Winter was never pleasant in Dolatia. The crowded streets never gave way, and the mud dragged everywhere even through the city centers. Yet, topped with large hats that drained the waters away from their bodies, the elites dragged their slaves through the mud while their own bodies never knew a drop of wetness.
'Hive mind!' Dashing between the cramped spaces between the tall building, Haruki, cloaked in a clock of dark to repel the heavy downpour, was making his way planting the seeds of the chaos soon about to ensue.
'Asuka, Athena, and Alice, are you guys ready yet?' Connected telepathically through the hive mind ability, Haruki was trying to converse with his companions despite being far away from them.
'We're here, Moriyana's ready too.' Hearing the reply from Asuka, Haruki created multiple clones of himself and turned them into different demi-humans that he'd slept with while first turning the Marquis kingdom into his territory.
'Tell her not to be too pretentious, also make sure you've all changed your appearance too.' With that said, Haruki was heading right over to address another state of affairs. It hadn't taken too long for Riley to figure out where the devil girl resided in the city, and with her soundly sleeping at the moment there was never a better time than right now to make use of her.
Dashing from street to street and even taking flight while posing as a demi-human harpy, he eventually reached the very edge of town at a mansion so high the Frost castle failed to compare. And for the worse or the better, he noticed a pair of guards instantly spot him in the sky. However, that distraction too was part of his plan.
While posing an aerial threat, he floated right above the gates, giving Riley just enough time to sneak out from her invisibility and stab the two with a pair of daggers that injected hypnosis potions right into their bodies. One after the other as they flopped onto the ground, Riley swiftly changed the small vial of potion inside the half-basket hilt of her daggers.
"How many others?" Landing beside her in the appearance of a random harpy, Haruki changed his appearance back to his original body.
"A few more inside, but I doubt they can handle these potions from Moriyana," lifting the daggers, Riley showed off the glistering potion vial embedded inside the handles. "These things, I wish I could make love to these babies."
Infatuated by the blades, a sharp red blush was brushed over her button nose. However, recognizing Haruki's presence once more, she shook her head and tried to hide the embarrassment behind a straight face.
"Let's go in then, we have to regroup with Razor and the elite servants," not wanting to miss the chaos at the castle gates, Haruki didn't pay any mind to what she'd just said.
"Y-yeah…" Timidly, Riley followed.
Moving past the front gates, they were met with royal guards in gilded armor, but even the diamond-edged blades of Riley easily managed to cut right into their flesh. By the time they were inside the mansion, the guards on its premises were staggering up on their feet and roaming around like zombies.
'Hopefully, nobody noticed those guards acting strange.' Pinning everything on that hope, Haruki along with Riley kept pushing in.
Now that they were inside, Riley took charge as she'd already been here before and surveyed the surroundings. At the very first glance, it was clear that the guards around the place were no pushover, but with a well-placed hit through their armor that injected their bodies full of potent toxins, they were left as nothing but a roaming pile of zombies.
After passing through the corridors and knocking down all the guards, Riley loaded one final potion into her dagger, but this time it seemed to glow a crimson dark instead of the purple glow. Specially made with the blood extracted from an incubus emperor, it could turn even the most seasoned warrior into a grovel coward.
"She's inside," standing by the sole door locked with a miasmic aura, Riley tried to hack away at it but it only jerked her back along with her blades. "Shit! It was open when one of the butlers came in, I didn't see this aura back then."
"Then it must be put in place after the door was locked," holding his hand towards the door, Haruki opened up a dungeon portal to teleport them to the other end of the door. "Also, we don't need to be everything just because you love the new weapons so much."
Yet again embarrassed, Riley gave off a nervous smile while scratching the back of her head. And once like before, wanting to join Asuka and the rest as quickly as possible, Haruki pushed forward, and just like before Riley followed right behind. Upon getting inside, the very first thing they noticed was the enormous amount of miasma leaking out of the body of the devil laying on top of a massive bed.
Taking a deep breath at her very sight, Haruki could feel his lungs getting heavy with each step he took forward. It was the girl who'd been prophesied to be the doom of his entire party, then, how could everything be going so smoothly? It almost felt like a trap, and despite his better instinct he kept moving closer and closer.
Standing right by her head, he recognized that deformed face he'd seen after Asmodia blasted her with a spell of hers. Her muscles slowly withering and flailing like slime were desperately trying to reconnect and form her head back, however, for whatever reason every time a bond was made it was instantly shattered by an invisible force.
'Has to be Asmodia's spell.' Brushing those thoughts out of his mind, Haruki turned to Riley as she held the blood potion dagger clutched tight in her hands.
"Do it," he said, and she raised the daggers high.
The moment they were brought down onto her, the diamond blades were deflected away by the same miasma that'd been oozing out of her night-dark skin. And that's when the both of them realized that getting into the devil Nabe who they now knew was one of the emperor's war generals wasn't going to be as easy as they'd first thought.
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