"These damned demons, they're like fucking rats!" Tearing off the head of the last demon he'd found hiding in the Marquis kingdom's forest, Dominion was already tired of dealing with them all. "Where did these feckers come from all of a sudden anyways?"
Despite being a man of war, even he'd grown tired after days of demonic pest control. However, instead of rest, he was about to receive something much more dire. Right as he was about to head out of the forest, a sharp scraping sound echoed right into his ears.
"What the-"
"Dominion it's Nabe, where the hell are you?!" Hearing the devil's voice, he rolled his eyes in annoyance.
"Did you burn another town that I need to clean up after again?" In no mood for chatter, he wanted to make her stop screaming into his head.
"Shut up and listen! At-" Before she could finish her words were replaced with dead silence. "Shit, I forgot I can't say his name."
Growing more and more impatient, Dominion grunted at her. Treating this as yet another one of her shenanigans, he started walking out of the forest having decided not to pay heed to what she had to say.
"Forget it, I need you here. Father has fallen ill!" The moment he heard those words, Dominion's whole concept of reality shattered in front of him.
Standing still with his body still soaked in blood, he brought his finger next to his temple and pondered if he'd heard her right.
"Atlas, is ill?" The very concept of a god falling ill was so foreign to him that his mind failed to grasp the possibility of it ever happening. "Nabe, if this is a joke, I'll-"
"It's not a fucking joke, you idiot! Everyone's here, except you and that other idiot general!" Screaming at the top of her lungs, she made it clear that this wasn't anything like her usual pranks.
'Dammit, and I was just getting done with these copies of Haruki too.' Letting out a sigh, he slightly lowered himself by the thighs.
"I'll be there, and you better keep him in pristine shape until I arrive!" Dominion said before jolting into the sky like thunder.
While making his way back to the emperor's domain through the sky, Dominion caught a glimpse of the demon army wreaking havoc all over the empire. Too concerned about the emperor's well-being, he made no attempts to stop and even suppressed his instincts for hunting.
'This is too perfectly timed, there's no way this coordinated attack and the emperor falling sick is just a coincidence.' The worry in Nabe's voice he'd heard was although genuine, the invention behind her mental call to Dominion was anything but.
Following Haruki's command, she was drawing Dominion back to the emperor's domain so he would not be able to stop the march of the demon armies.
"This Haruki guy…I might have underestimated his mental forte," annoyed by his own lack of caution, Dominion blamed himself for not taking Haruki's head before any of this happened.
***
Out through the borders edging Daria, Haruki finally took his first step into the burning land of Scorchen Gaia. As dark as coal, and as hot as melted iron, he felt his booth burn right off of his feet. Turning to Asuka and Riley, he had her turn everyone invisible so they could fly through the skies without being seen.
"Fumes, lava, and volcanoes everywhere…No wonder, it's taking the emperor so long to claim this land," Haruki mumbled, flying forward through the fuming skies.
"I'm already feeling lightheaded, I can't imagine what kind of effect this place must have on humans," covering her mouth, Asuka could barely keep her eyes open.
Realizing the problem, Riley quickly used a wind magic spell to drive away all the fumes and only allow purified air in their vicinity. Finally, as they could all breathe properly, Haruki heard Margarette's voice calling out to him.
"What is it, Margarette? Did something go wrong?" Intentionally calling out her name, he let the others know whom he was talking to.
After a while of back and forth between him, he briefly explained to the two about the deal that Maria had presented in front of Margarette.
"I didn't expect the human leaders to give up the land," his experience with royalty having been much bitter, Haruki was genuinely surprised that the king was offered up by the councilmen because of his greed.
"I hope she takes the offer, to be honest, it sounds-" In the shortest instant of a second, Riley noticed a disturbance in her barrier of wind. "Scatter!"
Triggered by her warning, Haruki and Asuka scattered away from each other as far as possible. Unfortunately, Riley being the one to propel them further with her wind wasn't able to escape an invisible blast of mana.
"Ahhhh!" The moment the attack hit her, a wave of strong lightning paralyzed her body.
Like a swatted fly, her body began to fall from a great height.
"Lulu!" Before she hit the ground, however, Asuka caught Riley with her familiar. "What the hell was that?!"
"I guess we're not the only invisible forces here," scanning his surroundings, Haruki couldn't find anyone or anything that could have triggered that attack. "Get down, we shouldn't fly anymore."
Even though it should've been clear from the start, Haruki realized that flying around the skies of Scorchen Gaia, even if invisible, wasn't the brightest idea he'd had in a while. Getting back down, he teleported everyone into the dungeon so they could figure out a way to traverse these plains without getting attacked by invisible forces again.
Landing into the log cabin, he helped Asuka put Riley on the bed before trying to heal her. When that failed to work, and the branching pattern on her skin from the lightning didn't disappear, Haruki decided to go get the goblin queen instead.
"If anyone she would be the one to know about monsters," Saying that, he stormed right out the door.
'Goddamit, I would've preferred if Moriyana was here, but someone needed to coordinate the attacks on kingdoms other than Lamenia.' Leaving behind Moriyana and the demi-cats to assist her, he envied having the crowd that he had while traveling everywhere in the wagon.
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