"You, you're not hum-" The demon's final words echoed through the cave before its ethereal form showed itself above the princess and scattering in the air. The demon was gone, its soul fragment completely destroyed while the princess was seemingly safe.
The king and the other people in the cave all looked at Reign and the kneeling princess with a weird expression on their faces. To say that they were shocked would be an understatement as Reign had done something they had never heard of before. To deal with a possessed meant to kill the person, that was something that was absolute in this world for a long time, but what happened in front of them right now?
Reign had managed to destroy the demon's soul without injuring the princess at all, they all heard the demon scream in pain as Reign coldly looked at it from above, no emotion was visible on Reign's face at that moment as he focused on doing only one thing, destroying the enemy in front of him completely.
Nobody knew that demons could even feel pain and that they could scream like that, the final words of the demon also reverberated through their heads as they were confident that the demon wanted to say that Reign wasn't human, but if he wasn't a human, then what was he?
"Ugh." A groan escaped from the princess's mouth as Reign released her. She held her head with one hand as she tried to stand up, only to be caught by Reign after she almost fell down to the ground. Even though Reign was able to destroy the demon without hurting her soul, the act of doing that was still a painful one and Reign now the princess was experiencing a massive headache.
"Ilena!" The king hurriedly ran to Reign and took his daughter in his hands. The young girl was confused by what was happening, but the king quickly calmed her down before trying to explain things to her. The princess had no idea where she was or what was happening as the last thing she remembered was being in the throne room with the others while her father was giving out rewards.
After that it was all a bit foggy, it wasn't the first time something like this happened however as when she was younger there were multiple instances when she didn't know what had happened in the last couple of minutes or hours. Ever since she got older however that slowly went away and nothing similar had happened in the last couple of years.
"That was the demon, in the beginning, it took over you just like every other demon does, but it seems like it changed his mind and opted for a more stealthy approach, I don't know how, but it was able to completely mask the times it took over you and allowed you to see only what it wanted," Reign spoke as he walked around the cave, obviously searching for something.
"I've never heard of a demon doing something like that," Raigon said as he put his hand on his chin, deep in thought.
"It was probably bidding its time, it knew that it was impossible to do anything right now as the worshipers and the body it possessed was too weak to fight against the kingdom, it wanted to create chaos by kidnapping sir Lios in order to benefit from the hard battles that would be in front of the kingdom, not to mention that it probably had a plan for Lios as well."
Reign continued walking around the cave before stopping in front of the cave wall. He put his hand on the wall and suddenly he knocked on it. Dull sounds of knocking could be heard through the cave as Raigon and the others all looked at Reign.
"It's hollow." Reign said before punching the wall with some force, contrary to what he did before with the steel door and floor of the shack, he was quite careful this time and started destroying the wall bit by bit.
"The demon definitely had a plan for sir Lios, when I first heard how Lios pushed the princess violently out of the way I knew that something wasn't right. The demon probably took over the princess and did something to him, making him react as he did and push her away in shock." Reign talked as he continued destroying the wall.
"The demon probably used demonic energy in order to put a beacon or something similar on Lios's body, that was how they were able to activate whatever they used to kidnap him."
After he had finished a tunnel presented itself to Reign, he and the others all entered the tunnel and walked further inside. Voices could suddenly be heard inside the tunnel, it was as if tens of people were praying to something deep inside.
"Let's go."
As Reign and the others walked deeper inside, the voices became louder and louder, it took them a while though as the tunnel was quite long for some reason.
Finally, they came to the end of the tunnel. Another large cave showed itself to Reign and the others who were able to see the origin of the voices. Tens of demon worshipers were inside the cave, praying and performing a ritual of sorts.
There was a platform in front of the worshipers, another altar, this one thrice as big as the one in the previous cave could be seen on the platform while the missing Lios was chained up on it. He definitely looked like he had seen better days as his hair was disheveled, a stubble could be seen on his jaw and he looked a bit thinner compared to normal.
Reign immediately understood what they were doing. The reason the demon kidnapped Lios wasn't only to create chaos, but also because it wanted to drain Lios of his strength. The ritual in front of him was exactly that, all the strength that Lios had was slowly being taken away from him and collected on the altar, the demon would probably later come here and take all of it, making its new body many times more powerful than before.
"They actually have a first evolution combatant in their ranks, and one that is almost at the level Lico is." Raigon suddenly said as they all stared at the ground of demon worshipers in front of them.
For such a small group that was hiding in the kingdom to actually have 2 fighters of such caliber was incredible. That was of course the reason why everyone was so hostile against demon worshippers and why they would do their best to destroy them. The speed at which the worshipers grew and became stronger was incredible.
"To think they would dare take my brother and do something like this!" The king said with fury as they all walked outside the tunnel and into the cave. They all released their mana as the demon worshipers suddenly stopped praying and looked back at them.
Shock, fear, disbelief, these were all the emotions that were present on the faces of the worshipers as they stared at the four first evolution fighters that had entered their hideout. Even the two most powerful people in their ranks had the same expression as they knew that it was impossible to defeat the enemy right now.
The worshipers suddenly stared at Ilena who was with the group. Their expression softened a bit before an even larger expression of shock appeared.
"How- how is this possible?" The most powerful amongst them said with disbelief as he stared at Ilena. He couldn't find even the slightest trace of the demon in her, that was impossible as he had a close bond with the demon and could sense it from hundreds of meters without even trying.
"Nothing is really impossible, we took care of that little demon you guys love so much, now it's your turn." As soon as Reign finished talking, the king charged the strongest worshiper, even though the worshiper was also a first evolution combatant, there was no chance that it could pose even the slightest threat to the king who was many times stronger than other first evolution fighters.
The fight in the cave went precisely as one would think it would go. The worshipers were unable to pose even the slightest threat against Reign and the others, most of them were killed but some of them were captured, especially the two strongest amongst them. If they could play their cards right they could find some more information about any other demon worshipers inside the kingdom.
Reign had promised that he would tell them about all the worshipers he had sensed previously so that they could capture them, but they knew that Reign was going to leave them soon, they needed to try and put some countermeasures in place after he left.
As they finished up with the worshipers, Reign arrived at the altar where Lios was chained up on. The man looked at Reign and Raigon with a smile on his face as they destroyed the chains that bound him to the altar.
"Well, it seems congratulations are in order boys," Lios said weakly as he put his hands on the shoulders of both of them. His face suddenly changed as he looked at the princess, before he could do anything however Reign spoke out.
"We took care of the demon that was possessing her, she's alright now." Lios stopped in his tracks as he stared at Reign with shock.
"You took care of it?"
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