Raith squinted his eyes, he only suspected it but in actuality didn't believe it.
"Then what does that mean? How was Hallan Lamar able to name a monster when he is not a ruler."
"That is because he is a fake ruler"
"A fake ruler? Is that even a thing?"
"Yes. I don't know much about the rulers but because of my hunger for knowledge, I have found out that it is possible for one to temporarily have the power of a ruler."
"How?" Raith cocked his head in curiosity.
If this was a true thing then he must know it by all means, because he is a ruler– anything can happen.
"Their flesh."
"Sorry, what now?"
"I sew the flesh of the ruler of pride into his the body I gave him."
Raith's moth dropped at the answer Balam gave him, he thought of many ways it could be done. But sewing the flesh of a ruler into someone would give them the power of the ruler?
"And so will the ruler lose his powers?"
"I have no idea about that since it wasn't a friendly battle with the ruler of pride. But I do know that the effect is temporary and Hallan Lamar can't bring out not even half of the true essence of the power even after years of training him."
"I see... so if someone tears off my flesh, they might be able to obtain my power."
Balam nodded, looking into Raith's eyes with a calm and delightful expression. "The sins are the sin of the flesh, as much as they affect the entirety of every human they have tremendous effect on the body than the soul."
Raith looked at Balam, the things he was saying were getting confusing at this point. Body? Soul?
"I have a question for you?"
"You can ask me anything."
Raith paused for a sec and looked at Balam's welcoming composure. 'Did he really decide to serve me.' It was somewhat unbelievable. To have a demon serve him, not just any demon, a greater demon!
"So, how did you get the flesh of the ruler of pride? I thought he was human," Raith asked, containing all his excitement like they were never there.
"It was a coincidence... originally I was going for the ruler of wrath since he is the strongest."
"Wait, the ruler of wrath is the strongest ruler?"
"Yes. The ruler of wrath is a dragon slayer, do you not know these things? I thought you would since you are a ruler too."
Raith swallowed his saliva, this moment made him resent the abyss a thousand times. It was so embarrassing.
"Well, I'm a newbie, I have not even been able to use my powers effectively as I should," Raith stated, sighing at his lameness.
'He didn't even use his power as a ruler and he still defeated me?' Balam's admiration of him grew. "I will be delighted to help you with whatever you need my lord."
Raith smiled, it was refreshing to have someone to rely on when it came to these pieces of information. Balam was a greater demon, he would know quite a number of things. Finally, he would be able to break out of that barrier of not knowing anything.
'But wow, so the ruler of the sin of wrath is a dragon slayer and he is human. No wonder Noir was so strong.' If there was anything Raith understood by this; it is the fact that he is like a small fish in a very big ocean.
'It would be stupid of me to think of myself as strong because I defeated a greater demon.'
Even though Raith's achievement was very commendable and uncommon, the thought of there being several stronger humans out there humbled him.
"The ruler of wrath has been known to be a wanderer of the world, it is said that a hundred-year unsettled dispute exists between him and the fire dragon," Balam added, seeing as Raith was very interested in bis information.
'Hundred years, that would be one hell of an old human.'
WHAM!!
CRAAASSSSHHHH
The entire ground shook at the sudden tremor that hit the ground, at once the floor began to crack.
Raith narrowed his eyes, "what is this? What is happening?!" He yelled, alerted by the sudden crack in the ground. It was as of he already knew what it was.
He raised his head to the standing archon. The archon slowly opened its eyes.
'this bastard, has he been sleeping before now'
It was to regenerate, the archon had entered a temporary slumbering mode in order to heal the large hole that Balam had carved into one side of its body.
Raith ran forward, his body tearing through the air and turning into a blur, as he jumped, Noir flew in his direction and carried him up.
"It seems the others are being awakened." The archon said as Raith reached its front.
"What?!" Raith quickly swung his head to Hallan– it was first hard to see the both of them because he was far up and their fight gathered a lot of dust clouds, hence he dived down with his wyvern.
As he landed on the ground, Noir release a mighty roar that t froze the entire surrounding in one go.
"My king"
Noir had a definite grasp on the area of effect of his skill; somehow, Antares was not affected, he bowed on one knee in front of Raith.
"My king, I will definitely see to it that he dies. You can give me a bit more time."
"It is fine Antares, this bastard has gone ahead and done something," Raith said and walked past him.
Antares was devastated, he really felt like he could defeat Balam if given more time. This devastating feeling would later be Antares' motivation to be so strong that he would be able to defeat every foe that his king assigns to him and become the first to reach the height of evolution in Raith's army.
Raith stabbed his hand into the icicle that Hallan Lamar was frozen in, he grabbed his neck and pulled him out of the ice, shattering it completely.
"You bastard, what did you do?"
Hallan Lamar giggled as he looked at Raith's face.
"Heeehee... you... you didn't think I would put all my baskets in one egg did you?"
Raith cocked his head, "What the fuck are you talking about? Did you mean to put your eggs in one basket, just how much did Antares beat you for you to have everything backward?"
Hallan frowned, his grotesque face was ruined and blood was all over his face– truly his death was inevitable if Antares was given a little bit more time.
He thought about what Raith was saying, he did have the idiomatic expression backwards, a genius right now had been made dumb by serious beating.
"Anyways, you know what I mean, King Balam was not the only thing I was banking on, I have a plan B should he fail, I have come too far to lose like this." Hallan Lamar said, laughing and coughing up blood.
Raith pitied him, but there's no way he would spare this one. "What did you do?"
"What else, I informed my followers to wake up the rest of the archons. I will destroy this world today."
Raith's brow furrowed, "After you killed me. You promised that you were not going to wake the archons."
Hallan laughed hard and said to Raith's face: "how stupid of you to believe my words"
"Right, I really would have been stupid to believe your words"
Hallan Lamar's laugh turned to a frown, "what?"
Raith looked at him with a smile, his hands tightening around his neck, making it harder for him to breathe– Hallan Lamar began to struggle to pull Raith's hand away from his neck.
He continued to choke until his head became pale and he no longer had the strength to struggle– slowly he dropped his hand and became unresponsive.
"Even if you successfully destroyed Therut, you won't live to see it" Raith said as he dropped his body.
Balam squinted his eyes from where he was– he suddenly flew into the sky and landed behind Raith.
"It won't end with killing him."
"Yes I know, I still have to st–
"No, no my lord, not that. Hallan Lamar will not die with that."
Raith turned to Balam, "what do you mean?"
"He has the soul hopper artifact."
"What is that?" Raith narrowed his eyes, suspecting what it meant already.
"It is an artifact that carries one soul and puts it into a designated body– it was how I was able to harvest his soul and bring him to Felfhiem."
"Ah, so he did die... since he had a contract with you, his soul would have normally belonged to yours, why did you have to use an artifact again?"
"To keep his soul from dematerializing, if I didn't trap his soul into the soul hopper his soul would have dematerialized before reaching me. So, I user the artifact and forgot to take it away after reviving him."
Raith narrowed his eyes at Balam.
"So you are the cause of this?"
Balam quivered and avoided Raith's gaze.
"Come closer Balam." Raith demanded with a grim face.
"I sincerely apologize, it was in the past."
"I will beat the shit out of you."
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