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Before they left the eighth room, Daimon quickly scanned those two, just to be sure that they weren't wounded or anything, besides the crazy girl being strangely hyped up, they were perfectly fine.
The previous fights consumed at most 10% of their stamina, which was a perfectly acceptable result, considering the number of enemies, the same applied to him, because that ogre was actually stronger than what Daimon made it look like.
To be fair, the ogre was at the level of talented members of the young generation, even without using its battle aura, after reinforcement it could have clashed against early stage Arch ranks.
Unfortunately for him, Daimon's base level was that same realm as of current, and that was without using any skills or martial arts thanks to the boost he got from Kerrol's atmosphere, so when he added a partial releasing Comet Sword, the ogre stood no chance at all.
This time those two didn't even wait for Daimon to tell them to hold onto him, and directly grabbed his arms, as they both glared at the puddle of black liquid which used to be that girl from the church.
Speaking of which, Daimon's custom of robbing his enemies, had taken root in the crazy girl, as she actually cut off the finger of the girl from the church, at the same as she pierced her neck with a needle.
As for Reyne she was still too new to the group to be "corrupted" by Daimon, so she actually forgot to rob Noah before she used her battle aura to burn his limbs, so that he couldn't regenerate them.
Though the ring was still there, the outdated arrays used by the Ghouls were less durable than the ones at the four galaxies or Neptune, so more than half of the contents were gone by the time she picked the ring from the ground, which earned her a mocking gaze from the crazy girl.
But it was understandable, she really wanted to kill Noah who proved to not be a challenge for her, for a good reason, he wasn't the main descendant of his family, but his brother who was an Arch rank already, killing him was a bonus.
After using Will Manipulation just in case, Daimon crossed to the next room, apparently the owner of the labyrinth understood that it was meaningless to try and separate them, if the crossbow was going to prevent it, so there were no suspicious space waves this time.
To be honest Daimon didn't know if the crossbow still had any power left, because earlier he didn't notice anything, and yet the thing actually helped him, it was similar to how he couldn't see through his black Sea Emblem.
But nothing he didn't expect, neither he nor the system were almighty from the start after all, Nethereals managed to trick his eyes once and only after that he learned to see through them.
In fact, he had now found another thing that could hinder his infinity eyes, in the way the labyrinth was set, it was made so even if one had a strong mana sense there was no way to map the whole thing, because past certain points there was nothing.
Only after meeting the requirements, the next part would appear, just like in these rooms, until the door opened, there was literally nothing at the other side, besides a blank space.
It was a really good way to screw over those whose senses were really sharp or had eye abilities, in Daimon's case he had both, unfortunately for the one that set up the labyrinth, even depriving Daimon from getting information, provided him with valuable intel, as it confirmed the fact that this place was created to mess with system users.
The fake missions couldn't be used as a parameter, because they could be triggered by a lot of things, like a moment ago where he was supposed to spare that bitch's life, despite the fact that she was for sure going to backstab him, because she "deserved" a second chance.
The moment they passed though the door, they appeared in a room with only two doors, the one from which they came, and another one at the other side of the room
Once again, they were the first ones to appear in the room, and there were those invisible walls placed in front of the doors, so that no one could take advantage of being the first to enter the room.
A few seconds before the door opened, Daimon's eyes glowed behind his mask, as he turned to see Reyne, who remained calm, despite somehow being able to notice the same as Daimon.
Which is the fact that the ones coming out from the other door included humans and among them there was… Elliot.
The enemy side was formed by Elliot, one of the three guys that Daimon saw following him out of the ruin, and lastly a surprise add in the form of an ogre, but this one was not only stronger than the one Daimon fought before, but also younger.
In fact, that ogre had much more balanced body shape, being just a bit more muscular than the ninja hobgoblin, and as it was supposed to be, it was a peak stage Knight Lord, but clearly exuded a pressure akin to the Arch rank.
And there was another different thing about that ogre, which most people might not notice, but couldn't escape Daimon's sharp eyes and it was the fact that it was wearing a storage ring, the goblins were certainly using equipment, but until now none had a spatial type treasure, so there was that.
Needless to say, but Elliot's face became unsightly, not only at the fact that he was facing Reyne, but because she and Sarah hadn't let go of Daimon's arms yet, they weren't lowering their guards, but the invisible barriers were there, so there was "nothing" they could do yet anyway.
The next second, just like in the previous room, a message appeared floating above the two group.
[Welcome to the last penalty room, where those who are on the same side have to fight, there can only be three survivors, despair, struggle and give it your all]
Daimon inwardly smirked, the real nature of the owner of this place had started to come out to light, nothing he didn't expect to be honest, since it was the same being the one who captured Jasmine to make her participate in this farce against her will.
A counter with sixty seconds appeared, below the message, signaling the soon to start fight between "allies".
Seeing that Reyne had yet to let go of Daimon's arm, Elliot gritted his teeth but didn't say anything and instead seemed to be lost in his thoughts as he took out his Beast Weapon, his subordinate followed and the strange ogre who was wearing light metal armor, did the same.
At the other side, Sarah let go of Daimon and then turned to see Reyne to say.
"You choose first, everything is the same for me", Reyne saw that Daimon wasn't saying anything and she nodded before saying.
"Leave Elliot to me".
"I'll kill the ogre then", added Daimon, he had more than enough reasons to kill Elliot at this point, like how he was murderously looking at him, but not only the ogre looked more interesting, but Reyne seemed to want to confirm something first hand, so he didn't interfere, the result was going to be the same anyway.
The moment the counter reached zero, the barriers separating the two groups dispelled and the six of them became flashes of light.
Elliot of course tried to go after Daimon, but his way was blocked by an insane wave of heat, which forcefully activated the automatic wind defensive spell he chose when he became a Mage Lord, in order to not be burned alive.
Inside of a constant personal sized whirlwind, Elliot had an expression of disbelief, as if he couldn't understand why Reyne decided to be the one to fight him.
But then he noticed that Reyne wasn't doing anything else, so he snapped his fingers and the whirlwind expanded, until it had encircled the two of them, Reyne was already on the ground, while Elliot glided until he landed a few meters ahead of her.
"What are you doing, I have to kill those two so we can advance to the next room… that green guy is strong, if we have it as our ally, we can kill those monsters and obtain the treasures at the end of the ruin!", he exclaimed, just to be met with a cold silence from Reyne.
Elliot had a bad premonition, which made him frown to then say.
"Even if we all gang up against that green guy, we won't be able to kill him, I had to fight against him in the previous room, his battle prowess is almost at the middle stage of the Arch rank, so I instead made a deal with him…".
Before Elliot could finish, Reyne interrupted him in a cold way.
"So, you killed your own subordinate to save yourself and you are about to do the same once again, without any kind of remorse am I right?".
Elliot's expression froze, but he then smiled and then answered.
"What are you talking about, it was the ogre the one who killed Wendel, as for Roman… I do feel sorry about it, but my priority will always be you, besides he is too weak for the next room, so he is going to die anyway".
Reyne's usually gentle expression was nowhere to be seen, her current self was the same as when she first saw Noah.
"I don't remember ever being too close to you, but do you remember when I completely distanced myself from you?", she asked as she took out her lance.
Elliot had a nostalgic and slightly ashamed expression as he answered.
"Don't make me remember that, it was my eleventh birthday and I asked if you would marry in the future and father gave me a nice beating because that "thing" told him about it".
Reyne nodded in response.
"Yeah, but I didn't stop allowing you to hang around with me because of your annoying insistence despite my clear reject, but because I heard your birthday "wish", you even called your aunt to tell her that you wanted aunt Emily to die, previous to that I just thought you were annoying, but at that moment I realized how much of a piece trash you were".
"And then after so many years of you acting in a more proper way, you just confirmed that my previous decision to have nothing to do with you was correct", she said as her aura changed.
"W-What are saying, did that guy do something to you!", shouted Elliot, referring to Daimon, from his point of view, his calm and always gentle childhood love started behaving weird when the masked guy showed, so he had to have something to do with Reyne turning against him.
Reyne who had closed her eyes for a second, opened to reveal that her previously green pupils had turned bright blood red, which made Elliot's throat dry.
"My senses are quite sharp when it comes to blood for obvious reasons, so from the very beginning I knew to whom the blood in your sword belonged, your subordinate must have fought quite a bit to survive, considering how much blood stained that sword, it wasn't a clean hat for sure", she said.
Elliot seemed to be having a mental crisis right now, as all kind of emotions showed on his face, but ultimately, he seemed to convince himself with some unknown reasons to then say.
"N-No one has seen you like that, so don't worry we just have to hide it, I-I won't tell anyone… if you help me kill those two, we can then get rid of Roman and live together, I know you aren't like that "thing" who can't hide, you don't even trigger the detection amulet that the Adjudicators use, so you aren't a flesh-eating demon like her!", he said with a crazed expression on his face.
Reyne didn't say anything else, she did feel bad for Oliver who treated her good, but it is obvious that Elliot has lost its mind, especially because when he took a pause to his words, she could feel his eyes wandering around her body, something he has done quite a few times ever since they both grew up, but previously it was more of interest while this time it was raw lust.
He probably thought of keeping her in his grasp, in exchange for not telling anyone "what" she is, that being said, this fight wasn't worth using her Vampire form, as Daimon called it, so she returned to normal, and then her eyes became sharp.
Apparently, Elliot finally understood that things weren't the way he thought they were, maybe because now he considered Reyne to be a Ghoul, meaning she had the "ability" to kill him, but that didn't make him panic as he put on a calm expression while his mana poured out of his body, increasing the intensity of the whirlwind around them, and then water was added to it, turning it from a whirlwind to a mini hurricane
"I used to believe that our affinities were meant to each other, wind can enhance fire after all, but now I understand why I obtained water affinity, it's so that I can restrain you to prevent you from harming anyone, that way you'll never be a threat and we can be together, I'll protect you…".
His monologue was interrupted by a sudden increase on the temperature, which made Elliot turn to see the combined spell of which he was so proud, just to see the hurricane changing into a blazing whirlwind.
That's right, his water infused wind spell, somehow turned into fire, which made him temporarily shut down his mind, only to hear Reyne saying.
"You have always been weaker than me, how can someone whose mana is so lame to the point that is a piece of cake for my Ignition Battle Aura to burn your spell, "protect" me, go to hell creep".
And with those words and before Elliot even had the chance to scream, his body burned from both the inside and the outside, turning him into a piece of shrank charcoal, that then became a black dusty stain on the floor.
'This is the best I could do for you uncle Oliver, he left without even noticing', she thought, this was her way to repay Oliver for treating her nice, she ignored the obviously disgusting intentions of Elliot and gave him a painless instant death.
Since Elliot was dead, he stopped supplying mana to the spell and the flame whirlwind dispelled, revealing a Reyne who had returned to her usual calm and gentle looking self, the crazy girl who was standing a couple of meters away from where Reyne was, casually played with one of her needles.
Next to her, there was a puddle of black liquid which used to be the last remaining subordinate of Elliot.
"Heh, and here I thought I was going to finally be able to leave you behind, guess it won't be that easy~", playfully said Sarah.
As always, she was quite wild, because Reyne was sure that if she would have even considered betraying Daimon, Sarah would have tried to kill her with that same needle she was playing with right now.
"What are you afraid that if I'm around you'll lose", answered Reyne with a little provoking smile on her pretty face, which made Sarah laugh.
"For a spoiled noble girl, you managed it quite good", said the crazy girl, surprisingly she complimented Reyne, though it also sounded like an insult.
"Aren't you the daughter of someone important too, I don't believe you have lived in a rougher environment than me", said Reyne which made Sarah shrug.
While those two were somehow getting along in a strange way, Daimon was at the other side of the room clashing at high speed against the ogre, causing shockwaves and explosions of light every time he clashed with it.
This ogre was certainly different than any other member of the goblin side, which Daimon had seen, not only it could perfectly use battle aura, to enhance his knives so that his white flame sword, wouldn't simply cut through them to reach his body, but he was actually using Will Manipulation.
In quite a tricky way, it made use of the storage ring to make knives appear from different directions, then manipulated them with his battle aura, to follow his will and attack Daimon in every direction.
The explosions of light were caused by Daimon breaking he knives with his punches and kicks, while he used his right hand to wield the white flame sword, it was quite a flashy fight, that for anyone without a mana sense sharp enough to be at the Arch rank, would only seem as a green and a white shooting stars colliding all over the room.
The ogre who has been feeling his hands go numb ever since he started clashing against the masked human in front of him, noticed that his previous teammates had been eliminated and frowned, he took some distance by jumping backwards and then said.
"Human, even if you are almost as strong as me, you stand no chance against the chief that awaits in the throne at the tenth room, so let's make a deal, we can join hands to take that tyrant down and split the riches, don't worry, you just need to kill one of those women, the treasure will be more than enough to obtain all the human women you want, you can become the king of humans!".
Daimon was slightly surprised that this ogre was so cunning, the previous one was more of a musclehead, but this one even knew about negotiations and benefits, there was also the fact that it had that storage ring, that didn't match with the overall sensation that the equipment previously used by the goblins, gave off.
Also, the movements of this ogre were strangely familiar to him, and then remembering the fake notification that started all this hassle of penalty rooms, made Daimon smirk.
"You recently became an ogre right, the way you move is quite similar to how those goblins with daggers do, the ogre I previously killed had a similar style as the swordsman hobgoblin, but you skipped that part, I wonder, were you the one who killed that participant", he said.
The ogre was temporarily surprised, but it didn't last long, he played with his knife before saying.
"Exactly, I evolved because I was the first low ranked of the nest to kill an invader, thus I Gamish have the potential to become a chief that surpasses he current one, ally with me and enjoy glory and riches, get in my way and I will eat you alive".
Since the ogre didn't have to hide its origin anymore, he dived into the ground, the ability that only the ninjas and assassin type goblins had, despite he not being one of them, as it had a really tough battle aura, akin to a heavy swordsman.
"I see, so that's how it works", said Daimon as he pointed at the ground, shooting a thin line of white light, that easily pierced the floor.
The ogre jumped out of the floor, actually avoiding Daimon's attack which made it proudly laugh.
"Though I'm not connected to the nest ever since I evolved, I still kept the experiences of the deceased, you can't kill me like that…", his speech was interrupted midway, as he froze on the air, slowly looking downwards just to see a fist sized white ray piercing his chest.
The ogre slowly followed the origin of that attack and vomited blood at the sight of it being shot from Daimon's shoulder.
"Y-You could use cast such a strong attack from other places than your hands you monster… blegh!", the ogre turned into ashes the next second leaving nothing behind, besides the ring which Daimon casually picked up.
There is a reason as to why he shots White Heavenly Javelin and Black Hell Javelin using his hands as the origin, living beings have ways in which they have it easier to gather energies.
For those with humanoid forms, the hands are that exact spot, and that changes depending on the race of more accurately the body shape, for example magic bests that move on four legs, or those that slither tend to gather mana way easily on their snouts, hence the way Karmandi casted that devastating spell that nearly killed a general at his same level on the spot.
Anyway, that doesn't mean spell or martial arts have to involve using one's hands, but unless you have a special set of magic circuits in other body parts, like those with magic eyes, who can use that spot to gather energy as easily as their hands, it requires an insane amount of training to cast spells or martial arts from other places.
This doesn't include boosting type techniques, as they aren't long distance or extremely external, just imagine you clashing with an enemy, your weapon against his, and then the guy shots a lightning from his mouth, it would be really hard to dodge, and most wouldn't expect it.
It's a fearsome ability, that too little can obtain, even for Daimon it wasn't easy to learn how to do this, as he only recently became able to, it was thanks to the mix of his infinity eyes and the boost of this place.
Also, he couldn't take all the credit, since he has actually seen two people that are able to do this, Erin and Aura to be more accurate, and they only learned it after they became Half Emperors.
The ogre might not have known all the implications that what Daimon did mean, but trying to use long range magic or martial arts with other starting points besides the hands, is something that everyone tries to do at their early steps in the path of either magic or knighthood, so the ogre knew that the masked human was on another level for being able to do that.
Speaking of that, the crazy girl's pretty eyes were practically sparkling as she looked at Daimon, even Reyne had a surprisingly cute amazed expression on her face.
"Ahem, I only used that because that guy wasn't connected to the others, keep it a secret", said Daimon, such an ability had to be used to settle a fight where no witnesses would be left, otherwise it will lose its main advantage.
Daimon won't admit it, but he was kind of eager to try it ever since he realized he could do it, which was partially Erin and Aura's fault, for the small sparring session they used to demonstrate the advantages of learning such an advanced ability.
Those two limited to softly laugh, it was rare to see Daimon act so "normal" since he is always acting more mature than what his age appears to be, so they enjoyed the moment.
On the other hand, Daimon was a bit relieved that Reyne had sorted things out properly, he had accepted her in his team after all.
With those two holding onto his arms, which had become one of their favorite moments of this whole thing, to the point that they were kind of glad towards the owner of the labyrinth, they crossed to the next and final room, which was different than the previous ones.
This one only had one door and it was the one from which they entered, torches lit up at the walls, illuminating the room, revealing a figure which was sitting in a throne made of bones at the other side of the room.
[Welcome to the final room of the labyrinth, survive for the next 10 minutes to obtain a reward akin to your performance, good luck]
As always, Daimon found those fake notifications really annoying, he could feel the "disdain" of the one who wrote them, though they were for sure not aimed at him, but at the light idiot, since the owner of the labyrinth itself didn't know he was also receiving those missions, or his path to this room wouldn't have been so easy.
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