A familiar face

Soon the soldiers continued fighting the remaining ghouls; there were few of them. It was soon going to be over.

"What about the others!" Rose grew concerned about the rest of their group, who stayed behind in the underground passage.

As he was warily looking around, Richard tried to comfort them: "If anything they say about Elvira as a mage is true, then they should be fine.".

They couldn't do anything aside from hoping his words would be correct.

At this moment the giant tornado began to gradually dwindle until it was gone completely.

The scene it was hiding is now open for all to see. The distance towards it was quite far, but thankfully Cyril's eyesight was enough to view it clearly.

There was a crater there; two knights were vigilantly standing there with their weapons at the ready.

In front of them was a giant humanoid figure. It must be around 260 cm in height.

It was a man wearing only fur pants, with a wild expression on his face. His body was extremely muscular, almost to the point of uncanniness.

The pair of buffalo horns on his head betrayed his identity as an archdemon.

He was saying something at the moment, but it was too far to hear it.

Suddenly someone patted Cyril on his shoulder.

"Hello again, everyone." there was an ominous voice they'd heard not that long ago.

When Cyril turned around in surprise, what greeted him was the smiling face of Cosmas the archdemon.

He appeared slightly more disheveled now, but no injury could be seen on his body.

Myra and Richard ran up to Cyril immediately and prepared for anything.

To this, Cosmas raised his head arrogantly. "Don't be so nervous; I am not going to do anything to you. Why should I?"

The group simply looked at him without doing anything else, wary of his every movement.

Cosmas clicked his tongue and turned to look at the crater in the distance. "I am here to waste some time. And It's boring on my own. The Butcher wasn't one for conversation, and I imagine the knights over there aren't either."

Like he said, the knights didn't let the big archdemon talk for long and attacked with their enchanted weapons.

Since Cosmas didn't wish to fight them, Cyril decided to ask something: "Did you see another group of students underground?"

Richard and Myra both didn't seem to expect Cyril to indulge the demon with the conversation, but they didn't interrupt him and stayed quiet.

Hearing this question, Cosmas stood with his head tilted for a few seconds before calmly answering, "There was no one I noticed."

He turned to look at Cyril and grinned, "Are you worried about your friends? If they had been caught up in my spell, I would've felt it." He shrugged, "At least I haven't killed them."

These words reassured them somewhat. If they weren't hit by the explosion earlier, then they must be somewhere on the surface already. After all, they couldn't have lost to some ghouls in there.

The fight in the crater was once again becoming more intense; all manner of powerful spells were sent one after another, further destroying their surroundings.

At this moment, the guards near the group had already killed all of the ghouls. Seeing that they couldn't join the knight's fight, they turned their attention to the group that had suddenly emerged from the hole in the ground.

They immediately noticed the horned archdemon among them and raised their vigilance to the maximum, pointing their weapons at the group.

Seeing this, Cosmas's smile grew wider, he stretched out his hand, and cast a spell this time.

In a mere moment, all of the guards suddenly divided by two at the waist. The picture was grisly, and Rose turned around out of disgust.

"Right before I forget, let me add something." He straightened out his clothes, coughed twice, and turned towards the group again.

"This will be the last mercy we will give you. Destroy the Tower or be destroyed yourselves." His expression turned hateful.

"Things have changed; I can say with certainty that you can't win." His eyes were filled with malice.

After saying this, he took a breath and smiled again, hiding his madness. "Let none say that demons are unreasonable; take this message to the Emperor."

He nodded with satisfaction, then pointed towards the fight taking place. "That guy's name is Alcaeus. The toughest one among us physically. All those muscles aren't just for show."

The archdemon with buffalo horns plunged his hands into the ground, tore up the metal floor that had survived the earlier explosion, and wielded it as a weapon.

The way he fought was wild and unrestrained, fitting his appearance, shrugging off many spells with just his body.

"He is a bit of a battle maniac and doesn't differentiate in a fight, so don't get too close to them right now." Cosmas glanced at Richard with scrutiny. "Chances are you'll get yourselves killed before you get any help from the knights."

Richard raised his hands with a nervous look. "I won't. How about we leave this place? There is no need for us to be here." His tone was careful.

The demon snorted and said with a smile, "No, I want you all to stay here with me for now; it's less boring to wait like this."

"Something about him is weird." Rhamn couldn't comprehend why this creature was acting like this. Maybe there is something wrong with his head.

The group could only continue awkwardly watching the fight.

Being in the vicinity of an archdemon was tense; his very presence gave off strong pressure, and there was this obvious madness hiding behind his eyes. It gave you the impression he would lunge at you at any minute.

Still he talked calmly, politely even, discussing the fight in detail and commenting on the poor skills of these knights.

"Why is no one else coming here?" Some time has passed, and everyone in the group started wondering where the rest of the knights are.

There were far more powerful warriors in the Empire than the ones currently fighting.

The knights still held their own against the archdemon, but according to Cosmas, Alcaeus is holding back right now for whatever reason.

During this time Richard and Rose both even asked some questions about demons they were curious about; some were answered and some were ignored.

"All things considered, this guy is rather friendly to us." Rhamn also began inspecting Cosmas in interest.

During this time only Myra stayed particularly silent, her head low.

After a bit more time, suddenly Cosmas's face turned serious. "Oh... We are out of time."

He half bowed to the group, "I'll be taking my friend; see you later, everyone," and immediately disappeared from where he was standing.

Cyril turned to look at the battlefield; sure enough, he teleported there in a moment and made a sudden attack on one of the knights.

He struck with an open palm in a chopping motion. Surprisingly, the blow passed through the enchanted plate armor as if it were nothing, severing the opponent's hand entirely.

The knight fell on the ground, holding what was left of his arm in pain, and Cosmas coldly turned towards the charging buffalo-horned demon, blocking his wild attack with his palm and keeping Alcaeus in place. "We're leaving now!"

His sharp voice snapped the archdemon back from his rampage, and he heartily laughed, "Ha ha, finally! These guys were no sport at all!"

Cosmas made a wide circular portal of light in front and signaled with his head, "Go on, enough playing."

Alcaeus ran in without complaining, wearing a silly smile.

At this time the clouds began gathering, and a booming voice filled with grandeur erupted from somewhere. "Stop!"

A blue lightning bolt suddenly struck down upon Cosmas, or at least it was supposed to.

The archdemon quickly stretched out his hands in front of him, activating some sort of spell, and the lightning bolt was frozen in midair.

"Faster than I thought," Cosmas muttered with difficulty and quickly jumped into the portal, after which it disappeared.

At this moment the bolt was free from the spell and finished its path, striking upon the empty ground.

It made a deafening boom, followed by a shock wave that almost reached Cyril and the rest. The force behind that spell was not to be underestimated.

Cyril shielded his eyes from the dust. Is he not afraid of killing the two knights? The two humans were still in the crater right beside the striking zone.

When he opened his eyes again, in the place where the bolt fell now stood a middle-aged man in a gorgeous embroidered robe.

He had blond hair; his blue eyes stared at the ground with no emotion visible.

His sight then moved towards the two unconscious knights nearby, and a sigh filled with disappointment came out of his mouth.

Finally, he turned towards the group of students and a professor standing in the distance. His expression was still empty.

Why is he here? Cyril knew this man, and he was not happy to see him here. As if this day wasn't bad enough already.

"Why, who is he? ... Oh." Rhamn quickly read Cyril's mind and didn't ask further questions.