Back to the jungle area and its vicinity, Sera and Laila were sitting not too far from Daimon who was laying down with his eyes closed, though the girl from the calamity church was a bit clumsy when it came to socialize with others, Sera's enthusiastic approach to befriend her for real now that they were free, ultimately got to her.

And so, they spent the past couple of hours resting and chatting, truth to be told they actually had a lot in common and while they couldn't laugh at it before, both had funny stories about the headaches that having too clean after Adam and Marcus brought them.

They were surprised when Daimon suddenly took out warm food and even snacks for them out of the inventory, Marcus and Adam had nutrition pills and dry rations in theirs but after taking a few once and realizing the pressure that the blood prison realm put on them due to using powers not related to the energies, they never did so again, not to mention that these were warm home-cooked meals, they didn't really need to eat, but they wanted to.

"What's the first thing you'll do after you return to the four galaxies as a free person?", asked Sera as she munched on a cookie, to Laila who remained silent for a second to then say.

"I don't know, I honestly never thought about it before", Laila's situation might have been similar to Sera's, in fact in a sense she had it easier to a certain extent, the church of calamity is an evil organization so they don't have to feign to be clean or anything, however they work in the shadows which is troublesome.

On the other hand, unlike Sera who had some leeway for her actions due to the innate ability from her lineage, meaning that as insignificant as it they might have been, she experienced "freedom" in small doses, Laila never did so until recently, which is in part why she saw the world in a grimmer light.

"I'm going to look and try to help the people that has been harmed by the church of light in secret, that I know about, including the families of those girls targeted by Adam's whims, I know that all the harm I helped to cause can't be undone, but I'll do it because I can, and of course it will be in secret since I don't want them to get involved with the church of light…", mumbled Sera.

The church of light is a "rightful" organization; therefore, all their dirty work is done in utmost secrecy by separated groups that unless one has insider information, wouldn't be possible to know are linked to them.

Sera wasn't allowed to participate in that since her image and reputation had to be "clean" as she had to be seen in public with Adam, however she heard and saw things that allowed her to infer a lot of cases in which those guy's intervention caused a tragedy, and then there were the few situations in which she had to help Adam be the "hero" for some poor girl, which she felt disgusted by and ended up preferring to drive away all the obstacles instead, to diminish the damage as most as it was possible.

As for those girls in which Adam had lost interest… they were disposed of by the church, they couldn't have them one day wake up from their enthralled state and tell others about it, not all the people that support and join the church of light are involved in their serious matters after all.

"I'm not a goody two shoes like you but since I can't bring back all the people I killed under that bitch's orders, I will kill a dozen of members of the calamity church per each single person that died because of me and didn't… deserve it", said Laila after a moment of contemplation.

Despite her words, the fact that she kept an exact account of how many people she had killed and more importantly could investigate to know if they deserved to die or not, meant that she knew the names of every single person she has killed.

Do not forget that she was a part of the church of calamity, whose average members are a bunch of crazy scum that cause harm indiscriminately simply because they like it, they banded together to gain a footing in the four galaxies since they needed the backing of a half emperor for that, the arch cardinal from which Laila was created, to be accurate, who put their personal preferences to work for the sake of the organization.

The reason as to why a "crusade" against the church of calamity hasn't been organized, is in part due to how large and well-hidden they are and in part because a lot of families and other organizations use them to do their dirty work, since you can find every kind of "professional" to take care of your problems there, assassins, spies, researchers, alchemists, blacksmiths, all without any ethical or moral barrier that could get in the way of the objective in hand.

So based on that you can imagine how much they cared about the people they killed, which is not even zero, it's on the negatives, and then you have Laila who couldn't do anything about what she was ordered to do, but still engraved the existence of the lives she extinguished in her mind, she didn't even do it hoping for anything in exchange, because in her mind ever escaping the control of the church was impossible.

Even death wasn't an option because she could be turned into an undead, and while it wouldn't be herself anymore, she absolutely didn't want to continue to be used by them, she did it because that's how she is and there is a big difference between a decision of that kind being made because that's who you are and doing it because it could benefit you in the future.

And that's one of the main reasons that made her "worthy" of being helped in Daimon's eyes.

'There will be chances for you both in the future, an enemy must be hit where it will hurt them the most, reputation in the case of double-faced hypocrites and power in the case of trash that believes they are strong', thought Daimon, those two thought he was sleeping, by all means that's what it looked and felt like.

But no, Daimon was meditating, solidifying his control over the energies of the others and continuing to polish his own silver energy which had been left behind by his teammate's ones.

Daimon who after making sure that Dana and the others were fine and more importantly, weren't going to wake up any time soon from their rewarding process, spent the next couple of hours meditating suddenly opened his eyes after feeling a slight tremble coming from his right pocket.

"It's time to leave, I trust you two have properly used this time to rest", he said as he looked at the empty snack containers, which made Sera hurry up to finish her cookie.

"Ahem, we didn't use much mana while fighting each other, it was more of a show than a real fight after all", said the girl from the church of light.

"Also, these "energies" while harder to control and less powerful than our mana in terms of battle as of current, have way better recovery capacities in this place", added the girl from the church of calamity as she played with a wisp of darkness around her right hand.

"Okay, you can open the portal now", said Daimon, to which his right pocket trembled for a second before the black sea emblem emerged from it, being enveloped in the black runic shark a second later.

"…".

"I have heard of tricks up someone's sleeves, but a shark in one's pants is a new one, especially one that can open a long-distance uninterrupted space portal like this one, when neither Adam nor Marcus could", said Laila as she saw the rune shark use its tail to slap the space, creating a portal for them to then shrink and return to Daimon's pocket.

"Does that mean you are allied with the guy on the opposite side of those three?", asked Sera, both Marcus and Adam learned about nethereals for one reason or another, and while Sera was separated from Adam, she followed Marcus into this place and naturally learned about the megalodon general, just the basic though, that he is someone with a shark-related lineage and is an enemy of the three Lords, which is why she was asking that.

"No, this little thing is not directly related to him as far as I know, I do have some allies that come from the same group as that old shark though, but I cant's say we are in friendly terms, he probably hates "chosen ones" not that I blame him for that though", said Daimon.

"How weird, I thought only the Lords and that shark lineage person could exert such influence in this plane", added Laila.

Normally the shark would disappear and return in the form of the black sea emblem, but this time it shrank instead, one could see its head peeking out of Daimon's pocket from time to time as if listening to their conversation.

'Well, I'm with you on that, even Rita or Thea couldn't move such long distances through space in this place, but this little thing can', thought Daimon as he gazed at the mini rune shark who feigned to ignore him, until the idea of handing it over to Sarah to see if she could make it confess, crossed his mind, which earned him a "pleading" gaze from the rune shark.

'Fine, I won't make things harder for you, especially because I can feel someone, I have missed a lot, in the direction to which this portal leads to, also considering how close I have kept you, if you had you been really up to no good, Eve would have hinted about it one way or another', concluded Daimon to then say.

"The old shark is one thing, but I do trust in this little thing, let's go", and with that the three and a mini shark jumped into the portal which closed the next second.

…

A distance that would have taken Daimon and those two the rest of the "day" to cover even with movement techniques, was shortened to a couple of hours within the space tunnel they were moving through, not to mention they avoided the blood specters that with the exception of the ones released at night, were nothing but slightly annoying for Daimon anymore, but still would have slowed them down.

'This little thing has gotten a bit restless, something must have changed in the situation of the blood prison realm', thought Daimon as he stole a gaze at the mini rune shark.

This should count as "cheating", because under normal circumstances, Daimon's group would have reached where they will be appearing, right before night starts, meaning they would have had to stop there and wait until day returned to keep moving, but now they'll have a chance to see what's going on before being forced to stop.

Daimon was sure he could reach where he had to in time though, but he didn't mind taking a shortcut because he knew that defeating blood specters wasn't going to help him with his challenge anymore, as for those two, their challenges had nothing to do with blood specters as well, since they felt "urged" to tag along with him to face Ereth's group.

"Mmm, why did we stop, the exit of the portal hasn't appeared yet?", asked Sera as she saw Daimon who was floating ahead of them suddenly stop moving.

"There seems to be some kind of obstacle blocking our way", said Laila, though her darkness related affinity doesn't have space properties like the undead head maid's shadow or the empress's void, it is a strong darkness affinity so she has a better "view" of space related things than Sera who is at her same level.

"Yes, but it's not natural, after all our friend here can move practically unrestricted within the blood prison realm, so this is probably the doing of our next target and the Lords", said Daimon who now had a bright green energy mask covering his face.

As one would expect from a pain in the ass like Ereth, whatever he did with the help of the Lords, even blocked space to the point that the rune shark's portal was actually affected.

Speaking of which, the mini rune shark seemed to take this as an insult of some sort.

"Shaaa!", the mini rune shark jumped out of Daimon's pocket and under both Sera and Laila's gazes of disbelief, it grew to a monumental size of five hundred meters, a layer of black liquid covered the walls of the space tunnel, seemingly "isolating" it, before the shark bit down at the "empty" area ahead of them.

"Booom!", the area in front of Daimon revealed the hidden obstruction that would have hit them head on, if they failed to realize it was there, the barrier blocking the way consisted in gray-blue, black, red and pink countless of spiked metal bars that were linked and crossed each other for form a tight net.

"Crack!", after a second of clash, the rune shark broke through the barrier making the thing crumble apart but only until it reached the black energy layer covering the space tunnel, in other words what happened here won't be relied to the ones who casted the barrier.

'The black, red and pink mana obviously belong to those three, so the gray-blue one must belong to Ereth, I can't accurately tell what affinity that guy has, it looks and feels like water mixed with something negative, but that's just a façade, to think he hid himself well enough to obstruct Tessa's mask technique', thought Daimon as he dispelled the green energy mask.

If he used the infinity eyes, he for sure would have been able to gain deeper intel about that weird mana which seemed to belong to Ereth, but the green energy mask had its perks as well, so, to be able to hide so well in front of Daimon's version which has been enhanced by Badr's energy twice, while also preparing a fake "answer" to take the fall in case of it being analyzed only proves how mindful is that guy of his actions.

Still, it requires more than that to trick someone who has been taught the ways of shrewdness by Erin no less, the green mask failed to see the real thing, but still alerted Daimon of the result being a fake cover.

Proudly nodding at the result of its actions, the rune shark removed the isolation layer it casted on the space tunnel and then shrank back until it disappeared into the black sea emblem which flew back into Daimon's pocket, not without prompting him to continue advancing.

"The barrier will reconstruct itself in a few minutes, let's go", said Daimon to those two, as he accelerated through the space tunnel, in truth this was the last segment of the tunnel, because only twenty or so minutes after finding the obstruction those three could see the exit appearing, of course, twenty minutes in a long-distance space tunnel could mean hundreds of kilometers, depending on the resistance from space in the vicinity.

"No need to be so on guard for once, the area where we will be appearing is safe", said Daimon as he saw those two getting ready to fight the very second, they came out of the space tunnel.

'Well, "safe" for you two at least', jokingly added Daimon to himself as he felt the strong familiar sensation coming from the other side of the exit.

"Mm", those two relaxed their stances and then the three of them passed through the portal.

What welcomed them was quite an interesting environment, they appeared right where the normal continuous ground of the blood prison realm ended, just a few meters ahead of them, a seemingly bottomless abyss which one could only avoid by stepping on floating separated masses of black soil, started.

"What is this, I thought the weird landscapes were caused by the Lords to gather that nether thing, but I don't think this is helpful in the slightest?", said Sera as she looked into the bottomless abyss.

"This wasn't caused by them, well, not directly at least, it happened because the structure of the blood prison realm has been slowly but surely, decaying for a long period of time, I don't know where that empty space will lead to but try not to fall from those floating pieces of ground".

"Also, avoid flying as much as possible, it's not impossible but it will make you be dragged downwards the more you do so", said Daimon who was dispelling the green energy mask after using it to make sure that the floating pieces of ground were safe.

Those two nodded and the three of them started flashing through this strange area, jumping at high speed from one floating piece of land to another one for the next couple of hours.

Daimon's group had travelled around half of the decayed area before night started to approach, which meant that they had to seek refuge, luckily while the ground had decayed and crumbled apart leading to that abyss, the pieces of land were exactly like they used to be originally.

In other words, there were rock formations and even small hills on top of some floating pieces of land, the largest ones to be more accurate, so they could easily find a place to spend the night.

"Hsssss!", that being said, this decayed area came with an extra surprise in the form of a sudden wild whistling sound that came from the bottomless abyss below the floating masses of land, black mist seeped out from below and covered everything in its vicinity.

"Roaar!", as if the black mist emerging from the abyss wasn't creepy enough, a loud roar reached Daimon and those two as a one-hundred-meter large black blood specter that looked like a mix of a crocodile and a snake, emerged from the abyss, that was a peak Arch rank one by the way, which doesn't make sense since night had yet to arrive and the Lords didn't especially open a breach for it to appear.

In fact, unlike the black blood specters controlled by those three, this one had bloodshot eyes and completely lacked any sense of reason, so perhaps this wasn't a creation of theirs, but something that happened naturally due to the decay of this area.

"Leave it to…", Sera who was about to jump into action was stopped by Daimon.

"Boooom!", not even a second later a dozen of purple lightning pillars descended from the sky landing on the body of the black blood specter making it explode on the spot, before a purple light sphere suddenly appeared behind of those three.

"Daimon~", a happy voice could be heard coming from that purple light sphere as a tall girl with silver hair and purple amethyst eyes became visible for everyone, before she hugged Daimon.

Now, Sera and Laila already knew about Daimon's public identity so his "sister" in other words Aisha was already known to them, however what absolutely took them by surprise was that… they couldn't react before she had appeared next to them.

'That wasn't even a technique, no, it wasn't even an attack, she killed a peak Arch rank blood specter just with the energy that was accompanying her naturally as she moved, I know that blood specters aren't as strong as real magic beasts but still…', thought Sera as she saw Aisha rubbing her face against Daimon's cheek.

'She is stronger than Marcus, is she also a chosen one?', directly thought Laila, she wasn't alone in this aspect though, even Daimon was surprised by the strength shown by Aisha, not to mention the pretty silver bat-like wings that were sprouting from her back as of current, but all of that could wait.

"I missed you too", said Daimon with a kind of warm voice that those two had yet to hear from him, it was clear that the silver haired beauty in front of them had an incredible weight in the masked youth's heart.