something to eat"

Siege slowly dragged the armour with the demon lord encaged across the streets, bringing it to his house.

"Are you sure you don't need help?" asked Dune

"I-it's fine" replied Siege, visibly struggling

...

Finally arriving at the abode around midnight, the two interrogated the demon lord while the others were sleeping. However, they did not receive any new information as Asche seemed clueless about everything. Although if there was any good news, it would be that Asche did not seem too hostile, mostly just wanting to return to Sonosis to continue her eternal slumber in peace.

She reminded him a bit of Dune, both peaceful demon lords who did not wish the destruction of Avangarden like the others. Siege removed the armour from her, and though he still kept her in shackles, promised to build her a nest where she could slumber for as long as she wanted. While not comparable to the blazing warmth of Sonosis, it would be better than being forced to do work by the other demon lords she heard about. All she wanted to do was laze around.

While there were many pieces left of this puzzle, Siege and Dune ended the day, gaining another great asset for the heroes.