Seeing the black metal bracelet which though looked way better than what she remembers, still recognizes as the bracelet at which Marcus sometimes looked with both awe and hatred from time to time but never ever removed, not even when sleeping, Laila's eyes glowed for a second.

'He actually killed that guy and without even receiving a notorious wound… no, he doesn't even look tired at all, how strong must he be to achieve that against a chosen one', thought the girl from the calamity church to then say.

"Unlike Sera I don't believe in sappy things like coincidentally finding a white knight to lend a hand in a moment of need, tell me, why are you not controlling us when you quite literally hold our lives in your hands?", asked Laila.

Apparently, the girl from the church of light had more or less explained things to her, and got Laila to agree to listen to the situation from Daimon, which is why they simply stalled each other making use of the main restriction set in them, which only allowed them to separate and put their respective observation targets in other words Adam and Marcus aside, if they had to fight each other.

Of course, this already didn't apply to Sera, because Daimon killed Adam and now held his system's proof which is to what her life used to be tied to, until the moment they became allies, that girl with stars in her eyes was now free, with the only condition that she didn't betray Daimon of course, so in all the meaning of the word they were allies.

"Mmm, if you want the logic answer, you two of are not strong enough to influence the bigger picture on their end but can be of big help on mine since I'm going to burn both the church of light and the church of calamity to the ground and you not only have intel second to few selected and troublesome to meet and interrogate people on their end about their organizations, but also absolutely despise them, so having you as willing allies is efficient, less time consuming and perfectly works on my end".

"As for my personal reasons behind that decision, be it for whatever the reason it was, neither of you attacked my friends when the decision was yours to take, I take my team's wellbeing very seriously and I always pay my debts, whether they are or blood or gratitude, so I simply wanted to return the favor", said Daimon.

Laila wasn't surprised because she already got to know of Daimon's "real" identity as the demon of the elite class by Laila, with his approval of course.

"Just because of that, having the power to just make us obey, you won't do it, because you don't feel it's necessary?", asked Laila to which Daimon added.

"Well, I also don't have a complex due to a lack of female affection unlike Adam nor do I have delusions of grandeur like Marcus, therefore I have no need to do something scummy like boosting my ego by forcing two girls who have been controlled their whole lives into the same situation all over again when they… clearly don't deserve it".

'This guy… he is serious about this whole thing, it's not pity nor something he wants to do just to feel morally superior, he really can't stand what we were put through and is willing to do what is in his power to help us, while keeping his priorities straight', thought Laila who was then returned to the real world by Sera.

"It's not that I don't get where it comes, but you are a bit too distrustful Laila, do you think I would have chosen to keep my life, if I was going to have to continue living like that?", said the girl from the church of light.

Laila would have rather died than be on a lower stance than others anymore, even if that helped her escape the control of the calamity church, she wouldn't beg nor allow anyone to look at her with pity.

Those two were more than fed up with the hypocritical concepts of "good" and "evil" that the two churches preached but didn't follow when they weren't being looked at by others, that's why Daimon's approach which is the most humane realistic thing they had seen was so refreshing.

In truth it's not something hard to think about, don't be an asshole, help if you can and don't make things worse if you can't, that's all there is to it, however it's not something simple to implement, because most people don't think about consequences, therefore the good tend to seek short-lived moral satisfaction over what would truly benefit the other party since in the real world, that's not always the "prettiest" option.

Daimon does consider the consequences and tries to see the bigger picture, minimizes the risks to the limit and acts based on what he considers is correct, which is why he won't spoon-feed salvation on others but instead give them a chance to save themselves, it's the same as the old proverb of teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish.

Of course, that doesn't mean just abandoning others to their fate after a slight push, it requires compromise on both ends, and that's why for Daimon the question is not whether the other party "needs" help but if the other party is "worthy" of help, it might sound selfish but that's as much as Daimon is willing to care for strangers and it has worked for him so far, Jasmine is a perfect successful example of it.

The light princess learned to stand up for herself and now is proud to be able to fight alongside others, instead of having to hide behind someone, she is no longer a damsel in distress but a strong girl with the will and strength to protect those she holds dear, needless to say but she is also not a stranger to Daimon anymore, but one of his precious friends.

"I give up, you two are some really weird people, helping someone meant to kill you and letting something within your absolute grasp slip away without a hidden agenda but I don't dislike that and… thanks", ultimately mumbled Laila.

As if a weight on her shoulders was lifted, the girl from the calamity church suddenly felt relaxed, the world appeared to become much more colorful even in the blood prison realm where everything was either black or red toned.

'My life, for the very first time is truly mine', she thought as the restriction which tied her to Lezabel's system was broken, she was now completely free from the church of calamity.

'Well, now I am tied to someone else in a different way, but it does definitely not feel the same, what's more I get to trample on those bastard's plans, it's not bad for a first', she added to herself.

Laila wasn't the only one that received something here, as the sweet sound of a notification which rang in Daimon's mind, suggested.

[Ding]

[A new mission has been triggered due to a specific action]

[A true demon's whim: the Hero of "#$%& has been deemed a proper target by the host's standards, make the world a better place by getting rid of him]

[Requirement: Kill the "#$%& system user, within the assigned period of time (48 hours)]

[Reward: A skill from the demon series will be tailored for the host]

'Demon, shouldn't it be "Devil" instead, Eve?', thought Daimon only to be met with a soft snoring sound, whether Eve was sleeping or just feigning it remained a mystery though.

Besides the difference in the term used for the mission's name and reward and the fact that instead of "duty" it was "whim" this time, there were obvious noticeable changes into the description of the mission, however Daimon didn't question Eve about it because he knew who was the target as there is only one more participant that can be related to the title of "hero" among his enemies, namely Ereth.

'Was that guy chosen for this mission because Adam sucked as a hero so much that he even stopped being considered one at the end, was it to upgrade the rewards or was it because it would have been a "devil" related mission instead of a "demon" one if it was triggered back then, I wonder', thought Daimon.

Unlike the light hero idiot, though Marcus still lost at the end and quite miserably by the way, he died a devil ruler unlike Adam who was abandoned by his system and administrator, in Marcus case only Lezabel ignored him, Daimon could imagine Eve pulling some strings so that the devil or more accurately demon related mission was postponed until it was time to deal with Ereth instead.

After all, Marcus's concept even after Lezabel was punished with it being downgraded, was of a higher grade than Adam's one and while that's not the only thing considered by the system, why would Eve not prefer to improve things for Daimon if there was another hero with a higher-grade concept available to be turned into rewards.

In fact, in terms of concept grade, Ereth might have been a better fated hero for the devil ruler system user, since the hell ruler gauntlets on their basic setting were on par with the trident of the storm, despite Ereth's concept being higher graded than Marcus's one according to Eve, it's worth mentioning that concept grade is not directly equal to strength.

Just look at Marcus, he was not that far from Adam despite the promise level treasure of his concept not losing in comparison with Ereth's one, speaking of which to this day no one knew what that guy's concept really was, besides Eve who indirectly hinted about it after saying that in grade it was superior to Marcus's one.

But what Daimon did know is that he wasn't supposed to be considered a user anymore, because Freya stripped him from that status with her attack, so while Eve had no option but to have the mission's description be censored by restrictions, she still hinted Daimon a big piece of intel through that, Ereth… has attained the status of a system user again.

'I guess we'll have to do it the good old way and make him lose it, so that I can see his information', thought Daimon, this intel while really important it wasn't unexpected, that guy was a pain in the ass to deal with, so Daimon expected to meet him as a system user anyway, having it confirmed by Eve did help him adjust his plans earlier than expected though.

'I was going to check after taking a look at how the others were doing, but now I'm curious about what was the result of the mission to kill Marcus', thought Daimon as he opened the log of the system, he had completed the mission earlier but didn't check the notifications due to Lezabel and the lioness's situations.

[Ding]

[The mission "A true hero's duty" has been completed]

[Requirement: Kill the Devil Ruler system user, within the assigned period of time (1/1)]

[Overscore was achieved, calculating… creation time was eliminated, the grade of the reward was raised to the limit allowed by the mission, the reward has been reviewed to fit the host's achievement]

[Reward: A skill from the hero series was tailored for the host, due to a massive amount of overscore, the skill will be immediately unlocked and activated at the right given time]

"Huh?", Daimon couldn't help but raise an eyebrow for a second, this was a first, the system postponed even showing the details of a reward, some things required waiting for a period of time, but he at least knew what they were.

'A skill that is to appear at the right given time like a hero… how annoying, that being said it's not like I was going to use the skill right now and it must be something good if I'm being made to wait, perhaps something on core synchrony's level', thought Daimon to then close the log of the system.

"You are a "chosen one" like those two right, masked werewolf boy?", asked Laila, she originally didn't care about it, what weighed in her mind more was if she could trust Daimon, now that she had come to terms with that, she couldn't help but feel curiosity about the masked silver haired youth, her term to refer to him also ended up combining the two amusing ways she once called him.

"I am one, not like them though, also you can call me Daimon", said Daimon as he removed his mask for a second, Laila already knew his public identity so he wasn't doing it for that purpose.

Originally Daimon was going to start moving right away after confirming how the others were doing, but his black sea emblem just informed him that it will open a portal for him in a couple of hours so there was no need to rush and that he should rest instead.

"Speaking of "chosen ones", I'm going to go face one that is also not at the same level as those two, so it's better if you stay and…", he hadn't finished speaking when both Sera and Laila interrupted.

"I'll go!", Daimon couldn't help but notice that they now lacked mana and had light and darkness related energies on them instead, apparently, they were now participating fully in the dynamic of the blood prison realm, which means that they are to face a challenge of some kind.

"I feel that there is an "opportunity" I would regret not taking if I stay here", said Sera as she opened her eyes, showing the star mark that she only had in one of them.

"Same here", added Laila.

Daimon wasn't looking down on them, they are rather strong but not as much as the lioness and in his calculations even the lioness was in a high risk of dying in the incoming fight, so he was going to tell those two to stay behind, but it seems like the plan had to change.

'Challenges are never impossible to surpass, only difficult to, perhaps the lioness was different because she had already beat hers but these two have something perfect to deal with among the next batch of enemies', thought Daimon.

"Fine, we'll leave in a couple of hours, come let's check on the others and then rest for a bit to recover", said Daimon as he flashed towards the closest one from this area, namely the little tiger girl.

Countless of kilometers away from the jungle area and its vicinity, on a barren part of the blood prison realm where there were actually missing pieces of ground, creating an area where there were different sized masses of land floating above a seemingly bottomless abyss, a young man with long black hair wearing a dark blue attire suddenly frowned.

"What's the matter, do we have to run another stupid errand for those three guys?", asked a young woman with dark blue hair and a white attire, those were Ereth and Karla of course.

There was surprisingly another person here though, one whose presence was totally unexpected, who also frowned upon hearing the word "run another stupid errand", because the previous stupid errand would be him.

"This is a mutual agreement, if you don't like it, we can continue where we left of, sure I can't deal with you two at the same time, but I'm pretty sure I can slow you down enough so "that" catches up with us, then the ones in real trouble will be you two, especially you bitch", said the man with light blue hair and an erudite-like attire, that was Arlion who had possessed Terry's body.

"Huh, what did you say, if you weren't a useful mediator between us and that White family's ancestor of yours, you would have been killed by us a long time ago!", exclaimed the other half of the siren administrator girl.

Like Daimon guessed, after he created a mess in the plans of the Lords and framed others for it, those three had contacted Ereth and asked him to help put things back in track and since Marcus was a system user and had kept a distance from Ereth whether unconsciously or not, Ereth's first target was Arlion's group.

However, something must have happened in between, because instead of eliminating Arlion which shouldn't have posed that much of a problem to Ereth according to what Daimon knows, they instead seemed to have joined hands, well, Ereth is not exactly a trustable ally as the megalodon general learned the hard way, so he double-crossing the lords is nothing strange, what's strange is that Arlion is not a "subordinate" but an ally to them.

"Enough, both of you shut up for a second", calmly said Ereth as he closed his eyes for a moment to then open them, his eyebrows burrowing more than before.

"I feel something troublesome approaching but I can't tell its level, something is blocking my detection, how about you Karla?", he asked to which the dark blue haired girl shook her head.

"I can only feel "that" which has been chasing after us for days even after slipping into the artificial frontier we set up with the help of those three fools, speaking of which, how do you think your subordinates are faring against it, Arlion?", mockingly asked the siren girl administrator, to which the past king from the clear water kingdom gritted his teeth.

"Why don't you send yours to verify", he said.

"Because ours aren't disposable trash like yours, well, they are trash but now do have their uses, so we can't simply let them disappear from our radar just by approaching "that" like you", answered Karla.

'What is this vague premonition, even when the megalodon realized I was conning him, I could feel the danger level, my detection has never been so vague, is it interference from a third party or is the other part… strong enough to not be registered', thought Ereth to then say.

"Whatever the case might be, if we don't keep up moving, once all of Arlion's subordinates are killed by "that", it will caught up with us, we have not come so far to be slowed down now".

And thus, those three continued flashing into the distance, quite far from that ground missing area one could see a limitless expanse of black sea which seemed to be their final destination, but let's leave them aside for now.

…

Those three all have mentioned something that has been chasing after them relentlessly and given the troublesome nature of it, they didn't let the distance shorten enough to know what it was, therefore they simply referred to it as "that".

What they did know is that any subordinate they sent to investigate simply vanished from their senses before getting close enough to see it and report back to them, whether they sent one at the time or a group of them, it was always the same, the thing in question however did slow down when they sent them.

So after giving up in investigating what was trailing them, they instead separated all of Arlion's subordinates in batches and left them behind to stop the pursuer from reaching them.

"Huh, those three actually stopped moving for the first time in days, are they going to make another one of those walls, not like it really matters to me", said a tall young girl whose body had purple amethyst lightning crackling around her.

Her hair was of a silver color while her eyes shared the same color as her lightning, another thing worth mentioning is that she was holding onto a completely charred up figure twice her height by its neck, there were human shaped burning marks on the ground around her as well, that was of course Aisha.

"Tsk, none of these guys knows anything about what those three's goal is", said Aisha as she tossed the giant she was holding by his neck, to the ground.

"Boooom!", a purple lightning pillar fell from the sky landing on the charred figure, turning it into dust that left behind one of those human shaped burning marks.

"You won't escape from me, my darling is for sure coming to get you after all~", said Aisha, silver bat-like wings suddenly sprouted out of her back as she soared into the sky turning into a giant purple energy sphere which shoot into the distance.