Nial patted the shoulder of the veteran mercenary who stood next to him with a hunched back.
The mercenary's eyes were empty and it looked like his IQ dropped by half, but that was not something anyone present could be interested in right now.
Kaeldur had returned to his humanoid form. He held the head of a Keltia-ranked Guard in his hands and threw it at Tyrant, who smashed his mace into the ground, exactly where a bunch of dead guards had been piled on top of each other.
The crackling noise of dozens of bones breaking to pieces echoed through the entire main hall of the hidden libratory. The Elves present in the hall flinched and grimaced, while Nial could only shake his head.
"What do you want, you meagre insect?!" Tyrant snarled as his upper body tilted forward. The Tyrant of Destruction was towering above Kaeldur and it almost looked like David and Goliath were about to start fighting. After all, Kaeldur didn't seem like wanting to back off.
"I killed more guards, so I'm obviously your master now, musclehead!" Kaeldur boasted pridefully as his ruby eyes gleamed malevolently. His voice sounded cold, yet composed.
Kaeldur was also ready to fight.
"You…how can someone be that shamele—..." Tyrant bellowed angrily but Nial interrupted their verbal spar by erupting a wall of darkness between the two Devils.
"Calm down guys."
Their heads flicked in his direction and the same thoughts flashed through their mind.
"Master, tell this idiot that I killed more guards than him!"
"I would like you to tell this musclehead that he shouldn't overestimate his capabilities!"
Both were agitated but they knew that Nial had the ultimate authority to decide who won. Nial, however, didn't think that the two devils understood the situation properly. He removed the wall of darkness with a sigh and pointed around him.
"Tyrant killed more guards," Nial first said, causing the Tyrant of Destruction to laugh out loud.
"...but I don't see any captured Shelturion here, let alone research papers. Do you guys think that the competition is over?"
Tyrant's laughter ended abruptly while Kaeldur froze in place. They had messed up, and only now did they realize that their focus had been on the completely wrong thing. Instead of serving their master as well as possible, their only thoughts had been to put the other Devil in his place!
Kaeldur looked at Nial once before he turned into a flash once again. However, instead of bursting through one of the doors on the first floor to search for the Shelturion Alchemists, he jumped high into the air to get onto the fourth floor of the main hall.
Meanwhile, Tyrant was still frozen. His eyes followed Kaeldur subconsciously and he turned back to Nial only seconds later.
"...I didn't win?"
"Definitely not. Looks like you will lose with that kind of mindset."
"...I will lose?"
"If you keep idling around, that's only given."
"I don't want to lose…"
Nial gave him a wry smile and he waved his hand, motioning Tyrant to leave.
"Then do your job properly and get going!" He ordered, and a moment later the ground below Tyrant to burst open.
The Tyrant of Destruction seemed to have been waiting for the command, and as if on cue he jumped on the third floor of the main hall with a single leap.
What happened afterward could only be heard, but that was more than enough to clearly understand that the Tyrant of Destruction hadn't received his title for anything.
While Kaeldur was more of a silent killer, Tyrant was a purebred brute!
However, that huge difference was exactly what Nial was thankful for. Sometimes he would require Tyrant's brute force, while it would be better to have Kaeldur's poison and powers in other situations.
'I wonder what it will be like when I get my hands on more of Damian's Devils.'
Nial was trying to sense both Kaeldur and Tyrant at the same time but they had entered areas that were well hidden from his senses.
"This place's mana isolation is so…fucking annoying…" He mumbled to himself. His ears twitched when he heard something from his left and right and he recalled that the Royal Princess and a few more Elves had arrived in the Main hall even before them.
"Why are you guys here? Did you already finish sealing the exits?" Nial asked them calmly, ignoring that he had left the entrance hall of the hidden laboratory which was against their initial plan.
However, the Royal Princess didn't really seem to mind that.
"Your…companions are very interesting…" She mumbled, not answering his question at first.
Nial didn't respond to her comment as he listened to the Old Sacred Elf to his right.
"The exits and all spatial ports were sealed. It's impossible to use anything related to the spatial element!"
This was good to hear, but it didn't mean that the Shelturion hadn't expected something like that.
In fact, being an easily frightened race, they were extremely vigilant. It was not unlikely that they had ten or more plans to escape, including five or more escape routes through the underground or somewhere else…routes that nobody had found out yet!
Nial was pretty sure that the Royal Princess and the other Elves hadn't found out about all escape routes either.
"How about you tell us if there are any other secret routes of escape…and if you're already at it, tell us about the hiding spots of the Shelturion and where their Alchemists usually concoct potions and the Cultivation Drug pills!" Nial ordered the seemingly lifeless merchant to his right.
Dominion was utilized in its fullest and the mercenary began to writhe in pain, seemingly as if he didn't want…or could not tell him the answers to the questions he asked.
However, Nial didn't show any mercy. He kept utilizing Dominion until the mercenary's will was broken in its entirety.
"The…inner laboratory…second floor…hiding…everywhere. Secret routes…everywhere…underground…like ant tunnels…"
It was impossible for the mercenary to speak properly, and form a coherent sentence. But that was no problem for Nial because he got the answers he wanted.
He was subjected to weird stares by the Elves but that was also of no concern to him.
"Answer the questions the Elves ask without leaving anything out," Nial ordered before he quickly added while looking at the Royal Princess, "...I will take your leave then. We don't want the Shelturion to escape after all…right?"
Saying so, Nial's body was shrouded in darkness. His dark energy had already shot in all directions, creating small paths for him to dash and disappear. The dark energy dispersed when Nial merged with the darkness of the ground, leaving behind the white marble floor.
Many Elves flinched at the eerie sight of Nial's dark energy and the expert way he was able to use it. Even though all spatial elemental based abilities and objects were restricted, Nial was able to walk in the darkness.
It was quite eerie even to the eyes of the Royal Princess. He didn't use any additional mana to merge with the ground and emerge somewhere else either. It was as if he had received the infinite power of unlimited teleportations.
That was obviously not the case but it certainly felt like that.
"Are we seriously staying behind?" One of the High Elves behind the Royal Princess asked and he earned lots of heated gazes.
"Of course…we won't. One can stay behind to interrogate the mercenary and inform us about the answers he gives. I don't expect much from the mercenary but it's still worth a try," Princess Evalyne said firmly before she pointed at the second floor of the main hall.
"Let's first clear the second floor with Nial. The most important Shelturion should be located there…as for the rest, Nial's…companions, will do the rest. We can also tell the other teams to take a look at the third and fourth floor."
The Royal Princess finished speaking and she was just about to tell everyone to disperse when she recalled something.
"...but warn the other teams about Nial's companions…"
The other Elves were also about to move, including the team of the Old Sacred Elf when they recalled the terror caused by the two Devils. Just thinking about them was enough for everyone to feel shudders running down their spine.
Even if they were confident of defeating the Devils, that didn't mean they wanted to encounter them in a life-and-death battle!
"...That would be for the best."
The Royal Princess sighed deeply, not sure what to do about Nial. However, she was hoping for the best-case scenario…that was why she had chosen to help the humans from Jundra, in the first place.
She was not the Saint some people saw in her, after all!
"Disperse!"
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶