"Albert. Why are you here?"
Having walked out of the highest level Gate spell opened up by the person currently in charge of transportation for the Darknar family-- Emrys, Albert, as well as the girls that had escorted him, lowered their heads in the presence of their master.
"My apologies for the abrupt interruption my liege. It seems Ms. Nadine had been a little worried about letting our master dirty himself with scum like these and I'll have to agree. It's bad enough they dared anger you so but it will be worse if we were to stand by and let you be responsible for taking out the trash. Such is the task of your servants."
Tyler's eyes naturally shifted to Nadine, who now stood behind him and she fidgeted awkwardly. While Albert wasn't saying it directly. It seems his anger may have scared the young girl quite a bit if she had been forced to communicate the issue with Albert.
The fact that he had even failed to notice the moment she had done that, was even more worrying than her having to call Albert for help.
Naturally, he had given her the directive of communicating with Albert or Erin if things were ever to go haywire but he hadn't imagined that plan would be used on him.
Why had he gotten so pissed off over a mount? Why had he allowed this to progress thus far instead of just killing them outright with a demonic eye?
It seems he had instinctively toyed around with them in order to instill a deeper sense of fear and despair in their hearts as he kills them slowly. Although that was his intention for Teyla, the other four should've already been dealt with yet he had not.
Such sadistic and egotistic behavior was not something he had been capable of as a human and thus, Tyler's heart suddenly sank.
Was he really being affected by his innate desires as a true demon now? Or was there something else influencing his personality change? If care is not taken he may just end up becoming a typical prideful tyrant like every other demon king before him.
"Sigh... I see..."
In that split second that he had taken to survey his surroundings, the emotions that were bubbling up inside of him suddenly disappeared as though it wasn't there, to begin with.
His fingers then naturally relaxed as he let go of the petrified Teyla and turned around to walk toward the nervous Nadine.
"I should apologize for making you worry so much. That's disgraceful of me."
"Err... no, please.... there's no need for you to--"
With his usual gentle expression, he patted her on the head as he attempted to apologize without actually apologizing. It wasn't that he had done that on purpose but rather, he had simply adjusted his speech pattern to match what had received the best response from his subordinates.
Tyler's heart settled a bit just by looking at the unusually bashful beast girl before him. He hadn't expected to react so strongly over the death of another Magic beast he had so ingeniously named Mike.
Perhaps that name was a curse.
'Ahh... Mike, I probably shouldn't have named you at all. Then I wouldn't feel so bad about it.'
Still, losing it wasn't an excuse to lose his composure and act so recklessly. They were only a few miles from Winged city and while he was fortunate enough to have an A.I like Uriel who had automatically created an anti-divination barrier around them, things would not have ended in his favor.
[Notice: A new restrictive barrier is being used to destabilize the Magic essence in this space. A counter has already been analyzed from the last barrier. Would you like me to enforce it, master?]
'Umm... Sure.'
Answering Uriel's request, the looks on the faces of the four members of Thunder trying to escape immediately went pale as they noticed their last resort failed to activate.
The Magic restrictive barrier was an incredibly rare legendary ranked Magic item that was most effective against stronger opponents as it did not affect the target personally but the Magic essence around them.
Such a tool was impossible to resist or counter even by demigods so the fact that it failed to activate was something that could not be comprehended.
"What the hell is this? Who are those people? Where the hell did they come from? And what the fuck is with this 'Lord Ty' bullshit!"
These loud questions bombarded Tyler from all around him as the group had subconsciously come to an understanding. Which was, the three newcomers were responsible for their tool's failure to activate and they could not help but get frustrated.
Their frustrated howls had even gotten through to Teyla-- whose selfish will to survive had been greater than one would expect as only one thought flooded her mind right now--
'I need to escape, I need to escape, I need to get the hell out of here!'
These disrespectful bellows were an entirely understandable reaction for Teyla's crew, but it was an unpardonable offense to Albert, Lora, and Gail, who were still bowing to Tyler.
Fiery rancor blazed within his heart, and then, Albert let it out, as though he planned to incinerate everything in the area with the flames of his silent wrath.
Even Nadine-- who was standing close to Tyler -- shuddered, every hair on her body standing on end, more than ever before.
Given that even a bystander had this sort of reaction, how much worse must it have been for the targets of Albert's fury?
The answer was simple. It was a total nightmare.
Their faces had turned white and oily sweat cascaded down their foreheads as their mouths were forced closed. Their mounts slowly retreated as they realized that their insignificant lives would be snuffed out shortly.
Albert wasn't normally someone that got offended or even annoyed easily much less getting angry. He was the perfect stable of cool, calm, and collected. His dignified demeanor was second to none and that has been his identity as the king's butler, as well as one of the Six Great Generals of the Darknar Family.
Yet after receiving the full report from Nadine on the behavior of the leader of this so-called magician's part called Thunder, towards their master and even what lead to the death of one of his six-eyed bulls. Even he could barely reign his anger under control.
Seeing such a pathetic reaction from these so-called high-ranked Magicians only served to baffle Tyler at how stupid he had been to allow himself to sink so low to their level.
In the end, his precious Ring of Nullity that protected his identity ended up backfiring on him in this situation. After all, there was no way this group would've had the ability to fight him if they could merely feel his presence.
Then again, perhaps Teyla had a God Tier ability that allowed her to crawl so deep into one's skin. Not to mention her ability to self-delude herself into foolishness.
Shaking his head in disappointment, Tyler turned to the crew of Thunder and spoke:
"Allow me to introduce you to everyone. This is my subordinates -- Lora and Gail, the last is one of my Demon Generals, Albert Cronoff Darknar."
"D-Darknar..."
One of Tesla's comrades stammered those words in hesitant enlightenment. There was no one alive in the demon continent that did not know the name Darknar.
There was no one that did not understand what would happen if a random person foolishly take the name in vain. Yet this mysterious demon that was insanely strong had just introduced his so-called subordinate with the last name of Darknar without even batting an eye.
Having heard the rumors going around about the new city in the Darknar region along with the new Darknar family, only one thing comes to mind when such a person suddenly appears before them from a Gate that was so black, it looked as though they had walked out of a black hole instead.
Noticing the looks of frightened enlightenment on their faces, Tyler nonchalantly continued.
"Indeed, they are all members of the Darknar family. Does that answer your question? I've wasted too much time on this so I'll leave the rest to them and be on my way."
The men were still staring in stunned silence as Albert walked towards them.
"Oh, I almost forgot. My name is not Lix as you may have guessed. My real name is Ty. Not that you need to remember that, of course, I'm not even sure why I'm telling you this."
Both Lora and Gail smiled smugly as they beheld the confused looks on the group's faces. However, that smile was as icy as the grave.
Tyler watched how these Magicians struggled beyond all odds to retain their sanity before immediately dismissing them from his mind as he walked over to where Mike's almost none recognizable body was.
There was no way a resurrection spell would work on him as he was still too weak to survive such a strenuous process. If only it had evolved before it died.
For a moment, Tyler considered turning Mike into an undead creature but he soon shook that thought out of his mind. Again, Mike's body was too weak to create an intelligent undead creature and a mindless undead beast would be disrespectful to a creature he has grown fond of.
Although he had confirmed with Enrys that even intelligent undead creatures do not awaken with memories from their previous life after death. One living being that is turned undead while still alive can retain their memories and personality as their souls would remain.
However, after death the soul leaves the body and even when an undead creature retains its intellect, they do not retain its memories or personality.
However, after being around Zelda for so long, Tyler could surmise that intelligent undead being can in fact develop an ego and eventually a soul over time. This is shaped by their strength and experiences.
Knowing all that, how can Tyler justify turning Mike into a mindless beast?
With a sigh, Tyler adjusted the magic circle of the Tier 1 spell fireball by changing a few magic runes to create a whole different effect, creating a new Tier 2 spell name, Flameball.
A condensed amount of pure blue flames wrapped around the corpse of Mike and immediately reduced it to ash. With that, he was done honoring his mount as he walked back over to Nadine and casually picked her up, and addressed the pissed-off Albert who remained calm and composed no matter what.
"Then, Albert... I'll leave the rest to you. Be sure to take one alive... no, another one might be good as a spare. Stick with using the device Ragdek had distributed instead of thought communication and let's gather some practical field data on it."
Just as the shock from hearing Tyler's calm and dispassionate orders began filtering into the minds of Teyla and her people, Tyler continued his instructions:
"Take their corpses back to Emrys in the labyrinth. If they're strong enough, he can use them for experiments in making high-tiered undead."
"Understood."
Albert slowly raised his weapon that had appeared out of thin air, a massive red-lined great sword that gave off a bloodthirsty aura.
There was no murderous intent or hostility in that action.
That was only to be expected. After all, to Albert, these people were nothing more than trash at the depths of filth itself, yet dared to disrespect a god.
Teyla and her party might not have understood the situation, but they still knew they were in danger, and the situation may have even gotten from bad to worse depending on how one looked at it.
"Ah, right sorry. I did make you a promise didn't I?"
Naturally, there was only one person Tyler could be referring to and that was Teyla whose senses had immediately gone blank and her almost dried-up pants had gotten wet yet again.
"I'd like to consider myself a man of my word so I'll do this. Albert, make sure this one is delivered to Moloc dead or alive. With her level resurrection should work on her so tell Moloc she's a gift for her to do as she, pleases. As for you, I doubt you'll be able to with where you're headed but please, try to die with a little more dignity."
Thus did Tyler pronounce their death sentence as his figure completely vanished from the space he had just been standing in.
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